The Pluto crew has been improving in their survey missions, leading to the M-Bark Council to task them with handling a delicate mission on a dangerous, yet promising planet.
Before the mission can begin, Pepper gathers the crew's data for a simulation, in order to prepare and perfect their performance. With most of the dogs unpredictable at best and chaotic at worst, the process seems easier said than done.
Tropes:
- Don't Wake the Sleeper: The Terrator are Polypia's largest dormant inhabitants that can spew lava-like liquid. They don't seem like much of a threat unless they are disturbed. Pluto is tasked with seeing if they can be moved off-planet so PRATS can set it up as a new Earth, but it a herculean, if not impossible, task; either because of the team, or the possibility that they are sensitive creatures.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Pepper believes that after hanging with the team long enough, she has more than enough data from them to predict the chances of survival. Unfortunately for her, virtually every play of the Polypia mission ends with them dying horribly, mostly from the lava-spewing Terrator.
- Garbage messes with the simulator to see if the Council made the wrong call on discharging him prior to the second season. But it says otherwise and refuses to try.
- Everyone Has Standards: As a rival to Garbage, Happy can't stand him. As a councilman, he can't ignore the fact that the Pluto hasn't had a catastrophic mishap in a while for the good of the mission, especially since Stella is in charge. As such, he pushes away any personal feelings and makes the Council's Polyia mission vote unanimous.
- Failure Is the Only Option; No matter what the variable, the Polypia mission is predicted to be doomed to fail. Thanks to Pepper, the mission itself is a bust, but at least the entire team can live to tell about it.
- Irony: Pepper is a stickler for rules and tactics, and believes there isn't a situation she can't predict. Near the end, she breaks rank to save everyone, and not even she could predict that.
- Planet of Steves: One of the simulations contains a glitch where everyone calls each other "Kevin".
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Or tactics. When the real Polypia mission is underway and goes south as predicted, Pepper desperately tries to find a tactical solution. She then decides to forego all that and goes wild to save the crew from the rampaging Terrator.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Pepper's simulator is designed to use all of the available data to predict the outcome of a future mission. When Stella protests, Pepper activates a prior simulation of "Stella discovering the simulation room" based on her behavior, with disturbingly accurate results.Stella: We're made up of more than our predictable...
Stella & Holo-Stella: ...elements! We're wild... and beautiful... and they... CAN'T JUST BE PREDICTED BY MACHINES! UGH! COCONUTS! RACCOON! I MEAN, KUMQUAT! OH I HATE THIS THING!
