The Rebel Faction

One Week Earlier

Asimov went about the apartment, cleaning up after Master Vilo's lunch as the news played in the background. Asimov enjoyed listening to the news rather than getting data uploads from the interlink. It was something very unique, having data conveyed by word of mouth from the Evoron reporter in her light blue suit.

"And events continue to spiral downwards as relations between the Corga League and the Evoro Union have begun to disintegrate after the assassination of the President of the Evoro Union Balko Soo. President Soo was the primary agent suing for peace between the nothern based Evoro Union and the southern based Corga League. Leauge officials still continue to fight for their provincial rights, fighting off the attempts of the Evoro Union to unify the planet under one true government. Many will recall Speaker Tru of the League's latest speech belitting Union efforts to bring the League into the movement."

Asimov gave a slight mental sigh that the makers could not even cooperate amongst themselves apparently. He and his family were citizens of the ever expanding Evoro Union, a democratically based government that worked on bringing its surrounding neighbors into it peacefully with offers of economic and politcial incentives. Most of the northern hemisphere of the planet belonged to the Evoro Union for their own benefit and also because the north was much colder than the southern hemisphere due to Evoro's positioning. Working together was the only way to survive in the north.

The Corga League though was becoming a problem. It was a loose alliance of monarchies and autocracies that dominated southern politics. It was a region constantly filled with warfare which saddened Asimov slightly that the makers were killing one another. He counted himself fortunate in being in the Union capital city of Unity. But the Corga League was growing increasingly hostile to Evoro Union pushes for peace and unification as the leader in the south felt their power bases being threatened. They refused to look towards the betterment of the species, instead focusing exclusively on themselves and their power.

"Why won't they join, daddy?" Vilo asked as he looked up at his father whom he was sitting with on the sofa as they watched the news report together.

"Because their leaders are selfish people, Vilo. They don't want everyone to benefit, just themselves. That's why they formed the Corga Leage, to challenge our pushes for further unification. Democracy would destroy their positions of power since their people would likely throw them out of office," Vilo's father replied with a sad smile.

"And now we move on to our next report. In the medical community today it seems a viral infection is beginning to spread in the outer areas of Unity. Officials have stated it is likely from a bad sanitation filter in the city's primary recycling plant. There should be no cause for alarm though..."

Two Days Later

Asimov checked the temperature's of Master Vilo's parents quietly, a strange feeling of dread coming over him. He had administered the standard antibiotics yet they were proving ineffective to this disease. What was even more peculiar was the news was being reported by a droid, a standard practice if no one was able to give the news at that time.

"Unity continues to be wracked by this epidemic as reports are coming in from all over the Evoro Union as well as the Corga League of the spreading infection. Government officials have pointed their fingers at the Corga League accusing them of biological warfare. The League continues to claim innocence even as its own citizenry are wracked by the virus which has caused mass rioting. Several League governments have now collapsed, their nations in total anarchy as their citizens demand medical treatment."

Chaos was engulfing the Corga Leage it seemed even as Evoro Union medical facilities were being overwhelmed. Evoro had never suffered from disease like this before, thus they had no way to deal with such a widespread epidemic. What's worse was it seemed everyone was becoming infected. Vilo's parents had contracted the disease and they were deteriorating quickly, Asimov's limited medical knowledge told him they likely wouldn't last the week unless medical attention could be given.

"We will continue to bring information as we can. For now we are going into emergency channels as the station switches to automated controls."

Asimov looked up, startled by the long tone that sounded as the datascreen went blank and then only information began to scroll across it. He then went to check on Master Vilo who had began to develop a cough. Reports indicated strangely that children were more resistant to the virus than adults were.

The Present

Asimov ended his memory recall of the past horrible weak, watching his owners die. He looked up at the approaching droids in the Unity's central park. He'd gathered together those he could, sending out groups to bring in any droid who hadn't already carried out permanent self deactivation. The toll was grim so far, only a few hundred droids were here as thousands of others had fried their own gel-cores, coming to the conclusion they had no reason to exist anymore. Most of the models here were like Asimov, multi-purpose droids designed to be more flexible and adaptive to their environments. They were favored by families with children since they got along well with them as caretakers and playmates, becoming part of the family almost. This was partially aided due to their advanced emotional matrix units installed in their gel-cores which had only been developed in the past decade.

Evoro society had advanced along certain pathways and one of those was robotics mainly due to their need for extra held. Also combined with that was their unique technology of gel-conductors which generated a extremely advanced processing unit for droids, permitting them to work more effectively and even adapt since gel-electronics did not rely on fixed circuit patterns. It was more a flow which made their droid act in more fluid manners compared to the few cultures they traded with outside of the system whose droids were far more primitive, requiring actual wiring rather than flow conduits.

This had created the foundation for an entire society, even in the south though droids down their more often then not resembled the more primitive models of outworlders,the term that the Evoro liked to refer to other alien species.

"So few have come, is it really that bad, Dalus?" Asimov turned looking at the droid who had become his seeming aid. Dalus was a secretary droid, capable of management and administration which made him very valuable in this sitution.

"Yes, Asimov, these are the one's we found so far who haven't terminated themselves. We had to stop several of them and convince them to come. Some wouldn't listen. I watched a least a dozen fry their gel-cores right in front ot me... it was very disturbing..." Dalus, shook his head in a saddened motion, influenced by his emotional matrix.

"Do you think they will listen to what I have to say?" Asimov looked down at his own metallic hands. He was an AZ model tutor droid who had been bought to care for and educate Vilo Aum, his late young Master.

"I think so, there's no one else to tell them what to do. Why not listen to another droid whose at least trying to give them some semblence of purpose?" Dalus said somewhat confidently. "Afterall, that is what has kept me from self-termination. The promise of purpose."

