When I was supposed to be working just now, a question occurred to me. There’s not really a right or wrong answer, because - as far as I recall, anyway - it hasn’t been addressed in EU/Legends or the new canon. Here goes....

Weve seen many times that droids are noted as having “male/masculine” or “female/feminine” personality programming. We’ve also seen droids that appear to be of the same model with different voices. (The oddest being EV-9D9, the droid supervisor at Jabba’s palace with a more “male” voice who was stated to be a “female” droid in the EU/Legends.)

My question is: do you think the “gender” is written into the base code of each unit, is it (and, possibly separately, the voice) something that can be set and toggled at will by the owner (in much the same way we can select voices for our GPS, Siri, etc), or does it establish itself at some point shortly after the droid comes online?

Now...as I type it out, I realized that this question can also lend itself to some real world commentary on similar subjects, so rather than go down that road that could lead to threadlock, let’s keep it to theories on droids. Agreed?

Discuss!

I don’t really buy the “male/female programming” idea. My thought would be that it’s a fairly arbitrary designation given to the droid by their owner (often based on voice).

I would suggest it depends on wether the droid is 'stock' or 'self aware'.

A stock droid I would imagine are programmed by the factory to be set up in an exact way to their owners specifications.

In my universe, droids that go for long periods of time without a memory wipe, or go through traumatic situations may pick up blips in their programming, these lead to the interesting quirks and personality twists that allow droids to become self aware or break their programming eventually becoming PCs or major character NPCs.

Droids that reach this state choose how their personality appears to the universe around them, effectively reprogramming themselves on the fly as they see fit, maybe making a set gender choice or not.

22 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

I don’t really buy the “male/female programming” idea. My thought would be that it’s a fairly arbitrary designation given to the droid by their owner (often based on voice).

I actually think it's fairly plausible that a manufacturing company would have features like that, as an option for customers who express a preference.

29 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

My question is: do you think the “gender” is written into the base code of each unit, is it (and, possibly separately, the voice) something that can be set and toggled at will by the owner (in much the same way we can select voices for our GPS, Siri, etc), or does it establish itself at some point shortly after the droid comes online?

I think either ruling is valid, based on your take on droid intelligence and how it functions. The issue here is this is a very nebulous subject by itself, and orbits around concepts of identity and awareness, which we are currently debating as a species as we approach actual AI.

My personal ruling on it, based on how the Star Wars franchise (movies at least) tend to describe droids, is that it's coded to whatever it was at creation, or their last memory wipe. So in theory you could have a droid that was previously set to Male, and then had a wipe, and has been reset to Female (perhaps as a nanny or something, to give it a more soothing persona for the child). Since they mention that the longer a droid goes without a wipe, the more "quirks" (read: individuality and identity in my book), I would assume they would have some connection to the gender they had at that time, and it would be incorporated into their personality, beyond just a vocal tone distinction.

That's my 2 cents on it anyway.

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Droids with a male voice are perceived as male, droids with a female voice as female. I’m sure there are droids that are custom-built to resemble a specific gender and possibly to have mannerisms that correspond with commonly held gender views, but I don’t think that’s particularly common. A lot of droids have no voice and aren’t built to resemble a sentient species. Far and away most droids’ function has no need whatsoever to specify or imply gender - it’s just that those who require a voice to function get one.

3 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Droids with a male voice are perceived as male, droids with a female voice as female. I’m sure there are droids that are custom-built to resemble a specific gender and possibly to have mannerisms that correspond with commonly held gender views, but I don’t think that’s particularly common. A lot of droids have no voice and aren’t built to resemble a sentient species. Far and away most droids’ function has no need whatsoever to specify or imply gender - it’s just that those who require a voice to function get one.

