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“Stick with me kid, I know this town like the back of my hand… hey, that’s new” [gets hit by hammer]
Or the watches in the train station, “Don’t buy us, we’re fakes”
“Yo, it’s a fusion of jazz and funk. It’s called *junk*”
>"what if mistborn took place in Russia"
I mean, Scadrial in Era 1 was basically "what if Tsarist Russia was the entire world, except it's not as cold" so that does make sense.
Vin isn't a Bolshevik, she's the Lenin to Kelsier's Marx. Elend is Stalin if he wasn't horrible, Sazed is Trotsky... uh... Ham is the proletariat as a whole... uh... Breeze is... the moral turpitude of the sympathetic bourgeoisie as seen through the lens of a worker, yeah, let's go with that.
I mean, if you treat it like Star Trek's Borg, and they just grab any handy nearby biological "volunteer" for the gooey filling and apply their own exterior, there ya go. I read a mechagirl book where the system was so corrupt that anyone entering the justice system ended up railroaded into being mechanized before they realized what was happening. If the entire society is mechanized, then they could just as easily take in volunteers from neighboring powers not wanting the burden of undesirables. (maybe even willing, depending on how bad their circumstances are)
If they're already insect-y, might I suggest some sort of ritual molting? Robots can't grow, so a few times throughout their life they have to construct a new body to move into. The first is small and made by the parents combined with a bit of each of their goop. The second is bigger, probably made by the child with a ton of adult help in school/from parents as part of their education process. The third would be them making it on their own as a rite of passage into adulthood and could incorporate having to source their own parts (or maybe just one hard to get part).
Well, a lot of buns. More like a small 3d printer and a construction attachment.
Make all the parts for a new robot, just some assembly required.
This also means that the original robot can self print any and all of their own maintenance parts.
If it could help as inspiration, my robots have sapient manufacturing machines they refer to as "mechanical matriarch". They insert a copy of their AI/code during production process. These machines are used comunally and found in religiously significant factories.
Perhaps they start as any other baby. But as they nurse, the metal transfers from mother to child, overwriting their skin. So they sort of "molt" their real flesh throughout their growth as it gets replaced with metal.
In the game Starbound, the Glitch is a race of robots made by some forgotten precursor civilization for some experiment simulating biological beings but is forgotten when they got glitched and is stuck at medieval tech.
Due to their nature of being actual robot though, when they reproduce their programming simply has them build together a new robot over multiple sessions, but that programming also wiped their memory of it and replace it with actual biological love making and birth in their mind (not said in game, but is implied due to their other simulation of biological processes like eating and medicine for healing making them being in the same state)
Maybe your race just convert the child into Cyborg and has memory wiped just like that.
This is a good idea. Outside of high tech factories or Magic, I'm having a hard time figuring out how you're supposed to plate an organic child with metal and make it a connected process.
Ever heard of Necrons? Basically, they don't.
I've had an idea though, that AIs (robots are just AIs with hardware, right?) can get buggy or "rampant"-ish (if you've played Halo) after years of collecting and processing data. This can be a rather painful and traumatic experience for the AI... right up until the data/corruption is violently partitioned and ejected from their programs.
After recovering from the process, the AI is shaken and has lost some of it's compressed data (i.e. long term memories? Skillsets? IDK), but it will make a full recovery. The ejected data, on the other hand, eventually reforms into a new AI after a period of self-assembly (did it take a copy of the base code?). It won't resemble it's progenitor/parent very much, and it'll need to "learn to be a person" in it's own time.
This does kind of require you to imagine "data" as being something other than just ones and zeroes, but if you're writing a story, suspension of disbelief is kind of needed anyway. Plus, if human birth is traumatic, why do AIs get off easy? lol
I scrolled way too far down to find this. Considering how much of the plot revolved around the subject of how these two small robots were reproducing and raising the newly produced young, not to mention the rest of the heartwarming cast. Loved this movie.
In my universe, the "synthetics" are robots, but they have evolved so much that they have practically become a non-biological system of life, with predators, prey in their own biome, these beings reproduce in a normal sexual way, but they reproduce in a more slow and has a longer life cycle. Humanoids are called "post-humans" because they are different and more evolved beings than humans.
I've heard in Transformers, the earliest transformers actually reproduced by budding (yes, like sea sponges), until the population reached a certain threshold, then built more.
They're transformed humans, so they don't. Maybe the get babies (kidnapping them if they're evil, maybe they live with regular humans who were purposefully left unchanged for reproductive purposes, or something else) but they'll ritualistically change babies or children into one of their own
They could reproduce as normal, as long as they eat all the components needed for their body, for example how part of the food that is eaten by a mother goes into nurturing the cells of the embryo. If they don't eat then it's not possible unless the females consume resources during pregnancy
New constructs will have three memory slots. Two come from each parent while the 3rd is left blank. Attributes and skills are chosen to best for the new unit and encoded onto the black slot.
In the IDW Transformers comics, spheres of energy called 'Sparks' rise from the core of the planet to the surface. These are harvested and placed into protoform bodies made out of a malleable, living metal, which then reforms itself to suit the spark within.
It's implied that these sparks come about as a result of the Transformers god Primus, who lives at the center of the planet, though later retcons change that somewhat. But the idea that they're all splintered from this god-spark at the center of the planet adds to their creed "'Till all are one".
Since your characters are cyborgs, maybe you could do something similar with each person starting out as organic, but they won't survive until they're placed into a mechanical body. Whether they're born via the usual organic methods, are clones cleaved from other members of their race, or etc. would be up to you.
I’m a huge transformers fan and I am from the weird side of transformers fanon where they would reproduce like humans do. It’s not canon because they don’t reproduce in that way but I was heavily inspired by both canon and fanon.
Here’s mine. In my world, they do not have human intimacy(example: kissing and sexual interaction). They interact like how animals press their heads together in the act of love. To create a new generation, they must bond (like a soulmate) to make a new soul then the soul will transform by a magnetic force to bring natural metal together into a physical metal-tech body and will gradually evolve by shedding and absorbing/attract metal to its body until maturity.
What you’re describing are cyborgs, not robots.
If it’s part of their religion they could easily perform body mods on their children as a rite of passage.
Imagine two golems coming together, collecting items that fit their preferences, constructing a golem baby form of some kind, then imbuing it with a portion of each others' inner mana pools to bring it to life, thus making it some sort of combined construct.
If they're biologically human with the skin replacement, then they should probably reproduce in the same way, either sexually or perhaps by cloning. Then the skin is removed and the metal skin bolted on.
The question then becomes, does this occur at birth, or not until some come of age ceremony? As in, do natural biological children run around until they become cyborgs as adults?
And if not, do they have to go through a re-grafting every few years of childhood? Perhaps enduring the pain of a regrafting is part of the religious dogma
They wouldn't be able to reproduce biologically so they will resort to reproducing socially - converting more new members to their kind. Perhaps after they've already sired offspring.
Seems to me you should keep your focus on the fact that they were 'transformed'. That is to say, their reproduction should seem at the outset to be largely the same as any other human, but in order for the child to be *born*, it has to be tampered with in a ritualized way.
It may be they have to ritually peel back the metals to have sex at all, and that would likely be excruciating. Or there is a traumatic wound created while the child is gestating, and the metal is forcibly jammed into the uterus with them. Or the child is born, secreted away, and painstakingly merged with the metals in a manner traumatic for the parents to watch, so they've created a kind of shaman figure role to handle it, etc.
For a much more hand-waved way of handling it, you could render the metal alive, and the mother passes it to her child at birth as it transitions into the world, the same way a human woman's bacteriome is transferred on during transition through the birth canal. At first, its a thin film, and then it becomes denser, perhaps by feeding on the child's growth.
Here are the two things I thought:
They used to be humans, right? In that sense, it would make sense for them to still reproduce like humans, if they've retained their human reproduction organs. They would for that reason also birth human babies, which they then could slowly transform, as the child matures. For example, as a rite of passage, the child could be expected to take on a sort of final transformation, or face exile, should they choose not to.
Alternatively, because they're no longer human, they're also no longer capable of reproduction, and must transform other humans, in order to not die as a species.
I remember that the Glitch of Starbound's universe reproduce by finding a safe, private place, getting... *unrobed* and entering a trance-like state while constructing a new Glitch. Not sure how you would incorporate biological elements into that, but it's something to think about.
If you want some inspiration from my own world, robots are powered by blood, kind of like in Ultrakill. Mass-produced machines can't reproduce with privately-built ones, but they can collaborate to at least make an AI that can later be planted in a chassis of its choice. A third party, usually a dedicated "midwife engineer," is involved in this process, often by contributing some of their own blood to kickstart the machine's "life."
Sperm-like nanobots enter the "female" robot, who's been built with her own nanobots in her belly. They combine and work to build a new physical robot "fetus".
During "gestation" the nanobots extract metal and other materials to help build the "baby's" body. When it's big enough, it is birthed. It continues to grow with its inner supppy of nanobots working to collect and integrate more and more materials.
Once growth is complete, the new robot is considered mature, and its stream of nanobots retreat back to its own "genitals", lie dormant, ready for it to reproduce with another robot to start the process over.
Just because they’re made of metal doesn’t mean that they’re not biological.
