Forged Hope - Entries - Round 7

 
Hello Ladies and Gentleman,

Unfortunately we missed to show you some entries, so we are not done yet. This will be the last post of entries for this contest before we start with the judging work.

Unfortunately we will have a little delay also in our judging work and the shipping of the prizes. Tomorrow you will find another post about Forged Hope, a small update showing you the gallery of ALL entries together and soon after this you will find the judging results. Oh dear, oh dear, such a though work it is!

Week after week we will show you the entries of the Forged Hope Program.
You can find the other rounds here:
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6

First I want to show you some entries again. Round 6 had two entries with missing stories.
Those stories are now translated and you can enjoy them :)

pack@loss
by Petra Lehrmann

*Background*

The Forge Father found a storage building of a (kind of known) Online Shop for Shoes and Clothing. Everything is still there: Shoes, clothing, parcel packaging (in the typical white-orange look), a really big warehouse and many parcels to send. The Forge Father built one robot for making shoes (the shoe-bert) and one for tailoring (the n4iltai1) already - both stories will not be told here (even though both are quite interesting, hilarious and really nice robots). This is the story of the yellow-red one. And it will be told now.

*How the yellow-red one got his name*

The Forge Father yawned heartily and streched his tensed limbs. He blinked at the descending sun and took a moment to inhale the silence surrounding him. The chirping of the cicadas got to his ears, heralding the upcoming night. There was still some light left to finish this robot in time. All the people out there in the desert were counting on him, he knew. They would thank him. The Forge Father gathered a wrench from his toolbag and torqued a small screw in the ankle mechanics down.
This one would peel as soon as he would be on duty a bit longer. The Forge Father just knew. But that would not be that bad. The rust would protect him from the desert sun. Well; "protection" really wasn't the right expression here, was it? Although it might protect him from the maurauding Looters - those people who would aquire  anything for the great black market - as rusty metal was not the most valuable thing to bring to the markets. The Forge Father grabbed the wrench a bit tighter and stroke the yellow varnish of the robot hard. It has been applied only two days before so it was still a bit fresh on some spaces, a scratch popped up and some of the yellow trickled to the ground.
"So I won't get angry over the first ugly mark he will come back with", the Forge Father thought smiling.
His fingers found their way over the uneven and bumpy surface where he did not remove all of the rust before having applied the colour. This one had to be build so fast. It was a bit of a shame that he could not make the robot more shiny. But this base coat of colour had to suffice.
"I'll take more time for the next", he promised the monstrous yellow-red one, "The next in line is not as urgent as you. But the people in the desert, where there is still so much contamination, need their parcels. Their shoes, their food, their supplies. You need to bring and collect packages. This is much more important than good looks."
The Forge Father chuckled lightly over his one-way conversation. The robot had not been imprinted yet. The Forge Father buckled a thick wire harness to the connector area and turned it until a dull sound marked the "click into place" move. The Forge Father hummed absorbed in thought while he hacked some lines of code in an old rattly notebook. He found it some days ago in a pile of old tellys (a nice hideout of the Looters) whilst he was on his own search for some new parts for this one. The notebook was rather slow and gritty, but it did its purpose (his last computer had fallen victim to a rather fierce wild boar attack, as well as the feet of the yellow-red one, which looked a bit mutilated since then). The Forge Father filled up the last couple lines of code and left the notebook to its duty; to imprint the robot its own new essence, nature and character.
Considering the speed of the notebook this would take even more time, until the robot would be imprinted. The Forge Father left the yellow-red one to the cicadas and to the night, switched on the Looters alarm and went to bed.

