Chapter 5: Things to Come.
R.O.V.E.R was still at work in scanning each page of every book that was in this tree library that the ponies have constructed, continuously adding to the storage of data in its memory banks, in fact the amount of data that R.O.V.E.R has currently on its memory banks was already close to being full. Downloading all the information from the books of the ruins, along with the scans of the various endemic fauna, and now the new stores of information being scanned from the books of the library, has the machines memory banks more than half-way full.
As the machine was scanning and logging the contents of the books, it’s tail camera was trained on the two ponies and small reptile in the room, conversing in their unique language.
Interestingly enough, the R.O.V.E.R unit noted that despite the reptiles snarls, hisses, and bizarre cackle-like noises, the two mares seemed to understand it perfectly, and vice versa.
During the conversation, the metal beast watched as the unicorn levitated a small rolled up scroll to the reptile…where it puffed out a gust of green fire and the scroll turned to smoke and went flying out the door! This whole event and bizarre interaction caught the R.O.V.E.R’s attention, to where it abandon the books, and marched outside the door—nearly breaking the entrance—as it scanned for the wisp of smoke. After finding it, the machine watched it fly off into the distance, leading to a tall narrow looking mountain some miles away from the settlement, where a large structure sat on the side of the mountain.
As the mechanical beast watched the wisp of smoke, that is now a spec on the horizon, it’s audio receptors picked up more panicked neighing and knickers from multiple other equines, but the machine ignored them and continued to just stand there like a statue as the R.O.V.E.R unit was awaiting for advice from the research team back at Home Base. It was waiting to see whether or not the research team would have the mechanical animal follow the smoky wisp, or remain in its current location and continue to study the settlement, and everything in it until further notice.
After a brief moment, the machine’s posture laxed as it went back into the library, where it continued to study the books. But as the machine goes about documenting the books, the R.O.V.E.R’s tail continues to scan the creatures of its surrounds, in case if it picks up other types of unusual happenings.
Not more than three minutes after the machine went back to studying the books, that another strange occurrence happened. The tail noted that two flashes of light—a golden yellow and a light blue—occurred just outside of the tree, and the tail snaked out through the door way, the previously documented white winged unicorn now stood along with the lavender unicorn, and the butterscotch pegasus and reptile. But there was a new winged unicorn among the small group. This winged unicorn was midnight blue in color, it’s mane and tail also free flowing like its larger counterpart, but instead of an aurora this unicorns mane and tail was more like a night sky. And unlike the alabaster winged unicorn’s golden accessory, the other unicorn was sporting more silver accessories, complementing its nightly colored scheme.
As the white unicorn and the lavender one were, conversing, the blue unicorn noticed R.O.V.E.R’s tail camera looking in their direction, and began trotting over to the tail which coiled up like a snake as its tendril feelers emerged from their sockets.
The unicorn seemed startled by this and flared its wings while furrowing its brow, but what the R.O.V.E.R found interesting wasn’t the simple threatening display the unicorn was giving, no, the machine was more interested in how the unicorn was acting. The way the unicorn was positioning itself, and the look of caution on its face as well as its natural equine dialect, greatly showed the machine that these equines are indeed capable of expressing a wide range of emotion.
Just like, humans.
~~~~~
Yesterday Luna was told by her sister that a strange creature came to Ponyville, a creature that even Celestia hasn’t seen in her thousand years of governing the country. It was said to have a lean, almost gangly body with various parts of it sticking or hanging out, while its body looks like it was made out of metal. While also having an odd dark green skin color. At first Luna didn’t put much thought into her sisters little story about the creature, thinking that somepony in Ponyville must’ve just found a rare exotic Everfree creature, but when that letter from Twilight came flying into the dining room and spoke about the same unusual creature that Celestia was talking about, Luna’s curiosity about the creature was peaked.
And when Luna saw the creature herself, it was certainly a sight like no other.
When she and her sister arrived in front of the library that Twilight resides at, Luna looked for the creature to see if it is as stunningly unusual as she was told. And her expectations were not shafted. Upon noticing only the tail of the creature, peeking out of the library door, the lunar princess made her way to the building to investigate. And when she saw the creature the alicorn was astonished. It’s body truly did look gangly, almost to the point of being merely skeletal in nature.
