@marsroverdriver

You might find this an interesting read.

Not quite "religious", but maybe spiritual.

As a content warning to those sensitive, there is a brief mention of the death of a pet. I think the point of it is to underscore what our climber is sacrificing as they pursue their dream. The pet represents the last thing connecting our climber to their friend, as she decides to keep going.

Anyways, I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

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Climbing scenes can be particularly infuriating. You become convinced that the designers intentionally made it difficult. (Why *can't* you collect rain water or melt snow to drink?) You are certain that it is impossible to progress past some points, until you try again and think of an easier way. The game keeps repeating the message: "Don't give up; you'll make it, but only if you keep going." If you succeed, and summit, it is extremely satisfying and cathartic.

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Instead of carrying the infamous espresso machine up Everest, ala 'Into Thin Air', the robot carries nothing. All it can do is repair pitons, and grind trash into climbing chalk. (There is one scene where it is asked to pack up the tent, but it is in a cut scene, not a game mechanic.) You carry everything. If you run across a drug that will save your life later, and you don't have room, too bad; you leave it behind.

The game can be quite frustrating.

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The game provoked a couple interesting thoughts from me, although I don't know if they were intentional. The first was that the robot actually seems *weaker* than the human at this altitude. This is, of course, the complete opposite of a true Mars rover, or Voyager or Cassini. However, again, it makes us sympathize with the robot. Instead of the robot solely being a helper, we also want to help it.

The second thing that I noticed was that this robot is no Sherpa.

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The climber certainly does, quite literally, as she often falls with only the robot as the counterweight on the other side of a carabiner.

As you climb the mountain, various people sluff off and disappear. Not unlike the radio signal of the interpid Voyagers, getting fainter with distance, and replies taking longer, our climber is eventually all alone, except for our faithful 'Climbot'.

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The latter gives the robot a sense of age and vulnerability, even while it navigates mountainsides so easily that it would make a mountain goat jealous.

Its initial job is just to fetch pitons that we leave behind. It's mainly a mechanism to allow the game to "move on" without requiring the player to clean up. However, later in the game, 'Climbot' becomes an almost second character - a sidekick, or pet dog. You become attached to 'Climbot'.

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See Star Trek, Star Wars, Lost in Space, 2001: A Space Odyssey or Wall-E. Sometimes they are protectors. Other times they're just comedy relief.

'Cairn' also has a robot helper and follows this latter approach. Its name is 'Climbot'. Its resemblance to a Mars rover is probably no accident. It makes cute R2-D2-like beeps, but also rattling clanks and ungreased squeaks.

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Today, we typically explore space using robots. We now have 2 robots that have left our solar system - go Voyagers! - and countless robots that have explored every planet from Venus to Saturn. The Mars rovers are particularly ambitious explorers, often living months longer than expected, displaying uncanny motivation and perseverance.

However, in science fiction, when we explore space, we typically see humans in the primary roll, with robots as helpers.

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