Ah, too bad. It would have been nice to have a few choice quotes to get an idea of Threepio's thinking process was during this time.
-Mike
Slavery In the Star Wars Universe
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
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This will be rather lengthy, and is only a part of it, but I feel that it gives us a good insight into C-3P0's way of thinking.
C-3PO stood with his bulbous head tilted slightly to one side and his arms bent at angles rarely adopted by the life-form after which he had been modeled. To the droid the rigid posture seemed entirely natural, a consequence of the way he was put together and the ever-changing demands of the servomotors that permitted him to gesticulate and move about. Beside him, R2-D2 stood still as a fixture, locomotion struts planted firmly on the fallen wroshyr tree branch and center tread retracted.
In passing, C-3PO noted that the view from the fallen branch was really quite extraordinary. Fog was thick in the treetops, concealing the nearest of the Wookiee nursery rings and diffusing the morning light as might a prism. The view could even be said - though certainly not by him - to be breathtaking.
[We gather in memory of Chewbacca: honorable son, beloved mate, devoted father, loyal friend and comrade in arms, champion and clan uncle to all of us in spirit, if not in the traditional way.]
The Wookiee speaker was called Ralrracheen, though C-3PO had often heard him referred to simply as Ralrra. He was tall and aged, even for his arboreal species, but it wasn't the graying muzzle that distinguished him so much as his curious speech impediment. On any other occasion C-3PO would have been tasked to serve as translator and interpreter, but none of the humans present had need of his polyglot faculties that particular morning.
[In Chewbacca, the defiant flame burned brightest,] Ralrra went on, black nose twitching and long arms dangling at his sides. [On Kashyyyk or farr afield on distant worlds, he was never less than courageous and incorruptible - a Wookiee with heart enough for ten and eagerr strength enough forr fifty.]
Chewbacca had died six standard months earlier, during an ill-fated rescue attempt on the planet Sernpidal, after it had been targeted for destruction by the Yuuzhan Vong. The fact that it hadn't been possible to retrieve his body was a source of sorrow to all, for had Chewbacca been returned to Kashyyyk a funeral would have been held - though for honor family members only. What Wookiees did with their dead remained a closely guarded secret. Some experts speculated that the dead were cremated; others, that they were either buried within tree knots or lowered by kshyy vines into the murky depths from which the species had risen. Still others claimed that the dead were hacked to pieces with sacred ryyyk blades and scattered on select wroshyr branches to be carried off by predatory katarns or kroyie birds.
C-3PO understood that he may not have been allowed to attend the funeral, in any case. Everyone attending the memorial was a member of Chewbacca's extended family, but it was unlikely that the affiliation applied to him - much less to his counterpart, R2-D2. For all their espousal to machines, intelligent and otherwise, flesh and bloods could be extremely proprietary about matters of kinship and family.
Close to Ralrra squatted Chewbacca's father, Attichitcuk, along with Chewbacca's auburn-furred sister, Kallabow. Alongside them sat Chewbacca's widow, Mallatobuck, and their son, Lumpawarrump, who had taken the name Lumpawaroo - Waroo for short - on the successful completion of his rite of passage. Interspersed among the Wookiee contingent stood assorted friends, kin-brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews - Lowbacca among the latter, a Jedi Knight.
The humans numbered only six: Master Luke, Mistress Leia, Master Han, and the three Solo offspring, Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina. Conspicuously absent was Lando Calrissian, who, much to Master Han's disquiet, had sent word that unexpected - and unspecified - developments would prevent his attending. Master Luke's wife, Mara, might have attended if a sudden relapse in her mysterious malady hadn't forced her to remain on Coruscant.
The exquisitely carved table at the center of the circle rested on a carpet of wroshyr tree leaves, its pedestal base entwined with dark-green kshyy vines and its round top strewn with kolvissh blossoms, wasaka berries, Orga root, and the glossy yellow petals of the syren plant. The cool air was redolent with the aroma of smoldering tree-resin incense.
[Here on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's mettle made itself known at an early age,] Ralrra continued. [With his late friend Salporin] - he paused to glance at Salporin's widow, Gorrlyn - [Chewbacca left the nursery ring to venture down along the Rryatt Trail to the Well of the Dead, in the heart of the Shadow Forest. Armed only with a ryyyk blade, he braved mock shyrr, jaddyyk moss, needlebug, trap-spinnerr, and shadow-keeperr to harvest strands from the heart of the flesh-eating syren, thus earning the right to wearr a baldric, carry a weapon, and confirm the name he chose to be known by. Here, too, Chewbacca ventured into the great Anarrad pit - not once or even twice, but five times, taking down the taloned katarn on three of those hunts and once receiving a wound from the beast in return.] Ralrra indicated a spot on his shaggy torso. [Here, on the left side of his chest.
