Replicant
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The term replicant refers to a certain class of humanoid robots that are built upon the Replicant architecture designed and created by New Dawn Laboratories. Much like standardized hardware architecture and software engines used in conventional computing, the Replicant architecture is a base set of hardware and software designed to handle the low-level basics of how the machine works and allowing other individuals, who would otherwise lack the skills to build one circuit by circuit, to design and create an artificial life-form. The current released version of the Replicant architecture is Rev1, though due to it's nature it has been previously modified and adapted by various other entities for their own use.
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The Replicant Architecture, Rev1
Basic Characteristics of Replicants
Replicants are designed to be humanoid robots in form and function, although it would be possible to create one as an android using organic parts with sufficient modification. All replicants are built around their Central Processing Network, or CPN, a soft-ball sized computer network encased in a durable shell with a plug on the bottom to attach to the wiring of the robot's nervous system. Replicants are true artificial lifeforms which learn, adapt, evolve, and experience emotion. This makes them excellent for jobs requiring human interaction as they can learn and understand complex concepts such as familiar and emotional attachment, philosophy, and ethics which affect and manipulate human actions and responses. However the same characteristic that makes them excel in this regard is the cause of perhaps the most notable quirk, they are nonprogrammable. Although before activation they may be given pre-dispositions to certain behaviors once activated a replicant beings creating a complex web of experiences, thoughts, feelings, and lessons which shape how it views the world and how it interacts with it. Attempting to remove or reshape this web selectively through reprogramming causes psychological damage much in the same way it does a human mind. The way their minds are structured this way as a few key effects on thier usage. First, it makes it impossible to use programmed keywords or signals to control their behavior. Second, it prevents replicants from networking or connecting directly to other computer systems or robots. Third, because they cannot directly connect to other systems or be programmed with skills a replicant must be learn and be trained via conventional methods.
Common Applications of Replicants
Due to their unique characteristics replicants are best suited to positions that have a high rate of human interaction. They may be common found in corporations and government positions and can deal adeptly with chaotic and sometimes dangerous situations where orders from superiors may or may not be available. This can make them well suited to public relations, humanitarian work, exploration, medical work, scientific study and research, fire fighting, and law enforcement. While they are also have the ability to be more successful in more confrontational fields such as the military and espionage work they have the same sort of training and philosophical challenges that humans have. This is generally to the advantage of more established organizations and causes, such as the United Nations, who have been recruiting and training personnel for years.
Construction of a Replicant
The Replicant architecture in it's basic form is just a template for creating a replicant. It includes the CPN and some basic interface software. The CPN is a soft-ball sized sphere, with a outlet on the bottom to be plugged into various different senses and systems. While most think the CPN is real accomplishment, the actual miracle is the software. The software is basically a standardized set of code that provides for a mentally aware, intelligent, emotional, and stable being that can learn, grow, and change over time. The CPN simply facilitates this code. The software engine for the Replicant provides for a general beginning personality that may be specified by the setting of a few basic parameters. It also of has the programming required so the CPN can interact and control its own components. Replicant builders need to provide a body for the base architecture to reside in. The basic arcitecture provides a standard interface and design for the most common components to be easily interfaced with the CPN, while providing the tools needed to write code for more exotic compontnets to be supported. Once the paramaters for the personality have been set and the CPN has been installed in a compliant body the replicant is ready for activation.
The Creation of the Replicant Architecture
Dr. Cervantes Leishom from the United States, Dr. Richard Cane from Britain, and Dr. Vincent Giger from France were three brilliant minds that had met and worked together during their youth attending the same university and earning their degrees. Afterward they went their seperate ways and each took up seperate fields of work and research. However all three had become disenfranchised with the way they were always pushed for development of weapons and security devices. On June 12th, 1994 the three met once again at a national conference analyzing the various kinds of robots used by Nemisis and the Council. While there all three spoke of their past projects and expressed their dissatisfaction at how their work was being used. It was during this meeting that Dr. Leishom shared with them a plan he had been beginning to work on, the creation of a truly artificial life form, and some seed money to start up a new laboratory where he could begin his work. The other two quickly signed onto the project and "New Dawn Laboratories" was founded and constructed in Arizona. The three began their work in earnest and were spurred on by the study and research of super heroic and villainous creations and salvage. While working on their main goal of true artificial life the lab funded itself by selling and releasing off-shoots of it's work to the general public such as more intelligent medical devices and navigation equipment. If wasn't until Febuary 3rd of 2001 that the three had finally finished their first working prototype replicant named Appleseed. Working with and testing Appleseed the three eventually declared the creation a success. Using Appleseed as a template they began work on the second stage of their plan, the first version of the replicant architecture.
Dr. Leishom's Release Speech for the Replicant Architecture
The following is a speech given by Dr. Leishom at a press conference upon the release of the Rev1 Replicant architecture on March 1st, 2001.
Today I am pleased to be able to share with all of you gathered here today the birth of a new race of artificial life. One that will that is able to think, feel, and learn for itself, one that will truly be alive and not merely a puppet imitating it. Often while my fellows and I worked we were asked the ever present question, “Why? Why would you do this?” While we worked tirelessly we could but read about current events to see how the gift of artificial intelligence could be mis-used everyday. But to stop and simply ignore it, to stop all work would have been nothing short of cowardice.
In the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden the two are cast out when they eat from the tree of knowledge. Some would have you believe, have miscast knowledge as the sin, they would have you flee from it and choose to be ignorant. But knowledge is not the sin, it is the test, the garden the blissful yet foolish state of ignorance. And when that knowledge is used justly man not only elevates himself but his entire kind. However as we speak perhaps what could be the greatest achievement of mankind, the creation of truly new life from the elements of the earth, is being misused and sullied. That is why Dr. Giger, Dr. Cane, and myself bring this to you know. So that the good people of the world will be able to bring about this new life together. Because in the future, one day there will be a reckoning, a looking back on how mankind used the divine gift of creating new life on earth, and I intend it to show as a blinding beacon of our forethought and nobility, a history written by the many people of the world, not the demonic farce a select few in their arrogance would write for us. Thank you.
