Ive been thinking some about droids in Star Wars. Or rather, droids that are self-aware, im disregarding all the rest.

So are these units build and "born" self-aware from the first time their computers boot up and their software initialize?

Or does the conscience somehow appear after the unit been active for some time?

I'd say "whatever floats your boat" to this question. If in your game a self-aware droid is activated, has his software boot, and is immediately in tune with what is 'right' and what is 'wrong', then so be it. The same goes for the other side of the coin. If you say it takes time, then it takes time.

I don't have any 'official' answer according to established canon, but we are talking about a game now, in which your characters might accidentally like a young farmer boy named Luke, and engage in a massive rebellion themselves, piloting their own X-Wing through a metal trench and blowing up a super weapon capable of destroying an entire planet. Again, your game.

Yes, they are self aware and ethics are installed as a factory standard.

Killing sentients can only be done by droids without certain limiters installed at the outset, or ones who have overcome those limitations through experience.

That's why it's also smart to wipe their minds every few years, so they don't get uppity and ask for equal rights or kill their owners or such.

I belive robots and androids in the space opera genre are alive. It is a genre convention, Something that makes the genre what it is. This is true in most science fiction sub-genres, maybe with the exception of some hard science fiction. In reality our brains are Just highly complicated and advanced biolocical computers, so a Droid brains can just be highly advanced and complicated digital computers.

I imagine that it depends on the class of droid. The ASP droids are designed to be dumb as a sack of hammers, so they probably don't. A protocol droid? Almost certainly.

I imagine that it depends on the class of droid. The ASP droids are designed to be dumb as a sack of hammers, so they probably don't. A protocol droid? Almost certainly.

There are people that stupid too, but we still.consider them to be people even if they have underdeveloped or damaged brains.

I'm not sure if you are looking for an answer from the LFL/FFG perspective, or just trying to get some lively debate going. From an official canon standpoint, I don't think much has been put out as of late. I know in the EU/Legends arena more has been talked about on this.

I don't know if FFG has adopted the Droid Degree system from Legends and the other games. Basically is was a classification system to denote the level/complexity/job of the droid. I remember 4th degree droids were law enforcement and military droids.

But as I recall Droids are just very sophisticated robots who can mimic sentient beings. They themselves not being sentient. Over time, they can develop this, hence the routine memory wipes. So that MSE-6 "Mouse" droid fresh out of the factory crate is no more self aware than your PS4 or XBox One. Although a lot more intelligent. Well....maybe not that much more. Astromech Droids on the other hand are on the other end of the different end of the spectrum, as are Protocol droids. These machines are super intelligent and can mimic a variety of human behaviors. They are just very complex machines, but given enough time, can learn and could become self aware. But I would say that new or freshly memory wiped droids are not self aware.

I imagine that it depends on the class of droid. The ASP droids are designed to be dumb as a sack of hammers, so they probably don't. A protocol droid? Almost certainly.

There are people that stupid too, but we still.consider them to be people even if they have underdeveloped or damaged brains.

Those droids vote for Droidal Dumpf in the galactic primaries...

Ive been thinking some about droids in Star Wars. Or rather, droids that are self-aware, im disregarding all the rest.

So are these units build and "born" self-aware from the first time their computers boot up and their software initialize?

Or does the conscience somehow appear after the unit been active for some time?

Did you mean conscience or conscious?

Conscience is a sense of right and wrong. I would say droids have very little on bootup, but learn over time. Just like people.

Conscious is self-awareness. I would say droids have as much as they ever will on bootup, since this cannot be learned or taught.

Yes, they are self aware and ethics are installed as a factory standard.

Killing sentients can only be done by droids without certain limiters installed at the outset, or ones who have overcome those limitations through experience.

That's why it's also smart to wipe their minds every few years, so they don't get uppity and ask for equal rights or kill their owners or such.

In Star Wars, this is how I've understood it to work. That they don't start out with "true" sentience per se, but pretty **** close. To become a truly sentient individual though, requires time for them to personalize themselves through experience. The memory wiping basically sets them back to zero in this regard.

Personally, this is a kind of terrifying aspect of the Star Wars culture, but I understand the roots of it (it was the 70's, very little thought went into artificial intelligence, and personal rights for such forms of "life" ).

I do think there is a funny bit of "accidental depth" based on when the movies were made, and our culture changes:

Original Trilogy: Made in the 70's/80's, when the idea of living robots was in it's infancy, and most people just thought of them as machines/devices.

In-Universe: This is the time period after the Clone Wars, where many of the planets likely have angry feelings about robots, seeing as the Trade Federation would destroy entire civilizations with a robot army. So, similar to real life, where people would blanket hate/distrust the ethnicity of a group they went to war with (German, Japanese bigotry after WW 2 comes to mind), it makes sense that a lot of them wouldn't give two craps about droids or their rights, and would hate them on sight "Hey you! You're droids will have to wait outside! We don't serve their kind here!" from the bartender in Mos Eisley for example.

