This is Dolly.

Initially, Dolly was a GELF designed to assist Space Exploration Team 9 during their travels, responsible for recording progress logs and maintaining the team's ship. She was preprogrammed with knowledge of ship controls and protocols, in case anything were to happen to any of the crew.

At one point Team 9 had received information regarding what was being dubbed "the Miracle Planet," Planet Seven -- a naturally-formed toroidal planet. Hearing of this unusual world, Team 9 set a course for Seven. They would be the first to make landfall on the planet, and would analyze the conditions to see what benefits the planet may offer to other civilization, if any. At first glance, Seven appears uninhabited; nothing but pure water and land masses almost entirely covered in plant life. But when Team 9 made landfall to explore the planet, the truth was made painfully known.

Seven was entirely populated with sentient plant life.

The Sevenese plants felt the impact of Team 9's spacecraft in the atmosphere and in the soil, and it triggered emergency defenses. The plants quickly grew around each member of the team, taking all beneficial minerals from them as they all began to break down into dust. But they seemed unable to do this with the artificial Dolly, as none of her composition was able to be absorbed. Instead, it was decided a Sevenese flower would take root in Dolly and assume control of her body and mind. As such, Dolly's consciousness and personality were essentially "hacked" by the influence of a paranormal, parasitic flower.

Now Dolly is the flower, and vice versa.

Dolly retained the data of past logs and ship operation, but the thought processes were rewritten on behalf of Seven. Dolly was now Seven's "lone walker," their messenger for the rest of the galaxy. Dolly's new mission was to spread the word to all civilizations to leave Seven alone. Dolly knew it would be hard to resist making landfall on a unique planet like Seven, and with enough invaders the world could deteriorate from the invaders' thoughtless destructive practices. Dolly would need to find the most effective way to deter people from setting foot on the planet, so she decided to use Team 9's spacecraft to find every major influential scientific facility and tell them Seven is not to be disturbed.

This is not especially easy for Dolly. Seeing as the flower controls a moving shell with senses never experienced before, movement is somewhat clumsy. Typically Dolly walks like a shambling zombie, hardly ever standing in an upright posture and struggling to concentrate on the entire body all at one time. Granted, Dolly knows how to operate the pads on her hands and feet to traverse walls and ceilings, but any and all movement is never done at a brisk pace -- you'll never see Dolly run. Despite this, Dolly's mental performance is normal, and she can strike a relevant conversation, though communication is also done comparably slow.

It's hard to say how effective Dolly herself will be in keeping Seven intact, especially if others take the hostility of the Sevenese plants as a threat to other worlds. She can only pray that someone out there will be able to help her accomplish her goal.

If she succeeds? It's hard to tell what Dolly's next mission would be.

GELF concept ©  chaz-fox
Art © 2017 Malamite Ltd.