While the origins of the T III colony might be a guess, the rest of it isnt, Red... I believe everything but where they come from is stated in one of the stories... where R-type gets drug into an attack on the T-3 comp system. Its generally stated in there that they are THE final word about Hyper.Net, Ai, and other related subjects.

Even if they were originally settled from earth (and I doubt it. We know Dr. S. Sqrl, a Salusian, held a top spot there for at least a century) they'd not side with earth about this and risk loosing their reputation over something like this.

___________________

Vaughn doesn't know I exist. I guess this explains why the rest of reality keeps ignoring me as well. >_<

Frankly , I'd be surprised if they DIDN'T do that . I mean , of
all the races out there , the Cybertronians must know best what it's
like to be regarded with prejudice , as _only_ a machine that
mimicks life , and also what an artificail lifeform that deserves being independent acts like . If they ever saw any artificial lifeform of the
likes of Dorothy I'm pretty sure they'd just dump all the regulations
in the bin and make said lifeform independent using any and all means neccesary (if said lifeform wanted it so , of course). And I'd pity any and all
who'd dare try to prove them wrong .

Am I making any sense here?

-Griever
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- Almost, at times, the Fool."

Yes.

It's a rare thing when I can make sense of something on the Eyrie forum.

Well, the Decepticons aren't big on adoption. Hell, in the old days, they didn't recognize each other as sentient lifeforms half the time. :)

As for the Autobots, they do have their own ideas, but they also tend to try and stick to the established rules - they like to make an effort at being good galactic citizens and the like. Odds are, unless there was some outright danger involved, they would try to stay out of the matter, at least officially. That's not to say they wouldn't want to get involved, but at that point it becomes kind of like a Starfleet crew gritting their teeth, sucking it up, and letting that planet full of hapless primitives get whaled on by the comet because the Prime Directive forbids them to intervene.

(Whereas the WDF would just waste the comet with the Reflex Cannon and give the primitives a new mythology. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Though I would think that having one as a sponser would cause the
the Board to consider the application a little more carefully.

but at that point it becomes kind of like
>a Starfleet crew gritting their teeth, sucking it up, and letting that
>planet full of hapless primitives get whaled on by the comet because
>the Prime Directive forbids them to intervene.

I never liked the Prime Directive. My ST knowledge is a bit rusty,
but when I see it invoked, nine times out of time, it is usally an
excuse to avoid getting one's hands dirty.

>(Whereas the WDF would just waste the comet with the Reflex Cannon and
>give the primitives a new mythology. :)

May knock their culture for a loop, but at list their still alive
to have one.

Brad

It's well-intentioned, meant to prevent situations like the ones in The Omega Glory and Patterns of Force (both TOS episodes in which power-mad starship commanders bent less advanced planetary civilizations to their whims); on the other hand, it often leads to huge bummer situations like the one in Homeward (a TNG episode in which the crew of the Enterprise was forced by General Order #1 to loiter around in orbit and watch a whole planetful of primitive humanoids die as their atmosphere dissipated).

>>(Whereas the WDF would just waste the comet with the Reflex Cannon and
>>give the primitives a new mythology. :)
>
>May knock their culture for a loop, but at list their still alive
>to have one.

That's pretty much the WDF's philosophy too.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

The Prime Directive is often mis-interprteted. To quote one of the books: "The Prime Directiive is not the words 'don't butt in' in mile high letters on the side of StarFleet HQ."

It applies only to races that have no knowledge of other sentient races - and to a lesser degree those that do but don't have ftl tech yet. The object is 'don't let them know we're around until they're ready to deal with us'. In the comet example, a StarFleet crew could blow up the comet - but they couldn't go down and let the natives know they did it, and they'd better not be seen.

Otherwise it's just a general respect for local laws etc.

In the Lensmen books the Arisians had a similar position, they had to minimise their contact with Civilisation or they'd cause it to collapse from an inferiority complex. Go figure.

drakensisthered

SHE'S the 'Pirate Killer,' 'Klingon Spooker,' 'Big Trouble in a Little Package,' 'She Who Must be Avoided,' and 'Go Around the Other Side of the Nebula.' I'm the dumb blonde comic relief.

