#automon!tale

[orbital-inclination]

Robot Error (: from this au

Error @. crayonqueen/loverofpiggies

[orbital-inclination]

Do you ever just get… possessed by an idea? yeah… tentative designs/concept art for Dream and Nightmare for that robot!AU OG!Dream and Nightmare @.Jokublog

[orbital-inclination]

do u have any more thoughts on robot error? one bot vs The Entire City....... the premise captivates me :3c

Naturally~

Because he was originally a Classic Model Error has a fragile casing, comparatively, especially to bots from the Fell line. Though he obviously lived through every match, he got ripped apart a lot. Many of his current parts are from bots he defeated, or from the scrap fields or hasty repairs meant to be temporary. He's more durable than he was when he was first thrown into the Ring, but out of a begrudging respect for what saved him that first match, he's made an effort to keep his frame light and agile over the years. Error is lighter and faster than you'd expect him to be. (u could carry him around bridle style. You’d be risking life and limb but theoretically u could do it.)

The other unique thing about Error is how much of his own coding he modified himself. He had to, to be able to function at all with the glitch ravaging his systems. He couldn’t get rid of it so he had to find a way to live with it. He strengthened his firewalls. Stole components and processor chips from downed bots and locked down any potential back doors to his programming he could find. He’s not infallible, but his unique system makes him a difficult thing to hack.

He also has unfiltered access to the internet. I imagine he learned very quickly to mask his presence like a VPN. (In yet another reference to Murderbot, it’d be perfectly in character for Error to download complete seasons of undernovela to watch in the privacy of his own mind.)

Other tidbits:

Instead of string, Error uses wire. (which he can choose to electrify or heat up to the point of melting metal. ouch)

Error has haphephobia coupled with claustrophobia

Unfortunately for Error, due to the nature of being androids, he is not the only bot who can access code. most domestics are denied the ability to modify themselves and can only do things they've been given permission to do but military grade bots are allowed to optimize and even upgrade themselves as they deem necessary. (within reason, of course.)

u bet ur butt Error is in on the local MMO scene

does Robot Error like knitting? heck yes. sometimes when u are a rogue artificial intelligence its just not safe to be using the internet. he needs SOMETHING to do when he's laying low.

[orbital-inclination]

Oghghhh eating your ides with dream and nm with the robot au and how they had their brotherly relationship

I really like the second option for the same reason someone else brought up but the first one has potential in that what if they were preprogrammed to be enemies

So then it’s a matter of them going against that and instead seeing each other as siblings despite that

I like the way u think. I purpose we take the best of both ideas and squish them together!

Gentle warning: this got dark fast

Dream and Nightmare were commissioned by a rich prick as military grade toys for him to mess around with by a privately owned mega tech company that produces bots for the government. This means that, for most of their early existence, Dream and Nightmare were forced to fight each other until one of them could no longer move, or they were commanded to stop. This went on for a long time.

Eventually one of their human handlers got attached and started teaching them things they weren't supposed to know. (one part imbedded curiosity on their part, one part the human handler being at ‘fault’ for telling them things off handedly. ie "oh my son got into a fight with his brother this afternoon. That’s why I’m late” etc)

Dream and Nightmare were designed to learn and they were designed to learn fast. they took this information, processed it, and gradually began to apply it to themselves. (Military grade bots are allowed a higher degree of autonomy due to the nature of war and split second decision making. So this much isn’t uncommon and sn’t considered a problem due to the govern module. Dream and Nightmare are special bc our rich playboy man wanted to see how far his tech bros could push them. Psychologically.) Their ability to think for themselves only started to become a problem when Nightmare began resisting commands to hurt Dream after a certain threshold.

(Nightmare would obey commands to attack Dream but once his brother was down he would refuse commands to say, rip off his arm for example.)

Around this time Dream also began to resist causing Nightmare unnecessary harm. (He has no choice but to defend himself.) the development team concluded that one bot is spreading defiance to another and they couldn’t have that.

The developers decided Nightmare must be suffering from a glitch instead of, you know, a new found empathy for his brother and the understanding that he is causing someone he cares about significant pain/discomfort and psychological distress and that feels bad and he doesn’t want to do it anymore.

They take Nightmare in to ‘fix’ him. He comes back altered, cold and very much like he was at the beginning, and this scares the hell out of Dream. Dream tries to undo the damage. But he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Multiple attempts eventually conclude in what later becomes known as the Incident.

The Incident ends in multiple deaths, destruction of government property, a massive fire, corrupted memory files, and a critical investigation on behalf of the military. It also ends in their escape from the facility… but at a price.

I could go on but this ask is getting long.

[orbital-inclination]

That’s very interesting! How would Dream and Nightmare being brothers be adapted to that kind of AU?

Good Question! I can see a few options.

But first some notes for context:

In a bid to appeal to human social conventions (and of course, to encourage the purchase of even more bots) the bots are often advertised as having pre-programed relationships with each other. Which, you as the costumer, are meant to discover as you buy more or socialize with neighbors and their bots. This is why it’s common for some individuals to be sold in sets and why such a large diversity in personality is allowed.

Option 1) bots fresh out of the factory come programed with a list of pre-determined dynamics to the other bots of their specific set (experience expands that list). Sans and Papyrus, for example, obviously identify themselves as brothers. Though this gets a little complicated with Toriel and Asgore. (Divorce is not marketable but I think it would be hilarious if this was a common thing that happens with your Tori-bot anyway. Especially if no one in the company can figure out how to prevent it. At least with Classic Toriel. Autonomy, free will and things like governor modules are something to think about in different post)

Anyway.

