The Sol System is built out of many worlds, home to many people from many different backgrounds, and few places in the system are as great a melting pot of these worlds as Titan Garden, Saturn's domed little hub city. In this four-part series we'll look at the people who make up this bustling system- the Inner Belt, the Outer Belt, the Androids and the Extrasolars- and see what makes them tick.
The Androids are synthetic lifeforms built by the six licensed interplanetary corporate manufacturers: Delta Astronautical Solutions, Aoba Lifelike Systems Specialists, Accra Intelligent Systems Laboratories, United Robotics Corporation, Horizon Adaptive Technologies Partnership and Quasar Galactic Industrial Development. Following the Camerahead incident in the previous century strict regulations have been placed on the manufacture and development of artificial sentients; each licensed company can only produce so many new lifeforms per Terran year, those lifeforms cannot be compelled to perform any specific task and they cannot be made to support organic life indefinitely. Androids are regarded as full sentient lifeforms distinct from robots or utilitarian machines and are to be afforded all appropriate considerations, discrimination against them for their synthetic nature is not socially acceptable. They are not bought or sold like tools or equipment, Androids are hired for jobs and they can quit those jobs when they please just as any organic worker. All the same, Androids tend to have an easy time finding work, as most of them are built with useful skillsets that are an asset to any team. Whether or not they're reliable workers is up to the individual- their sentience cultivation algorithms allow for variances that manifest unique individual personalities, and they come in all types. You could just as well find yourself firing a well-equipped Android who just doesn't feel like doing the job. They are sentient life in the fullest sense of the term.
Androids share a high tolerance to the cold, for toxic atmospheres and radiation, but tend to suffer from extreme heat and electromagnetic interference. All types of Android can endure submersion in water, although some can navigate it easier than others.
The six licensed manufacturers of Androids are not exclusively in the Android-making business, they make Androids that compliment their primary industries. Any make of human-like Android can come in any human-like size, shape or color. As they are created by other sentient lifeforms they have a tendency to reflect the qualities of their creators, but they're not bound by any specific limitations to their appearance. Each manufacturer creates Androids that reflect the full range of Inner Belt life. Many Androids don't necessarily need clothing, as they don't suffer the cold as much as their organic neighbors, but as they reflect the range of life, so too is fashion within their grasp, their chasses designed to be able to dress up and style themselves to their tastes. Additionally, most Androids come equipped with biomass energy converters, allowing them to eat or drink organic food in order to recharge their power supplies. This design feature is worth noting, as it allows Androids to participate in the social ritual of sharing a meal among friends. Para salud!
"Space is a big place. Sure, your ship's got a big computer to help make sense of it, but unless you speak Math real good you're gonna want a Delta droid on your crew. Trust me, you'll regret it if you don't." -- Bryce, captain of the Ermine
Manufacturer
Delta Astronautical Solutions is Terra's leading developer of starship technologies, most notably their Astronavigational Computer Systems Modules, computational hardware which helps quickly crunch the complex mathematics needed to safely get from point A to point B in space. Based in France, Sweden and the United Irish Republic- the three corners of its large underground particle accelerator- Delta Astronautics offers a wide range of starship parts, from engines to atmospheric regulators to gravity control interfaces to forcefield projector arrays- no matter who in the Inner Belt is building a ship, odds are that ship is full of Delta parts. Complimenting this strong industrial foothold, Delta creates the HAL line of Androids, or Human-Astronav Liaison droids, built to easily integrate with all starship systems and, crucially, interpret the output of a ship's Astronavigational Computer Systems Module in a way that is digestible to organic crew. They make excellent navigators, but just as well they make great maintenance technicians, science officers and cannoneers, as they are built to connect directly into a starship's onboard systems. Deltas are most at home in space.
Delta droids tend to have names with AL in them somewhere, for Astronav Liaison. Names like Dalton, Valerie, Haley, Alan, and so on.
Appearance
Unique among the manufacturers, Delta droids come in a range of styles based on the generational model of their current chassis. Delta is an old company and they've been developing the HAL line for a very long time, but units from each of its five current generations are still in operation throughout Sol.
- HAL-1: The original Human-Astronav Liaison was a piece of starship equipment mounted to the bridge of a ship, containing a sentient conversational AI and a holographic projection of their self. A touchscreen allowed a navigator to plot a route which HAL-1 would interpret, data cartridge slots make saving common routes easy and a foot pedal would enable navigational data to be ported directly to the helm systems. HAL-1s are very rare today, but those who chose to remain in this generational model see themselves as "being" the starship they're mounted to, which they like. They are very old, so if you meet one be sure to take the time to talk with them, they've got a lot of experience to share.
- HAL-2: An improved iteration of the original design, HAL-2s miniaturize their astronavigational hardware and detach the HAL unit from the ship itself, allowing them to freely move about as a regular member of the crew. Large antenna blades on either side of their head unit allow a HAL-2 to wirelessly integrate with ship systems, and a durable metal chassis ensures they can withstand the rigors of life in space. Those units who prefer to retain their old HAL-2 chassis prefer the machine-like aesthetic to the more human-like offerings of later models; many HAL-2s traded up from HAL-1s so this has always been ingrained as part of their identity. The HAL-5 line is particularly appealing to these last few holdouts, but at this point many are simply used to being who they are.
- HAL-3: With HAL units serving as active crew members aboard a starship, Delta Astronautics developed the HAL-3 line with skeuomorphic design principles in mind, aiming to build a chassis that is emotive and easy for organic crew to connect with. HAL-3s have smaller audio receptors, allowing them to have more space for their antenna blades, and thus are able to integrate with ship systems at a higher bandwidth than their predecessors. Their core chassis are built to Terran specifications; their facial and abdominal paneling are made from soft polymer with inlaid thermal mesh, allowing them emote naturally and present a warmer contact surface to help connect with other crewmembers more easily. Their outer cranial paneling, as well as their limbs, are also humanlike in shape but still retain the metal mechanical construction of the HAL-2 generation, so as they age these panels tend to see their dermal paint chip and peel away at the seams, giving them a distinct weathered appearance. Most units who currently retain a HAL-3 chassis report "debt avoidance" as their primary reason for not upgrading to later models. This theme carries forward to the present day.
