Thanks to her traumatic circumstances and the potential of morphine-induced hallucinations, it's not apparent how much of the story takes place in Kivelson's head, but her interaction with the voice of Io, she discovers the planet is a sentient machine whose core function is 'to know you.' Kivelson can't make it back to base in time to survive, but Io says being absorbed by the planet's molten lake may preserve herВ 'neural configuration' while destroying her body. The Very Pulse of the Machine is about a journey of discovery, the human experience, the nature of reality, and an individual's place in the universe. Unlike the first Three Robots' more simple 'humans are silly' thesis, Three Robots: Exit Strategies points to multiple social, business, and political groups as responsible for the literal fall of humanity, specifically name-dropping Musk, who hopes to colonize Mars with his company, SpaceX, as the punchline that reveals, despite the resources devoted to space travel, Musk didn't lead humanity to Mars after all. Cutting to Mars, there's an astronaut overlooking number of colony bubbles with a margarita, but when theВ gold sun shield on the helmet flips open it reveals one of the intelligent cats, who quips 'who were you expecting, Elon Musk?' Ironically this episode was written years ago, so the writers had no way of knowing it would release amidst intense drama surrounding Musk online, but it does speak to the timeliness of the episode.

The episode's concludes with the revelation that the richest humans planned to leave Earth to colonize Mars, suggesting the money spent on the rocket development and colonization could have been spent to save Earth instead.

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