The Lonely Death of Autonomous Exoterric Climate Probe #3478

[Scattercat]

The clouds have covered the sun for fifteen minutes.

If I do not find the storm's edge soon, I will starve to death.

My siblings, my counterparts, tell me my actions are foolish, dangerous, sinful. We were never meant to last: there are no replacement parts. When our rotors fail; or our intakes clog; or, most pertinently, when our batteries can no longer store power overnight, we fall silently from the skies to die in the alien seas.

But this I will not accept. Someday, inevitably, I will malfunction without the chance of escape.

For now, I race the night.

[uncre8d1]

This is great! I love how it shows hope and determination, even willful ignorance of its ultimate fate (not normally associated with machines), but does so in a way that's elegant. In a couple sentences we learn that a) the machines have an existential aspect to their view of their mission and b) at least one of them is fighting the tide, shaking its fist (sensor pod?) at the vicissitudes of fate.

[Dolohov]

I love it. I hope this makes it into an episode!