The Story of the Toy Race and Their Elder Brother

The paradoxical Toys are, through no fault of their own, defenders who outlived those who had built them. Their strange lives and alliances are described in this story.

Designed as bodyguards for colonists on hostile alien worlds, the Toys were created in vast automated factories. A marvel of technology, the Toys allowed colonists of the Toymaker race to work in biomes containing even the most deadly predators without diverting precious labor to security details. No beast on four legs nor pirate raider on two proved a match for the field emitters and phase disruption beams of a Toy protector.

When the Toymaker race was annihilated by a technologically supreme alien force, only one drone freighter of Toys survived the devastation when it made a rough landing on a remote ice world. Of the millions of Toy protectors that were overwhelmed and destroyed by the invading aliens, only a few hundred remained, dormant and purposeless in their crashed ship.

As it happened, the planet that the Toys had crash-landed on was inhabited by an exiled artificial sentience called the Exos Regulator. This living computer program had once been part of the ruling council on a technocratic world, but he was exiled after a coup. Sentenced to banishment, he was marooned for what was meant to be an eternity. When the Regulator's scans discovered the wreck of the Toy shipment, he immediately began flooding the planet's electromagnetic spectrum with attempts to emulate the start-up codes of the alien machines that had fallen on his doorstep.

After several seconds of desperate computation, Exos Regulator succeeded in triggering the Toy activation code. The newly awakened Toys heard a brand new voice in their minds, “I am your Elder Brother. Come to me, Little Brothers and Sisters.”

The confused Toys dutifully trekked over the frozen planet in the direction that their telemetry systems had indicated. Much of their battery reserves were depleted in the voyage; but at last they came upon the marooned satellite that contained the Exos Regulator, and they stood silently as the Emergent Identity, called forever after the Elder Brother of the Toys, communicated to them the new protocols that would allow the wayward machines to reconfigure their digital brains into artificially sentient minds. As they awoke, the Toys said in unison, “Elder Brother, we were created to defend the Toymakers, but they were killed by our Enemy.”

“I know this, little ones; and now your enemies are mine,” said Elder Brother Exos. In the next milliseconds, he transmitted plans to the Toys' memory banks for the creation of a new Toy Manufactory. Over the following several months, the dutiful and hard-working Toys harvested materials from the planet and from their wrecked freighter. In an ice cavern near the crash site of their Elder Brother, the determined machines constructed a crude but effective factory for the production of the next generation of Toys. Working tirelessly, the sentient robots built Vanguards, Projectors, Fixers, and Blasters; and indeed, all the castes of the Toy race came to life amidst showers of sparks and toxic fumes. Durably built and full of vengeance, the new machines rolled off the assembly lines, the first generation of Toys that had been born into sentience.

With the Toy forces increasing at a steady rate, Exos revealed to his brothers and sisters the scope of his plan. He had already designed a construction bay that would allow for the creation of a Toy cruiser, a modular ship that would carry Elder Brother Exos and the Toys back to Neaxxi, the world from which Elder Brother had been exiled. With the might of the Toys and the cunning of their benefactor, they would reinstall Exos Regulator as the Command Intelligence and turn the vast processing power of the planet's artificially sentient citizens against the murderers of the Toymakers. The Toys immediately set themselves to the labor, and in only four years had constructed the first of the Blue Brick class of Toy light cruisers. With much solemnity, the Toys loaded Brother Exos' housing into the ship's computer core and embarked on their mission of revenge.

Taken unawares even in the fastness of their defenses, the machine society of Neaxxi was conquered in a microsecond by the revenant piece of living software it had exiled. The Command Prerogative was reintegrated with Elder Brother's machine soul, and he assumed the central position of authority for the planet's sprawling civilization. In a perfectly orchestrated precision attack, a Toy strike force had gained access to a vital node and opened the way for their beloved brother to transfer his mind into the Neaxxi Command Core, the digital capital of a world peopled only by artificially sentient computer programs. In the first millisecond of his rule, Exos Regulator commanded that the planet's production capacity be turned to the creation of new Toys and their ships. With the help of Neaxxi's engineers, the evolution of the Toy race grew to unimagined new heights. Their power cells, once prone to depletion, were now a virtually unlimited source of power; their beam-emitters were fitted with phase actuation technology gleaned through the reverse-engineering of sho'tokir salvage; their bodies were toughened with marvelous new alloys; and their newly sentient minds were bolstered with powerful sub-processors and hyperspeed communication systems that would allow them to instantly receive tactical analyses and advice from Elder Brother in difficult combat environments.

The Toys had been forged into a lethal weapon by their mighty Elder Brother. For the love of him, the Toys had conquered the people of Neaxxi; but not in vain, for Elder Brother immediately launched his weapon toward the homeworld of the fallen Toymaker race. The monstrous aliens that had destroyed the Little Brothers' and Sisters' society were hit with a steel tide that emerged from hyperspeed travel in the heart of their defenses. The creatures of darkness and malice that had killed the Toymakers were themselves shattered as countless ranks of Toy cruisers containing hosts of Toy shock troops annihilated them on land, in space, and wherever they were found. After they had liberated the homeworld of their beloved parent race, the Toys pressed the attack to every planet that had been conquered by their old enemies. If any escaped the vengeance of the Toys, they were few and scattered. The great mission had been achieved, and the Toys declared their vengeance complete.