True but we see variation even between droids of the same type in how they speak. For example, in Empire, when 3PO encounters that silver protocol droid and says "Oh! Nice to see a familiar face", that droid responds in what is very clearly a totally different vocal tone and pattern. So it's not like every droid comes off the production line sounding like 3PO. Or if they do, they are apparently altered quickly after production. I do think it's a lot to do with customer preference, I just think that a company that builds billions of these droids, of various models, to service a galaxy size customer base, has probably considered to make them as modular and varied as their perspective clients might need. With the countless alien species in Star Wars, and all their different cultural hangups and traditions, it would be a poor company to not take into consideration that the design they thought up, might not work for every client.

8 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

True but we see variation even between droids of the same type in how they speak. For example, in Empire, when 3PO encounters that silver protocol droid and says "Oh! Nice to see a familiar face", that droid responds in what is very clearly a totally different vocal tone and pattern. So it's not like every droid comes off the production line sounding like 3PO. Or if they do, they are apparently altered quickly after production. I do think it's a lot to do with customer preference, I just think that a company that builds billions of these droids, of various models, to service a galaxy size customer base, has probably considered to make them as modular and varied as their perspective clients might need. With the countless alien species in Star Wars, and all their different cultural hangups and traditions, it would be a poor company to not take into consideration that the design they thought up, might not work for every client.

Yes, but that’s still merely a voice. It’s not a gender. Does Threepio act “male”, other than having a male voice? Does he identify as male? What would that even mean?

From a practical POV, it’s just a movie consideration. Voices create personality in characters. Threepio and Artoo are characters. They aren’t supposed to be bland. Threepio gets a voice that complements his frankly neurotic (certainly for a droid) personality, and while Artoo is a little more limited in expression his brave and more adventurous nature is clearly portrayed. Normally though, that kind of behaviour and personality would be undesirable in a droid. People don’t want astromechs with an attitude, and they probably really don’t want protocol droids that can’t stay calm during a heated exchange.

2 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

True but we see variation even between droids of the same type in how they speak. For example, in Empire, when 3PO encounters that silver protocol droid and says "Oh! Nice to see a familiar face", that droid responds in what is very clearly a totally different vocal tone and pattern. So it's not like every droid comes off the production line sounding like 3PO. Or if they do, they are apparently altered quickly after production. I do think it's a lot to do with customer preference, I just think that a company that builds billions of these droids, of various models, to service a galaxy size customer base, has probably considered to make them as modular and varied as their perspective clients might need. With the countless alien species in Star Wars, and all their different cultural hangups and traditions, it would be a poor company to not take into consideration that the design they thought up, might not work for every client.

And that’s where I was thinking along the lines of how we can select language and voice options for things like GPS, Siri, etc.

Now, Threepio...as of the prequels, we can’t really use him as a baseline for protocol droids, since he was (re-?)built by a 9-year-old prodigy. We’ve got a couple of examples, though - the one on Cloud City that you mentioned, and TC-14, for example, to establish different voices (and even apparent “default” languages). And our outlier - Threepio - retained his voice/language options and personality after being wiped following RotS. This suggests a “reset” option that just “deletes files” but keeps the “operating system” and selected preferences intact.

The main question to ask here would be whether the mainstream cultures have set gender stereotypes. If so, Kungfu-Ferret's and nameless ronin's assumptions make sense. If not, a female-presenting droid nanny would be just as common as a male-presenting one and the whole thing would come down to aesthetics, just like what paintjob to use on your droid.

More interesting would perhaps be the question whether to assign droids a gender identity beyond "it" at all. I could see this as a major point of contention between droid rights activists and marketing departments on the one side and more ruthless droid owners (and Imperials) on the other. After all, it's far easier to make the subjugation of intelligent beings palatable if you ascribe to them as few similarities to yourself as possible - but then again, a protocol droid may well be easier to market if they have more personality than a toaster and thus don't fall straight into Uncanny Valley...

29 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Yes, but that’s still merely a voice. It’s not a gender. Does Threepio act “male”, other than having a male voice? Does he identify as male? What would that even mean?