As the night princess was studying the creatures back, her attention was pulled away when the beast’s tail slither it’s way to her. the midnight princess took a cautious step back as the slender limb inches towards her, its unblinking eye staring her down…and as three slivery grey tendrils emerge from sockets around the eye, and wriggle around like worms. Overall the sight was quite disturbing, and if Luna was truthful, was also very unsettling. The feeling of unease only grew as the unsettling limb further slinks over to her, causing the princess to take another step back, flare her wings and giving a warning glare to the beast.
“Stay where you are beast, do not come any closer!” Luna said as she said commandingly to the serpentine appendage.
“Easy Luna, there’s no need to cause an incident.” Celestia says as she trots to her sisters side, calming her down before Luna does anything, reckless. “The creature is merely curious about newcomers.”
“Forgive me sister, its just…this creature…” Luna mutters as she glances at the appendage, watching it linger in the air, its tendrils looking like they wish to touch her causing the princess to shutter.
“I know it’s a bit unusual sister, but the creature won’t harm you unless provoked.”
Luna gives a relaxed sigh as she nods to her sisters words, her posture relaxing as her wings fold against her side. Once Luna was calmed the ponies ventured into the library, after brushing past the observing tail eye, the two princesses as well as Fluttershy, Spike and Twilight stood at the creatures side and watch it read through another book.
“So this creature is capable of reading?” Luna questions as she looks more at the perfect spherical head of the creature.
“Yeah it really shocked us to see it do so, but so far we haven't been able to talk to it.” Twilight says to the princess as the creature returns the book to its proper place on the shelf, before grabbing another via its tail tendrils. Celestia then made her way to the front of the creature, where she tried to grab its attention before it began reading its new book.
“Excuse me, creature.” Celestia says politely but the creature ignores her, and goes about reading its new book. Clearing her throat Celestia tries again to garner the creatures attention. “Excuse me creature, but could I have a word please?”
Again the creature seems to be ignoring the solar princess, and seems far more interested in reading the book. While Celestia seemed to be a little annoyed that the creature was unresponsive to her, Luna however was more lived as this creature is blatantly ignoring her sister.
“Creature!” Luna bellowed, causing the machine to look up from its book and look directly at midnight alicorn. “When our sister speaks to you, you will give her your upmost—”
“Luna, enough!” Celestia says harshly, causing the other alicorn to flinch at the sudden outburst from her sister. “Communication with the creature is difficult, there is no need to raise your voice at it.”
“Apologies sister, I…did not know.” Luna says regrettably.
“It’s fine Luna.” Celestia reassures her sister with a more calmed tone of voice. “Though admittedly this is going to be a, difficult challenge. If the creature is indeed intelligent, but is un-able to speak modern Ponish…then we can’t ascertain what it is, or where it came from.”
“Or why its here.” Luna commented as she gives the cyclopean creature a suspicious look as it goes back to reading the book.
~~???~~
Elsewhere in Equestria, far off to the West in desolate remote land dubbed, the Badlands, something was stirring. Jutting out of the expanse of sandy dunes, dried landscape, a massive black stone structure like a insect hive stands like an ominous shadow. In this mound at the utmost peak in a ill-lit room, Queen Chrysalis stands atop her dark throne as her changelings gather around her, their pale blue eyes shimmering in the dark as their chitter and buzzing wings fill the air. Once all members of the changeling hive were present, Chrysalis raises a hoof to silence the chittering and the buzzing, sending the room into an ambient silence. A silence that was short lived as the queen began to speak to her hive.
“We…failed!” the hive chittered and hissing for a bit before going silent as Chrysalis continues.
“We had the city of Canterlot within our very hooves, and yet we LOST IT!” the queens frustration was emphasized by a stomp from her right hoof, causing a loud thunderous ‘thud’ to echo through the chamber. “And the reason for our foil, was that accursed Twilight Sparkle and her now sister-in-law!” Chrysalis snarled as simply saying those names tasted like bile in her mouth.
“And in the wake of their, victory, we were scattered about Equestria. Beaten—” several changelings hissed.
“Bruised—” others snarled as their wings buzzed furiously.
“And bloodied as we were tossed against the very land itself like garbage!” changelings baring injuries of various kinds all gave crackling snarls as they stomped their hooves.
“But don’t worry my subjects.” Chrysalis says as she spreads her wings, a wicked smile growing on her muzzle. “We will have our vengeance on those ponies.” The queen then looked off to the side of the chamber, where three sets of eyes could be seen from the shadow of a small hole.
