So about the androids... *spoilers*

[Half Aluminum Chemist]

I don’t know if this is just Yoko Taro being Yoko Taro or what, but I find the term androids to be a somewhat misplaced name considering that:

- they bleed and, judging from ending D, can bleed to death

- they can apparently feel love and/or sexual attraction to each other, and also homosexual attraction according to 6O's dialog that she liked and asked out another operator (who im assuming is female cause they all seem to be)

- require oxygen and can breathe since 2B strangles 9S in endings A and B, which also doesn’t make sense since androids fly to earth on flight units that are exposed to the vacuum of space, as seen in 9S's final part where he flies to help 2B against Eve

- according to 9S, androids also have a pulse, as when you select that "there is something calming" about 9S's voice during 2B's startup, he mentions that his pulse rate is rising.

- even though robots don’t need to eat, Adam tells Eve to eat an apple, which one assumes he is capable of digesting in some way. Since Adam and Eve are based on androids, its possible they have this function as well (doesnt Jackass also tell you to eat a fish or something?)

Any thoughts on this?

[Climhazzard]

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that an android could use a circulatory system that functions via a liquid similar to blood. Honestly if machines advanced enough they could be similar to humans in almost every way. With nano machines a machine could perfectly resemble a human even if you hacked them up. Androids in Nier don't seem quite that advanced but heck even Data had fully functional sexual ability and eventually emotions, and that guy didn't seem nearly as advanced as the androids in Nier, who have been evolving for thousands of years while he was a one of a kind prototype.

[Null_User]

They are simply trying to act more like humans. The choke scene could have well been 2B breaking vital circuits in 9S's neck, and the 'blood' may not be actual blood like that of a living being. Adam and Eve are machines, not androids. Despite their shapes, they are machines and most of the insides may be a little bit different (but still similar, which you will find out in the lore). As you keep reading the lore, you will see that machines also want to be more like humans. Basically both sides want to be more human because what they keep getting from old data is all about humanity.

[Lack of Stuff]

Android is a broad enough term to encompass any synthetic being designed to resemble humans. The Androids and replicants all fall under this category.

If not android or gynoid then what term would you say applies? As for the mackerel, you shouldn't try to eat one unless you have just saved.

[Tambadabam]

-many liquids are red. it's not unresonable to assume androids require some kind of red liquid to function
-this is actually covered in the first game a bit, but in the nier universe it seems as though anything with the capacity for memory will eventually develop emotions if you leave it long enough (as the androids in the first game did)
-admittedly the strangling thing is wierd but given 2B's actual designation it could have been she was killing him in a way that just happened to look like strangling even if it didn't involve needing air (maybe something to do with fuel filters?)
-pulse might have been meant in a less literal sense, since they clearly have some kind of liquid that acts similarly to blood they must have some kind of circulatory system and this some method of pumping liquid
-yes, jackass does give you a fish to eat, but it kills you

[Big Boom Boom]

Actually the resistance androids do eat for fun. One of the side quests involves getting boar meat for human, but turns out it's a favourite among resistance as they try to learn about human cuisine.

[Half Aluminum Chemist]

Originally posted by Big Boom Boom:

Actually the resistance androids do eat for fun. One of the side quests involves getting boar meat for human, but turns out it's a favourite among resistance as they try to learn about human cuisine.

Oh yeah i forgot about that part too.

[Hued]

Originally posted by Half Aluminum Chemist:

Originally posted by Big Boom Boom:

Actually the resistance androids do eat for fun. One of the side quests involves getting boar meat for human, but turns out it's a favourite among resistance as they try to learn about human cuisine.

Oh yeah i forgot about that part too.

Yeah, it's an odd one. Do the androids swallow the food, or do they just taste it and spit it out? They don't require food to live, which possibly means they don't have a functioning digestive tract, so what would happen if they do swallow food?

[Half Aluminum Chemist]

Originally posted by Hued:

Originally posted by Half Aluminum Chemist:

Oh yeah i forgot about that part too.

Yeah, it's an odd one. Do the androids swallow the food, or do they just taste it and spit it out? They don't require food to live, which possibly means they don't have a functioning digestive tract, so what would happen if they do swallow food?

If they do digest it, do they poop it out? Do androids have like...junk and stuff?

[Hued]

Originally posted by Half Aluminum Chemist:

Originally posted by Hued:

Yeah, it's an odd one. Do the androids swallow the food, or do they just taste it and spit it out? They don't require food to live, which possibly means they don't have a functioning digestive tract, so what would happen if they do swallow food?

If they do digest it, do they poop it out? Do androids have like...junk and stuff?

If they poop, then they would most likely have.

[Null_User]

Originally posted by Half Aluminum Chemist:

Originally posted by Hued:

Yeah, it's an odd one. Do the androids swallow the food, or do they just taste it and spit it out? They don't require food to live, which possibly means they don't have a functioning digestive tract, so what would happen if they do swallow food?

If they do digest it, do they poop it out? Do androids have like...junk and stuff?

Considering they ARE emulating humans, I suppose they at least eat the food. And considering some food is bad for them, I could assume some is actually good for them.

These androids also come equipped with pain receptors and even something that acts as adrenaline (as explained in the Jackass quest).

[Metall Alm-Oehi]

THIS SPOILERS EVERYTHING, JUST PLAY THE GAME FIRST!

Frankly I don't think this is all fully consistent. It should be but, well, it's a made-up world etc.

