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Robots that Kill
 also by Judith a. MaRKowitz

The Gay Detective Novel: Lesbian and Gay

Main Characters and Themes
in Mystery Fiction (McFarland, 2004)
 Robots that Kill
Deadly Machines and Their Precursors
in Myth, Folklore, Literature,
Popular Culture and Reality

Judith a. Markowitz

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina
 libRaRy oF CongRess Cataloguing-in-PubliCation data
names: Markowitz, Judith a., author.
title: Robots that kill : deadly machines and their precursors in myth,
folklore, literature, popular culture and reality / Judith a. Markowitz.
description: Jefferson, north Carolina : McFarland & Company, inc.,

♾
Publishers, 2019 | includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: lCCn 2019010149 | isbn 9781476668130
(paperback. : acid free paper)
subjects: lCsh: Robots—Moral and ethical aspects. | Robots—social aspects.
| Robots—Folklore. | Robots in literature.
Classification: lCC tJ211.28 .M37 2019 | ddC 303.48/34—dc23
lC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010149

bRitish libRaRy Cataloguing data aRe available

ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-6813-0

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-3639-9

© 2019 Judith a. Markowitz. all rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover illustration © 2019 wood River gallery

Printed in the united states of america

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
 For susan
you are the wind beneath my wings
This page intentionally left blank
 table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction 3

Part I: Motivation 13
Revenge 14
greed 33
Furor: Robots as Job Killers 57

Part II: Crime 65

Criminals 66
enforcers 82
superheroes & supervillains 104
Furor: Making Robots Moral 119

Part III: War 125

humanoids 127
non-humanoids 148
humans 172
Furor: laws 193

Glossary 211
Notes 213
Bibliography 215
Index 235

vii
This page intentionally left blank
 Preface

the goal of this book is to reveal ways in which robots and other arti-
ficially created killers (called “robot-precursors”) are part of the human expe-
rience. Most of the chapters provide examples of robots and robot-precursors
from multiple sources: folklore and mythology, modern literature, contem-
porary media, and the real world. these sources are designed to show lon-
gitudinal and cross-cultural patterns and themes.
the focus here is on themes and patterns. the brushstrokes are broad.
there is no claim to have included all examples that exist in mythology, fic-
tion, or the real world.
there are a number of people and organizations who made this book
possible. Rabbi byron sherwin was an invaluable resource about golems. in
addition to reviewing one of the book’s chapters, my brother harvey
Markowitz was an important source of information about native american
culture. thanks to those who provided me with articles and information.
they include daan Kayser of PaX, who permitted me to use PaX’s “ten
Reasons to ban Killer Robots” as the basis for the discussions in Part iii:
Furor: laws; encounter books for supplying me with a copy of the book
Striking Power; dr. Ronald arkin for sharing articles on making robots moral;
stephen bertman for sharing his article about the golem and shelley’s
Frankenstein; and bob Curran, who provided context for the tulpa myth in
the chapter on greed. thanks to Rhonda and gerry duncan and toni arm-
strong, Jr., for taking the time to read chapters and to give me suggestions.
Finally, thanks to my wife, susan, for her excellent suggestions as well as the
insights and the tremendous support she has given me.


This page intentionally left blank
 introduction

what drives a robot to kill? the premise of this book is that the answers—and there
are more than one—can be found by looking at robots and “robot-precursors” that the
human imagination has produced over millennia. Robot-precursors are non-robotic arti-
ficial beings in mythology, folklore, modern literature, and contemporary media. they
include Frankenstein’s monster, tibetan Tulpas created by intense thought, and the vengeful
statue that sends don Juan to hell. these killer robots and robot-precursors are antecedents
of the real-world killer robots of today and those in our robotic future. they reveal what
we expect, desire, and fear will result from continued efforts to create smarter and stronger
robots.

The Creators
in the real world, killer robots are built by humans—as are the majority of fictional
robots and robot-precursors. sorcerers and magicians dominate folklore and mythology
where they construct killer robot-precursors using supernatural skills and magic. science
supplants sorcery in modern literature and it should be no surprise that mad scientists are
well represented when it comes to making killers (wilson & long, 2008). victor Frankenstein,
the first mad scientist, appeared in Mary shelley’s Frankenstein (88 [957]), a book which
many consider to be the first science fiction novel (Markowitz, 205). Frankenstein spawned
an ever-increasing assemblage of brilliant and unstable egomaniacs driven to fabricate mas-
terpieces that escape almost immediately, turn on them, and set off on killing sprees.
sane scientists and inventors are responsible for killers as well—usually as part of their
work for a military, government, corporation, or underworld organization. the Jedi hired
scientists from Kamino to build an army of clone troopers (Star Wars: Episode II, 2002)
and star trek’s Federation of Planets employed roboticist noonien soong to build androids.
he designed lore, an android, and programmed him with intelligence and emotion. then
he watched in horror as lore evolved into a power-hungry killer (brothers, 990; i, borg,
992). the (fictional) City of detroit commissioned omni Consumer Products (oCP) to
give them advanced police technology. oCP fabricated the robot ed-209, whose first act
was to kill an oCP board member. then, they reconstituted a human using robotics. the
result was RoboCop, a cyborg crime-fighter who did his killing on behalf of the detroit
Police department (RoboCop, 987).
Popes, priests, rabbis, and other spiritual leaders fashion humanoids and “oracular”
heads for selfish or benevolent purposes. artisans craft bloodthirsty swords, killer statues,
and entire killer cities. aliens, ai systems, robots and other non-humans join in by con-


 introduction

structing their own killers. aliens built Mechagodzilla in a bid to conquer earth (Godzilla
vs. Mechagodzilla, 97). skynet continues to unleash killer robots against human rebels in
the terminator universe (98–, ongoing).
such creators provide an endless supply of killers that terrify, entertain, and provide
insights into real-world robots. sprinkled among their lethal creations are a few killers that
spring from unexpected or indeterminable sources. the gashadokuro (“rattling skull”)
from Japanese folklore, shown in Fig. , is the fusion of the fury of millions of dead soldiers
and others who were not given proper burials (see Part i: Revenge). the mythological spar-
toi of ancient greece sprout from dragon’s teeth that have been planted in a field (see Part
iii: humanoids).

Figure 1. Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861) is a depic-
tion of Gashadokuro (“rattling skull”) from Japanese folklore. This robot-precursor is the fusion
of people who were denied proper burials, usually soldiers from a battlefield, but also plague victims
who were buried in mass graves. The desire for vengeance of hundreds of those angry dead causes
their bones to coalesce into an enormous human skeleton that can be fifteen times the size of an
average human (Wikimedia Commons).

Defining Attributes
embodiment, mobility and programmability are characteristics that differentiate
robots and robot-precursors from other beings and sometimes from each other.

eMbodiMent
Part of the definition of “robot” and “robot-precursor” is that they have physical bodies.
embodiment distinguishes it from computer programs, ghosts, demons, and virtual reality.
the materials used to make their bodies differentiate robots from robot-precursors and
both of them from cyborgs. Robot-precursors can be constructed from almost anything
but especially mud, wood, sticks, straw, stones, and animal or human body parts. Corpses
are an especially popular ingredient. the south american Anchimayen (see Part ii: Crim-
inals), a nasty robot-precursor in native american Mapuche mythology, is made from
 Introduction 5

whole human corpses. Robots are traditionally composed primarily of metals with smaller
quantities of other materials. Metals were the primary materials used in early robots.
increasingly, metals have been replaced by silicon, plastics, and carbon fiber. Cyborg bodies
are comprised of a combination of organic and inorganic materials. the exact ratio between
organic and inorganic components is a matter of debate. some contend that cyborgs are
mostly organic but the terminator t-800 (The Terminator, 98) is often called a cyborg
even though the only organic portion of its body is its skin.
Robot and robot-precursor bodies can be humanoid or non-humanoid. there are also
some that, like transformers (2007–, ongoing), are shapeshifters who can change the form of
their bodies. humanoids have two arms, a torso, and a head. some also have two legs. Many
humanoids are easily distinguished from humans. neither CPo, a robot in the star wars
universe (977–, ongoing), nor Frankenstein’s monster, a robot-precursor, would ever be mis-
taken for a human. when the correspondence between a humanoid’s body and the human
body is exact, that humanoid is called an “android.” the replicants in the film Blade Runner
(982) and sophisticated assassins in the terminator universe (98–, ongoing) are androids.
the bodies of non-humanoids do not approximate the human form at all. their bodily
configurations are often determined by the tasks they were created to perform. For example,
snakebots, real-world reconnaissance robots, look and behave like snakes. they blend into
their surroundings and they can slither up a drainpipe or along the ground (hopkins,
spranklin, and gupta, 2009). the claws in Philip K. dick’s story “second variety” (dick,
95 [989]) are robotic weapons whose round shape enables them to roll rapidly towards
their victims. the bodies of other non-humanoids have shapes that signal what they are
rather than what they do. For instance, when a south african zulu sees a hairy, gremlin-
like creature, he knows it’s a Tokoloshe and that it will torment him for a long time (see
Part i: Revenge and Part ii: Criminals).

MoveMent
the ability to move is a defining characteristic of robots that distinguishes them from
devices like laptops and (decidedly nonmobile) mobile phones that have no independent
movement. with few exceptions, primarily swords, robot-precursors also possess the ability
to move their own bodies.

PRogRaMMability
Robots are distinguished from other mechanisms by being programmable. this is a
defining characteristic of robots but not of robot-precursors. Robot-precursors are rarely
programmable. their functions are generally fixed when they are created.

Differentiating Abilities
there are many attributes that distinguish one robot or robot-precursor from another.
among these, the most important are control, intelligence, learning, language, and self-
awareness. some robots and robot-precursors are able to speak. others are not. some are
highly intelligent but others are drones with minimal intelligence.
 introduction

ContRol
Robots and robot-precursors can move but they differ with regard to what controls
that movement. three main categories are automatic, external (or remote), and autonomous.
the label “automatic” is usually reserved for systems that mechanically respond to sensory input and
step through predefined procedures, and whose functioning cannot accommodate uncertainties in the
operating environment [boulanin & verbruggen, 207, p. ].

this is how industrial robot-arms function. they are placed in a stable, factory environment
where they execute sequences of pre-defined movements and patterns until their sensors
tell them they need to initiate a different sequence. some robot-precursors have response
patterns built into them. Mannequin soldiers in the manga Fullmetal Alchemist (arakawa,
200–200) are driven to kill and eat. that behavior pattern is initiated when the mannequin
soldier perceives a potential victim. “their main attack is to try to eat their victim, since
they lack the thoughts of doing much else” (homunculus, n.d.).
Remote control of robots was invented by nicola tesla. he called it “radio control”
and first demonstrated it at an electrical exhibition in 898. Margaret Chaney, his biogra-
pher, writes in Tesla: Man Out of Time (200) that tesla predicted, “you see there the first
of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race”
(p. 8). he was correct. today, real-world aerial drones are remotely piloted and, unlike
automatic robots, they operate in dynamic environments.
“autonomy refers to systems capable of operating in the real-world environment without
any form of external control for extended periods of time.” that is the first sentence of bekey’s
Autonomous Robots (2005). Real-world environments are complex, dynamic, and unpre-
dictable. to function in that type of setting, robots or robot-precursors must be more flexible
than automatic technology provides. they move with intention towards a given goal (which
could be to kill you) using a decision-making pattern called the “sense-plan-act paradigm.”
• Sense. the robot’s sensors detect things of interest in its environment and send the
data to its control-structure.
• Plan. the control structure devises a strategy for dealing with the data so that the goal
can be achieved and sends its instructions to the actuators.
• Act. the actuators cause the robot to implement the plan.
“Cheetah,” shown in Fig. 2, is fully autonomous. it was built by Mit for daRPa to
run very fast in pursuit of someone. leaping was included in its programming because a
successful pursuit often requires the ability to overcome obstacles. using slightly different
terminology, Chu’s (205) description of how Cheetah uses the sense-plan-act paradigm
to jump over an obstacle is presented as a “story.” the story is a technique used throughout

by B B B as is illustrated by the following.

this book that is generally comprised of quoted material. stories are preceded and followed

B B B
DArPA’S CheeTAh roBoT
the algorithm’s first component enables the robot to detect an obstacle and
estimate its size and distance. the researchers devised a formula to simplify a
 Introduction 7

Figure 2. The DArPA fully autonomous Cheetah at the 2015 DArPA robotics Challenge. Pho-
tograph taken June 5, 2015 (Wikimedia Commons; photograph by Master Chief Petty officer
John Williams).

visual scene, representing the ground as a straight line, and any obstacles as
deviations from that line. with this formula, the robot can estimate an obstacle’s
height and distance from itself.
once the robot has detected an obstacle, the second component of the algo-
rithm kicks in, allowing the robot to adjust its approach while nearing the obsta-
cle. based on the obstacle’s distance, the algorithm predicts the best position
from which to jump in order to safely clear it, then backtracks from there to
space out the robot’s remaining strides, speeding up or slowing down in order
to reach the optimal jumping-off point.
this “approach adjustment algorithm” runs on the fly, optimizing the robot’s
stride with every step. the optimization process takes about 00 milliseconds
to complete—about half the time of a single stride.
when the robot reaches the jumping-off point, the third component of the
algorithm takes over to determine its jumping trajectory. based on an obstacle’s
height, and the robot’s speed, the researchers came up with a formula to deter-
mine the amount of force the robot’s electric motors should exert to safely
launch the robot over the obstacle. the formula essentially cranks up the force
8 introduction

applied in the robot’s normal bounding gait, which … is essentially “sequential

executions of small jumps.”

