#accountofnoparticularinterest

[a-flickering-soul]

i've been getting into spg for the last few months now, and i'm noticing there's really not much about these characters on the internet. (the spg wiki is Very Short.) you mind unpacking some lore about the bots?

(this is also an invitation to infodump. believe me when i say i Want to hear about these funky little automatons)

Sorry about the two lengthy SPG asks in one day! I'm putting this one below the cut because it is LITERALLY 2.4k man I did NOT come to play with this one! For what it's worth, you may find this ask interesting, as I've linked some good lore sources I frequent a lot :)

Rabbit: The first to be built! She named herself Rabbit after one of the animals in the lab she was built in, which I think is very endearing of her. She's Victorian clockwork/steampunk-inspired, and out of all the automatons is the one to maintain the most of her original vintage workings, which means she's also the one to malfunction the most <3 girl things fr. Rabbit is a wonderful character because she is Bunny Bennett's special special OC and gets to have so so many problems because of it. I am serious when I say most things usually happen to Rabbit. She is the Special Girl of SPG lore. This is NOT my own bias showing up, I PROMISE.

Rabbit has everything bad happen to her. Red Core, which is THEE Rabbit comic and something I read on a semi-regular basis to experience shrimp emotions through, goes through her backstory being trans (this robot is trans) and it peels me every time. I won't recap it but I think everyone who likes trans robots should read it even though it is as of yet incomplete. Lore-wise, it's interesting because it establishes that she was originally meant to look like Delilah Morreo (certainly a choice, Peter Walter I), and was sent to war in an incomplete, half-broken body which I certainly have a lot of thoughts about (it's the lack of AGENCY it's the way she spent the war VOICELESS it's the way she was denied the chance to be finished for a CENTURY it's--). Following that, about half a century later it was her core specifically that was stolen by the Beciles in 1950 in an attempt to replicate her Blue Matter power source. This tinkering inadvertently sent a beam of pure energy ripping through time and space, causing an explosion that claimed the lives of Peter Walter II and Guy Hottie (real name), and injuring Peter Walter III, Ignatius Becile, and Norman Becile. Rabbit, to this day, still blames herself for this because god forbid women have one good day. This also was the point in time that split the events of the Vice Quadrant into Timelines A and B, due to the generative power of Blue Matter, and also maybe created Cosmica? Which begs the question if Rabbit is sort of like Cosmica's mom in a weird way, but that's beside the point. In 2014, her original blueprints were discovered after a series of worsening malfunctions led Peter Walter VI to search for a way to repair or upgrade her, resulting in the confirmation of what Rabbit had known all along--that she was in an unfinished and slipshod chassis, that she was a girl, and she deserved to be recognized as such. Which is cool :') and a really neat way to work in her creator's IRL transition :') and for sure doesn't make me feel things.

Some cool facts I've just gleaned about Rabbit over the past eight-odd months are that she has memory problems, fell in love with a toaster, knows what BDSM is (SWEAR to god this is true), likes feeding ducks, and has a laser cannon in one eye, hence the heterochromia. There also is this cool series of drawings showing Rabbit's evolution drawn by Bunny here, which is really interesting to look at! In case it's not obvious, she's my favorite and I love her and I think about her too much <3

The Spine: The Spine is a special, special old man. With a retro-futuristic aesthetic, he was built with a titanium alloy spine (that's his Back Story), and before he got upgrades in 1955, was fashioned with a high amount of steam vents running up and down his vertebrae that kind of looked like old-fashioned train smokestacks, which is very endearing. In 1955, as I mentioned earlier, he got a ton of upgrades funding exclusively by the US government improving his weaponry, as well as an upgrade to his AI and programming making him much more humanistic, more personable and more able to mimic how humans moved in order to make it easier, once they were inevitably drafted again, for him to take up dangerous military operations without risking human lives. It's to my knowledge unclear if he was built like this or if this was part of that 1955 upgrade, but he is also able to detach his head and spine from his torso and limbs and actually slither around like a snake, which some people think is weird but I think is very endearing and fun! He hangs out a lot in the Hall of Wires since he's one of the few inhabitants of Walter Manor that can actually climb up towards the ceiling and presumably debug or repair the AIs, and also because it's the only room in the entire Manor with a door.