[In preparation for his marriage, which took place atop this very branch, Chewbacca descended to the fifth level and there with hare hands captured a quillarat and presented it to Malla as an expression of his love. And when it came time for Waroo's initiation, Chewbacca was steadfast in his support and encouraging of his son's quest of the scuttle grazerr.]
While some of Chewbacca's accomplishments on his homeworld were familiar to C-3PO, his memory lacked anything in the way of corroborative data, so he summoned recollections of his own experiences with the Wookiee and was immediately inundated with a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them dating back twenty-five standard years.
His first sight of Chewbacca, standing like a cinnamon-colored tower outside Docking Bay 94 in the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine ... Chewbacca as a sore loser in dejarik holoboard contests ... Chewbacca on Bespin's Cloud City, incorrectly reattaching C-3PO's head after it had been used by Ugnaughts as a plaything in a game of Wookiee in the Middle ... Master Han's assertion that Chewbacca was always thinking with his stomach ... The many, many times Chewbacca was referred to as "flea-bitten furball," "overgrown mophead," "walking carpet," or "noisy brute," occasionally by C-3PO himself - in imitation of humans, of course - and always with affection, given Chewbacca's scrupulous character and great size.
A sudden flutter gripped C-3PO, and he found that he was unable to summon additional recollections. An unnatural and most discomfiting heat surged through his circuitry, prompting him to run a diagnostic program, which ultimately left the source of the glitch unrevealed.
Ralrra woofed, brayed, and barked.
[Natural curiosity compelled Chewbacca to leave Kashyyyk at an early age, but like all of us he was soon enslaved by the Empire. Fortunately, Chewbacca regained his freedom at the hands of a man of like strength and honorr - ourr revered brotherr Han Solo. And in the company of Han Solo, to whom he had pledged his life, Chewbacca was to play a crucial role in the Rebellion, and in the events that led eventually to the downfall of Emperor Palpatine.]
C-3PO focused his photoreceptors on Master Han, whose eyes were red-rimmed and narrowed, and whose right hand Mistress Jaina had taken between her own. The dark-blue military-style trousers Master Han was wearing were similar to the tattered pair he had attempted to preserve for posterity, but which only the previous day had proved incapable of conforming to Master Han's slightly increased waistline and had torn irreparably. Present during the incident - the cause of no small measure of vexation to Master Han - C-3PO had assisted in affixing to the outside seams of the replacement trousers twin embellishments known as Corellian Bloodstripes.
Across from the father and daughter stood Master Jacen and Mistress Leia, her head resting on her elder son's shoulder and her cheeks glistening with tears. Near them squatted Master Anakin, brooding and withdrawn, along with Master Luke, certainly no stranger to death, having lost both his natural and adoptive parents, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, two of his Jedi mentors.
[Chewbacca went on to become a soldierr in the New Republic,] Ralrra boomed and rumbled. [He aided in Kashyyyk's liberation afterr the Battle of Endorr. But he remained first and foremost devoted to Han Solo, as friend and indebted protectorr, and as guardian to Han Solo's spouse and three children.] Ralrra turned to Han. [It was Chewbacca's honorr to have been able to come to his friend's rescue on several occasions, even as recently as the crisis involving the Yevetha, when he freed Han Solo from imprisonment aboard a Yevethan warship.]
Once more C-3PO tightened the focus of his photoreceptors on Master Han, who lowered his head in abject grief, as Jaina stroked his shoulders. Master Han's hip with Chewbacca was similar to C-3PO's R2-D2, though it seemed at times that the two had been together even longer than had the human and the Wookiee.
R2-D2 must have been regarding Master Han, as well, for the astromech suddenly rotated his monocular receptor to C-3PO and warbled tremulously, almost as if he, too, had picked up an enigmatic flutter. C-3PO changed the cant of his head.
The past several months had afforded ample opportunities to study humans in grief, but for all his observations he was no closer to understanding the process than he had been before Chewbacca's death on that dreadful world. All living beings eventually died, when not from the effects of age, then as the result of accidents or illnesses almost too myriad to catalog. Death was in some ways analogous to deactivation or memory erasure, but in fact it was something quite different, a total ceasing-to-be - the end to all adventuring, indeed. In the face of that revelation, C-3PO felt compelled to wonder if he hadn't been wrong all along about his lot in life. If, as he so often declared, droids were made to suffer, what then of flesh and bloods?
