Suvudu Universe

I've had a few story ideas that I started, but haven't been able to break just yet. Usually. it starts with a single character as a character sketch, and then build the world around the character. Hopefully, I'll see a story in there, but not always.

One such uncompleted story idea centered on an artificial being, one of a race that were created by humans. These beings were created to specifically work in highly hazardous industries, similar to nuclear facilities.

The following is an excerpt of this idea:

“Without A Fear of Falling” a.k.a. "The Synthetic Man"

I am a synthetic being. Some call me a robot, others an android, once in a while I get called a cyborg. Those people just don’t get it, but it’s fairly obvious they don’t really care, either. Nothing I can do about, but carry on and do what I have to do.

What I do is boring, to say the least. I help to pump chemicals from one cylinder to
another, pressing buttons, pulling levers, the whole bit. Of course, that’s why we were made in the first place. Us synthetics, I mean. We were engineered to withstand a greater amount of toxins whether chemical or radioactive than normal human beings. In some ways, it’s what makes us special. It also makes us more like pariahs in the greater community.

After work (our shifts are always set to 18 hours per day), we don’t have much time other than to get a quick snack, trade a few jokes, then go to our berths and fall asleep. Yes, just because we’re synthetic beings doesn’t mean we don’t have senses of humor. This one synth that oversees the channeling system near the bottom floor of the plant really cracks me up. There’s this one he tells, about a human, a dog and synth walk into a bar. Bartender yells at the trio that they don’t serve trash, so the dog tells the human to wait outside. Cracks me up every time.

Even though we appear human, there are significant differences that make it easy to spot us in a crowd. First of all, we have no hair. This is actually a very practical thing as some of the toxins we are in contact with can be carried in hair follicles or,
worse, the hair could fall out and create a flammable situation in the plant, with some chemicals igniting even the smallest hair. Second, we are all the same height. The standard of 5’ was set very early on as it was tall enough to operate all human equipment, but also small enough to be able to walk around the plant without incident. Each plant has many small conduits and low-level corridors. Basically, because we’re all on the shorter side of the spectrum, they can build plants with less walking space, making it possible to squeeze more productive equipment into a
smaller floor plan. Third, our complexion is white. Basically, it was determined that it is easier to spot contagion or other adverse effects to our working environment if our skin were pure white. Some say we’re almost like walking ghosts, except really short. Sometimes I think our height is an advantage as people find us less threatening. One human did tell me that he thought the combination of being short and pure white freaked him out. I can see that, but we don’t worry about it. Most humans are above that. They created us, for heaven’s sake. Lastly, we don’t age, at
least in appearance. We have very long lives. I think the longest living synth to date was about 200 human years. We have only been in existence for 210, so our true threshold hasn’t yet been reached. Honestly, however, getting old really doesn’t matter. We actually care about what we do with the time we have.

We do have labor rules that help to protect us to some level. We work long days, but we also get a good amount of time off. Studies have revealed that our emotional capacity is not unlike our human creators. For example, while we need to sleep fewer hours than humans, we will suffer adverse effects if we do not regularly have sleep. One study showed a synth with sleep deprivation actually tore himself apart while working. It was a gruesome report, detailing how he starting breaking his fingers off, one at a time, then moving on to the larger limbs. Since his pain threshold was already high, he was able to dislocate his shoulder and start tearing at the flesh around the shoulder socket before he passed out. He perished enroute to the care center.