#Androgynoid

[rjalker]

Since Martha Wells decided to confuse everyone, I made a chart.

Feel free to save and share this chart wherever you want, I don't need credit.

[ID: A chart showing the differences between an android and a cyborg.

The Left side is pale blue, and is labeled, "Android", with the explanation: "A robot or other artificial creation designed to mimic the appearance of a human. Can be made of mechanical parts, synthetic, or a mix of the two."

Below is a picture of Nick Valentine, from Fallout 4. Nick is an android with grey skin that is damaged in some sections, showing the mechanical parts of his skull and part of his neck. His eyes glow yellow.

More text beneath the image of Nick reads "Other notable androids in popular fiction…"

And lists: "Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries book series, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation show, C3PO, from Star Wars."

The right side of the chart is pale orange, and titled, "Cyborg", with the explanation: "Any biological organism given cybernetic enhancenements, usually in the form of prosthetic limbs, but can include synthetic organs or sensory aids. Literally cybernetic + oragnism", with "CYB" in cybernetic, and "org" in organism in all caps, underlined, and purple for emphasis.

Below this is a picture of Cyborg, or Victor Stone, from the DC Comics. Cyborg is a Black man with many parts of his body, including half his face, replaced by cybernetic prosthetics of blue and grey metal.

Below him is a list: "Other notable cyborgs in popular fiction…" listing, "Luke and Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars, Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes from the MCU, the Cybermen from Doctor Who, and the Borg from Star Trek", with "(literally, their name is just 'cyborg' without the cy)" in parenthesis for the Borg.

End ID.]

Murderbot is an android, specifically an androgynoid since it's designed to look like a genderless human. It would only be a cyborg if it started out fully human and was then later given mechanical parts. It was created from the getgo as a combination of mechanical parts, cloned human tissue, and artificial intelligence. It's not a cyborg, it's an androgynoid.

Gurathin is a cyborg, because he is a human who was then augmented using technology.

In general, cyborgs are born. Androids are created.

Anything, including an alien or an animal can be a cyborg. Anything can also be an android, but the term android specifically means "robot designed to look like a man" as in a male, not just a general human, hence why Murderbot's an androgynoid. A robot designed to look specifically like a woman would be a gynoid, and so on and so forth. There are pretty much infinite options here.

(Edit 5/9/23: I created the term "anthroid" as a catchall term for any robot designed to look like a human, without having to specify gender each time. Go. Be free from male default language.)

So if you really wanted to do good worldbuilding for an alien species, they'd have their own specific term for robots they build to look like themselves.

a robot designed to look like a spider, for an example, could be called an arachnoid. You may also notice the similarity to the word "humanoid".

Anthroid = robot (or other artificial construct if your universe has magic) that is humanoid. Android = robot designed to look like a human man. Gynoid = robot designed to look like a human woman.

Cyborg = any biological organism given any mechanical enhancements or augmentations. Yes, including something as "not dramatic enough" as a prosthetic eye with a high tech camera in it.

(The Daleks and also Geordi la Forge are also cyborgs, I knew I was forgetting obvious examples)

[felix-lupin]

Random...

The word 'android' is a male word. The female word is 'gynoid'.

As a sci-fi nerd, it has always bothered me a little that all robots are assigned male gender, even the booby ones.

They should all be androgynoids. I wish that was the word.

If I were a robot, I would prefer androgynoid as my pronoun.

I actually hadn't considered the etymology of the word android before, so thank you for making me consider it! (I love thinking about little language things. the origin of words and affixes and such)

It's unfortunate that the 'gender-neutral' nouns in the english language are often just the same as the neuter ones, or when the neuter words imply masculinity.

The gender neutral 'android' is probably something like (as you mentioned) androgynoid, or anthropoid/anthronoid ("-oid" of or like, "anthro" [a] human). One of those would probably be a better word for it.

[androgynoided]

end of an era. hotrussiansingles -> androgynoided

[cortlandkaard]

i am a true achillean ancient androgynoid (my husband is Homophobic!!!! what an L)

[facing-worlds]

researchers everywhere seeking the coveted "androgynoid"

[girlprince-of-the-sexbots]

non-binary robot call that an androgynoid

[tinsin]

gnc androgynoid whose pronouns are ve/vim

[transmechanicus]

androgynoid request: make them out of mycelium! bioluminescence an absolute Must. (especially if it's a pretty blue glow. or even better: mood-based glows.) have fibre-optic cabling and optical computing components integrated into the fungal network. have them naturally synthesise psilocybin and secrete it into their bodily fluids. optional bonus: lil fangs &/or a sword. (I'd say "also make 'em goth" but I mean. redundant innit?) fungi and photons! biocomputing! does that qualify? is that valid?

They sound v sexy also they have a pet mushroomba

[custom-pronoun-pins]

[ID: Ten circular designs with a solid colored background and a pride flag inside the circle.

Each pin reads, "Valued memeber of the Global Trans Werewolf Pack".

