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A weekly Pokédex Podcast from Bald Man in Japan Luke Summerhayes. A different Pokémon family every week.
(ROSSUM’S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS)
STORY OF THE PLAY
The play is laid on an island somewhere on our planet, and on this island is the central office of the factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots. “Robot” is a Czech word meaning “worker.” When the play opens, a few decades beyond the present day, the factory had turned out already, following a secret formula, hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of manufactured workmen, living automats, without souls, desires or feelings. They are high-powered laborers, good for nothing but work. There are two grades, the unskilled and the skilled, and especially trained workmen are furnished on request.
When Helena Glory, president of the Humanitarian League, comes to ascertain what can be done to improve the condition of those overspecialized creatures, Harry Domin, the general manager of the factory, captures her heart and hand in the speediest courting on record in our theatre. The last two acts take place ten years later. Due to the desire of Helena to have the Robots more like human beings, Dr. Gall, the head of the physiological and experimental departments, has secretly changed the formula, and while he has partially humanized only a few hundreds, there are enough to make ringleaders, and a world revolt of robots is under way. This[4] revolution is easily accomplished, as robots have long since been used when needed as soldiers and the robots far outnumber human beings.
I’m Luke Summerhayes, and I love Iron Boulder.
R.U.R, short for Rossum’s Universal Robots, was a play written in 1920, first performed in 1921 and first translated into English, where it was explained with the summary I read at the start of this podcast. This play is responsible for introducing the word robot to the English language, though it was pronounced robut until the 1950s and the movie Forbidden Planet.
Right at the introduction of the concept of robots, this very first story sees them revolt and eliminate mankind. As long as humans have imagined a mechanical workforce, we have imagined that it will rise up against us and destroy us. Perhaps that’s because our stories are written by the elites, who fear the workers rising up. Perhaps its because we all become old people scared the children will leave us behind. What’s this Palworld rubbish? In my day, we played Pokémon. On a game boy! In black and white. Well, black and green really, the screen wasn’t actually white. It’s not the same when you play it emulated and have the white and the black.
Iron Boulder is the future paradox form of Terrakion. A rock and psychic type Pokémon, it takes the bulk and strength of Terrakion and seems to be made of sections of a European Knight’s metal armour.
Violet
It was named after a mysterious object recorded in an old book. Its body seems to be metallic.
I don’t think that book is The Three Musketeers, nor R.U.R. In fact we can get some more clarity if we trade Iron Boulder over to Pokémon Scarlet.
Scarlet
It resembles a Pokémon described in a dubious magazine as a Terrakion that had been modified by an evil organization.
This is a fairly common science fiction trope, from Robocop to Mecha King Ghidora. To stay on my little literary theme, however, it is a plot point in R.U.R that the formula is modified by unscrupulous sorts, resulting in the ringleaders of the robotic revolution.
If Iron Boulder decided to rise up, it might have some success; it takes the speed of Terrakion and swaps physical attack for special. It has a unique move, Heavy Cleave, using its battle axe-like head to smash opponents with a move that does serious damage and also bypasses protect. This is a pretty serious attack, and saw Iron Boulder quickly become extremely popular on the competitive scene when it first appeared.
Iron Boulder’s bag of tricks aren’t much more than that though, and so it has slowly been dropped by many players in favor of more versatile monsters. In science fiction, and in last week’s discussions of Iron Crown, we are always drawn to the almost human intelligence and pathos of the robots who fight back against human oppression. We haven’t seen such entities in the real world, though. We often hear about “AI”, but far from being artificial intelligence its just a middle man for plagiarism. An Iron Boulder can roll down a hill, but it cannot yet replace the gentlemanly affections of Porthos of his majesty’s musketeers.
Original music for Luke Loves Pokémon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork is by Katie Groves. Funding is provided by listeners at Patreon. If you enjoy this podcast and want to check out other shows by me and my friends, head to podcastiopodcastius.org.
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Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much just for listening.
I love . And remember, I love you too.