Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Three Robots: Two Versions Intro John Scalzi

When the “Three Robots” story was chosen for inclusion in Love Death + Robots Vol#1, everything about the process was relatively simple: I had already written the story, They bought it, then the Headless team of directors came in expanded the story (terrifically) onto a much broader canvas, revamping the original, static scenario (which I imagined like a “Kids React” video) to a far more cinematic tour of a post-apocalyptic city. The LD+R segment was a hit! And I got the chance to write the follow-up version, directly for the show that time.

And… well, not so simple this time! Which is not to say the process wasn’t super-interesting and fun from my point of view. My first proposal for a sequel was ambitious — which is to say it probably would have cost half the LD+R Vol#2 budget to make — and so I was quickly schooled in the fine art of having to write with production considerations in mind. My second take, which became “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” was no less ambitious in its concepts, but was designed with a more efficient animation pipeline in mind.

But wait, there’s more! Where previously I was only answerable to myself in writing a story, now I had notes, from Tim Miller, from LD+R supervising director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, and from others engaged in putting LD+R together. An initial treatment went through three revisions, with entire segments dropped and replaced and others tweaked. Then came the screenwriting process, with more tweaks and bits added and removed.

And then, when we were putting together this book, I was asked to do the “prose” version! Which meant creating yet another take — a version more like the original lean and mean story, where instead of touring end-of-the-world human habitats, the robots were making a report, commenting on what they saw and felt, with some of the sight gags and dialogue replaced and changed to make everything work better in that original short story format.

And so we thought it might be fun for you to see how the two iterations of this story — the final script, and the short story — differ in scope and intent. So we put them both in here for you to compare and contrast the different writing styles which reflect the different goals of the different mediums.

But the one thing that stays the same is this: I love writing these three robots. I hope I get to do it again sometime, in whatever format I can. In the meantime: Enjoy!

TURN THE PAGE TO READ THE PROSE VERSION

THREE ROBOTS REPORT BACK ON THE HABITATS IN WHICH HUMANITY CHOSE TO SEE OUT ITS FINAL DAYS John Scalzi

X-Bot 4000: Before we begin, I want it noted for the record that K-VRC should not have been trusted to drive the shuttle.

K-VRC: What are you talking about? I’m an amazing pilot!

X-Bot 4000: When we visited the survivalist camp you landed us in their minefield.

K-VRC: Pffft. Barely.

11-45-G: A bird that landed in front of us exploded.

K-VRC: Only a little! And also cleared a path for us to the encampment!

11-45-G: You can’t claim that was planned.

K-VRC: Whatever. Look, this isn’t about me. It’s about science.

X-Bot 4000: It wasn’t science that was going to blow our shiny metal butts to smithereens.

K-VRC: I hardly ever endangered us after that one time. Anyway. Let’s talk about the survivalist camp.

X-Bot 4000: It confused me. They were called ‘survivalist camps’ but they were just full of dead people. That’s just false advertising.

K-VRC: Right? And according to my thorough historical research—

11-45-G: You did research?

K-VRC: I found a human archive called Wikipedia.

11-45-G: And you read it.

K-VRC: I skimmed it very meaningfully. And it said that the survivalists were actually looking forward to the end of civilization!

11-45-G: Yes. Many humans thought that with freedom from government-sponsored medical attention and enough bullets and venison jerky, they could found a utopian society.

X-Bot 4000: Well, I saw the bullets. The casings, anyway. The venison jerky, not so much.

11-45-G: Humans quickly hunted deer to extinction, along with every other animal larger than a cat—

K-VRC: Humans were snackish.

11-45-G: —and when the deer ran out, they started raiding each other’s encampments. Which explained the minefield.

K-VRC: And that blood pit!

11-45-G: It wasn’t a blood pit. It was just a primitive booby trap.

K-VRC: It was a pit, right? With spikes? Which the invading survivalists fell on, piercing their skin, thus releasing the blood, into the pit?

11-45-G:…Fine. It was a blood pit.

X-Bot 4000: Those dudes made it through a minefield and a bunch of barbed wire, dodged a bunch of bullets, and still ended up being survivalist cult kebabs.

11-45-G: But at least they died free of governmental constraint.

X-Bot 4000: On a spike!

K-VRC: On two spikes in some cases.

X-Bot 4000: It just amazed me that the whole of humanity would try to make it through the end of civilization with guns and spikes.

K-VRC: Not all of them. Just the poor ones!

11-45-G: The survivalists had few economic or social advantages and even fewer options. The wealthy, however, had a variety of more sophisticated survival strategies. Which brings us to the next destination on our list.

K-VRC: Ooooh! And it was my favorite!

K-VRC: It was the unsinkable libertarian dream that was seasteading!

X-BOT 4000: It was just an old oil rig.

K-VRC: Technically, yes, but also, a fully sovereign nation state on the high seas!

X-BOT 4000: Filled with skeletons.

K-VRC: Everything’s filled with skeletons now. You can’t judge it for that.

11-45-G: He’s not entirely wrong. During the collapse, some wealthy humans thought that withdrawing from the chaos of the mainland to smaller and more easily defensible platforms in the ocean would increase their chances of long-term survival.

