Potatoes

Potatoes
Type	Mining drone
Creator	Morphologis
Appears in	Potatoes

“	Birdy Birdy Birdy Birdy	”
–Potatoes, "We All Have Ghosts"

Potatoes is a simple mining drone built by Morphologis. Its creation was influenced by TIUS, in order to make Morph do less physical work and reduce his body odor. This simple flying drone consists of 2 drills on the bow that collect ore on the planet and store it inside the cargo containers in the back. She was initially powered by small solar panels and batteries which were eventually placed in parallel with small nuclear reactors to extend it's operational time.

Potatoes' AI

Potatoes' Artificial Intelligence (AI) was created by copying TIUS's AI into the drone. Potatoes did not have enough storage to contain the entire AI package, so only the core components were transferred. Unfortunately, Potatoes' vocabulary is very limited and she is incapable of very deep thoughts. Potatoes' voice is very squeaky not unlike how one might imagine a chipmunk might sound. However, Potatoes is far more loving and caring than TIUS.

Potatoes is obsessed with "Umbrellas" "blankets" and "Birdies" even though none of these exist on Planet Bob. It is very likely that they are synonyms for other things but the true words are not known to the AI. Speculation is that "birdie" and "blanket" may refer to any form of unidentified flying machine and shelter respectively. "Birdie" in particular has referred to a falling escape pod in season one and also the mysterious attacking drones in season 2, so it doesn't seem to be a specific object, rather that Potatoes's vocabulary is somewhat limited. (A list of Potatoes' vocabulary can be found here.)

Interactions

Potatoes is very similar to a young child in that she's always trying to help, yet she constantly messes up. Potatoes occasionally demonstrates a partial lack of self awareness, as she does not know that she's massive and armed with very sharp drills, and her own weight is greater than she anticipates. She's broken many walls, especially those of Commander W4sted's bunker, along with nearly killing the captain when trying to help fix the Warden.

Potatoes has been known to irritate the crew and TIUS with her simplistic childlike demeanor and somewhat unhelpful antics, constantly getting herself into trouble. Commander W4sted in particular doesn't seem to have much patience for her, as she has a tendency to dig holes through walls to get in and out of buildings when trapped. Morphologis has maintained an affection for Potatoes however, and has kept her despite TIUS's constant complaining.

"Fire fire fire!" - Potatoes

At one point, Potatoes was equipped with a huge battle cannon via connector by Morphologis, and it was clearly demonstrated that she didn't really have any idea of the consequences of such a weapon, almost causing major damage to the base. After this point, even Morph has made more of an effort to somewhat restrict Potatoes’ activities, as he got into quite a bit of trouble for it.

Despite all this, Potatoes has proven consistently useful both scouting and collecting resources. Before the creation of the large mining rig on the lake, her work sustained the whole crew, and though season 2 has seen her kept inside along with everything else for protection.

In spite of this, Potatoes shows far more empathy than TIUS, remarking that she felt sad about destroying Morph's Survival Rover, remarking it was a "good car" and that "it was good to Potatoes", and she will apologize for some of her misdeeds. She also demonstrates loyalty that is outright suicidal at times, demonstrated when she exhausted her energy reserves to try and find help for Morph under his orders, and rammed an unknown drone to protect Captain Shack.

Potatoes flying back to base from mining operations at night. This shot was seen in Season 2, Episode 2, "Casualties" and is from a point in time about 2 months prior to Season 2's starting point.

In Season 2

"Potatoes is crew." - Potatoes moves to block an unknown type drone from ramming Captain Shack

Potatoes was severely injured in the time between seasons 1 and 2 when she rammed one of the first attacking drones, so she was put on wheels until the 3 survivors could find materials to restore flying capabilities. This event somewhat reconciled her with Captain Shack, as it almost certainly saved his life. She was fixed when the captain recycled parts from around the base to repair her as a Christmas present to Morphologis, although W4sted was annoyed when he discovered that Shack had 'harvested' several of the wheels to The Rancor in this endeavor.

Most recently, Potatoes has made references to a "Potato Hole" somewhere in the bunker, where she retreated when drones attacked the base via the tunnel made by the crew to sabotage a jamming station. Presumably this was in reference to a special portion of the vehicle bay hangar door that could be lowered enough for it to pop a "probe stalk" of sorts out to interact with visitors at the door.

Behind-the-Scenes Info

Potatoes was voiced by an IVONA text to speech synthesizer which was bought by Amazon. Her voice was that of the voice "Chipmunk" now found inside Amazon Poly.

Potatoes is quite popular with fans for her bizzare character quirks and obviously friendly and curious demeanor.