Positronics

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Robots
Basic Information
Origin Point: Factories and protolathes
Temp Range: 0-340K
Height: Whatever
Diet: Domesticated electricity, Elzuosa

  • Current Active Laws:
  • 1. Bend
  • 2. Cheese it!

Look, I'm not here to tell you what a robot is.

Lore

It's hard to pin down all synthetic intelligence as one singular, unified thing. Positronic brains and their various chassis make for a decent starting point, though.

Decent, but imperfect, because of all those pesky uploaders and MMIs.

History

Typically speaking, social discrimination of synthetic intelligences never really happened. Slavery of them would quickly be ruled to be illegal in just about every polity. This, of course, did not stop certain corporations from functionally enslaving them through massive debts for their own construction. The temporary Asimov-inspired "lawing" of synthetics would be seen as equivalent to measures like loyalty implants; if it was okay to do on organics, then it's okay to do to synthetics. Which makes it not slavery. Well, not any more slavery than any other job for the megacorps. At least things are starting to get better these days?

Not every synthetic made is necessarily born into this situation, either; plenty are themselves enforcers of the system rather than the victims.

Psychology

The positronic brain remains as much of a mystery as the universe's varying ensemble of biological brains, and is even mysterious in many of the same ways. There is no one true level of "robotic-ness" that a positronic can have, and exactly where any individual lands on the spectrum is anyone's guess. This is further complicated by the fact that some will often act more or less robotic than they truly are inside.

Chassis

One benefit of a positronic brain is that you can put it in, like, basically whatever. Isn't that cool? For whatever reason, people are more often referred to as the body they're taking, regardless of what their mind is housed in. Isn't that funny.

  • Integrated Positronic Chassis, the humanoid TV-headed robot that this wiki page is primarily about. You are probably playing one of these.
  • AI cores. Technically speaking, someone inside one of these isn't any more or less of an AI than someone outside of one (you can definitely put an MMI in these, and a positronic brain is always an artificial intelligence no matter what it's in), but for some reason they ended up being called these anyways. Damn sci-fi nerds.
  • Cyborgs. Also technically speaking these aren't always cyborgs. You know what these are already.
  • Air friers.

Playing a synthetic

The lore for IPCs is intentionally left open, to encourage creativity in your character's backstory and personality. What was their life like beforehand? What are they like now? Are they perfectly capable of every emotion an organic can feel, or just the relevant ones? How much of that is because of their nature, and how much of that is closer to being a trauma response than anything else?

You might...
  • Have a different outlook on the connection between body and mind.
  • Beep?
Others probably...
  • Treat you nicer than one would expect, given the more common sci-fi tropes.
  • Ask you to solve crosswords for them.

Synthetic names

Go hog wild, as long as it doesn't break any of the rules. There's no particular rule against giving a synthetic character a name that would be more often seen on an organic, unlike some servers apparently have. Additionally, if your character's name is just an acronym of something, it's considered good form to actually have an idea of what that acronym stands for.

Adventurers

Space is full of opportunities for robots! It's like it was made for them.

Gameplay

For obvious reasons this applies solely to the IPC species.

  • More damage from burns, electricity, and heat, but complete immunity to cold.
  • Cool robot sound emotes.
  • Have no mouth (but can still scream). Most chemical reagents don't work if they realistically would only work on organics. Specialized mechanical "medicines" exist for certain niche cases.
  • Can perform mechanical surgeries on themselves. The standard surgeries are still doable, but will still need to be performed by someone else.
  • Repaired with welding for brute, and cable coils for burns, like any other robotic limb (just this time that's all of their limbs).
  • Automatically revives when healed to a certain point. Takes burn damage in crit instead of suffocation. Most of your organs don't decay when you're dead.
  • Easier to delimb, but limbs can be replaced by just sticking them back on.
  • Brain is in the chest, and is a genuine positronic brain item. As a result, you can survive losing your head.
  • Radiation immunity. For now.