Anderson Robotics Hub / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Anderson Robotics Hub.

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Author Posts are for squares.

Jacob Conwell 06 May 2016 06:32

Alright! Now that Anderson Robotics is a big time GoI, it needs an official GoI hub. That was the goal I aimed to accomplish here.

Now, there are a few things that this hub is:

• A means of diving into the Anderson Robotics material for those unfamiliar with it.
• A spring board for those interested in writing their own Anderson Robotics skip or tale.
• A chronological listing of the already existing tales in the continuing series.¹

There are also a few things this hub is not:

• A canon.
• A means of me to tell new writers what they can and cannot do with these characters.²

That being said, some serious thanks are in order.

Thank you A Random Day, GreenWolf, djkaktus, TwistedGears, TyGently, ProcyonLotor, Doctor Cimmerian, Metaphysician, and minmin for your help with feedback on this hub. It was very much appreciated.

Special Thank You to Decibelles, TwistedGears, djkaktus, Kalinin, and Doctor Cimmerian for your contributions to the success of this GoI. You each added your own flavor to the concept, and the end products have been so much fun to read.

Finally, an extra special bonus thank you to SunnyClockwork for creating the slick new Anderson Robotics logo. You are the real MVP.

(The Anderson Robotics logo from 1998 was made by myself in Mircosoft paint, as I like to imagine Vincent Anderson slapping something together last second for that kind of thing. Image released CC BY-SA 3.0)

Enjoy the hub.

Conwell

Footnotes

1. See the Investigative Timeline tab.

2. Seriously, it’s an established GoI now guys. Go nuts.

Last edited on 13 Nov 2022 02:55 by Jacob Conwell Show more

MrWrong 06 May 2016 07:10

Cool, although I am still ambivalent towards how Anderson stands out from other technology-based GoIs. Any recommendations for those who think "How is this different from CotBG"?

Last edited on 06 May 2016 07:11 by MrWrong Show more

Jacob Conwell 06 May 2016 07:24

Well, its not a religion. So that would be a big difference between the two. Whereas the anomalies of the CotBG tend to be pieces of the Broken God, or holy artifacts of the church, the anomalies of AR are simply paratech products meant for sale to an expanding market.

MrWrong 06 May 2016 15:35

I regard the similarity between AR and CotBG (specifically Cogwork Orthodoxy) to be the focus on machinery and robotics-based technology. Since the gentlemen below brought up PL, the difference is clear: PL is a broad contender who tries all, while AR (obviously) specialises in the specific domain of anomalous robotics.

Of course, one could easily say that CotBG applies religious meaning to the machine whereas AR applies business potential to it. Of which, the business angle is fairly covered by the PL format and MC&D.

Last edited on 06 May 2016 15:36 by MrWrong Show more

sirpudding 06 May 2016 21:34

The timeline works for say Contos to have come from PL.

Jacob Conwell 06 May 2016 21:45

It funny that you mention that, because in Ties That Bind its implied that Dr. Contos comes from the Alexylva University universe, while Dr. Wilson was a former PL employee.

Its funny, because AR really evolved over time to kind of be this Frankenstein like creature made from bits and bobs of ideas from all around the wiki.

Jacob Conwell 06 May 2016 21:41

Well, the business angle is also covered partially by The Factory and Doctor Wondertainment, in addition to AR, MC&D, and PL.

Just as we have five religiously based GoIs: MC, HI, CotBG, Sarkcism, and Fifth Church.

And just as we have three local government GoIs: UIU, GRU-P, and ORIA.

My point with all this is that the GoI list has a ton of overlap in terms of the basic themes of what each group does. In my opinion, thats okay. In the vast anomalous world of the SCP universe the GoIs bleed into each other to create a rich fabric of characters, ideas, and organizations, rather than multiple boxes that are kept separate from each other.

Scorpion451 06 May 2016 14:59

To put it another way, AR is in it for the science and the profit, sort of like their former competitor, Prometheus Labs. Where PL went under due to bad management, over-diversification, and over-investment in large projects with major flaws, Anderson Robotics is a smaller, more focused company that keeps their sights set just slightly beyond what's actually possible. The CotBG are among their major customers, but the difference is sort of like the difference between a wine maker and a Christian denomination that uses wine for communion.

Kalinin 06 May 2016 15:31

Anderson is nothing like CotBG. The closest group to it is Prometheus Labs, in that both are paratech firms. Anderson differs in that there are clear resemblances to a modern-day Silicon Valley tech startup (as opposed to PL which is more akin to an IBM or Lockheed), and it's also not weighed down by the prevalent "lol we blew ourselves up" incompetence of many PL portrayals.

A Random Day 06 May 2016 21:51

Chiming in to say that we're trying our hardest to pull PL out of that dark pit of incompetent mad science and into a legitimate para-science and technology group like Anderson Robotics is now.