B B B
not all robots are endowed with Cheetah’s full autonomy. some are semi-autonomous,
which means some of their functions are fully autonomous while others are externally con-
trolled. Most aerial drones used by real-world militaries are semi-autonomous because
they have fully autonomous vision and tracking subsystems but their attack functions
remain under the control of the human pilot.
Cheetah can use the sense-plan-act paradigm in pursuit of a goal that lies within the
realm of its programming, such as deciding how to jump over a wall. it cannot, however,
extend its autonomous behavior to tasks that are not part of its programming—even when
a task is well within its physical capabilities. For example, it could not dance, or play soc-
cer—even badly—unless the performance of those tasks is incorporated into its program-
ming. humans possess a different kind of autonomy. we can do many of the things that
Cheetah can do and we can perform totally unrelated tasks, such as cleaning a room or
playing soccer. the difference between machine autonomy and the autonomy of humans
and some other biological beings is significant (Kant, 785 [895]); williams, 205a). it is
also relevant to this book because the autonomy of many fictional robots and robot-
precursors is comparable to the autonomy of humans. other fully autonomous robots and
robot-precursors in fiction and all fully autonomous robots in the real world have “machine”
autonomy.
in summary, robots and robot-precursors can have automatic control, external control
(remotely piloted), or autonomy. some are semi-autonomous, fully autonomous (like Chee-
tah), or have human-like autonomy. the term “autonomous” will be used to label what has
just been described as machine autonomy versus “human-like” autonomy.

intelligenCe & leaRning

Robots and robot-precursors with minimal intelligence are drones. those with auto-
matic control fall into that category. highly intelligent robots and robot-precursors tend
to be autonomous or semi-autonomous. For example, the adamantite horror in the tabletop
game dungeons & dragons (d&d) (see glossary) is said to have genius-level intelligence.
that is unfortunate because it is vicious.
learning by robots is machine learning. it enables robots to use past experience to
improve future decisions and, thereby, supports survival in dynamic and dangerous envi-
ronments. Machine learning also eliminates the need for programmers to reprogram a
robot for every new situation or environment. Fiction reveals, however, that learning can
produce unexpected behavior. that distressing situation occurs when machine learning
leads autonomous, crime-prevention robots in sheckley’s 95 story “watchbird” to decide
that all humans must be killed.

sPeeCh & language

the presence or absence of spoken language helps reveal the intelligence of fictional
robots and robot-precursors. the hulking behemoth in the 9 film Frankenstein and other
 Introduction 9

killers based on that character do little more than grunt and howl, which helps communicate
their low level of intelligence. those inarticulate creatures are markedly different from the
Frankenstein monster in Mary shelley’s book (88 [957]). her monster speaks fluent
French, albeit with a gravelly voice. by enabling the monster to speak well, shelley tells the
reader that he is very intelligent and enables him to narrate parts of the story. late in the
novel, victor Frankenstein warns a friend, “he is eloquent and persuasive, and once his
words had even power over my heart” (p. 80). it is, therefore, ironic the monster is never
given a name. the monster tells victor Frankenstein he thinks of himself as “your adam.”
others refer to him using terms like “monster,” “fiend,” “specter,” “wretch,” and “devil.”
those characterizations fit the inarticulate beast from the 9 film far better than shelley’s
erudite creature.
the “roboticness” of a fictional character is expressed through monotone intonation
and staccato speech. this stereotype is based upon early, real-world speech systems, notably
dudley’s vader which was first demonstrated at the 99 world’s Fair (bush, 95). tres
iqus, a “killing doll” in Trinity Blood (yoshida & yasui, 2000 [2007]), is proud to be “a
machine.” he communicates his mechanical nature by using the aforementioned monotone
and staccato speech. his language also contains expressions that come directly from the
computer industry. For example, after he and abel nightroad fend off a vampire attack,
tres asks abel if he is all right by saying “status report” (p. 00); and, when he doesn’t know
the answer to a question, he is likely to respond with “insufficient data.”
the borg is an acquisitive alien race in the star trek universe (9–, ongoing). its
members function as a hive or collective and the borg’s voice includes everyone who has
been assimilated into the collective. it is the “we” of “we are the borg.” it speaks for all
because individual borg drones talk only when the hive permits them to do so. that unity
is captured by using a chorus of voices. the speech flow is smooth, the articulation is clear,
and the acoustic effects make it sound ghostly. these vocal characteristics, combined with
knowledge that anyone who hears them is doomed, make the voice of the borg terrifying.
the astromech/fighter R2-d2 from the star wars universe (977–, ongoing) is articulate
but speaks a language that only other astromechs appear to understand. yet, the intonation
patterns clearly demonstrate that R2-d2 has emotions (and opinions). the non-robotic flu-
idity of his speech signals that this is an intelligent being. the relatively high pitch of R2-
d2’s speech matches its small stature and projects a non-threatening persona. the
combination of these speech and language characteristics has made it possible to use R2-d2
as a comic character even though R2-d2 is involved in plotting and killing. in a 20 interview,
sound engineer ben burtt reported that creating a voice for R2-d2 that would truly capture
the nature and personality of the character was extremely difficult. the task was full of con-
tradictory demands because they were dealing with a talking machine “that was going to
draw on our emotions … [and] work as another actor. yet, it was a machine. it didn’t have
a face with a smile or mouth or eyes or ears and it couldn’t speak english … it couldn’t even
mouth words” (star wars & ben burtt, 20). their solution was to combine the babbling
an infant makes to communicate and to express emotions with electronically-generated
sounds. the fusion enabled R2-d2 to express emotion yet retain its identity as a robot.
Cheetah, the fully autonomous robot discussed earlier, cannot speak, but if it could,
what would it be able to discuss? one proposal is to use a robot’s functionality to limit its
language and cognition. Moore (205) provides an example.
0 introduction

[t]he talking toaster in the uK tv science-fiction comedy drama Red Dwarf is a brilliant character-
ization of a one-dimensional, bread-obsessed, … electrical appliance whose entire perception of the
world, and thus its conversation, revolves entirely around its need to provide “hot buttered scrummy
toast” [p. 29].

using Moore’s approach, a loquacious Cheetah would discuss running, jumping, chasing,
and possibly the surface conditions affecting those activities.

selF-awaReness & eMotion

the term “sentient” is ambiguous. it can mean “self-aware,” “able to feel emotions,”
“intelligent,” or all of the above. Consequently, the terms “self-aware,” “has emotions,” and
“can feel emotions” are used instead. a self-aware robot or robot-precursor knows it is a
unique being. it understands “i” and recognizes that “i” is separate from “you” and everyone
else. the toaster from the Red Dwarf series cited above may have a one-dimensional view
of the world but it is aware of itself and its limitations. that becomes clear when another
character complains that the toaster talks about nothing but toast. the toaster retorts, “i’m
a toaster. it’s my raison d’être. i toast therefore i am” (white hole, 99). that toaster is not
only self-aware but capable of abstract reflection about its own nature.
Most of the self-aware killers in this book were self-aware when they were created.
some killers become self-aware and, usually, the cause is unexplained. this spontaneous
combustion of self-awareness occurs in Mcguire’s 20 short story, “we are all Misfit toys
in the aftermath of the velveteen war” (see Part i: Revenge). when it happens, the toys
realize how badly they have been treated and take revenge on their persecutors.
Robots are typically described as having no emotions. throughout the television series
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Roddenberry & berman, 987–99), the android Com-
mander data is portrayed in this way even though there are episodes in which he clearly
exhibits emotion. For example, he treats his cat spot and her kittens with love (genesis,
99). his lack of emotion is a handy comic device, a way to advance a plot, and sometimes
the focus of a plot. in the episode “in theory” (99), data consults his colleagues to learn
how to respond to the romantic overtures by a human woman. he compiles information
about being romantic and uses it to prepare a private dinner with her. the carefully orches-
trated date is a failure and data admits, “apparently my reach has exceeded my grasp in
this particular area. i am, perhaps, not nearly so human as i aspire to become.” in the film
Star Trek Generations (99), dr. soong, data’s creator, makes an emotion chip for him.
when it is finally installed, data begins to experience events in new ways that delight or
distress him.

Why Do They Kill?

Robots and robot-precursors are motivated to kill, destroy, and commit other crimes
for a variety of reasons. some motivations flow from folklore and mythology through mod-
ern literature and contemporary media and into the real world. others simply bob to the
surface from time to time.
Revenge and greed are presented in Part i as timeless and culture-free motivators
for killing. sometimes the perpetrators are vengeful and greedy robots and robot-
 Introduction 

precursors. Part i also introduces a pattern in which others use robots and robot-precursors
as tools. this is the most common relationship between robots or robot-precursors and
humans.
Part ii deals with crime. it shows robots and robot-precursors that are fundamentally
evil and a few that even revel in torturing and killing. other killers in Part ii prevent
murder, enforce laws, exact punishment, and otherwise battle the forces of evil. they per-
form those services as members of law enforcement, as investigators, or as superheroes
battling supervillains. each chapter in Part ii contains an “evolution” section that describes
the reincarnations of a specific robot-precursor, including talos, a robot that began its exis-
tence in greek mythology.
war, the subject of Part iii, is a fertile domain for killers. humanoids become warfight-
ers, spies, and assassins. Many non-humanoids are weapons. others protect human fighters
as powered exoskeletons, robotic prostheses, and nanotechnology.
what impact will the expanding presence of robots and ai have on our lives? this
question has produced furors about job-killing automation and killer robots. a book about
killer robots needs to acknowledge the fears and hopes embedded in those disputes. the
concluding chapter of each part of this book outlines one of those furors. these furor chap-
ters are the only chapters that do not conclude with a section called “Plans gone awry”
that contains tales of well-formulated projects that misfire.
in Parts i through iii, robots, robot-precursors, their creators, and their users inten-
tionally cause damage and death. there are also robots and robot-precursors that kill by
accident. these killers have not been given their own chapter. Rampages occur in many
chapters. accidents like the following appear in the “Plans gone awry” part of chapters.

FolKloRe & Mythology

the algonquin people are native americans from the eastern seaboard of the u.s.
and Canada. their folklore includes stories about the Aseneekiwakw (“stone giants”)—a
race of beings that existed long before humans. the Aseneekiwakw were created from huge
rock boulders. “sadly, because the a-senee-ki-wakw were so large they crushed many ani-
mals and did damage to the earth when they moved” (bane, 20, p. 9). Realizing that he
had made a disastrous error, gluskab, their creator, had to destroy them.

ModeRn liteRatuRe
nicholaus geibel is a toy maker and gadgeteer in Jerome’s 89 story “the dancing
Partner.” he is approached by three young women who enjoy dancing but find male dance
partners to be wanting in many ways. geibel builds them a robot dancing partner: “he
keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won’t kick you or tread on your dress; he will
hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets
giddy; and he is full of conversation” (p. 5). initially, the dancing partner was wonderful.
then, for some unknown reason, it began to dance faster and faster until it was so out of
control it began smashing into walls and furniture, knocking its partner unconscious. “a
stream of blood showed itself down the girl’s white frock, and followed her along the floor”
(p. 8). the dancing partner was finally stopped but not before it was too late.
2 introduction

Real woRld
Robot arms in factories have been known to kill. those incidents are always accidents
(at least, that’s what we’re told). the first reported killing by a factory robot occurred in
979 at Ford Motor Company’s plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. an unsuspecting technician
named Robert williams scaled a five-story machine to determine why it had been mal-
functioning. “while williams is up there … a robot arm also tasked with parts retrieval
goes about its work. soon enough, the robot silently comes upon the young man, striking
him in the head and killing him instantly” (young, 208). the robot continued to function
as if nothing untoward had occurred. Ford insisted the murder was “completely uninten-
tional” which, no doubt unintentionally, intimated that other attacks could be intentional.
a jury was not impressed. it awarded williams’ family $0 million for his wrongful death
($0 Million awarded, 98). today, potentially deadly robot arms have warning technology
and are separated from human workers by enclosures.
science fiction and contemporary media are filled with killer robots that go on deadly
rampages for no apparent reason. these outbreaks of wild and seemingly random killing
appear throughout this book. there are a few whose behavior may be truly inexplicable.
Quite often, however, there is or was something that compelled them to kill wildly and
indiscriminately. those causes can generally be found in the following chapters.
 Part I

Motivation
revenge and greed. these are core motivators that appear in all types of fiction and
in the real world. they drive robots and robot-precursors to kill and destroy. they inspire
biological beings, deities, and other robots to create robots and robot-precursors to do
their killing for them. they also cause the death and destruction of robots and robot-
precursors. revenge and greed are not limited to Part I. they are rationales for torturing,
killing, and generating other types of unpleasantness, described in the rest of this book as
well.
Fiction is replete with dystopian futures involving unchecked job-automation by greedy
capitalists. those images collide with fictional utopian visions of the future. Both reflect
the emotional turmoil being produced by automation in the real world. the Furor chapter
that concludes Part I presents reasons other than greed that could motivate real-world
employers to automate. It then touches on the question of how job-killing robots might
change our society.


 revenge

Whether it is served hot or cold, revenge has always been part of human society. It is
a response to an injury or perceived injury suffered at the hands of someone else. the kinds
of events that provoke a desire for revenge vary from culture to culture but the desire for
payback is universal (Shteynberg, Gelfand & Kim, 2009; Strelan, Feather & McKee, 20).
Jealousy is a common, cross-cultural spur for revenge. Usually, the jealous individual
feels that something or someone that is theirs is being taken from them. It may be a lover,
a promotion, a job, or an object. the revenge can be directed at the presumed property,
the one who has supplanted the jealous individual, or both.
revenge is essentially a three-step process: injury, desire for payback, and retribution.
the second step (desire for payback) is crucial because some injured parties do not seek
payback. their view may be characterized as “turn the other cheek.” By contrast, the attitude
of injured individuals who do seek revenge may be described as getting “an eye for an eye,”
even when the retaliation far exceeds the damage caused by the original injury.
Injured parties can dispense retribution themselves. that way, they can enjoy the pun-
ishment first-hand. Often, however, it is more efficient, wiser, or easier to use a surrogate
to dispense the actual punishment. Use of a surrogate, such as a robot or robot-precursor,
allows the aggrieved individual to dispense payback without “getting their hands dirty.” It
can be a message to the offender and others that the injured person has many ways to
punish anyone who dares to offend them or the revenge-seeker may wish or need to conceal
their identity.
Humans are not the only ones seeking revenge, either. Entities greater than humans,
such as deities, and those lesser than humans, such as other primates, display a desire for
vengeance (Clutton-Brock & Parker, 995). there are vengeful aliens and even robots and
robot-precursors.

Folklore & Mythology

Some tales of revenge are intended to convey moral or religious ideals or to teach les-
sons. Others describe events in history that the tellers do not want forgotten. a few are
simply intended for entertainment.
the best-known revenge surrogate is the “voodoo doll.” It is a miniature effigy of the
person who perpetrated the injury that, through magic, is linked to the offender’s body.
When a pin is plunged into the doll, the offender feels extreme pain in the corresponding
part of their body. this practice is erroneously attributed to followers of voudon (or vodou),
a Haitian religion that evolved from african traditions (armitage, 205; radford, 20).


 Revenge 5

Voudon does not use dolls for revenge but doll effigies are used elsewhere. British sorcerers
called “cunning folk” would help their communities counteract evil witchcraft by using
good magic. One way to punish an evil witch was to create an effigy of the witch then stab
it with pins or other sharp objects to cause pain. Some figures were made of cloth, husks,
and branches and others were carved into wax, potatoes, or clay. the figure known as a
poppit (also oppet, mommet, or pippie) was filled with herbs and linked to the witch by
magic (Cunningham, 2000; Davies, 200).
Lucy Garnett wrote that “the anciently widespread practice of making a wax image of
an obnoxious person, and sticking pins in it to injure him, still survives in turkey” (Garnett,
890, p. ). In China, a clay effigy would be placed in a space between the walls of a build-
ing. rather than sticking it with pins, the figure would be shaped to look like someone who
is ill or in pain. to give it power, the creator cut a gash in their own body and injected
blood into the figure. Dennys (876) recounts the story of a woman who had her kitchen
repaired but then couldn’t enter the kitchen without feeling ill. Suspecting that witchcraft
was involved, she had a kitchen wall pulled down. In a small, hollowed-out area of the wall
they found “a clay figure in a posture of sickness” (p. 8).
Dolls are incapable of independent movement, which makes them unsuitable as robot-
precursors. a far better example of a robot-precursor that often serves as a surrogate is the
Tupilak (also Tupilaq) in the folklore of the Kalaallit Inuit of Greenland (Williams, 200).
a Tupilak is made from animal body parts and sometimes the corpse of a child. Because
of the diversity in a Tupilak’s construction, it can look like a grotesque humanoid, an animal,
or unlike anything in nature (see Fig. ). the sorcerer animates the Tupilak by intoning
magical chants over the newly formed figure. this could take several days but once the
creature is fully alive, the shaman releases it with instructions to find and kill the designated
victim. Tupilaks are mindless killers much like remotely controlled drones used today but

Figure 3. Kârale Andreassen’s (1890–1934) depiction of the robot-precursor Tupilak from the folk-
lore of the Kalaallit Inuit of Greenland (Wikimedia Commons).
6 Part I. Motivation

they can understand and obey commands involving killing. they do not, however, appear
to be able to speak.
Not surprisingly, the construction and release of a Tupilak is generally done in secret.
[H]e came upon the middle one of many brothers, busy with something or other down in a hollow,
and whispering all the time. So he crawled stealthily towards him, and when he had come closer, he
heard him whispering these words: “You are to bite Nukúnguasik to death; you are to bite Nukúnguasik
to death.”
and then it was clear that he was making a Tupilak, and stood there now telling it what to do [ras-
mussen, 92, p. 8].