The next morning the Forge Father awakened with a quivering stomach. He looked around wildly without any reason, jumped up and ran into the open hall, where the yellow-red one lay - should lie! He was gone! The Forge Father double checked the Looters alarm. It did not trigger anything. The yellow-red one was gone! The Forge Father slumped down to the ground and stayed there for some time. His back was aching from all those small pointy metal stuff pricking him. This was so damn awful. Wearily he thought about all the parts he would need to get anew and made a list in his mind, staring on the place where he had left the yellow-red one. He shook his head slowly. He would have to give a huge amount of his stuff on the black market for some parts. And for other parts, he knew, he would need to comb through old burst houses, huts, piles of rubbish and contaminated waste for weeks. He shook his head again pulled himself together and went to get some breakfast.

This was so fretful! How did the Looters get in and out without triggering the alarm? The Forge Father was in deep thougt about this matter the whole day long, as he started to clean up his work bench. They did only take the yellow-red one. They also did unplug him properly and left the cable in the hut; even though cable was a valuable good on the black marked.

As he came to rest on a comfy couch in the open and the orange-red light of the setting sun, he took some blueprints aside and began to study the thin lines on the paper. This was the moment that a lound and blurry roar approached his ear. The Forge Father turned to the sound and his face lit up. The yellow-red one leant over the fence down to the Forge Fahter and assessed him with his glowing blue eye. His small nuclear engine gleamed as blue as his eye from the inside through all the holes in his body. The yellow-red one tried his face mechanics for the first time and replied the smile of the Forge Father.
"I brought a cart for my purpose", he announced lordly and showed a battered military car from which he already had removed the ceiling, interior and the engine. This was an open car with axes and four wheels which the yellow-one could pile up with parcels and packages and he could push it to the people. The Forge Father nodded happily and applauded.
"I have a nice huge net for you to fasten the parcels when you transport them - so that you don't loose any."
The yellow-red one straightened up and looked in the distance.
"I found a great hall on my way. It is stuffed with parcels and they are in white and orange. And two like me are working there. One fills the parcels with supplies ... shoes and clothing. And one makes ... shoes?"
The Forge Father affirmed this.
"Those are in that factory for quite some time now. And they do miss one to deliver parcels to the humans. You know, the people in the deserts need your help, where the contamination has not vanished yet. Some of them cannot travel anymore, because they are old or they live abroad. You will bring them parcels with shoes and clothing. And if it does not fit, you will take the parcels back home. If it fits, they will give you something in return."
"But there are only shoes and clothing! Humans do need other stuff even more than shoes! You told me that, didn't you!" stated the yellow-red one doubtfully.
The Forge Father smiled and patted the yellow-red one on its metal.
"This is true, humans do need more than only shoes and clothing. And there is only shoes and clothing in this huge storage building. Shoes built by shoe-bert and clothing tailored by n4iltai1. But, my dear, this is only the first step. People should come to you to give you even more parcels to bring to other humans. And there will be people dropping by to pick up packages you got from somewhere else. This is how it was used to be in the old times: a parcel service. We should pick that thought up again and work for it."
Both fell silent and watched the sun vanish in one last glittering band on the horizon. The night took over the land and held it in a hard grip.

The cicades started chirping quietly and the Forge Father told the yellow-red one astounded:
"My dear, you still do not have a name! Normally the names come to me, when I am in the process of building a new one. But not this time ... how shall we name you? How do you like to name yourself?"
The yellow-red one stared to his new cart in the darkness and you could literally feel the cogs gear into each other.
Some courting frogs started to fight for mastery of sound against the cicades.
"I bring and collect parcels. I am a parcelbot, a packrobot, a packagerobot. I will bring lost things to humans. And I will get things from humans, which they want me to bring to other people."
"I did not imprint philosophy", mumbled the Forge Father wonderingly, "You are the first one of line. I hopefully will get enough parts to build more of you to do the same thing in other parts of this wasteland."
The yellow-red one blinked with his flood light like eye to the Forge Father.
"Pack@" the yellow-red snarled into the night.
"I thought I had lost you this morning, Paket."
"No, no! Not "PakET" - I want to be named "Pack@"", the yellow-red one explained patiently, "Strictly speaking "pack@loss" - because you thought me lost this morning. And because I bring packets to lost places."
The yellow-red one burst with pride for his names creation.
"I'll just write that down, pack@loss - and your birth date ... this is the 15th august."
The Forge Father gathered his little paper notebook and scribbled with a worn out pencil on the last line of the page

pack@loss 08/15

The Forge Father read the new entry again and burst into laugther and tears. He told the night:
"Let's hope you do not loose any packets with this name."

