WIP Intro: The Fourth Android
[Image description: a cover design with a light green background and the words "the fourth android" stacked on each other at the top. Below this is my username, "NavarenWizard", in smaller font. At the bottom is a minimalist digital portrait of Dez, a light blue humanlike android, from the chest up. He is wearing a black jumpsuit with broad lapels and has cameras in his earlobes that look like small black earrings. His chin-length purple hair is layered, with sideswept bangs. /End description.]
status // about to write a third (and greatly improved) version for NaNoWriMo 2022
genre // queer, fantasy, sci-fi, slice-of-life
tropes & themes // self-definition, finding community, healthy relationships and communication, biotechnology, cultures of nonhuman sapient bipeds and interspecies interactions, androids! what do they mean?, almost everyone is queer, complex (but happy) families, life without cars, near-global common language
setting // another planet similar to Earth, populated by humans as well as other sapient bipedal species, most of which make appearances in the story. Their technology is similar to ours in complexity and portability, though they are somewhat ahead in terms of robotics and space vessels, to the point that they are about to send the first crewed mission to the nearest planet, a Mars analogue called Delphonus. Despite this, androids are not common, because bipedal, socially capable robots aren't particularly necessary for anything, and still take a lot of time, resources, and knowledge to build (mass production is possible in this world but not used for most things). Relevant to the story, universal basic income is common in this world, as are multi-week breaks, especially around new year’s.
super quick synopsis // A human-built android integrates into an island community to gain his citizenship and visit the world's other three androids, unexpectedly becoming an astronaut along the way.
proper synopsis // Dez is one of three androids in the world. He dreams of going with his primary builder, Anni, to visit the others, but to do that without sneaking around in a suitcase, he needs citizenship to pass customs. (His other builder, Anni’s uncle Julian, owns their house and has forbidden them from making it famous by holding an android conference there.) For now, he’s content to wait until the world’s major government oversight organization, the Data Science Coalition, talks some sense into his home country, which has refused him citizenship on the grounds that it will lead to citizenship for laptops and toasters. He has plenty of other things to keep him occupied in the meantime, like editing speedrun streams for Anni’s girlfriend, Zel, and watching the movies she pays him with. But the thing that’s keeping the DSC’s resources tied up, the fall of a nearby monarchy [yes, the one that Aza and her brother ended], has also led to the reappearance of the mysterious fourth android who used to work for it.
Where the story begins, Anni has been tasked with getting that android, Syndy, up and running independently again. After that, Syndy will be leaving with her guardian, Hoven, to visit all the places her builder wanted to show her before they died. For Dez, this completely changes the calculus of getting citizenship—if he can manage to get it before Syndy embarks on her journey, all four androids can meet for the first time ever. But he’s not sure he can get citizenship at all, let alone before Syndy is on again, because every citizenship law he can find excludes him in one way or another. Finally, he finds an opportunity in the citizenship law of Elbas Island, the tiny nation Anni is about to visit over her end-of-year break to meet Zel’s brother, Zalen. With the island Council’s approval, Anni stashes him in her suitcase and he goes to gain his citizenship by integrating with the community on Elbas Island for a month.
Said community is very welcoming, Zalen is full of stories about the crewed mission to Delphonus he is a geological advisor for, and even after Anni and Zel leave to spend new year’s with Anni’s family, Dez expects to have no trouble going home with citizenship. But he soon runs into a variety of problems, including some islanders arguing to the Council that, legally and on principle, he should continue living on the island after he becomes a citizen. And Zalen believes that Dez, as an android and newly minted astronomy enthusiast, is the only person who could become the Delphonus crew’s geologist in the three months remaining before launch and really wants him to apply. Dez has never had this many opportunities or this many friends’ feelings riding on his decisions, and now has to figure out how to shape his own future.
characters // there are a lot of them, so here are just a few central ones. I may do illustrated intros later.
Dez Chalbis // POV // he/him // ~4 months old when the story starts, looks twentysomething // human-built android // movie enthusiast and Zel’s gaming stream editor. He’s friend human-shaped, with a touchscreen for a face and a body mostly composed of light blue chitinous plating and mycelial wiring. He’s never left the house, other than to occasionally go out in the yard, but he doesn’t really mind because almost everything he wants to do can be done in the house and everyone he knows either visits the house or is an android with whom he is almost constantly instant messaging in his head.