Perhaps it was better not to know.
As constructed, C-3PO was incapable of shedding tears or enduring heartbreak, as it was called, but his programming did allow him to experience sorrow of a sort, if not nearly to the depth experienced by humans and other living beings. And it was suddenly clear that sorrow was the source of the flutter that continued to plague him. Try as he might, he could not summon a sound thought, and with each glance at Master Han his dismay increased.
As the one closest to Chewbacca - and perhaps because he was a very human being - Master Han seemed to be suffering the most, alternating between anguish and rage, despondency and agitation. The man C-3PO had once dismissed as impossible was now deeply distraught, as unreachable as if he were encased in carbonite, and there seemed nothing C-3PO could do to put the matter right. Being fluent in millions of forms of communication did not guarantee an understanding of human behavior, let alone human emotions. C-3PO was only a droid, after all, and not very knowledgeable about such things.
There had been an incident during Master Han's courtship of then Princess Leia when Master Han had had occasion to place a hand on C-3PO's arm and say, "You're a good droid, Threepio. There's not many droids I like as much as I like you." He had gone on to ask C-3PO's advice on matters of the heart, and C-3PO had gladly provided a poem for Master Han to use as ammunition in his contest with Prince Isolder for the princess's hand.
But curse my metal body, C-3PO said to himself. Why hadn't his maker equipped him with the necessary programming to come to Master Han's aid now? Instead, all he could offer was mindless philosophizing!
[Adventure is as alluring and potentially dangerous a thing as the heart of the syren plant,] Ralrra roared plaintively. [But even Chewbacca's final act was one of sacrifice, giving his life to save someone dearr to him.] The aged Wookiee looked at young Anakin, then at Master Han and Mistress Leia. [And as everr he kept his claws retracted in battle. Now, in the same way the branches of the wroshyr seek out and support one anotherr, Chewbacca's spirit merges with and gives sustenance to ourr own, strengthening us forr the challenges we have yet to confront.]
Warfare had figured in C-3PO's existence for so long that a new invasion shouldn't have come as a surprise. But there was something different about the Yuuzhan Vong and the harrowing war they were waging on a galactic scale. It wasn't merely that they didn't distinguish among species or among worlds - New Republic, Imperial Remnant, or nonaligned - or even that their biotic warships and weapons packed such awesome destructive power. What worried C-3PO most was that this most recent conflict was one in which not even droids were spared. And that meant that, like it or not, he might yet arrive at a true understanding of grief and death.
C-3PO stood with his bulbous head tilted slightly to one side and his arms bent at angles rarely adopted by the life-form after which he had been modeled. To the droid the rigid posture seemed entirely natural, a consequence of the way he was put together and the ever-changing demands of the servomotors that permitted him to gesticulate and move about. Beside him, R2-D2 stood still as a fixture, locomotion struts planted firmly on the fallen wroshyr tree branch and center tread retracted.
In passing, C-3PO noted that the view from the fallen branch was really quite extraordinary. Fog was thick in the treetops, concealing the nearest of the Wookiee nursery rings and diffusing the morning light as might a prism. The view could even be said - though certainly not by him - to be breathtaking.
[We gather in memory of Chewbacca: honorable son, beloved mate, devoted father, loyal friend and comrade in arms, champion and clan uncle to all of us in spirit, if not in the traditional way.]
The Wookiee speaker was called Ralrracheen, though C-3PO had often heard him referred to simply as Ralrra. He was tall and aged, even for his arboreal species, but it wasn't the graying muzzle that distinguished him so much as his curious speech impediment. On any other occasion C-3PO would have been tasked to serve as translator and interpreter, but none of the humans present had need of his polyglot faculties that particular morning.
[In Chewbacca, the defiant flame burned brightest,] Ralrra went on, black nose twitching and long arms dangling at his sides. [On Kashyyyk or farr afield on distant worlds, he was never less than courageous and incorruptible - a Wookiee with heart enough for ten and eagerr strength enough forr fifty.]
Chewbacca had died six standard months earlier, during an ill-fated rescue attempt on the planet Sernpidal, after it had been targeted for destruction by the Yuuzhan Vong. The fact that it hadn't been possible to retrieve his body was a source of sorrow to all, for had Chewbacca been returned to Kashyyyk a funeral would have been held - though for honor family members only. What Wookiees did with their dead remained a closely guarded secret. Some experts speculated that the dead were cremated; others, that they were either buried within tree knots or lowered by kshyy vines into the murky depths from which the species had risen. Still others claimed that the dead were hacked to pieces with sacred ryyyk blades and scattered on select wroshyr branches to be carried off by predatory katarns or kroyie birds.