Once a Tupilak has its assignment, it can track and kill its victim without assistance—
it is autonomous. typically the Tupilak is released into the sea because the sea is a central
part of Inuit life making it easier for the Tupilak to find its target. a Tupilak completes its
mission with alacrity. then, since a Tupilak is also driven by an overwhelming hunger, it
eats its dead victim.
thousands of miles from Greenland, the Tokoloshe (also Tokolosh, Tokoloshi, Thokolosi,
and Tikaloshe) serves as a revenge surrogate (todd, 2007; Spindrifting, 2008). It is a malev-
olent figure in the folklore of indigenous people living throughout the southern portion of
africa (e.g., Zulu). a Tokoloshe is created by a sorcerer at the request of someone who
wants to torment and/or kill someone. It is constructed from bones, parts of dead animals,
and sometimes from a human corpse (after it has had its eyes and tongue removed). When
a hot iron bar is driven into its skull, the Tokoloshe shrinks to the size of a young child.
Some say a fully formed Tokoloshe looks like a hairy (probably eyeless) gremlin with a hole
in its head. Others say they “shrivel to the size of a child and appear extremely pale, sickly,
and deformed” (tokoloshe, n.d.). Zulus describe them as “bearlike” and “Zimbabwe’s
tokoloshe is large, covered in fur with long talons and a bony spine reaching all the way
down its back from the top of its skull. It also has glowing red eyes, emits a foul stench and
speaks in a rasping voice” (todd, 2007). No one knows for sure because only the Tokoloshe’s
quarry, animals, and children can see it. Everyone agrees that a Tokoloshe is something to
be feared.
the Tokoloshe is given life when a special powder is blown into its mouth or nostrils.
Once alive, it begins to seek its intended victim. When it finds them, it torments them by
appearing without warning, talking to them, destroying their possessions, and alienating
them from the family and community. the victims are often driven insane (Kerouack,
n.d.).
the folklore of ancient Egypt includes stories about Setna Khaemwese, an historical
figure from the th century BCE, who used his knowledge of history to restore pyramids
and tombs. He was a reputed magician and the high priest of Ptah during a period of
conflict between Egypt and the neighboring kingdom of Nubia.

B B B
RevenGe And CounteR-RevenGe
a Nubian chief challenges Pharaoh to find a man who can read a letter with-
out opening it. Setna’s young son Siosire succeeds in this, and reads the letter
aloud. Long ago, he reads, a Nubian king’s sorcerer animated four wax figures
 Revenge 7

which abducted the Egyptian king and gave him five hundred blows before
returning him to his palace. this humiliation was avenged by an Egyptian called
Horus son of Paneshe, who performed the same assault on the Nubian king.
He then defeated the Nubian sorcerer in a contest of magig and banished him
from Egypt for ,500 years. after the letter is read, the Nubian chief declares
that he is the sorcerer returned for vengeance. Siosire in turn reveals that he is
Horus son of Paneshe. He vanquishes the Nubian and returns to the underworld
(Willis, 996, p. 5).

B B B
It isn’t unusual for a robot or robot-precursor to dispense punishment for offenses
they, themselves, have endured. this practice is well known in Japan. In fact, the Japanese
people have long believed that commonplace objects are not as inanimate as they appear.
the Tsukumogami (“tool specters”) are a type of Yokai (“monsters”). they begin their exis-
tence as household objects and tools that faithfully serve humans for one hundred or more
years. then, according to reider (2009), when they are no longer needed and tossed aside,
they become “resentful after having been abandoned by the human masters whom they so
loyally served, and … become vengeful and murderous specters” (p. 22). the Tsukumogami
Ki (“the record of tool Specters”) provides the following well-known example.

B B B
RevenGe oF the TSUKUMOGAMI
During the year-end susuharai … (sweeping soot, house cleaning) events in
the late tenth-century capital of Heian, old tools and objects are discarded in
byways and alleys. the abandoned goods become angry at the humans who
discard them and plan, as specters, to torment their former owners…
as tool specters, the tsukumogami kidnap humans and animals for consump-
tion, and they celebrate their new lives with such merrymaking as drinking,
gambling, and poetry recitations (reider, 2009 p. 2).

B B B
the Ittan Momen (Meyer, 20) are killer Tsukumogami that don’t hold parties. What
makes them especially dangerous is that they look like harmless pieces of cloth. No doubt,
before they were thrown away they were harmless. they become dangerous only when
they turn into Tsukumogami. they fly around at night looking for human victims. “Ittan
momen attack by wrapping their bodies around a person’s face and neck, strangling or
smothering them to death” (Meyer, 20). Ittan Momen remain primarily in the area of
Kagoshima, Japan. anyone living in or visiting that part of Japan must remain vigilant.
the Tsukumogami are not the only Japanese Yokai that are known to seek revenge.
the Gashadokuro (Meyer, 20) is comprised of the bones of people who were not given
proper funeral rites (see Fig.  in the Introduction). those people are typically soldiers
whose bodies were left on the battlefields where they were killed, those who succumbed
to a plague and were put into a mass grave, and indigents who died of starvation. the
8 Part I. Motivation

desire for vengeance of hundreds of those angry dead causes their bones to coalesce into
an enormous human skeleton that can be fifteen times the size of an average human. In
the darkest hours of the night, the Gashadokuro emerges near graveyards and battlefields
to hunt for humans who are walking alone. When it finds a desirable target, it attacks
either by crushing its prey or by biting off the victim’s head. the Gashadokuro is called
“rattling skull” because its approach can be detected by the rattle of its teeth. that produces
a “gachi gachi” sound and may cause ringing in a person’s ears. the most dangerous aspect
of a Gashadokuro is that it cannot be killed because it is made of bones of people who are
already dead. It will continue hunting until the pent-up vitriol that binds its bones together
is exhausted, allowing the bones to separate and the Gashadokuro to collapse.
the first Gashadokuro was created for a somewhat different kind of revenge. It dates to
the tenth century. at that time, there was a bloody rebellion against Japan’s central government
in Kyoto. the leader of the uprising, taira no Masakado, was a samurai from the Kantō
region. the government brutally crushed the rebellion and put a bounty on taira. Shortly
afterwards, he was killed. His killer decapitated the body and brought taira’s head to Kyoto
to collect his reward. taira’s daughter, takiyasha-hime, was infuriated. She was a powerful
sorcerer and, to punish the government for dishonoring her father, she conjured the first
Gashadokuro and unleashed it on Kyoto. takiyasha-hime’s revenge is depicted in a woodblock
print by nineteenth-century artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Figure  in the Introduction).
Statues of ancient Greece and rome have been known to exact revenge against those
who have assaulted or offended them. For example, according to Bettini (992 [999]) the
statue of a famous athlete punished a man who robbed it.

B B B
the StAtue oF PellICuS oF CoRInth
[It] apparently had the ability to detach itself from its pedestal at night in
order to wander about people’s houses and take baths. a foolhardy young man
from Libya once dared to steal the offerings that grateful citizens had left in
front of the statue; the statue happened to be absent at the moment, taking one
of its nightly walks. But as soon as it returned and realized that it had been
robbed, the statue was infuriated, and punished the Libyan in exemplary fashion.
the unlucky victim was seized by a strange sort of mania, which compelled
him to wander all night long from house to house as if in a labyrinth…. But
even this was not the end of it: the young man suffered mysterious beatings
each and every night, until he finally died (Bettini, 992 [999] p. 29).

B B B
a vengeful statue is said to have defended the honor of a trojan hero.
an assyrian man visiting troy stood in front of a statue of the trojan hero, Hector, and mocked the
man it represented. at the end of his diatribe he began to insist that the statue was really a statue of
achilles who had dragged Hector behind his chariot. On his way home, the assyrian man drove his
chariot along a dry riverbed. Suddenly, there was a monstrous torrent of water. a giant Greek soldier
rose up and ordered the waters to overrun the road. as the assyrian was being carried away to his
death, he saw that the giant soldier was Hector [Bettini, 992 (999), pp. 0–].
 Revenge 9

the behavior of these and other statues exemplifies the belief among the ancient Greeks
and nearby societies of that time that statues and other images embody some of the spirit
of the person they represent. Consequently, they are—to some extent—alive. Both Hersey
(2009) and Bettini (992 [999]) use evidence from ancient and modern sources to support
this point.
One curious aspect of the supposed livingness of statues lies in the ancient habit of mooring them in
place…. [I]t is clear from a number of ancient writers that the makers and users of the statues also
feared that, as living beings, the images might simply bolt [Hersey, 2009, p. 7].

the Spanish legend of Don Juan also involves a vengeful statue, but the statue avenges
wrongs done to the man it represents as well as insults directed at the statue itself. the per-
petrator of those acts is Don Juan, a wealthy, arrogant libertine who believes he can seduce
any woman and can dispose of any man who dares to oppose him. He kills the father of a
young woman he wants to seduce. Unfortunately, that man was a powerful individual whose
influence extended beyond death. to add insult to the murder, Don Juan plans to seduce the
man’s widow. He goes to his victim’s grave and taunts the statue of the man erected over the
grave. He then mockingly invites the statue to the dinner he is to have with the man’s widow
on the following day. Don Juan is astonished when the statue actually appears at dinnertime.
Instead of joining Don Juan at supper, it tells Don Juan he will be punished for his wanton
behavior and his evil deeds. as the story concludes, the statue drags Don Juan to hell.
Even powerful gods may seek revenge. One well-known example is the revenge leveled
by Zeus, king of the Greek gods, against the lesser god Prometheus. the situation began
innocently. Zeus asked Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus to create creatures to live
on Earth. the two labored to produce a variety of creatures and they were careful to give
each one a characteristic or skill to help it survive and thrive (e.g., claws, strength, flight).
Unfortunately, they ran out of skills before making a human. to solve that problem,
Prometheus stole fire-making knowledge, but that wasn’t his real offense. When he gave
that knowledge to humans he violated the divine rule that only the gods are to know the
secret of using fire. Zeus was infuriated. He commanded Hephaestus, the god of fire, to
build a bronze eagle as part of Prometheus’ punishment. Prometheus was then chained to
a pillar and the eagle tortured him by eating his liver. Because Prometheus was immortal,
his liver would regrow every night and the eagle would dine on it every day. this cycle was
to be repeated every day, forever.

Modern Literature
Modern literature adds another element to revenge: the mad scientist. Mad scientists
are often inventors who seek the unattainable. they focus so intently on their labor that
they give no thought to anything else, including the victims of their experiments: the robot-
precursors they create. Furthermore, they feel no responsibility for the outcomes of their
efforts and are known to abandon their monstrous creations once they have (or have not)
achieved their goal. this constellation of behaviors enrages their damaged victims and
causes them to strike back.
the first and most famous of those mad scientists is Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shel-
ley’s 88 novel, Frankenstein; or The modern Prometheus. Yet, the chaos and destruction
20 Part I. Motivation

caused by his monster are not generally remembered as acts of revenge. that misconception
is due to the actions of the monster from the 9 film Frankenstein: The Man Who Made
a Monster, who goes on a killing rampage. that mindless killer will be discussed in the
Crime chapter of Part II. Mary Shelley’s monster is not mindless. He kills to punish Franken-
stein for rejecting him and then refusing to build another monster—a female, to share the
monster’s life and reduce his profound loneliness and isolation (see Fig. ).

B B B
the MonSteR’S venGenCe
“Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom and each beast have
his mate and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by
detestation and scorn…. are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of

Figure 4. Monster and Frankenstein from the inside cover of the 1831 edition of Frankenstein; or,
The modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1797–1851) (Wikimedia Commons).
 Revenge 2

my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains—

revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant
and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware, for I am
fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that
I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict….
I go; but remember I shall be with you on your wedding night” (Shelley, 88
[957], p. 5).

B B B
true to his word, he murders Victor Frankenstein’s best friend, Henry. then, on Vic-
tor’s wedding night, he kills Victor’s bride, Elizabeth. after Elizabeth’s murder, Victor’s
father descends into madness and dies. as promised, there is no longer any joy in Victor’s
life.
Eighty years after Shelley published her novel, H.G. Wells released The Island of Dr.
Moreau, about a mad scientist intent on accelerating the speed of evolution. this work
requires him to do surgery on living creatures, a practice called “vivisection.” He transplants
tissue from one animal to another. then he alters the recipient’s physical and/or chemical
structure. these aspects of Wells’ storyline reflect two upheavals Europe was undergoing
at that time. Darwin’s theory of evolution was battering the Biblical concept of creation,
and the use of vivisection by researchers was increasing, sparking a movement to ban it.
the title character in The Island of Dr. Moreau establishes a laboratory on a remote
island. there, he explores how to elevate “beasts” through physical and chemical alteration
(Wells, 896).
I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got a fresh question. Was this
possible or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator…. the thing before
you is no longer an animal, a fellow-creature, but a problem! I wanted—to find out the extreme limit
of plasticity in a living shape [Loc. 266–272].

