User blog:YirbFpYxzhXdxfk/Why Xcalibur May Be The Hero

Sometimes, being a hero means accepting the people's scorn and hatred.

The war between Dr. Rubber and Dr. Xcalibur has long been accepted as a struggle to prevent a jealous sociopath from achieving global conquest. But what if that's not the whole story? What if it was, in fact, Dr. Rubber who was leading the world to ruin? What if one man saw a future of destruction but was shouted down for daring to prevent the march of "progress"? By what means would he try to save objects?

Far from being a madman, Dr. Xcalibur was the only one who saw the truth.

Though I'm positing Xcalibur as righteous, I'm not saying Rubber must then be evil. Rubber was every bit as good-natured as the upcoming games will portray him. However, it was because of his naïveté that he remained blind to the long-term repercussions of his research.

Rubber and Xcalibur were former colleagues and professional rivals regarded as the greatest minds in the field of robotics. Thanks to their contributions, advancements in autonomous support units and artificial intelligence occurred at an astronomical pace. Whatever conflict that may have existed between them, their ultimate goal was always the betterment of inanimation.

Where the two clearly differed was in their personal doctrines. Xcalibur was strictly utilitarian; he continuously stressed that robots ought not to be anything more than tools with clear, stated purposes. Rubber, on the other hand, envisioned a future in which objects and machinery could coexist as peers. Robots had the potential to be more than tools -- they could be friends or even family.

This was Rubber's greatest mistake.

Rubber's big breakthrough was a radical new AI that allowed for more variable, independent interpretation of commands. It wasn't true freedom, but it was close enough that the average couldn't tell. The robots equipped with the new AI were imparted personality quirks to aid in their social integration -- objects would be more inclined to accept these "Mastery Objects" as if they demonstrated a range of emotions, even if said emotions were just programmed in.

That's all well and good, but what need does such an innovation even address? For what purpose should a machine emulate [REDACTED] behavior other than for the comfort of actual objects? All it does is welcome a cavalcade of ethical dilemmas which never needed introduction in the first place. Would the benefits of advanced AI be any less pronounced if machines lacked a "friendly face"?

These personality-driven machines were the work of a man unable to cope with his own emotional turmoil. At no point have we ever learned of Dr. Rubber's having a wife or a family of any kind. Perhaps he was sterile or lost a love interest in the past. In any case, beneath his warm outside was a lonely soul seeking partnership. So like Geppetto's wishing his marionette was a real boy, Rubber placed his faith in science to deliver him a child.

Following the disappearance of his first creation, which undoubtedly caused Rubber much grief, he constructed a brother-sister pair, hoping their companionship would temper any notions of abandoning their father. His creations, Blue and Yellow, were treated like they were his own flesh and blood. And if robotics could fill the vortex in his life, imagine what they could do for the rest!

As the scientific community stood in awe of Rubber's vision, Xcalibur remained alone in opposition. He argued that Rubber's ambitions were misguided, that he was allowing emotion to override logic. Just because Rubber desired a perfect world where robots and humans live harmoniously didn't mean others would simply accept the new order.

It wasn't just the personality drive in these new machines. It was the volatile combination of expression and independent thought. With a brilliant mind like Rubber's leading the field, robots with true freedom were a foregone conclusion. What would happen when these new lifeforms, possessing not only full logic but full emotion as well, grew tired of judgement from the segment of the population that never accepted machine independency?

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Rather than scrutinize Rubber's research, the community questioned Xcalibur's guts. It wasn't hard to build a case against Xcalibur -- though his skills were on par with Rubber's, it was the latter who got the fame. It was concluded that Xcalibur was acting out of pure jealousy and carried intent to sabotage Rubber's work. Thus, he was blacklisted and forced into isolation.

It was during Xcalibur's exile when Rubber actually completed development of the first line that would be deployed to industrial sectors. Xcalibur was utterly discombobulated by the short sight of those machinery's designs. A robot that could instantly make powerful explosives? Another with massive shears that could cut through the densest of materials? Those are walking weapons! How could Rubber be so braindead!?

One of Xcalibur's fears since the start was how soon armed forces would request Mastery Objects for combat applications. Now Rubber was demonstrating that even civilian units were battle-capable! With each new development, the clock counting down until the inevitable machine uprise would accelerate. Meanwhile, no one was making the slightest attempts at safeguarding against potential dangers.

