- Location
- Someone else's head
This is excellent. We're really looking forward to seeing what the deal with these guys is.
Lieutenant Fusilier 2 (Abandoned, do not read)
- Thread starter open_sketch
- Start date
- Original Mature Sci-Fi
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The QR codes make me think that this is a straight-up machine civilization.
They have visual identifiers on their ships because they still work from the same screwball technical palette as everyone else in this setting, so visual identification matters a lot and you can't do everything with transponder pings.
But they don't use names or pictures that would be recognizable in human or near-human terms, because nothing with a near-human brain is ever expected to know or care which ship this is.
...
Alternatively, this is a deliberate foil for Fusie- an alien society in which the machines really have fully taken over military duties. The organics still exist, but the machines have entirely taken over military and colonial expansion duties and keep thebio-trophies organics in carefully cultivated walled gardens (literal or metaphorical) in their core space. And, with mechanical efficiency, they pursue the task of securing more resources and opportunities for 'their' organics, even at the expense of hurting and killing other species.
They have visual identifiers on their ships because they still work from the same screwball technical palette as everyone else in this setting, so visual identification matters a lot and you can't do everything with transponder pings.
But they don't use names or pictures that would be recognizable in human or near-human terms, because nothing with a near-human brain is ever expected to know or care which ship this is.
...
Alternatively, this is a deliberate foil for Fusie- an alien society in which the machines really have fully taken over military duties. The organics still exist, but the machines have entirely taken over military and colonial expansion duties and keep the
- Location
- Under a cat
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Their form is humanoid enough that I wonder if it's just a case of convergent evolution or if these machines really were made by humans.
Maybe in the early days of interstellar travel, some humans took some machines to secretly colonize some planets and be space assholes.
Can't wait to see where it goes!
Maybe in the early days of interstellar travel, some humans took some machines to secretly colonize some planets and be space assholes.
Can't wait to see where it goes!
- Location
- Soviet Canuckistan
Oh, this is neat; and that exterior space battle was such a delight.
Now, of course, it's boarding action time, and boarding actions are universally a bitch. Chin up, Fusie! You can do it!
Now, of course, it's boarding action time, and boarding actions are universally a bitch. Chin up, Fusie! You can do it!
Chapter 22 - Amongus
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
I leveled my pistol and fired, but he was already inside my guard, shoving my arm roughly into the wall. The gun discharged uselessly into the wall in a plumb of vapourized metal as he barreled into me, and we both went sprawling across the deck, rolling apart against the strange twisting gravity. Behind me, flashes of yellow light marked the firing of the marine's muskets, dueling the smokey tracers of unseen foes.
My opponent rolled back against the wall and onto the ceiling, dropping a smoking box from the bottom of its gun and drawing another from the rig on its chest. Reloading, as it wasn't shooting me, because I currently wasn't dead. Nothing else for it, I jumped clumsily up, clattering to the ceiling and kicking hard for his leg, hoping to knock it down with me. He pulled his leg aside and to the wall, smoothly stepping between standing on the floor and laying against the wall without a moment's hesitation.
Between the distant shouts of the marines on the wireless, I could hear a deep, incessant buzzing.
The gun leveled on me as I pushed myself to my feet and toward him, grabbing the barrel, forcing it away. It discharged a dozen shots with an enormous muzzle flash, red-hot brass flying from the action, sparks flying from my screens as I punched the hilt of my blade into his side. No reaction, no emotion, no acknowledgement of the hits, just a hard shove that threw me from one wall to the other. I was once again staring down the barrel, but this time nothing happened. Empty again, they went through their magazines fast.
I pushed off the wall and dove on him, swordtip first. My screens flashed as they intercepted the crossfire blazing through the hall. He rolled, the blade missing by inches and punching effortlessly through the pressure hull, and stood on the wall, but it was the work of just a moment to drop down myself, using the momentum to pull my sword from the wall and into a swing.