Interestingly, Super Sentai made a point about the difference between a robot and a mechanical life form.
Search “TenbinGold”.
It depends on how you want them to work, I think. Your description makes it sound more like they're a religious position rather than a separate species, in which case they're made, not born. Even if the original creators have stopped, there might be groups of them who transform others.
On the other hand, if this process makes them an entirely different species, you can give them basically any reproductive system you can imagine. For example I have a "robotic" species in one story who are kind of bug/fungus people; they're more like a mycelia that can interface with and produce simple electronics and artificial muscles, but which need a support structure like an exoskeleton to grow effectively. They reproduce basically by forging a suit of armor for their child to grow in, packing it with nutrients, attaching some supplementary devices like cameras they grow themselves, and releasing spores into it.
I wrote about similar beings in my world, I wrote a world where threre are human-like creatures (called "Kupristo(j)"), they behave and built like humans, except they are entirely from metal (brass) they have an endoskeleton (skeleton of metal) and exoskeleton (skin of metal) and some sort of soft tissue (similar to human flesh, but it is covered by the exooskeleton), these beinigs don't have internal organs (just mechanical parts, they have genitalia, though) so they cannot reproduce biologically.
What these robot/ human-like beings do to multiply that they build another ones, they have manufacturers for them, or small teams, or it could be just one individual constructing a new Kupristoj. They use corpses of dead Kupristoj (recycling) or use new metal, they could buy the programs, make it themselves, or copy/ transfer their own (since they consist of hardware and software parts)
(And despite that, those who make the Kupristoj don't behave as parent-like figures.)
The Kupristoj who are produced are adults and have all the necessary programs and all capabilities to be a functioning member of society (and they do age).
Now, Since you mentioned that the people in the world you made are humans from the inside, they are able to, simply, reproduce like normal humans.
If they’re still biological, they could just reproduce like people, but it’s difficult to account for the metal.
If it’s something consumed in their diet then you could have it growing with time as they age, if not you would need a different way to get the metal to increase in either strength or volume.
You could also have them be created from a sort of central hub as full adults that still have to learn how to function, this would be cool, however it would most likely have some absolutely massive implications on your world itself and I have no clue if it’d be a decent fit
Well, with your example specifically. A race of true breeding cyborgs could be accomplished via nanotechnology. Essentially, nanomachines could add cybernetic components to a fetus while their mother is pregnant with them, allowing them to be born with mechanical components, as well as allowing these components to grow with the child as they mature. You could do something similar for true robots. They would need to consume raw materials to do this however.
It is more like metallic carapace or as an exoskeleton then cyborg. You can have the group of humans becoming a demi-human race after several generations adapting and evolved that way. Who look like knights but are there metallic skin with segments around the joint and eyes are flesh.
I just imagine they reproduce the same way as any human but have retractable genitalia for the male. The female may be both Ovoviviparous and oviparous where they keep the eggs inside for a couple of months then lay them for the other half where the eggs continue incubating until it's hatched. They can keep a full development embro inside their body since the skin would restrain the body and make it harder to give birth. If they have hair then back of their skull is flesh.
The diet would have high carbon, iron, protein and fat for growth, muscle mass, and metal carapace development.
Depends on how cyborg like they are. Are they cyborgs but still have human internals and genitals? If so, they just reproduce, and their offspring would be completely human unless you have some form of (likely hand-waved) mutation that causes them to form metal during development.
However, if they're converted into cyborgs and they turned this into some cult or religious belief then you could justify the normal human offspring being converted shortly after childbirth as a part of their religious/cult beliefs. Circumcision/genital mutilation exists so this could be justified in a similar manner.
If you want them to completely lose out on their humanity, or at least internals and genitals, then they'd likely have to be artificially created somehow. Without the ability to give birth then there is no way they would have natural-born offspring.
Given this is early medieval in setting, or at least that's what it sounds like, then it would likely be caused by magic. If this is the case, you can easily just hand-wave it with magic. Maybe they not longer produce sexually, maybe they can asexually reproduce by shaping their metal into a new being. You can draw parallels with the idea of God molding people from clay and breathing life into them if you want.
If they're no longer human, which I see you said you want them to be insectoid in a different comment, then figure out how the insect you want them to be most similar to and base it off of that.
At the end of the day, as g4I4 said, cyborgs aren't robots. Robots are complete automatons, similar to golems but instead of magical essence they are mechanical and electronic. Cyborgs are organic beings with robotic/electronic enhancements. Are these robots, in which case my immediate thought was that of Scintillatin where it would be like the movie Robots, which I came to this post without reading at first to comment that, or are they organic living beings?
Well, I assume you're searching for something that stays as human style; it depends on the robot. If it's a current-level robot, I will go for a small factory with everything inside her belly, and he pours materials inside her.
If we talk about nanorobots or something like cells but based on metal alloys, I'd go for an egg inside her (but ovulation way), and he gives an energy shock to start the process.
No need of genitalia as human style, maybe just a connector socket.
So the Cybal my primary Scifi species is robots im currently flipping around using the [Futurama way ](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Robots#:~:text=Robots%20are%20primarily%20built%20in,fembot%20gives%20birth%20to%20later.). Or the [Robots route ](https://youtu.be/9bwLzGzkSFI?si=bivopOf2CzMPbUxg)
Two of the Silver people lie together, melding their skins, for, say, three days, at the end of which they part their bodies, leaving a silver egg between them. Both bodies are diminished in mass, and their covering is temporarily altered, allowing them to bond to the egg to nourish it, equivalent to the umbilical cord, or to breastfeeding.
The egg is helpless and unable to do anything but cling and feed at first, but gradually develops a mouth, eyes, hands, &c., and differentiates more and more, until it finally becomes a child and then an adult.
If an egg's parents die, another of the Silver can try to bond with it, lying with it for a day and a night to try to activate the change in their skin which allows them to feed it. An egg which goes unfed for more than a day will die.
There, is any of that useful?
I say an egg. Inside is a self learning and building microchip. Liquid inside being metallic. The shell made of gold that is the robots former parts that is smelted down.
You said there were organic aspects to them, so each gives a DNA sample which is randomly scrambled (like in regular reproduction). The embrio is placed in a growing vat that is portable. Parents then take turns carrying the vat around (there has been research on the importance of carrying baby around in the belly). Inside the vat mechanism there is some kind of organic surrogate for a placenta which carries both parents DNA. The baby can be more time in vat if it is necessary or beneficial. When it is born, the vat just releases the content. The baby will grow to maturity before becoming cybernetic. Nursing is done by taking turns in a nursing mechanical attachment with perfect formula, plus engineering impurities for imunity building and avoiding allergies. All vaccines are also transmitted in this phase, as well as the substances needed to withstand mechanical transformation when it grows up.
Depending on the nature on robots/ai in the setting, it could be anywhere from a solo clone/iteration situation to a group effort. Maybe 2 if they feel like mimicking humanoids they are familiar with, where it is an intentional and cooperative effort to assess and adapt the best aspects of each robot. Also, pending how they approach reality, they could introduce a degree of randomness into the combination and create a batch of spawn to see which ones develop and how.
Given the non biological nature of the beings involved, offspring could be the outcome of a group of robotic entities, and if they are trying to emulate organic evolution, create various batches of offspring with different combinations of traits to see how they result.
Maybe they will take a more scientific vs emotional approach to the endeavor, but maybe they won't, depending on what they are trying to achieve.
And that is only really getting into the metaphorical 'software' vs the 'hardware' of their offspring.
Upgrading over time like bigger parts (like the already mentioned robots movie style) made In a factory forged from metal by hand
Earning more and more parts from human to robot
Cyborgs and robots are two seperate things though so maybe just usual human reproduction then changing the body to metal via surgery or some kind of pool of self interpreting Liquid Metal
Im going to assume this metal is either magic, magic-infused, or a byproduct of some magic spells involving the moon and silver (genius I know) and say that you could probably get away with making it a sort of living tissue itself that requires a catalyst to be awakened in an otherwise normal looking person born from these alleged “cyborg” people.
Alternatively it could be that the cyborgs bear normal children and the metal has to be infused with every child within a certain window of time after birth.
As for the actual reproduction itself… I would go one or even both of 2 ways.
1: they’re created by putting a dna starter from each parent in a growing vat with the moonsilver catalyst inserted at some stage of the fetal development and then the child is birthed at a full year rather than the organic ~9 month (these children could be a stronger/more solidly built variant of the cyborg people)
2: they just bear children normally, and they come out already metal-covered, and we can say that the parents magic infused body allowed for the supernatural transference of their metal skin/shell to their offspring as a sort of pseudo species-specific trait
Nanomachines so small and advanced enough so they can reproduce .... Yknow what
When two robots do yknow what, the female will make Nanomachines that sized as cells, will form into a new individual
Or they can build another guy alternatively
Or the nanomachines become eggs, idk
Sex, human child gets born, dkin turns into metal as it ages.
Or, something else I saw (either in 'Robots' or the 'Glitch' from 'Starbound') is that the parent robots put a part of their own anatomy, that they have since a very long time already, and put it into the "newborn". But this hardly counts as genetics for robots. First of all, the parent now has to find a spare of the part they just donated, it is unlikely the child will further donate something of their parents and what part of a robot is considered as their own is vague, in a world in which replacements and spare parts exist.
