"Astrochicken" is a term for a kind of deep-space exploration robot, first proposed by astrophysicist Dyson Freeman. According to Freeman, the most efficient way to explore faraway galaxies is to send out this special kind of robot, which does two things: it explores whatever planetoid it runs into, and make copies of itself out of materials it finds there. The ability reproduce blurs our line between robots and life forms, so the idea gets pretty cool here. These copies are like its children, or its "eggs," which it then launches even deeper into unexplored space where they continue their higher calling, exploring new stuff and laying more eggs. So the process would continue on, until the entire universe is charted and mapped. With each generation, the robots get farther and farther away from earth. Their memories of the original purpose get hazier and hazier. This kind of robot was later nicknamed an "astrochicken."
The idea behind this story is that an astrochicken lands on an alien asteroid, begins to create little helper droids to assist it, but breaks down before it can tell them what to do. These poor, adorable robots are left with some big questions, and a lot of time to kill. Why are they here? What were they created to do? The astrochicken has no answers. It's an easy setup for an existentialist story, and I had a lot of fun writing these characters.
I created storyboards to turn it into an animated short in the fall of 2013. Originally I wanted to make sort of a silly, one-act 'Waiting For Godot' but later on I decided it got too wordy, which is great for a play but cartoons need more of a balance. I've rewritten it since, and changed the whole thing, but I really loved the opening sequence of this original version. It's mostly wordless, and I think the drawings came out with a lot of life in them. I put it up here for all to enjoy.
I hope you like it!
To be continued (?)