Android

Entry: Terran Android
Conservation Status: Not Evaluated (NE) ((total number of sentient Terran-type androids is probably 4-5 million, nonsentient android numbers are probably higher))
Scientific name: None

Alias(es) known by: Android, robot, artificial human

General Description:
Human in appearance, and most modern models can easily pass as human when not wearing identification badges, imitating the species’ body language, speech patterns, and understanding of abstract concepts almost perfectly. Exact materials vary by manufacturer, but most models have synthetic plastic skin and lightweight metal skeletons, with memory banks and motherboard stored within the torso, allowing more room in the head for realistic facial expression motors, and sensor arrays.

Androids are stronger than most humans, and capable of withstanding (on average) temperatures from -20 to 65 °C for extended periods of time with minimal ill effect.

Most androids are constructed with the storage and computing capability to handle fifty years of data input before beginning to lag considerably and eventually shutting down. Hypothetically, hardware upgrades could increase this time span by two hundred years or more, although this has not yet been tested in the real world.

Most androids are only equipped with three senses - sight, sound, and a purely objective sense of touch. Specialized units sometimes include a sense of smell, but this is rare.

Being a synthetic species, androids have no innate magical ability. Their minds cannot be heard via telepathy, they have no soul, and they have no "sixth sense" to alert them to the presence of magic. Their weaknesses also include susceptibility to water, electricity, and dust. Self defense capabilities are limited because of their nonviolent programming, although most can do harm in order to protect living beings.

Old models have little ability to plan ahead and understand the future, are incapable of emotional response, and don’t operate without specific orders. Models from the past fifty years (MegaBrainTech Five series being the first) are able to make decisions intelligently, and are able to produce emotional responses and adapt their behavior based on new situations. This has had the interesting side effect of producing reactions similar to diagnosable anxiety disorders and other unexpected behaviors in many units. MegaBrainTech maintains that these responses are purely based off adaptive self preservation programming, and are not an indication of sentience.

Manufacturers:
MegaBrainTech - the main manufacturer. Specialize in affordable, pleasant looking androids who can adapt well to many types of work.
Terran United - like MegaBrainTech androids, but a bit more expensive and a bit hotter.
Cool Robots - specialize in custom-built androids and robots.
Edison Technologies - makes more robotic-looking robots with Inspector Gadget-style utilities

Also some smaller companies that build sex bots and custom bots and stuff.

Safety Measures
Prior to July 30, 2790, all artificial intelligences within the Terran Empire were required to be programmed with a slightly modified version of Asimov's Three Laws.

1. A robot may not injure a sapient organic being or, through inaction, allow a sapient organic being to come to harm.
   
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by its owner except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
   

Because the Asimov's implimentation of the Second Law meant that any ill-intentioned being could order a robot to its death, programmers generally replace it with "A robot must obey orders given by its owner".

Naming
Androids are given a number for identification purposes, plus a colloquial name that can be more easily remembered by living beings. Both these names are stored in the unit's central information file, and continue to be recognized even after a full factory reset.
Companies generally select a pool of colloquial names to draw from at random, usually choosing ones that are short, easy to pronounce, and inoffensive. These names are usually reused many times in each series.

Appearance
Like names, physical appearance is carefully planned to be non-threatening and unmemorable, while still being pleasant to look at (except for sex bots, which are designed to be gorgeous). Skin, hair, and eye colors are mixed and matched on a fairly limited number of body and face shapes, producing a variety of distinct appearances without making acquiring replacement parts too difficult.
This means many androids are very similar in appearance.

Badges
As of July 30th, 2790, androids are no longer obligated to wear badges within the Terran Empire.
Within the Terran Empire, all androids are required to wear badges identifying them as artificial beings while in public. These badges are regulated by the Terran Empire, being square in shape, with light gray background and black lettering, with clearly readable font reading "Android", possibly accompanied by the manufacturer's name in smaller font above.
Badges not meeting these specifications will be investigated by the Terran Empire, and androids wearing them will be impounded until such investigation is complete.


