Pyro: I just looked at that thing, you know, the desert planet comic
Pyro: I think I ship it
Pyro: OH MAN when Ellison tries the manual repair on the arm joint and Cyro has a FLASHBACK TO THE ROBOT RECYCLER but tries to remind himself he can trust him
Pyro: Fuck it I DEFINITELY ship it
ckwizard: join the fucking club
ckwizard: its the fifth time im watching this episode, this series has ruined my life
ckwizard: i can’t wait for season 2
Hi everyone, bjornruffian and RobotFan here! Thanks for all your comments on our first comic collab! We’re really charmed by the great reception to "In the Desert Sun"—okay, I’m charmed, and RobotFan says he would be charmed if he had the emotion circuits for that (he’s an awesome roleplay partner too! LOVE his sense of humor :DDD).
ANYWAY! It turns out that RobotFan’s got this awesome collection of retro robot schematics and he’s willing to share, for those of you who want to write about old-school robots or need some references for your art! (HINT HINT: the fandom totally needs more Cyro and Cyro/Ellison before Season 2 hits!) To be honest I’m not sure how legal it is to circulate these scans (RobotFan says it’s fine though), so just reply to this post if you want them and we’ll private message you the links if you promise not to spread them around.
Also, we’re gonna do another Cyro/Ellison comic in the future, and we’re thinking of making it part of an anthology. If you’d like to contribute comics or illustrations for that, let us know!
Get ready to draw lots of boxes, people! The robot revolution is coming!
9,890 replies
(2017)
MOXON’S MASTER
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce was born in Meigs County Ohio in 1842, to farmers who thought it would be fun to give all thirteen of their children names beginning with "A". Experiences in the Civil War left him with a morbid, vicious turn of mind that earned him comparisons to Edgar Allan Poe. In California he turned to journalism, marrying truth-telling to excoriating wit to such a degree, he was dubbed "the wickedest man in San Francisco". His Devil’s Dictionary (1911) is his lasting masterpiece. (I looked up "editor" to discover I was "Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration". So there.) At the end of 1913, after a hectic career, he vanished into Mexico, then in the middle of its own civil war, and got caught up in the Battle of Ojinaga. His corpse was probably among the many which were burned to prevent typhus.
"Are you serious?—do you really believe that a machine thinks?"
I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by a brighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing in him a growing habit of delay in answering even the most trivial of commonplace questions. His air, however, was that of preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said that he had "something on his mind."
Presently he said:
"What is a ‘machine’? The word has been variously defined. Here is one definition from a popular dictionary: ‘Any instrument or organization by which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced.’ Well, then, is not a man a machine? And you will admit that he thinks—or thinks he thinks."
"If you do not wish to answer my question," I said, rather testily, "why not say so?—all that you say is mere evasion. You know well enough that when I say ‘machine’ I do not mean a man, but something that man has made and controls."
"When it does not control him," he said, rising abruptly and looking out of a window, whence nothing was visible in the blackness of a stormy night. A moment later he turned about and with a smile said: "I beg your pardon; I had no thought of evasion. I considered the dictionary man’s unconscious testimony suggestive and worth something in the discussion. I can give your question a direct answer easily enough: I do believe that a machine thinks about the work that it is doing."
That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogether pleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon’s devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had not been good for him. I knew, for one thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and that is no light affliction. Had it affected his mind? His reply to my question seemed to me then evidence that it had; perhaps I should think differently about it now. I was younger then, and among the blessings that are not denied to youth is ignorance. Incited by that great stimulant to controversy, I said:
"And what, pray, does it think with—in the absence of a brain?"
The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his favorite form of counter-interrogation:
"With what does a plant think—in the absence of a brain?"
"Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should be pleased to know some of their conclusions; you may omit the premises."
"Perhaps," he replied, apparently unaffected by my foolish irony, "you may be able to infer their convictions from their acts. I will spare you the familiar examples of the sensitive mimosa, the several insectivorous flowers and those whose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the entering bee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. But observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing vine. When it was barely above the surface I set a stake into the soil a yard away. The vine at once made for it, but as it was about to reach it after several days I removed it a few feet. The vine at once altered its course, making an acute angle, and again made for the stake. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, but finally, as if discouraged, the vine abandoned the pursuit and ignoring further attempts to divert it traveled to a small tree, further away, which it climbed.
"Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly in search of moisture. A well-known horticulturist relates that one entered an old drain pipe and followed it until it came to a break, where a section of the pipe had been removed to make way for a stone wall that had been built across its course. The root left the drain and followed the wall until it found an opening where a stone had fallen out. It crept through and following the other side of the wall back to the drain, entered the unexplored part and resumed its journey."
"And all this?"
"Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the consciousness of plants. It proves that they think."
"Even if it did—what then? We were speaking, not of plants, but of machines. They may be composed partly of wood—wood that has no longer vitality—or wholly of metal. Is thought an attribute also of the mineral kingdom?"
"How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of crystallization?"
"I do not explain them."
"Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to deny, namely, intelligent cooperation among the constituent elements of the crystals. When soldiers form lines, or hollow squares, you call it reason. When wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V you say instinct. When the homogeneous atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution, arrange themselves into shapes mathematically perfect, or particles of frozen moisture into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of snowflakes, you have nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason."