Ernestus, the philosophical robot a science fiction stories for kids

This story comes from a distant country, beyond the Galaxy Centuria Laudi 489, passing through the Orion belt, even further from the sea of ​​silver asteroids, in the immense darkness of the Mobidub crater gorge74, there was an ancient civilization that inhabited those lands since the origins of the universe. Her name was Modernia.

There were very good craftsmen there, experts in the manufacture of magnificent batteries full of energy.Everything went smoothly in Modernia, every day the craftsmen got up, built new batteries and every night they proudly placed them in their tents.

One day, however, a problem arose: the inhabitants had so many batteries that they did not even know where to put them… the warehouses were full and, what is sadder, there was no one with whom to share all that energy!

They thought and rethought, they finally had a great idea: build robots to use those batteries!

In no time, robots of all types and characters began to roam Modernia: there were lanky robots full of springs, small plump robots with many lights, multi-handed bounces, others had two heads, some walked very fast, others flew …
More than nothing in the world, robots loved electric batteries, especially those manufactured in Modernia. It gave them the strength to walk, speak and think, in short, it gave them the energy to live. For robots, nothing was better than a new battery, because the newer the battery, the more power they could receive. It was like food for humans.

The craftsmen, who respected and loved their robot friends very much, always tried to improve the quality of the batteries they made, convinced that they appreciated that attention and that somehow the robots would one day pay it back.

But, in reality, the robots were only there because they needed batteries to live, they did not care where or how to get them….

The batteries, stored in the warehouses, were available to all robots that could collect them themselves. Robots only needed one battery to live, and if they went too gluttonous and tried to connect two, they could break down and melt the leads. That’s why there was a big sign on the wall of the warehouse that said: “Don’t wear more than one! You could hurt yourself!

A robot named “Notesacias” once went to the warehouse due to its inability to settle for the batteries it was using. He had read that warning many times, but for some time he had begun to think that craftsmen had to be a little tight-fisted and that for this reason alone they did not allow robots to carry more than one battery. That day he had decided not to obey the signal anymore: so he looked around and when no one saw him, he grabbed two batteries, installed them and… BOOM! All circuits melted!

When the other robots found their partner in this state, they immediately began to rebel: “The craftsmen did it on purpose! They gave him a bad battery!
Only one robot, called “Ernestus”, defended the inhabitants of the city: “They are not the culprits, the culprit was the robot Notesacias who put two batteries in and now he will have to go to the mechanic to have it completely fixed.

But although Ernestus was right, the vast majority of robots were angry and unable to see reason. His hard drives were fuming.

After this event, the life of the inhabitants of the city changed rapidly. Robots became unfriendly and rude and craftsmen suffered from such unfair behavior. The robots were telling them: “Get out of town, you’re useless! We don’t need you!

Their toaster brains didn’t understand that without the work of the craftsmen, none of the robots would have survived all this time. They did not realize that their batteries were made by the hands of those short men with white beards and those women with quirky hairstyles.

Ernestus, who was without a doubt the smartest and kindest robot in the galaxy, always planned to help others, regardless of whether they were humans or robots. So he found a solution to prevent the bad fumes from the robots from harming the craftsmen.

Being a philosophical robot, he found the perfect words to convince both parties.

He proposed to the artisans to go elsewhere, to show the robots that they needed them. To do this, they filled all the batteries that were in Modernia in a warehouse, and on that warehouse they put a large laser beam light. If at some point, the robots wanted the artisans to return to the city, it would only be enough to turn on that light.

The artisans perfectly understood Ernestus’s plan, they got on their space bikes …

And they left…

Seeing the artisans disappear into the infinite horizon of the Universe, the robots exploded with joy. They thought they were right, since they had won the argument, and that by screaming and making themselves the victims of the artisans, they had been defeated and now all Modernia was theirs, full of juicy batteries, without stupid rules of how many could be used. robot connect.

Everything seemed to be victorious for the robots, meanwhile, Ernestus waited at the top of the light tower, above the battery store.

There he could see how little by little the pantries were running out, and the warehouse was increasingly empty.

Years passed, in which Ernestus dedicated himself to repairing robots that were damaged by trying to connect several batteries. Meanwhile, the rest of the robotic population continued to enjoy their triumph over the artisans, they believed that all this time without needing them, they further affirmed that they were right.

Furthermore, they thought that the incident that Notesacias suffered was evidently caused by the artisans, because …

How was it possible that no other robot had suffered another similar mishap?

The answer was simple. Ernestus was in charge of picking up the robots when, out of greed, the circuits melted when several batteries were connected. Then he would repair them at the top of his tower of light, he would explain to them what had happened and they understood that they were enormously wrong.

Since Ernestus was very wise and patient, he persuaded them to stay in the tower with them, not to leave it again, and to wait patiently with him.

Thus the days, the months, the years went by. There came a time when there were almost the same number of robots in Modernia as in Ernestus’s tower.

And finally, the last battery ran out … The warehouse was empty.

It was then that panic spread among the robotic inhabitants of Modernia, who began to scream and run in terror throughout the country “What do we do now?” “No batteries left”

With this, what they achieved was to use up the energy they had left and one by one all Modernia’s robots were turned off, forever …

Everyone?

No, Ernestus and his allies, awaited this day hidden in their tower of light.

One by one, they were connected to the sockets of the tower, in order to charge the central battery of the light. After a few hours, the laser beam traversed the galaxy in search of the nomadic Craftsmen who had been roaming their motorcycles throughout the Universe ever since.

When they saw the flash of light in the distance, they didn’t have to say a word to each other. They all realized that Ernestus’s plan had worked perfectly and ran back to Modernia.

Upon arrival, the scene was bleak, hundreds and hundreds of robots without batteries, lying on the street.

Little by little, the robots that had stayed with Ernestus, the artisans and Ernestus himself, recharged the batteries of all the inhabitants of Modernia … That then they understood what Ernestus wanted to tell them long ago.

Everyone understood that the artisans were innocent, and that others were the ones who allowed them to continue living in Modernia. The robots swore loyalty and friendship to the artisans for life and since then, peace and harmony reign in that remote country, which since that day, changed its name to “Ernestus” in honor of the wise philosophical robot who changed them. life.