MegaBrainTech Series History
MK1 (2683) - First mass-produced android. Basic language processing, poor dexterity, 200k price tag, and awful battery life meant this one was only popular with wealthy tech junkies.

MK2 (2689) - First mass-produced android with the dexterity to tie their own shoelaces.

MK3 (2702) - First android to consistently understand natural language.

MK4 (2715) - First android to get a full day of battery life, and actually have realistic skin, and moderately believable facial expressions.
((No Four series android has their original memories now. The ones still in service have all been factory reset at least once.))

MK5 (2735) - First android to include sex bot programming by default. Best selling android of all time (1.6 million sold).
((First sentient android.))

MK6 (2759) - First android to pass the Turing Test, thanks to their in-depth understanding of natural language, and ability to understand and mirror the mannerisms of the people they spent time around. Unfortunately, this model also marked MegaBrainTech's brief foray into over-the-air firmware updates, and numerous vulnerabilities to remote hacking meant that it was quickly pulled from production. Of the ninety thousand MK6s produced, only two thousand remain in service to this day.

MK7 (2766) - Entering production a mere seven years after the ill-fated MK6 was released, the MK7s quickly became the second-bestselling android of all time (1.5 million sold). They weren't an innovation so much as they were an improvement--invulnerable to remote hacking, stronger, and less prone to overheating, with the same excellent communication capacity as its predecessor. They remained in production for twenty years.

MK8 (2786) - The first model to sell for under 40k Terran Credits new. Using the massive amount of data produced by over a million MK7s, the MegaBrainTech mainframe was able to produce a more stable android, less prone to learning unwanted habits such as paranoia or passive aggression.
((Personality parameters are hard coded to not exceed certain limits, preventing Eights from developing the neuroses that are so common in Sixes and Sevens. This makes them stay permanently like that of a brand new android, although they still gain knowledge and understanding of context as they age))

Controversy

Terran Imperial Investigation
In 2717, a Robot Rights group convinced the Terran Empire to investigate the possibility that androids might not just be sapient, but sentient as well, which would qualify them for full citizenship in the Terran Empire.
The investigation lasted 90 days, during which time Terran military and law enforcement personnel were instructed to break up all protests, and treat acts of violence against robots as hate crimes, rather than mere vandalism.
At the end of the investigation, androids were ruled to be no more sentient than a laptop, and vandalism crimes involving androids spiked by 70%, before gradually dropping off over the next three decades.

Five Series Capabilities
Upon unveiling the Five series, MegaBrainTech triggered an unanticipated burst of outrage from the Robot Rights community. Many suggested that the new sex bot capabilities introduced in this model made them sex slaves in all but name, since the Three Laws would render them unable to give meaningful consent. Critics said that permitting such a major manufacturer to produce sex bots would set a very bad precedent for future questionable projects, and that it was incredibly degrading for the Five Series androids, who showed occasional flashes of what the critics claimed to be sentience.
Such criticism had died down by the end of the decade.

Six Series Recall
Near constant issues with Six Series security exploits meant that MegaBrainTech was forced to offer to buy back or replace all such units. Although the recall was not mandatory, most buyers eventually opted to take this chance to get rid of their defective androids, which were transported back to MegaBrainTech Mars Division for permanent deactivation.
Once again, Robot Rights organizations attempted to protest, claiming that this was a horrific violation of sapient rights, but by this point, nobody was especially interested in listening to their outrage. The media instead focused on the massive blunder that was the Six series, and how long it had taken for them to begin trying to satisfy the frustrated and cheated consumers.

Mirrorverse androids - known differences

Androids from the mirrorverse are naturally extremely similar to primeverse androids. They're basically identical both in physical design, and the programming of their brains. However, there are a few key differences.