C-3PO understood that he may not have been allowed to attend the funeral, in any case. Everyone attending the memorial was a member of Chewbacca's extended family, but it was unlikely that the affiliation applied to him - much less to his counterpart, R2-D2. For all their espousal to machines, intelligent and otherwise, flesh and bloods could be extremely proprietary about matters of kinship and family.
Close to Ralrra squatted Chewbacca's father, Attichitcuk, along with Chewbacca's auburn-furred sister, Kallabow. Alongside them sat Chewbacca's widow, Mallatobuck, and their son, Lumpawarrump, who had taken the name Lumpawaroo - Waroo for short - on the successful completion of his rite of passage. Interspersed among the Wookiee contingent stood assorted friends, kin-brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews - Lowbacca among the latter, a Jedi Knight.
The humans numbered only six: Master Luke, Mistress Leia, Master Han, and the three Solo offspring, Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina. Conspicuously absent was Lando Calrissian, who, much to Master Han's disquiet, had sent word that unexpected - and unspecified - developments would prevent his attending. Master Luke's wife, Mara, might have attended if a sudden relapse in her mysterious malady hadn't forced her to remain on Coruscant.
The exquisitely carved table at the center of the circle rested on a carpet of wroshyr tree leaves, its pedestal base entwined with dark-green kshyy vines and its round top strewn with kolvissh blossoms, wasaka berries, Orga root, and the glossy yellow petals of the syren plant. The cool air was redolent with the aroma of smoldering tree-resin incense.
[Here on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's mettle made itself known at an early age,] Ralrra continued. [With his late friend Salporin] - he paused to glance at Salporin's widow, Gorrlyn - [Chewbacca left the nursery ring to venture down along the Rryatt Trail to the Well of the Dead, in the heart of the Shadow Forest. Armed only with a ryyyk blade, he braved mock shyrr, jaddyyk moss, needlebug, trap-spinnerr, and shadow-keeperr to harvest strands from the heart of the flesh-eating syren, thus earning the right to wearr a baldric, carry a weapon, and confirm the name he chose to be known by. Here, too, Chewbacca ventured into the great Anarrad pit - not once or even twice, but five times, taking down the taloned katarn on three of those hunts and once receiving a wound from the beast in return.] Ralrra indicated a spot on his shaggy torso. [Here, on the left side of his chest.
[In preparation for his marriage, which took place atop this very branch, Chewbacca descended to the fifth level and there with hare hands captured a quillarat and presented it to Malla as an expression of his love. And when it came time for Waroo's initiation, Chewbacca was steadfast in his support and encouraging of his son's quest of the scuttle grazerr.]
While some of Chewbacca's accomplishments on his homeworld were familiar to C-3PO, his memory lacked anything in the way of corroborative data, so he summoned recollections of his own experiences with the Wookiee and was immediately inundated with a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them dating back twenty-five standard years.
His first sight of Chewbacca, standing like a cinnamon-colored tower outside Docking Bay 94 in the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine ... Chewbacca as a sore loser in dejarik holoboard contests ... Chewbacca on Bespin's Cloud City, incorrectly reattaching C-3PO's head after it had been used by Ugnaughts as a plaything in a game of Wookiee in the Middle ... Master Han's assertion that Chewbacca was always thinking with his stomach ... The many, many times Chewbacca was referred to as "flea-bitten furball," "overgrown mophead," "walking carpet," or "noisy brute," occasionally by C-3PO himself - in imitation of humans, of course - and always with affection, given Chewbacca's scrupulous character and great size.
A sudden flutter gripped C-3PO, and he found that he was unable to summon additional recollections. An unnatural and most discomfiting heat surged through his circuitry, prompting him to run a diagnostic program, which ultimately left the source of the glitch unrevealed.
Ralrra woofed, brayed, and barked.
[Natural curiosity compelled Chewbacca to leave Kashyyyk at an early age, but like all of us he was soon enslaved by the Empire. Fortunately, Chewbacca regained his freedom at the hands of a man of like strength and honorr - ourr revered brotherr Han Solo. And in the company of Han Solo, to whom he had pledged his life, Chewbacca was to play a crucial role in the Rebellion, and in the events that led eventually to the downfall of Emperor Palpatine.]
