robots

[Dirigible]

like people with pacemakers, who are emphatically not part of a slave class.

True. They're just no good for the heavy lifting involved in dragging stone blocks up to my soon-to-be-completed Temple of Immortality.

 

[Henry Hankovich]

EVAs, for example (and I haven't seen all of Evangelion yet, so others may be more expert on this than I), may be controlled by their pilots most of the time, but the EVAs themselves have motivation and have been known to act independantly, thus I call them robots.

Evas....are pretty much biological. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that. You could say they have cyborg or syntho-biological traits--to borrow S/lash's terminology.

Cyborg, in that they're basically an inside-out Terminator: biological on the inside, with a crunchy armored shell. Plus some I/O modifications for pilot plugs and stuff. Syntho-biological, inasmuch as they have bodies which function biologically yet are still manufactured in a tank (sort of).

Mostly, they're a metaphor. But what the hey.

 

[tecnowraith]

Well, if we stick to the original 'robot' meaning 'slave', we rule out cyborgs - like people with pacemakers, who are emphatically not part of a slave class.

But that would be boring, so let's get some new ideas!

Villano is referring to 'synthezoids', IIRC. I would class these as androids, robots that look like people. The android classification can be subdivided, however. It includes Threepio, the T-100 and T-1000, Replicants, synthezoids, Alien-verse androids, Red Dwarf waxworks, Twiggy of Buck Rogers infamy, most of the villains from Masamune Shirow's Dominion: Tank Police, and a bunch of others. Thus, it may be profitable to use two categories when classifying robots: shape, and operating principles.

'Shape' is the most apparent. Thus, we can neatly categorise our artificial friends. Off the top of my head, there are:

- androids (subcategory: nekoids, cat-girls used as pleasure slaves)
- canoids (not only prevalent in science fiction, but now in homes around the world with products like Aibo and some of those ridiculously cute-yet-scary robot fluffballs they're selling today)
- mobile pocketknives (Star Wars astromechs such as Artoo, and modern bomb disposal droids)
- appliances (KITT of Knight Rider is a good example, and I might make a case for your PC being one too)
- nanites (which may assemble into larger networks, but need their own category for the base state)
- titans (big robots with weapons, often somewhat humanoid but not to the extent of being true androids)
- shapeshifters (such as the T-1000, which has no base shape, and also including nanite networks)
- transformers (fundamentally different to shapeshifters, appliances, and titans, but combining characteristics of all three)
- modern power suits (read John Ringo's Posleen War saga and see if you agree with my categorisation of them as robots)
- traditional mecha (the big, impractical but cool things we all know and love)
- zoid mecha (big, less impractical mecha mostly based on low, predatory hull designs for increased military effectiveness)
- smart munitions (bullets and missiles with their own guidance systems and onboard decision-making processes - very low-end robots, with limited lifespan, but robots nonetheless)
- smartships (spaceships with no crew requirement, sometimes bordering on smart munitions, sometimes altogether more sinister like the HAL-9000)
- cyberspace entities (the paperclip in MS Office is a robot, believe it or not, up to certain recent incarnations of Megaman and Shodan)
- cyborg attachments (cybernetics is, properly, communications; people who communicate information between man and machine by thought rather than interface, and thus the common cyborg, one who communicates movement data to artificial limbs)

Then there are the various Operating Principles:

- mechanoids (running on basic mechanical principles - pistons, hydraulics, electric or fuelled engines, etc; single nanites count as mechanoids, biologicals, or syntho-biologicals, depending on the way they function and their complexity)
- psychodroids (a term I made up just now to describe mechanical systems that function Just Because - systems that are so complex they're not properly understood and thus produce lifelike results while still being based on fully-understood sciences; positronic brains are a good example)
- biologicals (normally genetically engineered life forms or gelfs, and normally androids; some may be able to reproduce, some may be assembled off-the-shelf and not reproduce)
- syntho-biologicals (presumably like Bishop from Aliens - creatures with systems that replicate organic functionality without being grown from previous organic systems)
- nanocolonies (nanites forming a larger whole - T-1000 counts, but other models may be closer to synthos and not as malleable)
- field effects (robots formed of energy itself, or some other exotic thing like those electron atoms I read about years ago - like the Terminator in T3, which I haven't seen)
- virtuals (computer programs - pretty much exclusively for cyberspatial entities above, and dividable into programmed entities and emergent entities that aren't realy robots at all, like the Puppet Master)

Then you can combine operating principles to create hybrid models. The T-100, for example, is a mechanoid core with a biological shell; from what I've seen of Evangelion, something like the inverse of that is true of the EVA mecha; what's-her-name from Alien Resurrection was a syntho-organic with a virtual interface; IIRC ornithopters from Dune are zoid mecha with a mechanical body but biological wing flappers, etc.

