In my story, my heroes are a pair of artificially intelligent robots. They are both humanoid, one masculine and one feminine. And they will be travelling across the planet by themselves through any means possible from on foot to hitchhiking (smuggling themselves) on an arduous mission to help all human and robotkind. But this is a bit of a complex concept for them to grasp, and they need input on planning ahead.
First off, what are they going to need to pack before setting off? So far they have taken a backpack containing a toolikit so they can maintain (and possibly upgrade) themselves, and a portable hard drive to back up their data in case of a memory crash or a bad computer virus (better safe than sorry if their antivirus software is not up to date). One problem I've come into is that because they cannot guarantee access to a charger on the road, they have to take a large surplus of batteries (rechargable, and they have to depend on each other to change them as they are both robots). But even though they are rechargable batteries, the aformentioned lack of access to chargers means they will eventually have to carry a lot of spent batteries and cannot throw them away. What will they do on that front?
Second, on their travels these two robots will encounter the remains of broken robots which they can salvage (as all robots believe in having their parts recycled instead of becoming litter). This gives them the chance to upgrade themselves. What kinds of additions and enhancements can I give them, restricting that they will not find any robot-mounted weapons (in my world, there is a regulation that all robots are built to be domestic and are programmed not to carry weapons, though everyday objects can be misused as such. However, assume that my characters will defend themselves in combat using only their bare hands), and they also cannot carry sensors that involve receiving signals from airwaves for the reason below.
Third, their mission is as follows: Someone (I have no idea what party is involved, only which parties are NOT involved, which includes A Robot Intelligence, A Rival Robot Engineer, and A Mother Brain. None of them did it, and I still have not figured it out who did) has installed signal hijackers all over the planet to broadcast a rogue command into the airwaves causing all robots to spontaneously rebel without cause and completely jamming up most radio and TV stations, and my heroes are immune to this because their wireless links have been severed, granting them to keep their freedom and also drastically reducing their sensors. So, how exactly are they going to navigate when their GPS does not work? How will they figure out where the target hijackers are so they can journey there and shut them down? Put simply, since their capabilities have been reduced to that of mere humans, how are they going to get details on how to carry out their mission, because they clearly can't do anything without a specific goal or directive in mind?
Any input is welcome.
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27,145 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2009 - 20 16
Why can't they bring along some sort of solar-powered charger? Surely a civilization advanced enough to construct humanoid robots can spring for some more efficient photovoltaic cells, no?
Absolutely anything you want. Take a look at the trials you expect your robots to encounter on their journey.
These could be physical. Will they have to climb a mountain or scale down a cliff? Will they have to cross a river or gorge where the bridge is out? What sort of equipment could they plausibly find that would help with those activities?
They could also encounter emotional hurdles. You said that your robots are "masculine" and "feminine." What is the basis of these gender constructions? Do the robots encounter other functional robots, and if so, are those robots gendered? How would the robots interact with each other? How would your two robots interact with any humans they encounter? What if they encounter hostile humans who treat the robots with disdain owing to their artificial nature?
Finally, is the antagonist actively trying to stop these robots? Through sabotage? Through minions? Perhaps one of your robots will lose something like an arm in a fight, have to replace it with an arm from a damaged robot--or even from a vanquished foe.
The same way humans have been navigating for millennia prior to launching satellites into orbit: knowledge of the environment, the stars, and good ol' trigonometry (and intuition, which your robots lack, but for which they'll make up in extremely precise trigonometry, I'm sure!).
Well, you need to make sure they're smart enough that they are interesting characters and effective protagonists. A problem-solving robot should be able to figure out a way of acquiring some sort of map or at least an idea of where to begin looking for the bad guys. Perhaps they interrogate humans or robots they encounter. Maybe some of the broken robots they find have data modules that contain pertinent information.
39,374 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 06 41
Why can't they bring along some sort of solar-powered charger? Surely a civilization advanced enough to construct humanoid robots can spring for some more efficient photovoltaic cells, no?
That will do. Thanks.