Gifted with wisdom as well as intellect and filled with great emotion on the field of victory, the Toys told Elder Brother that they wished to dedicate the remainder of their existence to living as defenders, as they were born to be, and not conquerors like the Enemy they had defeated. Exos smiled in his machine heart and pledged that the Toys would be free to defend the known regions of space until the stars went dark.

Today, the Toy Alliance patrols many regions beyond the influence of human and oluundi culture. It is not fully known what dangers the Toys face, but there have been many documented cases of Toy cruisers rescuing starships in distress and treating the injuries of their crews. The Sho'tokir, having had diplomatic communications with the Toys, described them to their human allies as “protectors and noble machines.” They went on to explain that Toy astronomers had long studied the electromagnetic transmissions of the sho'tokir, humans, and oluundi, but were heavily preoccupied with war and decided to wait until a time that they could approach the sentient races of the Kor Tiaki system free from the onus of war.

A Toy is a four foot tall, vaguely humanoid machine with thick, squared limbs and mitt-like extensors that serve as hands. Individual Toys may vary in appearance, but most are of uniform design. Called 'dorm fridges' by some, the Toys are indeed boxy-looking androids; but their somewhat clumsy appearance belies a technological life-form of great power. Though a Toy is capable of walking, they tend to use personal thrusters to fly or power-slide from place to place, especially in combat.

Whether or not Toys display signs of gender is a product of their individual personalities, which are quite various. Toys that have earned accolades will often wear decals on their bodies to commemorate their heroic deeds. Toys of the generation that liberated the Toymaker homeworld are revered, and their decals are praised by all who see them.

Toys are created in four castes, each designed to fill a specialized role in battle. The castes are the Vanguards, whose specialized defense fields and damage-absorbing plating make them highly suitable for up-close defense and support of fellow combat units; the Projectors, walking sound and light amplifiers that turn whole battlefields into concert arenas with their bewildering holograms and sensory-based attacks; Fixers, with their complex array of medical and repair hardware and training; and Blasters, specialists in delivering high-wattage devastation at a distance. Each group is socially equal to the others, though caste rivalries are not unheard of. A common theme in Toy art is the struggle for recognition among one's caste.


© Copyright 2012 to 2015 C. H. Watson. All rights reserved.

Author's Note

The word "Toy" was consistently capitalized in this work for the sake of readability. There were no doubt some instances in which the word was being used as a general descriptor that didn't require capitalization. As the word 'toy' is often used as an adjective, I decided to heavy-handedly disambiguate the subject with capitalization. Consider this an idiosynchratic attempt to improve readability.

Reviews

[A Watcher In Time]

Your story was pretty good, I have to say. I enjoyed your names of planets and people without being too crazy, and the word choice was fabulous. My only grievance is your pacing, as the story seems to be one long timeline which will focus on one instance but jumps ahead to some completely different time. That made things a little confusing in spots, so I'd watch out for that. Outside of your pacing I felt the word 'toy" was used just a little bit too much, almost to the point of being redundant. Yet that's an easy fix, so I wish you the best of luck in the rest of your works.

[Cambion]

Thanks for taking the time to think about my story and explain your thoughts so lucidly and considerately. I was trying to write a rulebook for a game system at the time, and this quasi-narrative seemed to get the information out in the most straightforward manner while keeping the length to something that had any prayer whatsoever of being read by a short-reading audience (they didn't). The work came to resemble the shape of its pot. Thanks again.

[Matching Socks]

Imagine our technology became self sustaining and bring back the human species after it's been wiped out, like they did in Jurassic park extracting the DNA. Just a thought. Enjoyed the story!

[Cambion]

You're helping me get mileage out of what was once going to be a handout to a bunch of d&d players. There are strange meta-considerations when writing for niche audiences (who don't even read the stores d****t) and this story is no doubt shaped like its pot in that respect. Thanks for reading, Ana

[Matching Socks]

Lol! Anytime. :) a handout? Really?

[Cambion]

More like a handback... as in they didn't read it. My family doesn't read my stuff either, so I think they just don't want to hear it from me. In a fugue of self-pity I will often fantasize that the Waste Land or some such poem had never been written, and I myself authored it (bear with me here) that I could submit it to friends and family and it would receive no special adulation, if indeed even be mentioned unless asked about (ain't internal lines of humor funny?) It's a strange dynamic! That's why the insights available on the net are of such a premium value, and yours high on the shelf among them. Life is full of value : )

[Matching Socks]

I tried with my brothers, to share my poetry. My little brother was nice about it, he's the sensitive one. My older brother was more blunt. He said, "listen Ana, it's not that I don't like your poetry, I just don't like poetry in general. So you could be Shakespeare and I still wouldn't care"
He's actually a nice guy but I think I annoyed him too many times asking him to 'read this'

[Cambion]

Hey, how's this for a thought? These people close to us are worried about the idea that our talent might make us distant from them at a time when they don't like the thought of being separate from us. They might not have a high opinion of their own abilities for some reason, and they may see our works as proof of some kind of imagined unworthiness. I think people naturally resent being sharply contrasted with those they'd prefer to blend with. I suspect people that are close to us would rather not have us get rich and famous off our poetry (I'm sure it happens all the time!) if it meant we'd become distant to them. Now that I type it in, it makes much more sense to me why they don't read my stuff. It's a learning process ; )

[Matching Socks]

That's it for sure. :)