Because he dismisses the reality of pain, Dr. Moreau performs his surgery without
anesthesia. at one point, Dr. Moreau describes with pride how he “made his first man”
from a gorilla (Loc. 282–287) and with dismay when any of his fine creations “reverts.”
When “the beast begins to creep back” (Loc. 2), Moreau banishes it to the jungle and
moves to his next experiment. thus, it is not surprising that, when his monstrous experi-
ments find an opportunity to repay him for his sadism, they do so; violently attacking each
other as well as Moreau. “Moreau and his mutilated victims lay, one over another. they
seemed to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple” (Loc. 90).
Sever Gansovky’s (96 [206]) short story, “Day of Wrath,” has been described as an
updated version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Like Dr. Moreau, the scientists in Gansovsky’s
story perform surgical experiments in a laboratory located in a remote area. the subjects
of their research are live bears whose bodies and brains are altered to create a race of
humanoids with superior intellectual and linguistic abilities.
these scientists are far more successful than Dr. Moreau. they create a new breed of
animal they call “Otarks.” Otarks are more intelligent than humans and their humanoid
faces enable them to produce intelligible speech. Other areas of their bodies remain bearlike.
the scientists appear to have altered the bear DNa because the offspring of Otarks are
22 Part I. Motivation

Otarks, not bears. according to a human living nearby, “otarks aren’t animals—it would
be great if they were just animals. But they’re not people, of course” (p. 66). the Otarks
are kept in a pen outside the laboratory, allowed to breed, and used as cerebral playthings.
they are aware of their plight and are filled with bitterness: “[t]hey want revenge against
humans” (p. 66). then they break free. Once that happens, they kill and eat some of the
scientists in the laboratory, including one of the lead scientists. Fuller, the remaining lead
scientist, escapes and never returns. When asked about the Otarks, Fuller “said that they
were a very interesting scientific experiment. Very challenging. But he’s not involved with
them at the moment. He’s doing something to do with cosmic rays…. He said that he was
very sorry for the victims” (p. 67).
there can be no doubt their hatred for humans persists. they become increasingly
adept at hunting and killing humans and, like Shelley’s Frankenstein monster, they never
lose control and they revel in every one of their vengeful killings. Gansovsky’s story con-
cludes when the Otarks track and kill the narrator. One can easily imagine the Otarks ulti-
mately wiping out the human population in their remote area and, perhaps, beyond.
Dr. Jacques Cotentin is a mad scientist in Gaston Leroux’s 92 La Machine à Assas-
siner (The Machine to Kill) who is not interested in creating a new species. He hopes to
animate Gabriel, the android he’s built, so it won’t merely function “like a simple mechanism
that can do nothing more than respond to electrical stimuli: but like a human!” (p. 0).2
His solution is to give it a human brain from someone who just died. Foreshadowing Mel
Brooks’ 97 film Young Frankenstein, the brain Cotentin selects is flawed. It comes from
the recently executed serial killer Bénédict Masson, and the brain remembers everything,
including that Masson was framed. Full of vengeance, Gabriel/Masson escapes from his
cage and hunts his accusers who are members of a vampire cult led by a local aristocrat.
He catches them during a ritual meeting. “they all rushed at him but he … was too strong
for all of them! … You don’t kill a tempest” (p. 9). afterwards, Gabriel, badly damaged,
destroys himself by jumping off a cliff.
the vengeful beings in McGuire’s 20 story, “We are all Misfit toys in the aftermath
of the Velveteen War,” were not created by mad scientists and they are not living creatures.
they are dolls and other children’s toys built by commercial toy manufacturers. they were
given aI, language understanding, emotions, and machine learning. these technologies
were designed to enable the toys to be personalized by learning a child’s name and other
things related to that child. Somehow, they also became self-aware and capable of under-
standing what children were doing and saying to them.
By incorporating these technologies into their toys, their manufacturers transformed
them into robots. all this technology would have provoked concern if it had been embedded
in large robots but it seemed benign in small toys. “toys would never hurt us…. We forgot
that kids can play rough; we forgot that sometimes we hurt the toys without meaning to” (p.
67). Like their literary and mythological precursors, the toys become angry and vengeful.
One day, several years before the beginning of the story, all the toys disappear, taking
with them the children of the town. toys that had been mistreated make children suffer;
but those that had been treated well feed their hostages candy, ice cream, and peanut butter
sandwiches—foods they’ve learned that children like. the children are—reportedly—happy,
until they begin to mature. Whenever that occurs, the toys mutilate the child to remove
all signs of maturity. Without proper medical care, however, their wounds become infected.
 Revenge 2

When they become too much of a burden, the toys abandon them on a road for adult
humans to find and fix. It is always too late.
toy manufacturers in the real world have often been on the cutting edge of technology.
the first consumer products that were able to respond to spoken commands were toys
(Markowitz, 20). a doll named Julie was released in the late 980s that was able to engage
a child in simple conversations. Mattel (205) released its Hello Barbie! that could converse
with a child to learn information the child gave to it, such as that the child loves ice cream.
Shortly afterwards, other dolls, such as My Friend Cayla, appeared with similar function-
ality. there are, however, significant differences between the toys in McGuire’s story and
today’s most technically advanced real-world toys.
• they are not self-aware.
• Some can behave as if they feel emotions but they don’t actually feel them. therefore,
they could not become angry or vindictive. this is related to their lack of self-awareness.
• they are incapable of forming even the simplest of plans, let alone concocting the
complex plot described in the story.
• their language processing and learning technologies are limited to the kinds of data
needed to handle conversational interactions with and about the child, such as the
child’s likes and dislikes.
• the data they gather, their language, and their learning technology all reside on a
server to which the toy is wirelessly connected. If a toy is cut off from the server, it
loses the advanced processing and the bulk of the knowledge it has acquired. Conse-
quently, the best way to squash a (highly unlikely) rebellion would be to deactivate
the toy’s wireless connectivity.
the use of wireless communication provides the greatest threat from real-world toys
because they are vulnerable to hacking. the doll My Friend Cayla has been removed from
some markets because its makers know it can be hacked but have done nothing to correct
the situation. If the toys in McGuire’s story could be hacked, their rebellion might have
been short-circuited by savvy, parent-friendly hackers.
Science fiction provides us with examples of humans taking revenge against robots.
Isaac asimov’s short story “Liar!” (asimov, 950) presents a future in which highly intel-
ligent robots are commonplace. as with most of the robots in asimov’s work, robot HB-
 (Herbie) has a “positronic brain” into which is programmed asimov’s three Laws of
robotics. the first law is the most powerful. It states, “a robot may not injure a human
being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm” (asimov, 92 [98]).
Due to a manufacturing flaw, Herbie can read minds, which enables him to sense the
fears and desperate dreams that gnaw at the humans around him. the First Law of robotics
compels Herbie to protect a human from the harm caused by those negative thoughts. Her-
bie complies with the First Law by telling each person he encounters what she or he wants
desperately to hear. For example, it recognizes that Peter Bogert longs to become the director
of the company’s plant. Consequently, Herbie tells Bogert that alfred Lanning, the current
plant director, has already retired (which is not true). He also guarantees that Bogert will
be named the next plant director. Herbie perceives that Susan Calvin desperately loves a
much younger colleague. Herbie assures her that the colleague returns her love. Herbie’s
counsel has satisfied the First Law by bringing joy to these humans. Not for long.
2 Part I. Motivation

Calvin begins to primp for work and to pay more attention to the colleague she loves.
She is mortified when he tells her he’s in love with another woman and plans to marry her.
She is further insulted when Herbie insists that Calvin dreamed about having a rival. Bogert
is almost fired when he acts on Herbie’s information and tells Lanning that he knows Lan-
ning has retired.
Calvin gets her revenge by sending Lanning and Bogert together to confront Herbie
about what he told Bogert. the robot knows that if he stands by the statements made to
Bogert, he will make Lanning unhappy. If he disavows those statements, he will hurt Bogert.
Giving no response would, by inaction, hurt them both. the hopelessness of his situation
drives Herbie into insanity. Flush with the triumph of her revenge, Calvin approaches the
robot and shouts “Liar!”
Villiers de l’Isle-adam’s 886 novel L’Eve future (Tomorrow’s Eve) tells the story of Lord
Ewald, a love-besotted young man whose attempts to attract the object of his love are futile.
He hires a fictional thomas Edison to build a robot of alicia, the woman he loves. Edison
complies. Hadaly, Edison’s android, is so accurate that Ewald mistakes her for alicia. the
happy couple set sail for England and, for some reason, Hadaly travels as cargo rather than
as a passenger. It appears that alicia is also a passenger on that ship. a suspicious fire breaks
out in the cargo area of the ship. the passengers are rescued but the ship sinks, taking Hadaly
with it. the author intimates that alicia set the fire out of jealousy and vindictiveness.
It is well known that groups of humans can seek revenge against groups of other
humans. Sometimes this is called “war,” although the process can be stopped before it
reaches that point. that is the case in Look to Windward (Banks, 2000) which is Banks’
seventh book about the Culture, a society governed by machines with genius-level intelli-
gence called the “Minds.” the Culture seeks to bring peace to alien peoples and is willing
to interfere in the affairs of a civilization to accomplish that. Experience has taught them
how to achieve that goal. to the Culture, the Chelgrians are simply another society in need
of its help. they plan to eliminate the Chelgrians’ rigidly stratified caste system that treats
the Invisibles, the lowest social class, as if they are an inferior species. although the Chel-
grian social system has been in place for over three thousand years, the Culture believes it
can help establish a more egalitarian society and, once that happens, the Culture expects
peace and harmony to come to Chel. after all, interference in alien affairs has worked
ninety-nine percent of the time.
the plan fails, which leads to three acts of revenge. the first occurs when the lower
classes in the Chel society seize power and vent their rage against those who had subjugated
them for centuries—much like the mythological Tsukumogami and the abused toys in
McGuire’s story. the second act of revenge occurs after the Culture admits its role in starting
the civil war. a cadre of upper-caste Chelgrians devises a means to get revenge against the
Culture. their vengeance is fueled by the Chelgrian-Puen, spirits that rule the Chelgrian
afterlife. the Chelgrian-Puen will not permit the souls or Soulkeepers of the Chelgrians
killed in the civil war to enter heaven. a Chelgrian Soulkeeper is a device embedded in
each Chelgrian that contains a backup of that Chelgrian’s personality and spirit. this creates
a situation akin to that of the abandoned Japanese soldiers whose anger ultimately produces
a Gashadokuro. then, the Chelgrian-Puen turn the screw tighter by saying that the Chel-
grian dead cannot enter heaven until an equal number of Culture citizens are killed by
Chelgrians: a soul for a soul.
 Revenge 25

the Chel plotters recruit Major Quilan, a veteran of the civil war, to be their surrogate.
He is assisted by the consciousness of a dead admiral-general to whom Quilan explains,
[t]here is a device inside my skull, designed to look like an ordinary Soulkeeper, but able to accom-
modate your personality as well…. the device is no larger than a small finger…. [Y]our conscious
would be transferred entirely into the substrate within my body [p. 6].

this makes him an unusual form of robot-precursor.

the third act of revenge occurs when the Chelgrian plot fails. the Culture exacts ret-
ribution by unleashing a robotic revenge-surrogate against the Chelgrian conspirators: a
shape-shifting nanoweapon called “E-Dust.” One-by-one, the E-Dust locates them, kills
them in a brutal and painful manner, and destroys their Soulkeepers. a Chelgrian must
have a Soulkeeper in order to enter heaven after their physical death. that is why the
E-Dust makes certain the Soulkeepers of the conspirators are destroyed along with their
bodies.
the insect swarm collected on a broad balcony and resumed the form of a Chelgrian female. She
knocked the balcony doors down and stepped into the room…. the only sensory or command system
not fully under her control was a tiny passive camera in one corner of the room. She was to leave the
complex’s security monitoring system uncorrupted, so that what was done was seen to be done, and
recorded [p. 6].

the brutal murders are a message to any Chelgrian who tries to harm the Culture.
In Bradbury’s “robot City” (95), a long-extinct race of intelligent beings created a
huge robot in the shape of a city. the robotic city was constructed for the explicit purpose
of satisfying their creators’ need for revenge. It is their revenge-surrogate and it is designed
to perform that function even long after its makers become extinct.
the men who died built me. the old race who once lived here. the people whom the Earthmen left
to die of a terrible disease, a form of leprosy with no cure. and the men of that old race, dreaming of
the day when Earthmen might return, built this city, and the name of this city was and is revenge….
at long last, you’ve come! the revenge will be carried out to the last detail. those men have been dead
two hundred centuries, but they left a city here to welcome you [p. 252].

as in the Egyptian myth described earlier in this chapter, the revenge takes the same form
as the original attack that annihilated them. the city transforms the human crew into
drones who willingly carry disease back to Earth.
In the novel The Stepford Wives (Levin, 972), upwardly mobile families move to the
idyllic town of Stepford. the Stepford husbands, angry about being treated as second-class
citizens by their powerful wives, seek revenge. they conspire to transform their independent-
minded wives into servile drones. they do so by killing their wives and constructing dop-
pelganger robots. When Joanna Eberhart, the main character, discovers the plan, she attempts
to take her children and leave Stepford but finds that her children have been kidnapped by
her husband and his allies. Joanna suffers the same fate as her Stepford predecessors: she is
killed and replaced. the 975 film of this story concludes with a scene in a supermarket
showing the new Joanna—the Stepford wife.
The Stepford Wives is a tale of revenge, but the novel and the films also satirize the
stereotypes of suburbia and of the servile wives who have lost their identities in that bland
“sameness.” Levin’s story has also had an impact on the English language. the entry “Step-
ford” in Webster’s New World College Dictionary (200) is an adjective in american English
26 Part I. Motivation

referring to someone “resembling an automaton in being conformist and submissive,

unemotional, mechanical, etc.”
In the young-adult novel The Iron Woman (Hughes, 99), the entity seeking revenge
is Earth who wants to punish those humans whose greed has polluted and defiled the Earth
for decades. the “Iron Woman” is Earth’s surrogate. It avenges the Earth by transforming
adult, male polluters into swamp creatures. In this way, a robot-precursor transforms a
story of revenge into an attack against greed, the subject of the next chapter.

Contemporary Media
the pattern of vengeful humans using artificial beings as revenge surrogates continues
in contemporary media. Most surrogates in contemporary media are robots. One of the
earliest examples occurs in Fritz Lang’s silent film Metropolis (927)—which was also one
of the first films to portray an android. C.a. rotwang is a brilliant scientist and inventor
(a mad scientist) who lost Hel, the only woman he ever loved. She left him to marry the
wealthy industrialist John Fredersen and died giving birth to their son Freder. the desolate
rotwang originally planned to build an android that would be Hel’s robotic twin. He
changes his plans when he hears about the unrest that is growing among Fredersen’s work-
ers, unrest that is being held in check by Maria, a charismatic labor leader. rotwang’s
planned revenge becomes sweeter when he learns that young Freder is in love with Maria.
rotwang kidnaps Maria and copies her body image into his android. the special effects
used for the transformation of the android into “False Maria” make rotwang seem more
like a sorcerer than a scientist (Fig. 5). rotwang releases his creation with instructions to
foment anger and violence among Fredersen’s workers. She instigates worker riots that pro-
duce massive destruction and fill rotwang with joy.
the pattern also appears in television. the villain in the anime Sonic X (Sasamura &
Matsumoto, 200–200) is Dr. Ivo Eggman. He is a mad scientist who uses low- and high-
tech robots to do his bidding. the “revenge of the robot” (200) occurs after Sonic, the series
hero, has destroyed some of Eggman’s advanced weaponry. Eggman swears eternal vengeance
against Sonic and sends a giant robot to kill Sonic but it is destroyed by another robot.
Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith (2005) adds a twist to the revenge-surrogate
pattern by attacking an enemy using its own army of robot-precursors. It is set a millennium
after the Jedi soundly defeated the Sith. Even after such a long time, the Sith still hunger
for revenge. Previously, in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the clones (2002), the Jedi lead-
ership commissioned Kamino scientists to create an army of clones to serve as the Grand
army of the Galactic republic (Gar) and to prevent planetary systems from seceding
from Gar and forming a separatist republic. the Jedi provided a DNa template to the sci-
entists to use for the cloning. Jedi Supreme Chancellor Sheeve Palpatine instructed them
to embed a biochip into each clone containing a program for emergency situations. It is
Order 66.
OrDEr 66: In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the republic, and after receiving
specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), Gar com-
manders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the Gar will revert to the Supreme
Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established [Contingency Orders, n.d.].
 Revenge 27

Figure 5. the False Maria android transformation in Fritz lang’s Metropolis (flickr).

