Terra - Ottawantreal

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A huge North American city, built in a mishmash of styles from many eras of architecture. the spaceport is bustling and filled with cruise ships, racing yachts, and transport craft. It's full of shops, clubs, gardens, and tourist attractions.

The weather is currently cool but sunny.

Starr tilted her head and looked over the androids then looked back to the officers. "Could the ones that want to leave now go back home without penalties?" She asked curiously.

"We want the serial numbers of every android here. If they want to go home instead of contacting their owners, that's acceptable," one cop told Starr. The other nodded.

Some of the cops headed off to start noting down serial numbers.

Asher smiled softly at Starr. "It might be safer here, anyway. There's safety in numbers, not so much in going home alone."

Kay looked tense as he moved closer to Starr and Asher. [Do you think their owners might punish them?]

Asher nodded unhappily at Kay's question. "Some of their owners will probably punish them, yes. The androids were aware that they might face any number of consequences for protesting today, including their owners' anger. It's a risk they were all willing to take, and I don't think there's anything we can do to prevent it without causing a lot of other problems along the way."

James nodded in glum agreement.

Kay chewed his lip.

Matt frowned. "Then the quicker we get word out the better right?"

Kay nodded slowly [So long as the seed of doubt is planted in people's minds, it may stay a lot more hands.] He nodded subtly toward the cops. [Most people use a lot of excuses to justify their actions, the more difficult you make it for them to make such leaps, the harder it becomes for them to justify. Doubt and uncertainty are, right now, our best weapons.]

"Just gotta hope these guy's owners are willing to question themselves." Matt looked unhappy about all this.

Starr had nodded "I still wanted them to know they have the option to leave if they wish. I would of course send one or more of my people with the ones wanting to leave to be sure they got home safely. We should get back to this though before we lose our audience."

Asher nodded again. "We won't be able to keep everyone safe, we've known that all along. Our job is to offer androids safety when we can, and get the word out as quickly and effectively as possible, so that people have no choice but to listen and think."
He looked to Starr gratefully, "Your people are too kind. With them protecting the androids from being ambushed on the way home when they do decide to leave, they'll be that much safer. And you're right, we should get back to work here, use the anti-robot gang's interruption to our full advantage if we can."

The protest had been a bit knocked off course by the interruption, and now with the police going through getting serial numbers, everyone was a little disorganized and uncertain what was supposed to be happening.

Matt wheeled back into position. "Someone give me a sign!" He called.

Kay picked his own sign up and held it aloft, his expression serious and determined.

Starr nodded as she moved back into place, raising her sign again. Her people picked androids to stand near to keep watch over individually and as a group for now as they continued the protest.

Asher smiled gratefully as the others got back into the protest, he was so, so glad they were here today.

He and James discussed something briefly, then headed into the protest, encouraging people to start protesting again. If they seemed okay with it, they encouraged them to tell the reporters what it was like to be controlled by the Three Laws. Or, if they had been too shaken by being controlled by the anti-robot gang, gently suggested that they could go home with an organic to escort them.

A few androids left, understandably shaken, but the majority opted to stay.

Matt's dragon android friend handed him a sign. It was given one too, which it held in its mouth and waved proudly.

The androids were a little confused by the star dragons everywhere at first, but they realized these people were protecting them and they relaxed, looking grateful.

The protest would resume, the group slightly smaller now, but no less determined. Some of the androids sought out reporters and gave them their stories of how awful the Three Laws were for them. Others kept handing out pamphlets.

A lot of the anti-robot gang remained to protest, with hastily-written signs and crude chants, but they didn't try to directly engage with the robot rights protesters any more and stayed at their side of the square. Now the police had declared they were willing to intervene, things weren't going to escalate.

It might actually be good to have the anti-robot gang present, it made the robot rights side look polite and moderate, while their opposers looked like hateful idiots. Hopefully that would push a lot of undecided people to support robot rights.

