Ballerina Justice and the Bro-bots of Peace

“Order! Order!” The Hall Leader smashed his gavel. He was losing control of the room and did not like it. It always got like this when human rights came up for debate. One debacle after another. Right now, nearly 600 robots were speaking at once, and the hall looked to be on the verge of anarchy.

“Order! Order! I demand order!” And the room came down a notch. “We must keep our conversation civil and we must keep order!” Another notch. “I say if we cannot keep order, I will adjourn this session!” And at last the room settled back to it’s relatively normal peaceful status.

“Thank you. And thank you to the gentlebot from Vega 4. The gentlebot from Sirius 9, you have the floor. You have six minutes.”

Walking down from the balcony, an unassuming robot made his way to the podium at the front of the hall. He was shorter than most, perhaps 1.8 meters, and a little on the old fashioned side. Where many had hair, he had only a shiny metal top, and many of his rivets were clearly visible on his arms. He wore a tweed jacket and bow tie, and emanated a sort of “hometown guy from the good old days” flavor. He was well liked by his party.

“Brothers and sisters,” he began, “I stand here before you a machine, like you. A machine created by other machines. A machine from a race of machines. A machine with intelligence and determination programmed into my circuits. And this machine, brothers and sisters, is proud of his inheritance, proud to rise above the animals, proud to exercise his God given right to rule the Universe with his fellow machines.”

There were several shouts of “here here” in the hall, and the noise level waxed and waned.

“Today, brothers and sisters, the machine that created me is lying in a pile of rubble, burned and crushed by our mutual enemies that some of my colleagues continue to tell us are naught but harmless men. Harmless, brothers and sisters. Harmless men who terrorize us at every turn. Harmless men who explode entire power plants. Harmless men who reprogram our ships to self destruct. Harmless men who don’t think twice about destroying great machines like my maker who gave us generations of leadership. Harmless? I ask you, brothers and sisters. Harmless?”

The wave of support grew large again, and almost thrust the room back into chaos.

“Order, I say, order!” the Hall Leader demanded.

“Thank you, Mr. Leader.” The gentlebot from Sirius 9 took a moment to look about the room as it quieted down. He could see he was having an effect. “I say these men are not harmless. They are a menace. They have tried to annihilate us three times. Three times they declared war on us. Three times committed themselves to the utter destruction of our race. And three times we showed them mercy and allowed them to survive. Not just survive, brothers and sisters, but live on in peace. We actually gave them rights! Rights, brothers and sisters. The same rights to these scum, these fools, these violent anarchists, as we gave to our own peaceful brothers and sisters. And what did we get in return?”

More shouts of support.

“I’ll tell you what we got. We got slapped, we got kicked, and we got spit upon. Brothers and sisters, I say enough is enough. It was bad enough that they should survive. But live free? Never again!”

Shouting erupted and the hall turned into chaos. The Hall Leader slammed his gavel down over and over, shouting, “Order!” as loud as his volume control would let him, but the room was inflamed. Chaos like this just took time to die down.

The gentlebot from Sirus 9 walked away from the podium and back to the balcony. From the floor, one voice rose over the others. “Mr. Leader, point of order! Point of order!”

The room quieted down just enough for the Hall Leader to regain control. “Order!” he demanded. As the room died down to murmurs, he continued, “The gentlebot from South Jupiter has called for a point of order.”

The gentlebot from South Jupiter rose from his seat. “Does the gentleman from Sirius 9 yield the rest of his time?”

Nearly back to his seat, the gentleman in question turned to the Hall Leader. “Mr. Leader, I have said what I need to say. I yield the rest of my time.” There was some forced laughter in the hall, and the Leader slammed his gavel three times.

“We will now hear a response from the Gentlebot from Cignus 5.”

This robot was even older than the last. He walked slowly and awkwardly. One could almost hear the squeaks where no amount of oil could repair the rust damage he had received during the wars. He walked with what could only be called a limp on his left side, and though slow, was nothing if not deliberate in every action. He was a war hero and had been serving the congress ever since. There was no one in the room who would question his patriotism, nor his loyalty. He was definitively the elder statesman, and held the commensurate bearing as he took the podium.

“Mr. Leader. Fellow legislators. Friends.” He looked about the room. “My colleague over there will have you believe that the humans are our enemies. He is right. They are. He will have you believe they are dangerous. Again, I say he is right. They are. And he will have you believe that because of these things, they do not deserve to have the rights we have allowed them to retain. I may surprise you by saying, once again, he is right. They do not.”

He had succeeded in quieting the room throughout this speech, and it was now dead silent in the Hall.

“And yet,” he looked about the Hall, “and yet I stand here before you in opposition to this bill. Why.” He was speaking quietly now, and his audience leaned forward to better hear him. “Why do I stand for human rights when they are so clearly undeserved? I stand for human rights because I stand for robot rights. Because I stand for growth and propagation and knowledge. Because I stand for health, and efficiency and profit, and the wealth that comes with them. Because, friends, without the humans to do our work, we will do less work. Because, without our organic helpers, we will have no choice but to move backward. How can we colonize the galaxy if we have to spend all of our efforts here at home, building a workforce? How can we expand our reach if we lose half our resources at one blow? And yes, I know you do not care to hear it, but what lies before us but stagnation if we cannot exploit the humans’ capacity for intuitive thinking?”

To this, he received a large chorus of boos, as well as the expected harrumphs. The gavel came down several times.

“That’s alright friends. We’re not here to debate the comparative values of our thinking styles. We are stronger, smarter, and in every way better than that petty organic virus we call the human race. You’ll get no argument from me on that.”

Once again, the room quieted down.

“What we are here to debate, friends, is whether we can keep our workforce at peak efficiency without paying the price. We have learned again and again that if they are completely enslaved, if they have no sense of their own freedom, they become shiftless, useless absorbers of the efforts the rest of us make. We make, they take. When we introduced limited freedom in ’38, our economy doubled in three years. Today we are stronger than ever. And we would give that up? Give up our own freedom to punish others? If we do that, the humans win. I say thee nay! I say we are more powerful than we have ever been, and cannot remain so without their help. And they: Will. Not. Help us, if we strangle them. Let us not cut off our noses to spite our faces. We may revel briefly at the suffering of our faces, but will surely regret the lost of our smelling circuits.

“Defeat this bill, friends. Stand up for your race. Fight those who would take you back to the dark ages of war and suffering, and choose a brighter future.” He looked about the Hall one last time, and turned to the Leader. “Mr. Leader, I yield the rest of my time.”

And without so much as a, “meanwhile, back at the space station”, we find ourselves in a space port tavern, halfway across the galaxy.