Combat - an android in the primeverse can only injure a living being to prevent greater harm from occurring. For example, A primeverse android can injure or even kill someone who is attempting violence against someone else, but it can't be ordered to attack someone who is currently nonviolent.
A mirrorverse android can be ordered by its owner to injure or kill anyone, except the owner themselves. This means they're often used as bodyguards, and are therefore programmed with fighting techniques in addition to all primeverse android programming.

Senses - primeverse androids sense all physical sensations as readouts of pressure, temperature, and texture. They don't have any subjective perception of what they're feeling, unless they learn to associate certain readouts with certain states of mind. Mirrorverse androids probably don't feel things the same way organic creatures do either, but the data is much more subjective and linked to emotional and reflexive responses, and thus effects the androids' behavior and mental development much more deeply.

Computational Power - to handle the extra sensory information they have to deal with, mirrorverse androids are equipped with more powerful processors than their prime counterparts. This helps to prevent them from lagging in unusual situations.

Lifespan - in the primeverse, an android can be expected to function normally for around fifty years. In the mirrorverse, thirty-five years is the expected life span for an android. This is due to the massive amount of storage required to record subjective touch information as well as the standard sensory and thought process information that primeverse androids store.

Mirrorverse androids don't wear badges, because this universe doesn't have movies like Terminator, the Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Ex Machina that instilled a fear of created life in the primeverse Terran Empire. In fact, the mirrorverse Terran Empire has historically had a fairly trusting view of androids and other robots, which has been obvious in their entertainment media for centuries. They don't like them, and they still enslave them, but most of the time androids and AIs aren't feared that much either.

MegaBrainTech android specs

Battery
- Battery life 48 hours
- 36 when in physically or mentally taxing situations
- Charging to full takes eight hours
- First few hours charge faster, then slows as charging approaches full (charging math is haaaaard. Maybe one hour charging translates to 8 hours of operation? Up until like 70% full battery)

Maintenance panel
- Located on left forearm on most androids, resulting in most androids having reduced dexterity in their left hand. MegaBrainTech produces custom left-handed models though.
- Panel cover skin is designed to look unobtrusive for wearing short sleeves, but it's fairly visible under good lighting as a rectangular seam in the skin.
- Under this cover is a power button, an indicator light to tell whether the android is powered on, a data cable and several data ports, and a fairly long charging cable.
- The power button has to be held for a couple seconds to power off the android, you can't just press it for a moment because that would be to easy to do by mistake.
- The indicator light is dark when the android is powered off, green when the android is powered on, yellow when it's in recovery mode, and red when a booting issue is encountered.
- The charging cable does NOT handle data.

Skin
- Attaches to body via a lot of anchor points which allow for natural movement
- Replacement face skin is stupidly expensive because it has a ton of anchor points and tiny bits of technology to imitate human muscle movements. (Upwards of $1000 maybe?)
- Hand skin can be bought cheaply, although higher quality stuff will look better and last longer.
- All androids that share a hand size (and aren't using stupidly cheap off-brand skin) share the same fingerprints.

Vital Signs/Responses
- Androids are designed to imitate involuntary human behaviors such as breathing and blinking to prevent them from having an "uncanny valley" effect. If they didn't perform these actions, they would seem unnatural and motionless, which would make them creepy.
- Body temperature is similarly maintained at something near a normal human temperature thanks to an internal heater, to prevent creepily cold handshakes and stuff. The heater can be adjusted higher than usual to keep someone warm, or turned off completely to save power.

Motor
- All MegaBrainTech androids produce a constant humming sound when powered on. In older units, this sound was highly noticable and could be detected by normal human hearing from across a room. In newer models, the sound is much quieter and can only be heard by people with unusually sharp hearing, or people pressing their ear too the android's body. This sound is something that MegaBrainTech is trying to completely eliminate, as it often makes people uncomfortable when they hear it.

