Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Karth Arn-- Progressive Champion of Android Rights?

So the dude is basically treated as slave labor by Dr. Londo, who then uses the fruits of his labor to give powers to his obviously-destined-to-be-a-drug-addict son. And then, after Dr. Londo's death, rather than become the property of said son, he takes advantage of Londo Jr.'s amnesiac state to switch places with them and claim the elder Londo's property, which, arguably, is rightfully his. And rather than exploit Londo Jr.'s belief that he is an android to get free labor from him, he lets him run off around the galaxy, doing drugs or whatever.

I think maybe Karth has been misunderstood.

Blatant life-ist prejudices, those organics treating artificial life-forms like property.

Robotica approves of Karth Arn.

Karth Arn: doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Red Tornado dealt with sentient privelege on a daily basis a thousand years earlier. It's a story as old as time.

No one ever recorded the thoughts and feelings of the toasters, automobiles and, well, recording devices. And they probably never will.

True. You don't see Legion robots or androids standing for hour on balconies off their face (or relative panel) on Lotus Fruit. No, they have many more productive things to be getting on with.

- Diode Damsel.

Back when I was first really into Science Fiction (we are talking the Eisenhower administration here) there was a very clear distinction in my mind between robots and androids.

Technically, the word android means ‘man-shaped’, and so could be applied to any humanoid robot. But in the conventions of the day, a robot was a mechanical man, a pure machine, operating with a computer mind, and powered by batteries, or, at the best, a fusion reactor.

An android, on the other hand was an artificial life-form, a sack of chemicals. Not necessarily organic biological reactions, but certainly some sort of ‘wetware’. It may have had a platinum-thread nervous system, and an iridium skeleton, but it was essentially a chemical entity. As such, it ‘ate’ something—even if that ‘something’ was toxic waste—and had, in 21st century vernacular, an analog rather than a digital brain. Androids were therefore more naturally ‘alive’, or sentient, than robots.

During the Binder, Plastino and Weisinger sci-fi Legion era, this sort of distinction between robots and androids was evident. Computo, an actual sentient robot, was a masterpiece of Coluan super-engineering. Karth Arn just happened to be autonomous.

Of course, as Alan Turing is reported to have said, “Just because it doesn’t think like a human being, are we to say it doesn’t think?”

Karth Arn could easily be a better Republican candidate for President than the "human" schmucks in the race now.

And yes, I'm aware that this may not be the best test of sentience and android rights.

Asimov's fourth law: A robot may not screw over humans to pad out its offshore accounts and to improve the corrupt businesses of its friends.

That's the law that ensured that no robot could ever be elected, saving mankind from democratically elected robotic terror.

The distinction is clearly seen in Weisinger and Hamitlon's Captain Future stories, where the main character is mentored/assisted by both an android and a robot (plus a brain in a jar to boot!).

Yeah, it's kind of a shame that distinction was lost.

Reminds me of the Star Trek: Next Generation, the Measure of a Man, where a researcher wants to dissemble the android Data to figure out how he works, and gets a lot of resistance, and says, 'If it was a box on wheels, you wouldn't be opposing me!'

As for android uprisings, it's all because we keep making more androids, and not any gynoids. Androids be lonely!

Karth Arn, Gear, and Babbage need to start their own Legion of Super Artificial Life-Forms.

Who ironically discriminate against Fleshy Ones joining them.

Not to mention robot pets!

Ooh, a robotic super-pet!

And how about software intelligences/virtual peeps? Would such a person be the 'Wildfire' of the Legion of Robot Heroes?

Urk (or his 120 ft. tall version, Urkzilla), eater of technology, would be their arch-nemesis.

I had "robot pets" as a child--that is if one can count Poochi and the like from Tigger Electronics as robots.

Karth Arn is kind of like a reverse Astro Boy- created to be a servant, but chose to be a replacement for his real son.

You know, I really want to know if Karth Arn ever showed up again.

When I ran a PBEM game, I came up with the idea that the Coluians worked to block the rights of Artificial Lifeforms in the UP because of their history with the Computer Tyrants.

Given that Karth Arn seemed sentient in every way that could be determined, his slavery at the hands of Brin's dad does seem out of bounds.