The top half of his gun fell off, twisting in the turbulent gravity. Without even a moment's hesitation, he threw the broken weapon aside and drew a knife in a reverse grip, the blade's edges quickly heating red-hot as he drove it inside my guard. I caught his wrist with my forearm and pushed my pistol against him, firing the half-charged cell into his hip, and he staggered momentarily as it blew a divot through his armour.
I tried to bring my sword down on him, but in such close quarters I could only use it like a cudgel. His knife arm hammered down on my defenses, punching holes through my forearm, before getting over my guard. He was just as strong as I was, but he had leverage, my arms pinned to my chest. I couldn't tell anymore if we were pressed against the wall or prone on the floor, but his blade was sinking toward my neck. I couldn't feel its heat through the vacuum, but I could imagine it.
The buzzing in my ear grew louder.
I locked my magnetic boots to the wall and shoved, as hard as I could, hard enough that the gravity of the wall overcame the floor and he was slammed back into it. It grabbed for my with its other hand, gripping my collar as I brought my sword up through its body diagonally. A gout of white flame leapt from its middle as it pulled me bodily from the wall and threw me back down toward the marines, and as I fell away it collapsed into pieces which clattered to three different surfaces.
I landed hard on the wall opposite the hallway. Onto the floor at the base of the tower. Impacts scattered around me as the marines fired down the hall, flinching and falling as enemy fire sparked off them. I couldn't see the enemy, just flashes and vague humanoid shapes at the end of the hall. On the ceilings above were at least three downed Fusiliers, the impact of the enemy weapons having blasted craters out of their armour.
Lying next to me was Téo volley gun. I took it in numb fingers, raised it down the hall, and pulled the trigger.
The world erupted into smoke and a rushing sound in my ears as all seven barrels discharged nearly at once, the vents at the back shooting gouts of flame as the small rockets within leapt out and buzzed down the hall, over the heads of the marines. A half-second later, the end of the hall erupted into light and fire, the hull groaning as gravity failed in some way deeper in the vessel. Then pieces started tumbling down the hall, limbs and mechanical viscera from these false fusiliers landing all around me.
The buzzing stopped.
"Sound off, marines, how are we doing?" I asked, and there was some nervous laughter over the wireless.
"Four down and some lighter wounds, ma'am. Good call with the volley gun," Sergeant Theo responded, the upbeat patter only slightly strained. "What are these things?"
"I don't know, but they aren't armed for close combat. That might be the play. We need to move before they regroup," I said, getting unsteadily to my feet. The smoking volley gun was empty now, and unsure what else to do it dropped onto the ceiling and handed it to one of the other marines. "Can you load this?"
She reached over to Téo still form, pulling a cartridge belt from his side and flipping the weapon open at a hinge at its middle. A ring was pulled from the weapon and discarded, and a new one with seven rockets hanging inside was slotted into place. Then she handed it back to me. I hadn't intended to carry it, it seemed somewhat undignified for an officer, but I wasn't going to turn it down by any means.
"Right, whatever they are guarding must be important. No hesitation, marines, if you see something, shoot it." I ordered, and we dropped around the edge of the twisting hallway and forward. The gravity soon gave out and we found ourselves scaling the grated floors, climbing past the remains of enemy machines where they were caught in dead zones or in some cases fused to the floor. From the parts I'd seen, there couldn't have been more than three of them at the end of the hall holding us up, though the marines disputed that loudly.
We came around to a hallway which I realized must run the full length of the ship, dead in the centre of it, and as I glanced over the edge of the floor I saw humanoid shapes running away down the hall and two others, taller and broader, pushing toward us. Definitely armed. We arrayed at the edge of the hall and peeked over as one, muskets leveled, and put a volley in them point-blank, blasting apart one and knocking the other to the floor twitching madly. Seeing a chance to inspect our foe in greater detail, I sent a marine out to pull him to us, and the marines pinned our foe's limbs while he looked back and forth between us.
I thought he might be scared, but that might have been me projecting. The buzzing in my ears returned, louder.
"So… this is just a Theo, isn't it?" I asked. Nervously, the marines agreed. "The resemblance is uncanny."
"Save for the fact he's not got a fucking face. Ma'am," one of the Doras responded, shuddering with revulsion. "Bloody hell, look in him proper, he's got our motors and all."
