[1141]One Secret Weakness

Serves them right for their sloppyness,
They should have put up the necessary "not a killswitch" signs around the buttons!

Not sure if this was pre-planned or not, but regardless I find Tom's ability to use connect current events with those in the past quite spectacular.

*Goes back 1130+ pages earlier to check* *oh*

Haha. I love the way this storyline keeps flip-flopping between serious drama and total silliness.

So either the Seraph bots are the keystone cops of Gunnerkrigg security, or this is some kind of test

Well, I can see that the Founders took the possibility of a robot rebellion seriously.

Not necessarily. She only got a couple, and they appear to be somewhat strong.

Don't the robots consider being turned off the same thing as being dead?

I don't think being turned off is really being dead. It's more like being in a coma, a dreamless unconscious state. If they are left off forever, it can be said to be similar to being dead, the same as being in a coma forever is similar to being dead. The difference is, robots can easily be brought back out of this "coma." If it's possible for something to continue living on, it's not really dead.

The ancient robots that wish to be "dead" wish to remain in their coma forever, therefore "dead."

The Court robots remain true to themselves: too cheesy for words.
I love it.

Well, none of the robots have ever done so...?

Oh, you mean Kat. S13 (Robot) might be the only Seraph, but we haven't sufficient data, to my knowledge.

I disagree.

Even in a coma, biological processes are going on inside the human body; still moving, still living. The only thing that is lacking is a control signal, so the best mechanical analogy is idling equipment.

When a robot is turned off, however, nothing is going on inside it. It is completely and totally inert; as alive as any random heap of metal and silicon.



To answer this, I would like to make the analogy of a rock sitting on top of a steep hill.

Just sitting there by itself, it's about as dead as dead can be. But with one little push, it can take on a life of its own.

The rock rolls down the hill, now moving independently of the force that gave it life. It consumes gravitational potential energy, converting it into kinetic energy. It can even multiply, setting other rocks in motion, until overpopulation exhausts the food supply (as in, the landslide reaches the bottom of the hill).

Robots are no different than that rock. They take in energy from an outside source. They use that energy to act independently, governed by their internal mechanisms. They too can self-replicate, creating new robots.

But a robot that's powered down has no more life to it than a rock sitting on top of a hill.

I'm starting to wonder if the robots' incompetence/goofiness/cluelessness/general lack of robustness is going to be a plot point someday, instead of just a running gag.

Your link was broken, I fixed it for you ;D