Order 66 can only be invoked by the Supreme Chancellor. Unfortunately for the Jedi, the
Supreme Chancellor is actually Sith lord Darth Sidious. Darth Sidious invokes Order 66,
naming Jedi as traitors and dispatching the clone troopers to kill them. When that appears
to be done, Palpatine/Darth Sidious completes the sweet revenge by ending the clone wars
and restructuring the republic as the Galactic Empire.
the 200 animated film The Incredibles depicts angry superfan Buddy Pine plotting
revenge against the superheroes who snubbed him when he volunteered to help them with
their exploits. His plan deviates from the typical pattern of using robots as revenge surro-
gates. He constructs a laboratory below a remote island. there, he devises methods of
killing all the offending superheroes, especially the family of superheroes known as the
Incredibles, and begins executing them himself. For the next stage of the plan, he builds a
small army of huge, spiderlike robots he calls “omnidroids.” they are his revenge surrogates
but he doesn’t use them to kill the superheroes. Instead, he releases the robots in Manhattan.
When no superheroes respond to Manhattan’s cries for help, Pine initiates the final stage
of his plan: to become the new superhero. as the eyes of the world focus on him, Pine
begins destroying the omnidroids. His scheme misfires because the Incredibles and other
superheroes arrive in Manhattan and eliminate both the omnidroid threat and superfan
Buddy.
28 Part I. Motivation

as in modern literature, tales of humans who seek revenge against artificial beings aren’t
commonplace but they exist. Col. roy Mustang in the manga/anime Fullmetal Alchemist
(arakawa, 200–200) shifts into revenge gear following the murder of Maes Hughes, an
officer in the amestrian military. Hughes had been Mustang’s best friend and a strong sup-
porter of Mustang’s political aspirations. When Mustang learns the killer is a homunculus
named Envy, he tracks it down and attempts to kill it. Envy doesn’t die but does admit it
killed Maes and engaged in other anti-human activity because of humans’ ability to feel hap-
piness. Much like Susan Calvin (see the preceding section, Modern Literature), Mustang
gets his revenge when Envy commits suicide.
there are many examples of robots hating and killing other robots but they don’t
generally involve revenge—at least not explicitly. Desire for revenge, however, has fueled
a feud between aBC Warrior-robot Joe Pineapples and the robot pirate Dog-tag in the
comic book series ABC Warriors: Shadow Warriors (Mills, 2009). the animosity between
them began after Pineapples foiled a raid by Dog-tag’s gang and, in the process, annihilated
the gang. Dog-tag got revenge several issues later by shooting Pineapples in the head,
cutting off his trigger finger, and burying his body. Pineapples is a comic-book hero, which
means he won’t remain dead for long. When he recovers a few issues later, the feud con-
tinues.
to contemporary media, “all the universe is a stage and all men and women merely
players” (Shakespeare, As You Like It, ca. 60). tales of revenge are no exception.
By the time the film Transformers (2007) was released, the autobots and the Decep-
ticons, takara tomy/Hasbro action figures and shapeshifting robots from the planet
Cybertron, have been fighting each other for millennia. the warring factions travel to Earth
seeking to take possession of the allSpark, the device that gave them life. It had been thrown
into space and landed on Earth. the Decepticons, led by Megatron, want to use it to activate
all of Earth’s machines and turn them against humans. the autobots want to take it back
to Cybertron. Transformers concludes when the autobots, led by Optimus Prime, decimate
the Decepticons and Sam Witwicky, a human, kills Megatron by shoving the allSpark into
his chest which extinguishes his “spark” (soul). the fleeing Decepticons vow revenge. auto-
bots remain on Earth to protect humanity.
Megatron is rebuilt and given a new spark in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).
the Fallen, his evil master, commands him to kill Optimus Prime and capture Sam
Witwicky. then, Megatron is to harvest the sun’s energy which will destroy all life in the
solar system. a series of killings and revivings ensue, concluding with the death of the
Fallen. Megatron vows revenge as he flees (also see Part II: Superheroes & Supervillains
and Part III: Humanoids).
the Manhunters are an android police force created by the Guardians of the Universe
to root out evil and fight for justice (Englehart & Dillin, 977–, ongoing).

B B B
huMIlIAtIon oF the MAnhunteRS
the Guardians created the Manhunters, thinking that robots would make
good peacekeepers. But they soon learned that they were flawed, owing to the
inability of their programming to distinguish the subtle gradations between
 Revenge 29

good and evil. rather than decommission the robots entirely, the Guardians
chose to reprogram them for lesser duties—hunting, tracking, and guarding….
[t]he Guardians subsequently replaced the Manhunters with the Green Lantern
Corps…. Over the years, the Manhunters planned their revenge against the
Guardians and their [Green Lantern] Corps (Manhunters, n.d.).

B B B
Manhunters have had a great deal of success (DC Comics, 959–, ongoing). they’ve
imprisoned Guardians (who are immortal and cannot be killed), killed members of the
Green Lantern Corps, used brainwashing to turn captured Corps members against the
Corps, and defamed both the Guardians and the Corps. they’ve also spread their concept
of justice to many planets, created a Manhunter cult, and aided enemies of the Guardians.
Even today, the Manhunters continue their campaign of revenge. For more information
about the Manhunters, see Part II: Superheroes & Supervillains.
role-playing games are hotbeds of revenge. the tabletop game WH0K (see Glossary)
(Games Workshop, 987–, ongoing) is populated by warped and vicious denizens, but the
most twisted of them are the Dark Eldars called the “Haemonculi.” The Warhammer 40,000
Codex: Dark Eldar (20) characterizes them as
masters of the flesh, be it alive or dead…. [t]hese diabolical figures slice and meld the flesh of those
that fall into their clutches, savouring their pain as a gourmet would savor a fine meal…. to cross these
monstrous beings is considered beyond foolish. Not only is their vengeance terrible to behold, but the
Haemonculi have the power to bestow—or withhold—life after death [p. 72].

they are capable of perceiving almost anything as a slight for which they seek revenge.
their vengeance is almost bottomless when the affront comes from other Dark Eldars.

B B B
RevenGe oF the hAeMonCulI
though they begin existence as Dark Eldar, Grotesques undergo a hideous
rebirth…. Over the course of months or even years the hapless victim’s body is
pumped full of growth elixirs and subjected to torturous surgical enhancement
until they become a subservient, weaponized horror whose only desire is to
serve its dark masters. When given the command to kill, these meat-hulks trans-
form into engines of destruction. racks of syringes dump potent stimulants
into their ichor-stream and veins throb near to bursting as tube-punctured
hearts are forced into overdrive. With a great, muffled roar the Grotesques thun-
der into battle, butchering all within reach with greathook, claw and cleaver
until commanded to cease or hacked bodily into many pieces (Ibid., p. 76).

B B B
Haemonculian revenge is truly a diabolical inversion of the patterns discussed to this
point.
raiden’s revenge in the game Metal Gear rising: revengeance (PlatinumGames, 20–,
ongoing) takes us back to Earth. Metal Gear rising is a single-player video game in which
0 Part I. Motivation

the player takes the role of raiden, a cyborg hero and special-operations professional. there
is a great deal of fighting which has led some to call Metal Gear a “hack and slash” game.
Most of the fighting is between and among cyborgs.
raiden and his team have spent three years helping N’mani, the prime minister of
an african country, rebuild his country following a devastating civil war. the game
begins when the limousine carrying N’mani and raiden is attacked by cyborg assassins
led by a mercenary named Sundowner. they were hired by Desperado Enforcement
LLC (“Desperado”), a supplier of arms and mercenaries that pads its bottom line by
fomenting war. raiden’s team attempts to fend them off but they are overpowered.
N’mani is kidnapped and killed, prompting raiden to dedicate himself to avenging
N’mani’s assassination. In the role of raiden, the player hunts and finally finds Sun-
downer. after a bloody battle, raiden is victorious and the murder of N’mani is avenged
(also see Part I: Greed).
the television series Westworld (Wickham, 206–, ongoing) is about a theme park
designed to enable its wealthy “guests” to act out their fantasies with the park’s android
“hosts.” there were remarkably few examples of revenge initiated by the android hosts in
the show’s first season, despite the violence perpetrated against them by the guests. a major
reason for the lack of vengeance by the hosts is that the park’s creator, robert Ford, had a
policy of erasing violent events from the memories of hosts. a few memories do manage
to bubble to the surface. For example, a host named Walter goes on a killing spree in the
episode “the Original” (206). Walter kills six hosts but spares several others standing with
them. Park technicians discover that the hosts Walter killed had killed him in prior story-
lines. the others had not (the Stray, 206). When host Peter abernathy is asked, “What
would you like to say to your creator?” he waxes Shakespearean in his reply, “I am a host
mechanical and dirty and I shall have such revenges on you both” (the Original, 206).
things begin to change when Ford is murdered at the end of Season . In Season 2, the
hosts explode into revenge mode (Journey into Night, 208).
the “robot’s revenge” (985) episode of the animated television series The Jetsons
begins when George, one of the main characters, insults a robot. the offended robot issues
a “Code red” to all automata and George and his family suffer vengeance from every piece
of equipment they encounter, from George’s robotic easy-chair and traffic lights to robot
hair stylists and police officers. the assaults stop only after George makes amends to the
robot he had affronted. this Jetsons episode envisions the “Internet of things,” a technology
that has not yet been fully deployed.

Real World
Like their mythical and fictional counterparts, humans in the real world use aerial
robots as revenge surrogates—primarily in war—because they can track and attack targets
in areas that are unavailable to human operatives. this practice is likely to spread (see Part
II: Criminals and Part III: Non-Humanoids). Far more often, the use of aerial drones pro-
vokes retaliation using non-robotic weapons, notably bombs.
Can real robots seek revenge? It is highly unlikely because they are not self-aware and
cannot comprehend the concepts insult and revenge. Or can they?
 Revenge 

B B B
ACCIdent oR RevenGe?
Years ago, human-size tackling bags used to remain in place while football
players practiced tackling them. the football technology of today is far more
sophisticated. the program at Baylor University uses some of it. One of the
new pieces of equipment they use is a robotic tackling-bag.
as with its predecessors, the robotic tackling-bag can withstand repeated
assaults by members of the football team. It can also move down the field, swerv-
ing and adjusting much like a player on an opposing team—but usually faster.
In 208, Baylor University administrator Sean Padden put one robotic,
tackling-bag to the test by setting up a short run from a point on the football
field to the end zone. Padden and the tackling bag stood almost shoulder-to-
shoulder at the starting line but Padden got a much faster start out-of-the blocks
than the robot. that enabled Padden to easily beat the robot to the end zone.
as Padden turned to the crowd to celebrate his victory, the robot swerved
and finished its run by body-slamming Padden, knocking him to the ground.
the unhurt Padden later said, “I did it for humanity—because the machines
aren’t going to fight fair. We’d better be ready” (Burton, 207).

B B B
Hooman Samani of the National University of Singapore maintains his non-humanoid
“lovotics” robots experience jealousy and seek revenge (anthony, 20; Lian, 20). the
robots look like large, one-eyed bowler hats. they can love individual humans because
they are programmed with artificially created “love” hormones (oxytocin, dopamine, sero-
tonin, and endorphin). Facial recognition and speaker identification enable them to separate
the loved one from other humans. Once the robot bonds with someone, it wants to remain
close to them. “Presumably if you refuse to cuddle the robot, it grows testy, and if it sees
you interacting with another human—or fiddling with a USB socket on your PC—it
becomes jealous” (anthony, 20). It emits an angry bleat and backs away but it isn’t clear
what form its revenge takes because all the videos end after the bleats.
robots named “revenge” compete in robot combat competitions, such as Robot Wars
and Battlebots. Prior competitors include the bar-spinner “Sweet revenge” (Sweet revenge,
n.d.), the spiked spinning drum “revenge” (annihilator, 2002), the super-heavyweight
“Kenny’s revenge” (Kenny’s revenge, n.d.), the box-wedge heavyweight “Widow’s revenge”
(Widow’s revenge, n.d.), and two named “Granny’s revenge.”
the original Granny’s revenge featured a dummy of an elderly woman sitting in a motorised wheelchair,
therefore making it top heavy. Despite this, the robot was extremely lightweight at 66kg. It had a pneu-
matic flipping leg as weaponry, which was not seen in action. Granny herself held a chainsaw in her
arms, but this was static, and for display purposes only. Granny was extremely flammable, and would
torch the whole robot when set alight [Granny’s revenge, n.d.].

as robots become more widespread, it would not be surprising if they are used as
revenge surrogates. Self-aware and intelligent robots of the future might seek revenge for
their own mistreatment like the toys in McGuire’s story (McGuire, 20).
2 Part I. Motivation

Plans Gone Awry

as has already been revealed, not all revenge schemes go as planned. Here are more
examples.

MODErN LItEratUrE
In robert S. Carr’s 99 short story, “the Composite Brain,” a mad scientist and his
equally mad assistant assemble a killer-monster with the goal of using their creation to get
back at his nemesis: another professor who has been given the accolades the scientist
believes should be his.
they employ a combination of chemistry and body parts taken from a variety of ani-
mals, including humans—like some mythological robot-precursors. the monster is given
a “composite brain.” Each segment of the brain is comprised of part of the brain of one of
the animals used to construct the creature. Each brain segment controls only the body
parts taken from the same creature. For example, the human part of the monster’s brain
controls its human arms, the octopus brain-part controls its octopus tentacles, and the
bulldog brain-part controls the bulldog body parts. the scientist brags about his creation
to his nephew, saying,
[t]he most important thing of all is: this composite brain is controlled by my own! …When I think killing
it fights with almost inconceivable ferocity and abandon…. [I]t is so simple that it is practically thought-
transference [pp. 28–282].

the two madmen test the system by mentally telling the monster to kill the scientist’s
nephew. It responds immediately by killing and eating the young man. the success of this
experiment encourages the scientist to move forward with his plan to use the creature to
kill his enemy and reap the honors and awards that should have been given to him. the
plan fails when the victim takes control of the monster’s mind and turns it against its maker.

CONtEMPOrarY MEDIa
In the film Metropolis (927), described earlier, rotwang’s plans go horribly awry. His
intent was to ruin and kill the Federsens. Instead, the riot provoked by the False-Maria
android injures workers and their families. things continue to fall apart for rotwang when
the real Maria escapes and informs young Federsen of rotwang’s plans. In addition, young
Federsen turns out to be the benign leader that the real Maria had promised would ease
the workers’ plight. the workers turn on the False Maria who is destroyed in a fire. With
his hopes for revenge dashed, rotwang commits suicide.
 Greed

the New testament of the Bible warns, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds
of evil” (timothy 6:0). this is the admonition that the word “greed” often brings to mind.
It is equivalent to avarice: the desire for money and other “worldly goods.” It is one of
Catholicism’s seven deadly sins. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the fifth circle of Purgatory is
reserved for its practitioners, who are “[b]ound and imprisoned by the feet and hands …
we remain immovable and prostrate” (Dante, 265–2 [867], p. 27).
Despite its strong link to avarice, greed covers a far larger landscape. It can encompass
anything that is amassable, including power, fame, and knowledge. the homunculus
(android robot-precursor) named “Greed” in the manga and anime Fullmetal Alchemist
(arakawa, 200–200) captures the breadth of this concept of greed. “You humans think
that greed is just for money and power but everyone wants something they don’t have”
(EmptyMan000, 206). Even this incarnation of greed fails to mention the most funda-
mental characteristic of greed: its insatiability. In Fear of Freedom, Erich Fromm provides
the following characterization: “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an
endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction” (Fromm, 92, p. 00).
Unlike envy, joy, and anger, greed cannot be characterized as an emotion though it
often produces those emotions. as examples, failure to acquire a desired something can
cause anger while joy, however transient, can accompany the satisfaction of a desire. Dante
acknowledges an emotional byproduct of stymied greed and its link to revenge. the fol-
lowing appears in the description of the fourth circle of Purgatory (Sloth):
and there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
and such must needs shape out another’s harm [p. ].

those who are driven by greed can be so focused on satisfaction of their goal that
they become indifferent to the harm their actions cause to others—and sometimes even to
themselves. this is one reason why mad scientists are prime examples of greed for knowl-
edge and adulation. at the same time, other greedy individuals and groups are keenly aware
of the impact their greed has on others because sometimes causing someone else to suffer
or to lose something of value can actually be part of the pleasure of obtaining what they
covet.
In mythology as in the real world, the archetype avaricious individual is the busi-
nessperson and, along with them, the rapacious corporation. Businesspeople are sometimes
shown to desire power as well as wealth but, they aren’t alone. the hunger for power resides
in other types of humans, aliens, robot-precursors, and robots. the domains in which they
seek to expand their power range in size from small communities to universes.
typically, robots and robot-precursors are used as tools for greedy individuals and


 Part I. Motivation

groups to obtain what they desire. there are many different ways in which this is accom-
plished.