If anyone can think of other, truly different categories, be my guest and contribute them!

The thing is would most of these be consider doing the same thing no matter how you look it? Like nanocolonies (nanites forming a larger whole - T-1000 counts, but other models may be closer to synthos and not as malleable) and field effects (robots formed of energy itself, or some other exotic thing like those electron atoms I read about years ago - like the Terminator in T3, which I haven't seen) can be done under Nano tech or Bio-tech? Or mechanoids and transformers almost the same but transformers being done with an added programming?

 

[s/LaSH]

The thing is would most of these be consider doing the same thing no matter how you look it? Like nanocolonies and field effects can be done under Nano tech or Bio-tech? Or mechanoids and transformers almost the same but transformers being done with an added programming?

Yeah, if there's a giant robot shooting at you it's rarely a good idea to stop and think about morphology and actuator tech, so why does it matter?

More seriously:

Nanocolonies could be made by nanotech or microbiotech, because at a certain point those technologies come together - it's all about molecular processes. Nevertheless, biotech can produce things without having to deal with microbiology - the earliest historical 'robots', used up until the 1800s in Western society and still in use in the Third World today, were humans born of humans, no science required. Field effects are entirely different; build a robot out of lightning and nothing more solid. You don't want nano or biotech for that; you want quantum physics, and lots of 'em.

The Transformers are mechanoids. They might be bordering on psychodroids (they seem to act like beings with souls), but (at least in the cartoons) they don't heal, they need repairs, etc, so I'll say their principles are generally understood. Their shape is Transformer; their principle is Mechanoid (maybe with a Psychodroid brain).

But I stand by my classifications. If you shoot a hole in a robot, it will look very different with each Operating Principle, and some may be vulnerable in ways that others aren't. Cross-reference these with all the shapes I could come up with, and you'll find a great deal of diversity.

Operating Principles and Damage
Or, What Happens When You Shoot It

- Mechanoids: Spit sparks and oil. Cogs and wires may fly about. Robot is disadvantaged/disabled until it can reach a repair facility.
- Psychodroids: Spit sparks or shatter like ceramic tiles. Their systems are, by definition, beyond our understanding and probably work on a molecular level. Robot probably screams in pain, but may be able to heal itself with time.
- Biologicals: Bleed, haemmorhage, possibly suffer internal damage and/or broken bones. If the wound isn't serious, or they get medical attention, they'll recover. Just like us, really.
- Syntho-biologicals: As biologicals, but the blood is a freaky colour and there may be stranger-looking organs in places you don't expect them.
- Nanocolonies: Big, wet hole; globs of liquid metal or similar stuff go flying. If the nanocolony is particularly intramobile, the gobs crawl back and the wound seals itself up almost instantly.
- Field effects: Difficult to say. What happens when you shoot lightning? The lightning tends to melt your bullets. If you do manage to put a hole in one of these, chances are it'll explode in a traditional ball of fire and be utterly destroyed. But chances are also good it'll laugh at you and reform like an intramobile nanocolony.
- Virtuals: Your computer spits sparks and becomes useless. If the virtual robot wasn't stored on your hard drive, it's just fine - it simply had an internet connection failure.

By comparison, the Shape category simply defines how it falls down after you shoot it.

 

[tecnowraith]

Another thougfht I had that might be more simplified is do it by degrees of level or something, can not think of the right term for it. The way I was thinking was from standard to exotic with 4 to 6 total of degree levels (not sure yet). Example would like R2-D2 would a standard robot and nanotech or the T1000 would be an exotic robot.

 

[s/LaSH]

That's certainly a valid way of going about it, although tech levels are fairly much independant of my strict classification methods. Most people would consider biological robots to be a far-future concept, but the word 'robot' is taken from the Romanian word for 'slave', which we've had since history began. Also, technology shows a suprising propensity for adapting with time; consider the traditional TV/monitor screen, a cathode ray tube. Plasma, projection, and LCD (liquid crystal display) screens have recently burst onto the scene - but the CRT remains dominant, because it can be tuned and upgraded. Or the internal combustion engine, which has had one or two little performance tweaks in the past century, and isn't very different to the steam engine it succeeded, despite the fact that we now have electrics, turbojets, solid-fuel rockets, and ion drives to make things go fast.

