A-Z Blogging challenge: R is for… Robotics

Posted August 5, 2015

Robotics

Advancement in science and technology in our present day lives makes robotics within science fiction all the more real – whether it’s a child toy, an android or an evil legion of robots taking over the planet (think Terminator).

For this blog post I shall concentrate on robots in the ‘human’ form.


RUR

On  25th January 1921, Karel Capek’s presented R.U.R (Rosumovi Univerzální Roboti). A play featuring cyborg (biological) like robots, who at first seem content to work for humans, but a revolt begins and their rebellion seeks to end humankind.

Sound familiar?

It should, robot forms advancing their intelligence, becoming discontent and destroying the Earth/Mankind seems to be quite a popular plot within science fiction:

Do androids dream of electric sleep by Philip K.Dick (Blade Runner inspiration)

The Humanoids by Jack Williamson

I, Robot by Issac Asimov

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson


Our imagination with regards to these complex A Soul's Worthrobotic automatons doesn’t stop there though. In T.S.Barnett’s A Soul’s WorthWarren makes life like automatons within a Victorian London setting and sells them for an ever increasing price. While his ethics slide, his secret lover, Ben, is a ‘moral compass.’ The problem being that his creations aren’t automatons at all but ‘Golems given life by witchcraft – and each one costs a human soul.


Android Hunters

In Jonathan Bergeron’s Android Hunters, a hard science fiction / space opera, the ‘take over and destruction’ of man has already happened, resulting in elite four person teams known as Android Intelligence and Removal Specialists (AIRS) from hunting them down in a world of ‘androids, android hunters, a crime syndicate, an alien cybernetic virus, and an android who doesn’t know what she is…’


 

 

 

 


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