Artifice

"Actually I prefer the term... inhuman."

- Deacon

A webcomic by author Alex Woolfson and artist Winona Nelson. Can be found here.

SYNOPSIS: It was supposed to be a routine "clean-up" mission on the isolated colony Da Vinci Four, but Deacon, a prototype android soldier, has failed spectacularly. Not only did he disobey orders, letting a 19-year-old business liability named Jeff survive, he also attacked and killed those who were sent to help him. Now, the brilliant and uncompromising robopsychologist Clarice Maven has been summoned by the Corporation to determine why.

With Deacon at her absolute mercy, Maven will find out exactly what happened between the android and this boy—and she will use her terrible power to make sure Deacon never fails the Corporation ever again.


 * AI Is a Crapshoot: Word of God says that this is what Deacon is afraid of.
 * And I Must Scream: Thanks to his immobilization codes, Deacon was paralyzed, helpless as the man he loved was knocked unconscious, then thrown into a cell when he laid inert on the floor for three days, having nothing but part of the wall and worrying about Jeff to occupy the time until his battery died. Yeesh.
 * Anti-Hero: Deacon shows contempt for humanity and has, in the words of another (more famous) android, "done questionable things" in the service of his masters
 * Artificial Human: Deacon looks and, for the most part acts, completely human, even though he rejects the term.
 * Artificial Intelligence: Deacon is an android soldier
 * Boys Love
 * Bullying a Dragon: The security guard does this in the opening, with predictable results.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Deacon.
 * Do Androids Dream? and Just a Machine: Two security guards taunt Deacon in the opening scene, referring to him as just "an appliance"
 * Fictional Field of Science: Robopsychology
 * Leave No Survivors: Deacon's team's orders, and nobody seems to see anything wrong with that.
 * Mega Corp: the corporation that created Deacon has its own military, makes its own rules and has seemingly endless resources.
 * Psycho Psychologist: Even taking into account that Deacon has killed several people, the pleasure Maven seems to take in being especially vindictive towards him is unprofessional to say the least.
 * Invisible to Gaydar: Jeff, except for the hair.
 * Well,
 * : although it's got to be said-- when you compare the 'before' and 'after',  it would seem that a lot of people think it's almost like a   version of The Glasses Come Off combined with Beautiful All Along.
 * One of Us: The author, Alex Woolfson, has recently professed to be a troper, and stated that he got his inspiration from this very wiki.
 * Oh, and he knows about this page, too...
 * Oh, and he knows about this page, too...