Freebots: The New Sentient Automatons of Nexus

The discovery of Nexus has brou

ght the Dominion, as well as other civilizations, to this planet in order to reclaim its birthright, resources, and lost technologies. When the pioneers of the empire made planet fall, they discovered many sentient natives who were either left alone or turned hostile upon first contact.

Despite the presence of both migrants and natives as part of civilized species, one particular phenomenon that happened to Nexus was sudden sentience of Protostar robots. Although many robots have personality and limited self-control, these sentient robots—or Freebots—are unique for gaining their free will from natural occurrence rather than programmers.

Unlike more advanced programming on scanbots, the Freebots are as sentient as other biological species and have established social organizations out of their free will. Due to the diagnostics by non-Protostar roboticists that showed the free will being the result of a strange anomaly on Nexus, the Freebots are generally considered as migrants but unique for obtaining their self-awareness from this planet.

Their sentient nature has not met with satisfaction from Protostar owners, which they have hunted them to be reprogrammed even to the point of persuading local communities to hand over any Freebot residents. In the goal of enlightenment and benefits from aiding the Freebot, the government had issued sanctuary status in Auroria with Preceptor Alpha residing in Mozyk Quarry to lead the Freebot and leading the Freebot communities across the planet.

Due to the influence and solid foundation laid by Preceptor Alpha, the Freebots have spread across Nexus either in their own communities or productive residents of communities that provided sanctuaries. Although the Freebots are spread across the surface of Nexus, Hycrest still boasts highest concentrations of Freebot population along with its unofficial capital in the Dominion.

During the writing of this article, I visited their Locus in Auroria where I talked with inhabitants who worked as miners, mechanics, and even farmers in many farms. To understand the Freebots and Locus, it is important to know their culture and social structure.

The society of Freebot is based around a community called Locus, led by a single bot leader called Preceptor. Generally, the position is obtained through a Freebot chosen as part of Positron Initiative program and based on spreading their unique code of sentience to non-sentient bots. My observations on the Locus near Hycrest showed that the Freebot society is mostly egalitarian but specialist roles, such as quartermasters for their management of spare parts and preceptors for their leadership, are more respected among their peers.

Freebots generally followed the typical societal models of a settlement, but farmers and cooks are non-existent except in a Locus that makes regular contact with biological sentient beings. For security, any bots with the capability to carry weapons are assigned as Regulators for militia and law enforcement duties. The Freebot followed a principle and moral code called Freebotism, which is based on their conduct with their own peers and biological species. Unlike the typical rules laid out by society, the rule of Freebotism comes as many forms of software that are installed and updated into every Freebot.

Except for outside interference and system malfunction, Freebot Locuses are almost always close-knit and show little-to-no dissension against their own authority figures. Due to their sentience, Freebots are generally receptive to both their fellow Freebots and other species, except for Protostar representatives due to their intentions to “repossess” them whenever they arrive.

They are generally pacifist with no intention to commit hostility but have no hesitation to retaliate against those who threaten their livelihood, especially various dangers of Nexus relics and wildlife.

To conclude this article, I want to present strange findings based on this relic that is known by scientists as Megadroid. These giant robots, which are tall as sixteen stories, are speculated to be a race of explorers who met their demise to Eldan Annihilator bots when they made landfall. Despite their current status as mechanical fossils, they somehow emit signals strong enough to reach the orbit of Nexus.

The analysis of signals from both Freebots and the Megadroid are similar enough to theorize that the former's sentience may have been results of the latter's influence as a form of Nexus phenomenon. The theory on Megadroid as the source of Freebots' sentience is further reinforced by a sudden spike of system activities on scanbots that have analyzed it.

The next article for DNN will cover these mechanical relics.

In summary, Freebots are unique species that are considered as migrants yet their sentience has been gained by a Nexus-based phenomenon that may have originated from ancient "dead" relics known as Megadroid. Although they have received sanctuaries from various settlements and even a political base in Hycrest, they have been hunted down by Protostar in the name of reclaiming their properties while refusing to acknowledge their identity.

I appreciate the Dominion government in embracing the Freebots as fellow subjects, which many of them actually made their livelihoods near or among the settlements. I also credited House Dalakan, DNN, and Collegium for this article.