These could be physical. Will they have to climb a mountain or scale down a cliff? Will they have to cross a river or gorge where the bridge is out? What sort of equipment could they plausibly find that would help with those activities?
They could also encounter emotional hurdles. You said that your robots are "masculine" and "feminine." What is the basis of these gender constructions? Do the robots encounter other functional robots, and if so, are those robots gendered? How would the robots interact with each other? How would your two robots interact with any humans they encounter? What if they encounter hostile humans who treat the robots with disdain owing to their artificial nature?
Finally, is the antagonist actively trying to stop these robots? Through sabotage? Through minions? Perhaps one of your robots will lose something like an arm in a fight, have to replace it with an arm from a damaged robot--or even from a vanquished foe.
In order:
I don't suppose they will be climbing any mountains. As robots, they will probably think "Hey, we're robots! Only a few decades ago we could barely even use the stairs, and you expect us to climb peaks? We aren't agile like mountain goats!" But I had one idea where they would navigate a maze of mining tunnels with the help of another defective free-willed robot to monitor them from the station and since he only talks in beeps they consider using a code based on music to communicate because they might be listened in on and using music messages will make is sound like he is spouting gibberish. This won't be a problem for my feminine robot because she was built to navigate through echolocation and seismic sensors (she's sightless), but for my masculine one he will need an external light source or will have to follow his counterpart closely. I did have some plans to have them find some discarded robotic gecko feet so one of them could scale surfaces like Spiderman, and the other would find a pair of jetpack wings that would not allow him to hover but only use it for short flight distances.
In my story, the robots pretty much understand that gender is an aesthetic design and programming choice by the humans that built them, but it is a contributing factor to what makes them unique. I imagine in a robotic census the number of androids outnumber gynoids (feminine humanoid robots) 4 to one, and most non-android robots never bothered with gender because they are not programmed for much in the way of human interaction. But all robotic vehicles from cars to Roboats are definitely female with feminine onboard personalities (after all, don't we always refer to them as "she"?).
Most robots will not give them any mind at first because they are fellow robots, at most they will consider their actions to be slightly suspicious but my heroes will get around it by ad-libbing cover stories (lying). But after a while once it has been revealed that they have been disabling signal hijackers the remaining areas still keeping robots under control will send out a news alert that my heroes are defective dissenters and a threat to the directive so they should be deactivated on sight (hopefully in a way that they can be salvaged and reprogrammed). As soon as they become outlaws, they spend a lot of time investing in stealth mostly through evasion, hiding and a few bad disguises. At one point I have considered what they would do with a robot they may have shut down, apparently they want to stay on the safe side because they never know when a spare part could have hidden vile programming ("cooties!") in it; they would have to inspect everything thoroughly before installing anything new.
They will not encounter many humans because most of them evacuated, but a majority would probably run from them on sight given the circumstances (all robots are acting hostile to humans and have proven formidable to fight) unless they could convince others they are friendly. Once broadcasts show they are trying to stop the signal controlling the robots for evil purposes, humans will spread this through word-of-mouth that they should help them whenever they can. I don't know about them meeting robot racist supremists in this story, there might be a few guys out there that might not like robots, but only enough to insult them if the circumstances weren't the way they were.
The same way humans have been navigating for millennia prior to launching satellites into orbit: knowledge of the environment, the stars, and good ol' trigonometry (and intuition, which your robots lack, but for which they'll make up in extremely precise trigonometry, I'm sure!).
That will work. They might just appreciate the irony.
Well, you need to make sure they're smart enough that they are interesting characters and effective protagonists. A problem-solving robot should be able to figure out a way of acquiring some sort of map or at least an idea of where to begin looking for the bad guys. Perhaps they interrogate humans or robots they encounter. Maybe some of the broken robots they find have data modules that contain pertinent information.
I'm certain they are doing the best they can to think of solutions to their problems. Of course, interrogating robots falls under "suspicious actions" and early on humans would spend their time running, not talking, even if they knew anything. And I also did mention that when you salvage junk from a broken robot, there could be "cooties" in it. Guess they just have to take a few risks and back up their hard drives before accessing it.