slimesiren

amber

@slimesiren

i'm a lasagna hog

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slimesiren
@slimesiren
austin
@austin
bb8
@bb8

In the book “Droidography”, R0-GR, the sweet cookie baking final operating battle droid from The Freemaker Adventures includes the first canonical notes about droid history and rights. Some interesting points:

  • The historical precedent is for droids to have equal or near-equal status with living beings.
  • Anti-droid sentiment (”We don’t serve their kind here!”) begins with the droid armies of the Separatists during the Clone Wars
  • Restraining bolts and memory wipes are only recent developments, designed to keep droids docile and subservient.
  • Pro-Droid rights is an intentional political aim of the Rebellion.

This book is canon, but also its for children and narrated by a character from a LEGO show; but what I like is how this frames, say, how B2EMO is treated on Ferrix. Ferrix has a worker culture; there’s not a lot of droids there, but its clear that anybody that pulls their weight earns an equal place in their society. Contrast with the Mandalorian, who very specifically has an anti-droid prejudice specifically because of trauma from the Clone Wars. It’s interesting flavor!

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in reply to @bb8's post:

CT-0451
@CT-0451

One of my favorite little additions to recent canon is in the From A Certain Point of View ANH book - there's a short story about that exact bartender who says "We don't serve their kind here". It's not the standout of the series imo but it is pretty neat in that it connects directly that the reason that particular guy hates droids is because his family was attacked by a droid army during the Clone Wars.

Which definitely falls a bit into the Star Wars Explains Itself Too Much bucket, but honestly I like it. One of the best things that the expanded universe stuff can do is explain the scale of these large conflicts - connecting the chaos of that wartime era to a guy who now makes his living being a bartender in Space Casablanca is great, imo. And it makes sense! Of course a huge portion of the galactic population would be way more suspicious about droids if an army of droids just laid siege to half the galaxy

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AndrewJPlant
@AndrewJPlant

Besides the fact that I am always going to be pro Droid Rights, I like that this gives a canonical reason for restraining bolts exist. if droid subserviance is the default expectation then it doesn't make any sense that you would need an extra thing to keep them "in line" it would be like if you had to buy an aftermarket addon for your car to make the steering wheel always work. but coming from a past where droids had more autonomy and were designed in that way it makes sense, in an extremely gross way, why a device to remove that autonomy would have ever been created.

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aaronf
@aaronf

Odd to think about, if droids are basically people, do people make them more or less as useful children? Are they sold commercially before or after activation? People seem quite relaxed about a 7-year-old just making a sapient being, that theoretically has equal or more rights than a slave like him.

I guess it's not a huge deal because almost all droids seem content with (or programmed to like) their role, or imprint on whatever master comes along. Hard to find a droid with ambition. Which is kind of a yikes in itself. How much agency are they really allowed to have?

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robotclaw
@robotclaw

This makes me think they are a lot closer to clones. A “newborn” but fully-functional person. They are immediately expected to shoulder responsibilities, but no one is ready to trust them with anything too complicated or important. They lack the experience that would assure others of their ability.

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