Sure enough, a glance at the wound in his chest revealed the same five primary motors arranged in a star shape. The way machine engines had been laid out since the early 20th century, if I recalled my books properly. There were plenty of things wrong, like the antenna emerging from the side of its head or the inhumanly bulky plating, but other parts were too familiar.
"So what are they, copies of us?" Sergeant Theo asked.
"Doesn't matter now, we'll figure it out in good time. Corporal, tear that antenna off, would you?"
"... ma'am, it's a prisoner, we can't hurt him."
"He's talking to his mates," I said, tapping the wireless on the back of my neck. With a shudder of revulsion the Dora reached out and twisted the antenna free, and the buzzing dropped off. "You two, secure him as best you can and guard our rear. The rest of us, let's push down this hall. Quickly now."
This hall had hatches lining it on all sides, and we kicked each open in turn. Some where other hallways leading out to the surface, to guns and the like, and we sealed those hatches shut by melting their latches. Some of the rooms were completely empty and unused, others were storing boxes and barrels of supplies, and some had racks and racks of charging cables lining the walls. We saw none of their crew, but scuff marks everywhere indicating many of these spaces were well-used. Nothing was pressurized.
"So do you think they have organics at all? They must if they're copying us," one of the marines speculated.
"Stars, it's disturbing, ain't it? They must have been spying on us and the like, getting our designs. It's how they knew to hit the pass too, right?"
"Shit, what if they've got spies in our fucking ranks?" another asked, "If they can build something like that, who's saying they can't build a proper Theo and slip him in?"
The marines looked nervously between one another, clearly disturbed by the notion.
"Quiet, they're on our radio frequencies," I pointed out, "And trust me, that's harder than you think. You know how much paperwork officers have to do for any of you to get transferred? Hours worth. It's all I do some days."
"... lucky bitch." somebody muttered, clearly forgetting they were on a radio net.
They wouldn't make a spy a fusilier anyway, I mused. We thought of ourselves as important, but we were our own little society, and a much smaller part of the Concert that I think we liked to admit. There were plenty of spies and turncoats in my historical readings, and rarely were they the elite soldiers of the empire or anything of the sort.
No, if there were a spy, they'd be a little unassuming Simon or Sarah Clerk in an office someplace, copying documents.
We reached a hatch at the end of the hall, from my reckoning perhaps halfway down the vessel. It seemed to me that if there were a control room, this was it. I had the marines draw every last grenade we had and ready them, arrayed around the hatch on all sides, then I stood well back with the volley gun. Sergeant Theo slapped a magnetic mine onto the door, standing back with the lanyard.
"Okay, Sergeant, pop it open," I ordered, and he pulled. The door burst open like a fist through taut paper, and all at once a dozen grenades were hurled through the gap. The vessel rumbled as they went off in close sequence, bright flashes in the smoke, and silhouetted against it were humanoid figures. With only a moment's hesitation, I jammed down the trigger and fired the volley of rockets into the breach, spraying everywhere I thought I saw a target.
We dropped through the hatch with cutlasses drawn, and found nothing but corpses. Metal bodies sprawled over consoles, on the floor, some of them floating oddly in places where gravity had ruptured. The ones nearest the door looked like the ersatz Fusiliers, but the others were lighter builds, less armour, many with palms and heels stuck to the deck on magnets. False William Stars, still faceless, still inhuman. Most of them dead at their controls.
"Find the helm controls, perhaps we can seize the ship after all. And a guard at every hatch, sergeant," I ordered, and the marines spread out, pulling bodies from consoles and checking what few screens weren't shattered. They danced with blue and red lines,
"How come they haven't got any girls?" one of the Doras asked, poking one of the corpses with the muzzle of her musket. "Nearly offended they don't think I'm worth copying."
"Who says they can even tell?" Sergeant Theo added.
"Well, Doras and Wendys are newer, right?" one of the other Doras said. "I can't remember how much newer, but maybe they copied us before we got made."
