Victory Unintentional

Infobox Short story
name = Victory Unintentional
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = United States
language = English
series = Jovian Menace
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "Super Science Stories"
publisher = Popular Publications
media_type = Magazine
pub_date = August 1942
english_pub_date =
preceded_by = Not Final
followed_by = "Victory Unintentional" is a humorous science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the August 1942 issue of "Super Science Stories" and included in the collections "The Rest of the Robots" (1964) and "The Complete Robot" (1982). It is a sequel to a non-robot story, "Not Final", published the previous year, and one of the few stories by Asimov to postulate non-human intelligences in the Solar System. It is also one of the few positronic robot stories by Asimov that does not form part of the larger Robot/Foundation series.

Plot

Human colonists on Ganymede send three extremely powerful and durable robots, ZZ One, ZZ Two, and ZZ Three, to explore the surface of Jupiter and contact the Jovians.

They discover that the Jovians have a vastly larger population than the humans, since Jupiter has a much greater surface area than Earth. They're also more advanced scientifically. More than anything, the Jovians are arrogant, threatening to use force-field technology to leave Jupiter, in order to destroy humanity. But they mistake the immensely strong and resistant robots for humans. The robots, oblivious to this misconception, unintentionally demonstrate their superiority in several incidents, including their ability to exist in a vacuum, lack of need for an atmosphere, and ability to withstand extremely cold and hot environments. The Jovians' belief in their own superiority crumbles and, to save face, they swear eternal peace with the humans.