Half-Breed

Well, it was bound to happen. I just didn't think it would happen this soon into the RvD blog. Here it is: a robotic dinosaur. His name is Pleo, and he wants to be your buddy, or so his cute little Disney-fied mug would have you believe. Granted, he's a cute little feller. But behind those deep blue camera-eyes is a powerful robotic brain, just waiting to be reprogrammed to destroy humanity. Try to imagine Pleo larger, more menacing, covered in blood, possibly with lasers shooting out of his eyes. You get the idea.

Here are some important things you should know about Pleo:

1) Pleo can be produced on an assembly line, and requires no expensive cloning techniques.
2) Pleo is programmed to learn from and respond to his environment, subtly changing his behavior in response to outside information and stimuli.
3) Pleo has emotions. At this point, these are limited to joy, aggression, sorrow, and fear. (It occurs to me that if you remove joy and sorrow from that list and add bloodlust, and you pretty much have the blueprint for every warmongering despot in history.)
4) Pleo has an "open-source operating system," meaning that his programming can be manipulated to add new emotions and behaviors to his repertoire. These new behaviors could include anything from jealousy to genocide.
5) Two or more Pleos can transmit and receive information between them. This information could be "a cold," or, one assumes, battle tactics.

When the battle between robots and dinosaurs gets underway, it is not clear which side will have Pleo's loyalties. I see several possibilities

1) Pleo will side with the robots, but will use his dino-form to infiltrate the dinosaur camps, serving as a well-camouflaged robot assassin, along the lines of the Terminator.
2) Pleo will side with the dinosaurs, preferring those that look like him to those that function like him. He will serve as a powerful adversary, possibly rising to a high position of authority, since the other dinosaurs around him will be a bunch of dumb lizards, basically.
3) Pleo will side with the dinosaurs because he is unaware of his robot heritage. At some point in early adulthood, he will discover his secret lineage, ala Moses, and will serve as a peacemaker between dinokind and robokind.
4) Pleo will be shunned by both sides as a half-breed, and will wander the post-apocalyptic wasteland in a state of perpetual loneliness. This assumes that somebody has altered his code such that he can feel loneliness.

In any event, it seems certain that he will play some role in the RvD drama. So study him well. This won't be the last you hear from young Pleo.