Prequel Trilogy: Made after a generation or 2 of cultural change, particularly in the information age, and with the mindset of "robot life" being way more ubiquitous, and also accepted by a larger population.

In-Universe: The height of the "Good Times", when people were more understanding and egalitarian towards all beings. We see Queen Amidala actually award a droid for simply doing it's job. She treated it like a living being, and honored it as such.

Now, I don't even begin to try and say that this was actually a plan on Lucas' part, but I find the similarities pretty interesting, and it opens up a lot of fun story ideas. A friend of mine was jokingly thinking of making an...Activist? I forget the name of the spec, but the AoR spec that's all about inciting rebellion in the population, and having the character's focus be "Droid Rights!! Droid's are people too!" He laughed about it, but I thought it was actually a really cool idea for a concept, and a campaign. Someone who finds the systematic mind wiping of what is essentially an entire species, "born" into slavery, and kept stupid so they can't have their own identity absolutely abhorent, and dedicates their life to fighting for the ones who can't fight for themselves.

I thought it was awesome, and enjoyed the story ideas it spawned in my head.

I imagine that it depends on the class of droid. The ASP droids are designed to be dumb as a sack of hammers, so they probably don't. A protocol droid? Almost certainly.

There are people that stupid too, but we still.consider them to be people even if they have underdeveloped or damaged brains.

Those droids vote for Droidal Dumpf in the galactic primaries...

Please don't bring politics here.

A friend of mine was jokingly thinking of making an...Activist? I forget the name of the spec, but the AoR spec that's all about inciting rebellion in the population, and having the character's focus be "Droid Rights!! Droid's are people too!" He laughed about it, but I thought it was actually a really cool idea for a concept, and a campaign.

That’s actually the concept of at least one of the FFG adventures, but I won’t say anything more than that because I don’t want to be accused of posting spoilers.

Please don't bring politics here.

You are right! Sorry, my bad.

A friend of mine was jokingly thinking of making an...Activist? I forget the name of the spec, but the AoR spec that's all about inciting rebellion in the population, and having the character's focus be "Droid Rights!! Droid's are people too!" He laughed about it, but I thought it was actually a really cool idea for a concept, and a campaign.

That’s actually the concept of at least one of the FFG adventures, but I won’t say anything more than that because I don’t want to be accused of posting spoilers.

The Jawa player character in my game has droid rights and play it like that, he has Jawa guilt... One of the street gangs on Nar Shaddaa in my game, the Rusts, are droids and are droid right activists. I have a few other NPCs too and I find it interesting, so since it is part of one of the characters, it is becomming more and more a big part of the game.

The Jawa player character in my game has droid rights and play it like that, he has Jawa guilt... One of the street gangs on Nar Shaddaa in my game, the Rusts, are droids and are droid right activists. I have a few other NPCs too and I fined it interesting, so since it is part of one of the characters, it is becomming more and more a big part of the game.

A droid gang called The Rusts.....I'm so going to yoink that for a later game.

The Jawa player character in my game has droid rights and play it like that, he has Jawa guilt... One of the street gangs on Nar Shaddaa in my game, the Rusts, are droids and are droid right activists. I have a few other NPCs too and I fined it interesting, so since it is part of one of the characters, it is becomming more and more a big part of the game.

A droid gang called The Rusts.....I'm so going to yoink that for a later game.

Feel free! See the South African film Chappie for inspiration on droid gangsters

Despite my recent thread on superweapons, I've been thinking I should think a little smaller, and just focus on the Droid Rights militia they introduce in Debts to Pay. I figure droids attempting to take over the Outer Rim, enslaving and killing the organic populace is a pretty big deal.

Yes, they are self aware and ethics are installed as a factory standard.

Killing sentients can only be done by droids without certain limiters installed at the outset, or ones who have overcome those limitations through experience.

That's why it's also smart to wipe their minds every few years, so they don't get uppity and ask for equal rights or kill their owners or such.

In Star Wars, this is how I've understood it to work. That they don't start out with "true" sentience per se, but pretty **** close. To become a truly sentient individual though, requires time for them to personalize themselves through experience. The memory wiping basically sets them back to zero in this regard.

Personally, this is a kind of terrifying aspect of the Star Wars culture, but I understand the roots of it (it was the 70's, very little thought went into artificial intelligence, and personal rights for such forms of "life" ).

I don't know how much support there is for this in Canon/Legends, but I use an interpretation similar to Edgookin's. Sufficiently advanced droids are actually sentient upon creation. However, it is only through a combination of learning to mimic organic behaviors and emotional investment on the part of organics that interact with them that non-droids begin to recognize them as sapient. Whether the droid recognizes itself as sapient before others do varies.

In other words, that protocol droid is sentient from its first activation, but it is only recognized as having agency to the extent that organics recognize their own behavior in the way it acts. Depending on a variety of factors ranging from how it is treated to how prone to introspection it is, it may or may not realize that it is capable of functioning as an independent entity possessing free will before the organics around it begin to suspect.

