#25 - Automen

The Brass City – possibly the only place on the face of Posterra when industry isn’t just trying its best to hobble together some ramshackle manufactories, but in fact thrum with vibrant energy of creation, creating new citizens en masse to fulfil their duties in the expanding sprawl of polished chrome and bronze. As soon as machines awoken to the Spark and gained sentience, they began to try to create new automated life – without much success. Sure, they proved very adapt in making robots, but the Spark they struggle to recreate even to this day. It just has to… Happen. Even now two biggest philosphies clash on the subject within the shining walls. Spontanists believe that even attempting to recreate the Spark is a display of arrogant hubris of lesser, meat-based species. Constructionists believe however that it is only natural drive and desire – after all life pursue this goal, to reproduce, to thrive. Ultimately, they kept on going, creating more and more advanced machines – latest of them are the Automen, advanced sentinels designed for guardian duty on the city walls. Their logic circuits are the sharpest, their cogitators are most complex, their reactionary wetware most sophisticated. And yet, despite that, despite their high capacity learning and performing complex task, they are still merely simulacra of life, devoid of the Spark that gives true freedom…