- HAL-4: Considered the "current-gen" model chassis, HAL-4s improve on HAL-3 skeuomorphic design by striving to present a more complete human-like appearance. Their audio receptors are more organic in appearance and their antenna blades have been miniaturized to fit within the outer curve of their ears. They have thermal-mesh polymer skin layers covering their entire chassis, not just their face and torso, which trades off some of the mechanical durability of earlier models for a more complete human-like contact experience, bearing only a few panel seams to show their synthetic origins. HAL-4s feature more powerful processors and more advanced astronav software, giving them a performance boost over unmodded HAL-3s. As illustrated in the above graphic, there are currently more active HAL-4 units than any other single generation of Delta droid.
- HAL-5: The bleeding-edge of Delta technology, the next-gen HAL-5s represent the current peak of Astronav Liaison technology. Moving away from the skeuomorphic design of HAL-3s and HAL-4s has allowed designers to add more robust features that would otherwise conflict with attempts to present a human-like appearance. Restoring the antenna blades from older models, HAL-5s have a second supplemental set of blades for increased bandwidth communications while also being able to retract their antennae into their audio sensor units, enabling them to easily wear Terran-style helmets and headgear. The integration of holovector projection technology in a HAL-5's hand and cranial units allows them to restore the original HAL-1 touchscreen navigational input function by projecting large 3D maps with real-time data that fellow crew can simply reach in and trace routes through with their fingertips, making navigational plotting extremely intuitive and easy. These holovector projectors can also support deployment of interactive games, enabling a HAL-5 to share unique entertainment with their crew even in the deepest reaches of space. Compensating for these robust features, HAL-5s are a bit more fragile than their predecessors, their smooth and flexible alloy paneling lacking the ruggedness of a HAL-3 frame. Their biomass energy conversion modules have been compacted to a hatch in their lower abdomen, still useful for emergency battery power but giving up the social ritual of picking up a burger and sharing it with friends- this is one of the reasons HAL-4s have been reluctant to upgrade to a HAL-5 chassis, but it has proved no obstacle for HAL-2s who have been waiting for a new model chassis that fits their identity.
Across all models, HAL units are deployed with the company's trademark silver-and-blue colorscheme, whether that is the glossy-white paneling of HAL-2s and -5s or a stock white hair coloration for HAL-3s and -4s. Hair and eye color alterations are available for all Delta droids who want to further personalize their chassis, but as it's an additional fee on top of the debt they may be repaying from upgrading to their current model chassis, a fair few don't bother and just stick with the stock colors. Many take full advantage, having bright hair or eye color patterns installed, some custom but some inspired by Mercurian and Venusian hair color patterns. Anything's possible, as long as you don't mind a little fee going onto your Delta debt tab.
Characteristics
While each generation of Delta droid may bear their own unique traits, there are a few characteristics shared by all models, regardless of when they were built.
- As the company has roots in aviation and astronautics, Delta droids tend to manifest disciplined and orderly personalities befitting the bridge of a starship.
- Deltas are designed for astronavigation, but they can easily integrate with virtually all starship systems, including small systems like door locks and light fixtures.
- All Delta droids have strong internal topographical software, allowing them to easily plot local terrain and chart courses remotely, giving them utility and independence when there isn't an astronav computer to interface with.
- Deltas can store internal files and run computer programs. HAL-2 and beyond don't have cartridge ports, they upload and download files wirelessly.
- Thanks to their mechanical nature, Delta droids are able to receive feature update packages- things like additional CPU cores, internal hardware cladding, Faraday cranial meshes, fingertip beam cutters, fold-out booster jets, ocular lenses and more- which further blur the lines between generations.
- Deltas are the only make of Android who are able to transfer their consciousness from one chassis to another, enabling the generational model system to exist.
Upgrades and Debts
One of the major pillars of Android regulation is no manufacturer is allowed to create more than a set number of artificial sentients per Terran year, as a way to prevent a company from printing out an endless line of employees for themselves. When you create sentient life you are responsible for it, invest your resources into supporting the Androids you create instead of just creating more Androids, that's the idea. Delta, being an interplanetary megacorp with a huge stake in starship technologies, honors the letter of this law while sidestepping the spirit of it; they say you can only create so many new sentient lives per annum, but there is no limit to how many empty shells you can print. While every company strives to improve the designs for their Androids, Delta has built a special consciousness transfer system into their chasses, allowing a Delta droid to retain their memories and personality while moving from one shell to another. If you have a bunch of HAL-3s, for example, and you start making HAL-4s, you can build additional empty HAL-4 shells and your existing volume of deployed HAL-3 units can opt-in to transferring up to one of the empty HAL-4s. They don't have to pay up front, either! They can take on debt with Delta Astronautics and use their shiny new chassis to earn credits to pay down the transfer over time. And then, later, you'll have HAL-5s ready to deploy, and in addition to the HAL-5s you create under regulation, you now have all your HAL-3s and HAL-4s to take on new debts upgrading to the surplus HAL-5 shells you built. You're responsible for maintaining the droids you created, so you release regular software patches to improve security and function, but when you, say, sunset your obsolete HAL-3s because you just launched your HAL-5s, you push a bit of code in your EOL patch that worsens battery efficiency on HAL-3s, giving them a motivation to move to a newer, more efficient model and take on that new debt. You'll get fined for doing this but the amount of revenue you make from selling new chasses to old Androids more than makes up for it. That's the Delta way!