"Doras are from the 1970s, Wendys from the 2010s. So I doubt it." another marine said. "... I was there. It was a mite controversial."
I paced the room, looking for survivors among the enemy crew, and found myself coming to a pillar that stood in the middle of the room. It seemed important, whatever it was, and I soon realized there was a split down the middle of it, with handles on either side. Curious, I gripped the handles and pulled upward, and the column lifted lightly, as if it were counterweighted.
Inside, nestled among wire linkages, was a curious golden sphere. Its surface was etched in odd patterns, and it seemed to have seams over it into which the wires were connecting. It looked nothing like the hard-angled steel of the rest of the ship. Certain it was important, I took it carefully, pulling loose the wires. It was heavier than it looked.
A small light inside the column switched from green to red.
"Lieutenant, you should look at this." another marine cut in, waving to draw my attention. I stuffed the golden sphere in my cartridge pouch and I strode over. He was at a console at the front of the room, near to a hatch. He'd pulled a dead machine out of the seat and was staring at the controls, an enormous array of square, translucent buttons, switches, dials, and screens, many of them flickering with light.
"This the helm, you think?" I asked, and he hesitated before answering.
"I know it is," he said simply, indicating to the screen. On it were esoteric diagrams I couldn't understand and square patterns like the one on the hull, but that wasn't what was interesting. Instead, he was indicating to a small plate
It was etched in latin characters. It read Slévárna Robotů. Czech, the first word was Foundary, but the conjugation of the second word baffled me. It was some variation on forced labour.
Before I could process this, the screen, and every remaining screen in the ship, flashed bright red. This time, instead of the strange code squares, there were just familiar numbers on the screen, counting down from sixty.
My opponent rolled back against the wall and onto the ceiling, dropping a smoking box from the bottom of its gun and drawing another from the rig on its chest. Reloading, as it wasn't shooting me, because I currently wasn't dead. Nothing else for it, I jumped clumsily up, clattering to the ceiling and kicking hard for his leg, hoping to knock it down with me. He pulled his leg aside and to the wall, smoothly stepping between standing on the floor and laying against the wall without a moment's hesitation.
Between the distant shouts of the marines on the wireless, I could hear a deep, incessant buzzing.
The gun leveled on me as I pushed myself to my feet and toward him, grabbing the barrel, forcing it away. It discharged a dozen shots with an enormous muzzle flash, red-hot brass flying from the action, sparks flying from my screens as I punched the hilt of my blade into his side. No reaction, no emotion, no acknowledgement of the hits, just a hard shove that threw me from one wall to the other. I was once again staring down the barrel, but this time nothing happened. Empty again, they went through their magazines fast.
I pushed off the wall and dove on him, swordtip first. My screens flashed as they intercepted the crossfire blazing through the hall. He rolled, the blade missing by inches and punching effortlessly through the pressure hull, and stood on the wall, but it was the work of just a moment to drop down myself, using the momentum to pull my sword from the wall and into a swing.
The top half of his gun fell off, twisting in the turbulent gravity. Without even a moment's hesitation, he threw the broken weapon aside and drew a knife in a reverse grip, the blade's edges quickly heating red-hot as he drove it inside my guard. I caught his wrist with my forearm and pushed my pistol against him, firing the half-charged cell into his hip, and he staggered momentarily as it blew a divot through his armour.
I tried to bring my sword down on him, but in such close quarters I could only use it like a cudgel. His knife arm hammered down on my defenses, punching holes through my forearm, before getting over my guard. He was just as strong as I was, but he had leverage, my arms pinned to my chest. I couldn't tell anymore if we were pressed against the wall or prone on the floor, but his blade was sinking toward my neck. I couldn't feel its heat through the vacuum, but I could imagine it.
The buzzing in my ear grew louder.
I locked my magnetic boots to the wall and shoved, as hard as I could, hard enough that the gravity of the wall overcame the floor and he was slammed back into it. It grabbed for my with its other hand, gripping my collar as I brought my sword up through its body diagonally. A gout of white flame leapt from its middle as it pulled me bodily from the wall and threw me back down toward the marines, and as I fell away it collapsed into pieces which clattered to three different surfaces.