That said, I can imagine a few stages.

Stage 0: Preindustrial. Slaves and domesticated animals - 'biologicals'.

Stage 1: Steam. Slaves and animals remain; primitive mechanoid automatons surface, but they must be controlled manually and can't be counted as robots.

Stage 2: Electronics. For the first time, logical control circuits can be implanted into automata, and mechanoid robots are properly born. Slaves are no longer necessary, but remain popular in many regions of the world. Late in this stage, virtual robots become viable, and are often smarter and more useful than mechanoids. We are at this stage today.

Stage 3: Molecular Science. Composite materials, genetic engineering, and microengineering emerge. This means that you can get syntho-biologicals (there are current plans for a submarine that swims like an eel), designed biologicals (all that fuss about GE in the press in recent years? It's nothing compared to what we could be doing), primitive nanites (still mechanoids - ever see Jake 2.0? The single nanomachines don't really act as a single entity), and maybe even psychodroids (we are seeing the first stages of this today, as 'black box' circuit design is responsible for our modern computers; people still direct the creative process, but computers put the incredibly-complex chip designs together. A mechanical equivalent is certainly possible).

Mechanoids and virtuals are still present. Bios and syntho-bios may be more efficient in some fields (the swimming submarine, frex), but there's nothing to compete with virtuals (which leads me to believe there could be more subdivisions thereof, but the field isn't really developed yet), and mechanoids have the advantage that they can be incredibly strong; composite materials will only enhance this. A human arm is not as strong as a comparable pneumatic or hydraulic press, is it? It's more flexible and can self-heal, but the press is much stronger.

Stage 4: System Science. I see this coming by the end of this century. Through understanding of complex systems, people can put together things that we'd consider hideously unreliable and make them work. Nanocolonies and primitive field effects probably come about at this point. Black Box AI and precision machining will create good psychodroids, too.

However, once again, the other types of robot won't die out. Mechanoids are strong (and getting stronger, with advanced self-repair systems and super energy sources available). Bios and synths may be outclassed by nanocolonies, but then again, nanocolonies may experience unforseen problems and have to adopt a synth layout (consider that vertebrates have lungs (or gills) to support their size - we need oxygen fuel to operate, and we can't just scoop it out of the air like insects to, we're too big). Or maybe bios are still the most reliable way to produce certain goods, like modern bacterial cultures to produce medical products like insulin. Virtuals will still be around, and probably hopping into bodies with the right control systems - many of them will be sentient beings with civil rights, I expect.

Stage 5: Postquantum. A daring title, but I think it's valid. This stage sees refinement of the other robot types, of course, but it also sees field effect robots come into their own. Rather than primitive plasma bottles or whatever, we'll be seeing things that really make us think 'whuh?'. Virtual robots may merge in function with field effect robots, able to step in and out of cyberspace at will. Field effect robots will be capable of doing things we don't even want to think about. The world will be very different indeed...

So there you have my timeline. It can probably be stopped at a certain point, claiming that technology hits a brick wall. In fact, if you don't want to start researching posthumanism and quantum physics, you'd be well advised to stop it somewhere and implement only minor advances within a Stage. But I felt like being mouthy.

 

[tecnowraith]

Its close to what I am thinking but I am not using the term "tech levels" but a something else. Not sure the actual term for it though but it's not tech level per-say.

 

[tecnowraith]

Ok a friend help me remember where i got the the style of classification I will using. I will be doing something similar to Monte Cooks' players handbook. It will be three categories; simple, complex and exotic. Each siginifies how unique and common a robot is each within a nantion or continent. Like nanotech will be classified under exotic and an android would be complex. I am not sure if want to have just the 3 cagetories or more.

 

[s/LaSH]

Ah, that makes sense. I think it should be OK with three rarity levels. You could retitle them Commercial, Proprietary, and Prototype. (You might have a fourth level, Outdated, for things that have been passed by but still see use in distant rural areas.)

It'd be interesting to move between regions, too. Take modern Afghanistan: the AK47 would be simple, a decent truck complex, and an internet cafe exotic, while the USA would treat the cafe as simple, a robot welding arm as complex, and the ability to wipe out all life on Earth with plutonium and sea water as exotic. If you see what I mean - this division is likely to continue into the robotic future.

 

[tecnowraith]

Ok now here is another question. Are or were there any stories/novels with robots set in alternate Earth 1940's?