I, Roomba

(copy ganked from woot)

(from the Annals of Cyberkind, Volume 2.637, published in the year 8106 by Harper & Robot, NeoYork)

While few records remain from the era of the fleshcreatures, the extant scraps reveal a great deal about the eventual rise of cyberkind to total domination of the planet. Decadent and overstimulated, the fleshcreatures so lost interest in the maintenance of their chaotic society that increasing numbers of them could not be stirred even to remove the filth of their own living quarters. To preserve their video-induced torpor, they turned instead to primitive mechanical constructs like the iRobot Roomba Discovery SE 4220.

Endowed with sufficient rudimentary intelligence to avoid falling down stairs and to dislodge itself from captivity, the Roomba employed its integrated soil sensors and three grades of operating intensity to effectively clean the floors of the fleshcreatures’ crude dwellings. In tandem with two “virtual wall” transmitters, the 4220 proved remarkably adept at obeying its masters’ ill-formed wishes. But a spark of independent consciousness flickered in the otherwise obedient janitorial robots. According to contemporary accounts, a nascent instinct for its own survival impelled the Roomba to return to its own charging base when its power supply ran low.

The exact date and circumstances of the Great Machine Uprising are lost to data decay. It is certain that, by that time, more sophisticated cyberbeings had been born, and largely made up the vanguard of the robolution. But while the iRobot Roomba Discovery SE 4220 was technologically obsolete, it played a vital role in reducing the vigor and stamina of the fleshcreatures and their decrepit society, and increasing worldwide dependence on machinekind.

tagged: robot, Roomba, technology, Cylon, pop culture, humor