1. they were built for specific roles and purposes, with a mechanical core of systems, surrounded by synthetic flesh. As such, they were stronger and more durable than your average human, though capable of feeling pain and emotion.2. they typically began to develop individual traits and idiosynchrosies within the first few weeks of being teamed with a human owner/partner. It mainly depended on the level of interaction with their human.
3. functionally immortal. They could be killed in combat or through accidents, but their personal data was a "black box" about the size of a human heart. Some of the anti-android activists (ie: the terrorist branches) had tried to capture and reprogram personacom into killing machines. The best human minds had failed to be able to overwrite this personal data, and there were no hardwired Three Laws Of Robotics that kept the androids sent after their fallen member from severely hurting the terrorists responsible.To destroy the "electronic soul" of a personacom required that heart be destroyed in an area that the "deathcry" transmission could be completely blocked. Even so, many of the personacoms either made backups or shared data with others prior to going into hazardous situations.
4. They were as strong or fast or tough as they were designed to be. A pilot unit was not as physically imposing as a pure combat model, but likely better at hand-to-hand than a typical domestic model.
Despite all their strengths, all the various artipersons had some problems. On Earth, most of the countries failed to recognize them as individuals. If they were not owned, they were free to whoever picked them up. As they were legally property, merely viewed as intelligent toasters or talking computers, damaging destroying one was a minor crime that was not even prosecutable in some regions. That they felt pain or could be harmed was besides the point.
Any of them which had even minor combat ability, which was the majority of them since even a purely Domestic unit likely could lift in excess of 500kg, had to be registered as weapons in places like the United States and Great Britain. In other areas altogether - parts of the Middle East and South America - they were completely banned except for in port areas.
There were weapons that had been developed specifically to deal with them since an unfortunate incident with a Chinese "fishing vessel" (hardly anyone bought the Chinese government's insistence that the ship in question with its EMP cannon and crew of engineers was actually a simple fishing trawler whose engines had mysteriously cut out before landing at Animeland) in the last decade of the 20th Century. The average unit could be injured easily enough by guns, knives, and the like.
Artipersons, whether they were robot-shaped or androids or the top-of-the-line personacoms were all "people persons" - they preferred the company of a human to their own company, though many of them were friends with other units it was with a human partner as the "hub" of that relationship.
There were also the anti-tech groups. They felt that this new technology was wrong and should be banned and that only humans were alive and should have any rights at all. Earth first, foremost, and only - and only for humans.
Finally was the most recent problem to hit the Cyberdyne products. "Personacom addiction" - which hit a number of human owners of these individuals. They simply got so wrapped up in their partner that they couldn't focus on anything else.
Ranma/Hiro wasn't likely to do that, he felt. For all that he as Hiro knew they were "people" - to Ranma they were just machines. Right?
Except that looking at the girl in the tube, he suddenly wasn't so sure.
She looked human. As her power came up and she came out of stasis mode, she began breathing and her eyes twitched. Slowly she stretched.
Hiro knew it was only an approximation of breathing. That the stretching was just part of a checklist as the unit determined which systems were functioning. Then she looked up at him.
"Master?" The voice was soft and uncertain. At Hiro's nod, her eyes seemed to luminesce slightly.
The Hiro part of Ranma informed him that the unit was scanning him in several wavelengths and manners - imprinting on him. Where the relationship would go would depend on him and how he interacted with her.
It? Her?
Whatever the case, he was curious to see how much this unit acted like the character she was modelled after:
(Posted Thu, 09 Jan 2003 12:22)
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