From the hole in the wall a trio of pegasi came trotting out. One was a black stallion with a grey mohawk mane, while the other two were mares, the one on the left was blueish grey with a long blonde mane and tail, while the other was white with a neatly trimmed mane and tail of green with bright pink highlights. After emerging from the hole the ponies reverted to their true changeling forms, as crackling green flames enveloped them.
“Thanks to our spies we learned where Twilight Sparkle, and her friends reside. And with this bit of information, I will devise a plan that will allow us to get our revenge on those mares who disrupted our plans. Who knows…” Chrysalis says with a little bit of mirth in her distorted voice.
“Perhaps we can use them to get at Princess Cadence, and her colt toy husband.” The hive erupted in sinister cackling and hissing, as the changelings cheered as their hooves waved in the air, ready to enact their vengeance now. Again Chrysalis raises a hoof to silence the hive as she continues speaking.
“But for the time being, we will gather our strength, or spies will continue to keep tabs on them. And once I have come up with a plan of attack…we will act!”
The changelings gave one last cheer to their queen as they slowly quieted down, before leaving the throne chamber and to different sections of the hive to rest. As for the queen, she took to the air and flew off to her own personal chamber to rest, and begin plotting on how to get her vengeance on that accursed unicorn. Even thinking about the adolescent mare was enough to make the queens blood to boil, but despite her frustration the queen brushed it off and focused on her current agenda and plans.
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The word I should always be capitalized. Please respond to this comment.
10462426
???
How does a robot from a non-magical world dissect, analyze, and record magic?
10462460
magic is still a form of energy, so ROVER is able to analyze it....to an extent. and the wisp of smoke is still a physical thing in the world, so its easy for ROVER to record the event. plus...…MLP has NO actual explanation on how their magic system works, so, I'm taking some creative liberties.
I know Luna is cautious, but she should calm down. 😑
Plus, Queen Changelings and her hive will be shocked by ROVER. And ROVER will likely kick their butts when their hostile.
Another interesting AWESOME chapter! Xd
10462471
Ah, but will it? So long as the Changelings don't attack it directly the humans back home pulling it's string might decide this is an internal native affair and not interfere.
>.>
<.<
That said, given their characterisation here I would wager they're going to attack first and ask questions later. So unless it decides retreat in the face of a swarm of hostiles is the better option you're probably right.
10462535
Well, it's really big for one thing. And the fact it has some defensive weapons, and powerful lasers. So ROVER can defend itself. Of course even Human Security Officers or Soldiers might even get involved IF the Changelings still act hostile.
Humanity will make sure the Changelings DON'T mess with us.
I believe you meant 'reading', not 'readying'. You use 'readying' twice, so I would do a search and replace rather than just change that word.
Something tells me that ROVER's scanners are gonna snuff out her plan like whizz to a match. Can't wait to see it.
Can ROVERS scanners see through changelings spells?
I must admit I’m also somewhat looking forward to ROVER 2.0 with in built speakers and universal translator AI.
I also wonder if the humans will send more ROVERS over, can you imagine if a small army of ROVERS were sent over to learn all the things, the ponies would lose their little minds.
I have a feeling that Chrysalis will end up doing something that make ROVERS to call back up or something else.
it be cool to see more robot's in this story
An interesting cliffhanger, you've certainly left me wondering how the ROVER will react to Changelings.
I look forward to seeing how both the ROVER and the ponies learn to communicate with each other, if at all.
Back on Earth, ROVER.'s operators are annoyed that there was no way for ROVER to speak. They couldn't even have it just repeat what the Equines were saying as an assist to learning their language. And their higher ups had told them that, until they could at least be recognize 'hello, yes, no, goodbye' in the Equine language, sending a Human team to meet with the Equines was very unlikely.
10461692
Okay, whoa. So they purposely decided to omit any way to show the presence of a language and sapient thought. Again, fluency is not necessary, just demonstrating language at all is better than wordlessly terrorizing natives for weeks with a gargantuan machine clearly modeled after a predator. And that was after seeing a clear sign of civilization before setting it loose. And yet that's somehow not even the most alarming thing here.