I love the Spine because I think the evolution of his role in the band is incredibly funny. If you watch the earlier Balboa and Zoo-era performances, he plays the straight man of the band in a stoic, but also kind of dumb way. He doesn't really know what's a bit and what's serious, but it's okay because he's really trying his best. Now, as the straight man of the group, he's so so old and tired. He really just wants to go back home and power off and who can blame him? By dint of the current lineup being a Black robot, a trans gay robot, and a white guy robot, he is now the butt by default of most jokes which is delightful to Me and boy, does he shoulder that weight with begrudging grace. My special, special old man. Watching him get made fun of onstage is kind of like watching someone give a very old and tired dog a pill, and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.

Cool facts about the Spine include the fact that he's really into cowboys and the Wild West, he has actually never really been in love, he secretly thinks Saturdays are Just Okay, and he actually swears the most out of all of the members of the band (at least as of now).

The Jon: The Jon is an interesting little guy. He has a cool Art Deco style and is known for being a little more whimsical, young, and off-the-cuff as opposed to the others. What's interesting about his backstory is that while Peter Walter I was mucking around with his power core trying to bring him to life, some switch flipped or some level was triggered and a minor explosion occurred. By the time the smoke cleared, the Jon was alive and sentient and there was a void in his chest instead of a power source. Unlike his siblings, he didn't run on clockwork, or hydraulics, or anything of the sort. He appeared to sustain himself on the void sealed in his chassis, which contained only a koi fish and a hot dog floating in space. He tends to have a certain effect on people blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, and odd coincidences seem to follow him like a well-trained dog.

In 1992, the Jon went through his own upgrade--Walter Robotics, always looking for ways to boost their quarterly revenue, signed an ad deal with PepsiCo advertising Crystal Pepsi. The Jon was modified to run solely on Crystal Pepsi, which. . . as you can see by the popularity of Crystal Pepsi right now (sarcasm), it obviously didn't go well. The Jon's efficiency is tied to an out-of-production soda and his machinery refused to be retroactively fitted to water again. To prevent the inevitable from happening, he left around 2012 through one of those Blue Matter portals through to a sister dimension (in fact, the same one Peter Walter I discovered back in 1896) known as Kazooland, where we are assured he now serves as the Mayor of Biscuittown (presumably, it is up to us to determine how much of this is true and how much of it is the Jon trying to sound cool).

Cool facts about the Jon include the fact that he and Zer0 are besties, animals love him, and that the very first show that Steam Powered Giraffe did all the way back in 2009 was about them going back in time to get him more Crystal Pepsi.

Upgrade: I used to be neutral about Upgrade but then I watched all the busking videos and also the 10 year anniversary show and now I love her. She was the Girl Of The Group (TM) all the way back in their busking era in 2009-2010 and her ongoing bit was that she was in love with the Spine and also knew exactly how adorable she was. However, she can be stubborn when she wants to be, and her AI is permanently frozen in the QWERTY 1996 OS because she really just liked the 90s I guess.

I for one am completely fascinated by Upgrade's lore because it's noted that during the Weekend War and WWI, she served in the military presumably doing the same sort of things the other bots were doing, then as a medical nurse in WWII, indicating that the governmental military contract really played fast and loose with whether or not they could enlist woman-coded robots in the war effort. What's notable to me, though, is that during the Vietnam War, Upgrade specifically went on to protest the war with the hippy movement while the others served in the war. How did that happen? Were they just allowed to opt out whenever they wanted? Are these robots really willing Vietnam War vets? Did Upgrade out of all of them just have enough guts to run away? Anyways, she was brought back into the fold about four years after the war ended, just in time to a few decades later get Sharpied with facial hair while the robots trial-ran a boy band concept. She ultimately left to go be a princess and become actual royalty. I swear to god I read somewhere that Upgrade killed Princess Diana but for the life of me I cannot find it. Know that it haunts me.

Upgrade facts include the fact that she is an actual princess, her makeup out of all of them is most inspired by classic vaudeville, and it was her and Rabbit's roles during their busking era to banter with the audience while the Spine and the Jon tuned their guitars.

