Heartwarming / Endless Space

• The Automation history: Their creators were dying out due to rampant pollution and their attempts to leave the planet failed. In a last ditch attempt to leave something behind they created the Automation. They managed to gift them limited intelligence and then committed mass suicide as to avoid dying off slowly on a dead world. The Automatons then spent the next few millenniums just existing with a basic society. Until an Endless ship crashed into their planet releasing a lot of Dust into the atmosphere. That allowed them to achieve full sentience. They then spend the next few hundred years or so fixing up the environment of their planet. Then they discovered that the Dust was running out and they would shut down. So they decided to go out and find more dust. However despite that they remember what happened to their creators and each planet they colonize they maintain the enviroment to the point that they live in orbit and only come down for resources.
• The description for low gravity worlds makes special note of how much fun the children have playing in zero gee.