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February 15, 2006
Synthetic Creatures
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| Synthetic Creature | Material | Personality | Nature of Birth | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Talos | Bronze | Aggressive | Fashioned by Hephaestus | |
| Galatea (Pygmalion) | Stone | Not much | Aphrodite Intervention | "" |
| Golem | Clay | Creepy, vengful | Rabbis & God | 1579-ish |
| Gingerbread Man | Dough | Rascally, with hubris | ??? | ??? |
| Frankenstein's Monster | Dead people | Vengeful | Science | 1816 |
| Tin Man, Scarecrow | Straw, Tin | Kind | Witches | 1900 |
| Tik Tok | Metal | Stalwart | Witches again? | 1914 |
| Pinocchio | Wood | Impish | Fairy Intervention | 1914 |
| Marius, Sulla, Radius, Damon, et al. * | Metal | Hard-working | Science | 1921 |
| The Robot from Fritz Lang's Metropolis | Metal | Not much | Science | 1927 |
| Loads of B-Movie robots | Metal | Sometimes good, usually bad | Science | 1950s - 1960s |
| $6-million Man | Dead Steve Austin + 'Bionics' | Good guy | Science | 1974 |
| See-Threepio (C3PO) | Metal | Gay | Science | 1977 |
| Terminator | Metal | Jerk | Science | 1984 |
From these data we can conclude that creating synthetic creatures from organic materials result in more interesting personalities than we would get from inorganic ones.
Stone in particular yields sexy yet uninteresting girlfriends.
Synthetic creatures made from wood or plants tend to be spunky, while those made of rock or metal are true literalists, in that they adhere to Literalism.
Based on this theory, we can posit that an artificial man made of twine would be witty and urbane, at least in comparison to his metallic brethren.
We can also conclude that Science-generated creatures are in general scarier (or at least more powerful) than God-generated ones, especially when portrayed by Lee Majors.
Thirdly, female robots are boring.
It was really in the 20th century when the line between robotics and medicine began to blur, when it was possible to imagine a human being with mostly mechanical organs and limbs.
But, if you include Voodoo dolls in this list,
well then...
I'm not sure, but it's related.
* The first use of the word 'robot' is from this play: R.U.R. (ROSSUM'S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS)
Posted by mslaybau at February 15, 2006 10:09 PM
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