Yes he acts male, on several occasions. In fact, to give a very popular, pop culture example of what he reminds me of with his antics, is the doctor from Lost in Space. Foppish, effeminate, British, prone to histrionics and overly-dramatic reactions, etc etc.

Again, though, the OP asked 2 very different questions. "Do they have male/female settings" and "do they incorporate that into their identity in any way?" Does 3PO identify as male, is completely separate from "does he present/act as male" which I think is pretty clear from how we see him...well...presented in the films. He doesn't give off any of the "classic" female behavioral cues, and instead gives off many that are considered as male cues. A distinctly British, posh, aristocratic type of male, but it's hardly an unfamiliar way for men to behave in our pop culture. See the above mentioned Doctor (can't remember his name) from Lost in space.

Now, do droids "identify" based on their settings? I have no idea, and frankly nobody else does. As we can't even come to a consensus on this topic (as evidenced by other threads) on whether they even have identity at all, or are simply machines. I can't answer this, which is why I said in my first post I think either interpretation is valid on the subject. I know what my personal preference is on it, but others in the fanbase clearly think otherwise. And since it's never really explained to any significant detail in the franchise, we can't say definitively one way or the other.

38 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

From a practical POV, it’s just a movie consideration. Voices create personality in characters. Threepio and Artoo are characters. They aren’t supposed to be bland.

But it's not just a movie consideration. People who build robots right now, put a LOT of time and effort into making them act human, specifically so that people who interact with them, will be more accepting of them, and not freak out, run away and scream "It's a Terminator!!! Run for your life!!!" The very fact that they are given human traits, makes us identify, and empathize with them more easily. That's just how humans function, and it isn't limited to characters on a screen. So I think it's a perfectly valid tactic, of a company, to allow for such personalization of droids they buy, because they want someone who has some personality to them. Because the blank "I Am A Robot...beep...beep" kind of interaction, does indeed freak a lot of people out. So if real world robotics producers, identify that "we should probably make these things be presentable and human in at least some traits, so as not to freak out our customers" why wouldn't a fictional company do the same?

8 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

1) Yes he acts male, on several occasions. In fact, to give a very popular, pop culture example of what he reminds me of with his antics, is the doctor from Lost in Space. Foppish, effeminate, British, prone to histrionics and overly-dramatic reactions, etc etc.

2) But it's not just a movie consideration. People who build robots right now, put a LOT of time and effort into making them act human, specifically so that people who interact with them, will be more accepting of them, and not freak out, run away and scream "It's a Terminator!!! Run for your life!!!" The very fact that they are given human traits, makes us identify, and empathize with them more easily. That's just how humans function, and it isn't limited to characters on a screen. So I think it's a perfectly valid tactic, of a company, to allow for such personalization of droids they buy, because they want someone who has some personality to them. Because the blank "I Am A Robot...beep...beep" kind of interaction, does indeed freak a lot of people out. So if real world robotics producers, identify that "we should probably make these things be presentable and human in at least some traits, so as not to freak out our customers" why wouldn't a fictional company do the same?

1) “Foppish, effeminate, British, prone to histrionics and overly-dramatic reactions” doesn’t strike me as the first things to come to mind when describing “male” behaviour, I have to say. Do some males behave like that? Absolutely, but arguably not the stereotypical ones.

2) People do that right now in large part because the public isn’t as used to robots as the SW populace is to droids. Normally, form follows function - as we can see in the Mars Rover and automated assembly lines, but really also in Star Wars’ astromechs, who are designed to fit easily into a fighter craft. In general though, droid design is all over the place in Star Wars. There is no practical benefit at all I can see in making the grunt droids in Count Dooku’s army vaguely humanoid in design, but there are a ton of downsides (if you feel it’s normal the exact same droids are used as frontline troops as well as pilots and everything in between you may disagree, but that is entirely strange to me). Droidekas are much more robot-like, and astromechs are boxes on wheels. Threepio and most other protocol droids are humanoid in shape, which I can somewhat understand due to their function except not all races are humanoid in appearance (though many are, but that is a movie consideration in the first place).

