What are your favorite fictional robot/AI characters?
What are your favorite fictional robot/AI characters?
I'll start off by listing mine:
The T-800, Terminator 2: "I know now why you cry, but it's something that I can never do." Gets me every damn time.
ADA, Zone of the Enders: I think I'm the only one who played this game more than the MGS2 demo that came with it. I will never not laugh at the exchange of "You may speak like a human, but you're still a heartless computer, aren't you?" "That is correct. What is the problem?"
Codsworth, Fallout 4: He survives the nuclear holocaust despite not having a bunker and waits 200 years for you to come back. When you look at what changes his relationship with you, he mostly just wants you to be nice to people. I never swapped him out as my companion.
B.O.Y.D., Ducktales 2017: He's adorable. 'nuff said.
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AM from I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream: I haven't got 'round to playing the 1999 videogame adaptation yet, but loved the short story that spawned it. You don't need me to give the pitch, by now someone else in this thread has probably posted the speech about how much AM hates humans.
SHoDAN from System Shock: on the subject of malevolent AIs. SHoDAN is probably my favourite one in fiction ever. System Shock does a brilliant job of setting her up as a hostile presence you are trapped inside of. The smug way she congratulates you when you get stuck in one of her traps or accidentally give her immediate access to the giant laser, help to add depth to what could easily've been a stock AI threat cast from AM's Mold.
There's an Isaac Asimov short story about two engineers who are sent to help start up a self repairing satellite that is part of a network collecting energy from the sun. The satellite has the means to produce its own drones to carry out repairs that are controlled by their own individual AIs. As the engineers stay and try to observe any flaws in the systems, they notice the drones have started worshipping the satellite AI as a god, and become convinced it created everything including the station that contains it. Drama abounds as the engineers try to convince them but ultimately fail and choose to move on, leaving a report that the satellite works fine as long as you don't debate theology with it. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the story, but the characterisation of the AI stuck with me.
Nick Valentine from Fallout 4: as a man from the past trapped in an unfamiliar time, arguably, Nick is a much better version of the character that Nate/Nora is supposed to be. The digitised brain of a pre-war cop, trapped in the shell of one of the institute's "gen-2 synths", (uncanny valley androids that are being phased out in favour of newer ones that are completely identical to humans). Waking up in a pile of scrap with the synthetic skin that hides his machinery damaged, Nick is unfamiliar with both the world he finds himself in and the body he occupies. His synthetic skin is damaged in large swathes, exposing parts of his robotic skull and generally advertising his roboticness to strangers who live in paranoia of the institute using synths like him as assassins and abductors. Ages ago, I wrote a little screed in a megathread about how the Railroad's view of allyship has parallels with liberal queer allyship. I can't help but view Nick through the lense, therefore, of a visibly queer person.
For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the story
Thanks comrade.