Machine Worship: Difference between revisions

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* This was the original rationale for the evolution of the Cybermen in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', where a race on a dying planet began replacing their bodies with machines to survive, then decided to chuck out their emotions as well later on. Over the course of the series this got [[Flanderization|forgotten]] and the [[Lost in Imitation|new series Cybermen]] are examples of [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul]] instead.

* In one episode of ''[[Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future]]'', Lord Dredd was dictating what sounded like it was supposed to be a Bio-Dredd Bible.

{{quote| "Chapter 4: And the Machine was given unto Man. The Machine was perfect of line and elegant of form. And the Machine said, 'This is my gift to my people, that they may throw off the bonds of flesh.'"}}

{{quote|"Chapter 4: And the Machine was given unto Man. The Machine was perfect of line and elegant of form. And the Machine said, 'This is my gift to my people, that they may throw off the bonds of flesh.'"}}

* One client in the show ''[[The Collector (TV series)|The Collector]]'' was a roboticist who sold her soul to the devil so she could build a robot capable of thought. When her time was nearly up for her to be damned to hell, she places her mind in the robot's body, proclaiming she will now be free, immortal, and perfect. But her body ends up malfunctioning, and incapable of moving at all but [[And I Must Scream|still fully conscious.]]

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** And it isn't necessarily their hands you should be keeping an eye on...

** As the [[Nightmare Fuel]] page for 40k put it:

{{quote| '''One of Our Own''': "...not only do they occasionally replace half their brain with a computer to free themselves from emotions, but they're one of the most powerful forces in the Imperium. This wouldn't be so bad until you consider how many of them are horrible, horrible people - Archmagos Khobotov from Soul Drinker basically thinks "The Soul Drinkers have an ancient right to the Soulspear, since it's their holiest relic. I don't. I'm going to take it anyways." They literally do not care about anything other than the technology - no honour, no justice, definitely not other people's lives. They will gladly put an entire world's population at risk in order to have a chance to loot a Necron tomb, and tend to act offended when people wall off Necron tombs rather than letting themselves get annihilated by psychopathic robot skeletons. And they're so powerful no-one will ever be able to do anything about it."}}

{{quote|'''One of Our Own''': "...not only do they occasionally replace half their brain with a computer to free themselves from emotions, but they're one of the most powerful forces in the Imperium. This wouldn't be so bad until you consider how many of them are horrible, horrible people - Archmagos Khobotov from Soul Drinker basically thinks "The Soul Drinkers have an ancient right to the Soulspear, since it's their holiest relic. I don't. I'm going to take it anyways." They literally do not care about anything other than the technology - no honour, no justice, definitely not other people's lives. They will gladly put an entire world's population at risk in order to have a chance to loot a Necron tomb, and tend to act offended when people wall off Necron tombs rather than letting themselves get annihilated by psychopathic robot skeletons. And they're so powerful no-one will ever be able to do anything about it."}}

** The Iron Hands Space Marine Chapter are similar, sharing the Mechanicus' heavy use of bionics and their reverance for all things mechanical, and unusually for an Astartes Chapter enjoy close links with Mars. Instead of Chaplains, they have Iron Fathers, who combine the role of Chaplain with Techmarine. They despise the flesh as weak, and tend to view other Imperial forces and civilians with contempt - in at least one case summarily executing one third of the population of a retaken sub-sector to demonstrate the price of weakness. Even their battle cry is "The flesh is weak!"

* The ''[[D20 Modern|D20 Apocalypse]]'' featured an Order of the Machine, which was contemptuous of religious faith and instead wanted to rebuild society in a more logical, orderly form inspired by the machine. They make extensive use of cybernetics.

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** Brother Blood is a straight example, however, once he saw how powerful Cyborg's tech was.

* An episode of ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' featured the Autobot Cosmos crashing on an alien planet and inadvertently creating a [[Cargo Cult]] centered around his unconscious body. When the Decepticons came after him, they were hailed as sky gods and promptly took advantage of it.

{{quote| '''Astrotrain''': "[[First Church of Mecha|These fools worship Transformers!]]"}}

{{quote|'''Astrotrain''': "[[First Church of Mecha|These fools worship Transformers!]]"}}

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Futurama]]'': the [[Hot Amazon|Amazonians]] worship a supercomputer {{spoiler|actually a fembot controlling the thing [[The Wizard of Oz (film)|Wizard of Oz]]-style}} that refers to itself as "Femputer", which had appeared shortly after the males of their species mysteriously all died out. Unlike most examples, the only thing that changed about their tribal culture is that Femputer and the hardware necessary for it to work and communicate with others were installed in a huge temple.

** Amusingly, the Amazonians' response to the question of why they'd make a computer their god is pretty much "seemed like a good idea."