From:	Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject:	Androids
Date:	Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:19:31 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Ed wrote:

> One of my players brought up something the other night. He wanted to know
> if there were androids in SR.. or anything close..like replicants from BR.

Well, aside from the terminology issue, this sort of thing is
possible in the rules as written - sort of. Consdier the following
example:

You have an anthroform drone, whose form is as close to human
proportions as possible (there may be some difficulty here considering you
need to cram in a powerplant and scads of electronics and gyros, but if
cyberlimbs can be done, I'm sure you could swing it). Give it an
excessively high robotics rating. Cover it with synthetic skin (as
described in Cybertechnology). Voila! You have yourself an "android" of
sorts.
Granted, it probably won't be able to pass for human, as it won't
have human mannerisms, etc. Then there's the weight issue. Also,
synthetic skin doesn't really look all that natural, so someone could tell
that it was mechanical fairly easily. But could they tell from across the
street? What if the anthroform was wearing a trenchcoat and hat?
Something like this probably isn't feasible in the "Hahahahaa, you
have fallen for the seduction of my waiflike android spymistress!" sense.
But it just might work in the "Hey, there's some guy hanging out by the
loading dock, go check it out" kind of sense, which would make a pretty
great distraction. If security's rousting your vagrant-posing anthroform
droid, they're not paying attention to you. Further, using an anthroform
is better than using a team member, because the anthroform isn't a real
person, and thus won't be identified in a lineup or leave fingerprints
or DNA on the scene.
Just a thought...

Marc