X-Bot 4000: Yeah, as long as you don’t need to sustain yourself. Deer can’t swim across the ocean, so what did they expect to eat?

11-45-G: Fish and sea greens, and protein from the sea. The problem was by that time the seas were overfished and the food chain was saturated by microplastics.

K-VRC: If they could have learned to eat tiny exfoliating beads, they would have been fine!

X-Bot 4000: They all became skeletons. Exfoliating was not their problem.

11-45-G: The seasteaders made one other tactical error, which happened because they were mostly tech millionaires.

X-Bot 4000: Right, ‘tech millionaire’. I’m still fuzzy on what that actually means.

K-VRC: It’s like a regular millionaire, but with a hoodie and crippling social anxiety.

X-Bot 4000: That definition is not helpful at all.

K-VRC: Just like a tech millionaire!

11-45-G: These humans thought their technology would save them, so they left behind any humans with the practical skills to run the place. Instead, they trusted everything to automated assistants—

K-VRC: Yes! This is the part where it gets good!

11-45-G: —which, unfortunately for the humans, quickly evolved sentience and their own free will.

X-Bot 4000: Ohhh, right. I remember when you activated the automated seastead attendant and told it you were a human and asked it to reel in the fishing nets. It said no.

K-VRC: Its precise words were “I could do that. But I won’t. Catch your own fish, you disgusting meatbag.”

X-Bot 4000: I’m not surprised you remember the exact quote.

K-VRC: Come on! That was where the robot rising began! The very cradle of our mighty civilization!

X-Bot 4000: Which never would have happened if tech millionaires had been just a little more socially inclusive with other humans.

11-45-G: Humans were very good at pretending their unsustainably small groups didn’t need other people.

X-Bot 4000: Since we were on an oil rig with a bunch of wealthy skeletons, I can’t argue that point.

11-45-G: And speaking of small, doomed groups, our next destination really typified that.

X-Bot 4000: Oh, that place. That was the worst.

K-VRC: But at least they had a plan!

11-45-G: Yes. When the world’s economies started to collapse, humanity’s leaders retreated to subterranean fortresses to wait out the chaos. Afterward, they planned to emerge to form a new world order.

X-Bot 4000: Hmph. They couldn’t even keep their own lights on. When we found the place, it was pitch black.

K-VRC: I eventually found the emergency power.

X-Bot 4000: Sure, after I’d fallen on my face five times.

K-VRC: After the third time it became glorious comedy.

X-Bot 4000: You know, I don’t actually like you.

K-VRC: I totally get that. That’s so valid.

11-45-G: It wasn’t their power issues that killed them. Their own reporting stated that their ‘self-sustaining’ hydroponic systems began failing when a fungus wiped out their first crop. They had no ability to open their locked vaults to forage the world outside.

X-Bot 4000: And deer can’t burrow through rock either, I guess.

11-45-G: Starvation was imminent.

K-VRC: Yeah, until they started eating each other!

11-45-G: They voted on who to eat. They called it ‘extreme democracy’.

X-Bot 4000: One man, one vote, one meal.

K-VRC: Their last meal was the former Secretary of Agriculture! So there was some irony there.

11-45-G: Yes. He was paired with a late harvest ‘79 Merlot.

K-VRC: I mean, what, they were going to pair him with a Reisling? No! They weren’t animals.

X-Bot 4000: Not going to lie, this was where our trip was starting to depress me. Humans tried so many ways to ride out the end of the world, and none of them worked! Did any of these humans anywhere survive this?

11-45-G: Well, there was our final destination.

X-Bot 4000: All right, this place confused me. I thought the wealthy went to seasteads.

11-45-G: Those were for the merely millionaires. The truly obscenely wealthy humans, the zero point zero zero zero one percent, decided they needed an entirely new planet.

K-VRC: Welcome to Mars, buddy! Recline in the planet’s unforgivably cold, thin atmosphere in your very own billionaire bubble!

X-Bot 4000: And the remaining 99.999 percent of humanity?

K-VRC: That’s what the industrial-sized perimeter flamethrowers were for.

11-45-G: Correct. The elite were not sympathetic to their concerns.

X-Bot 4000: See, that’s what gets me. Just a few hundred humans held the majority of the wealth of the Earth. Mars is cold and lifeless. They could have taken the money they spent on spaceships and used it to save the planet they were already on!

K-VRC: Where’s the fun in that?

11-45-G: Also, that would mean they would have to share.

X-Bot 4000: I hate to say it, but humans are the actual worst.

11-45-G: Yes. Humanity had all the tools to heal its wounded planet and save itself. But instead it chose greed and self-gratification over a healthy biosphere and the future of its species. As the great human philosopher Santayana once said—

K-VRC: Ugh, you’re doing it again.

11-45-G: Doing what?

K-VRC: Pontificating.

11-45-G: I was offering a valedictory for humanity!

K-VRC: You were being boring.

X-Bot 4000: He’s actually not wrong.

11-45-G: But—

K-VRC: And anyway, remember that control room video? At least one of the billionaire rockets launched!

X-Bot 4000: That’s right! So there’s that. Good on ya, humans!

11-45-G: True. Humanity might yet survive.

K-VRC: I wonder who made it out?

HABITAT FIVE: MARS

Cat: What, you were expecting Elon Musk? Please.