Episode VIII: “Robots”
First print date: April 23 1977
Prog appearance: 9
Writer(s): John Wagner
Artist(s): Ron Turner
Total episodes: 1
Man has always found ways to be cruel: to animals, to nature, and when nobody is left, to himself. But now he has a new victim to torment, and one that is sworn and designed never to lift a finger to stop him, even though as an entity it is much stronger and more powerful than he could ever be. Yes folks, in the almost twenty-second century, robots are the new whipping boys. Mechanical slaves who must do as they are bid, as they are ordered, and can never defend themselves or avenge themselves on their human masters. Judges Dredd and Diablo, sent to patrol the Robot of the Year Show, as they have received a threat that if a massive ransom is not paid, there will be serious trouble there, watch the display with growing distaste. For a tough, cynical man, Dredd is moved by the inhumanity of his fellow men towards harmless automatons, bred to serve, bred to work and if necessary bred to die. He foresees a cataclysm “one day”.
Suddenly there is no more time to ruminate on man's cruelty as they hear a disturbance and rush to intercept a man in a flying wheelchair, of all things, who is armed and shooting. Dredd warns him to drop his weapon, but the cripple's chair is protected by bullet-proof glass and the Judges' bullets just bounce off harmlessly. He then releases deadly Myclon gas; Diablo is too slow and goes down but buys time for Dredd to put on his respirator as the place begins to fill with toxic fumes. Protected, but aware that hundreds or thousands of innocent citizens are in danger, Dredd shoots out the dome with a high-ex bullet and the fumes are sucked out into the city, where Mega-City One's air filtration system will take care of them.
Now it's time to catch the perp, and Dredd snatches up a blanket that he dropped in the chaos, and using the exhibition to his advantage he takes it to the new gleaming Police Bloodhound Robot. With the scent in its “nostrils”, the robot takes Dredd on its back and charges off in pursuit of the felon. They catch up with the cripple, and Dredd, desperate to stop his spree, shoots at the robochair, disabling it and causing it to spin down, out of control, till it impacts on the ground. As he looks down on the wreckage, Dredd thinks about the double role robots have played in this little drama: one helped him catch the perp, the other assisted the perp in his crime. How soon, he wonders, before they are
all fighting robots?
QUOTES
Robot George: “No, master! Please don't make me do it! George does not want to die!”
Carny: “You can't die if you're not alive George.”
(A rationale that has been, and will be, advanced as an excuse for the maltreatment of robots. Hurting living things is cruel, and wrong of course. But something inanimate? A robot? You might as well say it's cruel to kick your stereo, or slam your oven door. It's just a thing. Isn't it?)
Lady onlooker: “Poor thing. I could almost swear it's crying.”
Carny: “Yes ma'am! Those are
real tears! Our new “K” series robots are so real they're almost human! They think, they feel, but they obey!”
(Dear God how monstrous! They actually give the robots feelings, allow them to feel pain and fear, knowing they can do nothing about it. What madman thought that one up? I'm already rooting for the robots to rise up!)
Dredd: “It was a cruel exhibition, Diablo. We give robots the will to live and then expect them to die like willing slaves. It's gonna spell trouble one day.”
(It might seem odd to hear the stony-faced Judge waxing so sympathetic about mere machines, but even he has room in his heart for a little mercy. And he is a champion of the weak, so he can imagine how the robots feel, with no advocate, nobody to speak for them, nobody to protect them. He may be a tough man, but he's fair too, and this is not something he believes is fair. Also he can see trouble brewing, the way only a Judge can.)
Dredd: “I prefer old-fashioned robots. Stupid things with no feelings. They cause no problems.”
(And in a few sentences Dredd kind of undoes all the bleeding-heart work he's done in the previous ones...) 
Cripple: “Fire away, Judges! You can't penetrate my bullet-proof shield!”
(Bullet-proof? Somehow you would think that by now, on the very cusp of the twenty-second century, they'd be using lasers? But no: seems the good old bullet is still alive and well and serviceable --- though surely highly upgraded and improved.)
Robot Bloodhound: “Approaching interception point, master. Lawbreaker will exit underpass in exactly four seconds. Am I not clever?”
Dredd: “Just get on with your job, bloodhound!”
(Interesting points here. Firstly, even though it's robotic the bloodhound seems to have been programmed with the dog's innate sense of desire to please, and to receive positive reinforcement. It wants to be told, basically, that it's a “good boy”. Were it not so huge, perhaps it would roll over to have its belly tickled? Dredd shows that he really has little time for robots in his response: he knows that he needs the machine, but he dislikes having to rely on it. He likes it even less that the thing has to talk to him, and wishes it would just do the job for which it was designed. But at the back of it too, anchoring his dislike of the thing is the inescapable understand that without this robot, he would not have been able to track the lawbreaker as well as he has, and he realises that Judges are going to come to rely on these machines. Which to him, is really a step backward. A Judge survives by his wits, his experience and his training, not by riding on the back of some oversized sleigh. But this is the future before him, the future of law enforcement, and he can see why. He doesn't have to like it, but he knows a massive advance in police pursuit when he sees it.)