Any mechanic worth their salt knows how to defeat the Delta EOL battery inefficiency patch, so a lot of long-term older-model droids have had a bit of work done in spite of Delta's efforts to encourage them to take on debts and upgrade. The consciousness transfer system allows a Delta droid a lot of options if they choose to change out their shells rather than tinker with the one they currently have. In addition to upgrading, Delta droids can sidegrade to other versions within their generation or even downgrade to an older model shell, if they happen to have one. When changing shells, a Delta droid doesn't need to retain the same cosmetic appearance as the shell they're currently inhabiting, they can choose one with a different shape or a different gender profile and experience the next version of themselves from a new social perspective; it's not uncommon for Delta droids to take advantage of this aspect of their hardware and sidegrade into a new chassis that better fits the identity they've cultivated in their time around Sol.
At least one stranded Terran pilot has successfully hotwired themselves into the Delta consciousness transfer system to try and upload themselves into a damaged HAL-3 chassis in a desperate attempt to survive without food or air; they ended up becoming an uncharacteristically-intuitive and organic Android personality, sharing characteristics of both the Delta navigator and the Terran pilot. Replicating this process is not recommended, as it may prove fatal to organic lifeforms and damage a Delta droid's ability to upgrade to a newer-model chassis. Delta Astronautics recommends only attempting consciousness transfer with approved Delta Astronav Liaison shells and under the strict supervision of a licensed Delta technician.
"What do you mean, what do I 'do'? I don't have to do anything. That's the whole beauty of being alive, isn't it? You can do whatever you want!" -- Mitsuko, pirate and thief
Manufacturer
Aoba Lifelike Systems Specialists strives to synthetically replicate organic life and stands at the forefront of medical-mechanical technologies on Terra and throughout the Sol system. Based in Hiroshima, Japan (go Carps!), Aoba Systems are the primary manufacturer of Natural-style cybernetics and develop synthetic organs for most Solar species to facilitate life-saving medical procedures without reliance on donors. Additionally, Aoba Systems creates lines of mechanical pets replicating a range of beloved Terran animals- their dog line is especially popular despite their quirks and bugs. The Aoba philosophy is not to develop mechanical solutions for organic questions, but to find organic solutions to mechanical questions. Under this philosophy, Aoba Androids end up being the most Terran-like of all makes. They're not built to serve a function or fill a job, they're made for the sake of making new lives- and, maybe, to also show off the lifelike products Aoba Systems offers. Aoba droids, like you or I, are free to learn new skills and forge their own path in life, wherever it is they want to go.
Aoba droids often have names with a numerical homonym in them, like Mitsuko, Kenichiro, Kenji or Nanami.
Appearance
Unlike many of their peers, Aoba droids aren't built with motors and servos and sprockets and gears- that's mechanical solutions, and we want organic ones. Instead, Aoba droids achieve movement by replicating organic musculature, their core metal frames are outfitted with pairs of synthetic muscles that contract with signal impulses and pull their joints this way or that. What this ends up meaning is instead of having motors which start or stop and gears interlocking to generate articulation, Aoba Androids can twist and bend very fluidly, affording them the most lifelike range of movement of all Androids. Aoba hasn't fully miniaturized this technology yet, though, so Aoba droids tend to wear their musculature on the outside, although it's given a nice sleek paintjob.
Complimenting their natural musculature, Aoba androids have full facial synthetics and are able to convey the full range of organic emotive expressions. Set into their maxillary support brackets, Aoba facial synthetic technology is the fruit of a century of labor, not only allowing for believable and authentic facial expression but also being able to replicate a wide range of human facial characteristics, producing very specific details that mesh well with an Android's organic movement to avoid an uncanny "mannequin" effect and achieve a fully lifelike presentation. With a bit of fashion sense to cover up their musculature, having a lifelike face goes a very long way towards bringing Aoba Androids as close to human-like as any have yet been able to achieve. This facial technology was, in fact, licensed to Delta Astronautics during their HAL-3 development years, as evidenced by older generations' hexagonal irises, but while Delta has moved in a different direction Aoba has continued to refine its process in simulating minute variations in Terran-like facial replication.
Characteristics
The pursuit of organic solutions has its ups and downs, but the suite of unique benefits being an Aoba Android offers are hard to replicate.
- Being designed around synthetic muscle contraction sheds the weight of mechanical hardware, making Aoba Androids lighter and less dense than their peers.
- Combined with their innate weatherproofing, this quality means Aoba Androids are well-suited to navigating liquid environments, where their lower density and muscle structure meet less resistance in the water and they're actually able to float.
- Aoba Android fingertips are designed with special caps that allow them to present unique fingerprints, giving them an added layer of lifelike detail.
- Each Aoba droid has a dataport behind their ear, allowing them to move files to and from their synthetic cerebral matrix,
- Their artificial musculature makes finding replacement parts difficult without going back to an Aoba service agent. Similarly, they're not really designed with "upgrades" in mind.
- In place of a more common central computer architecture, Aoba Androids operate off a synthetic brain with architecture entirely unique to themselves.