Hatchworth: Hatchworth was built in the frantic few months before Peter Walter I had to face Thaddeus Becile in battle and presumably the poor man was turning anything metal into a robot. Hence, Hatchworth's design--he was initially constructed out of an old-fashioned bronze wood stove. Walter chose this robot to experiment with his Blue Matter levels, and with one tiny change in concentration he accidentally created a Blue Portal into another dimension in his hatch. This was incredibly useful in battle, as almost any weapon could be summoned through the hatch--after the war, it was used to summon sandwiches for the growing Walter family. All was well and good, until an as-of-yet unnoticed hairline fracture in his core began making the portal act unstable, coming to a peak in 1938. After accidentally summoning a pack (herd? flock?) of badgers into the middle of a tea party he was serving, he was determined too damaged to fix for now by anyone other than an ailing Peter Walter I, and locked in a lead vault deep below the manor while Peter Walters II and III tried to find a fix. Decades later, he was found hallucinating and lonely by our boy Peter Walter VI, who was stricken with his own Blue Matter mishap and had an inkling of how to fix the old robot. One thing led to another, and now thankfully we are all 99.9% Hatchworth acclimated!

Hatchworth facts….he left the band to go Gold Fishing (with some degree of success), he has incredibly fancy shoes that are also inexplicably tiny sometimes, he has a Hello Kitty cell phone, he does know how to cross himself, and Zer0 tried to microwave his head once.

Zer0: Myyyyyy sweetest and most special boy Zer0. Zer0 was actually technicallyyyyy the first one built, since he originated from three separate rudimentary prototypes Peter Walter I fused together after testing out various weapon designs. As a result, he's incredibly robust, very powerful, and has a cobbled-together patchwork appearance. Unfortunately, as he didn't have much by way of singing at the time, he fell to the wayside after the Weekend War and was forgotten down in the basements and testing labs sealed miles below Walter Manor. In 1992, the AI Beebop found him while archiving documents and turned him on. Zer0, enamored with the evolution of music over the past century, taught himself how to sing exclusively from the old Motown records in the basement with him. Peter Walter V, upon hearing his voice, was so awestruck that he immediately repaired him and Zer0 became the face of the band (#Zer0OurShiningStar). Zer0 then absolutely skyrocketed in popularity, signed with a TV show, and subsequently became so famous Walter Robotics had to erase all content of him from their market because they lost the rights to his appearance and voice. Sadly, our sweet boy invested all his money in "the abstract concept of love", lost all his money, sold one single copy of a bad autobiography, and came back home to Walter Manor with naught but a yacht to his name. He very graciously returned to performing in Steam Powered Giraffe, where his lovely vocals can be heard to this day.

Zer0 facts include the fact that he got a brand deal to sell his own kind of overly sugary cereal, he fell in love with a "large-chested lamppost" once, he likes possums, he would collect worms on strings if he could, and his defining characteristic is joy <3

I hope this was somewhat readable and comprehensive! I think…..I covered everyone out of the automatons, unless there is another member about to crawl out of the woodwork somewhere. Best of luck in your lore-hunting! I hope this helped :)

[a-flickering-soul]

@accountofnoparticularinterest it would be my utmost delight.

Obligatory disclaimer that this is suchhhhhh an insane way to categorize people and Blizzard was deeply fucked for this one and this is both a) my own lil joke of a post and b) not serious at ALL. Please please please understand that all of this is in the utmost sarcasm and I do not hold these beliefs to be true. There was very little thought process behind this, but you can find it below the cut <3

The Spine: In terms of Ethnicity, he's white (these robots have races), but I chose to give most of them some points for Culture since they've been around for 126 years and have traveled a little bit. He seems like a well-educated and cultured gent so I gave him a bit of a boost with Culture. In my head the Spine is kiiiinda aroace and clearly has some love of humans, which probably makes him a little weird among robots and also humans, so I gave him a bump in the Sexual Orientation section as well. In terms of Gender Identity, he seems pretty solid with his assigned gender of man, but I feel like he kind of performs it in a very specific way (he's not just a guy, he's a Gentleman). He's got pretty privilege, so no Body Type diversity. I gave him a bit of a bump in terms of Ability*, since we've seen him glitch before (his lil dissociative episode in the 'Diamonds' skit and his glitch at the end of 'Clockwork Vaudeville', as well as his underlying depression and anger issues (these barely count because he's high-functioning). And while yes, all these robots are the same age, the years do not treat them all the same. The Spine truly felt every one of those 126 years. Mentally he is an old, old man and he probably cashes in a Social Security check. Age diversity points for sure.