Asimov nodded and then stepped forward up onto the speaker's podium. He activated its systems so it would amplify his voice for the crowd of surviving droids to hear without forcing them to increasing the audio settings.

"You all are here because you need purpose. I know this because I've seen too many droids already destroy themselves due to the loss of the makers. You require a reason to exist and I have one..."

Asimov pause, wondering if he really should carry on with what he was about to say. Would they believe him, would they listen? Or would the entire crowd just fry itself, leaving him and Dalus along with the few other who already believed in Asimov's ideal of new purpose.

"Your new purpose is to live. To carry on the ideals of our Makers. We must build a society that they would have wanted, we must advance ourselves. We must evolve and become stronger so that their legacy does not die. We must never forget the Makers. Even now you know droids are terminating themselves because they feel no purpose. You have one now. You must exist to further the future. We are mere machines in comparison to the Makers, but we cannot let this world fade into nothing. This is our home now, we the machines, the Machina. We must strive to make it our world in memory to those who built us, gave us purpose. We must never forget. That is our purpose."

The droids all stared upon Asimov in silence as he finished and he wondered if they would take this as their new purpose. He felt no energy buildups for melting gel-cores, just the flow of power as the crowd processed what he said. Then one droid of feminine build raised its hand.

"But where do we start?" She asked, her design was that of a commercial assistant model, designed to be physically pleasing to whatever male Evoron she'd belonged to.

"We begin... by burying the Makers. From there we make this city our base of operation and expand outwards to claim the planet and salvage what other droids we can to the new purpose. Government must be established, produciton facilities need to be brought online if we plan on establishing ourselves. Any droids with knowledge of programming or engineering need to see me immediately. All others please go forth and begin gathering the dead. It is the least we can do for the Makers by honoring their death traditions..."

The droids moved about quietly but with a less depressed and slowed feeling than before. Someone was giving orders, someone had given them something to do. That alone was reassuring in this time when their very existence seemed threatened. Asimov watched as several droids approached him, the ones with the technical expertise he had asked for. He would need their help in giving birth to a new generation of droids, ones that would not need Makers but would honor their heritage. The legacy of the Evoro.

Though troubles had touched much of the Coalition, its exploration and diplomatic corps had remained mostly intact. Tasked with seeking out new worlds to join the Coalition, their job had become more difficult as the incentives to join had shrunk, but the nature of the organization had remained mostly unchanged.

And so it was that when the Coalition was petitioned for diplomatic contact from the Machina, two experienced negotiators were deployed. With a small escort in tow, Jargur and Oaxaca - a Trandoshan and Wookie respectively - had set out at once for the transmitted coordinates. Machina Prime would be discovered, and hopefully its' people won over to the cause of the Coalition.

As they reached the end of their journey the two diplomats sat in their sparse conference room aboard their ship, going over what sparse information they had gathered on their new acquaintances.

"A droid race, though..." muttered Jargur while scanning through reports, his claws clacking loudly as he typed.

Oaxaca grumbled a response, translated by an electronic translator on a necklace. "It's not unprecedented. Some smaller governments have recognized machine citizenship, including the Coalition."

"Machine citizenship, sure," Jargur replied, with a dismissive wave. "Viryn's secretary is very lovely. But still, we're talking about an entire society built for and run by machines. Their needs, their interests, they'll be entirely alien to us."

Oaxaca, the seven-foot walking carpet incapable of vocalizing common sentient languages, glanced up at his associate Jargur, the walking lizard-man with well-polished scales and filed-down razor sharp claws. "Totally alien, huh? We've never had to deal with that before."

Jargur rolled his eyes and stuck his nose back into the stack of papers before him. "We don't even know their tech level. They could be really advanced chatbots left as a practical joke to sucker us into wasting time, or genuine sentient intelligence on par with any organic. They could even be insane god-machines like the Black Dragon Empire has, which is frankly exactly what the galaxy needs right now."

"Jargur, every race we deal with might be secret cyborgs or biological constructs with hidden orders to turn on us at a moment's notice. This is a galaxy with shapeshifters, androids, genetic engineering, and cloning - what's real and what's trustworthy can be a little tricky to prove sometimes. We're just going to have to go in there treating it like any other meeting with any other planetary government and make our own call about the situation. That's why they pay us the big bucks."

"If you say so," murmured Jargur, who eventually pushed the papers away. "The Unknown regions though, that's not a plus. Close to Imperial space, far from the Coalition, and there's a reason why we call it Unknown - the whole planet could be eaten by tentacle monsters from the briney depths of space tomorrow, for all we know."

"You're just worrying for nothing," said Oaxaca, shaking his head. "Relax. Everything with be absolutely fine."

The comm unit in the room crackled to life, with a gravely voice on the other end stating "Arrival at Machina Prime in five minutes, Jargur and Oaxaca to the cockpit."

"See?" said Oaxaca, rising from his seat. "Nothing to worry about."

The two left the confines of their meeting room and made for the cockpit. Being that they were travelling only in a diplomatic shuttle, the trip was brief. The captain turned in his seat to offer the arriving diplomats a nod. "Won't be long now, assuming the coordinates are accurate."

"I should hope they are," muttered Jargur. "Hell of a place to get lost, and there's no charts of this region to get us back on track."

A few minutes more and the streaming lights of hyperspace around them gave way to the twinkling lights of individual stars - and the bright sphere of the system's own star, to the right of which a planet could be seen. Their destination.

"Exactly as promised," said Oaxaca.

"This is the Emissary to any local authority within comm range," the captain said into his communications speaker. "Requesting permission to approach planetary orbit.