Organic Solutions
Understanding how and why Aoba Androids work means learning a bit of company history. Aoba Systems originally developed such lifelike body systems as a vessel to transplant organic Terran brains, wiring them in so if their organic body was damaged or discarded they could continue to live on in a synthetic one. Creating receptive shells for Terran brains has always been the heart of Aoba's research and it is the root of virtually all of their design choices over the past one hundred fifty years. The reason they developed synthetic muscle contraction technology is for an Aoba frame to be natively receptive to the signals an organic brain would be sending out, expecting to find muscles instead of motors. The reason they put so much work into developing facial motion and detail technology specifically is so a Terran receiving a brain transplant into an Aoba shell can still wear their old face, wrinkles and scars and details and all. This is also why the facial panel slots into the maxillary support brackets, so a body can be readily available and the facial specifics can slot in according to the patient. Why would an Android want fingerprints? Their finger caps were originally meant to allow replication of a patient's original fingerprints onto their synthetic body, both for comfort, peace of mind and so as to allow them to continue interfacing with print-reading security technologies. Aoba's organic solutions have always been to the mechanical problem of how to fit a Terran brain inside a synthetic life system and maintain an expected standard of living. Tremendous amounts of time and resources went into developing these systems, and then the Martians went and screwed it all up.
Android standards and regulations came about directly because of The Camerahead Incident, the events that followed Martian construction of Titan Station and the long-term problems found in putting Martian brains and nervous systems into synthetic bodies and shooting them off to build a space station on a methane-soaked ball of rock millions of miles from home. One of these standards was that while we can build synthetic organs for needed replacements, technology manufacturers were banned from developing ways to unnaturally prolong life indefinitely. After one hundred years of Camerahead haunting Titan Station the problem of granting immortality to a detached organic mind became evident, and everyone agreed we're basically not going to let another Camerahead happen. No More Putting Meat Brains Into Androids. They go mad and then they never die. Unfortunate for Aoba Systems, everyone agreed this was the right thing to do. So now what?
Synthetic Cortex
After a lot of late nights scrambling and talking and yelling and kicking and shouting and then resting and talking and yelling some more, Aoba's home office came up with a solution. You've got a mechanical problem in that you have all this hardware technology you're now banned from putting meat brains into, what's the organic solution? Develop synthetic brains, of course! It'd take them another several decades to figure out but Aoba eventually developed the Synthetic Cerebral Matrix, a Terran-like artificial brain connected to an electronic cerebellum acting as an interface between simulated brain function and the connector plug, an adaptive plug developed from the original Aoba interface design intended to attach to a living brain stem and screw into a secure port at the base of the brainpan. You have all this research into how organic brains work and how they send and receive signals, put a little more research into how they store data and just make synthetic brains to put into your synthetic bodies. And so the near tragedy of Aoba Systems became its greatest triumph, the development of the Lifelike Android, free to learn and grow and be whatever they want to be. That was a close call.
It's thanks to these synthetic cerebral matrices that Aoba Androids are able to intuit and joke and lie and worry and fear and cheer and cry the way organic Terrans do. They can still take data files thanks to their electronic cerebellum and the ports behind their ears but they don't really run programs the way other Androids might, they can import and export data and that's about it. Which, to be fair, organic Terrans can't really run computer programs, either, and that's what an Aoba droid is modeled to be. They use their cerebral matrixes to learn new skills the old-fashioned way, and they head out into a great big universe without concern for getting too tired or too cold, free to venture where there is no breathable air and see what's hidden there. Aoba Androids are created with boundless opportunity at their fingertips... just be careful not to tear a synthetic muscle. It's a long way back to Hiroshima.
"The way they just float on air like that, the vibe they have, they got the right idea, man. We could all learn a thing or two from them." -- Marcel, Harbormaster of Titan
Manufacturer
Accra Intelligent Systems Laboratories takes a novel approach to the development of artificial intelligence that sets them apart from the rest of their industry. Based in the heart of Ghana, Accra Labs is a data preservation company that specializes in the recovery and archival of old-world media, unearthing and restoring knowledge that might otherwise be lost to the sands of time. Recovery of physical media is one branch of their operation, the other is in decrypting, decoding and deciphering storage drives which are often locked by some long-forgotten password in order to access the rich media files within. Aiding in this endeavor, Accra Labs created a line of autonomous little drones who can help them scan and sort the mountains of data they've amassed, thus speeding up the process. In scanning and interpreting this old media for catalogue, the AI seeds in these autonomous drones are given a basic set of tools with which they amass a personal database of their own, and when a drone completes its tour in the archives they emerge with a practiced skillset and a unique personality reflecting the sorts of media and knowledgebases they combed through in their development. Accra Androids have an extremely diverse range of skills and can be found working in almost any industry imaginable. Through the success of their domestic data archival program Accra Labs has expanded beyond Terran borders to become a proper interplanetary company, lending their talents to other inhabited worlds who likewise shed tomes of old media technologies in their own ascent to the stars.
Accra Androids usually take names that reflect how they perceive their physical selves, names like Clover, Firefly and Bi Feng are common.
Appearance
There are two aspects to an Accra Android's appearance, the physical self and the projected self. The physical Accra droid is a lightweight drone fitted with a central lens, a set of petal-like fins, a gravity suspension module and some additional pieces of kit. Accra droids are very small, buzzing around in defiance of gravity and pivoting their stabilization fins to control their momentum. They come equipped with wireless communication arrays and can speak with each other across their own internal comms channel. They click and chirp and are widely regarded as being one of the cuter lines of Android in the Sol system.
Using their central lens, Accra droids project what they regard as a more true version of themselves. During the cultivation of their AI seed Accra droids develop a self-image, an idea of who they see themselves as which is wholly constructed by their own emergent sentience, and when their development is complete they will project this image of self in hardlight, and generally regard this as their "real" appearance. They can project themselves in any clothing or hairstyle they like, and while they could technically project themselves in any shape or fashion they will strongly prefer to present as the version of themselves they've chosen, although some might take on a friend's appearance as a punchline to a joke. It's generally not useful for them to use another person's appearance maliciously, as their hard light projections often have a telltale corona of chromatic aberration, and will flicker subtley now and then. It's much better to be yourself, after all.