Robochair (diving out of control to the ground): “I regret that I can serve you no further BZZZZ! Goodbye, master!”
(Even though the chair has been sent to its “death” by its master, it still apologises because it can no longer carry out the function for which it was built. In addition, the chair is blissfully unaware that it is carrying its “master” to his own death. Nothing matters to it but that it has failed, as it sees it, in its duty.)
Dredd: “I would not have caught this lawbreaker without this bloodhoud robot, but that heap of metal down there was a robot too. How long will it be before robots discover how to break the law?”
(Asimov's First Law of Robotics states that no robot can cause a human harm, or, through inaction, allow harm to come to a human. Will this imperative hold when the robots begin to realise there is a way that they can strike back at their masters? Can they break their programming and take revenge for all the years of slavery and ill-treatment at the hands of the humans they serve? This is what Dredd fears, and the vision he has of the future is not in the least encouraging.)
Ch-ch-ch-changes
This is the first time we hear one of the “Dreddwords” I spoke of earlier being used. Judge Diablo says “By Stomm! That robot melted well, Dredd!” I think it was envisioned that Stomm was to be some sort of god or legendary figure, like we'd say “By God” or “By Jesus”, but from what I remember this was quickly dropped and the phrase became a single word, “Stomm!” usually meant as an exclamation of surprise or anger. We'll see if it's used with the preposition again, but I don't think so.
I think, too, though I may be wrong, that this is the first time Dredd has teamed up with another Judge. Up to now, he's always been a lone wolf. Perhaps Diablo was there to forestall any protests that Dredd wouldn't have had time to drop his respirator before the gas got him otherwise.
It's also the first time we're shown that Judges have respirators built into their helmets. In many ways, the uniform of a Judge is more like a suit of armour coupled with a full exoskeleton and mobile arsenal!
Welcome to the world of tomorrow!
Where all the menial jobs you want done, and all the heavy lifting is performed by robots. They don't come cheap --- the series “K” one at the beginning of the story, the one ordered into the flames --- costs just under 200,000 credits --- and probably not every household has one, but for your larger industrial tasks, robots are not only necessary but vital, and you can bet every major company has some. Of course, we use robots in this century too, and think no more of them than that they are machines, but then, they don't have personalities or feelings. Would you find it so easy to curse your computer if it made a sad face, or to drive your car if it complained of your weight? It's different when these machines can express themselves, talk, show fear or sorrow.
But soon, the robots will show something much more deadly: rage, outrage and a thirst for vengeance. The rise of the machines is not years away, or months. It's just around the corner...
I'll ask the questions, creep!
First I have to ask, why a cripple? It's funny yes, in an oddball way, but why is the guy disabled? Also, what is his beef with the show? Is he some sort of robot activist? And if he has a bullet-proof shield protecting him on the hoverchair, how did the scarf slip out from that? This was Dredd's only way to track the guy, and the fact that it fell out through what is supposed to have been an enclosed bubble is perhaps evidence of bad storywriting.
You also have to wonder: are robots not supposedly programmed to respond to authority? Surely any command its user gives it should be overridden if it's against the law? So that when Dredd roars for the hoverchair to pull over, the robot driving it should heed that call and land. Instead, it continues on its course, ignoring the Judge.
I AM THE LAW!
Dredd worries what will happen if robots begin to break the law? Mega-City One's laws and penal codes are naturally geared towards humans. What use to incarcerate a robot in an iso-cube when a) it could probably escape and b) the imprisonment would have no effect on it. Also robots don't generally die (though they can wear out) so as soon as the term of imprisonment was over the robot would be free to go back to committing crimes. Do they upgrade the penalties, shooting robots who commit any crime? And if so, what possible penalties does the City face from the owners, manufacturers or users of the robots? Do they, perhaps, hold
them responsible for the crimes, as parents are often blamed for their children's misdeeds? Or do they try to write up a whole new set of laws to cover robots?
Either way, the paperwork's gonna stink, and every Judge's job is bound to get harder, and more dangerous. Hunting down criminal robots will not be anywhere as easy, or as safe, generally, as hunting down humans.
PCRs
One of the robots, who continues to advertise itself as it is programmed to do, oblivious to the carnage being wreaked around it, is called “The Heavy Metal Kid”.
This is a double PCR, as The Heavy Metal Kids were a British hard rock band, and they took their name from a gang in a novel by William Burroughs).
Those clever little touches
Is it coincidence, I wonder, that the gas the cripple releases is called Myclon, very close to Zyklon B, the infamous gas used in the Nazi concentration camps in World War II? Is Wagner here trying to say something, to draw a parallel between the lives robots are forced to live and the victims of the Nazi atrocities, who were forced into slave labour, and given no more thought by their oppressors than we would give an insect? Is he making a comment on slavery in general, or am I just reading too much into things, as usual...?