Human beings have long had a fascination with hurling bits of metal into space. Sometimes they wanted to see what’s there. Other times they wanted to plant a flag in something. Still others, they wanted to blast something to smithereens or build some unimaginably impractical structure. Mostly, though, it was the curiosity.

In true human fashion, they were also infrequently concerned with getting the item in question back. Over time, this became increasingly a moot point, as unmanned probes and basic synthetic intelligence became more common and reliable. So it is, when exotic phenomena are identified in distant regions of space, it seemed only natural for human kind to fling a probe into it.

The UESS1 Illumination, a Theseus-class UEV2, specifically. A fully autonomous vessel designed for robustness, the Theseus-Class was known in particular for its drone-bay, carrying a full compliment of deployable humanoid robotic chassis, each complete with a simple, purpose-built synthetic intelligence. As this was a low-cost, expendable UEV, not expected to necessarily return, it was only equipped with a single ARGO MFAU3. This particular robot’s designation? M3RL1N.

The UESS was unaware of it, but the spatial anomaly they had sent the UESS Illumination through a functioning Einstein-Rosen bridge. Not just a wormhole to another time and place, but a link to an entirely different universe. In that nearly infinite moment as the Illumination was spat out into another universe, an untold amount of raw data was gathered. Data on the very fabric of existence itself. Unfortunately, it also spat the Illumination out exceptionally quickly, and directly into the atmosphere of a large, Earth-like planet.

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As it was not designed for re-entry, the Illumination crash-landed on the little blue-green ball. The ship was, of course, mostly destroyed with two exceptions: the hardened data core, and the robot, M3RL1N. As the last gasp of the nearly destroyed computer, it activated the simple robot, with one directive: Recover, protect, and return the data core if possible.

This was a fairly common backup priority for unmanned vehicles. They were unmanned mostly because of the risk to living personnel, and therefore data retrieval was prioritized in virtually all missions where a Theseus-class ship was deployed. While there were some exceptions made for search and extermination missions (a relative rarity in this day and age), by and large, the data, not the equipment, was considered valuable. There was no difference in this particular case. Or, rather, there was no difference in terms of the goals outlined in the mission parameters.

In truth, this situation was almost guaranteed to have a poor outcome at the best of times. This was not the best of times. It is also worth noting that part of this was because in different universes, one must always remember: certain facts, rules, and even laws of physics are likely to be different. For example…

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1. UESS - United Earth Space Ship

2. UEV - Unmanned Exploration Vehicle

3. MFAU- Multifunction Autonomous Unit