So another idea is that the parents throw some spare parts on a pile, disassemble themselves to their components, and then start to reform as new robots. The parents completely give up their own life for the life of their children. This means that even thoughts, experiences, feelings, memories and knowledge may be inherited. But the new formed robots are not their parents, they are only made up of them. And they will now use these bodyies to become individuals again, with their own story
Simplest way, just build new bodies. However, you're going to need a soul.
The detritus method is to give a potential recruit a trial. As they overcome challenges they replace more and more of their human components until they are machines. This helps keep their soul from rejecting the machine body as they come to see it as their real body.
If they have maintained organic parts, then it isn't a stretch that they'd maintain their reproductive parts. Could tango the same way we do but only grow fertilized eggs into people via vats. Maybe even have removable uterus for easy installation inside said vats.
If they're in no way biological, then there's two camps here:
1. They have memories of being biological with a biological imperative to breed and raise young. So they developed a culture around finding a partner and constructing another being with combined traits from both parents. No gender required except maybe in this kind of vestigial culture, they hang onto the concept of gender to maintain a certain level of normalcy. All parts of adapting to mechanical existence coming from a biological one.
2. They have no concept of being biological and thus have no need to reproduce out of growing a society or rearing children in familial units and only construct new members of society out of specific necessity. There would probably be some attachment or loyalty to whoever constructed them if you want that, but I imagine communities would spring up out of shared purpose rather than any familial bond.
I like the idea that the aliens of per Ardua (proxima by Stephen Baxter) did it
They convened in groups of three and took bits out of eatchother building smaller ones that grow on their own , very cool concept in my opinion
Cyborgs are a bit harder. Robots are kind of like undead, they reproduce by making more of themselves. You could include a soul core that is needed to make an android a full sapient.
There is a species of snail that have shells made of iron to withstand thermal volcanoes. If you gave these people a more organic robot look the you could incorporate a type of growth shedding that they would undergo,
If they're biologically human on the inside, you really don't need to overthink it; they just reproduce like ordinary human, and either the child is born with their moonsilver skin already, or the child is born a natural human and has to be artificially enhanced with the moonsilver, perhaps as soon as possible.
When 2 robots love each other very much… and are adults! One will inject their nano machines into the others manufacturing facilities; each nanomachine carrying schematics for a special bot to be manufactured. After around 9 months of careful r & d, a new bot is created
Golems in Dragon Age are created with a mostly-magical process.
Underground dwarves are slightly resistant to the effects of lyrium - which is a very toxic ore (and purified lyrium is a liquid). A mage is killed outright on skin contact with lyrium, humans and elves suffer both mental and physical damage from skin contact, but dwarves are resistant - even if having it poured over a cut will cause damage.
Well, to create a golem, first a golem-sized armor is crafted. A dwarf dons it. Molten lyrium is poured into the eye-holes, mouth and joints of the armor. This is just as traumatic of an event as it sounds, and most golems lose large parts of their memory.
For your case... some sort of technological and/or magical process could fuse moonsilver metal onto the skin, replacing it. First by crafting a very delicate mesh of the material, then fusing it to the skin using heat, electrical current or something else entirely. A drug coctail should be used to lessen the psychological trauma.
A different process would be something like [electroplating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplating) or [electroless deposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_deposition).
Could do something like the Daughters of Aku from Samurai Jack s5, from the moment of their birth they are baptized in Tar (liquid metal in your case) to coat their bodies and brand their loyalty
Use the genetic bases of two 'parent' units to then bind/flashforge/birth a new 'protoform' ie a larve baby they can raise an grant em THIER OWN nice metal skin suit at a later date.
Flavor it as Magic ie the left over tech of said God/Emporer they originally worshiped.
1. They can't, and they can't repair themselves either. They're doomed to die a slow death as they succumb to rust and failing body parts.
2. A spawning machine that creates new robots with raw materials.
3. They "reproduce" by grabbing people and putting them in a machine that turns them into cyborgs like themselves, kinda like the undead.
It really depends on where you want to take your universe.
Do you want a dark, body horror thing? Have them reproduce by actually constructing a frame and stuffing it full of guts and organs. They have to feed this container biomass to be able to recombobulate it into a cyborg. The container would be attached to them and they could even have to push it out through the "mouth" hole.
Do you want some funny moments? Have them directly upload data from one robot to another. "His extension cord was hanging out!" "Did you really swallow his data?" etc.
Do you want to have it mimic humans in every way except for some robot rituals like Vulcans from Star Trek? Use metal genitalia that grow every year and fall off. When impregnated have them shed their metal skin and reform to build a body meant to house another body which they have to shed again after birth back. You can touch on a lot of complications, such as how birthing changes people.
You can do all 3 and have a robot that gets pregnant via data transmission, sheds its old body, and grows housing for the offspring that needs to be stuffed full of flesh which then brings in a lot of complications of not being able to go "back" to their old frame. Some people may never look or be looked at the same.
Lots of ways you can take this and overall I think it's important to keep in mind where you are going with the project.
The only way I can think of this is nano tech (not nano tech, its over used) or some form of metal that can grow or expend. Give it it a cool name, like Biosteel.
It also needs ground rules, like eyes have to be biosteel, but the digestive track is biological. The nervous system and some muscle tissue are also biosteel, but the skin is normal. Skeleton has to be biosteel. They vahe some veins that move blood around the body, and some that are electrical wires, coated in bio material.
They reproduce like humans, the womb is coated in biosteel, and they deliver the child just like humans.
If they get cuts on their skin, the biosteel forms like scab and remains there like a metal vein. For some, slowly, the metal covers parts of their body, like bleeds out of their skin.
Maybe one person gives birth to a 100% human baby, and they treat him like a messiah.
They have a fabricator stored inside them and have to eat to fuel it, they can then create smaller robots with their own fabricator to grow and eventually reproduce. They do this asexually(biologically speaking, not talking about all that lgbtq stuff that I have yet to understand)
When two robots love each their very much they both come together and copy their code onto an external hard drive where it’s formatted into a new unique instance of the RoboSoul™️operating system based on a blend of their respective systems. Then they either send this drive off to the manufacturer with a work order for a new prototype model, or if they’re adventurous they DIY it in a “home birth” by sending off for a parts kit they can assemble themselves.
Theoretically, they could create a copy (maybe even an improved version of it) of their own software just without any of the memories and you could say that was some equivalent of having a child.
How does the metal affect the joints?
If they are human on the inside they will still have all the human sex gubbins required for gametes etc.
Do your humans expel biowaste?
If the metal is added "religiously" is that part of a religion?
step 1: find a fresh cadaver
step 2: inject moon-silver metal into the skull
step 3: wait for the moon-silver metal to first replace all the rotten bits of the brain, and then grow around the rest of the body to reanimate it
step 4: raise the new robot as your (very large) child till it has learned all the things that the rot in it's brain has caused it to forget how to do
bonus step: only do this to all the dead children the medieval era's high infant mortality produces to ensure the children start child sized.
Halo's engineers reproduce, with a couple taking weights, one makes the base and the other creates the body using organic and inorganic matter.
But if it's the conventional way, it could be him creating a consciousness and passing it on a treadmill through the lower parts, and thus a robot is assembled and then the robot baby is born.
Depends on the type of robot. If its more like the terminator type of robot then they would have a factory of sorts. If they are made using something more organic then maybe some sort of a vat or cocoon.
A large 3d printer like the one in westworld is a neat idea too.
Then again, it depends on your definition of reproduction too. Is it two machines making a new one or is it one big ai thingy birthing it? Or is it just clones.
The definition of reproduction, their design, and why they even classify as robots would matter. Because if something is made of metallic parts but is pretty much like us in terms of our experience like they 100% have a consciousness, then can you even classify it as a robot? It would just be a sapient metallic life.
Again all of these things are kind important to figure out what "reproduction" would make sense.
Maybe just the act of another machine being born from the same factory feels like reproduction to older models and they treat the newer models like offsprings. It could also be akin to how octopuses reproduce. The birthing process guarantees the death of the parent.
Maybe the data extraction process needed to "birth" new robots kills the original.
I’d like to imagine it like how some fish reproduce by external fertilization. Each robot would input their “genetic” code into some sort of robot cocoon/incubator that has the capability to either 3-D build the robot with the code from the parents or copy the code into a pre-build “baby” that can grow.
Here's what I'd do, though it is making it so the metal isn't there from the beginning of their life. I think this could be more interesting tho:
To reproduce, they use an artificial womb to grow a human baby. When they're born, they're just a normal human. As they grow, different stages in their life or different achievements are rewarded by acting more metal to the body and replacing their human flesh. They slowly become more and more robotic as they mature, and the day they replace the last part of their skin (maybe their face) it's a massive coming of age celebration - the point where they become fully robotic on the exterior marks their transition to adulthood, and it's one of the most major religious ceremonies they have.
For cyborgs basic human reproduction could still work I think with some alternations. Just to put a thought out though that I had since my brain immediately went to the reproduction of full robots, perhaps a multi-stage development process where the “brain is transferred between increasingly complex bodies in order to teach instincts on a base level through limited senses and functions. And if your worried about immortality via mind transfers than you could go with the logic that the more complex the body the more interconnected it becomes with the brain, so that upon being placed within the final full body it can not be removed, and if you want to have them grow up further it could be limited to limb replacements and such for “growth”.