The Star Wars universe is first and foremost a movie universe. And not a serious, dramatic movie universe, a space opera universe. Things look the way they do because visuals are key to a movie. You can tell the good guys from the bad guys at first glance (except when the story wants you not to be able to do that). Comic relief droids need to look a bit comical. Droidekas that need to look like a viable threat to a pair of Jedi can’t look comical. And so on.

1 minute ago, nameless ronin said:

1) “Foppish, effeminate, British, prone to histrionics and overly-dramatic reactions” doesn’t strike me as the first things to come to mind when describing “male” behaviour, I have to say. Do some males behave like that? Absolutely, but arguably not the stereotypical ones.

The stereotypical Posh British ones very much do act like that. That is in fact, the entire nature of their trope of that type of guy.

3 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

2) There is no practical benefit at all I can see in making the grunt droids in Count Dooku’s army vaguely humanoid in design

Intimidation of those they encounter. Large, hulking, menacing droids with glowing red eyes, that triggers multiple lizard brain fear responses in a lot of people.

5 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

(if you feel it’s normal the exact same droids are used as frontline troops as well as pilots and everything in between you may disagree, but that is entirely strange to me)

Personally I would think it would be easier to just make droid fighters without pilots, like they did in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. But those droids aren't being built with "interacting with the public" as their primary function, so it's not surprising they don't bother with any variation of modular capacity beyond "ways to kill stuff".

7 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Droidekas are much more robot-like, and astromechs are boxes on wheels. Threepio and most other protocol droids are humanoid in shape, which I can somewhat understand due to their function except not all races are humanoid in appearance (though many are, but that is a movie consideration in the first place).

I never said they couldn't be built in ways that don't fit a human body shape, when I said things like "make them more human" I was referring to giving them human qualities, and that's more than just appearance. It's, going back to the OT, the way they sound, any mannerisms they might express, facial imitations, etc. Just look at Wall-E and EVA from the movie, and you can see how robots that don't really match up to an exact human shape, have very human traits. Eyes that open and close with varying moods of suprise, fear, sadness, etc. They make tones that fall into the range of "cute, approachable" and don't clash with the auditory ranges that humans find pleasant versus unpleasant to hear. Even boxes on wheels like the astromechs have a chirpy, happy tone to their beeps (Happy beeps BB8, happy beeps), that convey a particular emotional cue that the public responds to, without words even being said. Those are by design. Not just by Disney and Lucasfilms, but by designers in general. Those are the things we see IRL when it comes to robot design. And I would say that it's this kind of design concepts, that have made droids in the SW -verse, so commonplace. They were built and designed to assimilate as smoothly as possible, and clash as little as possible, with any of the species' senses of Uncanny Valley, that they are now accepted as just a part of life.

13 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

The Star Wars universe is first and foremost a movie universe. And not a serious, dramatic movie universe, a space opera universe. Things look the way they do because visuals are key to a movie. You can tell the good guys from the bad guys at first glance (except when the story wants you not to be able to do that). Comic relief droids need to look a bit comical. Droidekas that need to look like a viable threat to a pair of Jedi can’t look comical. And so on.

I guess what's confusing me about our apparent disagreement? (is it? I'm not sure at this point), is that you are using concepts of human behavioral studies to explain why the creators of the films made choices in how to design their robots to convey certain emotional responses in the audience, and yet seeming to restrict those very same studies and practices, to the outside world as well. I agree that Disney and Lucas were deliberate in their design of the droids, to convey certain things, to make the audience accept and empathize with the droids more readily, so they don't turn them off and push them into Uncanny Valley. But those very same responses, would be there IRL, or in the SW-verse, when it comes to interacting with those droids. And I don't see why all of that emotional/biological response study that's been done, would somehow no longer be applicable when a company is building billions of robots to actually send out to the market. I mean, that's what test marketing teams do studies for before releasing a product.

