post #1257753 post #482402 post #219961 post #1585811

Androids are humanoid or anthropomorphic robots that are biomimetic; Meaning that their machinery and overall visage are designed to emulate the functionalities, behavior, and appearance of a biological organism. A mechanical artificial lifeform if you will.

Traits

• Superficially, the android tag can apply to any humanoid robots or robotic furries that leans more towards looking more life-like and less mechanical looking.
• One of the telltale signs of an android is if their skin has an unusual coloring, a synthetic texture, panel linings, industrial iconographies (such as serial numbers, barcodes, hazard signs, and company brand logos), tron lines, or screws or rivets.
• Internally they possess many parts that are similar to those organics such as synthetic muscles, a flexible skin-like exterior covering, organ-like internal components, and a skeletal internal frame.
• This means that they can do just about anything that their flesh and blood counterpart can such as eating, drinking, feeling, and they're fully equipped to engage in sexual activities.
• Behaviorally most androids are fully autonomous with their learning and decision-making processes primarily conducted by their on-board computer brains which, overtime, develops its own personality and behavioral quirks (if they weren't already prepackaged/preprogrammed with one).

Terminology

The word "android" is a combination of the prefix "andro-" ("human" or "male") and the suffix "-oid" (with the appearance/form/likeness of something). This would make the literal meaning of the word pertain to a being that is "human-like" or "man-like".

Due to this some have proposed the term "gynoid" which replaces the prefix with "gyno-" (female) to refer to feminine androids.

Tagging notes

• Due to the tag what you see policy, characters that are androids in lore but are visually indistinguishable from organic life should not be tags as such.
• Biomimetic robotic ferals should not be tagged as androids.

Not to be confused with

• cyborg - Organic lifeforms fitted with mechanical components.
• Android_(os) - An operating system developed by Google for mobile devices.

See also:

• machine
• robot
• android
• animatronic
• robot_humanoid
• robot_anthro
• robot_feral

Forum discussions:

• forum #141131 - Cyborgs, Androids, and Robots. Oh my! (Oct. 2014)
• forum #145008 - Calling all robot, android, mecha, etc. experts! (wiki project) (Dec. 2014)