Three years have passed since the last solar flare, and the humans are still in a state of isolation. They're not allowed to communicate with each other, and they don't know how to talk to each other. The only thing they can do is talk to the elders, who are the ones who know what's going on. They can't talk to one another because they're separated, but they can communicate with the elders by talking to the robots. The robots can talk to humans, but the humans can only talk to them through the robots, so the robots have no way of knowing what the elders are talking about.