Independent Operations (closed)

[Zasabi Ray]

Droid intelligence was a poorly understood and hotly debated subject. Most understood them to be no more than immensely clever computers, capable of the imitation of intelligence without its true substance. Some, provoked by the development of quirks in droids without memory wipes, questioned whether a Droid could become sentient given enough time.

A smaller subsect of this group drew a comparison between droids and the clones of the Republic Civil War prior to the formation of the Empire. They were both created and programmed to serve a purpose from their inception, and yet only one was granted personhood in this day and age.

At best, droids were clever pets. At worst, they were tools that remained useful so long as they were suppressed through memory wipes and possessed by another.

What would it take for droid emancipation to become a reality? After all, even now beings who were considered people by the galactic constitution were still enslaved in certain parts of the galaxy, and yet the major powers were too wrapped up in their conflict to care. Who would turn their attention to the beings wo were created to be enslaved?

Jacen, we're almost to Agamar. Get your kit together

Binary couldn't pass along sarcasm, but Jacen did their best. Roger Roger, Nagrom.

Their photo receptors illuminated slowly as Jacen began to restore function to their body. The others viewed their practice of 'meditation' to be an odd one, but the process gave them time to reflect on their lives in a way Jacen felt the others never would.

Jacen unfolded from the box-like configuration their body took when in rest mode, planting their slender feet onto the gleaming floors of their quarters. The others tended to have more scuffing from travel, but Jacen spent so much of their time meditating that their chambers looked near factory fresh.

Beginning to move to their storage locker, Jacen paused. Their eyes traced across the pale blue walls before settling on a small globe of chrome, glistening like a bead of water. Reaching out with their skeletal hand, Jacen grasped the ball and lifted it easily to their photoreceptors.

It was a holoimage of a smiling Zasabi with one arm thrown around Jacen's shoulders. Between them was a small, golden statuette of a racquet that they had won as part of a tournament the Theelin had insisted they take part in. The real trophy remained on their permanent quarters back on the Bebop.

Even now Jacen was left bemused by the gesture. At the time the droid had decided that the only way to be honest to their design was to behave solely in the manner of their constructed purpose- to be a machine of war. But the activity had proven engaging in a way that left them perplexed. Could they feel pleasure in a way analogous to the organics around them? What did it mean to be honest to oneself, to enjoy oneself?

Zasabi had gifted Jacen and their fellow droids a great deal, but what did that make them? If it was impossible to be free among other sentients, then weren't they just bound to him, owned by him, in a less direct manner?

They put the Orb down, unsettled. At least the mission would offer a certain level of clarity. Simplicity.

"Roger Roger," Jacen quietly uttered before beginning to don their armor.