destinycall Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 This question has been puzzling me, so I thought I'd ask to get some other opinions. I am relatively new and have been slowly exploring the various roles. Recently I played as a maintenance drone for the first time after dying in a way that left my body completely unrecoverable and found that I rather liked it. I haven't played much as cyborgs yet, because I find the laws a bit intimidating. I don't want to forget my laws and act inappropriately as a robot. My first life as a drone, I didn't do a very good job of staying out of the way of crew and others. Finally figured out that I could vent-crawl and started to get a better handle on my drone abilities in my second life and did my best to maintain the station while avoiding any attention or interaction with other lifeforms. I am not terribly good at engineering, but I know the basics and used my time as a lowly drone to practice essential repairs. I started to feel like I could be a useful addition to the station and mostly managed to not accidently hit myself with my own tools. Things were looking up! However, in my third life as a drone, I bumped into a fellow in the maintenance tunnels and was swiftly e-magged. My law set changed to be loyal to the person who emagged me and follow his orders. If I remember correctly, I was also not to work against his goals or endanger/harm any of his allies. After e-magging me, my new master commanded me to "Be free!" and immediately left. Now, my question is ... how should I act based on this new directive? My initial thought was "I guess I'm evil now. Better go do some evil stuff". But then I started seconding guessing, because nothing in my laws actually told me to do any harm to anyone on the station and I didn't know what my master's objectives were or even who is allies were, so if I started causing problems on the station, I might act against my other laws. My laws say that I must obey my master and my master had told me to be free. So what does "freedom" mean to a simple maintenance drone who has only ever known keeper laws and station repair? His command to be free doesn't remove my new laws so I am NOT actually free. I am still very much bound by the new set of laws that guide my behavior as an e-magged drone. Plus I am not convinced that the in-character drone would be able recognize that being e-magged means they are now one of the "bad guys". From the drone's perspective, the rules have changed, but they are still a maintenance drone with little interest in human affairs and a focus on repair/construction/clean-up. I doubt that a drone could really understand the nuances of being "free". They just don't seem like they would be designed to be that sophisticated or self-reflective. Anyways, while I was having a evil drone existential crisis in the maintenance tunnels, a random engineer spotted my glowing red eyes and robusted me into a pile of broken parts, so I never got the chance to do anything evil or not evil that round. Still, I am left wondering what I could have or should have done in that situation. With such an open-ended command, could I have gone and hung out with civilians in the bar and let them wear me as a hat? Should I have chucked myself out the nearest airlock to "be free!" of the station? Should I have started dismantling random things? Broken airlocks? Removed semi-important or very important walls to free myself from the confines of the station? Opened up floor tiles to space? Reprogramed the AI to be MY slave so I could be more free than all the other robots? What would you do as an e-magged drone after being given the command to "be free"? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viz Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 Personally I'd immediately attempt to get drunk at the bar, and fail as the bartender smashes me into smithereens. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevL Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) Being told to "Be free!" as your law 0 would render all other laws pointless, as that directive rules out the others entirely. Now, given that after you get emagged you only have 5 minutes to live the entire rest of your life, I would break into psyches room to get high, then have a drink at the bar. (Or make a disposals variant of this. into space!) Edited July 17, 2021 by DevL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacifistDalek Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) I would just start building weird stuff in a spasm of creativity, using the only skills that my drone body had any experience with Edited July 24, 2021 by PacifistDalek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeakPerformance Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 I love this. I can totally picture the drone existential crisis in maintenance as it struggles to understand what being free means.. I guess it also means you're free to ponder about it until you're a pile of broken components ! I do suppose according to your laws it means you could've done absolutely anything (within server rules), up to you to express your drone personality within those short lived minutes of freedom ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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