I landed hard on the wall opposite the hallway. Onto the floor at the base of the tower. Impacts scattered around me as the marines fired down the hall, flinching and falling as enemy fire sparked off them. I couldn't see the enemy, just flashes and vague humanoid shapes at the end of the hall. On the ceilings above were at least three downed Fusiliers, the impact of the enemy weapons having blasted craters out of their armour.
Lying next to me was Téo volley gun. I took it in numb fingers, raised it down the hall, and pulled the trigger.
The world erupted into smoke and a rushing sound in my ears as all seven barrels discharged nearly at once, the vents at the back shooting gouts of flame as the small rockets within leapt out and buzzed down the hall, over the heads of the marines. A half-second later, the end of the hall erupted into light and fire, the hull groaning as gravity failed in some way deeper in the vessel. Then pieces started tumbling down the hall, limbs and mechanical viscera from these false fusiliers landing all around me.
The buzzing stopped.
"Sound off, marines, how are we doing?" I asked, and there was some nervous laughter over the wireless.
"Four down and some lighter wounds, ma'am. Good call with the volley gun," Sergeant Theo responded, the upbeat patter only slightly strained. "What are these things?"
"I don't know, but they aren't armed for close combat. That might be the play. We need to move before they regroup," I said, getting unsteadily to my feet. The smoking volley gun was empty now, and unsure what else to do it dropped onto the ceiling and handed it to one of the other marines. "Can you load this?"
She reached over to Téo still form, pulling a cartridge belt from his side and flipping the weapon open at a hinge at its middle. A ring was pulled from the weapon and discarded, and a new one with seven rockets hanging inside was slotted into place. Then she handed it back to me. I hadn't intended to carry it, it seemed somewhat undignified for an officer, but I wasn't going to turn it down by any means.
"Right, whatever they are guarding must be important. No hesitation, marines, if you see something, shoot it." I ordered, and we dropped around the edge of the twisting hallway and forward. The gravity soon gave out and we found ourselves scaling the grated floors, climbing past the remains of enemy machines where they were caught in dead zones or in some cases fused to the floor. From the parts I'd seen, there couldn't have been more than three of them at the end of the hall holding us up, though the marines disputed that loudly.
We came around to a hallway which I realized must run the full length of the ship, dead in the centre of it, and as I glanced over the edge of the floor I saw humanoid shapes running away down the hall and two others, taller and broader, pushing toward us. Definitely armed. We arrayed at the edge of the hall and peeked over as one, muskets leveled, and put a volley in them point-blank, blasting apart one and knocking the other to the floor twitching madly. Seeing a chance to inspect our foe in greater detail, I sent a marine out to pull him to us, and the marines pinned our foe's limbs while he looked back and forth between us.
I thought he might be scared, but that might have been me projecting. The buzzing in my ears returned, louder.
"So… this is just a Theo, isn't it?" I asked. Nervously, the marines agreed. "The resemblance is uncanny."
"Save for the fact he's not got a fucking face. Ma'am," one of the Doras responded, shuddering with revulsion. "Bloody hell, look in him proper, he's got our motors and all."
Sure enough, a glance at the wound in his chest revealed the same five primary motors arranged in a star shape. The way machine engines had been laid out since the early 20th century, if I recalled my books properly. There were plenty of things wrong, like the antenna emerging from the side of its head or the inhumanly bulky plating, but other parts were too familiar.
"So what are they, copies of us?" Sergeant Theo asked.
"Doesn't matter now, we'll figure it out in good time. Corporal, tear that antenna off, would you?"
"... ma'am, it's a prisoner, we can't hurt him."
"He's talking to his mates," I said, tapping the wireless on the back of my neck. With a shudder of revulsion the Dora reached out and twisted the antenna free, and the buzzing dropped off. "You two, secure him as best you can and guard our rear. The rest of us, let's push down this hall. Quickly now."