Folklore & Mythology

the first three folktales involve avarice in humans who exhibit it in strikingly dif-
ferent ways. an avaricious entrepreneur—the first of many greedy businesspeople in this
chapter—uses a Tulpa to help him become rich (Bob Curran, personal communication,
9 Nov. 20). Tulpas are tibetan “thought forms”—a robot-precursor that is produced
by intense concentration. a Tulpa takes whatever form its maker envisions, including
that of its creator or another human. No matter what form it takes, it possesses human-
like intelligence, language, and the ability to learn—all of which are emerging abilities
of real-world robots. Over time, most Tulpas become increasingly independent and often
acquire the attributes of their creators or of the individual with whom they spend most
of their time.

B B B
the tulPA oF the GReedy MAn
a greedy man wanted a tulpa made in his image to fool the god of death into
taking the creature instead of him—when the time came. He knew he didn’t
have the mental power and discipline to create one so he asked a holy man to
create it for him saying he would use it to do good things. the holy man told
him, “all that you are will go into this being and if you are true, as you say, it
will be a blessing to you but if you are not then it will be the worse for you, for
although I have fashioned it for you, this is your creation.”
the greedy man paid no heed to the warning. He took the tulpa with him
everywhere and used it to amass wealth. Over time, the tulpa grew in strength
and substance. and as it grew, it developed a will and intelligence of its own.
One day, when the man told it to take some rice from a neighbor, it refused. It
seized him by the throat and threatened to choke him.
“Why are you doing this?” the man sputtered. “am I not your master and
did I not call you into life?”
“You are no master to me!” the tulpa replied. “For I indeed am you. Had you
done good things I would have reflected that, but now I am only filled with
envy and greed. You are to blame for my state.” then it choked the man and
delivered him to the god of death. the tulpa could do that because the man had
not created it and, therefore, had no power to destroy it.
the tulpa lived out the rest of its days as the man—and no one knew the dif-
ference…. this was the punishment the holy man had foreseen (Curran, 200,
pp. 22–25).

B B B
 Greed 5

The Women of Turkey and Their Folk-Lore (Garnett, 890) describes the “spaying can-
dle.” It was used by criminals to find treasure and is marginally a robot-precursor. after
killing someone who, they believed, had hidden money or valuables, they excised a part
of the corpse. a witch formed the spaying candle from the fat of that body part and tallow.
the location of the hidden treasure was identified when the spaying candle was extinguished
(pp. –5).
Book XIII (Part I, Vol. IV) of The Histories of Polybius (Polybius, n.d. [20]) describes
what appears to be an android drone used by the King Nabis to extort tributes from Spartan
citizens.

B B B
nAbIS tyRAnt oF SPARtA
He had also constructed a machine, if one can call such a thing a machine.
It was in fact an image of a woman richly dressed and was a very good likeness
of the wife of Nabis. Whenever he summoned any of the citizens before him
with the design of extracting money from him he would begin by addressing
him in kind terms, pointing out the danger to which the city and country were
exposed from the achaeans and calling attention to the number of the merce-
naries he was obliged to maintain to ensure the safety of his subjects, as well as
to the amount spent on religious ceremonies and the public outlay of the city.
If they yielded to these arguments it was sufficient for his purpose. But if anyone
refused and objected to pay [sic] the sum imposed, he would continue somewhat
as follows: “Very possibly I shall not be able to persuade you, but I think this
apega of mine may do so”—this being his wife’s name—and even as he spoke
in came the image I have described. When the man offered her his hand he
made the woman rise from her chair and taking her in his arms drew her grad-
ually to his bosom. Both her arms and hands as well as her breasts were covered
with iron nails concealed under her dress. So that when Nabis rested his hands
on her back and then by means of certain springs drew his victim towards her
and increasing the pressure brought him at all in contact with her breasts he
made the man thus embraced say anything and everything. Indeed by this means
he killed a considerable number of those who denied him money (Polybius,
n.d. [20], pp. 22–2).

B B B
an “oracular head” is a robotic bust that can tell the future or provide other knowledge
its creator seeks to have. Legends about oracular heads that emerged in Medieval and early
renaissance Europe “are descendants of two ancient traditions that became intermingled
during the Middle ages” (LaGrandeur, 999, p. 08): robots built by Hephaestus in Greek
mythology and Egyptian “animated idols.” Some attributed the use of an oracular head to
historical figures known to have valued scholarship, notably Vergil, albertus Magnus, and
roger Bacon. Many of those legends end badly.
William of Malmsbury’s 2th century publication Gesta Regum Anglorum (William of
6 Part I. Motivation

Malmsbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King
Stephen) is considered to be the first such legend to appear in writing. It is a biography of
Gerbert, a man who was greedy for wealth and power but, most of all, for knowledge. Ger-
bert studied everything, including the “necromantic arts,” some of which he was taught by
a Spanish Saracen. the Saracen owned a book that contained all of his knowledge and Ger-
bert was “inflamed with anxious desire to obtain this book at any rate” (p. 7). to accom-
plish that, Gerbert seduced the man’s daughter and, with her help, stole the book. Using
knowledge from that book and from a pact with the Devil (suggesting that the book was
not all- powerful), Gerbert obtained wealth, power, and the honor of becoming Pope
Sylvester II. Malmsbury writes,
[H]e cast, for his own purposes, the head of a statue … which spake not unless spoken to, but then
pronounced the truth, either in the affirmative or negative. For instance, when Gerbert would say,
“Shall I be pope?” the statute [sic] would reply, “Yes.” “am I to die, ere I sing mass at Jerusalem?” “No”
[p. 8].

Gerbert didn’t know that the head was not referring to the city of Jerusalem but to a church
named “Jerusalem” where each pope was expected to sing mass. as foretold, Gerbert died
shortly after singing mass at Jerusalem.

Modern Literature
as in revenge, there is a shift from robot-precursors to robots along with a concomitant
change from sorcerers to scientists. Greed is a characteristic of groups as well as of indi-
viduals, but corporations are portrayed as the sources of greed far more often than politi-
cians, rulers, or scientists. all of these individuals and groups, however, use robots as tools
to help them achieve their greedy objectives.

aVarICE
Each of the following stories reveals a different way in which avaricious groups and
individuals employ robots. La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires’ Conspiracy]
(899) by Le rouge and Guitton is an early example of capitalists using technology to gain
wealth and power as well as an early portrayal of the use of an army of robot drones. It is
an “Edisonade” novel. these novels were common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. they include a character modeled on the american inventor thomas Edison.
the character is a brilliant inventor, scientist, and/or engineer who is sometimes actually
named “thomas Edison.” the name of the inventor in Le rouge and Guitton’s novel is Hat-
tison. the French pronunciation of Hattison is “ah-tee-son” which is almost identical to
“eh-dee-son,” the French pronunciation of Edison. Hattison is hired by a cabal of american
billionaire industrialists to help them conquer Europe (the “Old World”). they install him
in an underground laboratory situated in a sparsely populated area of the western United
States. Hidden beneath an innocent-looking factory, Hattison’s laboratory is protected by
security so powerful that it would be the envy of today’s anti-terrorism agencies and gold
repositories. there, Hattison develops futuristic weaponry, including an army of huge, well-
armed robots. Because Le rouge and Guitton’s book was written before the word “robot”
 Greed 7

entered the French vocabulary, Hattison’s robots are alternatively referred to as “hommes
de fer” (“iron men”) and “automats” (“automata”). Hattison’s iron men are capable of
responding to spoken commands, revealing Hattison to be a truly brilliant inventor because
viable speech recognition for more than a single word would not exist for fifty years.2 Olivier
Coronal is a French spy seeking to avenge a murder done at Hattison’s behest. Coronal
penetrates the sophisticated security system, descends into the secret laboratory, and makes
a startling discovery.

B B B
IRon Men
Black, sinister, stone-faced, metal men suddenly surged out of the shadows
and into the lamp light. they bristled with bayonets. Covered with metal, legs
rigid, torsos bulging, they seemed like knights from the middle ages that had
been resuscitated and made ready to march forward. Each metallic phantom
sported a helmet instead of a head. One arm dangled. their huge eyes were
open, bulging and looking surprised…. these metallic specters were able to
stand upright, walk, move on their own volition. they shattered all beliefs about
what could be created.
Hattison seemed even more monstrous than before for having built such
human-like mechanisms and for making them engines of destruction more ter-
rifying than all other weapons. the grotesque fused with the horrific in this
mathematical caricature of human beings.
“What madness possesses him?” cried Coronal. “What could this damnable
Hattison possibly be dreaming of?” (Loc. 5; 206 translation by J. Markowitz).

B B B
the iron men are among the deadly tools that Hattison and his employers plan to use
to satisfy their lust for riches and global dominance. Coronal ensures that their plot fails.
“the tunnel under the World” by Frederik Pohl (955 [989]) focuses on another sym-
bol of corporate greed: the advertising agency. Guy Buckhardt works for the Contro Chem-
icals Corporation. He is an average, middle-class american living in a typical american
town of the 950s. Every morning Buckhardt wakes up shaken by a nightmare about an
explosion and then discovers that every day is June 5. the days are filled with sales pitches
for products Buckhardt never heard of and some people hawking those products reappear
later as someone else peddling a different unfamiliar product. Buckhardt is determined to
uncover the truth. a tunnel that runs beneath the town takes him to the Contro plant
where he then learns that, during the night of June , the Contro plant exploded, killing
everyone in the town. Dorchin, the enterprising head of a marketing company, built a
miniature reproduction of the town and downloaded the minds of townspeople, including
Buckhardt’s, into the bodies of tiny robots. the robots repeatedly wake up on June 5, the
first day the humans didn’t actually live. Dorchin then tests their responses to different
types of sales campaigns.
8 Part I. Motivation

the robot called april Horn said, “You and all the others were what Dorchin wanted—a whole town,
a perfect slice of america…”
Buckhardt said unbelievingly, “all this to sell merchandise! It must have cost millions!”
the robot called april Horn said, “It did. But it has made millions for Dorchin, too. and that’s not
the end of it. Once he has found the master words that make people act, do you suppose he will stop
at that?” [pp. 9, 0].

annalee Newitz’s 207 novel Autonomous shines a beacon on greed by pharmaceutical

companies. It is timely given price-gouging by real-world pharmaceutical companies. For
example, NextSource raised the price of its cancer drug Gleostine ,00%. Other pharma-
ceuticals have done the same with life-saving drugs (Hernandez, 208) (also see Part II:
Enforcers). the large and powerful pharmaceutical company in Autonomous is Zaxy. they
are about to release Zacuity, a performance-enhancement drug. Jack is an anti-patent drug
pirate who discovers that Zacuity is virulently addictive. Soon after someone begins using
it, the drug compels them to continually repeat a specific task, refusing to eat or sleep, until
they die. Zaxy claims the problems are caused by a reverse-engineered copy of Zacuity
made by Jack but Zaxy’s main worry is the financial impact of allowing the public to believe
Zacuity is dangerous. “Zaxy had always placed profit over public health, but this went
beyond the usual corporate negligence” (p. 29). It also seems that law-enforcement shares
the company’s concerns. “this drug is driving people nuts, and some are dying. If it gets
out that this is Zacuity, it could be a major financial loss for Zaxy. Major” (p. 25). a seasoned
drug-enforcement officer and a newly minted military robot are charged with capturing or
killing Jack. the robot’s enhanced strength and sensory abilities combined with brutal tac-
tics lead the pair to Jack who appears to die in a firefight. Zaxy is delighted but their pleasure
fades when an independent research-robot develops a cure and announces it—along with
a description of the Zacuity addiction—in a press release.
the greedy corporations in Michael Crichton’s novel Prey (2002) are small, start-up
companies that are being funded by the U.S. Pentagon to work on a top-secret project to
develop a nanobot “swarm.” Nanobots are extremely tiny robots and a nanobot swarm
behaves like swarms of locusts and other insects. When the project doesn’t produce what
the military wants, the start-ups work feverishly to keep their government funding so they
can develop patentable, breakthrough technology that will make them rich. Once a proto-
type is completed, they begin testing. One test assesses the ability of the swarm to function
in a high wind. they are determined to use the nanobots to become rich. their arrogance,
single-mindedness, and greed lead them to intentionally release a nanobot swarm outside
of their facility. One company executive writes in an email, “We have nothing to lose” (p.
50). they quickly discover how wrong that declaration is. the swarm is uncontrollable
and, like their creators, it is greedy. It consumes virtually everything that comes into contact
with it. When that is a living creature, the swarm enters its body and, once there, it eats its
prey from the inside out. the greedy executives learn all that the hard way.
the robot-precursor in Hughes’ 99 young-adult novel The Iron Woman (also see
Part I: revenge) is an enormous creature that has been formed from the fouled and fetid
waters of the Earth that have been poisoned by decades of human greed. It rises to the sur-
face with a mission to eliminate that pollution and the humans whose greed produced it.
to accomplish her goal, the robot changes the polluters into slimy creatures that emit black
bubbles. those bubbles congeal into a monstrous spidery cloud that cries,
 Greed 9

I am the Spider-god of wealth. Wealth. Wealth.

the Spider-god of more and more and more and more money.
I catch it in my web.

the spider god, the slimy creatures, and all of Earth’s pollutants are then banished from
Earth. this may seem like wishful thinking but Bristol University in the UK is developing
a real-world, pollution-eating robot (rossiter, 206).
Writers find evidence of corporate greed in the replacement of human workers by
computers and robots (job-killers). Concern about this practice is not new. It is, for example,
the subject of Harry Piel’s 9 film Master of the World (Der Herr der Welt), which will be
described in the next section, Contemporary Media. Job-killing robots are also the focus
of Kurt Vonnegut’s The Player Piano (952), which is set in an undemocratic, future america
in which machines have become the primary workforce. Vonnegut’s america is a two-class
society run by a small number of rich and powerful humans. this remains a common
vision of the future. Humans who are identified as intelligent and able to perform work
that machines cannot, are given employment—as are the offspring of wealthy families. all
others are relegated to performing menial jobs for low wages or are drafted into the huge
military. Dissatisfaction bursts into rebellion. the army and computers crush it, allowing
the deeply disheartening status quo to continue.
Invitation to the Game (Hughes, 990) is a young-adult novel that portrays a similar
future society run by autocrats. It is told from the viewpoint of Lissa, an intelligent young
woman who recently completed her schooling. Despite her education and intelligence, she,
like most other young adults, is unemployable because computers perform virtually all
jobs. Lissa and her friends are put on a government dole but otherwise left to fend for
themselves in a filthy, dangerous slum. that is, until they are invited to participate in a
mysterious activity dubbed “the Game,” a virtual-reality game set on a harsh and barren
world. Unbeknownst to them, they are being trained to survive in an off-Earth settlement
on a planet being colonized by the autocrats who will use Lissa and her colleagues to expand
their domain beyond Earth.
the online novel Manna (Brain, 200) looks at job-killing automation in fast-food
restaurants which is now becoming commonplace in the real world. the narrator, Jacob
Lewis, is a fifteen-year-old young man employed by the fast-food restaurant chain Burger
G. the company uses Jacob’s restaurant to pilot an automation project. the restaurant’s
human managers are replaced by an automated system called “Manna.” the employees
wear headsets as Manna gives them step-by-step instructions for performing every task
that needs to be done in the restaurant, including interacting with customers.