Not only is it equipped with no nonlethal deterrents whatsoever, but its lethal response wasn't even manually activated or authorized? They left the system to automatically choose when to blow an 18 inch hole in an alien of unknown intelligence and whose body language can't be assumed to be analogous to ours at all?
Good lord. Speaking as a programmer, that's a horrible idea, just from the possibility of bugs alone before even looking at all the other ways it could blow up. Do I even want to know how many splatters three whole worlds of "trial and error" consisted of?
Like you don't even have to wait for bugs or leave Earth at all for potentially deadly misunderstandings. The facial expressions of gorillas - one of our closest extant relatives on our own planet - resemble our own but mean extremely different things. What little they saw of the timberwolves could well have been sapient tribesmen trying to scare off the strange 14 foot tall beast that just walked too close to their camp and made no indication that it was intelligent (or being puppeted by someone who was). That's the sort of thing any team that might make first contact has to think about before going offworld at all, not two weeks into the fourth world in.
10462837
I think you are forgetting that fluttershy is in the picture, that is why they are not as panicky as you think, also it is not so difficult to create a program that evaluates the level of danger that each creature represents, for example rainbow dash was triggered, by the same power as the timberwolfs the difference is that they are made of branches and twigs and she is not, hence the lesson in her wing.besides that she has the appearance of a herbivore and the other predators
10462666
you will see another robot be added to the story when the changelings do attack.
10462643
there is only one ROVER unit right now. the tech level that the humans have in the story is advance, but the means of creating them and keeping them operating is very limited, that's why there is only one ROVER instead of a whole pack running around. but....you will see on other robot when the changelings do attack.
10462800
but politics love complicated things, they always have to take the long way around a very simple easy route. so when it comes to meeting new species that are intelligent, they want to see if their a threat or if its safe to establish contact.
10462595
woops! sorry
10462666
If i had to guess it would be some kind of attached flying drone to the Rover. Rover is limited to land so having something that can record data from above or at a distance is ideal. The flying drone could be some kind of large robot that goes a large range with destructive weapons or a small swarm type of deal. I wonder if it has something for deep water.
I don't think the humans can use the transporter right now which leads me to this conclusion.
10462800
Yeah seems a bit odd to leave that out as it may cause an incident. Especially since it seems the humans were looking for intelligent life. Story wise it's more enjoyable as the pony's have a mystery to solve. So I'll ignore that issue. Then again I can see someone looking for intelligent life but not knowing what to do when finding it. But I would hope people who head a project like this would have more foresight then me.
I think even if it had the capacity of speech, it would not be able to communicate. The fact that they were making different sound and can communicates says something about the 'language'; it might be in the magic itself that allows one to understand each other. Tho gesturing is a possiblity and works. Writing as well seems okay.
By the way I love the story so far. It's one of the few stories I'm waiting one.
10463530
Well actually the humans weren't actually looking for anything in-particular, they were just exploring whatever dimension they come across. the inter-dimensional gate is THE most complex these humans have created, so they don't exactly know what they'll find on the other side.
animal communication is part vocal and part body motion. also, in order to actually say 'Hi' the researchers would have to decipher the written langue of the ponies, which is pretty hard as the humans are basically doing it from scratch. even if they have help from a translation program.
i'm glad my story makes you happy!
hopefully i continue to make chapters you enjoy.
10463106
oh nice
10463108
You know that saying that makes no sense in the least, right?
Unless you say that humanity is in danger of extinction, I don't see why it would be limited R.O.V.E.R.
It would be like saying that the tanks are very advanced but there are only a dozen per nation.
There are also the other worlds that R.O.V.E.R. already explore although it cannot sustain life, it does not mean that they cannot extract resources by tons in an automated way.
or that's what I think.
10464162
what I mean by limited resources, is that creating even a single ROVER takes a lot of materials to make, personal staff to even make the damn thing, have enough of a manufactured energy resource to supply the robot with, not to mention the millions of dollars to keep it in prime working condition and maintenance, or when it gets damaged. all of THAT takes tons and TONS of $$$$. and when I said there were other types of robots, this statement applies to them as well.
even if you take into account of the other 3 worlds that humanity has discovered, they still can't properly utilize all the resources those worlds have, since they're only offered limited time on those new worlds because of the hostile environment they have, even if they were to have automated services for such task. remember also, in order to even travel to a new world, anyone would need permission from all the higher ups to even allow such a thing, especially if say a person with their own agendas has something in mind that could risk the safety of not only the country the Gate is in, but the world itself.