C-3PO focused his photoreceptors on Master Han, whose eyes were red-rimmed and narrowed, and whose right hand Mistress Jaina had taken between her own. The dark-blue military-style trousers Master Han was wearing were similar to the tattered pair he had attempted to preserve for posterity, but which only the previous day had proved incapable of conforming to Master Han's slightly increased waistline and had torn irreparably. Present during the incident - the cause of no small measure of vexation to Master Han - C-3PO had assisted in affixing to the outside seams of the replacement trousers twin embellishments known as Corellian Bloodstripes.
Across from the father and daughter stood Master Jacen and Mistress Leia, her head resting on her elder son's shoulder and her cheeks glistening with tears. Near them squatted Master Anakin, brooding and withdrawn, along with Master Luke, certainly no stranger to death, having lost both his natural and adoptive parents, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, two of his Jedi mentors.
[Chewbacca went on to become a soldierr in the New Republic,] Ralrra boomed and rumbled. [He aided in Kashyyyk's liberation afterr the Battle of Endorr. But he remained first and foremost devoted to Han Solo, as friend and indebted protectorr, and as guardian to Han Solo's spouse and three children.] Ralrra turned to Han. [It was Chewbacca's honorr to have been able to come to his friend's rescue on several occasions, even as recently as the crisis involving the Yevetha, when he freed Han Solo from imprisonment aboard a Yevethan warship.]
Once more C-3PO tightened the focus of his photoreceptors on Master Han, who lowered his head in abject grief, as Jaina stroked his shoulders. Master Han's hip with Chewbacca was similar to C-3PO's R2-D2, though it seemed at times that the two had been together even longer than had the human and the Wookiee.
R2-D2 must have been regarding Master Han, as well, for the astromech suddenly rotated his monocular receptor to C-3PO and warbled tremulously, almost as if he, too, had picked up an enigmatic flutter. C-3PO changed the cant of his head.
The past several months had afforded ample opportunities to study humans in grief, but for all his observations he was no closer to understanding the process than he had been before Chewbacca's death on that dreadful world. All living beings eventually died, when not from the effects of age, then as the result of accidents or illnesses almost too myriad to catalog. Death was in some ways analogous to deactivation or memory erasure, but in fact it was something quite different, a total ceasing-to-be - the end to all adventuring, indeed. In the face of that revelation, C-3PO felt compelled to wonder if he hadn't been wrong all along about his lot in life. If, as he so often declared, droids were made to suffer, what then of flesh and bloods?
Perhaps it was better not to know.
As constructed, C-3PO was incapable of shedding tears or enduring heartbreak, as it was called, but his programming did allow him to experience sorrow of a sort, if not nearly to the depth experienced by humans and other living beings. And it was suddenly clear that sorrow was the source of the flutter that continued to plague him. Try as he might, he could not summon a sound thought, and with each glance at Master Han his dismay increased.
As the one closest to Chewbacca - and perhaps because he was a very human being - Master Han seemed to be suffering the most, alternating between anguish and rage, despondency and agitation. The man C-3PO had once dismissed as impossible was now deeply distraught, as unreachable as if he were encased in carbonite, and there seemed nothing C-3PO could do to put the matter right. Being fluent in millions of forms of communication did not guarantee an understanding of human behavior, let alone human emotions. C-3PO was only a droid, after all, and not very knowledgeable about such things.
There had been an incident during Master Han's courtship of then Princess Leia when Master Han had had occasion to place a hand on C-3PO's arm and say, "You're a good droid, Threepio. There's not many droids I like as much as I like you." He had gone on to ask C-3PO's advice on matters of the heart, and C-3PO had gladly provided a poem for Master Han to use as ammunition in his contest with Prince Isolder for the princess's hand.
But curse my metal body, C-3PO said to himself. Why hadn't his maker equipped him with the necessary programming to come to Master Han's aid now? Instead, all he could offer was mindless philosophizing!
[Adventure is as alluring and potentially dangerous a thing as the heart of the syren plant,] Ralrra roared plaintively. [But even Chewbacca's final act was one of sacrifice, giving his life to save someone dearr to him.] The aged Wookiee looked at young Anakin, then at Master Han and Mistress Leia. [And as everr he kept his claws retracted in battle. Now, in the same way the branches of the wroshyr seek out and support one anotherr, Chewbacca's spirit merges with and gives sustenance to ourr own, strengthening us forr the challenges we have yet to confront.]
