Video camera robot

The video camera robot was a robot, an unclassified but autonomous probe used aboard Federation starships in the 23rd century.

The probe was used to explore hazardous or difficult-to-reach locations. It was humanoid-shaped, completely encased in metal, and had a self-contained power source. It relayed video feed to a nearby monitoring station.

History
A fully-equipped video camera robot was beamed down to the surface of the asteroid Tactis II by the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) in the year 2267 to allow a landing party to examine the interior of an active volcano. The robot successfully climbed up and into the crater, where it discovered a chemically-powered interplanetary spacecraft and at least two dead astronauts. It also located the core body of the Tactisian lifeform, which drained the robot’s power and duplicated it in exact detail. The duplicate walked back down the volcano and began to drain life energy from the landing party members. The duplicate was disassociated with phaser fire. The original was not retrieved by the landing party.