10464415
, but if we take as an example the portal itself, in that they would carry the large sums 💲💲💲💲 that is if we are talking about a machine created from scratch (unless it is a portal that is found somewhere of the planet as in a well-known tv series)
it would be cheaper to create a ROVER or several, if we take into account all the technological power that humanity has created until now
, if history started from the present it would be reasonable the difficulty of creating and maintaining such advanced machines
, but that is not the case or is it?
After all, we are talking about tearing reality and space itself to go to other dimensions and worlds.
nothing more prevalent than that, unless of course you want renewable energy such as hydrogen.
Maybe
and the problem of energy to power R.O.V.E.R. Oh, come on! nuclear power man!
media1.tenor.com/images/15d3f51b897d265844ede8d13e4b2417/tenor.gif?itemid=14788125
10462891
Fluttershy wasn't in the picture at the time -- Fimfiction did that thing where comments posted on the main story page are linked to the latest chapter, even when you're replying to something in a much earlier chapter. It's kinda dumb.
And if anything, Rainbow Dash is probably more dangerous than a timberwolf anyway -- at least to a 14 foot tall object covered in metal plating. At some point raw kinetic energy means more than fangs.
10463509
that be cool
10464478
the portal was made from scratch, and trust me, it cost more than an entire cotenant to make, use and power up. as well as staying operational.
well this isn't explained in the story, but if you look near the bottom of the pic i drew of ROVER, the one in the story is the 3 model....as the last two were destroyed. and one of the reasons was with a nuclear power cell rupture after tangling with an otherworldly creature from the 2nd world. so they had to come up with a more different type of energy that didn't cost so much to re-fuel the ROVER, one that's safer and that can re-charge itself. which costed more $$$
10464589
10463509
if you look closely at my ROVER picture, you can see it has some kind of pod on the back of its 2nd body segment. care to guess what that is for?
10464548
Yeah, as if the hoof could dent reinforced steel plate
, after all we are talking about a machine designed for extreme environments no matter how much synectic energy it applies
. although it would be interesting to see which one breaks first? the plate or the hoof?
10464620
I thought it was by design you know
, model 1: test prototype, model 2: multipurpose combat , model 3: exploration and reconnaissance.
for real?
10465046
Not only is it not necessary to dent the plating (with something that armored it's very common for the internals or outer parts like the cameras to get broken by raw kinetic shock before the armor - you don't panic when you drop your laptop because you're afraid it cracked the casing), but we've seen Dash repeatedly break the sound barrier, demolish a house in one shot with her body weight alone, and call up lightning bolts at will. Yes, she's FAR more threatening to that rover than a plant golem just on account of being good friends with Sir Isaac Newton. If a lump of branches with teeth growling and jumping at conventional speeds was enough for whatever automated threat systems to say "imma blow this in half", she'd have been spread across the orchard as a thin salsa unless the staff was sitting at the big red ABORT button in a cold sweat and mashing it while chanting "nononono D:"
10462548
But thing is humans won't be willing to just declare war on a alien race just like that even if ROVER wete to be attacked, that is not an act of war, more so on knowing fact they don't know ROVER is human if anything they'll think it's a pony prototype and try to destroy it to stop them from making more or such, think IRL would a border skirmish immediately mean war?
10465267
They shouldn't be that worried, since ROVER already took down Rainbow Dash by it's Weapon Defense Laser in the earlier chapter.
10465370
Well, ROVER is an important and a expensive A.I Research Robot. And the Scientists and Security forces won't let some hostile and stupid bugs like the Changelings damage ROVER like that.
And I'm not saying we need to involve our entire military for a One Sided War??!! I just think ROVER defense weapons, and maybe even the Security Forces Armoury inside the base. Will be more than enough to kick the Changelings Butts.
10465267
but RD really needs to build up speed in order to do most of her REALLY big moves.
I thought of something. If rovers tail was sticking out the door for a time then how was it turning the pages it was reading in the library?
10466733
despite the large 'paws' it has, the ROVER has 3 little rounded stub on the bottom of them. it used them to turn the pages while the tail investigated.
