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I Am Not a Gun: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|"Guns kill, and you don't have to be a gun. You are what you choose to be. '''You''' choose. ''Choose''."|'''Hogarth''', ''[[The Iron Giant]]''}}
An artificial being designed specifically for warfare suddenly decides that they aren't satisfied with their current career. Maybe they've [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|developed sentience]], maybe an [[Kick the Wrong Dog|innocent bystander]] managed to be in the [[My God, What Have I Done?|wrong place at the wrong time]], maybe they've just learned that [[The Men in Black]] that made them [[Government Conspiracy|don't exactly have the best interests of the public in mind]]. Regardless, they've decided to turn in their guns and try life off the battle field.
Naturally, this newfound aversion to violence rarely goes over well with the construct's creators, who will almost always go out of their way to regain control. Old enemies of said weapon's "employers" will invariably be very interested to note that such a powerful force has suddenly become up for grabs. Let's not even get into the endless number of other sides that will get involved.
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Common "victims": [[Tyke Bomb]], [[Phlebotinum Rebel]], [[Secret Project Refugee Family]], [[Person of Mass Destruction]]. [[Super Trope]] of [[Defusing the Tykebomb]]. Compare and contrast [[Three Laws Compliant]].
{{examples
* The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[The Iron Giant]]''.
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* Ifurita from ''[[El Hazard]]'' comes to angst over it considerably, but given that [[Restraining Bolt|she must obey the master of her key-staff]] she has little choice until Makoto frees her.
* Aigis of ''[[Persona 3]]'' was intended to be an anti-shadow weapon, though her existence as such is somewhat compromised by being programmed with the degree of sentience necessary to have a persona. A large amount of her [[Character Development]] (moreso in [[Updated Rerelease|FES]]) is her coming to terms with being more than a killer robot and becoming more like a human woman.
* Sort of done with [[Arthur C. Clarke (Creator)]]'s short story "The Pacifist" (one of the Tales from the White Hart): It involves a (fictional) [[The Fifties|Fifties]] secret US military project, Project Clausewitz, to build a computer (called Karl) that could analyze any battle's starting conditions and perfectly predict the result. However, the general in charge of the project insults the lead scientist, who hard-wires Karl into delivering insults to the general every time a battle is input, but still doing pure math just fine. It's only "sort of" this trope because Karl is not an AI: he's a dumb 50s computer. The effect, however, is the same.
* In one ''[[Star Trek Voyager]]'' episode the crew finds a device that turns out to be a sentient bomb sent on a mission of war to anihilate a planet. The bomb eventually realises that its mission is morally wrong and that life is precious, but decides that it has to stop its fellow bombs from fufilling their mission as well. It does this by rejoining with them and then deonating itself prematurely, sacrificing itself in order to save innocent lives.
** Actually, the race that launched the bombs broadcast a "stand down" order afterwards, but the other bombs had already reached their failsafe distance and ignored the order. The bomb the crew found had crashlanded before it reached failsafe distance, but the part of its memory where the "stand down" order was stored was damaged, until the Voyager crew repaired it. He might have come to the "[[Heroic Sacrifice|I must stop the other bombs, too]]" decision on his own, though.
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* Inverted in the short story "[http://www.afterburnsf.com/articles.php?action=nerveGas How Lonesome a Life Without Nerve Gas]", by James A. Trimarco. A sentient helmet pleads with a military tribunal not to be retired, {{spoiler|but because it killed its owner, it's reprogrammed and reduced to a talking museum exhibit}}. (The story is no longer found at the link above, try [http://escapepod.org/index.php?s=how+lonesome+a+life+without+nerve+gas here] instead. It is read aloud in the podcast, starting around 3:49).
* In [[Fallout|Fallout 3]], one of the quests involves a rogue android who becomes self aware, and decides to escape from his masters. "Self determination is NOT a malfunction!"
* Many combat robots in ''[[Pluto]]''. One even went so far as to [[Out, Damned Spot!|continuously wash his hands in a catatonic state.]]
* [[SCP Foundation (Wiki)|SCP Foundation]]-[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-516 516] is a tank which refuses to fire at civilians.
* [[Philip K Dick]]'s short story "The Defenders": when [[World War III]] broke out, both sides retreated into bunkers and let their robots, referred to as "leadies," do the fighting. The leadies promptly made peace and set about repairing the damage that'd been done before they took charge. They kept sending their human masters false reports of what a horrific radioactive wasteland the surface had become ... but eventually revealed this was intended to make humans so sick and tired of the war that they'd accept the peace (and world unity) their leadies had negotiated.
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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:I Am Not A Gun]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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