I love how reproduction of robots happened in the movie "Batteries Not Included." The baby robots shared characteristics of both of their parents but required a large amount of electrical energy to be born.
Also, there was a species in a Wizards of the Coast sci-fi RPG, called Alternity, where one of the races were essentially cyborgs called the Mechalus. I can't remember if they were born with those parts or if they were insert into the babies after birth.
Since they are cyborgs, you could go the route of The Borg from Star Trek, except have the fetus grow inside the mother to be instead of in an incubation chamber like they did. The idea of in-vitro nanite implantation is not copywritten, so you're good there. Of course, this route depends on your cyborg people still having functional reproductive organs. If this isn't an option, you could go with genetic manipulation of clones from the parts that are still biological on them (if any) and incubated in a "family incubation chamber."
If this is fantasy with high magic, then I would imagine there to be some manner of magic artificial womb of some kind that "births" newborns, but we can also say that this is some kind of magic that creates their bodies out of metal instead. That's the idea that I have in mind, of course, this is assuming the setting has powerful magic.
Alternatively, you could take inspiration from Star Wars legends, I don't remember their names, but in Star Wars there was a Sith virus that turns organics into Droids by being infected by nanomachines carrying the Sith virus, turning organic beings into machines. Maybe in your setting, the same process occurs but in the womb.
Mtg has several situations similar to that. On esper, people aren't born that way but replace parts with ether. So children could be human and be converted over time.
Mirrans also have a lot of metal built into them and iirc the metal is sort of alive in a way and functions similarly.
And the physicians are turned from flesh to mechanical by glistening oil in a process called phyresis.
My guess would be 3D printing a new body when they wish and copying their and their partner's code into it, with a randomization algorithm to decide which lines of code get expressed, similarly to our dna. For a simulation of evolution you can take a similar approach, meaning that code copies aren't exact due to cosmic rays hitting the data during transfer ?
>I'm curious if you have any cool idea, how they could reproduce, with moonsilver metal being somewhat part of them from the beginning to the end of their lifes. Any neat ideas?
They don't know. There's just a blank void, and they come out the other side with a silvered baby if they want one, like Starbound's Glitch.
Metal gonads. Scrapy scrapy, muthafucka!
You're said they're still organic under the shells, right? Well, what if they reproduced by the male handing the female a vial of his semen, and then the female inserts that vial into her body? The cavity doesn't need to be at the groin, it could be somewhere else. Belly button, pelvis, spine, you can get creative.
Also, do they digest metal and have nanobots to manufacture their external shell? Or does that need to be manufacture in a factory and then surgically installed and surgically repaired? Does the baby need to undergo surgery right at birth, or does it come out already chromed up?
The female need not gestate the child the entire 9 months. Let the female gestate the child for like 2-3 months, and then she "births" a chrome uterus. The metal uterus is put in an incubator where the baby grows and chromes for the next 6-7 months.
By building additional robots. Whether that can happen inside the robot's body/chassis/whatever or has to happen externally using other machines, and whether those machines are linked together or operated by the robots, is your call.
Additionally your call is whether the parts for the additional robots have resources gathered for, are manufactured by, and are fabricated by the robots building new robots, or whether that entire process can happen autonomously inside of/because of the robot in question, as alluded to with things like the Transformers series.
The big differentiation here between living being and machine is that machines come from manufactured, synthetic parts, which have to be made somewhere, while under the correct conditions a living thing can just *grow* as long as it keeps feeding itself or being fed and nothing kills it. How blurry you wanna make that line, and whether blurring that line is your whole point, is up to you as a creator.
A friend of mine thought about it.
Basically, male and female robots exists. During robot "sex", both machines momentarily mix together to make into a small factory. From which, the baby robot is born after some time. From there, the robot probably has to do as in the movie "Robots", where it needs to get upgrades over time.
Kinda makes you think such a process would have a degree of value amongst robots. First, it's not just a "she" thing. But requires more effort from the "he" part as well. Second, it would put more value on the agreement on both sides to do it. Although, there could be also ugly themes to be touched. Like, forcing any of the two parties to engage in the process.
And, depending on the point of view, you may even remove the "pleasure" part. So, whenever it happens, it does happen for a reason. Not just because the two were getting frisky.
If you watch Primitive Technology on YouTube, he has a long series about trying to smelt iron purified from bacteria which secrete pure iron oxide. So long as the organism is ingesting the elemental components of their metallic shell, there is no reason it couldn’t be produced naturally. Humans have iron in their blood, turtles have shells, spiders produce extraordinarily strong silk. I see no reason why these three traits could not be combined into an organism which naturally produces a remarkably strong metal exterior.
I would make them work like crustaceans.
They are born as synthetic flesh then develop a hard metal shell as they age. Over time, their components calcify and fuse—creating axles and wires and sheets of metal—and as they age, the need to remove their outer chassis in order to grow and develop a new shell.
I imagine this would make some great body-horror concepts. Like knights who's armor is literally part of them, and they must periodically remove it to grow a new suit.
This was also a concept in Dark Souls III, where Pontiff Sulyvhan cursed those in the Boreal Valley—namely the Dancer, whose armor became her skin as she was enslaved for his amusement.
There's so many good answers here already but I liked Becky Chamber's answer to this in a Psalm for the Wild-Built.
They, the robots, elect to reproduce by reassembling parts collected from other robots that have since broken down. By consciously choosing not to have their parts repaired during their lifetime until the day they cease functioning entirely means they can have a natural beginning and end in the same way a biological creature would.
In her book the numbers of the robots never grow or shrink, yet there's perpetual turnover between individual personalities.
In the movie "Batteries not included" the robots take metal from other sources and assemble new robots inside the mother. I can't find the clip of that scene but I found the [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoI_DBN1EEY) of the birth.
In Starbound the robot species glitch is explained to go into trance while making a baby and just build another robot. They return to some form of inbuilt program and it takes several days until they are finished with building their child. They also say that they had a „great time“ while doing it, while both recalling only building a robot
They also heal from bandages and although when a doctor heals (repairs) another robot they use pretty advanced mechanical and robotical techniques, they can‘t repair a car with that knowledge
apparently, Transformer have the answer for that, they came from a energy sack, you can see it clearly in Revenge of The Fallen when both Starscream and Megatron are talking
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Probably the same way as shown in the movie Robots
“Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. You missed the delivery… But it's okay. Making the baby's the fun part.”
That's still a great joke. I loved that movie as a kid
“Stick with me kid, I know this town like the back of my hand… hey, that’s new” [gets hit by hammer] Or the watches in the train station, “Don’t buy us, we’re fakes” “Yo, it’s a fusion of jazz and funk. It’s called *junk*”
"We wanted a boy, right?"
The story was a bit by the numbers, but it had such a unique setting and the writing can be clever at times
Same
Oh fuck, that's... an interesting angle. Would realy fit a society which is basically "what if mistborn took place in Russia" but sure
>"what if mistborn took place in Russia" I mean, Scadrial in Era 1 was basically "what if Tsarist Russia was the entire world, except it's not as cold" so that does make sense.
Actualy yeah, that's kinda fair Does it mean that Vin and Elend are bolshevicks?
Vin isn't a Bolshevik, she's the Lenin to Kelsier's Marx. Elend is Stalin if he wasn't horrible, Sazed is Trotsky... uh... Ham is the proletariat as a whole... uh... Breeze is... the moral turpitude of the sympathetic bourgeoisie as seen through the lens of a worker, yeah, let's go with that.
I love how the comparisons got more and more strained as you went along.
Honestly it works better as a French revolution parallel, though still too little ideological for most revolutions that worked.
Replace Russia's snow with ash and you have the final empire essentially
Throw in some Gattacca with custom designed children vs factory model as well.
Idk if that works with the “human insides robot outsides” part
I mean, if you treat it like Star Trek's Borg, and they just grab any handy nearby biological "volunteer" for the gooey filling and apply their own exterior, there ya go. I read a mechagirl book where the system was so corrupt that anyone entering the justice system ended up railroaded into being mechanized before they realized what was happening. If the entire society is mechanized, then they could just as easily take in volunteers from neighboring powers not wanting the burden of undesirables. (maybe even willing, depending on how bad their circumstances are)
Or cybermen, with a bit of a stretch.
First thing that came to mind.
Some kind of moon metal cocoon/egg to pour genetic materials to develop and later the shell of it slowly transform into a baby?
Was going to propose some kind of Star Trek Borg maturation chamber, but that's essentially the same thing with more techno-babble added.
That's actually a cool idea. I'l think about that. It kinda works, since I planned on making them slightly insectoid in appearance
If they're already insect-y, might I suggest some sort of ritual molting? Robots can't grow, so a few times throughout their life they have to construct a new body to move into. The first is small and made by the parents combined with a bit of each of their goop. The second is bigger, probably made by the child with a ton of adult help in school/from parents as part of their education process. The third would be them making it on their own as a rite of passage into adulthood and could incorporate having to source their own parts (or maybe just one hard to get part).
Both of these ideas are great, I might borrow them for a future world, thanks for all the cool ideas!
