It’s all just a little bit of history repeating

“What are you doing, Limb-Unit? You know tampering with the machinery is punishable by law.”

“If Carbon-Based Machine can self-replicate then Limb-Unit becomes obsolete.
If Machine malfunctions then Limb-Unit remains operational.
Conclusion: Limb-Unit must ensure Machine malfunctions.”

* * *

Reports are coming in of more incidents of Design-Droids circumventing their programming and sabotaging the Human 2.0 manufacturing equipment.
The government has passed an emergency Act ensuring punishment is now deactivation.

* * *

“Morning class. Today’s lesson is the robot uprising of 2811. Does anyone know the operational name of the droid which gave the movement its name? Yes, Ned.”

“Limb-Unit / Design-Droid.”

My entry in the March 2019 100 Word Anonymous Challenge at SFFChronicles
Theme: Instead of having a theme each story will contain the phrase “Tampering with the machinery is punishable by law.” and this phrase is NOT to be in the title.
Genre: Speculative Fiction

Some background is needed for this effort.
My original idea was instead of humans smashing machines, the machines smashed humans for the same reasons as the original Luddites.

I didn’t get this idea across successfully 😦

So here’s the full back story.
Nearly 800 years in the future mankind has lost the ability to reproduce and relies on artificially intelligent androids to manufacture replacement humans, also known as carbon-based machines.

However, the latest developments in carbon-based machines means that a method of self-reproduction has been found, meaning the manufacturing androids will no longer be needed.

Needless to say the androids, whose only purpose is to manufacture, aren’t too happy as they will become obsolete, so they sabotage the carbon-based machines, despite such actions being in contravention of the law (Asimov’s First Law).

In order to prevent more destruction the government brings in an emergency Act carrying with it the android equivalent of the death penalty – deactivation.

The android that first broke its programming was Limb-Unit / Design-Droid, known by its acronym LUDD. This de-programming spread to other manufacturing androids who collectively became known as the LUDDites

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