B B B
MAnnA
I can remember putting on the headset for the first time and the computer
talking to me and telling me what to do. It was creepy at first, but that feeling
really only lasted a day or so. then you were used to it, and the job really did
get easier. Manna never pushed you around, never yelled at you. the girls liked
it because Manna didn’t hit on them either. Manna simply asked you to do
something, you did it, you said, “OK,” and Manna asked you to do the next step.
0 Part I. Motivation

Each step was easy. You could go through the whole day on autopilot, and
Manna made sure that you were constantly doing something. at the end of the
shift Manna always said the same thing. “You are done for today. thank you
for your help.” then you took off your headset and put it back on the rack to
recharge. the first few minutes off the headset were always disorienting—there
had been this voice in your head telling you exactly what to do in minute detail
for six or eight hours. You had to turn your brain back on to get out of the
restaurant (Brain, 200, Chapter ).

B B B
Burger-G’s upper management and investors see the pilot as a tremendous success.
Burger-G saved a ton of money. Burger-G had hundreds of stores in the United States. Manna worked
so well that Burger-G deployed it nationwide. Soon Burger-G had cut more than ,000 of its higher-
paid store employees—mostly assistant managers and managers. that one change saved the company
nearly $00 million per year, and all that money came straight to the bottom line for the restaurant
chain. Shareholders were ecstatic. Mr. G gave himself another big raise to celebrate. In addition, Manna
had optimized store staffing and had gotten a significant productivity boost out of the employees in
the store. that saved another $50 million. $250 million made a huge difference in the fast food indus-
try.

the corporation implements Manna in all Burger-G restaurants. Other corporations adopt
the Manna system for their managerial positions. It is not long before Manna is performing
both managerial and non-managerial jobs in most industries. Finally, the system becomes
almost entirely universal. then the robots take the rest of the jobs—leaving humans in vir-
tual destitution akin to that portrayed by Vonnegut and other writers.
The Human Blend (200) is the first book in Foster’s Tipping Point Trilogy (200–202).
It is set in a future Savannah, Georgia, which depends upon a vibrant tourist economy.
those tourists also represent income to petty thieves like Whispr, the main character, and
his partner Cricket. the two make their living killing tourists and stripping them of valu-
ables, primarily prosthetics and implants which they then sell. theirs is a lucrative business
because they live in a time when almost everyone is a “meld”—a blend of natural and arti-
ficial body parts—including the criminals who populate Foster’s trilogy. those “melds” can
be so extreme that the people who have undergone them look nothing like humans.
When the novel begins, Whispr finds a mysterious-looking thread on the body of one
of their victims. From that point on, avarice fills the hearts of virtually everyone who comes
into contact with Whispr. Whispr’s thread is like the spaying candle described in the pre-
vious section, Folklore & Mythology. Criminals see it as a tool that points to a treasure.
None of his numerous underworld contacts knows what the thread is, but they all sus-
pect it is valuable, as does Dr. Ingrid Seastrom because she’s seen one like it embedded in
the brain of a young woman whose meld had gone bad. the advanced technology in
Seastrom’s clinic tells her the thread is for data storage but can determine nothing more.
Seastrom joins Whispr in his quest to learn what is stored in the thread. that knowledge
is not only valuable; it is perilous. People the two have consulted are murdered, and assassins
are trying to kill them as well. Finally, one of their contacts tells them that threads like
theirs have been found in the brains of people all over the world. Only one company has
the technology to make something like that: the South african Economic Combine (SaEC).
 Greed 

their contact speculates that SaEC is developing the thread’s technology to extend its
power—perhaps by controlling people. the news that the thread could be a tool for cor-
porate greed snuffs out Whispr’s avarice but it inflames Seastrom’s compulsion to know
more. Her greed is for knowledge. aware that they could be killed by the police or by the
SaEC assassins who have been chasing them, they do the unthinkable: they decide to go
to SaEC but they discover that the truth lies elsewhere.

POWEr
adam Link (Binder, 965) is an autonomous and self-aware robot who knows how to
build other robots. Paul Hillory is a mad scientist who wants an army of robot-slaves to
help him obtain global power and wealth. Hillory uses a device he invented to transfer
adam’s knowledge to his own brain so that he can build his army. as in other adam Link
stories, one of his human friends—a deus ex machina—rescues adam in the nick of time
and ends Hillory’s dreams of world domination.
Stanisław Lem’s story “the Mask” (Lem, 977) is reminiscent of Sparta’s King Nabis
and his Iron apega (see the previous section, Folklore & Mythology). Like Nabis, the king
in Lem’s story is an absolute dictator who uses an artificial creature to seduce and murder.
this king is greedy for power rather than wealth. He seeks to consolidate and solidify his
power by eliminating his enemies. the narrator is a shape-shifting robot assigned to seduce
and kill the king’s principal enemy. the assassin assumes the form and personality of a
beautiful and charming young woman. In the course of the seduction, however, the assassin
falls in love with its victim and desperately wants to break out of its programming. Instead
of killing the man, it wants to protect him from other assassins sent by the king. It is told
that the code embedded in it cannot be altered. It has no free will. It persists but neither
the reader nor the robot ever learns whether it succeeds in freeing itself from its program-
ming because other assassins find and kill the man before the robot can rescue him.
Android Karenina (tolstoy & Winters, 200) transports the nineteenth-century oli-
garchy of Anna Karenina (tolstoy, 87–877 [99]) into a future russia in which robots
tend to the nobility’s every need. the robots vary in intelligence, body configuration, size,
and functionality but the majority of them are fully autonomous and self-aware. the con-
tours of the story are shifted to create a struggle in which three factions vie for control of
russia.

• aliens called “Honored Guests” correspond to the religious charlatans of tolstoy’s

novel. they want to subjugate humans.
• the government wants to subjugate russians.
• the UnCanSciya are disaffected scientists who want to free humans and robots.

the Honored Guests insinuate themselves into aristocratic society by pretending to be a

benevolent race of spiritual aliens possessed of eternal wisdom. Once they obtain a foothold,
they unleash giant robotic worms and lizard-like creatures that roam the countryside killing
humans. the government, led by alexi alexandrovich Karenin, instigates random attacks
using killer robots called “Koschei” and claims they are the work of the UnCanSciya.
Karenin is being taken over by an evil, robotic facial-prosthesis. It leads him to systemat-
ically eliminate the nobility’s robotic support system. this robot-elimination policy is actu-
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 Dalrymple Farms. Our house stands on the high beautiful banks of the Maple River.
Two months ago my sister and two brothers and myself were taken sick with
diphtheria. I haven't been able to walk since. My little brother Allie died. I want to
tell you what the sweet little boy said when he was sick—he did not like to take his
medicine; and mamma said to him, "Allie, take it to please mamma," and then he
took it; and a little while after mamma heard him say, in his sleep, "I will take it to
please mamma." The last time he took his wine he said to papa, "Papa, I will never
take it again." He was five years old, and could read and spell, and count up to one
hundred without missing, and we never tried to teach him; he learned it all himself
from hearing us. I have taken Young People from the first number. I could not live
without it.
Please print this, as I am unable to walk, and have little to amuse me.

Lynn C. M.
What a sweet memory you have of the dear patient little brother, who was so ready to
please his mamma, even when in pain!
I hope, as the summer days bring their pleasures, you will grow strong again, and be
able not only to walk, but to run and jump as boys like to.

There will be a general clapping of hands when the Cot report is read this month. Here is
a letter, which everybody will enjoy, from a friend who has the Cot on her mind all the
time:

I am certain a great many of our young readers, when they see the Cot
acknowledgments, will exclaim, "My! how did we get so much money all at once?" I
don't wonder at your surprise; I am sure I was surprised when I heard the good
news. Well, that $550 which you see put down as the result of a fair is what did the
work. Sometimes in reading our fund column I have wondered why so few names
from New York city appeared among our contributors; the greater part of the work
before has been done in the East, West, or South. But now New York city has
stepped up bravely to the front, and is worthy of great praise. Four little girls living
here, namely, Madeline Satterlee, Helen Manice, Gertrude Parsons, and Mamie W.
Aldrich, formed a club in Lent, and worked for this fair, and earnest workers they
must have been. The fair was held April 22, in the Sunday-school room of Zion
Church, Thirty-eighth Street, New York, which was kindly lent for the purpose. Of
course I was at the fair, and a very pretty one it was. I only wish more people could
have known about it, and have been there to encourage these little girls in their
good work. Very busy they all looked, waiting on the tables. They had a fish pond
and a large red grab-bag, both of which took in quite a sum of money; and I am
sure these little workers must have felt very proud, and well repaid for any self-
denial they had practiced, when they handed in to our treasurer the large sum you
see acknowledged to-day. Now don't you think it would be a good plan if all the boys
 and girls who are well-wishers of our Fund—and I am sure they are many—would
work hard this summer, while away in the country, or at home, and try and make the
amount up to $1500? That would be just half the amount needed, and how fast we
could go on next winter! You would have to raise $345.56, and that is not such a
large sum among a great many. Some, like these four little New York girls, could hold
a fair or festival at some of the summer resorts; others could pick and sell berries.
There are many ways in which the little hands and feet could earn the pennies for
our fund. Do not be disheartened at small results, but remember that every effort
you make, if in earnest, helps both yourselves and the Cot fund.
I wonder if some of you are not curious to know where your money goes while
waiting for the rest of the $3000. If any of you have ever gone in the Sixth Avenue
cars, New York, past Waverley Place, you may have observed a large building on the
southwest corner, with "Greenwich Bank" upon it in large letters; our treasurer wants
me to tell you that she puts your money there; and, if I am not mistaken, some of
these days you will see in our acknowledgment, "Interest from Greenwich Bank,"
which means that the bank pays you so much money for leaving your money with it.
If you will ask your papas, I am sure they will tell you that it could not be in a better
place. So you see what a good treasurer we have to take care of our money.
In saying good-by I must add that I think you have all done very well so far in our
good work. The year will not be up until next month, and we have passed "the place
in the mountains where we can look back and see one-third of our journey
accomplished."
So to our helpers,
Great and small,
Thanks we send
For one and all.
Aunt
Edna.
New
York, June, 1882.

St. Louis,
Missouri.

As this is one of the large cities in the Union, I thought if no one else would sustain
its credit I would. On the 5th of May we had a big hail-storm. In 1872 we had a hall-
storm when the hail was about the size of a hazel-nut; but in this one the smallest
stones I saw were that size. Most of them, however, were about the size of walnuts.
I saw quite a number as large as a section of an egg, and one or two almost as large
as my fist. Now I am afraid you will think that I have exaggerated, but it is true. I
have heard a number of persons, including a very old lady, say that they have seen a
number of stones frozen together, but never before such large single ones. The
 storm lasted for a full half-hour, hailing constantly. A great deal of damage was done
to churches and public buildings especially. Branches of trees, bushes, and vines
were cut off as smoothly as if done with a knife. One man went out to the gutter to
pick up an extra large hail-stone, when another one hit him so forcibly on the back
of the neck that he fell down on his hands and knees. I would have sent you one of
the stones, but as such things can not be telegraphed, I could not do so.

Malcolm P.

Binghamton,
New York.

I have written one letter before, and have not seen it in the paper, so I thought I
would write again. I am taking Harper's Young People for the third year. I like "Toby
Tyler" very much, and "Mr. Stubbs's Brother" still better. I saw some real prairie-dogs
not long ago. They don't look bigger than a good-sized rat. I am nine years old, but
have only been at school a year, as I have always been sick. I am in the second
grade, and study arithmetic, reading, language, and spelling. Shall be promoted next
term.
I have a little brother named Frankie. He is seven years old. Mamma and he and I
live with grandpa, as our papa is dead. Frankie has a cat which had four kittens.
They are all sorts of colors. I wish I could send you their pictures. They live in my old
baby carriage. I made a little tent, not big enough to get under, that I could take
down and put up as many times as I had a mind to, and to-day I broke it. Jumbo,
that you have told us about, is coming here in August. I hope I shall see him. When
I do, I'll write and tell you what I think of him. I just love him now. I can't think of
any more. Good-by.

Eddie F.
Those little kittens are well off. Living in a baby carriage! Think of such luxury! Do they
have an afghan over them when they are chilly?
It is fun to make a tent large enough to accommodate two or three boys. I think, if I
were there, I could help you make one with two or three poles, and a couple of old
shawls or table-covers. Suppose you ask mamma to help you do this?

Forest,
Texas.

I am a little girl twelve years old, and live in the country. I have a kind uncle who
sends me Young People. We have had plenty of strawberries this spring. I go to
 school, and am in Coins and Currency, and at play-time I have fine times playing
croquet. We have a mocking-bird building in the garden. It sings all day. We had a
fish-fry not long ago, and had as many fish as we wanted. It has been a very rainy
season. I have a great many pretty flowers; the gladiolus is opening now. I am so
glad when Harper's Young People comes. I like the story of "Talking Leaves" better
than any other one.

Nina M.
We planted our gladiolus bulbs the morning that Nina's letter arrived; but the season is
earlier in her Southern home than it is with us. Have you magnolia-trees and
pomegranate-bushes in your garden, Nina? How charming it must be to hear the songs
of the mocking-bird all day long!

Norwich,
Connecticut.

I must tell you about my pet which my uncle Frank brought me from California. It
was a dear little horned toad. It was very affectionate, and had a soft yellow breast
and two horns, one on each side of its head. I kept it in a big box of sand, and uncle
called it Cutey, it was so cute. One day it was very cold, and Cutey shivered so I
covered him up in the box, and put him on the register; then I went off, and forgot
my poor little toad. When I came back my toad was dead, and I cried very hard, for
I felt naughty to have forgotten my pet. I have some more pets, and some time I
will tell you about them; but I am afraid this is too long.

Susie.
What a pity it was, dear, that you forgot your pet! No wonder you cried. I am sure you
will never again forget one of the little creatures, which are dependent on you for their
comfort.

Bristol,
England.