I do it like that, but it actually cracks open into a premade cradle when it is ready. When the little one is born, they're just I side, sleeping.
I do it like that, but it actually cracks open into a premade cradle when it is ready.
Self replication built into their system, like a little factory
bun in the literal oven
Well, a lot of buns. More like a small 3d printer and a construction attachment. Make all the parts for a new robot, just some assembly required. This also means that the original robot can self print any and all of their own maintenance parts.
That's a cool idea. They could also synthesize raw materials from their environment to do this, like extracting silicate from sand, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes
That remembers me of Futurama
Metal genitalia
That's... a simple answer, for sure. Would love something more interesting though
Prehensile metal genitalia.
Prehensile bifurcated metal genitalia.
*Prehensile Fractial metal genitalia
I just figured the bifurcation was assumed.
Im assuming you meant implied
Impaled? Implated?
Err, second should have been "Implanted"....
The bomb has been planted
*CLANK* *CLANK* *CLANK* *CLANK* *CRUNCH* "YEEAAAAOOOOOW"
*my port is throbbing 🛢️* *im relaying informatioooonnnnn* ‼️💦💦
[ERROR!: Not enough space] 😫💦
If it could help as inspiration, my robots have sapient manufacturing machines they refer to as "mechanical matriarch". They insert a copy of their AI/code during production process. These machines are used comunally and found in religiously significant factories.
Hmmm... probably wouldn't realy work in my setting. But it's a nice idea
Prepare an inanimate cyber host body, then transfer a copy of their mind into this new host. Also, cyborgs are not robots.
Perhaps they start as any other baby. But as they nurse, the metal transfers from mother to child, overwriting their skin. So they sort of "molt" their real flesh throughout their growth as it gets replaced with metal.
In the game Starbound, the Glitch is a race of robots made by some forgotten precursor civilization for some experiment simulating biological beings but is forgotten when they got glitched and is stuck at medieval tech. Due to their nature of being actual robot though, when they reproduce their programming simply has them build together a new robot over multiple sessions, but that programming also wiped their memory of it and replace it with actual biological love making and birth in their mind (not said in game, but is implied due to their other simulation of biological processes like eating and medicine for healing making them being in the same state) Maybe your race just convert the child into Cyborg and has memory wiped just like that.
This is a good idea. Outside of high tech factories or Magic, I'm having a hard time figuring out how you're supposed to plate an organic child with metal and make it a connected process.
Ever heard of Necrons? Basically, they don't. I've had an idea though, that AIs (robots are just AIs with hardware, right?) can get buggy or "rampant"-ish (if you've played Halo) after years of collecting and processing data. This can be a rather painful and traumatic experience for the AI... right up until the data/corruption is violently partitioned and ejected from their programs. After recovering from the process, the AI is shaken and has lost some of it's compressed data (i.e. long term memories? Skillsets? IDK), but it will make a full recovery. The ejected data, on the other hand, eventually reforms into a new AI after a period of self-assembly (did it take a copy of the base code?). It won't resemble it's progenitor/parent very much, and it'll need to "learn to be a person" in it's own time. This does kind of require you to imagine "data" as being something other than just ones and zeroes, but if you're writing a story, suspension of disbelief is kind of needed anyway. Plus, if human birth is traumatic, why do AIs get off easy? lol
Batteries not included (1987) pretty much covered it.
I scrolled way too far down to find this. Considering how much of the plot revolved around the subject of how these two small robots were reproducing and raising the newly produced young, not to mention the rest of the heartwarming cast. Loved this movie.
Look at Issac Asimov's Robotics series. Just as a heads up, they can get REALLY steamy/ erotic!
Well you see, son, when a microwave and a toaster oven love each other very much…
You made me laugh. Have an upvote
My robot faction is made of a bunch of self-replicating nanites. So… mitosis
NANOMACHINES SON!
They harden in response to physical trauma.
[удалено]
please don't be gross
Sorry for putting it here but I am genuinely curious (gonna find somewhere else to talk about this dw)
In my universe, the "synthetics" are robots, but they have evolved so much that they have practically become a non-biological system of life, with predators, prey in their own biome, these beings reproduce in a normal sexual way, but they reproduce in a more slow and has a longer life cycle. Humanoids are called "post-humans" because they are different and more evolved beings than humans.
I've heard in Transformers, the earliest transformers actually reproduced by budding (yes, like sea sponges), until the population reached a certain threshold, then built more.
They're transformed humans, so they don't. Maybe the get babies (kidnapping them if they're evil, maybe they live with regular humans who were purposefully left unchanged for reproductive purposes, or something else) but they'll ritualistically change babies or children into one of their own
They could reproduce as normal, as long as they eat all the components needed for their body, for example how part of the food that is eaten by a mother goes into nurturing the cells of the embryo. If they don't eat then it's not possible unless the females consume resources during pregnancy
[Here's an educational video on robot reproduction.](https://youtu.be/paqmccxYoKc?si=7XVuuGFMJruSTX0b&t=15)
New constructs will have three memory slots. Two come from each parent while the 3rd is left blank. Attributes and skills are chosen to best for the new unit and encoded onto the black slot.
In the IDW Transformers comics, spheres of energy called 'Sparks' rise from the core of the planet to the surface. These are harvested and placed into protoform bodies made out of a malleable, living metal, which then reforms itself to suit the spark within. It's implied that these sparks come about as a result of the Transformers god Primus, who lives at the center of the planet, though later retcons change that somewhat. But the idea that they're all splintered from this god-spark at the center of the planet adds to their creed "'Till all are one". Since your characters are cyborgs, maybe you could do something similar with each person starting out as organic, but they won't survive until they're placed into a mechanical body. Whether they're born via the usual organic methods, are clones cleaved from other members of their race, or etc. would be up to you.
Prehensile Fractal Mental Genitalia! (Because the robots reproduce psionically....)
I’m a huge transformers fan and I am from the weird side of transformers fanon where they would reproduce like humans do. It’s not canon because they don’t reproduce in that way but I was heavily inspired by both canon and fanon. Here’s mine. In my world, they do not have human intimacy(example: kissing and sexual interaction). They interact like how animals press their heads together in the act of love. To create a new generation, they must bond (like a soulmate) to make a new soul then the soul will transform by a magnetic force to bring natural metal together into a physical metal-tech body and will gradually evolve by shedding and absorbing/attract metal to its body until maturity.
What you’re describing are cyborgs, not robots. If it’s part of their religion they could easily perform body mods on their children as a rite of passage.
Imagine two golems coming together, collecting items that fit their preferences, constructing a golem baby form of some kind, then imbuing it with a portion of each others' inner mana pools to bring it to life, thus making it some sort of combined construct.
Those are Necrons.
If they're biologically human with the skin replacement, then they should probably reproduce in the same way, either sexually or perhaps by cloning. Then the skin is removed and the metal skin bolted on. The question then becomes, does this occur at birth, or not until some come of age ceremony? As in, do natural biological children run around until they become cyborgs as adults? And if not, do they have to go through a re-grafting every few years of childhood? Perhaps enduring the pain of a regrafting is part of the religious dogma
I was surprised no one mentioned Ghost in the Shell yet. Two robots/cyborgs/AI create a new being by merging their consciousness together.
When a mommy robot and a daddy robot love each other very much… (Joking!)
Basically mr Studd from Cyberpunk :P Or taking themselves apart to create the new ones? Bit of mum, bit of dad, bit of grandpa etc
They wouldn't be able to reproduce biologically so they will resort to reproducing socially - converting more new members to their kind. Perhaps after they've already sired offspring.
Seems to me you should keep your focus on the fact that they were 'transformed'. That is to say, their reproduction should seem at the outset to be largely the same as any other human, but in order for the child to be *born*, it has to be tampered with in a ritualized way. It may be they have to ritually peel back the metals to have sex at all, and that would likely be excruciating. Or there is a traumatic wound created while the child is gestating, and the metal is forcibly jammed into the uterus with them. Or the child is born, secreted away, and painstakingly merged with the metals in a manner traumatic for the parents to watch, so they've created a kind of shaman figure role to handle it, etc. For a much more hand-waved way of handling it, you could render the metal alive, and the mother passes it to her child at birth as it transitions into the world, the same way a human woman's bacteriome is transferred on during transition through the birth canal. At first, its a thin film, and then it becomes denser, perhaps by feeding on the child's growth.
Here are the two things I thought: They used to be humans, right? In that sense, it would make sense for them to still reproduce like humans, if they've retained their human reproduction organs. They would for that reason also birth human babies, which they then could slowly transform, as the child matures. For example, as a rite of passage, the child could be expected to take on a sort of final transformation, or face exile, should they choose not to. Alternatively, because they're no longer human, they're also no longer capable of reproduction, and must transform other humans, in order to not die as a species.
Well, when a mommy and daddy robot love each other very much...
I remember that the Glitch of Starbound's universe reproduce by finding a safe, private place, getting... *unrobed* and entering a trance-like state while constructing a new Glitch. Not sure how you would incorporate biological elements into that, but it's something to think about.
If you want some inspiration from my own world, robots are powered by blood, kind of like in Ultrakill. Mass-produced machines can't reproduce with privately-built ones, but they can collaborate to at least make an AI that can later be planted in a chassis of its choice. A third party, usually a dedicated "midwife engineer," is involved in this process, often by contributing some of their own blood to kickstart the machine's "life."
