Victory Unintentional

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"Victory Unintentional"
Author Isaac Asimov
Country Flag of the United States USA
Language English
Series Jovian Menace
Genre(s) science fiction short story
Published in Super Science Stories
Publisher Popular Publications
Media type Magazine
Publication date August 1942
Preceded by Not Final

Victory Unintentional is a humorous science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the August 1942 issue of Super Science Stories and included in the collections The Rest of the Robots (1964) and The Complete Robot (1982). It is a sequel to a non-robot story, "Not Final", published the previous year, and one of the few stories by Asimov to postulate non-human intelligences in the Solar System. It is also one of the few positronic robot stories by Asimov that does not form part of the larger Robot/Foundation series.

[edit] Plot

Human colonists on Ganymede send three extremely powerful and durable robots, ZZ One, ZZ Two, and ZZ Three, to explore the surface of Jupiter and contact the Jovians.

They discover that the Jovians have a vastly larger population than the humans, since Jupiter has a much greater surface area than Earth. They're also more advanced scientifically. More than anything, the Jovians are arrogant, threatening to use force-field technology to leave Jupiter, in order to destroy humanity. But they mistake the immensely strong and resistant robots for humans. The robots, oblivious to this misconception, unintentionally demonstrate their superiority in several incidents, including their ability to exist in a vacuum, lack of need for an atmosphere, and ability to withstand extremely cold and hot environments. The Jovians' belief in their own superiority crumbles and, to save face, they swear eternal peace with the humans.

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