This hall had hatches lining it on all sides, and we kicked each open in turn. Some where other hallways leading out to the surface, to guns and the like, and we sealed those hatches shut by melting their latches. Some of the rooms were completely empty and unused, others were storing boxes and barrels of supplies, and some had racks and racks of charging cables lining the walls. We saw none of their crew, but scuff marks everywhere indicating many of these spaces were well-used. Nothing was pressurized.
"So do you think they have organics at all? They must if they're copying us," one of the marines speculated.
"Stars, it's disturbing, ain't it? They must have been spying on us and the like, getting our designs. It's how they knew to hit the pass too, right?"
"Shit, what if they've got spies in our fucking ranks?" another asked, "If they can build something like that, who's saying they can't build a proper Theo and slip him in?"
The marines looked nervously between one another, clearly disturbed by the notion.
"Quiet, they're on our radio frequencies," I pointed out, "And trust me, that's harder than you think. You know how much paperwork officers have to do for any of you to get transferred? Hours worth. It's all I do some days."
"... lucky bitch." somebody muttered, clearly forgetting they were on a radio net.
They wouldn't make a spy a fusilier anyway, I mused. We thought of ourselves as important, but we were our own little society, and a much smaller part of the Concert that I think we liked to admit. There were plenty of spies and turncoats in my historical readings, and rarely were they the elite soldiers of the empire or anything of the sort.
No, if there were a spy, they'd be a little unassuming Simon or Sarah Clerk in an office someplace, copying documents.
We reached a hatch at the end of the hall, from my reckoning perhaps halfway down the vessel. It seemed to me that if there were a control room, this was it. I had the marines draw every last grenade we had and ready them, arrayed around the hatch on all sides, then I stood well back with the volley gun. Sergeant Theo slapped a magnetic mine onto the door, standing back with the lanyard.
"Okay, Sergeant, pop it open," I ordered, and he pulled. The door burst open like a fist through taut paper, and all at once a dozen grenades were hurled through the gap. The vessel rumbled as they went off in close sequence, bright flashes in the smoke, and silhouetted against it were humanoid figures. With only a moment's hesitation, I jammed down the trigger and fired the volley of rockets into the breach, spraying everywhere I thought I saw a target.
We dropped through the hatch with cutlasses drawn, and found nothing but corpses. Metal bodies sprawled over consoles, on the floor, some of them floating oddly in places where gravity had ruptured. The ones nearest the door looked like the ersatz Fusiliers, but the others were lighter builds, less armour, many with palms and heels stuck to the deck on magnets. False William Stars, still faceless, still inhuman. Most of them dead at their controls.
"Find the helm controls, perhaps we can seize the ship after all. And a guard at every hatch, sergeant," I ordered, and the marines spread out, pulling bodies from consoles and checking what few screens weren't shattered. They danced with blue and red lines,
"How come they haven't got any girls?" one of the Doras asked, poking one of the corpses with the muzzle of her musket. "Nearly offended they don't think I'm worth copying."
"Who says they can even tell?" Sergeant Theo added.
"Well, Doras and Wendys are newer, right?" one of the other Doras said. "I can't remember how much newer, but maybe they copied us before we got made."
"Doras are from the 1970s, Wendys from the 2010s. So I doubt it." another marine said. "... I was there. It was a mite controversial."
I paced the room, looking for survivors among the enemy crew, and found myself coming to a pillar that stood in the middle of the room. It seemed important, whatever it was, and I soon realized there was a split down the middle of it, with handles on either side. Curious, I gripped the handles and pulled upward, and the column lifted lightly, as if it were counterweighted.
Inside, nestled among wire linkages, was a curious golden sphere. Its surface was etched in odd patterns, and it seemed to have seams over it into which the wires were connecting. It looked nothing like the hard-angled steel of the rest of the ship. Certain it was important, I took it carefully, pulling loose the wires. It was heavier than it looked.
A small light inside the column switched from green to red.
"Lieutenant, you should look at this." another marine cut in, waving to draw my attention. I stuffed the golden sphere in my cartridge pouch and I strode over. He was at a console at the front of the room, near to a hatch. He'd pulled a dead machine out of the seat and was staring at the controls, an enormous array of square, translucent buttons, switches, dials, and screens, many of them flickering with light.
