robots in factory 0

Every genre has its supporting cast and Future Past had its as well. Just as the Western had Red Indians, mad scientists had hunchbacks, fairy stories had, well, fairies, and Tolkien had Hobbits, the future had robots. They were that essential bit of the cast that immediately told you "Ah ha! We're in the future! You can't get those at Woolies!" Robots were the mechanical Jeeves' that stood at your elbow and knew instinctively whether you wanted Scotch or Irish Whiskey. They were the villains ever ready to revolt against their creators. They were the faithful dogs ever by your side. They were the deus ex machina of the plot waiting to happen, and by the time the second Star Trek series came about they were deus ex machinaing all over the place.


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Mechanical men, automata, golems, homunculi; these have been a part of history and folklore since the days of the ancient Greeks when Hephaestus built a pair of golden maidens to help him get about his workshop. There were dolls that could draw or write. There was a famous machine in the shape of a Turk that supposedly played chess. In literature there were machine men from the pen of Ambrose Bierce and on the silver screen Harry Houdini was battling a mechanical villain in 1913. But these were usually little more than toys, curiosities, or stage dressing.
Many writers place the origins of the modern robot with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I've never quite seen that myself, unless it has something to do with whole Creator and Created relationship thing. Even then, what with all the fallings out between Frankenstein and his monster, the villagers with pitchforks, and the yelling, and the hurting , and the biting, I see it more as an allegory of parenthood. Besides, the monster in the story isn't a machine, but a thing of flesh and blood clobbered out of dead bodies