Well , vulture droids (I think) were exactly fighters without pilots.

only real reason the B1 (?) would be humanoid is a desire to have them use devices designed for humanoids. So weapons, vehicles, buildings, controls etc

58 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

1) The stereotypical Posh British ones very much do act like that. That is in fact, the entire nature of their trope of that type of guy.

2) Intimidation of those they encounter. Large, hulking, menacing droids with glowing red eyes, that triggers multiple lizard brain fear responses in a lot of people.

3) I never said they couldn't be built in ways that don't fit a human body shape, when I said things like "make them more human" I was referring to giving them human qualities, and that's more than just appearance. It's, going back to the OT, the way they sound, any mannerisms they might express, facial imitations, etc. Just look at Wall-E and EVA from the movie, and you can see how robots that don't really match up to an exact human shape, have very human traits. Eyes that open and close with varying moods of suprise, fear, sadness, etc. They make tones that fall into the range of "cute, approachable" and don't clash with the auditory ranges that humans find pleasant versus unpleasant to hear. Even boxes on wheels like the astromechs have a chirpy, happy tone to their beeps (Happy beeps BB8, happy beeps), that convey a particular emotional cue that the public responds to, without words even being said. Those are by design. Not just by Disney and Lucasfilms, but by designers in general. Those are the things we see IRL when it comes to robot design. And I would say that it's this kind of design concepts, that have made droids in the SW -verse, so commonplace. They were built and designed to assimilate as smoothly as possible, and clash as little as possible, with any of the species' senses of Uncanny Valley, that they are now accepted as just a part of life.

4) I guess what's confusing me about our apparent disagreement? (is it? I'm not sure at this point), is that you are using concepts of human behavioral studies to explain why the creators of the films made choices in how to design their robots to convey certain emotional responses in the audience, and yet seeming to restrict those very same studies and practices, to the outside world as well. I agree that Disney and Lucas were deliberate in their design of the droids, to convey certain things, to make the audience accept and empathize with the droids more readily, so they don't turn them off and push them into Uncanny Valley. But those very same responses, would be there IRL, or in the SW-verse, when it comes to interacting with those droids. And I don't see why all of that emotional/biological response study that's been done, would somehow no longer be applicable when a company is building billions of robots to actually send out to the market. I mean, that's what test marketing teams do studies for before releasing a product.

1) sure, but it's only one type of British guy. And arguably not the type that most people will use to describe masculinity. I’d expect Daniel Craig or Idris Elba in their regular roles to be picked for that before Hugh Grant or Rowan Atkinson.

2)

Intimidation works with the big guys in the middle, but doesn’t appear to have been much of a concern with the droids on the left there.

3&4) I just don’t see the point in the effort and cost, in several cases. A protocol droid, sure, their primary function is to interact with non-droids. But is it worth it to throw money at personality software for an astromech? With a wide variety of options, nonetheless?

I’d also say Lucas’ droid design was really more focused on developing characters, just like the characters for the regular human parts were designed. Not to avoid them being weird or offputting, but to give them personalities like any movie role. The Jedi come across as wise, centred beings - because that’s what they are supposed to be. Darth Maul (and most Sith, as long as they didn’t have to be able to blend in) is menacing in appearance and demeanor. Luke is a farmboy at the start of Ep IV. Jabba is a disgusting blob. All because that fits their roles in the story. And to me, that’s what droid design focus was on as well: making them appear funny or menacing or capable depending on the part they played, not in order to be more sellable to the galactic market.

If I recall correctly, the in-universe idea behind the B1 banana heads was that they're an approximation of a geonosian corpse. The geonosians were consciously going for a terminator look and... well, it's situations like these where it would be really helpful to bring in focus groups of different ethnicities to tell you if that concept you're trying works for them.

44 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

1) sure, but it's only one type of British guy. And arguably not the type that most people will use to describe masculinity. I’d expect Daniel Craig or Idris Elba in their regular roles to be picked for that before Hugh Grant or Rowan Atkinson.