Anni Chalbis // POV // she/her // turns 29 over the course of the story // human // got a degree in robotics engineering, then decided she only wanted to use it for her own personal projects. She lives with her artist uncle Julian in a northern port city, and together they built Dez over the course of ~6 years. She earns extra cash by working in a bookstore alongside a friend with grey hair and pronouns, and met her girlfriend, Zel, through playing a fantasy MMO. Her favorite color is blue, her wardrobe is mostly blue (including her cat-eye glasses), and the fact that her android is blue is just a happy coincidence.
Julian Astatyn // he/him // 50 // human // artist of many mediums. Around the time Anni pitched the concept of building an android, he was getting into kinetic sculpture, and making a whole guy seemed like exactly his kind of challenge. He’s responsible for much of Dez’s outward form and the layout of his underlying musculature. He loves books, brunch, and being the cool uncle (he’s Anni’s only uncle).
Zel Tillain // she/her // 28 // human // originally started streaming mommy dating simulators as a joke, but eventually became a full-time streamer in a variety of game genres. After her last video editor moved on, she struck a deal with Dez: he edits down her streams into clips and YouTube-style videos in exchange for whatever movies or TV shows he wants. Beyond video games, she is mildly obsessed with sci-fi that involves aliens, rock music, and of course Anni.
Zalen Tillain // he/him // 29 // human // received his doctorate degree in planetary geology last year with a thesis on the possibility of silicon-based life on Delphonus. Just after he moved several thousand miles from his alma mater to Elbas Island, he was hired onto the science advising team for the first crewed mission to Delphonus, which means that he’s spent most of the year at the University of the Fifth Akkanswl on the other side of the world. Unsurprisingly, he too is obsessed with sci-fi that involves aliens.
Syndy Gweltsen // she/her // ~2 years old including her decommissioned time, looks twentysomething // human-built android // incredibly lifelike android originally built by H. O. Gweltsen to work in the royal post office. The monarchs were using her to show everyone how cool and hip the monarchy was, even going so far as to grant her citizenship through royal decree, and never knew that she had an autonomous, sapient self hidden in an encrypted partition. That self, an inquisitive and ornery personality with a passion for hair clips and fluffy skirts, is the one Anni permanently unlocks.
Hoven Lolimmo // he/him // 44 // sha-nawwen (goat person based off chamois) // career librarian and archivist who was most recently the head collections librarian at the royal library; now Syndy’s guardian according to H. O. Gweltsen’s will. He discovered Syndy’s true personality accidentally, then ended up befriending and supporting Gweltsen through the last year of their life. While Anni works on Syndy, he explains his upcoming journey with Syndy to Dez, and discovers that he has quite a lot in common with Julian.
Mizzat Keh // vi/vim // ~12 years old, looks about 30 // android built by nswl (dragonesque people based off geckos) // math professor at the University of the Second Akkanswl. Vi was not literally the first android ever built, but vi was the first successful, fully autonomous one. Originally built by university researchers to study androids’ ability to teach and support students, vi is the most robotic-looking of the androids, and has continued to teach math in the seven years since vis originating experiment concluded. In that time vi has also earned a doctorate in math that replaced vis earlier honorary degree and gained citizenship with the University’s support, but out of anxiety and directionlessness has yet to leave the second Akkanswl.
Imjen Hoat // zi/zir // ~8 years old, looks twentysomething // swl-built android // clinic nurse at the University of the Fifth Akkanswl (zi has not met Zalen and has basically nothing to do with the Delphonus mission). After Mizzat’s initial success, UFA researchers decided to build a much more lifelike android who could act as a point of contact for health information seekers. Like Syndy, Imjen is hard to clock as an android, and zi likes it that way. Like Mizzat and Dez, zi was intended to be autonomous from the start, which eventually led to zir shifting into nursing. Zi is about ready for another career change, but to what zi doesn’t know. Zi is looking forward to this mythical first android gathering, though, which might just happen at zis house.
note // Mizzat and Imjen are far from the only important (living) characters who use neopronouns or neutral pronouns, but they are the only ones present from the beginning of the story.