Here is my list of castes in descending order of (spiritual? level-of-soul?) exaltation:

Level 1: Humans: Actual humans, probably uplifted/upgraded, exiled to the Moon, now extinct (according to someone who is a 100% tool of the "Council of Humanity" ....)

Level 1.5: Replicant observers: Devola and Popola (I guess). They are despised by Androids though.

Level 2: Replicants: Human bodies w/o soul, that can develop their own soul eventually (I don't know much about this lore though).

Level 3: "Androids": Non-biological, Non-humans, but have human form and likely soul-similarity (emotions, though personally for me emotions are not particularly hard to do, consciousness is where it's at). They form troops of the resistance, so they have ideology. Easy to distinguish from humans by cursory inspection (mechanical/electronic infrastructure à la T-101 is mentioned and seen, also the visual effects suggest underlying program-based digitality), super-tough (no protection in vacuum - though those flight units need a force field for sure, can run around in the desert w/o cooling, can drop from great heights, survive explosions, fight in high heels), can bleed (but inconsistently - 2B bleeds a whole lot but 9S not at all; he's just maybe oozing some brown liquid while having lost an arm and a leg in Chapter 1), they live a long time (100y+) and can swap their parts out (except the core I imagine). Has elements of magic/and/or/nanotech. Can fuse other bodyparts to itself like a Boomer from Bubblegum Crisis. The soul can be packaged and send around through the aether with infinitely fat data pipes ("backup"/"teleport" - the "teleport" makes no sense though, they should have used wormholes). The soul can be packaged into objects. An android can grow hair. An android can, I suppose, grow (or will 9S stay a little boy all his life?) Can be produced in series (but what happens to the soul in that case?) Not sure how produced (maybe in magic vats), nor where. Definitely not an "android" like Rachael from Blade Runner. The functiononing of Androids is subject matter to scientific investigation (see Jackass' experiments), so no-one really knows how they actually work. And also: Can be infected by "virus", which has some qualities of a software virus but mostly qualities of a magic infectious spell.

Level 4: YoRHa: Androids with "black boxes" secretly made from Machine Cores (does this mean Alien Machine Cores? How does that work? Do Androids in general have black boxes?) because it's unethical to "use real AI" (i.e. real Androids) in the cannon fodder role. It is unclear to me how they can remove the Cube Cores from themselves and hold them in their hand, but see "infinitely fat aether pipes" above.

Level 4: Alien-issued Humanoids: An immense jump from the standard Alien-issued mechano-bot. Basically the Alien answer to the Android (but the Aliens are actually all dust, so the self-improvement system is running overdrive), and may be indistinguishable from it in practice (so, we meet at the middle) and fully indistinguishable from YorHa. Can use magic powers like Tesuo Shima. Not in mass production. This seems to be the first mission of B2 in which she sees those (unless I didn't get something?). Given that development, Androids would be toast in a few more battle cycles. Soul-full? A resounding yes.

Level 5: Drones: Mechanistic attendants to Androids (at one point I suspected the Drones were actually running the show, that would have been some reversal ... "No 2B ... you ARE the Drone". But no. Just attendants. Also developing their soul part I guess. They sure have their personalities and pass the Turing Test. They are also developing their own off-net net (the Drone Dark Net?)

Level 6: Alien-issued Robots aka. "Machine Lifeforms". Metal-and-wiring based combat machinery generated by "The Aliens" for unclear reasons (well, for the invasion of AD 5012, but that was a long time ago and how did they look back then?)

Level 5: Alien-issued Robots that have dropped off the Net: At first soul-less, but upgrading themselves to soul-enabled. Then they build whole societies, generally to belittling laughter of Androids. The Resistance can trade with the soul-enabled/free Machine Lifeforms out of practicality/necessity. 2A sees them only as killbots, faking it (like the CLAWS from PKD's Second Variety or Arnie as T101) but comes around to seeing them in a different light later.

Level 7: Human-issued Robots: Existed once (Marx/Engels, possibly Hegel and other Goliaths?) but not in use now, maybe because takeover via virus was easy. Low to no levels of soul.

I don't know what Emil is though.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Emil is (Nier 1 spoilers)

A human-made superweapon. He's probably level 1.5 or 3.

As for replicants, they were artificial human bodies. When a magic plague from another world hit Earth in the far past (it's a long complicated story) there was a last ditch effort to save humanity by separating their souls from their bodies. The surviving souls were called shades and replicants were the engineered bodies they were supposed to inhabit after the disease died off. Unfortunately two complications arose: 1. Many replicants became self-ware and saw the shades as hostile. 2. The disease still continued and started affecting the self-aware replicants over time. By Automata it has wiped out the replicants and the shades died off without hosts for so long.

[Tressk]

according to yoko taro in an interview where they asked him 50 questions about the series, the androids and machines arent "born" with genitalia, but can create convincing copies that look and feel as if they were real.

source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-6DSkfWAAEF0kU.jpg

so yea, thats a thing lol

[Sire]

the bodies are as close to human bodies as possible due to project gestalt and replicant. first Nier makes it more obvious why the androids are like they way they are, but there are documents you can find ingame to give some out-of-context explanations.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Originally posted by Tressk:

according to yoko taro in an interview where they asked him 50 questions about the series, the androids and machines arent "born" with genitalia, but can create convincing copies that look and feel as if they were real.

source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-6DSkfWAAEF0kU.jpg

so yea, thats a thing lol

Nice link, much appreciated.