*The situation as pictured in the images*

The diorama shows a snapshot of the work of pack@loss 08/15 (the yellow-red one). He is on his way through the desert, bringing a new parcel with shoes to a small enclave. The girls robots, Twip and Twop, bring two parcels with non-fitting shoes and clothing for pack@loss to take back to the storage building.

Revitalizing AaDB-MK.24-Rob

by Bastian Schweizer

Before the global disaster everyone ridiculed Horatio.
Building a bunker, stockpiling food and weapons...
"He's nuts" were the friendliest of the comments others made - that are now gone.

With his wife Natalie and his daughter Jennifer aka "baby" he survived the disaster in his dugout.
In the isolation his daughter Rita was born.
Unfortunately, his wife did not adapt very well to the new conditions and committed suicide shortly after birth.
Jennifer withdrew more and more and soon no longer got out of the bunker.
Rita had the luck to experience these difficult times as infant and was getting tougher until she accompanied her father almost always every time to the surface and was a valuable aid. From each of their tours they bring something for baby to show her the beauty of the outside.

But despite all the beauty the new world is dangerous. Radioactive storms, irradiated zones and endless numbers of dangerous creatures waiting to devour any careless.

In the following years Horatio found enough parts in the ruins of the next town to build a fellow and protector.
The "AaDB ~ Mk.6 ~ Rcb. --> Agriculture an Defense Bot ~ Mark 6 ~ Rechargeable".
His many years of experience as a mechanic and electronics technician helped immensely.
And one thing was clear for the old environmentalist Horatio. His creation would be ecologically and not run with gas, oil, or nuclear energy.

During their forays into the new world the "AaDB ~ Mk.6 ~ Rcb" is protecting the two. He takes care of the fields and their watering, is hunting and should,
what was Horatio's greatest hope, lure his daughter Jennifer out of the bunker.

In its current two-year activity for horatio, the "AaDB ~ Mk.6 ~ Rcb" often saved his live and cleared many dicey situations.

But he could not fulfill Horatio's biggest wish until now...

SCAV-TRA 44P0

by Stefan Watzinger

SCAV-TRA 44P0 (Scavenge/Trade 44P0) – is a Bot who calls himself „G3ier“.
He is a crazy dude with a bit of an crack because he stayed in the desert for too long.
Originally constructed as a Hunter-Bot he got attacked on a trip and hid inside a cave.
Unlucky he damaged his sensors as he fell into the cave and so no one searched for him, neither could he call for help.

After some months he suddenly arrived in a camp with a bag of robot parts, and he started trading them on the local market.
Once he had traded most of his parts with other bots he returned into the desert again.
Just to show up at another camp some months later, with a new, bag of parts.

Although a lot of Robots are happy that they have the opportunity to change old or damaged parts,
some are a bit suspicious about this strange scavaging nomad.


“Have you seen this strange bot, calling himself G3eier.
He keeps wandering from town to town, tradin those robo-parts.
I mean it’s a good thing, for sure, but some of his parts just look
to new for being found in the desert, but that’s just my opinion!”

Clean-o-Bot 3000

by Andreas Peetz

The idea behind this robot was a cleaning robot with a human appearance.
This cleaning robot was just caught by his owner doing a pretty bad job.

Now that were finally all entries. No forgotten ones this time :)
We really hope you enjoyed the interesting stories now available for the two entries from Round 6.

The next step will be judging. 
We will have a hard time doing this but we will do our best!