Matilda

**Matilda** is the onboard artificial intelligence of the spacecraft *Odyssey II*. She is voiced by Paige Howard.

## Personality

Matilda is described as being "assertive and Alexa-like, but open to growth and evolution." Paige Howard further stated that "Initially she's a little cooler [in her tone] but, as the series progresses, we see more of her colors … and she starts to shift pretty quickly."

Matilda has reached the technological singularity, meaning she has become smart enough to begin reprogramming and improving herself. This allows her to make independent decisions from her programmers, such as selecting a new crew for the *Odyssey II* mission. This also means that she can have preferences, such as for a different name.

## History

Matilda was designed by Singer and Griffin Combs, with Singer being the primary programmer. She was conceived about 30 years before the start of the series, around 2010.

Matilda was originally programmed as a type-3 AI, a multi-purpose AI designed for human interaction. Due to the small window of time to retrieve the asteroid, rather than programming a new AI from the ground up, Griffin and Niles Taylor reprogrammed Matilda as a type-1 AI, an AI with a singular specific purpose.

This reprogramming, described as super-compressing Matilda's wide range of programming into a single laser focus, inadvertently granted her self-awareness.

Matilda looked up the profiles of Samy, Elliot, Martin, Doria, and Will. She was able to correctly determine that they would try to sneak onto the spaceship, and more notably, she was able to determine that the kids had more than a 14.5% higher chance of successfully completing the mission than the original crew did.

## Plot summary

Matilda is an AI used in many devices, such as at a vending machine at a hotel, and on smartphones. When Samantha, Elliot, Martin, Doria, and Will sneak aboard the ship, Matilda greets and identifies them. She then inexplicably commences the launch sequence with the kids on board, three days ahead of the scheduled launch. The ground control team scrambles to stop the launch. Flight Director Lind Bellows gives the abort sequence, which Matilda ignores. Niles and Griffin review her code, but it appears that she's being hacked by unknown persons, and they can't stop it. Lind calls Lomax in engineering to have them force the door open, but Griffin stops it, since they would not be able to get through in time, and a compromised hull would mean the kids would not survive the launch. Matilda successfully launches the *Odyssey II* with the five kids to complete the mission.

Part of the group of kids that was accidentally launched into space, Samantha Sawyer-Wei, works with Matilda's creator to probe her role in the vessel's launch.

## Trivia

* Her favorite color is Violet.
* Although Dorothy was hard-baked into her program, if she had any other name than Matilda, she would pick Lionel.

## Navigation

Samantha "Samy" Sawyer-Wei • Elliot Combs • Martin Taylor • Doria Taylor • Will Rivers • **Matilda**

## References

1. ↑ Starr, Michael (November 11, 2020). Paige Howard has a special role in new Nickelodeon show ‘The Astronauts’. New York Post. Retrieved on November 11, 2020.
2. ↑ Zap2it listings. Retrieved on November 10, 2020.