Aeroquest… Adagio 8

Adagio 8 – Mechanoids

At this point, it is important that you know the difference between a Metalloid and a Mechanoid.  They are not the same.  The two terms are not interchangeable.  The differences are critical to making your way through the modern galaxy. You should probably also know what a simuloid is, but I don’t want to overtax your little brains just now.  After all, there’s a better than eighty percent chance that, as you are reading this, you probably don’t have an electronically enhanced mind.

A Metalloid is what Sorcerer 4 was.  It is an entirely artificial life form.  Syn Corporation is the most dominant manufacturer of Metalloids, but artificial intelligence and artificial emotions have made them independent of their original makers.  Many Metalloids were made not for sale by a factory, but by a parent robot who simply wanted to reproduce.  Often, Metalloid parents use pieces from their own bodies to manufacture offspring, replacing the part taken from them later on.  They almost always gift their robo-child with a piece of their own intelligence.  Hence Metalloids can be very much like humans in their make-up and mental profiles.

I apologize for my prejudice here.  Unless I forget to tell the story of the Great Robot Pie Fight, you will see why I hate robots.  They are nasty!  They are inscrutable.  I would rather not spend time with them.  Well, with the exception of the occasional Metalloid entertainment girl-robot.  I admit to kinda liking those.

Mechanoids are an entirely different story.  To be a Mechanoid, you must have first been a living being.  Dead bodies are brought back to life through a marriage of flesh and circuitry.  Minds are reloaded from computers and usually are kept as emotion-free as it is possible to do for a living mind.  Dead and decayed flesh is restored as far as it is possible to do with the primary level of technology common in the galaxy.  The Mechanoid is a true machine-man, more so than any titanium Metalloid.  Well, machine-man, machine-woman, machine-child, or machine-horse as the case may be.

Now, I know it has been said by many observers that Mechanoid beings actually remember portions of their previous lives as a living being.  I mean to show proper respect to those who claim this, but that is a load of hoo-haw.  It is not physically possible for that to be true.  I have studied the physics of the question and know this with certainty.  The re-animated one cannot retain the electro-chemical memories of their previous life.  Death effectively removes the data from whatever is left of the brain, even if we are talking about someone intentionally turned Mechanoid while they were still enjoying a healthy life and then carefully preserved.  I would maintain that any story to the contrary is impossible, and induced by the various psychoses that Mechanoids are susceptible to.

Mechanoids are often violent and mentally unhinged.  They are more akin to ancient concepts of the un-dead than they are to the people or creatures they once were.  They live, yet their life and life-quality do not fit into the normal range of what we call life.  I imagine most, if not all Mechanoids wish for an end to their unnatural life, and like the Rot-Warriors, I examined on the planet Mingo, they actively sabotage their own chances for survival.

There are a few exceptions to every scientific rule, but my mind is closed on this issue.  If Ged Aero or Arkin Cloudstalker could neither one convince me, then I will never be convinced.  After all, they had experiences with Mechanoids that, on the surface, appeared to disprove my thesis.