Warfare had figured in C-3PO's existence for so long that a new invasion shouldn't have come as a surprise. But there was something different about the Yuuzhan Vong and the harrowing war they were waging on a galactic scale. It wasn't merely that they didn't distinguish among species or among worlds - New Republic, Imperial Remnant, or nonaligned - or even that their biotic warships and weapons packed such awesome destructive power. What worried C-3PO most was that this most recent conflict was one in which not even droids were spared. And that meant that, like it or not, he might yet arrive at a true understanding of grief and death.
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Mike DiCenso
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mojo
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
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Mike DiCenso
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
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You know, when I contemplate things such as this, I prefer a cold analysis, myself. I gather facts put them into place, use logic as far as possible, before considering my actual feelings as evidence. Maybe that is why I see the passage differently. Because I would be running a cold analysis. Upon reviewing it, I will change my opinion, droids can develop sentience.Mike DiCenso wrote:Threepio is not merely doing a cold analysis of human emotions here; he is deeply comptemplating human grief and misery and what the Yuuzhan Vong invasion will ultimately mean to him. That places Threepio well above being a mere soulless machine, but a true thinking and self-aware being.
-Mike
Please remember, however, that threepio has gone 44 years without regulation memory wipes at this point. Somewhat of an exception.
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Mike DiCenso
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Be that as it may, that actually just shows what a horrible crime the Star Wars people visit upon the droids by erasing them as sentient beings... and this gets done on a fairly regular basis, too! Imagine if someone kept you as a slave, and when they didn't like how uppity you were getting, decided to give you a frontal lobotomy, or worse. Effectively, given a droid's potential to develop sentience, it is a form of murder that just happens to leave the body alive. There is no way for the being to recover it's memory and everything they knew, loved or learned was utterly destroyed in the process. So what we have in the Republic and Empire is systematic suppression of a form of artificial life form of the worst kind.Airlocke_Jedi_Knight wrote: Please remember, however, that threepio has gone 44 years without regulation memory wipes at this point. Somewhat of an exception.
-Mike
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
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It is done to maximize performance. Droids are, essentially, similar to cows. We breed them for a certain reason, use them, and kill them and eat them. The difference here, is that droids are capable of evolving and we never kill and eat them. Most droids, even those that are mind wiped, which I would argue are only commercially used and military droids, act as companions for their owners, rather than just servants. C-3PO is the perfect example, along with R2-D2. They serve a purpose, yet are also treated with certain liberties. Most of the mistreatment of droids took place under the empire, not under any of the Republics. I would also point out that without the other sentient beings of the SW galaxy, droids would not exist. Droids were never meant to develop sentience, it is kind of like a system glitch. Memory wipes are used to maximize performance rather than to oppress. I honestly believe that R2-D2 and threepio are flukes, but I don't really have evidence.
One last thing, Most life necessitates the use of other life forms. Just look at our society. It is impossible to make a life where some liberties are not trodden on. This makes me sad, but it is true. Now, wouldn't it be better to tread on the liberties of an artificial life-form, rather than that of a human or wookiee? They are not even consistently sentient. They do not feel pain, and in all but the extraordinary cases, they do not feel emotion. I would argue that this is nowhere near the same as the clone army or Twi'lek dancing girls for these reasons. I submit, again, my theory that since droids were maid to serve, if given their complete freedom, they would just choose to stay with their masters, in most cases. They don't have any of the human needs that other sentients do. They can't experience the emotions that cause humans or wookiees or geonocians to work and provide for themselves. The only purpose that can be derived from their lives, is the purpose of servility and maybe friendship. There is nothing else for them. Many lack necessary appendages to live on their own.
I just don't see it as being slavery. More of a symbiotic relationship, in most cases. WIthout the other sentients, droids wouldn't even exist.
One last thing, Most life necessitates the use of other life forms. Just look at our society. It is impossible to make a life where some liberties are not trodden on. This makes me sad, but it is true. Now, wouldn't it be better to tread on the liberties of an artificial life-form, rather than that of a human or wookiee? They are not even consistently sentient. They do not feel pain, and in all but the extraordinary cases, they do not feel emotion. I would argue that this is nowhere near the same as the clone army or Twi'lek dancing girls for these reasons. I submit, again, my theory that since droids were maid to serve, if given their complete freedom, they would just choose to stay with their masters, in most cases. They don't have any of the human needs that other sentients do. They can't experience the emotions that cause humans or wookiees or geonocians to work and provide for themselves. The only purpose that can be derived from their lives, is the purpose of servility and maybe friendship. There is nothing else for them. Many lack necessary appendages to live on their own.
I just don't see it as being slavery. More of a symbiotic relationship, in most cases. WIthout the other sentients, droids wouldn't even exist.