The flags are, in order:

The romance and sex repulsed flag, with a large vertical dark grey stripe on the right, with a partially rounded thin white stripe to the left of the center. On the other side is a circle in dark grey, with a white minus symbol in the center, with the left side split horizontally in half with green on top and purple on the bottom.

The sex repulsed flag, which is the same as the first, but with a solid purple stripe on the left.

The sapphic flag, with stripes of pink, purple-white, and pink, with a light purple flower with five petals and an orange center in the middle of the flag.

The sci/ence/(ences)/enceself pronoun flag, with stripes of different widths: Yellow, cyan, robin's egg blue, orange, robin's egg blue, cyan, and yellow.

The scorpigender flag, with stripes of black, red, and grey.

An unnamed androgynoid-gender with stripes of berry red, black, dark grey purple, light grey-purple, very pale blue, light grey purple, dark grey purple, black, and berry red.

A securitron gender from Fallout: New Vegas, with stripes of faded navy blue, brown, grey, and cream.

The shay/shayself pronoun flag, with stripes of different widths: Periwinkle blue, cyan, purple, white, periwinkle blue, cyan, and purple.

The she/her/(hers)/herself pronoun flag, with stripes of different widths: red, black, orange, black, purple, black, and bubblegum pink.

The sia/lia/lis/liaself pronoun flag, with stripes of different widths: Gold, cyan, orange, green, orange, cyan, and gold.

End ID.]

To see all the posts on tumblr, you can click here to see the tag for them all, which is “Valued member of the Global Trans Werewolf Pack pins”.

These can be used for anything you'd like, headers, icons, moodboards ect, no credit needed!

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Designs are no longer available on Redbubble as of April 2023, as they've started actively stealing money from artists. Sorry for the inconvenience. You are, as always, encouraged to save these designs to use as icons or in other art, and you are encouraged to print them out and make your own shirts or buttons if you're able to.

[rjalker]

also I did make an androgynoid/gynandroid pride flag back in May, with the colors based on my one pretty robot OC

I don't remember if I posted this one yet so here it is possibly again.

if you identify as an androgynoid or gynandroid (A robot designed to look like neither a man nor a woman) you can use this pride flag! It's intended to be inclusive of gender identity and species identity alike.

It's public domain, meaning anyone can use it for anything they want, no permission or credit needed, though I do ask that you include an image description wherever possible, and direct people to a blank version of the flag if they ask!

Here's the web archive page for the flags.

"https://archive.org/details/androgynoid-flag"

The wider one is intended to fit a tumblr blog, but it depends on your blog theme so you'll have to mess with it to get it to fit.

[ID: Two versions of a pride flag. The first is shaped like a square, the second is shaped like a wide rectangle. The flag has nine horizontal stripes of: berry red, black, dark blue-grey, blue-grey, pale ice blue, blue-grey, dark blue-grey, black, and berry red. End ID.]

[cicadawings]

you might think I'm a robot now but when I get top surgery and go full androgynoid. then you will see

[mitigatedchaos]

Standalone Complex 202045:1-4

(1,000 words, ~4 mins)

Is it really? Could it really be?

Yes, it really, really is Standalone Complex.

In fact, it's so Standalone Complex that by episode 4, for a brief moment, I was the original technoliberal [REAL NAME] and not the time-travelling future reactionary* Mitigated Chaos.

For that reason I've decided not to watch it all at once. I'm currently 4 episodes in. Potential minor spoilers, but mostly speculation.

Is it that good?

No, it's that Standalone Complex, and that's not surprising since unlike ARISE (which is Ghost in the Shell but not SAC), Kenji Kamiyama's running the show again. SAC_2045 is 2020, but it's also 2008, as a Japanese director once again unwisely indulges in CGI that provides a more video game like feel which misses out on the classic romantic feel of the original 2D animation. (This was also a weakness of Knights of Sidonia, which is otherwise Anime Battlestar Galactica during its first season.)

However, I think there's a reason they did this, and that reason is that the original Standalone Complex was phenomenally expensive for an anime, even though it was also very high-earning. If you want to do loads of action sequences - and it seems that Kamiyama does, which makes the episodes feel shorter this go 'round - 3D is the way to go.

Why does the Major look Like That?

If you search my archive I've used the term "Androgynoids" before, but I don't think I've explained it.

The demand for companion robots is likely to come more from men than from women, and given the huge number of robots to be ordered, it's easier for firms to share a standardized platform that can be quickly adapted into a number of female shapes and a handful of male shapes - an "androgynous" frame, either in terms of reconfigurable parts that can be swapped out in production, or in terms of a software pipeline for quickly designing derivative frames for manufacturing. That overly-cute 'moe' look is likely to be more popular, meaning that they might be produced in large numbers.

(...if it happens. The object recognition, social context recognition, and path navigation issues are underestimated.)

Which brings us to why the Major looks Like That - we already learned the general reason back in 2nd Gig. Her body looks like a cheap mass-manufactured one to prevent being attacked and looted for her high-grade military hardware. What's the cheap mass-manufactured version for 2045? That. Remember, the Major views her body as a tool in most iterations, so such a ridiculously commodified look might not bother her.

