Had a great soundboarding session with Wayne, first about his mytholicious story, Kid Sledge (something I am humbly proud to be helping him with, in a very small capacity) and then he threw several things at me about The Wanderer that really got me thinking. Specifically as they applied to Rossum.

It was ironic really, as I had just finished asking him if having Bobby, Tisandra, Zuzu, Clarence, Noah AND Rossum was too much of an ensemble cast. "Not if you do it right" he said. Something we both agreed on. Character focus on each one's story would help stitch them together as a whole unit, a family. But my head was still struggling with whether or not Rossum was a part of this family or not. And then Wayne, god bless him, my greatest advocate of Rossum (I think he told me one time that the God-bot was his favorite character of the group) threw out this tidbit on the steely skinned bugger.

Wayne: I was thinking the other day, it'd be really cool if Rossum couldn't pick up on subtlety
Me: lol how so?
Wayne: like he's just a creature of logic i.e

Bobby: Goddamn cops... What color is the sky in their world any damned way?
Rossum: The sky is blue, Robert.

Me: hahaha *pounds table* YES!
Me: that totally fits him.
Wayne: yeah, I always saw it being you know, he sees the universe as a sort of equation. And he's just missing a big chunk of it, so now he's got it in his head that God completes his equation, so he's gotta find him to understand
Me: Rossum is most definitely the know-it-all type. But in a kind of stuffy British kind of way.
Wayne: right
Me: But what I've been having a hard time is following his logic. Is there space in logic for a creator-sized hole?
Wayne: sure. Maybe he's adding all these things up, you know, maybe even back through time but where it all comes from, it just doesn't fit
Me:I kept thinking that, rigidly, he's been told to obey the commands of his engineers and any other higher authority. And that only once he discovers the human concept of God as THE highest authority, he gets stuck on a technicality.
Me: Right. I know Einstein definitely wrestled with it. Mathematically even.
Wayne: ah that's good. 'I obey the commander' type thing
Wayne: yeah, it could even be a combination of those things
Me:: Exactly. And then 'oh shit. You mean there's something higher than these guys?'
Wayne: like the idea of God just seems like it certainly fits. it makes this all make sense to him
Me: Right. Once he discovers the concept.
Me:There for a while I had his designer reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And Rossum reads it along with the literary criticism talking about God abandoning Man.
Wayne: oh!
Me:But I figured that might be too highbrow. Or heavy-handed on my part.
Wayne: what if he wants to bring him back
Me:Bring God back?
Wayne: what if that's why he's looking for God
Wayne: yeah
Me: Whooooooa. that's crazy.
Wayne: it's simple and logical
Me: I dunno. Part of me wonders why he would think God was missing. It is Eisenhower America. 'In God We Trust' and all the rallying against 'atheistic Communism'. That's why he's being designed, in a way. To fight atheists.
Wayne: "without God, you have no purpose. I'll bring God back, we'll find your purpose"
Wayne: well yeah, but it's the concept from the book
Wayne: Rossum doesn't get subtelty
Me: good point. he evaluates this seeming perpetual need by humanity to find God, coupled with the logical conflict of 'higher authority' and sets out to find It.
Wayne: hahaha yes
Me: Should it be borne out of a conversation with his designers?
Wayne: that could certainly work
Me: *nods* as sounding boards for both his curiosity and ours as we follow him.
Wayne: kind of like something bad's happened to one of them, he's talking about how God's abandoned him
Me: Initially I had his main designer be Alan Turing, who was an adamant atheist. With him reading Frankenstein, that sets up one helluva question for Rossum. "What are you reading, Doctor?" "Frankenstein, Rossum." "What's it about?" And off it goes.
Wayne: yeah. I don't think this is so much an either/or discussion. I think all of this is essential. it's just a question of how much do you want to use of each piece
Me: right. It's all integrated in a way. And it would make sense to have multiple questions. Would make finding the answer that much more important to him.
Wayne: yes
Me:*still laughing about that color of the sky bit* but you're right. i had always thought of Rossum as child-like but he is and he isn't. He's a goddamn genius. But he doesn't understand nuance yet.
Me:Like an autistic child or something.

And the whole conversation reminded me why I love this character. Because Rossum is my response to the clumsy treatment of artificial intelligence, the off-the-mark storytelling in Spielberg's AI film, the Second Renaissance from the Animatrix, Short Circuit and The Zeta Project, all of which designed robots with humanity but then didn't stay true to the integrity of that character. 2nd Renaissance gave us robots who wanted to live in their own community and then made them villainous, vengeful and world dominating (like that hasn't been done before). Short Circuit turned a robot who wanted to live freely into a mechanical Robin Williams (don't eeeeeven get me started on Renaissance Man). And the Zeta Project could've made an android Fugitive into something cool and philosophically powerful. Instead, it was just truth stalling and dorky hijinks with a smart-ass street kid and a robot savior with no legitimate reason to be so heroic ("My name is Zeta. I was built as a weapon to destroy, but I will not destroy anymore"...Um... Why?).

And that's a fucking shame. Because ever since R.U.R., Pinocchio and the Jewish Golem tales, the living machine or the inanimate anthropomorph has been THE greatest metaphor to describe what it means to be truly human.

And that's why I had to come up with my own. Rossum is made of that part of me that seeks to understand the world. Rossum is a seeker, a navigator into the mysteries of life. And part of me feels very teary-eyed at his innocence and curiosity and wonder.

So I thank you, Wayne. For helping me remember him.