The Out World

2269. GalaXplore, an aeronautics and space agency of the United States of America, has built the spacecraft Themis, and Apollonia, their 3-mile-long permanently crewed space station which orbits the Moon, will provide the booster, launch pad. The Mechanics, named for their original conception for making repairs more often than not, are highly intelligent humanoid robots that will operate the vessel, intended for deep space exploration, on a yearlong mission.

Like its twenty-first century predecessor, Tiangong, a low Earth orbiting, third-generation modular space station operated by the former China Manned Space Agency of the People’s Republic of China, Apollonia maintains an orbital altitude of 450 kilometers (280 miles) above Earth. Apollonia’s purpose is to gain experience in spacecraft rendezvous technology, regenerative life support technology and fuel supply technology. The station is inundated with the Mechanics, which fill positions throughout the space station. Thirty-four-year-old, Sara Masters, an attractive, dark-haired woman, has a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics engineering from the University of Virginia. Slightly over seven years at GalaXplore, she has worked in the areas of robotics software development, IT security response, and recently assigned to tracking and data acquisition of Themis. She is the point of contact for Mechanics aboard the starship Themis. She will submit progress reports based on the droids’ electronically transmitted messages to her supervisors at the GalaXplore headquarters in Houston, Texas.

Through Shari Haynes, the Director of the Mechanics Systems Laboratory at the GalaXplore manufacturing facility in China, we are taken on a journey through the development of mechanical robots and their interactions with humans. In the metropolis city on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, she works alongside the Shenzhen plant workers and Xi Bing Jiang, a robotics engineer, designer and founder of the Mechanic humanoid robots with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Engineering all from Vanderbilt University. Besides planning algorithms, Shari tests the communication skills and mobility of each robot and gives them tasks to perform. The beautiful 5'8" tall, fifty-something woman with blue eyes and blonde hair, is divorced with one daughter in the States. Her one distinct feature is a ridge that trails along the right side of her forehead, which she has grown accustomed to covering it up with her hair. She has worked at GalaXplore for nearly sixteen years in areas of robotics and has a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Texas A&M University, and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Themis travels through a wormhole exiting into an asteroid field in a distant galaxy in the far reaches of space, known as The Out World. The spacecraft is hit by a large asteroid, and the Mechanics transmission to Apollonia cut off when they were about to give their coordinates. The damaged ship breaks apart and crashes on a nearby planet. Meanwhile, Sara Masters is on a coffee break. Two days later, Shari Haynes travels in a space shuttle from Earth to Apollonia and comes to blows over the question of what actually happened to Themis. She blames Sara Masters for not being at her station to prevent the transmission from the spaceship from terminating. On a prior visit to Apollonia, Haynes had questioned the ethical use of Mechanics, practically advocating that people should grant robots rights on a par with human beings.

The only surviving Mechanic, damaged and malfunctioning, is found standing in the interior broken-up remains of Themis, holding a large laser gun. It is cautiously greeted by a new breed of humans much smaller than itself. Due to the chemical composition of the atmosphere of their planet, they are an evolutionary species. Otherwise known as "gray aliens," bipedal with two arms and two legs, but albino with a complete absence of melanin. The electromagnetic charge in their brains makes them extremely intelligent but prevents hair from growing on their bodies.