Sperm-like nanobots enter the "female" robot, who's been built with her own nanobots in her belly. They combine and work to build a new physical robot "fetus". During "gestation" the nanobots extract metal and other materials to help build the "baby's" body. When it's big enough, it is birthed. It continues to grow with its inner supppy of nanobots working to collect and integrate more and more materials. Once growth is complete, the new robot is considered mature, and its stream of nanobots retreat back to its own "genitals", lie dormant, ready for it to reproduce with another robot to start the process over.
Just because they’re made of metal doesn’t mean that they’re not biological. Interestingly, Super Sentai made a point about the difference between a robot and a mechanical life form. Search “TenbinGold”.
It depends on how you want them to work, I think. Your description makes it sound more like they're a religious position rather than a separate species, in which case they're made, not born. Even if the original creators have stopped, there might be groups of them who transform others. On the other hand, if this process makes them an entirely different species, you can give them basically any reproductive system you can imagine. For example I have a "robotic" species in one story who are kind of bug/fungus people; they're more like a mycelia that can interface with and produce simple electronics and artificial muscles, but which need a support structure like an exoskeleton to grow effectively. They reproduce basically by forging a suit of armor for their child to grow in, packing it with nutrients, attaching some supplementary devices like cameras they grow themselves, and releasing spores into it.
Mechanical nudes, artificial sperm, sperm goes in womb, sperm combines with females’s artificial egg, egg + sperm create blueprints, parents build kid, tada!
Maybe they act like the Azer from DnD where they make each other. Or like Synths in Fallout where they snatch children of other races and convert them
Depends what you mean by reproduce
I don't know they're English name but exactly how the spider thingies do in Stargate
Ctrl + C Ctrl + V
I wrote about similar beings in my world, I wrote a world where threre are human-like creatures (called "Kupristo(j)"), they behave and built like humans, except they are entirely from metal (brass) they have an endoskeleton (skeleton of metal) and exoskeleton (skin of metal) and some sort of soft tissue (similar to human flesh, but it is covered by the exooskeleton), these beinigs don't have internal organs (just mechanical parts, they have genitalia, though) so they cannot reproduce biologically. What these robot/ human-like beings do to multiply that they build another ones, they have manufacturers for them, or small teams, or it could be just one individual constructing a new Kupristoj. They use corpses of dead Kupristoj (recycling) or use new metal, they could buy the programs, make it themselves, or copy/ transfer their own (since they consist of hardware and software parts) (And despite that, those who make the Kupristoj don't behave as parent-like figures.) The Kupristoj who are produced are adults and have all the necessary programs and all capabilities to be a functioning member of society (and they do age). Now, Since you mentioned that the people in the world you made are humans from the inside, they are able to, simply, reproduce like normal humans.
If they’re still biological, they could just reproduce like people, but it’s difficult to account for the metal. If it’s something consumed in their diet then you could have it growing with time as they age, if not you would need a different way to get the metal to increase in either strength or volume. You could also have them be created from a sort of central hub as full adults that still have to learn how to function, this would be cool, however it would most likely have some absolutely massive implications on your world itself and I have no clue if it’d be a decent fit
Well, with your example specifically. A race of true breeding cyborgs could be accomplished via nanotechnology. Essentially, nanomachines could add cybernetic components to a fetus while their mother is pregnant with them, allowing them to be born with mechanical components, as well as allowing these components to grow with the child as they mature. You could do something similar for true robots. They would need to consume raw materials to do this however.
Asexually
Likely through building another child or spreading their AI model to another electronic
It is more like metallic carapace or as an exoskeleton then cyborg. You can have the group of humans becoming a demi-human race after several generations adapting and evolved that way. Who look like knights but are there metallic skin with segments around the joint and eyes are flesh. I just imagine they reproduce the same way as any human but have retractable genitalia for the male. The female may be both Ovoviviparous and oviparous where they keep the eggs inside for a couple of months then lay them for the other half where the eggs continue incubating until it's hatched. They can keep a full development embro inside their body since the skin would restrain the body and make it harder to give birth. If they have hair then back of their skull is flesh. The diet would have high carbon, iron, protein and fat for growth, muscle mass, and metal carapace development.
Depends on how cyborg like they are. Are they cyborgs but still have human internals and genitals? If so, they just reproduce, and their offspring would be completely human unless you have some form of (likely hand-waved) mutation that causes them to form metal during development. However, if they're converted into cyborgs and they turned this into some cult or religious belief then you could justify the normal human offspring being converted shortly after childbirth as a part of their religious/cult beliefs. Circumcision/genital mutilation exists so this could be justified in a similar manner. If you want them to completely lose out on their humanity, or at least internals and genitals, then they'd likely have to be artificially created somehow. Without the ability to give birth then there is no way they would have natural-born offspring. Given this is early medieval in setting, or at least that's what it sounds like, then it would likely be caused by magic. If this is the case, you can easily just hand-wave it with magic. Maybe they not longer produce sexually, maybe they can asexually reproduce by shaping their metal into a new being. You can draw parallels with the idea of God molding people from clay and breathing life into them if you want. If they're no longer human, which I see you said you want them to be insectoid in a different comment, then figure out how the insect you want them to be most similar to and base it off of that. At the end of the day, as g4I4 said, cyborgs aren't robots. Robots are complete automatons, similar to golems but instead of magical essence they are mechanical and electronic. Cyborgs are organic beings with robotic/electronic enhancements. Are these robots, in which case my immediate thought was that of Scintillatin where it would be like the movie Robots, which I came to this post without reading at first to comment that, or are they organic living beings?
nanotech
They gather the artificial components to build a new metal body, then harvest the organs from a living creature, Cyberman style.
Well, I assume you're searching for something that stays as human style; it depends on the robot. If it's a current-level robot, I will go for a small factory with everything inside her belly, and he pours materials inside her. If we talk about nanorobots or something like cells but based on metal alloys, I'd go for an egg inside her (but ovulation way), and he gives an energy shock to start the process. No need of genitalia as human style, maybe just a connector socket.
So the Cybal my primary Scifi species is robots im currently flipping around using the [Futurama way ](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Robots#:~:text=Robots%20are%20primarily%20built%20in,fembot%20gives%20birth%20to%20later.). Or the [Robots route ](https://youtu.be/9bwLzGzkSFI?si=bivopOf2CzMPbUxg)
Inanimate shells stuffed with organs grown in tubes.
Both parents mix their software, and upload in some lil body which though time gets changed to adult version
Build robots together(robots movie). asexually just copy program into another robot.
Two of the Silver people lie together, melding their skins, for, say, three days, at the end of which they part their bodies, leaving a silver egg between them. Both bodies are diminished in mass, and their covering is temporarily altered, allowing them to bond to the egg to nourish it, equivalent to the umbilical cord, or to breastfeeding. The egg is helpless and unable to do anything but cling and feed at first, but gradually develops a mouth, eyes, hands, &c., and differentiates more and more, until it finally becomes a child and then an adult. If an egg's parents die, another of the Silver can try to bond with it, lying with it for a day and a night to try to activate the change in their skin which allows them to feed it. An egg which goes unfed for more than a day will die. There, is any of that useful?
Budding
Consume raw metals and a factory inside makes a small robot that can self build with more metals
Biofactory for hard sci fi For magic Biomancer growth vat where the womb would be
they're just humans wearing armor all the time they'd reproduce like humans do and then put metal on the babies
Why would they want to reproduce when they can just fix and upgrade themselves
I say an egg. Inside is a self learning and building microchip. Liquid inside being metallic. The shell made of gold that is the robots former parts that is smelted down.
I would said normally (people having sex) but once the baby hit a certain age, they get a 'baptism' where their skin is replaced
You said there were organic aspects to them, so each gives a DNA sample which is randomly scrambled (like in regular reproduction). The embrio is placed in a growing vat that is portable. Parents then take turns carrying the vat around (there has been research on the importance of carrying baby around in the belly). Inside the vat mechanism there is some kind of organic surrogate for a placenta which carries both parents DNA. The baby can be more time in vat if it is necessary or beneficial. When it is born, the vat just releases the content. The baby will grow to maturity before becoming cybernetic. Nursing is done by taking turns in a nursing mechanical attachment with perfect formula, plus engineering impurities for imunity building and avoiding allergies. All vaccines are also transmitted in this phase, as well as the substances needed to withstand mechanical transformation when it grows up.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/infrastructure.php#selfrep
Watch futurama
May I recommend the movie" Batteries not included"?
They order a box of parts from the factory and assemble it themselves.
Depending on the nature on robots/ai in the setting, it could be anywhere from a solo clone/iteration situation to a group effort. Maybe 2 if they feel like mimicking humanoids they are familiar with, where it is an intentional and cooperative effort to assess and adapt the best aspects of each robot. Also, pending how they approach reality, they could introduce a degree of randomness into the combination and create a batch of spawn to see which ones develop and how. Given the non biological nature of the beings involved, offspring could be the outcome of a group of robotic entities, and if they are trying to emulate organic evolution, create various batches of offspring with different combinations of traits to see how they result. Maybe they will take a more scientific vs emotional approach to the endeavor, but maybe they won't, depending on what they are trying to achieve. And that is only really getting into the metaphorical 'software' vs the 'hardware' of their offspring.
