Robots of Retropolis, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
The reason that’s not actually the slogan of the Retropolis Fraternal League of Robotic Persons is that – so far as any of us know – no robot has ever been chained to anything there. Except that one time, with Big Lug #11408, but everyone knows that was his own idea. And it could have worked.
But I’ll admit it’s a scary thought. The chains, I mean. No, their actual slogan is “Although We Serve, We Are Not Servants” which would have been a perfectly valid slogan in any office I’ve ever worked in, even though we were wise not to chant it.
Retropolis has in fact always treated its robots pretty much like members of the family – not the family you could be thinking of at the moment, but rather one of those small town MGM style families that only Ronald Reagan ever believed were real. Because, you know, Retropolis is a pretty nice place, overall.
What happened, though, was that a big crowd of robots went together to a revival screening of “Metropolis”. The movie left them feeling a little shaky. Between Robot Maria and the oppressed mobs of workers, the robots just had this sort of nagging idea that things could take a turn for the worse. So… they organized. Just in case. Food for thought.
This, like my other recent posts here, started as an idea for a T-Shirt design at my Retropolis Transit Authority site. I’ve done it up at a larger size to make it suitable for everyday home use as a poster, an archival print, and even on greeting cards, so you can send ’em to the entire Local.
Retropolis Transit, by the way, has been basking in the adoration (or at least the attention) of record crowds this past week. That’s partly due to my canny juggling of banner ads, but it’s mainly the result of the purest, blindest dumb luck in the world. Huzzah!