Last edited on 06 May 2016 21:51 by A Random Day Show more

sirpudding 07 May 2016 08:40

I still like to think the collapse wasn't any more embarrassing than say Rockwell International's.

Scorpion451 07 May 2016 23:22

Even the "blew themselves up" part isn't necessarily a sign of incompetence:The PEPCON disaster, for instance, involved one of the US government's trusted producers of solid rocket fuel, which had been competently handling some of the most volatile substances on Earth for decades. They're still not entirely sure what set it off¹ but the end result was a series of some of the most energetic uncontrolled chemical explosions in recorded history, approximately 1 kiloton TNT equivalent.

Footnotes

1. getting forced by the government into storing literal tons more Ammonium Perchlorate than their facilities were designed to, the local gas company deciding that "poorly maintained high pressure gas main" and "limited flow pipe" were basically the same thing, and workers having no choice but to repair critical structural damage from a windstorm by welding near the storage area all may have played a part.

Last edited on 07 May 2016 23:23 by Scorpion451 Show more

Shaggydredlocks 06 May 2016 16:36

The birds of prey and robotics ascetic in the logo and naming conventions remind me of Archimedes from the original Clash of the Titans, and that's just spiffy.

+1 and nice work on the hub!

TL333s 06 May 2016 22:18

About time AR got a hub! :D

Update 5/17/16

Jacob Conwell 18 May 2016 06:22

Alright, so the "Investigative Timeline" tab was rather bare bones, so it has been replaced by a tab for Gamma-13, the MTF that has been a major group in a lot of Anderson tales and articles. The investigative timeline is still found in that tab.

Special thanks again to SunnyClockwork for creating the MTF logo, making this page 100% more beautiful.

Lastly, Greenwolf's new tale, The Analog Kid has been added to that time line due to its importance in several upcoming tales.

Enjoy the pie.

Re: Update 5/17/16

Decibelles 18 May 2016 07:42

If the tale is set in a canon though (as the author comment on that page indicates), and it's included in the timeline, wouldn't that indicate that the canon and the GoI are tied together? What if someone wants to write the GoI outside of that canon? Or am I reading too much into that?

Re: Update 5/17/16

Jacob Conwell 18 May 2016 08:09

Currently I would argue that the GoI and the canon are not any more tied together than MC&D is tied to any of the canons it appears in. Authors are free to use AR inside canons, outside canons, upside canons, and downside canons, and all relations to canons between.

The timeline on the final tab is merely the chronological order for the over arcing plot shared by the majority of AR tales, and should be seen no more as the end all be all version of AR than Resurrection is the end all be all story for this wiki.

Re: Update 5/17/16

Decibelles 18 May 2016 08:48

That's fair. I didn't mean to insinuate that it was the end-all be-all, just that placing the tale in a timeline made it a bit confusing.

Re: Update 5/17/16

Jacob Conwell 18 May 2016 08:56

Maybe it is confusing. But the end product of electronic telepathy is just too cool to pass up.

Re: Update 5/17/16

GreenWolf 18 May 2016 19:32

Chiming in to add that while The Analog Kid brings the Anderson tales into the continuity of Third Law, it doesn't necessarily bring Third Law into continuity with the Anderson tales. It's entirely possible to just ignore the rest of Third Law while still using The Analog Kid, just like it's possible to use the magic system that Clef establishes in the GOC Casefiles canon without using the rest of that canon.

Agent MacLeod 28 May 2016 05:18

I took way too long to read this hub. It's nice. Well-organized. I like it.

Update 7/27/16

Jacob Conwell 27 Jul 2016 16:59

The Gamma-13 hub has been updated to include all tales from the Austringers series on the timeline. If you are a fan of Anderson Robotics, and have yet to check those tales out, it may behoove you to do so.

Update Jan 1, 2017

Jacob Conwell 02 Jan 2017 08:12

Added a Writing Guide for those interested in writing AR tales, skips, or other articles. As the guide says, all points raised are merely suggestions or common themes/tropes, and not hard and fast rules. Feel free to break the mold as you see fit.

Harry Mstislav 07 Jun 2017 14:20

does this gr8 goi have like a motto or like a slogan?

---

Harry Mstislav

Jacob Conwell 07 Jun 2017 17:29

No more so than MC&D or Dr. Wondertainment. Just wasn't something really needed up to this point.

If you have any ideas for one, we'd love to hear it. :)

(account deleted) 22 Sep 2017 19:40

Noting that I reverted to edit 17 because a user had changed the link from SCP-2306 to its full title (a revenant AI). Reverted because it changed the crosslink to the original article.

Jacob Conwell 22 Sep 2017 20:47

Appreciated. Thank you.

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