Robots (Riddlemoore)

Robots
Robots in the world Riddlemoore have existed for as long as machines have. Hindered only by the current level of technology and materials available in any epoch, automatons or "workers" were only a curiosity in ancient times materials were stone, bone, sinew, wood who were too difficult to move and program to mimic human movements and computing. People often would rather raise the dead than to invest in costly prone to breaking robots.

It wasn't until the discovery and wide adoption of clockworking that automatons and robots became a wider occurance, used mostly as moving calculators in academic institutions, ballistic computers for military applications and serfs in the castles of the aristocracy.

As technology progressed robots became more commonplace but it wasn't until the adoption of microelectronics in the XXth century that people pondered about having a domestic robot in every house. By this time robots were gaining almost human-like forms, only being discernable up to a very close distance

As the century ended unrest escalated as robots now were overly present in cities, the Cult of Machinery also began gaining foothold in these times and people became paranoid about the presence of humanoid machines as well as androids in everyday life. During the 1980s and early 1990s the 3U government ran a series of strikes against cult communities often ending in violent confrontations, all cultists were either killed or incarcerated in stasis prisons. This also meant the persecution of the remaining human-like androids who by the date remain on the run.

As of the beginning of the story robots have been designed to look unappealing and even frightening to people, the designs have reverted to a more crude industrial look and are often operated in hours that don't overlap with human activity.

More advanced robots are often kept in secrecy and there's great paranoia than many people will be one of them, this has caused the creation of various pop-quizes to find out how human a person really is.