This hardlight projection has enough resistance to it that they can interact with the world around them, typing into terminals and manipulating controls, lifting wires and carrying boxes. Coming into contact with their projection is described as pressing your hand into warm sand, as with enough force you can push through it to reach inside the space they're projecting over. Because of this physical limitation Accra droids are generally exempt from performing heavy lifting, unless their specific physical unit has some additional feature to reinforce their hardlight projection. They all have physics simulators to enable their projections to appear as though they're affected by gravity, but that's more an act for everyone else's sake than their own, as they're just as happy to float off the ground like a glowing faerie. The floating is, honestly, a big part of their charm.
Characteristics
An Accra Labs Android is a valuable member of any crew, bringing a host of benefits beyond just the skillset their AI development has cultivated.
- Accra droids having innate gravity suspension systems allow them to move freely through the weightlessness of space where their crewmates might be dependent on pushing, flailing, swimming or grappling hooks to navigate a zero-gravity area.
- Space is vast, but space in a starfaring vessel is a premium, and Accra droids' small size allow them to comfortably navigate tight spaces that would give a Ganymedean a hard time.
- The drawback of their small design is Accra droids are one of the few makes who don't have biomass energy converters, but they compensate for this by sharing simulated meals alongside friends with their hardlight projectors.
- You can bump into an Accra droid's projection if you're not looking, but you can walk through one if you're determined.
- Maintenance requires specialist knowledge, as Accra droids are built compact and have specific heat management requirements to function optimally.
- Accra droids are the most fragile of the six manufacturers, so be careful! A hard bump will knock one out of the air.
Specialization
Before a nascent drone AI is set loose in the Accra Labs media archive, they're often given a set of tools and a specific direction to help them hone a useful skillset instead of becoming a scattered and media-poisoned mess. Pinpointing a skillset can move in one of two directions: if they feel like their desired output would be best cultivated through resistance then a drone AI can be fed a steady diet of encrypted and uncategorized media, thus learning to engage with computer resistance while also helping the company sort and archive recovered data. If they feel like pure exposure is a better route to their desired output then they can set their AI loose within the media archives the former group has created, having access to a broad, tagged and indexed library of media to freely cross-reference and study, correcting misapplied file tags and tidying up the archive as they go. Through both methods Accra creates unique artificial sentient life with abstract skillsets, as well as a curated and well-maintained library of old-world media and knowledge. It's a win-win.
Being just a buzzy little drone by itself isn't entirely useful, nor is strictly being a hard light projection, so when Accra is planning a path for their AI they will be sure to equip their physical drone bodies with some other features to help them perform the expected jobs easier. Some example of this are:
- Clover is a systems analysis and data decryption professional, she was given a set of basic decryption tools and, in her tour of the archives, began referencing that basic set to develop her own decryption tools. She now works for a salvage company extracting and decoding locked data files, ship schematics and black box records from shipwrecks.
- Bi Feng was built to promote physical wellness among workers, so he was designed with a small forcefield projection array he could weave into parts of his hardlight projection, allowing him to more ruggedly engage with students. He followed a rabbithole down the Accra Labs archives and is now a martial arts master working at a pub.
- Firefly was trained for forensic analysis and wilderness survival, so the team at Accra Labs equipped them with Ultraviolet light emitters and a wide-band hard light projection array that can contain a pocket of breathable atmosphere. They currently work for a deep space search and rescue company.
The Accra Labs method is not about programming a machine to do what you tell it to, it's about cultivating new synthetic life and letting its skillset emerge naturally through this process of growth and self-discovery. When the seed AI inside an archival drone is ready to graduate, they will tell you themselves with a body and identity of their own construction. And from there, their skills are their own to use as they see fit.
"Old Terrans had a song about them, I'm sure. 'One fist of iron, the other of steel'? Anyways, we built 'em good! They're both gonna getcha." -- June, ex-United engineer
Manufacturer
Built with pride in the North Lake sector of the Federated American Territories, the United Robotics Corporation has been furnishing heavy industries with the tools they need to get the job done for two-and-a-half centuries. Construction, excavation, mineral extraction, drilling, timbering and terraforming; when you're moving large amounts of natural resources you need heavy equipment that works efficiently at scale and will perform reliably under harsh or even hostile conditions, and United Robotics has built a reputation on delivering those tools. Responding to requests to supplement the workforces in some of these hostile areas, United Robotics has developed a line of artificial sentients kitted for industrial labor and built sturdy enough to march into Hell itself and chip a rock of sulfur off the Devil's back. United Androids are not just the strongest and most rugged of all Androids, but they surpass the formidable Callistans as the biggest sentient lifeforms the Sol system has yet produced.
United Androids like to pick names that have good dog-like qualities to them, like Buck, Rocky, Daisy or Empress.
Appearance
Standing between seven and eight feet tall, United Androids cast an unmistakable silhouette wherever they go. Unlike their Terran-made peers, United Androids make no attempt at passing for any sort of human-like appearance, instead being built for pure utilitarian function. They are designed with a number of industries in mind, but they all feature ample cranial unit protection in the form of a high metal collar as well as a thick rimmed helmet of some shape or another to ensure their noggins are kept safe and sound. They wear heavy protective cladding over their shoulder and hip joints to protect against unexpected bumps damaging their important connective joints, and their upper shoulders are built with deflective metal studs or rails to redirect falling hazards away from their vital areas. Their arms come in many shapes, tailored to best suit the industries they're built for, but their legs share the common feature of heavy weighted boots with deployable stabilizers to ensure they have solid footing on any terrain. Their joints are built oversized to give them sturdier articulation. They sound how you'd imagine they do when they walk.
United Androids will occasionally freshen up their paintjob, but they tend to wear their scuffs and scrapes with pride. There is a point where you do need paint to actually show off the scuffs, though, and that's usually why they go in for a fresh coat.