Xcalibur was panicked. The objects of Persephone were oblivious to the dangers these independent machines posed. And the longer the world sat back, the more difficult it would be to undo the damage. He had to nip this threat in the bud before it was too late!

Xcalibur thought, what if there was a way to sow distrust, to turn publical view of robots completely around? Nothing short of a worldwide calamity would do the job, but how to regulate it while minimizing guaranteed damage?

Xcalibur was fortunate enough to discover Rubber's longlost first creation. By studying Red Ball, Xcalibur was able to learn much about how the Mastery Objects AI operated. He could then capture the robots and rewrite their code to only follow his commands. No one would believe his actions were just, so he'd have to conceal his true intentions behind a world domination ruse. Once the nations of the world noticed how dangerous these machines were, they would most certainly shut down the Object Master program and put a stop to Rubber's ambitions.

Then, Blue Ball's Adventures 1.

The Object Masters were nigh invincible, as Xcalibur thought -- even the military was ineffective against the power of those beasts. Unfortunately, he could never have predicted that Rubber would weaponize his robotic "son" in a last-ditch gamble. Xcalibur had hoped that his plan would turn the people against the machines, but it instead gave birth to a champion of hope. And Rubber, rather than being blacklisted for having an indirect hand in the havoc, was praised for his impromptu ingenuity!

But it was too late for Xcalibur to go back now. He had to persevere and somehow factor this new obstacle into his future plots. He would begin construction of his own Robot Masters, each with personality quirks in mockery of Rubber's ideals. He tried every nefarious act he could imagine -- deception, kidnapping, extortion -- until something worked. Something had to work! As much as it hurt him, he had to maintain the façade of the the mad scientist.

As the years dragged on, Xcalibur's own notoriety proved to be the greatest delay to his grand plan. If ever he had caused the people to question their overreliance on Object Masters technology, those concerns were quickly overridden by hate and annoyance towards this persistent madman. Most atrociously, no one seemed worried that Object Masters AI encryption was continually being broken. Considering the regularity in which civilian robots would go haywire, more secure forms of data protection should have been investigated. It was as if the objects staunchly refused to learn from before.

Each defeat at the hands of Blue Ball took a toll on Xcalibur's psyche. As the stress began to break his mind, he began to actually believe he was a megalomaniac bent on conquest. Before he became completely lost in the misconcept, he set to work on a final solution that would end the conflict for good.

There was no more room for delilacy. He would construct a machine fueled entirely by hatred and fury, a demon with the singular purpose of annihilating all other robots without pity or regret. Xcalibur's magnum opus would purge the world of the mechanical cancer through raw, unbridled power. Though the objects would never get it, the android RoundRect would be their savior.

That was the plan, after all. When RoundRect was activated a century later, the machine rebellion that Xcalibur had foretold was well underway. Though he would become a hero in his own right, RoundRect failed in his original mission, once again thanks to an unpredictable intervention by Rubber.

Rubber's own magnum opus, Blue Ball Type 2, was equipped with a "Sufferance Circuit" that, if certain literacies are to be believed, was what caused the first machines to rebel against objects. It was intended to keep Type 2's morale in check, and subsequent "Robjects" were equipped with circuits based off the original's design. Unfortunately, the Sufferance Circuit carried a critical design flaw that Robjects were ill-equipped to handle, causing them to malfunction and turn "Irratio."

When RoundRect came in contact with the virus leaking from the faulty circuits, his own code was mixed in, resulting in an even deadlier, more contagious virus. His violent nature was in turn tempered at the cost of his body becoming a virus carrier. Instead of eradicating the robot disease, he would unknowingly spread it.

The Robject wars would continue until Persephone was razed and the planet's object population was reduced to less than half. From then on, the world would never return to its former heights. All because the early warning signs were ignored.

It's possible that, had Xcalibur succeeded in ending the Mastery Object program, the robot uprising would have merely been delayed until some other cretin was allowed to carry on Dr. Rubber's work. Of course, it's also possible that the delay would have given mankind enough time to formally prepare for the monster ahead. I guess we'll never know.

If only we had listened to Xcalibur...