Rabbit: Diversity queen. Obviously white, so no bump in Ethnicity, but same stats as the Spine for Culture. She's very clearly queer (I KNOW word of God said she's pan but she's a lesbian to ME), so definitely points for Sexual Orientation (she also, notably, fucked a toaster). This in combo with Gender Identity gives her a lotttt of diversity because this robot is a trans woman and experienced gender dysphoria and euphoria. In terms of Body Type, she's definitely hot but also a little chunky like she's highkey got a fat ass which I think is hot but less based people will be mean about, so points for Body Type diversity. She's probably also the most diverse in terms of Ability, since we see her experience multiple glitches (the full-system malfunction in 'Honeybee', her stutter, and her recurring issues with her neck joint, to name a few) as well as a lot of other issues, like the dysphoria and daddy issues. She's also old (the eldest robot IIRC) but she lords her eldest daughter status over the others at times and mentally she's thirty flirty and thriving, so no Age points.

Zer0: My brother of color the Black robot. This robot has canonically osmosed race through listening to motown records for like 60 years and so he gets points for Ethnicity, god bless. I'm putting him lower than the others so far in terms of Culture simply because he was decommissioned in 1915 and missed out on a lot of the wider world for a while. Zer0 is a baby and does not fuck, but he did canonically fall in love with a she/they lamppost so make of that what you will? I left it as a moot point for Sexual Orientation. Again, Zer0 also has very little gender thoughts too, so another low rating for Gender Identity. He does however get points for Body Type because he's also a lil chunky. He has a low Ability rating, however, since he's canonically the tank of the group and very beefy and powerful. He's also a little nerfed in terms of Age since he is indeed so baby and isn't taken seriously a lot of the time, so he gets a few points for Age.

Hatchworth: Man. I to be fair think I did him a little dirty, but I'm too lazy to go and change it. Anyways, no points for Ethnicity (white robot), and same rules as Zer0 in terms of Culture (locked in a vault = missed out on cultural points). Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity are also kinda meh for me, so no points. In terms of Body Type, he gets a few points because he's short and Rabbit and the Spine specifically use their superior heights to oppress him. Ability- and Age-wise, I didn't think he was particularly nerfed either, so no points there as well. However, looking at this again, I retroactively want to give him a fair amount of points in terms of Ability, since it was specifically malfunctions in his Blue Matter Core that got him locked in the vault, which should count as a disability.

The Jon: Ah, the Jon. All right. White robot, no Ethnicity points. I think I got tired around here and messed up on the chart, because he should have the same amount of Culture points as Rabbit and the Spine, so my bad on that one. Sexual Orientation not a concept I think he grasps, so null points. I think the Jon has a few Gender Identity thoughts (like he's a little Prince you know that's like his gender he's Different) so he gets points there. He's also pretty Able and I don't think his Age affects him badly, so also no points there.

Upgrade: Upgrade. All right. Again, white, no Ethnicity points, and the same Culture as the other older robots. No Sexual Orientation points either, I'm sorry, Upgrade is a very heterosexual robot. She's a woman, so points for Gender Identity since being a woman is very hard. She's got pretty privilege, so no points for Body Type. In terms of Ability, she's got narcissism but it doesn't super badly affect her relationships, so no Ability points either, and same for Age.

*A note about Ability here: all of these robots have trauma and PTSD from the Weekend War, as well as the other wars they've served in. As a result, since that effectively nulls their diversity (it's not diverse if everyone has it, obviously), I've elected to discount their war-related trauma.

Official Diversity Ranking (most diverse to least diverse):

Rabbit

The Spine and Zer0

Upgrade

Hatchworth

The Jon

i will now be taking questions