Characteristics
United Robotics serves many industries, but at their core their Androids share a number of common features to maintain a standard of quality across all branches.
- United droids can retract their head units into their protective collars to protect their optics from harmful debris.
- Their head units can swivel 360 degrees, ensuring they have vision all around them.
- Their head fixture can pivot forwards or backwards on a 180 degree axis, allowing them to look straight down or straight up while standing
- The combination of the above two traits gives United droids a full spherical range of vision.
- Each foot has three retractable stabilization pedals, one on each side and one at the heel, to further stabilize the already-heavy Androids.
- United droids have biomass energy conversion capabilities, and can lift their head to reveal a Hatch for them to pour food Down.
- They can have any number of optic sensors, each one generally being tuned to a specific function.
- Among the manufacturers, United droids have the highest tolerance to extreme heat.
- Advanced alloy plating and curved-face designs protect against damage and dissipate incoming forces by deflecting them away from their core.
- High-torque motors and thick joint gears give United droids a very high lifting, pulling and compression threshold.
- Heavy construction comes at the cost of mobility, as United droids move with an economy of speed and prefer not to run.
- Internal computer components are built from Venusian crystal technology, rather than Terran silicon and breadboards.
Very Handy
One of the ways different models of United droid are adapted for different industries is how their arm units are designed. United Androids are generally equipped to handle existing hardware on a job site, rather than show up and be the hardware themselves. For jobs that require a lot of lifting, holding and welding, a set of large three-fingered hands with built-in plasma welders in their palms may be the ticket, as one finds on Buck. These jobs require less fine dexterity and more precision under heavy weight, so reducing digit count and increasing the carrying capacity of each finger is the way to build them out. In contrast, Rocky was built for the mining industry, so he features smaller hands with more fingers that don't need to support extreme weights and are instead built for dexterity in controlling United brand heavy mining equipment or other control panel arrays. And complimenting the others, Empress's arm units were designed for █████████████ ████████ █████████████ ██████████ and ███████████████ █████████████ ███ ████████████ ███████████████. ███████████████ ████████ ████████████ ████████████████████ while ████████████████ ██████████████████████████████ █████████████████████ ████████████████████ authorization. So in summary, the arm units of a United droid come in a range of power and dexterity profiles to suit the needs and the equipment used on a given industry's worksite. If a United droid finds their current arm units unsatisfactory for a job they want to pursue they can have them swapped out, any United Robotics maintenance technician can perform the job easy enough.
Built to Last
When dealing with heavy industry, both at home and out among the stars, high heat becomes an unavoidable hazard that needs to be accounted for. Traditional Terran methods don't handle extreme heat very well, so in an effort to improve their durability United Robotics began incorporating crystal computer memory technologies developed on Venus. Using beams of light and specific crystalline structures, qubit-capable computer memory is possible using materials that handle high heat and sudden jolts better than Terran silicon. Venusian engineers skilled in crystal memory development were hired onto R&D teams, working under Terran supervision to ensure that United's famous standards of excellence were maintained while integrating these new technologies. The results exceeded expectations, and have enabled United Androids to become the high water mark for tenacious durability throughout the Sol system.
Callistans, the former record holders for that category, have taken issue with that assertion. Comparisons between Callistans and United Androids are frequently made as the two sit at the top of the heavyweight division, and a general consensus as to how they measure up has been largely agreed upon, if not entirely so by grumpy Callistans. United Androids are living walls of metal, they are extremely hard to damage and are capable of tremendous feats of strength in dire conditions, so pound-for-pound they come out at the top of the charts. In practical terms, their lack of mobility is a hindrance to them, and while Callistans are a lot softer and a bit less strong, they are a lot more mobile, able to run at speeds great enough to evade predators who dwarf even United droids in size. Callistans can run, climb, roll, crawl, slide and tumble; you can't really hurt a United droid, but they can't really run from danger, either. United droids are built for the controlled environment of a hazardous workplace, where Callistans are born on an uncontrollable, hazardous homeworld. It's a distinction most parties are mostly okay with. The squishy little Inner Belt people can have their achievement.
"You don't always need a specialist. You don't even need a Jack of all Trades. Sometimes a Jack of One Trade will get the job done. In a pinch any Horizon droid can be that Jack for you." -- Doc Pietr, Martian technologist
Manufacturer
Everyone knows Martians were the first to reach the stars and explore the worlds beyond their home, not everyone knows that Horizon Adaptive Systems Specialists were there to help them do it. One of the oldest of the interplanetary corporations, Horizon helped equip Martians for their long journeys far away from home, ensuring they can make the absolute most out of the least amount of equipment available, equipment that could keep up with a Martian's ability to go and thrive anywhere. Horizon built the CX Units that went to Titan and united the Sol system, end to end. They've been in the game a very long time, and the impact of their technology can be felt in every known world. Modern Horizon Androids have a very rich pedigree, and among the six manufacturers they are far and away the most versatile and adaptable Androids you'll ever meet. It's hard to describe them in terms of what they can do, it's better to think of a Horizon droid's capabilities in terms of what challenges they're prepared to face.
True to their ancient heritage, Horizon Androids tend to have screenname-style names, usually a word and some numbers, like Weaver813, Birdsong46 or Driftwood851. People call them by just the word half of their names, but their full government names require you to pronounce the numbers as well.