No, but really, why?

I figure Ilya Kuvshinov is a lot more popular in Japan than we know. I sure never asked for it.

One of the well-known weaknesses of the original series is that she spends the first season running around without any pants. Similar concerns here will stop people from taking this series as seriously as well unless they're already used to anime fan service.

On the other hand, the first SAC's concept of a memetic crime wave was positively prophetic, so it'll be very interesting to see what Kamiyama has to say here.

What the fuck is 'sustainable war'?

Personally I don't think they're going to explain this directly at any point.

On the first level is sounds like an innumerate left take - economies don't actually make money on war. In fact in the real world, war has become so expensive and economies have become so interconnected that it's almost too expensive even for the world's richest country to have a war. Here's what we have to go on.

It's based on AI.

It's "war as an industry."

It accelerated following a major economic crash.

There is an increase in riots and separatism; at least some areas have raiders.

It "threatens the human race with extinction."

Characters repeatedly claim that the situation is safe as long as it's left to 'the pros'.

I think there's a neat answer that wraps up all of these: the only way to fight a war without destroying the economy is to not actually fight the war.

The war is run by AIs that are designed to weight the condition of the economy in their strategic assessments, and the other AIs all know that. At no point is it cost-effective to actually fight, since the land itself isn't worth as much as the equipment and personnel sitting on top of it, and it especially isn't worth the counter-attack. The AIs are producing and moving military formations entirely for the purpose of obtaining negotiating leverage against other countries on behalf of their human masters. As long as no one shoots, it's safe. That actually makes a lot of sense in a high-information world, where it's easier for everyone to know each others' relative abilities.

...and if that's what it is, I have to hand it to Kamiyama because that's both clever and darkly hilarious.

But if almost no one is shooting, how does it threaten the human race with extinction? Simple - there's too much accumulated military power sitting around. If anyone important is actually dumb enough to pull the trigger, the resulting chain reaction will obliterate the global industrial base and food production will collapse.

Global Simultaneous Default?

I don't think they're going to explain this and I don't think they need to. We're in the middle of a pandemic where it looks like governments are pretty much borrowing against the [figurative] psychic field that powers the currency directly because the financial system was never designed to handle a real catastrophe and could get disastrously desynchronized from real assets and real production otherwise. All we need to propose is that it was mismanaged worse than normal and not even slack was left. Probably it was initiated by a sovereign debt crisis over the fake war.

* - A joke; if each year brings unanticable moral progress, then all current political thinkers will eventually be considered "right-wing."

[androgynoid-aether]

If I may, what caused you to leak corrosive acid? I may not design gynoids but I know enough to keep hazardous materials well contained.

The opaque part of my head is glass, and while it’s much stronger than most glass, it CAN be broken (and opened in the case where the fluid leaks and needs to be replaced). During the... incident, I was speaking to people who had come to see me, and a tall person accidentally bumped into me, knocking me to the ground. No one, not even my creators, knew how corrosive the fluid was to organic matter until someone tried to plug the leak with their hand... You all know what happens next.

(Also, for future reference, though I do use she/her pronouns along with they/them, I was originally intended to be genderless and was only designated as somewhat female-identifying during the A. I. development phase, therefore I’m technically called an “androgynoid.” It’s a common mistake, but I thought I should mention it ^^;)

[rjalker]

[ID: A digital painting of Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries books. It is sitting against a background that has a gradient from grey to blue green.

Murderbot is an androgynoid with dark brown human skin, intersperced with white mechanical parts on its face, neck, arms, and fingers. Its feet are entirely mechanical, resembling prosthetic feet. It is leaning back on one arm, one knee bent up and its other arm resting on top, looking off into the distance.

It is wearing black pants that are rolled up at the bottom, and a dark grey shirt with three batteries lined up vertically next to eachother with "AAA" below them.

The first is in the colors of the armantic flag: green, light green, white, grey, and black.

The second is in the asexual flag: black, grey, white, and purple.

The third is in the colors of the agender flag: black, grey, white, light green, white, grey, and black.

End ID.]

Murderbot in an “aromantic asexual agender” pride shirt, aka. the AAA battery joke!

Spawned on discord, so there’s multiple versions floating around of Murderbot in this particular shirt! Happy AAA yall!

[riverofmolecules]

is the delusion monster really unrelated to everything else? i dislike it when characters of color suffer for the white characters’ foolishness

on the other hand, hooking up into a mainframe through tree vines to enter an eternal single consciousness operating innumerable androgynoids is the dream

[flarebossmalva]

hey idk if anyone uses pinterest but i’m on there as androgynoid and i have some good boards on there. buncha aesthetic shit, art, gay memes, hot people, robots, idk

if you also have a pinterest and i know you i can invite you to my Secret Boards™ (they’re for my alters lol i just don’t want the entirety of the website knowing about my DID)