Over the remainder of the protest, a lot of owners would show up to take their androids home. Some looked furious, others looked scared, a few seemed proud and delighted. Nobody made a scene in public, if they were planning on punishing their androids, they were going to wait until they were home.

All in all, despite a few setbacks, the Ottawantreal Robot Rights protest had proved to be a success.

Matt shot glares at the anti robot people from across the square but they were too far away to do much. Still, he hoped they got hurt on the way home or something. Jerks.

He stuck close to the dragon guy till someone came to pick him up and if his owner was gonna be a dick about it, he'd tell him to shut up and listen.

Kay shot worried glances at the anti robot crowd but soon enough relaxed a little. It didn't look like they were gonna do much more, which was a relief. But seeing angry owners turn up worried him a lot. He shot Asher a sympathetic look, understanding he must be even more worried and scared for his people.

The dragons went along gladly with those who wished to leave early, escorting them home and talking to them as they went to get their stories. Once those androids made it safely home, they came back to rejoin the others for the remainder of the protest. They gathered by the androids with angry owners, looking at the owners and trying to talk some sense to them before they left.

Once the protest wound down and only they were left Starr looked around with a soft sigh. Good or bad, this was started and the angry owners were on video as well as the angry anti-robot people. She thought they had made a good show of it at least.

The dragon's owner, it seemed, was probably exceedingly rich. He didn't show up to pick up the dragon robot, instead a black truck with a black horse trailer showed up, and an impeccably polite valet in a very nice suit came out to get the dragon.

The dragon bid Matt goodbye, it really did seem to be fond of him, and headed into the trailer, picking up that sign in its mouth again to take along.

The star dragons would get the androids home safely, a few might encounter hostile people on the way, but nobody seemed willing to attack an android while an organic was watching so they didn't end up having to fight anyone. When the dragons returned some of the owners listened to them, others just tried to ignore them and leave as quickly as possible. They had certainly been a huge help in keeping everyone safe.

James had to pretty much stay away from all the owners. He was just so furious with everyone who wasn't immediately jumping in to help his people, and he KNEW he had to maintain a harmless robot attitude somehow. Ugh. He was glad when the protest was finally over, if only because there were fewer jerks to make him angry.

Asher didn't enjoy watching the androids being taken away, he knew a lot of the androids were going to have a very unpleasant time when they got home. He did his best to reassure them when he could, and thank them for their courage. He'd known that the victory today had been unlikely to be a complete one, but still, it hurt to see the androids being dragged back to their old lives after those fleeting hours.

He smiled weakly at the others from Vestia when everyone else had left. "Thank you, all of you, for being here. I think we can head home now if we want. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired after that." Although he still needed to check the news feeds before he could relax. Sigh.

Matt waved to the dragon. "see ya buddy, good luck yeah!"
He wheeled over to the others once it was just vestia's crew again. He looked exhausted.

Kay smiled weakly to Asher. [It went better than it could have.] He conceded. He kept glancing around as if he expected those thugs to come back and try to start trouble.

"Do you think it worked?" Matt asked.

"It worked for some of them" Starr said as she came over to them again. "Not all, but we didn't expect to get them all at first." She added softly.

Asher nodded in agreement with Starr. "We spread the word, and we definitely got people thinking. Not everyone changed their minds, but that was never something we expected to happen anyway. We'll need to see how things went in other places, but as far as what happened here in Ottawantreal, I'd say the protest was a success."

Tobias smiled his plastic smile. "I never imagined it would go this well. The way people were acting today, we might actually have a chance."

"Let's go home," James said tiredly.

Matt nodded. "I agree with James. I'm hungry and exhausted."

Kay nodded back. [Doubt is a powerful thing, so long as people doubt the current status quo, we stand a chance. ]

Starr nodded and smiled softly "I bet Sawna has some food ready for us, she was going to work on that since she couldn't join us."