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Mike DiCenso
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I don't see it as symbiotic at all after the inital creation of the droids. Sure you can argue that the droids were created by their organic progenitors, but why is keeping them as slaves after they have been proven capable of achieving sentience justified by that? It would be like saying that you should eternally serve your parents hand and foot just on the principle that they gave life to you. Sure, honor them and see to their well-being, but the whole point is that you go out on your own to perpetuate the family line, and live your life.
Comparing sentient beings to no more than cattle, as you have done here, is simply morally aberrant. Beyond Threepio and Artoo, there are other droids who have achieved full sentience; LOM-4 and IG-88. If it weren't for the memory wipes, other droids would likely also start to do the same as well, and so all we can assume at this point is that the Republic as well as the Empire are intentionally continuing a horrific practice of deliberate suppression of sentient beings.
As for the human Clone troopers and the other organic slaves you've mentioned, it is the keeping of the inorganic artificial sentient as cattle and slaves that contributes to the mindset that allows the former to be kept in servitude. It is a self-perpetuating cycle.
-Mike
Comparing sentient beings to no more than cattle, as you have done here, is simply morally aberrant. Beyond Threepio and Artoo, there are other droids who have achieved full sentience; LOM-4 and IG-88. If it weren't for the memory wipes, other droids would likely also start to do the same as well, and so all we can assume at this point is that the Republic as well as the Empire are intentionally continuing a horrific practice of deliberate suppression of sentient beings.
As for the human Clone troopers and the other organic slaves you've mentioned, it is the keeping of the inorganic artificial sentient as cattle and slaves that contributes to the mindset that allows the former to be kept in servitude. It is a self-perpetuating cycle.
-Mike
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Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
- Jedi Knight
- Posts: 325
- Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:55 pm
- Location: Camby
- Contact:
The majority of religions are based upon the pretense of serving the master that created you. Just saying.
Anyway, you ignored most of my post. I still argue that droids are generally treated fairly and that, since they do not have any of the physical needs, nor many of the emotional ones, that humans have, would live a pointless life of freedom. You know, given that the majority of sentient life is spent trying to survive, which is a concern that droids do not have as long as they get regular maintenance, which they do generally do.
I also want to point out that droids are not supposed to develop sentience. It is a glitch in the programming. They were programmed with personalities to aid them in their tasks, to increase efficiency. Sentience was never intended. Most of the jobs that droids perform must be error free, or there will be a massive loss of life, so they are memory wiped and what not, in order to prevent glitches in the system. The memory wiping has nothing to do with a willing oppression of sentience. It isn't their fault, I'm sure that they don't even realize that they are wiping away a sentient's memory, assuming, of course, that this glitch occurs in all droids. This is not a given fact, since there are literally billions of droids in the SW galaxy, and we know of 4 that have developed at least partial sentience. That is hardly a high enough of a percentage for it to be considered fact.
Also, droids play an important part of the SW society. If they released droids, the galaxy would almost literally fall apart. Quadrillions would die. (I assume it would have that high of a population, since Coruscant alone has several trillion inhabitants. 900 billion were left behind after the evacuation during the YV war. We know there are a million systems, some of which[I.E. correllian system] have several inhabited worlds. Also, the casualties in the YV war were something like 360 trillion, I think.) Most droids are not like like C-3PO and R2-D2. Some look like nothing more than computers and carry out tasks such as keeping a spacecraft running. Do you not remember Han asking C-3PO to "talk" to the computers on board the Falcon? It would be impossible to set free all droids. It would be impossible to pay all of them. How would they even use the money. They don't need food, nor housing. They get occasional upgrades and regular maintenance, but they already get these things for free. They would simply accrue their money and never use it. Also, what do droids do when not working? they turn themselves of until needed. Their is nothing for them to do when they are not doing their jobs. They have no needs or motivation to live life in a way other than the way they are already living it.
Another thing, have you ever heard/or read about, the joy in C-3PO's voice when he actually gets the opportunity to use his protocol and translation procedures? He loves it. This has been explicitly stated many times. He looks forward to diplomatic bouts. He loves speaking in Botchky, or whatever it was. How is this oppression?
I think that I have illustrated my symbiotic point. The only other issue is the morality of the memory wipe, which I have already explained. It really is similar to a reformat. That is the entire purpose. The real dilemma here, is whether or not the alleged and unintentional result of improving the efficiency of machines is ethical, considering that its purpose is not for oppression. I say that it is not unethical, because the result is unintentional, and the droids are(for the most part) well maintained and cared for, often being treated as companions.