Is no one on this chapter going to comment on the fact that R.O.V.E.R.'s recording of Spike's voice doesn't seem to convey that he is speaking the same language as the Ponies? That is kind of relevant for the translation team back home. Either they work past Spike's "accent" and find the commonality between Pony Speech and Dragon Speech, or there is no commonality, and something on-planet is handling translation duties. If it is the first, perhaps that can speed up the need for a speaker system. If it is the second, it renders a speaker system pointless, as there might be nothing to translate.
10474702
I’m personally thinking that the magic of Equestria makes it so that they understand each other, but because ROVER isn’t a biological being, it doesn’t effect him.
10503865
possibly.
how do you find the fic so far?
10503865 10503917
The "Universal Translator" has worked to great effect in other stories across various media, but unless it can translate recorded audio, the whole thing falls apart. Equestria has record players, video game arcade machines, and at least one Jumbotron T.V. in Manehattan. Meaning that the Ponies (plus Dragon) would be able to understand the Humans via the robots, but not the other way around. While fun in it's own way, it would force two-way communication purely via written text until the Humans are willing to meet face to face.
Conversely, forcing the Humans to filter out unused Pony/Dragon/Changeling/Gryphon/etc. vocal noise in order to translate the language is a short term hurtle that needs to be re-climbed every time a new species pops up. Plus actually learning the language in the first place. It all depends on how soon the Author wants to make First Contact, verses how useless
heshe (sorry NinjaMare) wants to make Mission Control.Okay, this is getting completely unbelieveable. ROVER is doing a fantastic job of being a completely insensitive jerk with it's barging in on private property and treating sapient beings as specimens. Not that I blame ROVER, damnit Jim, its an exploration rover not a protocol droid. It's the humans monitoring it that have gone from simply being ridiculously negligent to pants on head retarded. My gods, did you get these guys from an 80's kids movie Government Agency?
They had ample evidence just from the Castle of the Two Sisters to suggest that these ponies are not only intelligent but have an organised, technological society (manufactured goods, writing, pictorial arts, masonry). The feed from the rets of the day should confirm this, and even a moron would notice the similarity between the two larger beings ROVER met and the banners showing a coat of arms.
Even if they don't understand the language, they should be able to tell just from looking that these ponies clearly have concepts like private property (individual houses, market stalls) and are clearly intelligent. As soon as they had confirmation there was an exisign civillisation there should have been ateam of anthopologists continuously monitoring the feed from ROVER and providing additional protocols/direct control to stop is doing things that could potentially annoy the natives.
Personally, I would have pulled it back to outfit it with additional equipment like speakers, a display screen and other gear to allow the humans to directly interact with the ponies. I want to like this story, but this part of it is so annoying I may not be able to continue reading.
10756039
I absolutely have to agree. The amount of sheer stupid and lack of any forethought that went into this is explosively dumb. The researchers and even the soldiers that left the robot on this planet mentioned that they hoped they would find sentient/sapient life, and yet this robot is NOT built to handle finding that sort of life. I mean, I guess I can excuse that if, what the author said earlier, the resources required to build these kinds of robots are extremely limited. But that does NOT EXCUSE LEAVING THIS THING UNSUPERVISED FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME. I will have to call absolute bullshit on that. The researchers know this giant fucking MURDER ROBOT is wandering around thinking, feeling, self-aware pony analogues, and what do they do? Just leave it to do its own thing entirely without a person there to stop it when it goes too far.
That is just unacceptable on EVERY level. How the fuck are they going to explain these constant intrusions of privacy and general lack of any decorum once they actually can talk to the ponies? "Oh, please excuse that, it's unacceptable in our society and culture and we could have stopped it, but, you know.... nah. When that clock turns 5pm I'm off work, and no one else but me is allowed to supervise the murder robot. So, you know, tough shit if you're annoyed that it basically terrorized an entire population for a while. What's a little mental trauma in the face of me getting a good night's sleep."
At what point do these researchers stop and actually consider what they're allowing this giant, terrifying steel demon to do? At what point do they say, "maybe letting its eye snake grabber rip the hair out of living animals scalps is a bad idea and might constitute an actual crime in this world, you know like it is in ours?"
My suspension of disbelief is working overtime with this story, ngl. I can't even begin to fathom the bullshit excuses the researchers have to let this happen. Like, this is a program that sends robots to OTHER REALITIES. Do they really not have the budget to hire a couple of teams to monitor what the robot is doing at all times? Jesus christ..