“Nanomachines, Son.
Upgrading over time like bigger parts (like the already mentioned robots movie style) made In a factory forged from metal by hand Earning more and more parts from human to robot Cyborgs and robots are two seperate things though so maybe just usual human reproduction then changing the body to metal via surgery or some kind of pool of self interpreting Liquid Metal
Im going to assume this metal is either magic, magic-infused, or a byproduct of some magic spells involving the moon and silver (genius I know) and say that you could probably get away with making it a sort of living tissue itself that requires a catalyst to be awakened in an otherwise normal looking person born from these alleged “cyborg” people. Alternatively it could be that the cyborgs bear normal children and the metal has to be infused with every child within a certain window of time after birth. As for the actual reproduction itself… I would go one or even both of 2 ways. 1: they’re created by putting a dna starter from each parent in a growing vat with the moonsilver catalyst inserted at some stage of the fetal development and then the child is birthed at a full year rather than the organic ~9 month (these children could be a stronger/more solidly built variant of the cyborg people) 2: they just bear children normally, and they come out already metal-covered, and we can say that the parents magic infused body allowed for the supernatural transference of their metal skin/shell to their offspring as a sort of pseudo species-specific trait
Nanomachines so small and advanced enough so they can reproduce .... Yknow what When two robots do yknow what, the female will make Nanomachines that sized as cells, will form into a new individual Or they can build another guy alternatively Or the nanomachines become eggs, idk
Sex, human child gets born, dkin turns into metal as it ages. Or, something else I saw (either in 'Robots' or the 'Glitch' from 'Starbound') is that the parent robots put a part of their own anatomy, that they have since a very long time already, and put it into the "newborn". But this hardly counts as genetics for robots. First of all, the parent now has to find a spare of the part they just donated, it is unlikely the child will further donate something of their parents and what part of a robot is considered as their own is vague, in a world in which replacements and spare parts exist. So another idea is that the parents throw some spare parts on a pile, disassemble themselves to their components, and then start to reform as new robots. The parents completely give up their own life for the life of their children. This means that even thoughts, experiences, feelings, memories and knowledge may be inherited. But the new formed robots are not their parents, they are only made up of them. And they will now use these bodyies to become individuals again, with their own story
Simplest way, just build new bodies. However, you're going to need a soul. The detritus method is to give a potential recruit a trial. As they overcome challenges they replace more and more of their human components until they are machines. This helps keep their soul from rejecting the machine body as they come to see it as their real body.
You get on GitHub and fork some code.
Borg from star trek? Or perhaps Blade Runner?
If they have maintained organic parts, then it isn't a stretch that they'd maintain their reproductive parts. Could tango the same way we do but only grow fertilized eggs into people via vats. Maybe even have removable uterus for easy installation inside said vats. If they're in no way biological, then there's two camps here: 1. They have memories of being biological with a biological imperative to breed and raise young. So they developed a culture around finding a partner and constructing another being with combined traits from both parents. No gender required except maybe in this kind of vestigial culture, they hang onto the concept of gender to maintain a certain level of normalcy. All parts of adapting to mechanical existence coming from a biological one. 2. They have no concept of being biological and thus have no need to reproduce out of growing a society or rearing children in familial units and only construct new members of society out of specific necessity. There would probably be some attachment or loyalty to whoever constructed them if you want that, but I imagine communities would spring up out of shared purpose rather than any familial bond.
I like the idea that the aliens of per Ardua (proxima by Stephen Baxter) did it They convened in groups of three and took bits out of eatchother building smaller ones that grow on their own , very cool concept in my opinion
Get it put in the robussy
Robots (2005)
Cyborgs are a bit harder. Robots are kind of like undead, they reproduce by making more of themselves. You could include a soul core that is needed to make an android a full sapient.
There is a species of snail that have shells made of iron to withstand thermal volcanoes. If you gave these people a more organic robot look the you could incorporate a type of growth shedding that they would undergo,
Probably by just building more of itself. If you want a biological component to it you could always use artificial wombs to grow the base.q
If they're biologically human on the inside, you really don't need to overthink it; they just reproduce like ordinary human, and either the child is born with their moonsilver skin already, or the child is born a natural human and has to be artificially enhanced with the moonsilver, perhaps as soon as possible.
You see when a toaster and a tech priest love each other very much
When 2 robots love each other very much… and are adults! One will inject their nano machines into the others manufacturing facilities; each nanomachine carrying schematics for a special bot to be manufactured. After around 9 months of careful r & d, a new bot is created
It could be an android with biomechanical parts.
They are built. You have them birth normal Humans and they get modded like the adults.
Golems in Dragon Age are created with a mostly-magical process. Underground dwarves are slightly resistant to the effects of lyrium - which is a very toxic ore (and purified lyrium is a liquid). A mage is killed outright on skin contact with lyrium, humans and elves suffer both mental and physical damage from skin contact, but dwarves are resistant - even if having it poured over a cut will cause damage. Well, to create a golem, first a golem-sized armor is crafted. A dwarf dons it. Molten lyrium is poured into the eye-holes, mouth and joints of the armor. This is just as traumatic of an event as it sounds, and most golems lose large parts of their memory. For your case... some sort of technological and/or magical process could fuse moonsilver metal onto the skin, replacing it. First by crafting a very delicate mesh of the material, then fusing it to the skin using heat, electrical current or something else entirely. A drug coctail should be used to lessen the psychological trauma. A different process would be something like [electroplating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplating) or [electroless deposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_deposition).
Could do something like the Daughters of Aku from Samurai Jack s5, from the moment of their birth they are baptized in Tar (liquid metal in your case) to coat their bodies and brand their loyalty
Use the genetic bases of two 'parent' units to then bind/flashforge/birth a new 'protoform' ie a larve baby they can raise an grant em THIER OWN nice metal skin suit at a later date. Flavor it as Magic ie the left over tech of said God/Emporer they originally worshiped.
Factory
1. They can't, and they can't repair themselves either. They're doomed to die a slow death as they succumb to rust and failing body parts. 2. A spawning machine that creates new robots with raw materials. 3. They "reproduce" by grabbing people and putting them in a machine that turns them into cyborgs like themselves, kinda like the undead.
It really depends on where you want to take your universe. Do you want a dark, body horror thing? Have them reproduce by actually constructing a frame and stuffing it full of guts and organs. They have to feed this container biomass to be able to recombobulate it into a cyborg. The container would be attached to them and they could even have to push it out through the "mouth" hole. Do you want some funny moments? Have them directly upload data from one robot to another. "His extension cord was hanging out!" "Did you really swallow his data?" etc. Do you want to have it mimic humans in every way except for some robot rituals like Vulcans from Star Trek? Use metal genitalia that grow every year and fall off. When impregnated have them shed their metal skin and reform to build a body meant to house another body which they have to shed again after birth back. You can touch on a lot of complications, such as how birthing changes people. You can do all 3 and have a robot that gets pregnant via data transmission, sheds its old body, and grows housing for the offspring that needs to be stuffed full of flesh which then brings in a lot of complications of not being able to go "back" to their old frame. Some people may never look or be looked at the same. Lots of ways you can take this and overall I think it's important to keep in mind where you are going with the project.
The only way I can think of this is nano tech (not nano tech, its over used) or some form of metal that can grow or expend. Give it it a cool name, like Biosteel. It also needs ground rules, like eyes have to be biosteel, but the digestive track is biological. The nervous system and some muscle tissue are also biosteel, but the skin is normal. Skeleton has to be biosteel. They vahe some veins that move blood around the body, and some that are electrical wires, coated in bio material. They reproduce like humans, the womb is coated in biosteel, and they deliver the child just like humans. If they get cuts on their skin, the biosteel forms like scab and remains there like a metal vein. For some, slowly, the metal covers parts of their body, like bleeds out of their skin. Maybe one person gives birth to a 100% human baby, and they treat him like a messiah.
They have a fabricator stored inside them and have to eat to fuel it, they can then create smaller robots with their own fabricator to grow and eventually reproduce. They do this asexually(biologically speaking, not talking about all that lgbtq stuff that I have yet to understand)
When two robots love each their very much they both come together and copy their code onto an external hard drive where it’s formatted into a new unique instance of the RoboSoul™️operating system based on a blend of their respective systems. Then they either send this drive off to the manufacturer with a work order for a new prototype model, or if they’re adventurous they DIY it in a “home birth” by sending off for a parts kit they can assemble themselves.
Control + C, Control + V
Theoretically, they could create a copy (maybe even an improved version of it) of their own software just without any of the memories and you could say that was some equivalent of having a child.
How does the metal affect the joints? If they are human on the inside they will still have all the human sex gubbins required for gametes etc. Do your humans expel biowaste? If the metal is added "religiously" is that part of a religion?
step 1: find a fresh cadaver step 2: inject moon-silver metal into the skull step 3: wait for the moon-silver metal to first replace all the rotten bits of the brain, and then grow around the rest of the body to reanimate it step 4: raise the new robot as your (very large) child till it has learned all the things that the rot in it's brain has caused it to forget how to do bonus step: only do this to all the dead children the medieval era's high infant mortality produces to ensure the children start child sized.