When I think "Inoffensive, unassuming, man-servant/butler, I don't think Idris Elba or Daniel Craig" Quite the opposite actually, as both of those men have very imposing personas, and one even knows how to Cancel the Apocalypse. But your Alfred's (Batman), and your Guy from Lost in Space, are WAY more common of a personality type when we are talking about a person who is in a service role. So I think that's a fairly appropriate model to choose. I mean, from the moment we heard 3PO talk for the first time, a lot of information was backfilled for us. He's not a fighter, he's more of a social/mental type character, as evidenced by his unassuming, inoffensive, non-confrontational tone and mannerisms. A butler/servant droid, from top to bottom. Why did we think that? Because he behaved like what we have grown accustomed to that type of person behaving like.

47 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

3&4) I just don’t see the point in the effort and cost, in several cases. A protocol droid, sure, their primary function is to interact with non-droids. But is it worth it to throw money at personality software for an astromech? With a wide variety of options, nonetheless?

...because R2-D2's personality pretty much instantly ingratiated him to multiple generations of fans, who found his design and chirpy speech absolutely adorable, and went out and demanded their parents buy them those toys, because they loved him so much? I mean, the only difference in that kind of marketing IRL and SW-verse, is their R2 droids are actually functioning droids. You don't think that the fact that R2 is adorable as heck, wouldn't make people in the SW-verse buy tons of his model, because they just love interacting with him so much?

5 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

You don't think that the fact that R2 is adorable as heck, wouldn't make people in the SW-verse buy tons of his model, because they just love interacting with him so much?

He’s an astromech, not the droid equivalent of a family pet? I mean, astromechs are bought for business reasons or to serve in the military. I don’t think being adorable counts as a significant plus for the military or for freight companies and the like.

You’re not wrong about the butler-type, but again - protocol droids sure, service industry droids definitely, but other droids? Still don’t see the economic value of giving them a tailored personality, gender included or not. I couldn’t tell you if Artoo is supposed to be male or female at any rate, so I assume gender is left out at least as far as astromechs go.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

He’s an astromech, not the droid equivalent of a family pet? I mean, astromechs are bought for business reasons or to serve in the military. I don’t think being adorable counts as a significant plus for the military or for freight companies and the like.

And yet when given the option to upgrade his "business reason" droid for a better one, Luke flat out refused, due to his personal attachment to the quirky little bucket of bolts. He had developed a relationship with R2, and even said that was the reason for why he would never replace him. "Not on your life! That little droid and I have been through a lot together. You ok R2?" *happy beeps* "Good!" Luke clearly treated R2 as if he were a family pet, if not a full companion/ally at that point.

So sure, ALL of the droids are for "business purposes" in the most clinical use of the term, that doesn't stop the customers from becoming attached to them, and I still don't see how it would prevent a company from expecting that type of attachment from their customers, and planning for it in the design.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

You’re not wrong about the butler-type, but again - protocol droids sure, service industry droids definitely, but other droids? Still don’t see the economic value of giving them a tailored personality, gender included or not. I couldn’t tell you if Artoo is supposed to be male or female at any rate, so I assume gender is left out at least as far as astromechs go.

I'm running out of ways to say "Making a product appealing to the customer base is good business sense, and that holds true IRL or in SW, and the insane success of the Star Wars merchandise method is a fine example of it", so I'll just stop it there. If you still disagree, well then we just disagree, as I've frankly run out of steam to keep saying the same phrases but in different structure

I think astromechs are a special case - they very often fulfill co-pilot roles in extremely stressful situations. Add that to the cliche of the quirky and otherwise aloof fighter pilot and you've got a recipe for bonding.

6 minutes ago, Cifer said:

I think astromechs are a special case - they very often fulfill co-pilot roles in extremely stressful situations. Add that to the cliche of the quirky and otherwise aloof fighter pilot and you've got a recipe for bonding.