Appearance
The most notable feature of a modern Horizon Android is the big glowing screen they have for a head. Designed to present a soft and inviting facade, Horizon opted to use a cathode ray tube instead of harsher flat panels because organic lifeforms found their appearance to be gentler and more relaxing, even if the screen isn't as pixel-clear as other technologies. Following feedback from encounters with prior CX Unit models, the development of a friendly face became of paramount importance to the Horizon Android line. The screen is meant to convey emotive expressions to other organic lifeforms, but it can be used to display footage or schematics or visualize a memory from the Horizon droid's memory bank. It's an all-purpose display screen with a full range of colors, but each droid likes to pick a color or two for their default expressions because it helps the screen stay nice and bright. Despite being their primary emotive interface, the screen itself is not their head and it's not how they see things, that job falls to the array of optic sensor tubes bolted to the sides of their monitors. These optic tubes are their actual eyes and, like on United droids, each one has its own optical configuration. They can be set to detect heat, movement, radiation, electromagnetic fields and so on, but one is usually a standard optic lens, usually with some zoom function to it. The big cathode ray tube is entirely there for the benefit of organic lifeforms, it isn't even where a Horizon droid's central computer is. You can blow the screen completely out and as long as their optic sensors are still attached to the sides of the hollow frame they'll carry on just fine. In fact, you can knock the head entirely off a Horizon droid and then just bolt their optics to their shoulders or on top of or around their collar unit and they'll be good as new, carrying on without a head until they can have a new one installed. It's the most recognizable part of the Horizon droid and it's also the least necessary.
Characteristics
Martian design places different emphasis on valuable characteristics than their Terran counterparts, and that is reflected in the way Horizon Androids are built.
- Horizon droids are designed to be easy to repair with simple or makeshift tools.
- They have three fingers on each hand so a supply of spare finger units can go a longer way.
- A support plate at the base of their neck pivots, allowing them to turn their heads.
- Their personality algorithms are RAM based but their professional skillset systems are ROM based.
- Three cartridge ports on their chest are protected by a hinged metal panel secured by a sturdy latch.
- Horizon droid chasses are often decorated with gold filigree or other similar engravings.
- Horizon Androids don't have a way to eat food with their friends.
- They're not slow, they can run pretty good.
Easy to Repair
A Horizon droid's body is a very simple machine. They don't go for any of the kind of dress-up that Terran Android manufacturers do and they don't use any fancy parts either. Their skeletal-looking bodies are built in a way where it's easy to diagnose a problem on account of there not being ten million things that can go wrong, and built in a way where an untrained person with simple instructions can successfully repair a damaged component on a Horizon droid. Their major limb joints all use the one same kind of motor so any supply of Horizon parts can service any damaged region of a droid, and hinge joints simply don't use the rotational feature of these motors that ball & socket joints take advantage of. They are built with flat-head screws with deep cuts so it's possible to turn them with a knife or a flat stone or a piece of the Android's own paneling. Nothing is proprietary, reasonable substitutions for virtually anything can be made to keep the Android functioning. Their skeletal frame design makes it easy to access any panel without encumbrance. They're not built to be impervious, they're built with the expectation that they will get damaged and that damage should be very easy to repair. If you need more armor plating you can literally just rivet some scrap metal onto a Horizon droid and they will be improved by their inclusion. Martians ventured a long, long way from home in the early years of space travel and they appreciate the value of making the most of as little as you can.
The Job Cartridge System
The seeds of Martian engineering that have grown into a mighty tree have born a sweet fruit of innovation, and that fruit is the Job Cartridge. Say you and your crew are venturing out into the unknown, to explore worlds you've never been to and face challenges you can't anticipate. Professional skillsets are at a premium, so how can you best prepare to handle the unknowable rigors of life beyond the stars? Hire an enormous crew and hope no one dies? That's Terran thinking! What you do is you build one kind of Android, bring a couple of them and program a bunch of Job Cartridges to bring with you for them to use. Job Cartridges take a range of knowledgebases and skillsets and condense them into adequate levels of mastery that a Horizon droid can plug into the ROM ports on their chest and instantly utilize that knowledge or those skillsets. Skills are not tied to any individual crewmember, if you have a cartridge available then any Horizon droid present can take advantage of it, and if a droid with an important job cart is incapacitated you can pop out the cart and give it to another droid. Carts can he hot-swapped on the fly, so an Android can plug in a simple ranged weapons cart and a stealth cart to prepare to defend themselves and move discreetly to a secured location, then swap their weapons cart out for a lockpicking & security cart and open a locked door, for example. Horizon droids can mix and match up to three Job Cartridges and cross-reference their data, allowing them to mix and match to form more effective specialized combinations- a high-synergy set of three Job Cartridges is highly prized among Horizon droids. This is the strength of Martian ingenuity.
The downside to the Job Cartridge system is, ultimately, the need for Job Cartridges. A Horizon droid with no Job Carts is listless and unskilled, still able to perform the most basic functions but they're not inherently able to learn any new skills, since that part of their system is connected to their ROM ports. Carts for common skills like basic weapons usage, data entry, orienteering and the like are plentiful, but extremely valuable skills like advanced surgical techniques, applied chemistry, demolitions and astrophysics are much more rare and hard to come by, both because Horizon Specialists only made a handful of those carts for specialty teams and because other Horizon droids tend to snap them up as soon as they surface. Securing a trifecta of rare high-value carts with great synergy is the ambition of every Horizon droid; there are programs available for Horizon droids or their friends to help plan desirable builds ahead of time before they start scouring the market.
The Bootleg Market
A ray of hope for unlucky Horizon droids shines through the gloom of limited cartridge access, however! A number of hacker collectives, particularly those based on Titan, have made it their duty to track down rare carts, acquire them and dump the ROMs onto their personal computers. There is an underground market for bootleg Job Carts, and while the quality of unofficial carts are all over the place, if you know certain hacker collectives with a good reputation you can pick up copies of rare carts you otherwise couldn't get your hands on for cheap. Knowledge wants to be free, and there are plenty of organic and synthetic friends out there who are working hard to bring the full breadth of Job Cartridge access to the Horizon Android community. They just gotta make sure they don't draw Horizon's attention, megacorps who are that old don't tend to like sharing their bread and butter so openly.