"The Prime Directive, Admiral, last time I checked, did not first appear on the wall of Starfleet Headquarters in flaming letters accompanied by a sepulchral voice intoning, 'Thou Shalt Not Butt In' ... The Prime Directive was created by men and women, no better or worse than any of us, and I respectfully submit that if our hands are so completely tied by it that we sit around impotently, then we have to seriously reconsider what the hell it is we're all about."
--Commander William T. Riker
Star Trek New Frontier Book One: House of Cards

Incidentally, a couple of friends and I were arguing over the concept (and validity) of the Zeroth Law of Robotics in a very similar argument. Wonder if that particular law applies to the robots of the UF universe.

----------------
Jeffrey McIntyre
"I actually liked ST: New Frontier. Wonder if I should be worried about myself..."

... the... Zeroth Law... of Robotics.

Uh-huh.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

From Robots and Empire, and formulated by R. Daneel Olivaw, if memory serves:

A robot shall always act in the best interests of Humanity as a whole, regardless of the restrictions of the other Three Laws.

Or something like that. Basically, Asimov wanted Daneel to be the mysterious ruler of the Galaxy or somesuch.

Redneck (I -hated- that book)

Red wizard needs money badly...
www.wlpcomics.com
White Lightning Productions - don't tell the Pope

Basically, except that Olivaw didn't formulate it, Giskard did. Giskard just didn't have the capability to implement it. Following his one act of harming an individual in following the Zeroth Law, Giskard shut down, but not before communicating it to Olivaw, who set about orchestrating human history for the next ten thousand years or whatever in service to the Zeroth Law.

Baaah.

-- Sean --

http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

No particular law applies to the robots of the UF universe. Not the Three Laws, not the Zeroth Law, not the Laws of Zardon.

In Asimov's tales, US Robots and Mechanical Men wired the Three Laws into every positronic brain they made (with one exception; see I, Robot for that story). This was for marketing purposes; it allowed their customers to feel completely safe around those robots. They could easily have used their positronic technology without hardcoding the three laws into them. For the record, Asimov used the term "positronic" before realizing what a positron was; it is safe to assume that his robots brains' were not, in fact, made of antimatter. That would have changed the robots' behavior slightly (e.g. every one of them would run away from humanity and then detonate themselves safely).

Robots in UF are not made by any one entity, or with any one technology. Positronic (again, not antimatter) brains do exist; so do crystal matrices (such as Eve), the technology of Katsuhiro Stingray, and just plain old computer circuitry for droids. And that's not counting the "technologies" that handle the sentient robot races of UF, such as Cybertronians and Daleks.

Any of these cyberbrain technologies can be wired with arbitrary sets of laws. It is, therefore, possible to make an Asimovian buma if you cared to. I would not be surprised if some manufacturers did that, in order to sell their robots as "safer" than the competition.

--rR

Years of watching Star Trek enabled me to get around that by assuming the presence of a polarized verteron matrix to prevent annihilatory events. :)

>the sentient robot races of UF, such as Cybertronians and Daleks.

FTR, Daleks aren't robots, they're biological organisms - nearly helpless and incapable of surviving or reproducing without mechanical assistance, admittedly, but biological organisms nonetheless. What we think of as a "Dalek" is actually just a Dalek's vehicle, rather like a small tank.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>the sentient robot races of UF, such as Cybertronians and Daleks.
>
>FTR, Daleks aren't robots, they're biological organisms - nearly
>helpless and incapable of surviving or reproducing without mechanical
>assistance, admittedly, but biological organisms nonetheless. What we
>think of as a "Dalek" is actually just a Dalek's vehicle, rather like
>a small tank.

Vertical, One, Man In Tank. Silouette stats to be found at http://www.evilnet.net/~jhfong/Wormgears/Designs/vomit.html

Blessed be.
Nathan Baxter

Okay, another question: does the UF version of Cybertron have any factions besides the Autobots and the Decepticons and their subsets (Maximals, Predacons, et. al.)? And does being a citizen of Cybertron mandate joining one of them?

-- Sean --

http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

In 2405, after several centuries of peace, there are Cybertronian civilians, citizens who don't belong to any particular group; the only particular "faction" is the Autobots, who serve as sort of a combination police/military/government for the planet and its holdings. (There isn't really a Maximal faction, per se; the Maximals we saw in Twilight are castaways from a parallel universe.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

The joys of Transwarp technology?

Static-Pulse
- the most impulsive post alive
DarkBeast.com

Pretty much. (We'll have to come up with another name for it, it people will be confusing it with second-generation warp drive... :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/