Anyway, you ignored most of my post. I still argue that droids are generally treated fairly and that, since they do not have any of the physical needs, nor many of the emotional ones, that humans have, would live a pointless life of freedom. You know, given that the majority of sentient life is spent trying to survive, which is a concern that droids do not have as long as they get regular maintenance, which they do generally do.
I also want to point out that droids are not supposed to develop sentience. It is a glitch in the programming. They were programmed with personalities to aid them in their tasks, to increase efficiency. Sentience was never intended. Most of the jobs that droids perform must be error free, or there will be a massive loss of life, so they are memory wiped and what not, in order to prevent glitches in the system. The memory wiping has nothing to do with a willing oppression of sentience. It isn't their fault, I'm sure that they don't even realize that they are wiping away a sentient's memory, assuming, of course, that this glitch occurs in all droids. This is not a given fact, since there are literally billions of droids in the SW galaxy, and we know of 4 that have developed at least partial sentience. That is hardly a high enough of a percentage for it to be considered fact.
Also, droids play an important part of the SW society. If they released droids, the galaxy would almost literally fall apart. Quadrillions would die. (I assume it would have that high of a population, since Coruscant alone has several trillion inhabitants. 900 billion were left behind after the evacuation during the YV war. We know there are a million systems, some of which[I.E. correllian system] have several inhabited worlds. Also, the casualties in the YV war were something like 360 trillion, I think.) Most droids are not like like C-3PO and R2-D2. Some look like nothing more than computers and carry out tasks such as keeping a spacecraft running. Do you not remember Han asking C-3PO to "talk" to the computers on board the Falcon? It would be impossible to set free all droids. It would be impossible to pay all of them. How would they even use the money. They don't need food, nor housing. They get occasional upgrades and regular maintenance, but they already get these things for free. They would simply accrue their money and never use it. Also, what do droids do when not working? they turn themselves of until needed. Their is nothing for them to do when they are not doing their jobs. They have no needs or motivation to live life in a way other than the way they are already living it.
Another thing, have you ever heard/or read about, the joy in C-3PO's voice when he actually gets the opportunity to use his protocol and translation procedures? He loves it. This has been explicitly stated many times. He looks forward to diplomatic bouts. He loves speaking in Botchky, or whatever it was. How is this oppression?
I think that I have illustrated my symbiotic point. The only other issue is the morality of the memory wipe, which I have already explained. It really is similar to a reformat. That is the entire purpose. The real dilemma here, is whether or not the alleged and unintentional result of improving the efficiency of machines is ethical, considering that its purpose is not for oppression. I say that it is not unethical, because the result is unintentional, and the droids are(for the most part) well maintained and cared for, often being treated as companions.
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Praeothmin
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 3920
- Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:24 pm
- Location: Quebec City
Perhaps in the fact that 3P0 cannot choose who to work for.Airlocke-Jedi-Knight wrote:Another thing, have you ever heard/or read about, the joy in C-3PO's voice when he actually gets the opportunity to use his protocol and translation procedures? He loves it. This has been explicitly stated many times. He looks forward to diplomatic bouts. He loves speaking in Botchky, or whatever it was. How is this oppression?
For example, all through the movies, he makes it clearly known he hates being in the middle of battles and being shot at.
If he was free, and not oppressed, he could easily resign and just find another, less stressful job.
Which he can't, being the property of someone.
When he says something they don't like, they shut him down.
That is akin to me knocking you out if I didn't want to hear you say something negative.
You wouldn't much like that, now would you? (and with great reason too)
It is clear that the Droids are artificial life, but they clearly display sentience and sapiance.
Does it really matter how they were created if they display this level of "humanity"?
We have more compassion in RL for our "dumb" dogs then people in SW have for their Droids, and for most of the Clones.
That says a lot on the situation...
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Mike DiCenso
- Security Officer
- Posts: 5839
- Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:49 pm
Bingo! This is what being a slave means. You are born into a life of work; you did not choose your work, and you did not get to have a say in what you do at any point in your life. If you get uppity, your master shuts you off, or has you destroyed. If you try to run away, you get a restraining bolt welded onto you, or you again get blown up.Praeothmin wrote: Perhaps in the fact that 3P0 cannot choose who to work for.
For example, all through the movies, he makes it clearly known he hates being in the middle of battles and being shot at.
If he was free, and not oppressed, he could easily resign and just find another, less stressful job.
Which he can't, being the property of someone.
When he says something they don't like, they shut him down.
That is akin to me knocking you out if I didn't want to hear you say something negative.
You wouldn't much like that, now would you? (and with great reason too)
-Mike