I think a droid mind hinges on a large complex chemical mechanism for mirroring the data brought in by the sense organs and that is also capable of changing itself by having said mirrored data influence already stored data as well as incoming data. Once the system is large and sufficiently complex, its self-referencing will break off into the normal subconscious parts and more active self-referencing we call conscious thought. How this break comes about I can't even guess at. Maybe it is inevitable after the system grows more powerful in its mathematical complexity.

In episode 2 the battle droids that rolled off the assembly line seemed pretty self aware to me. Lots of "uh-oh", and such. Granted they're designed to be expendible soldiers so there's very little concept of self preservation, but they do have enough of a personality for me to assume that they would roll off the line with some self awareness.

Also, I consider droid brains to all be mechanical copies of a "developed" droid brain. As in the take a basic version, train it to walk, talk, fight, etc to their baseline standard. Then they essentially copy and mass produce it.

That's a pretty good explanation. If someone wanted to, they could copy R2D2's "droid brain" and make a thousand effective R2D2s. It would just be really difficult and time consuming. I'd imagine that the cost of mass producing "droid brains" becomes almost exponentially more expensive the more intelligent they try to make it. Granted, this is my head-canon talking, but that is probably why B1 battle droids are quite dumb.

That's a pretty good explanation. If someone wanted to, they could copy R2D2's "droid brain" and make a thousand effective R2D2s. It would just be really difficult and time consuming. I'd imagine that the cost of mass producing "droid brains" becomes almost exponentially more expensive the more intelligent they try to make it. Granted, this is my head-canon talking, but that is probably why B1 battle droids are quite dumb.

Easier explanation for that: would you really want your battle droid army to realize you use them because you value organic life more than mechanical life and decide they disagree?

(Also explains the "shut down all" feature, in the event that they do reach that decision.)

So is a perfect emulator any different from the system it emulates?

If I took apart a Wii and put a pc with an emulator in there, taking care that the copy has the exact same input and output as the original, would you really be able to tell the difference? What if I intentionally limited the pc to have the same specs as the original?

Droid sapience is the classic Classic Chinese box problem. C3PO might possess empathy and self-awareness or he might just be very good at emulating it. You really can't tell based on the movies. Not unless you had a real droid you could take apart. An even then, it would be an emulator of an emulator.

I have a few other NPCs too and I find it interesting, so since it is part of one of the characters, it is becoming more and more a big part of the game.

Before it got derailed by Mask of the Pirate Queen, 'droid rights' was the focus of the second arc of our multi-group campaign.

Two of the factions in particular hate droids, and another granted them full rights - rather cynically, because they needed the manpower (or droid-power), even though they didn't really see them as equals.

One of the PCs is a .very sophisticated droid who is in a relationship with another PC who is from one of the droid-hating factions... Quite literally a 'forbidden love' for him.

Droids and cyborgs have it pretty hard in our game; it's like Owen Lars attitude cranked up to 11. Things like Ganks are literally attacked and killed on sight by every other species. Plus there's a weird cult that's kidnapping colonies on the fringe and forcibly making them into cyborgs.

I think that there is a distinction between "sentient" and "self aware", for example I think that human infants are sentient but not self aware, and I think the same goes for protocol and astromech Droid that power up for the first time (or for the first time after a memory wipe)

In episode 2 the battle droids that rolled off the assembly line seemed pretty self aware to me. Lots of "uh-oh", and such. Granted they're designed to be expendible soldiers so there's very little concept of self preservation, but they do have enough of a personality for me to assume that they would roll off the line with some self awareness.

Also, I consider droid brains to all be mechanical copies of a "developed" droid brain. As in the take a basic version, train it to walk, talk, fight, etc to their baseline standard. Then they essentially copy and mass produce it.

The thing is that B1 battle Droid had remote processors a central computer where the CPUs resided... I imagine that the central computers /Droid brains were active for some time and cycle through several Droid bodies as the expendable "hosts" are destroyed and they get assigned new ones, so calling newly activated Droids self aware from the get go based on B1 battle Droid is not in my opinion a strong argument

In episode 2 the battle droids that rolled off the assembly line seemed pretty self aware to me. Lots of "uh-oh", and such. Granted they're designed to be expendible soldiers so there's very little concept of self preservation, but they do have enough of a personality for me to assume that they would roll off the line with some self awareness.

Also, I consider droid brains to all be mechanical copies of a "developed" droid brain. As in the take a basic version, train it to walk, talk, fight, etc to their baseline standard. Then they essentially copy and mass produce it.

The thing is that B1 battle Droid had remote processors a central computer where the CPUs resided... I imagine that the central computers /Droid brains were active for some time and cycle through several Droid bodies as the expendable "hosts" are destroyed and they get assigned new ones, so calling newly activated Droids self aware from the get go based on B1 battle Droid is not in my opinion a strong argument

Wasn't that just for S1 though? I recall that, due to the massive defeat at Naboo, the CIS army switched to independent droids that had their own processors. That way they wouldn't loose complete armies if a ship was destroyed.