She goes and bodyguards the robotics research. She brings the materials for an art project she's been wanting to work on; she immediately gets sucked into helping with the robotics anyway.

Robots robots robots it's so nice to have a wizard bodyguard.

Robots are cool.

(So, if they're going to want person robots, the obvious thing to do is swappable parts, so they can have unclean arms and legs for when they're working, and clean parts to use the rest of the time. They can color-code 'em or something. Yeah?)

Hm, that could work. Is there an advantage to doing person robots?

Nonperson ones would have to be developed, and it won't necessarily be obvious if they get person ones again instead; it takes most of a season for it to start being obvious that DZ-type robots are people. Plus there might be a limit to how smart a robot can be without being a person, and some of the things they want robots for are pretty complicated.

Okay. They'd like to be a little more thorough than just limbs, in case something gets on the torso or head.

Yeah, of course. Some kind of removable shield, maybe. Only affects the design a little, not really a robotics problem like conveniently modular limbs are.

Yup. Maybe they could just work through plastic bags, since they don't need to breathe.

Don't need to breathe but do need to vent heat, but the design on that can be pretty flexible - maybe put that on the back, like so, that should be pretty safe.

And they have to be made so they can decontaminate totally if something does go wrong. Or just be boiled or flash-heated, that also works.

Flash-heating is probably the best bet; DZ can handle getting some amount of wet, but she'd need some maintenance if she was completely submerged. Also in extreme cases they can get a copy of the personalty and memories from the 'brain' and put it in a new chassis, if they plan for wanting to do that.

Better safe than sorry!

Yup!

Robots!

ROBOTS! Clean Amenta on the horizon!

Yaaaaay!

She publishes the robot transition plans to her FAQ page just as fast as the blues get them finalized.

(And what do things look like internationally?)

Some countries have observed that they can probably get robots without having to go to the bother of putting their reds on a ship, let alone with any stuff.

Yeah, this is her surprised face.

Well, even if they don't particularly care about annoying the alien per se, they might care that an annoyed alien is not going to be super inclined to come check their country for force-sensitives.

They might not even have any in the entire species.

Yeah, but wouldn't it be a shame if they do, and they don't find out because they annoy her too much for her to stick around and find out.

(Alternately - Tapa isn't using the red transport ship all the time; do they mind if she borrows it to get other countries' reds out?)

That doesn't bother them, though she'll still need to negotiate with those countries about it and find them supplies.

Well. She didn't mention it before, didn't want to be distracted from planets and robots, but she can do healing, including fixing most kinds of sterility. She shouldn't have that much trouble getting a bunch of money in a hurry. Do any countries actually object to her scooping up their reds?

Some. Isolationists, Calado on certain days of the week and over lunchtime, Rivik.

Yeah.

Project 'acquire a giant pile of money' going okay?

Lots of Amentans with fertility problems would like these fixed! Some Amentans have court-ordered fertility problems and she is asked not to fix those.

She has more than enough to do with the non-court-ordered sort and miscellaneous other ailments; there's only one of her and many, many Amentans.

It's really an impressive pile of money. She turns some of it into a similarly impressive pile of supplies and drops it off on the reds' planet.