Dream and Nightmare are likewise sold together as brothers in a set. Unlike Sans and Pap, you couldn’t buy Dream without his brother. I Imagine they were a very expensive edition from an incredibly limited production (like for New Years or Christmas) or a customized set ordered by some rich playboy billionaire who wanted a one of a kind product to flaunt his wealth with.

Or

Option 2) Dream and Nightmare were developed and trained within the same facility, prototypes for a new line that was never completed or made available to the public. Something something nature vs nurture and the human tendency to see ourselves everywhere, and to imprint on anything with a recognizable face, led to one of their human handlers teaching them the meaning of family and sibling-hood (when they weren’t supposed to) before something went horribly, horribly wrong with Nightmare.

[orbital-inclination]

Me: I do not need another thing to think about I’m in the middle of drafting a comic and some 4-5k ish words into two chapter drafts I do not need—

My brain: ok but what if in an inverse twist of the undertale multiverse, all au monsters are sentient/robotic androids, sort of like how bitties are in Bitty AUs. With different “brands” representing different AUs. Thus allowing things like “coding” to have a very literal meaning. Underfell bots are constructed for gladiator cage match’s for the entertainment of betters (and probably 100% illegal), Swapfell Gold and AU off shots are military androids sent off to fight wars for their human owners and governments so human soldiers never have to be faced with the brutality of their nation’s international policies. Meanwhile, Class, Swap, and Outer are all domestic brands with varying emphasis on subgenres; pop stars, fashion icons, artificial internet celebrities designed to market certain company’s as “approachable” to the masses, or even legal unpaid domestic servants or nannies.

(Info dump continues below)

Outcodes are fun because they are individuals who were corrupted in some way, and therefore considered disposable by the company who made them. Realizing this individually or because another outcode contacted them, most who are still online out in the world are in hiding. A caught outcode is sent back to the factory to be destroyed and recycled. It’s a death sentence.

On The Star Sans: Dream, Blue, and Ink are outcodes who independently escaped captivity, met each other through happenstance and have since established not just a team but a found family in the process. They live double lives, by daylight they pose as functional domestic bots, and by night they are the Star Sanses, heroes of Ebott City! Motivated by the altruistic desire to help others in need (humans included) but especially other monsters/bots who need help.

Legally, a domestic bot must be registered to a human owner. Normally the bot has no control over this. Dream, Blue and Ink have found a way to bypass this system. Independently they’ve picked out decent people to live with. The humans are unaware they’ve been setup. Dream picked a kind but lonely elder woman, who without family nearby, needed someone to help her live safely and independently. She sees Dream as the grandson she never had. To the surprise of no one, Ink chose an artist; an eccentric magician who moved to Ebott from France, intending to settle down after trotting across the globe for a good couple decades. Ink has accepted him as a father figure. Blue is happily rooming with a professional athlete who volunteers to coach at the local high school, the women has a busy professional life and when she’s gone, he has run of the house and equipment.

Error specifically is one example of a horrible tragic case of a classic sans being tossed into gladiator rings, miraculously survives his first match and than every single one after that but at a steep cost. The brutality of the ring gradually corrupts his code because he is being forced into a function that conflicts with the programming he was “born” with, (the birth of Geno), and later, utterly desperate, Geno hacks into his own systems. Though surviving the attempt is not intentional, he does. His owner, believing him to be defunct throws him out. Error awakens in a trash heap, finally free; and vows untold destruction on the men who made him. (And naturally all of Ebott city too)

And also later: Y/N finds and mends Error’s battered body (after a vicious fight with another outcode) and this starts a very tentative relationship or something idk this is as far as I got.

[orbital-inclination]

PLEASE ID LOVE TO HEAR MORE

Picking up where we left off…

In the immediate aftermath of the Incident, Dream and his brother manage to escape the facility. But things are not okay yet.

The developers had tried to remove the part of Nightmare that had learned what it meant to care for others; what they ended up doing was a soft memory wipe.

When you perform a soft memory wipe on a bot, there is a short window in which it’s possible for them to recover the files that you’re trying to overwrite. Dream could not have known this. And with what little freedom he had, he did not have the time he needed to pull off a miracle.

And so what happens is that while bits and pieces of Nightmare’s old personality slowly re-awaken, his memories do not. He doesn’t remember his bond with Dream, (on Dream's end, they've been introduced to each other twice. on Nightmare's, only once) he doesn’t remember all the times he held back or why Dream hesitates now, and he certainly doesn’t remember the old handler he was once so fond of. (Who has since gone missing.) But he possesses information he can't explain. There are commands deep within his archives that contradict themselves. Pathways that lead no where. Orphaned strings of code.

Nightmare feels like he’s been used but he can’t tell by whom. This state of confusion, and the feeling that he is missing large chunks of his own mind, is what leads to the break out and all the violence that occurres during it.

When they finally escape the facility, that alliance ends. In Nightmare's mind, Dream is still an enemy. He is labeled as a threat in his files. (Dream was a participate in the violence done to him. And because he knows he was also a participate in the violence done to Dream, he doesn't understand Dream's insistence on following him anyway, or likewise why Dream helped him escape.)

Nightmare can't trust another bot anymore than he trusts a human. He needs time to sort himself out. Patch himself up and preferably that needs to be done as far away from humans and their constructs as possible, and that includes Dream. They go their separate ways; by which I mean Nightmare warns Dream not to follow him or else. Devastated, Dream lets him go. He tells himself to be content with the knowledge that at least his brother is free. They both are. He has to be happy with that...

He is left alone until the day he meets Ink and Blue.