Reign of the telepuppets

"Reign of the Telepuppets" by Daniel F. Galouye is a science fiction story about a team from the Bureau of Interstellar Exploration as they undertake a vital mission to check on telepuppets, which are robotic beings, in far-off galaxies. Director Gabe Randall, along with Dave Stewart and Carol Cummings, encounters a strange challenge while navigating the relationships between humans and machine minds during an expansive age of interstellar travel. The story opens with a discussion amongst the Bureau of Interstellar Exploration team, who are contemplating a crucial mission to assess the status of robotic teams known as telepuppets on a faraway planet. Director Randall stresses how important the mission is, while his team expresses doubt about the choices made in personnel. As the story progresses, the plot shifts between the human characters preparing for their trip and Bigboss, a telepuppet who is struggling with feelings of superiority, giving the reader a glimpse behind the metal curtain. Comparing human frailty with machine ambition alludes to concepts of control, revolt, and complexities of intelligence suggesting the problems the lie ahead.