Robot families are social groups within the Robot Civilization of the Evernight Era. When robots’ digital souls are created, they are sorted into different families based on the data templates used to create them. This is also how they got their surnames.
Spiritual Kinship
When generating a new digital soul, the Electric Hearts AI System must reference data templates created from existing family members’ digital soul samples. This establishes a “spiritual kinship” that links all relatives, making everyone in the same family siblings.
Two robots generated simultaneously with the same templates and parameters are called “twins.” Due to randomness in the generation algorithm (generating twins itself is also a low-probability random occurring), twins can be very similar or completely different. For instance, the twin Amber and Lapis from the Alkaid family exhibit significant differences in abilities and personality.
Social Relationships
In the Evernight Era, robots‘ social relationships are mainly shaped by the communities they live in. Robots with jobs formed work-based communities, while jobless robots typically form factions in the Virtual Universe based on their interests. An individual’s community identity often outweighs their family identity, though surnames and families still hold some significance.
The older siblings in a family are responsible for the initial socialization of new robots. Once this is done, the younglings are sent to community schools to interact with peers and receive further education before graduating into the society.
Families are held morally accountable for their members’ misbehavior. They are expected to address issues through persuasion, admonition, or punishment before involving the Shadow Vigilantes and Circuit Court of Robots.
Most families hold an annual gathering to review members’ achievements and provide advice to those in need.
Problems
Limited new soul quota: If a family wishes to create a new digital soul, they must first apply for a quota from the Robot Engineers Association. Since most robots no longer work in the Evernight Era but still consume computing power in the Virtual Universe, the Association is reluctant to support population growth. As a result, families may struggle to obtain even one soul quota per year.
Without the new souls, the robot society sees less and less fresh ideas and becomes rather stagnant.
Dissolution of underperforming families: The Engineers Association regularly assesses each family’s contributions to the society. Families with consistent poor performance may face dissolution recommendations, allowing members to join other families. The White family, from which Cloud the Robot Rabbit originates, is currently facing this predicament.
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