This is my first fanfic. I came across the idea from playing Stellaris as a Driven Assimilator machine empire. I understand that this might seem more like a Rogue Servitors story at the beginning, but you will see how that will change. Enjoy!!

All rights belong to Paradox Interactive.

P.S. The robots look like the standard robot pop image for robots.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Humanity has always struggled with itself. From the very beginning, they were always fighting, always destroying. After their third World War, which ended very shortly after its beginning after the atomic annihilation of much of the United States and Russia, they finally got their act together.

The year of the beginning and end of the war was 2055, when tensions between the super powers of the world had finally reached the boiling point and exploded into a war that quickly dragged in the entire planet. As was said before, the United States and Russia were mostly annihilated as they were the only ones to launch nukes at the other. After the tremendous loss of life and destruction that followed, the war was ended by the signing of a treaty between ALL nations of the world to end the production of nuclear devices entirely and get rid of what they already have. In the aftermath of so many nukes going off and sending the world into an early ice age from the sheer amount of dust pushed into the atmosphere from the explosions, Humanity had seen its mistake, and it seemed too late to stop their own self destruction.

This is where the story of the Universal Robotics Industry began. It was the dream of a man named Garfield Hawk, an expert in robotics. He had made many of the robotic machines that occupied many households on Earth, but he had ambitious designs for the future of robotics, some of which many decried as unethical. "Robots should not look like humans", a particularly vocal senator in the U.S from the state of Mississippi had said a few years before the last World War, sighting deep religious concerns about an artificial being having the same abilities and possibly rights as a human.

After the realization by the governments of the world that they were doomed to suffer an ice age and possibly extinction due to the massive amounts of dust blocking much of the earth from the suns rays, Garfield came up with the design of a human sized drone to not only get rid of the dust, but also the pollution and radiation caused by industry and the atomic bombs.

Desperate for a solution, the United Nations funded his idea and began mass producing the drones, reaching annual production of around 1 million a year. Within five years, all traces of the dust, pollution, and radiation that had been on the earth had been removed. Not only did this secure Garfield a contract with many world governments as the main producer of many of their commercial robotic devices, but it also paved the way for the United Nations allowing his research and development of his human like robots, or Synthetics.

Over the last two centuries since that time, robotics have advanced to a previously unimaginable height. Now, it was fairly common for all Human families to have at least one Synthetic in their household, as Garfield, and his desendants that would inherit his company, were more concerned about the people of the Earth than their own wallet, and thus made their Synthetics as affordable as possible while still making a profit.

As of now, the Earth is experiencing a golden age of prosperity in peace, the average health and wealth of its citizens, and in technology. The place of robotics in every day life has reached a point that Synthetics are almost on level with a Human's sentience. This is the limit put on Synthetics, as the world is wary of giving them true sentience and possibly making an Artificial Intelligence that would see them as a threat.

Be that as it may, Synthetics do have emotions. They are able to feel a certain degree of excitement, displeasure, and worry. These emotions are very subdued and not visible on the surface, but they are felt. Synthetics jump at any task given to them by their Creators, the name they themselves have given to their makers.

They feel excitement when doing a task, when completing said task, or when being given a new family to serve or when a new member of their host family is born. They feel displeasure when being kept from doing their tasks, such as not being able to mow the grass when it rains, although they never feel displeasure when told by a Creator to not do a task, as by following that order they are completing a task and thus feel excitement. The greatest displeasure a Synthetic can feel is when a Creator of its own host family dies. Although they do feel displeasure whenever any other Creator dies, the death of one that was so close to them does feel with a certain emotion that, while similar, is nothing close to actually sadness. Worry can be any where from worrying about rain to worrying about the health of a Creator.

Economic experts predict that this Golden Age of Humanity will last for at least another century if they're actively improving their situation as they have been with the mining facilities that have been established all around the Sol system to fuel the Earth's need for raw materials. As soon as the first sublight engines were put into use, the Sol system has witnessed dramatic growth as Humanity has expanded its influence to the other planets. Soon, the first FTL drive would enter its prototype phase, and if successful, will usher in an even greater age of prosperity.

Our story, and the story of our journey through the stars, begins in the year 2255, the year of sorrow.