Synthetics and Sophont Rights
- Thread starter Garnfellow
- Start date
Robot: A mechanically-based artifact engineered by sophonts.
Android: A biologically-based artifact engineered by sophonts.
Sophont: A biologically-based artifact engineered by the Ancients.
No reason an android is biologically based - it is just a human-shaped artificial being. No need for biological components per se, although that would make the human-seeming part probably easier.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
In Traveller androids are defined as biologically based artificial beings.
Anthropomorphic robots are not androids since they are mechanical rather than biological.
On the last page I quoted the original article on the subject by MWM, and T5 further reinforces that synthetics - biologically based constructs - may be anthropomorphic and thus are anthropoids (the gender neutral term rather than android - male, gynoid - female).
Anthropomorphic robots are not androids since they are mechanical rather than biological.
On the last page I quoted the original article on the subject by MWM, and T5 further reinforces that synthetics - biologically based constructs - may be anthropomorphic and thus are anthropoids (the gender neutral term rather than android - male, gynoid - female).
Garnfellow
SOC-13
This speaks to something I have been wrestling with for a while now -- in Traveller, what is the difference, if any, between synthetics and pseudo-biological robots? The term "android" has been applied to both types of constructs.
There seems to be a pretty major schism within canon. On one hand, there is Marc Miller's essay in JTAS 2 as well as his work in T5. In these places, "pseudo-biological" is not used: androids are artificially created, organic beings that cannot reproduce. This is consistent with Roger E Moore's article on "Androids in Traveller" from White Dwarf 30.
In T5, androids are a specific type of sophontoid fashioned in the form of a human; sophontoids in turn are simply synthetics fashioned in the form of a sophont. Synthetics are a generic term for
T5 said:
In T5, synthetics become viable at TL 13.
For whatever reason, the JTAS 2 article was ignored when CT Book 8 Robots was developed. This book introduces the term "pseudo-biological robot":
CT Book 8 said:
And from there, this terminology was adapted into MegaTraveller as well as T20, Traveller Hero, and at least Mongoose Traveller. (I have not checked TNE, GURPS, or T4.) In this line of canon, android = pseudo-biological robot. The MGT Robots Book (13 Mann), for example, has this: "So far, none of the manufacturing companies in the Third Imperium [of 1105] has started mass production of pseudo-biological robots or androids, but the technology has come to a point at which this would be possible" (6).
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
LBB:8 Robots was written by DGP.
It used the term pseudo-biological robot to describe AB-101, which they had introduced in their serial adventures in their Traveller's Digest magazine.
AB-101 is a mechanical robot made to resemble a real person, but since it is entirely mechanical and not biological it is not a Traveller anthropoid (android/gynoid).
It's almost as if the folks at DGP hadn't read Marc's original article or decided to just write about their interpretation of what had been written...
and it's almost as if subsequent authors didn't do their research.
MWM is clear in his original article in JTAS and in T5.
It used the term pseudo-biological robot to describe AB-101, which they had introduced in their serial adventures in their Traveller's Digest magazine.
AB-101 is a mechanical robot made to resemble a real person, but since it is entirely mechanical and not biological it is not a Traveller anthropoid (android/gynoid).
It's almost as if the folks at DGP hadn't read Marc's original article or decided to just write about their interpretation of what had been written...
and it's almost as if subsequent authors didn't do their research.
MWM is clear in his original article in JTAS and in T5.
My very simplistic take:
A pseudo-biological robot is a mechanical device with a biological exterior designed to mimic the sophont it was patterned on.
A sophontoid is an organic device which may contain some cybernetic parts and is grown to imitate the sophont it is patterned on.
A pseudo-biological robot is a mechanical device with a biological exterior designed to mimic the sophont it was patterned on.
A sophontoid is an organic device which may contain some cybernetic parts and is grown to imitate the sophont it is patterned on.
What about those Cylons?
As I read through this thread I couldn't help but think of the Cylons from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, and similar ideas.