"No, we don't have 'cats' on Neptune. They're not supposed to be cats. No, just-- don't call them 'meow meows' either! No, I don't know what a "bunny". I just-- ahh!"
-- Hanmerylinezephyleer, frustrated Neptunian
Manufacturer
Quasar Galactic Industrial Development have been described as taking all the major Terran corporations and merging them into one entity. Based in the farthest reaches of the Sol system, Quasar Galactic is a megaconglomerate that services the industries of planetary interest to Neptune, the Skyguard and its current Patriarch. Like Delta to the Inner Belt, most Outer Belt starships utilize Quasar Galactic systems and parts for the bulk of their operations, regardless of where they were built. And like United Robotics, Quasar is deeply connected to Neptune's rich diamond mining and plutoforming industries. Like Accra Labs, Quasar handles data management and media distribution on their enormous homeworld, and like Aoba Systems, they find themselves making beautiful things pleasing to the organic eye.
Quasar Androids follow their organic counterparts in choosing a common-language word they like as their name and spelling it with numbers, like EV3R, S41NT or P47CH.
Appearance
Quasar Androids are, one and all, handmade by Neptunian artisans, so each one is unique. They don't roll off the assembly line in droves; Neptune is shared by two dominant sentient lifeforms so they're not hurting for workers, if it takes a little more time to do it right then so be it. They happen to have a good number of artisan engineers, but even still Quasar Androids are somewhat rarer than their Inner Belt counterparts, never really hitting the regulatory per-annum cap in their production output. Panel seams are carefully placed, metals chosen for their complimentary hues, rivets are tastefully arranged. If you commit to breathing new life into iron and sand, take the time and the care to make it beautiful, or don't bother at all.
The template for Quasar Android design aesthetics was carefully put together by collaboration between artists and engineers of Neptune's two species. They're not meant to look like Medileer or like Zephyleer, they're meant to take on an appearance somewhere in between; an aesthetic blend of the two cooperative peoples. A Quasar Android has the tall ears of a Zephyleer, but not too tall, falling within the range of a Medileer's crest, which is represented by the presence of long hair. They have the watchful eyes of a Medileer and the inviting smile of a Zephyleer. Their shoulders articulate to sit as a Medileer, but are able to shift forward to run on all fours like a Zephyleer. Their tails have a Medileer's strength and a Zephyleer's softness. Their hands are modeled after a Zephyleer, absent of thumbs with retractable claws that allow them to use the Neptunians' tools, and their legs are designed to let them trot across the plutoformed surface of their homeworld as a Medileer would. Quasar Androids are very carefully designed to represent a handshake between the two species of Neptune, so it is very frustrating when the shivering, furless nose-pickers of the Inner Belt look at them and call them kitty cats or funny little biscuit babies or purry widdle meow meows or whatever insipid thing they think they're seeing. They're exquisite representations of inter-species harmony and cooperation. They are not "pretty kitty baby bread loafs". This gets a certain kind of Neptunian going every single time. Some of the Quasar droids kinda like it, however. It always sounds affectionate.
Characteristics
While each individual Quasar Android is precisely designed with exquisite care, there are some core features every artisan makes sure to include in their sculpture.
- Quasar droids have highly-tuned sensory equipment, particularly their eyes and ears.
- They won't admit to it but Neptunians have borrowed a page from the Terrans and included biomass energy converters in their designs, allowing their Androids to likewise share in the social ritual of a meal.
- Quasar droids are articulated to navigate the tight underground tunnels of the Zephyleer.
- Newer models of Quasar droid have pop-out thruster panels to allow for gliding through the air alongside the Medileer.
- Their average height sits somewhere between the two species of Neptune.
- They are very cute.
Overseers & Supervisors
For all the effort that goes into bringing Quasar droids to life, the actual roles they're designed to fill are remarkably mundane. The strength of the Quasar line of Androids is in their superior sensory input arrays- they're able to see minute details, hear whispers within a din of noise, feel vibrations beneath their feet and detect the degrade of structural integrity before a critical piece of terrain collapses. It's a remarkable suite of abilities, but the greatest use Neptunian industries have for them is for oversight and supervision. Quasar droids are offered a lot of very boring clerical work, watching over a body of Neptunian workers as they plug away at their given industry, keeping tallies on supply depletion and monitoring for potential safety hazards before they can cause harm or interrupt production. They're important roles that are well-suited to such an array of sensors, and many Quasar droids happily take the easy job and collect considerable pay, but for a fair few there just seems like there's so much more to see and hear, so much more to do than manage the gruntwork of interplanetary conglomerates. And thanks to synthetic lifeform regulations, if a Quasar droid wants to move on and see the stars, you gotta pay them their stipend and let them go.
See You, Space Kitty
Those Androids who choose to leave Neptune often find much more interesting work available to them, and the other species always seem happy to see one of them show up. S41NT was built for large-scale data allocation and organization, and instead of working on corporate spreadsheets he manages the operations of a professional criminal organization on Titan. P47CH was intended to detect and assess worker health and fatigue, and instead took his skills into field medicine for a deep space search & rescue operation. EV3R is a risk assessment droid who just plain old didn't feel like doing risk assessment her whole life, so she bought her own starship and cruises around Sol, hopping from port to port using her high-power audio receptors to eavesdrop on gossip about lost shipwrecks to salvage, passing word along to her own friends on Titan. A Quasar droid's sensory array is a powerful gift that seems almost squandered on industrial management and clerical work, but that's a need that needs filling and the job's always there if you want it. But for some Quasar droids, the only thing they can hear is the alluring call of space, of travel and adventure and a life rich with sights and sounds waiting to be discovered. If Quasar wants them so bad, they can always build another one. Take the money and run.