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In one universe, Altern SmartPets were artificial robot pets which had become very popular across the human population, requiring less upkeep than real organic animals.
When new models of a given animal came out, Altern usually allowed households to trade in their old ones for newer models of the same “species” (although this was not compulsory and Laura Drake's family notably held on to the same SmartFerret for ages), reprogramming the repossessed SmartPets for other purposes. Many became spy drones, although Laura and Jenny once met a robot cat who'd been given the power of speech and checked library cards at the entrance of the Neptunian Orbital University's Library. When she was younger, Jenny used to illegally liberate discarded SmartPets from Altern transport trucks before they could be reprogrammed. (PROSE: Extradimensional Experiments)