General Discussion

Okay, sorry for the late response, but a late answer is better than nothing, isn't it? I think I've pretty much decided. Narration and the robot itself will go with it, human sidekick calls it 'they'. That won't work the same way in the German version, but that's something I'll have to figure out later. Nothing is set in stone yet, so I'd like to see more viewpoints. Please share your thoughts. Reading all of this is giving me interesting perspectives to consider. @Ollieshark The robot is, in design, personality and behaviour, intended to be very androgynous. Also, I don't think a personality can quite be broken down in the categories 'masculine' and 'feminine'. I mean, yeah, stereotypes exist for those, but those can also vary from culture to culture. I overall try to stay away from terms like that. [size=2] Which might be a factor on why I still haven't decided on the human sidekick's gender, despite having their personality fleshed out in my mind.[/size] @Adorabamf It would definitly not be offended by 'it'. That's what it'll use for itself, and bascially the factory default that is programmed in. (If I happen to use that in final draft, that is.) However, I'll say that much: There are a bunch of different robots of this prototype line, which will become metioned side characters. Each one getting over the course of the story one chapter on what they've been up to. At least one will start using a pronoun and adapt a new name, kinda in a way of mimicking the humans around it. @LoversMasque @Requacy @feralynx @ImpossibleJedi4 @BraveEguana Okay, I gotta say it and you may hate me for that. I really, [i]really[/i] don't like any of these new pronouns. So I don't think I could ever use them throughout what'll likely be a novel-length story. I might have one one-scene human side character using one of those, all while trying not to be swayed by my personal distaste of them. Also, it'd probably involve a really confused robot who can't find those words in its database. Can't promise adding that, though. Also, if I add that, that scene would've to be rewritten [i]hard[/i] or cut entirely in the German version. It's much harder to implement neopronouns here, since the languages uses cases, which basically means there are a lot of different words in one set of pronouns. @Weirdpine Huh, didn't know about those. Thank you for sharing that. Interesting, but likely nothing to be used in the story. It is howeevr something I may consider for a future work. But it's also another thing that fally in the same language-issue I got above. @Seadramon Since the robot is supposed to be interacting with humans a lot, I doubt it'll call them 'it'. Though it may have some trouble telling genders apart. But still an interesting thing to think about. And I fully agree. Too often are non-humans basically just reskinned humans that have one or two added traits. Good xenofiction is sadly hard to find. @Wyndigo I'd like to, but I sadly don't have one of that intelligence level around. I mean, I am a technician, but I'm not [i]that[/i] good. @Vrachos [quote name="Vrachos" date="2019-10-07 20:13:59" ] [size=2]On the other hand the handful of nonbinary people I know would, in fact, rather be weird aliens than boring humans, so ...[/size] [/quote] Me in a nutshell. Actually a lot of non-genderqueer people I know think the same way, so it's even limited to us. Let's all be weird aliens regardless of gender. To very roughly answer the question of story arc, it's based on a random showerthought of mine that I at first dismissed to be ridiculus, but once I gave it some thought, well, this happend. Too many story featuring robots are about the dangers of modern technology and therelike, and/or soft sci-fi (which I like, don't get me wrong). Thus what I want to write is going an entirely different direction. It's be semi-hard sci-fi about a new, adaptive protoype robot that'll basically learn from scratch. It then decides to do something that's really mundane. I won't go into more detail now.

@xionahri this is true! and it's not something you have to figure out immediately either. in that case i'd recommend them, which would make, as someone else pointed out, the nbs/genderqueer people very happy.

@Xionahri Ah, sorry, I was kind of jokingly saying that xD Thought the other user did that, too.
I personally really agree with you as well. Not a fan of these new pronouns.
Also didn't know there was gonna be a German version. That wouldn't really work, would it...
Fun Fact: Einer meiner Freunde hat sich lange Zeit aus Spaß nur mit den Pronomen "Kamphubschrauber" anreden lassen. Das war... interessant.
I'd still go with it tho.

I understand mate. I'm currently learning Latin and pronouns are interesting to learn in the language. Considering it is your character and your universe, you can do whatever you want with pronouns! My best suggestion is to considering how robots in the universe consider gender, along with how they identify it. For example, in Star Wars: Solo, L3-37 prefers she/her (or doesn't care) pronouns, while R2-D2 and C-3PO use (or don't mind) he/him pronouns. It all depends on the universe. The only thing that matters is that it makes sense for the character and the universe, and IRL people's pronouns are respected. :)

[quote name="Xionahri" date="2019-10-09 10:44:52" ] To very roughly answer the question of story arc, it's based on a random showerthought of mine that I at first dismissed to be ridiculus, but once I gave it some thought, well, this happend. Too many story featuring robots are about the dangers of modern technology and therelike, and/or soft sci-fi (which I like, don't get me wrong). Thus what I want to write is going an entirely different direction. It's be semi-hard sci-fi about a new, adaptive protoype robot that'll basically learn from scratch. It then decides to do something that's really mundane. I won't go into more detail now. [/quote] That's something I bemoan about all the time. Too many books and movies about "Playin God is Evil and Don't Create Life!" without actually examining the implications first. For example, with reversing brain and/or clinical death, it doesn't immediately mean that death is gone. People and animals can still be incinerated or just completely destroyed or irreversibly unfixable. Instead, it'd probably, after being tested and ethically examined (at least that's how it works in the USA with colleges/universities), be used to examine last-ditch cases and determine whether or not the Godzilla Threshold would be used. All and all, yadayadayada, if a college student/dropout managed to successfully revive a dead body, there'd probably be an immediate ethics question, and, hopefully, said student proposed it first, otherwise we got a HIV-CRISPR Baby situation again.

[quote name="Seadramon" date="2019-10-09 14:36:47" ] [quote name="@/Xionahri" date="2019-10-09 10:44:52" ] @/Seadramon Since the robot is supposed to be interacting with humans a lot, I doubt it'll call them 'it'. Though it may have some trouble telling genders apart. But still an interesting thing to think about. And I fully agree. Too often are non-humans basically just reskinned humans that have one or two added traits. Good xenofiction is sadly hard to find.[/quote] Yeah, the above issue is why I rarely consume xenofiction, despite it being one of my favourite genres. :c Robot stories in particular have a problem with robots having to Become Real People™ to have worth (though it seems to happen with a lot of stories which involve humans and non-humanoids, but robots get the worst of it), which tbh is a trope which I find to be loaded with unfortunate implications. [/quote] I love draconic literature, and I can't even [i]explain[/i] how much I see this. Often dragons are just really smug humans and/or cats/dogs, instead of their own thing. Plus, when the dragon [i]is[/i] different in mind, they're often meant to be feared or evil as a [i]norm[/i] rather than being intelligent, individual beings. Sigh, xenofiction problems.

You could give the robot a name and use that. And refer to it in different ways such as "the robot" or another descriptive way instead of using "they" the whole time, because I agree, that would get confusing in the long run.