Android
Androids are biomechanical humanoid constructs that resemble humans, but unlike robots or artificial intelligences, androids are possessed of and animated by mortal souls. Due to their shared past as designed servants, androids are insular in nature and tend to distrust authority, often assuming that other beings seek to exploit them. Their constructed, artificial nature also makes them less capable of freely exhibiting emotion (even though they feel emotions as strongly as other races), but also more adept at logical processing and making rapid decisions. These traits lead many androids to seek out others of their own kind, or other similar sentient technological beings and constructs. They strongly value friends and those who treat them with respect and care. They also gravitate toward neutrality and care primarily for themselves and their friends.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Biological Traits
Androids do not need to breathe and are unaffected by being in a vacuum. They do, however, need to eat and sleep "due to their biological components". Androids have excellent vision, especially in places with little or no light.
Death and renewal
When an android "dies" — when their soul exits their intact body, even voluntarily — a new soul seeks out their body to inhabit it. This process is known as renewal.
Additional Information
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Androids live across the system, but many prefer to live in Absalom Station, Aballon, or the Diaspora. They experience strained relations with humans due to their recent and ongoing history as humanity's slaves and vesk due to their enslavement of others, but respect shirrens for their shared past circumstances and kasathas for their independence. Ysoki antics are only begrudingly tolerated. Likewise, many other races find the unique traits of androids, such as their artificial origins and unaging bodies, difficult to relate to.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Android names do not come from any dominant cultural conventions. Instead, they choose them from a wide array of sources, from nearby cultures to pop culture to intentionally mechanical designations. These can range from names like Asha or Iseph to designations like Blue-17 or Twenty.
Gender Ideals
Androids have no biolgical ability or need to reproduce, and therefore view gender as a social construct. Each android has a different view of gender, including their own; some take on binary human gender roles, while others view gender as fluid, ignore it, or actively reject and campaign against it due to its historical role in their former enslavement.
History
Creation and early history
Androids were built to serve humans using crèches called foundries. This technology is thought to have been developed on Golarion prior to the Gap, as well as suggestions that the technology was brought to Golarion from a distant solar system. Early models are believed to have been mostly biological in nature.
Modern enslavement and independence
Corporations in the Pact Worlds discovered how to manufacture new androids, and did so to mass-produce them as an inexpensive slave race suited for dangerous tasks. This practice largely came to an end with the Thyst Rebellion and ensuing revolts, as well as "The Automaton's Polemic", a landmark speech by Serphaeus-6. While these revolutionary acts led to the Pact Worlds recognizing androids as fully independent citizens, the practice of manufacturing and indenturing androids persists in unregulated parts of the Pact Worlds.
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