Servitor
The light cast by the Mandate's golden age was not without shadow. The servitors were proof enough of that.
The need for automatons to perform menial tasks remained constant throughout the Mandate's empire. Machines could be designed, or androids created, but biological components were cheaper to produce. Additionally, if sentient intelligence were removed from the equation, there would be no requirement to uphold rights or provide particular working conditions or compensation. Thus, servitors were born.
Developing the humanoid frame raised some concerns, as the project seemed to push the boundaries of the Nihil Ultra's primary admonishment: Thou shalt not make tools of humankind. The techs at Imani Incorporated assured the public and Mandate officials that their product was nowhere near breaching the Nihil Ultra's tenets.
By making servitors a hybrid of biological and mechanical components, they appeared less human-like. Screens and status readouts, instead of faces flickering with emotion, would be all that people would notice. Their voices were synthetic--their mouths never moved (and were hidden by headgear when deployed to the workforce). Their movements were stiff, but efficient. They had the industry's lowest time-to-task-mastery, meaning that they quickly picked up new routines. Everything about them gave the impression of artificial life. They were perfect for the tasks that Imani had designed them to do.
Or so Imani would have the public believe.
A workplace accident ended up damaging a servitor. The service tech noted a vulgar tattoo on the arm of the servitor. Surprised that a corporate machine would have such a marking, he took bio samples and a picture of the tattoo. Working with an investigative reporter and a band of adventurers, they uncovered the truth.
Imani had taken a shortcut in developing their servitors. Rather than develop biological learning routines to chemically program their servitors, they used existing human minds as a template (which were consumed as part of the process). They primarily used convicts--individuals that were easy to make disappear. It was rumored that, for a fee, Imani would also transform a client's enemy into a servitor as an ultimate act of humiliation. Although no concrete evidence was ever obtained, the investigative reporter's exposé implied that some degree of self-awareness was retained by the servitor.
When the truth hit the news networks, servitors were immediately outlawed. That division, and a number of low-ranking Imani personnel, were tried for varying levels of participating in maltech research and production. The parties ultimately responsible for approving and proposing the program, however, were never identified.