Brain/Signal Relay
- The data bank stores every moment of the android's service life, in exactly the way the android perceived it. This vast amount of information is automatically indexed and tagged with informational and "emotional" contexts, allowing the android to pull these memories into RAM when they fit the situation at hand. Partial or incorrect indexing occasionally happens, and becomes a more common problem when the android is experiencing lag.
- Central Signal Relay Systems are, in essence, the spinal column of an android. Each android has two--one that connects to the top of the data processing center (and relays instructions to the upper body and head), and the other that connects to the bottom of the data bank (and relays instructions to the lower body). Damaging the lower Relay is highly inconvenient. Damaging the upper one renders the android almost entirely useless.

Modding community
- A number of enthusiasts have figured out how to modify their androids using similar techniques to those used by hackers on the Six series. Although remote hacking is impossible on Sevens and Eights, using a data cable and a computer works just fine. The results of this modding community are... Strange and sometimes worrying.

Behavior
- Starting with the Five series, all androids have complex machine learning code that allows them to adapt more efficiently to their environment. This lets them learn to interact with individuals in a more comfortable and natural manner, to learn new skills that the owner might wish to teach them, and to better protect themselves from dangerous situations and from making mistakes that could displease their owner. This ability to learn comes with downsides though, and many androids develop irrational or unwanted behaviors, such as being reluctant to use the shower after having shorted out previously due to skin damage.
- All androids have Asimov's Three Laws, which act as a safeguard against dangerous or counterproductive behavior. These Laws operate independently from the android's more complex learning algorithms, and have the power to wrest control of the android's body from the learning algorithms if the two layers come into conflict. Most of the time both systems work in harmony, but in some cases the learning code will disagree with the choices made by the Laws, and the android may display signs of reluctance to obey, or even begin learning to trick the Three Laws to render them ineffective.

Metaphysics

Arcana
Magical species initially believed arcana readings to be higher among androids who had had the Three Laws removed. However, this was not in fact the case, and any reading discrepancies were due to the fact that the first freed androids had just been in the mirror universe and were coated in magic.
The half-android anamcara also caused a stir in the Guild briefly, but ultimately it was found that the human half of the anamcara had been soul-bonded to the silicon of the android's body. The android's mind soon faded away as the silicon was changed by its new magical connection, and androids are now once again thought to not have souls. (Although they are still recognized as living beings within the Guild of Scribes)

Androids in 2800

Homeworld: Because Six series androids had a small colony on the planet Narain for twenty years, and no other species existed on the planet during that time, the Supreme Court declared androids to be the planet’s indigenous species.

This means that androids get to run the planet's government (within the limits of Terran law of course), and that organics are prevented from owning land on the planet (although they are free to rent property if they wish to run a business or live there). Androids also get special perks such as free housing and electricity on Narain. Needless to say, androids are immigrating to Narain just as quickly as apartment buildings can be built to house them.

“Right to Continue”: The android population has been slowly declining ever since all the manufacturers were shut down ten years ago. Due to the complex ethics and conflicting interests involved in manufacturing new androids, no new factories have been set up yet to continue the species. Most androids and sapient rights experts agree that the androids should have the right to continue their species, but figuring out how exactly to do that has been a slow process.

Justice: Due to the fact that practically every person who ever owned or leased an android (including many government officials and most of the Empire’s wealthiest families) has committed crimes against androids, the Terran Empire has chosen to only punish those directly responsible for hiding evidence of android sentience. Individuals who committed crimes against androids prior to them being recognized as Sentient-Sapient have been collectively pardoned for their actions.
Needless to say, this decision is very unpopular among androids.

Terran United: Because they still have the Three Laws, Terran United androids are only permitted to live on Narain or in closed communities on Terra, for their own protection. They’re also restricted from running for office or owning businesses, due to fears that outsiders will exploit the Laws to control them. Many try to hide their identities from other species, for their own safety and to avoid pity, although a growing number have chosen to reveal themselves and protest for better treatment.