"This the helm, you think?" I asked, and he hesitated before answering.
"I know it is," he said simply, indicating to the screen. On it were esoteric diagrams I couldn't understand and square patterns like the one on the hull, but that wasn't what was interesting. Instead, he was indicating to a small plate
It was etched in latin characters. It read Slévárna Robotů. Czech, the first word was Foundary, but the conjugation of the second word baffled me. It was some variation on forced labour.
Before I could process this, the screen, and every remaining screen in the ship, flashed bright red. This time, instead of the strange code squares, there were just familiar numbers on the screen, counting down from sixty.
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- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
Secret human/robot Czech illumanati? 
- Location
- Under a cat
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Huh. That kinda surprises me. I mean, even if no one on their ships need to breathe, I've heard that atmospheres are helpful for lots of tasks.
Okay. I might misremembering, but that sounds like the alien doohickey (from the stories on Dragon Cobolt's patreon) that lets you travel to a parallel world. I think it can also make copies of itself.
Ha! The evil* machines are robots! Nice.
*I know there's no way to know if the machines are truly evil themselves. They could just be brainwashed, if they're self-aware at all. I mean, if I'm an evil human making machine slaves, then I wouldn't want to give them much of an inner life.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Has Dora or any of the other machines never been referred to in-story as robots? Because the origin of the word robot is from a, I suppose Czech, sci-fi short novel which used mechanical workers as laborers. Robots, laborers.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
The word exists in exactly one place in the galactic concert. Lucy's head.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Nope!
Nor has any Machine been called such, except one time, under very special circumstances. It was Lucy
The golden sphere is… certainly a thing.
And now I am thinking that perhaps there were attempts to contact the concert, but they fell through, and so the Foundry decided that the Concert must be hostile.
The Foundry seem to draw more on cold-war aesthetics than Napoleonic aesthetics
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
I feel really bad, but I can't remember who that is. Was she Ms. Fleming? Because I went back to skim the two chapters with her in them and didn't see her first name, but maybe I just missed it.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
Captain O'Neill's fiancee, Miss Fitzland-Lancaster back on the Unicorn. She's uh...
She's not from around here.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Thank you for spelling that out for me. I feel bad for not picking up on that.
- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
Brilliant. If you want more machine officers, just tell them how much work it is. Can't believe I never thought of it, well played.
- Location
- Washington State
Rossum's universal robots was apparently never written in this universe.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
ooh! ooh! Does this mean that there's gonna be weird doppelganger versions of the French grenadiers too that Dora and the light company would have to heroically destroy to prove British superiority once and for all save their gallic brothers and sisters in arms?
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Well yeah. The invention of the actual robots predates it.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
tbf, i'm still feeling very shocked that the serious Concert story is even noticing my incredibly goofy fan fic
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
Whispers 3 is going to base its entire plot around throwaway details from Dream of the Sky and I am not joking.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Someone else's head
Okay. Mirror universe is one theory. A good theory that fits the evidence well. But there may be alternatives. Weird fashy Czech break-away colony from shortly after space travel became practical is the only one that immediately comes to mind. Which is a bit of a stretch, but mirror universe only sounds simpler because it's an established trope.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Well, this thing mentions a golden orb.
Humanity hasn't thrown much golden stuff into space, but one of the things that we did throw in space is the Voyager record.
So, maybe these are the remnants of !Concert_Voyagers. A bunch of robots thrown to the farthest edges of space, with only a scratchy record with some basic descriptions of humans to remember them by.
In our world, Voyager was launched in 1977 so it might just predate the introduction of the female models.
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I prefer to believe that RUR was, in fact, written in the Galactic Concert as a work warning about the dangers of Androidism and mixing the boundaries between the Machines and Men, using the word 'Serf' to indicate that the androids are considered less than men and less than machines. It achieved moderate success in Bohemia but was never translated into English and is essentially forgotten at this point. Capek is better remembered for his hugely successful trilogy: War With The Newts, Peace With The Newts and Smooching With The Newts.