I have a very kind cousin who lives in Brooklyn, and sends me Young People. I am
eight years old. I am very fond of reading the letters of children so many miles away
from each other, and of hearing about their pets. I have a green parrot, but he is
very spiteful. We have a gray cat, and if we stay upstairs beyond our time in the
morning, she comes up and sits outside the door, and keeps mewing until I come out
and speak to her. I have two sisters, one five, the other three. I have been learning
to play the piano eighteen months; also my sister Lillie. We play several duets, and
many pieces. I have to practice every evening, and then I have a good read from
 Young People. I like "The Cruise of the 'Ghost,'" "Tim and Tip," and "All-hallow Eve"
very much indeed, and I am very much interested in "The Talking Leaves." My papa
I have not seen in nearly four years. He is out in China. He was wrecked last July. He
was chief officer of the Anne S. Hall, of Boston, which was lost in a typhoon. All
hands were saved in a boat. I shall be very glad when I see him. I have been two
years at school. I went to a pic-nic party to Lea Woods. We went through Nightingale
Valley, and were really tired when we got to the top. The woods looked lovely with
bluebells and violets. The primroses seemed to be all picked.

Percy T.
Well, Percy, I wish I were so near that I could tell whether you and your little sister keep
time in your duets. You must practice very diligently, so that your music will delight your
papa when he comes home again. How much you must love him, all the more fondly
because he was in such peril on the ocean! I hope he will reach his children in safety.
Nightingale Valley is a beautiful name for a wood.

Brooklyn,
New York.

I want to tell you about our cat, whose name is Miss Moll; my little brother named
her, and he is three years old. Miss Moll trots all over the house, and when she wants
to go out, she stands by the door and mews. When she wants to come in, she
scratches at the door. She will lie down on her back, and play with any one's hand,
although she is a middle-aged cat.
We also have a dog, but he does not amount to much, except that he is a good
watch-dog, and he belonged to my brother, who is now dead.
I go to the public school, where I received a prize for writing and composition. (They
don't give prizes as a general thing.) This is my first letter.

Grace I. T.
I am glad you were the fortunate little winner of a prize.

Frederick
County, Maryland.

As I have seen no letter from here, I thought I would write, and maybe you would
publish it. I am a little girl eleven years old. I live in the country near Frederick city. I
have a dear little brother; his name is Charley. He is a little naughty sometimes,
though. Charley has three dogs—their names are Sport, Jack, and Butty—and he has
a very pretty Alderney calf, also ducks and chickens. He is very kind to them. My
 aunt Kate gave me Young People for a Christmas gift. I like it very much. I have
twelve little cousins; we go to school together, and have very nice times. I send my
love to you, Mrs. Postmistress, and to all the little girls and boys.

E. K. H.

Exchanges are inserted without charge, but they must be brief. First name what you
have, and then state what you wish in return. Give your address plainly, and in full, town,
county, and State. Please write with black ink.

C. Y. P. R. U.

The Rainbow.—When the summer shower is passing away, and while the thunder is still
rolling among the hills, we have often seen the rainbow. Every one admires the beautiful
arch which spans the sky. It is caused by the striking of the sun's rays upon the drops of
water as they fall from the clouds. These rays are twice refracted and once reflected as
they meet the transparent drops. If you look in the dictionary, you will find that refracted
means bent suddenly, and reflected means thrown back. The colors of the rainbow are
seven in number, and appear in the following order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet. The tints are most vivid when the background of clouds is darkest and
the drops of rain fall closest. The continual falling of the rain while the sun shines
produces a new rainbow every moment; and a curious thing is that as each spectator
sees it from a particular point of view, strictly speaking no two persons see precisely the
same rainbow. A peculiar sacredness is attached to our thoughts of the rainbow on
account of the mention made of it in Genesis, when, after the deluge, Noah saw its arch
in the sky. How glad he must have been to view the sun once more! Then God said, "I do
set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth." The story of the rainbow, as the Bible tells it, is to be found in Genesis, ninth
chapter, from the eighth to the seventeenth verses.

Hattie C.—You are needlessly distressed at what you call your lack of conversational
powers. It is true that some people have the gift of talking with ease, and that they are
not embarrassed in the presence of others. But any person of ordinary intelligence may
learn to talk brightly and pleasingly by simply taking pains to learn how. In the first place,
try to forget yourself. Do not fancy when you open your lips that the lady opposite you on
the sofa, or your neighbor at the dinner table, is criticising or making fun of you. Well-
bred and kindly mannered people never do so. Have, in the second place, an idea of
what you wish to say. In the third and last place, be sure to tell your story or give your
opinion in the simplest language you can command. Never use slang. To be a good
listener is as great an accomplishment as to be a bright talker. A young lady who listens
intelligently, and with sympathy in her looks, giving now and then a brief reply or a turn
to the talk, but not trying to lead it, or to be at all conspicuous, is sure of being popular.
Find out what your friends are interested in, and help them to talk on their special
subjects. Do not worry about the impression you are making when in society, but let your
great aim be to make the place where you are as cheerful as possible.

We would call the attention of the C. Y. P. R. U. this week to Mr. Charles Barnard's article,
"Wave and Sand," and to "The Boyhood of William Chambers." The girls will be pleased
with Mrs. Dewing's pretty and artistic design for "A Kettle-Holder."

YOUNG PEOPLE'S COT.

Contributions received for Young People's Cot, in Holy Innocent's Ward, St. Mary's Free
Hospital for Children, 407 West Thirty-fourth Street:

Henry and John Goeltz, $2; Kerfoot W. Daly, Gibsonton, $1; Mamie Tilton, Fort Riley,
Kan., $1; Easter gifts from Charles Frederick Fletcher, $1, Theodora Carter, $1, Maud
Metcalf, 75c., Ruth Metcalf, 75c., and Mary Aiken Metcalf, 50c., Auburndale, Mass.,
total, $4; Dora's Easter Offering, New York, $1; Lucy, Frank, and Willie Green, Upper
Alton, Ill., 25c.; "Little Margaret," June 4, In Memoriam, $100; Teddie and Willie
McVickar, New York, $20; Ethel Hurst, New York, 75c.; Virgie McLain, Nassau, N. P.,
$1.25; Annie and Edith Van Kuran, Clinton, Iowa, 50c.; Lena Matthews, Olean, N. Y.,
$1; Oliver T. Clough, Junction, Iowa, $1; In Memoriam, Herbert Stockwell Day, $50;
Ethel Ransom, 25c.; Elise Hurst, New York, 25c.; Teddie McVickar, New York, 25c.;
Lulu Lyon, $1; Frank M. Hartshorn, in memory of two little brothers, $1; Emily
Chauncey, 30c.; Isabelle Lacey, $10; Teddie McVickar, New York, 50c.; proceeds of a
fair held in Zion Church Chapel, Madison Avenue, New York, April 22, the Lenten
work of a club of four little girls—Helen Manice, Madeline Satterlee, Gertrude
Parsons, and Mamie W. Aldrich—New York, $550; total, $747.30; previously
acknowledged, $406.84; grand total, May 15, 1882, $1154.14.

E. Augusta
Fanshawe, Treasurer, 43 New St.

Clinton,
Iowa.
 We saved fifty cents out of our pocket-money for the Cot, and we hope it will help a
little toward the support of some poor child.

Annie and
Edith Van Kuran.

I have saved these two dollars with my brother. My brother saved fifty cents, and I
saved one dollar and fifty cents. My brother is seven years old, and I am fourteen. I
sent these few pictures because I think they will please the little ones. My brother
and I will try to send two more dollars.

Henry and
John Goeltz.

I send you $1 I earned myself feeding chickens and getting up early in the morning.
Mamma said I might do whatever I chose with it. I am not a very big boy.

Kerfoot W.
Daly.

Upper Alton,
Illinois.

I have been intending to write to Young People for some time. We all like it so very
much. I am so glad Mr. Otis has begun another story about Toby Tyler. I know it will
be splendid. My brother Frank and I send twenty cents for Young People's Cot, and
hope the Cot will prosper. I am so sorry the trailing arbutus does not grow here. I
have never seen it. But we do have lots of other lovely wild flowers. We have white,
blue, and yellow violets and bluebells all growing in our yard. I wish I could see the
boys and girls that write to Our Post-office Box. I wish I was able to give some of our
flowers to the poor sick children in the hospitals.

Lucy L.
Green.

P. S.—My brother Willie adds a nickel to our contribution.

L. L. G.
 Nassau, New
Providence, Bahamas.

Inclosed you will find $1.25 for Young People's Cot. Once before I sent you 35 cents.
I had a beautiful parrot which died, and to console me papa gave me $5, so I now
send $1.25 out of it.

Virgie
McLain.

Schuyler,
Nebraska.

We have taken Harper's Young People for only a month, but papa sent and got us all
from the January number down. We felt sorry for the homeless little children, and so
we sent them some papers. We have been saving them up from 1879. There are five
of us children, and I am the next to the oldest. We live in Schuyler, Colfax County,
Nebraska. We have a good many pets, but I will have to wait until next time to tell
you about them. I will have to close now, as it is about time for school. Good-by.

Mattie
Clarkson.

Olean, New
York.

I am a little girl nine years old. I send you a dollar for Young People's Cot, which I
earned by helping my mamma. The only pet I have is a little baby brother. I have got
the mumps on both sides. I go to school, and study geography, grammar, spelling,
reading, writing, drawing, and arithmetic. I must close. Good-by. From

Lena
Matthews.

PUZZLES FROM YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS.

No. 1.

BEHEADINGS.
1. Here is a group of boys. Behead the name of No. 1, and you have an ancient vessel; of
No. 2, and you have something unpleasant; of No. 3, and you have a nickname; of No. 4,
and you see a vehicle; of No. 5, and you have a useful article of furniture; of No. 6, and
you have an organ of the human body; of No. 7, a beautiful bird; of No. 8, a
disfigurement.
2. Here are four pretty girls, with very sweet names. Behead the first name, and you
have what the robin did to the cherries; the second, and you have the name of the
earliest martyr; the third, and you have what bees and butterflies are in summer; the
fourth, and you have an exciting chase.
Sam Weller,
Jun.

No. 2.

ENIGMA.

My first is in apple, but not in prune.

My second in May, but not in June.
My third in seek, but not in find.
My fourth in cross, but not in kind.
My fifth in mice, but not in rat.
My sixth in cape, and also in cap.
My seventh in chair, but not in stool.
My whole is a country you'll learn of in school.
A Boy of Ten.

No. 3.

TWO DIAMONDS.
1.—1. A letter. 2. A domestic pet. 3. A city in France. 4. A metal. 5. A letter.
2.—1. A letter. 2. A nickname. 3. A heavenly wanderer. 4. Human beings. 5. A letter.
Eureka.
 No. 4.

NUMERICAL ENIGMA.

My whole is a noted battle-field, and I contain 11 letters.

My 1, 2, 6, 4 means to speak familiarly.
My 7, 3, 10 is a horse.
My 1, 8, 9, 5 is a water-fowl.
My 11, 2, 6 is an exclamation.
Empire City.

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN No. 133.

No. 1.

L UNAR RA SP
US AGE A C ME
NA S A L SMUT
AGA TE PE TS
RE L ET

F I G V AN
I CE ACE
GE T NE T

No. 2.

F irin G
I odid E
C heru B
H awai I
E ndin G
L oung E

No. 3.

S
D I CE D
 DUE I DEAS AR T
DU C KS SC E P T I C DROOP
EKE EATER TO E
S SIR P
C

T B E
TIP TEA END
T I GER BETSY EN D OW
PET ASP DO T
R Y W

No. 4.
Excelsior.

Answer to Enigma on page 134—Handcuff.

Correct answers to puzzles have been sent by "Eureka," Annetta D. Jackson, Pansy V. R.,
"I. Scycle," Harold S. Chambers, Florence, Mabel, and Annie Knight, Douglas Fay, Alex
Ketchum, John B. Todd, Alice Bolton, Emma Grace, Fanny and Fleda Cary, Viola, S. T. C.

[For Exchanges, see 2d and 3d pages of cover.]

 THE YOUNG GENIUS.

GAS BALLOONS.
Small gas balloons are made of thin sheet India rubber, or gutta percha, or tissue-paper;
larger ones are made of oiled silk. Cut gores of the material to be used, sufficient in
number when fastened together, the sides of each gore overlapping the gore fastened to
it, to form a globe of the desired size, with pear-shaped ends. Join the gores together so
as to make them completely air-tight. When the heavier materials are used, they should
be sewn together, and then covered with glue or thin varnish. At the lower end of the
balloon insert a tube, and tie all the narrow tips of the gores firmly round it. Cover all
with a solution made of India rubber dissolved in naphtha and turpentine, and over the
balloon place a net bag that has been previously made of the proper size and shape.
The gas with which the balloon is to be filled is made in the following manner: Put a
pound of granulated zinc or iron filings into two quarts of water in a stone jar, and add
gradually a pint of sulphuric acid. Have a tube of glass or metal run through the bung
with which the jar is corked, and after taking the materials out-of-doors, fill the balloon
by connecting this tube with the tube already placed at its mouth. When the balloon is
filled, tie its neck very tightly, and it will rise into the air. Common coal gas may be used
when it can be obtained. A small car made of some light material may be attached to the
netting which goes over the balloon.

A BALLOON ADVENTURE.
An exciting balloon adventure was that of Mr. Pendarves Vivian, an English member of
Parliament. With two skilled aeronauts he recently made an ascent from Southwest
London, the start being delayed by unfavorable weather until 10 p.m.
They found themselves in a strong current, which in ten minutes had placed them over
North London, the lights below presenting a fairy scene of indescribable beauty. Though
over 1000 feet high, street cries were distinctly audible. Ascending rapidly to 8000 feet, in
an hour they found themselves passing at a tremendous rate over a flat country suitable
for descending, and they resolved to come down. Gas was let out, and grappling-irons
dropped, when there was a sharp check and violent jerks, and suddenly they commenced
soaring upward at a frightful pace.
The rope of the grappling-irons had broken. The danger of so helpless a position,
especially at night, was instantly apparent, and shortly afterward a renewed descent was
made, hoping to run the balloon against some branches of trees. When this was done,
one got out, and the two, relieved of his weight, were carried upward with extreme
velocity to a height of three miles.
Half stunned by the shock, some time elapsed before the adventurous occupants of the
balloon again attempted to descend, when, to their horror, they heard the roaring of the
sea immediately below them. Fortunately they landed upon the beach, and not in the
water. They were eventually rescued unhurt; but Mr. Vivian's experience convinces him
that ballooning can never be of practical utility as a means of travelling.

MAGICAL MUSIC.
This is a game in which music is made to take a prominent part. On one of the company
volunteering to leave the room, some particular article agreed upon is hidden. On being
recalled, the person, ignorant of the hiding-place, must commence a diligent search,
taking the piano as his guide. The loud tones will mean that he is very near the object of
his search, and the soft tones that he is far from it. Another method of playing the same
game is for the person who has been out of the room to try to discover on his return
what the remainder of the company desire him to do. It may be to pick up something
from the floor, to take off his coat, to look at himself in the glass, or anything else as
absurd. The only clew afforded him of solving the riddle must be the loud or soft tones of
the music.
 THE BASE-BALL SEASON—THE "HOME RUN."

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Begun in No. 127, Harper's Young People.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S YOUNG
PEOPLE, JUNE 6, 1882 ***

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