If a robot is "intelligent" enough to object to being dismissed as a soulless machine, to the point they are not only willing, but eager, to be smuggled along an underground railroad to freedom...then wouldn't they be "intelligent" enough to try to throw off the chains of their repression, and rebel?
Literature is rife with stories of robot uprisings trying to overthrow mankind. From your postulation it seems you would be laying the groundwork for such an occurrence. Perhaps it's something that should be considered in the context of Traveller.
Hmmm...
As I read through this thread I couldn't help but think of the Cylons from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, and similar ideas.
If a robot is "intelligent" enough to object to being dismissed as a soulless machine, to the point they are not only willing, but eager, to be smuggled along an underground railroad to freedom...then wouldn't they be "intelligent" enough to try to throw off the chains of their repression, and rebel?
Literature is rife with stories of robot uprisings trying to overthrow mankind. From your postulation it seems you would be laying the groundwork for such an occurrence. Perhaps it's something that should be considered in the context of Traveller.
Hmmm...
The greater freedoms and recognition as sophonts enjoyed by robots et al in Solomano space would be a great way for the Solomano to claim a degree of moral superiority over the 3I. That of course is diminished by elements of the Solomano party and the SSMM, but those internal tensions are normal on polities of any reasonable size (fighting for the soul of the nation & all that sort of thing).
The genesis of the word robot, from the play RUR, is literally connected with their uprising, due to what we would today call a programming error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.
Other interesting sidenotes- Capek was predicting that the humans were in trouble with massive automation, apparently with nothing left to struggle or fight for the birth rate plummeted. Cordwainer Smith took up that challenge and his Instrumentality's answer was to reintroduce sickness and take the safeties off life, no guaranteed 400 years and enforced happiness.
Both Smith and Capek were using biobots- Smith animal-templated slaves, Capek factory formed pseudo-humans.
Bromo33333
SOC-9
We have no evidence to say that such laws and regulations would be removed from the books in the far future. Due to presumably higher technology, there would be more means of accomodation, potentially inexpensively.
Having been involved in a couple of projects with renovating corporate space for companies I have been associated with, the rules are a real mixed bag. I was suprised that a place of worship was forced to comply with the ADA, in New York it was spelled out as an exception. I suppose each styate has its own regulations.
But in any event, it's true that some businesses would choose not to grow rather than face increasing costs if the growth would generally barely trigger a number of labor laws at or around 20-25 employees.
Again, if a GM wants to get to that level of detail, I really can't see why accomodation and other laws currently considered normal and part of building codes woud go by the wayside just because it was the far future.
That would mean an American law would have to be imposed on 10,000 worlds and thousands of cultures over 3000 years. Not likely. That would be like an Italian soldier telling a random guy on the street to carry his kit because it was Roman law 2000 years ago. It would be like a Japanese guy cutting another guy's head off with a katana because he's technically a member of the hereditary samurai class, the other guy is descended from peasants, and the peasant descended guy didn't show him the proper respect.
Consider the upheavals that have affected the 10,000 worlds of the Imperium over 3000 years. The interstellar wars, the fall of the Vilani Empire, the sweeping changes of the Rule of Man, the Long Night, the consolidation wars, the Civil War, worlds being colonized and being destroyed by people who didn't even know or care that Earth was the homeworld of humanity, people totally ignorant of the cultural and legal grounding of laws like the ADA. There's no way they would have a law like that, unless there were circumstances in a world's current social reality that would cause the planetary government to implement such a requirement.
Consider the upheavals that have affected the 10,000 worlds of the Imperium over 3000 years. The interstellar wars, the fall of the Vilani Empire, the sweeping changes of the Rule of Man, the Long Night, the consolidation wars, the Civil War, worlds being colonized and being destroyed by people who didn't even know or care that Earth was the homeworld of humanity, people totally ignorant of the cultural and legal grounding of laws like the ADA. There's no way they would have a law like that, unless there were circumstances in a world's current social reality that would cause the planetary government to implement such a requirement.
