Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

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.

HABITAT THREE: DEEP INSIDE A MOUNTAIN FORTRESS

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.

HABITAT FOUR: THE SPACEPORT OF THE BILLIONAIRES

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!