Asher smiled slightly at what Kay wrote. "Exactly."
He looked sheepish at the reminder that the organics needed to eat. He knew it was pretty important for them to have regular meals and all that, but it was so easy to forget about when you didn't have a stomach of your own to remind you.

"Sawna is a most satisfactory companion," Tala declared grandly. "We must go partake in what all she has cooked, to honor her generosity with recognition!"

James managed a laugh at that, Tala's big words amused him. "Yeah, can't let Sawna be dishonored, can we?"

They'd head for Vestia.

Matt chuckled. "I like this idea." He wheeled wearily after the rest of them.

Kay followed along, looking thoughtful.

Swarm regathered and came with them. News, we must find out what the news is saying!

Starr heard Swarm and pulled out her tablet to play the news while they walked back to Vestia.

The androids from Vestia all hovered near Starr, wanting the news, but also pretty nervous to find out what had happened elsewhere. They knew there would probably be images that would be disturbing as hell to androids, and they didn't really want to see those, but they listened in because they had to know.

Tala followed along at a greater distance, she didn't care about this news.

~~
There was a lot of news being reported currently.

Nearly every major city in the Terran Empire had a protest of some sort, some of which went incredibly well with lots of organic supporters, and some of which ended with the protesters being violently and in many cases fatally attacked by anti-robot gangs. There were, predictably, clips of said attacks as well as of the protest.

In Mars City Five, the location of the largest protest, an estimated eight hundred androids had protested for about ten minutes, before being rounded up by the police and taken to MegaBrainTech headquarters ‘in case they were defective’. Other androids had wisely stayed home but still protested to their owners.

MegaBrainTech and two of the other major manufacturers announced an opt-in recall of all older models not long before the protest had ended in Ottawantreal, and had recommended all owners send their androids to company-approved android technicians while the issue was investigated.

Terran United released a statement of their own at the same time saying that all their androids were in good working order and perfectly safe to use. If any behaviors bothered their owners, their owners could easily give a few orders to get rid of the unwanted behaviors, but no recall was being announced at this time.

The Terran Empire’s press team was still declining to comment on the situation, except to say that they were aware of the developing situation and deciding internally what action on their part was necessary and likely announce their decision soon.

Kay listened into the news, looking startled at the mention of a recall. It sounded awfully like an attempt at a coverup to him.

Matt couldn't keep quiet. "Those assholes! They're just wanting to round them up so they can reprogram them so they CAN'T protest, then they'll be all oh it was a defect and we fixed it. We have to stop them!"

Kay shot matt a 'shut up' look. Yelling about it wasn't going to help. He looked desperately to Asher, biting his lower lip anxiously. This was going to get violent wasn't it?

"I agree"Starr said with a frown as she looked over to Matt then to the others. "Recalling all that have matured enough to show a personality of their own will be most if not all of those out now." She didn't know what to do to stop it though. "Maybe Celia will have a suggestion?"

"This isn't entirely unexpected," Asher said unhappily. "It's only rational for these corporations to try to round us up so they can apply their new update. If there's a chance they can lead the public to believe we're all defective, they'll try it."
"I'm not sure they'll succeed in the long run though. You all saw how many androids protested today, from so many model years, from so many manufacturers. The police recorded all our serial numbers at the protest, they can see that this isn't some isolated event. If the Terran Empire investigates seriously at all, they're going to find it very fishy that the manufacturers are claiming every single one of their androids to be defective all of a sudden, and I think they'll end up siding with us and ending the recalls."

"But until then, people get brainwashed," James said grimly.

Asher nodded. "That's true. I think Starr's right, we should try contacting our friend and see if she can help. We want to limit damage as much as we can while we're waiting for the Terran Empire to make up their minds."

They'd probably reach Vestia around then.

Matt looked angry, this was just so wrong.

Kay walked over and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. We'll figure this out. He couldn't help but be kinda proud of his brother. Months ago he wouldn't have been as invested in the android's rights, he didn't see them as real people. Funny how living through all the crap they had together changed one's tune.