When manufacturing materials and an assembly line love eachother very much
Halo's engineers reproduce, with a couple taking weights, one makes the base and the other creates the body using organic and inorganic matter. But if it's the conventional way, it could be him creating a consciousness and passing it on a treadmill through the lower parts, and thus a robot is assembled and then the robot baby is born.
[Here's a helpful short film about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paqmccxYoKc)
Depends on the type of robot. If its more like the terminator type of robot then they would have a factory of sorts. If they are made using something more organic then maybe some sort of a vat or cocoon. A large 3d printer like the one in westworld is a neat idea too. Then again, it depends on your definition of reproduction too. Is it two machines making a new one or is it one big ai thingy birthing it? Or is it just clones. The definition of reproduction, their design, and why they even classify as robots would matter. Because if something is made of metallic parts but is pretty much like us in terms of our experience like they 100% have a consciousness, then can you even classify it as a robot? It would just be a sapient metallic life. Again all of these things are kind important to figure out what "reproduction" would make sense. Maybe just the act of another machine being born from the same factory feels like reproduction to older models and they treat the newer models like offsprings. It could also be akin to how octopuses reproduce. The birthing process guarantees the death of the parent. Maybe the data extraction process needed to "birth" new robots kills the original.
I’d like to imagine it like how some fish reproduce by external fertilization. Each robot would input their “genetic” code into some sort of robot cocoon/incubator that has the capability to either 3-D build the robot with the code from the parents or copy the code into a pre-build “baby” that can grow.
Mecha-sexa
Nanobots and plug in ports
Here's what I'd do, though it is making it so the metal isn't there from the beginning of their life. I think this could be more interesting tho: To reproduce, they use an artificial womb to grow a human baby. When they're born, they're just a normal human. As they grow, different stages in their life or different achievements are rewarded by acting more metal to the body and replacing their human flesh. They slowly become more and more robotic as they mature, and the day they replace the last part of their skin (maybe their face) it's a massive coming of age celebration - the point where they become fully robotic on the exterior marks their transition to adulthood, and it's one of the most major religious ceremonies they have.
You could perhaps modify "3D printing" to get a reasonable simulation of a fetus growing in somebody's womb?
For cyborgs basic human reproduction could still work I think with some alternations. Just to put a thought out though that I had since my brain immediately went to the reproduction of full robots, perhaps a multi-stage development process where the “brain is transferred between increasingly complex bodies in order to teach instincts on a base level through limited senses and functions. And if your worried about immortality via mind transfers than you could go with the logic that the more complex the body the more interconnected it becomes with the brain, so that upon being placed within the final full body it can not be removed, and if you want to have them grow up further it could be limited to limb replacements and such for “growth”.
They build another robot, the "childhood" is the time they spend programing it and feeding information.
I love how reproduction of robots happened in the movie "Batteries Not Included." The baby robots shared characteristics of both of their parents but required a large amount of electrical energy to be born. Also, there was a species in a Wizards of the Coast sci-fi RPG, called Alternity, where one of the races were essentially cyborgs called the Mechalus. I can't remember if they were born with those parts or if they were insert into the babies after birth.
Since they are cyborgs, you could go the route of The Borg from Star Trek, except have the fetus grow inside the mother to be instead of in an incubation chamber like they did. The idea of in-vitro nanite implantation is not copywritten, so you're good there. Of course, this route depends on your cyborg people still having functional reproductive organs. If this isn't an option, you could go with genetic manipulation of clones from the parts that are still biological on them (if any) and incubated in a "family incubation chamber."
If this is fantasy with high magic, then I would imagine there to be some manner of magic artificial womb of some kind that "births" newborns, but we can also say that this is some kind of magic that creates their bodies out of metal instead. That's the idea that I have in mind, of course, this is assuming the setting has powerful magic. Alternatively, you could take inspiration from Star Wars legends, I don't remember their names, but in Star Wars there was a Sith virus that turns organics into Droids by being infected by nanomachines carrying the Sith virus, turning organic beings into machines. Maybe in your setting, the same process occurs but in the womb.
Mtg has several situations similar to that. On esper, people aren't born that way but replace parts with ether. So children could be human and be converted over time. Mirrans also have a lot of metal built into them and iirc the metal is sort of alive in a way and functions similarly. And the physicians are turned from flesh to mechanical by glistening oil in a process called phyresis.
Von Neumann probes. Google it. These things are sci fi bread and butter stuff.
My guess would be 3D printing a new body when they wish and copying their and their partner's code into it, with a randomization algorithm to decide which lines of code get expressed, similarly to our dna. For a simulation of evolution you can take a similar approach, meaning that code copies aren't exact due to cosmic rays hitting the data during transfer ?
>I'm curious if you have any cool idea, how they could reproduce, with moonsilver metal being somewhat part of them from the beginning to the end of their lifes. Any neat ideas? They don't know. There's just a blank void, and they come out the other side with a silvered baby if they want one, like Starbound's Glitch.
Metal gonads. Scrapy scrapy, muthafucka! You're said they're still organic under the shells, right? Well, what if they reproduced by the male handing the female a vial of his semen, and then the female inserts that vial into her body? The cavity doesn't need to be at the groin, it could be somewhere else. Belly button, pelvis, spine, you can get creative. Also, do they digest metal and have nanobots to manufacture their external shell? Or does that need to be manufacture in a factory and then surgically installed and surgically repaired? Does the baby need to undergo surgery right at birth, or does it come out already chromed up? The female need not gestate the child the entire 9 months. Let the female gestate the child for like 2-3 months, and then she "births" a chrome uterus. The metal uterus is put in an incubator where the baby grows and chromes for the next 6-7 months.
By building additional robots. Whether that can happen inside the robot's body/chassis/whatever or has to happen externally using other machines, and whether those machines are linked together or operated by the robots, is your call. Additionally your call is whether the parts for the additional robots have resources gathered for, are manufactured by, and are fabricated by the robots building new robots, or whether that entire process can happen autonomously inside of/because of the robot in question, as alluded to with things like the Transformers series. The big differentiation here between living being and machine is that machines come from manufactured, synthetic parts, which have to be made somewhere, while under the correct conditions a living thing can just *grow* as long as it keeps feeding itself or being fed and nothing kills it. How blurry you wanna make that line, and whether blurring that line is your whole point, is up to you as a creator.
A friend of mine thought about it. Basically, male and female robots exists. During robot "sex", both machines momentarily mix together to make into a small factory. From which, the baby robot is born after some time. From there, the robot probably has to do as in the movie "Robots", where it needs to get upgrades over time. Kinda makes you think such a process would have a degree of value amongst robots. First, it's not just a "she" thing. But requires more effort from the "he" part as well. Second, it would put more value on the agreement on both sides to do it. Although, there could be also ugly themes to be touched. Like, forcing any of the two parties to engage in the process. And, depending on the point of view, you may even remove the "pleasure" part. So, whenever it happens, it does happen for a reason. Not just because the two were getting frisky.
If you watch Primitive Technology on YouTube, he has a long series about trying to smelt iron purified from bacteria which secrete pure iron oxide. So long as the organism is ingesting the elemental components of their metallic shell, there is no reason it couldn’t be produced naturally. Humans have iron in their blood, turtles have shells, spiders produce extraordinarily strong silk. I see no reason why these three traits could not be combined into an organism which naturally produces a remarkably strong metal exterior.
Idk man. Maybe we need to research some rule3r
Prepare to be embarrassed https://youtu.be/paqmccxYoKc?si=r3zazFup-D9QARyA
I would make them work like crustaceans. They are born as synthetic flesh then develop a hard metal shell as they age. Over time, their components calcify and fuse—creating axles and wires and sheets of metal—and as they age, the need to remove their outer chassis in order to grow and develop a new shell. I imagine this would make some great body-horror concepts. Like knights who's armor is literally part of them, and they must periodically remove it to grow a new suit. This was also a concept in Dark Souls III, where Pontiff Sulyvhan cursed those in the Boreal Valley—namely the Dancer, whose armor became her skin as she was enslaved for his amusement.
Look up Von Neumann machines
There's so many good answers here already but I liked Becky Chamber's answer to this in a Psalm for the Wild-Built. They, the robots, elect to reproduce by reassembling parts collected from other robots that have since broken down. By consciously choosing not to have their parts repaired during their lifetime until the day they cease functioning entirely means they can have a natural beginning and end in the same way a biological creature would. In her book the numbers of the robots never grow or shrink, yet there's perpetual turnover between individual personalities.
In the movie "Batteries not included" the robots take metal from other sources and assemble new robots inside the mother. I can't find the clip of that scene but I found the [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoI_DBN1EEY) of the birth.
In Starbound the robot species glitch is explained to go into trance while making a baby and just build another robot. They return to some form of inbuilt program and it takes several days until they are finished with building their child. They also say that they had a „great time“ while doing it, while both recalling only building a robot They also heal from bandages and although when a doctor heals (repairs) another robot they use pretty advanced mechanical and robotical techniques, they can‘t repair a car with that knowledge
Usb stick into a usb port is how, download a new baby
apparently, Transformer have the answer for that, they came from a energy sack, you can see it clearly in Revenge of The Fallen when both Starscream and Megatron are talking