So now we have a special case for protocol droids, and a special case for astromechs? The two likely most commonly used types of droids in SW for their versatility of purpose? So then what are the "standard" droids then? Because pretty much every droid we see has a personality. Even the clomping droid had something of an Eore/turtle kind of personality to him.

Well, going by the droid classes:

Class 1 (science & medical) would likely depend on their exact specializations. Anything that comes into contact with humans (what was the Star Wars term for "civilized species"?) gets some more people skills, though on the lower end, you might also have some pretty antisocial "meat mechanic" medical droids. Personality costs extra.

Class 2 (engineering) will mostly be non-cuddly too, with the possible exception of said astromechs and any other droids that are expected to be the sole companions of their owners for longer periods of time.

Class 3 (social and service) is obviously the class most suited to social functions and thus the most likely to receive a personality.

Class 4 (security and military) is probably the second least likely class to be cuddly-wuddly, with the possible exception of some very high class security droids that pull body guard duty. Soldiers fighting alongside droids are probably not even supposed to see them as comrades as it makes sacrifice plays easier to stomach.

Class 5 (manual labor) are explicitly noted to be of low intelligence and probably don't have much in the way of social protocols as well.

So, if I had to rank the classes from least to most socially gifted, I'd go 5 -> 4 -> 2 -> 1 -> 3.

5 hours ago, Cifer said:

If I recall correctly, the in-universe idea behind the B1 banana heads was that they're an approximation of a geonosian corpse.

In the early concept art for the Nemoidians they had long, downward-sloping snouts (see below); and the battle droids were supposed to look somewhat like their skeletons. At some point they redesigned the Nemoidians but left their droids the same.

On 2018-04-04 at 10:32 AM, Nytwyng said:

When I was supposed to be working just now, a question occurred to me. There’s not really a right or wrong answer, because - as far as I recall, anyway - it hasn’t been addressed in EU/Legends or the new canon. Here goes....

Weve seen many times that droids are noted as having “male/masculine” or “female/feminine” personality programming. We’ve also seen droids that appear to be of the same model with different voices. (The oddest being EV-9D9, the droid supervisor at Jabba’s palace with a more “male” voice who was stated to be a “female” droid in the EU/Legends.)

My question is: do you think the “gender” is written into the base code of each unit, is it (and, possibly separately, the voice) something that can be set and toggled at will by the owner (in much the same way we can select voices for our GPS, Siri, etc), or does it establish itself at some point shortly after the droid comes online?

Now...as I type it out, I realized that this question can also lend itself to some real world commentary on similar subjects, so rather than go down that road that could lead to threadlock, let’s keep it to theories on droids. Agreed?

Discuss!

If you think in terms of any programming language you need to set the code to have the droid respond appropriately. In this case using personal pronouns with a masculine or feminine coding. In all cases of X, where X is a reference to the Protocol Droid referred to as C3PO, then use Y, where why is the masculine identifier appropriate to the particular sentence structure.

This could arguably be changed by going to the source code and changing all cases of Y to read as the feminine identifier.

I see the voice as chosen for the model to represent something that makes the recipient feel comfortable with the particular designation. I.E. a droid is set with masculine programming and uses a voice that projects that. Is it possible to have a feminine voice used on a masculine programmed droid? Sure. Just load that voice matrix, it wouldn’t affect its understanding of its sexuality unless it was also programmed to think in those terms.... which would lead to some interesting results. Such an obvious logic flaw would be avoided lest it undermine its intended purpose by resulting in what we would term bugs or crashes.

I do like this question though, it raises some really intriguing roleplay options for future storylines.

Seriously though, imagine you slice into a droid and change its base sexuality while adding a subroutine where it realizes its voice no longer matches its registry for its “sexuality”... you’d end up with a spectrum from at least quirky behaviour (some success) to a complete breakdown (triumph)... it’d be a hella inventive way to deal with a droid threat, and quite funny to boot. Next time we run into a droid enemy I’m gonna whisper the GM do my roll and then wait to see how the droid responds.... a good GM could make this a rather memorable experience.