wx-78 A full explanation about WX-78's design

[Tapirus]

WX-78 is based on the clockwork automatons, most interesting automatons were made between 1700-1920.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton

The main feature of a automaton: they´re made of gears and cams.

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Automatons are mechanical imitations of life, they copy some activities of living beings. Unlike robots, automatons were present since the old times (even mentioned in legends of Ancient Greece). For example the concept of Talos, albeit fictitious, was a giant mechanical guardian made out of bronze, whose most prominent feature was overheating its body´s plaques with the purpose of inflict scorching death to captured enemies.

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Through time, various machines were made, for example, one of the oldest automatons is “Clockwork Lute Player Lady” (44cm of size, moving her right hand and turning the head from right to left) made by the spanish-italian enginer Juanelo Turriano in 1550.

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Not only that, Juanelo dedicated his life in the creation of other automatons, like the “Clockwork Prayer” (39cm, old monk with a lot of movements) made in 1560, who still operating today. (Also, there´s some records about creation of Clockworks prototypes for war.)

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When he passed away, his various creations ended up in different parts of the world. The exact number of inventions made by him is unknown. Probably, some machines still operating, like the Prayer.

Years later, other automatons appeared, like “The Writer” (capable of produce short texts of more or less 40 words), “The Draughtsman” (making 4 draws: A portrait of Louis XV of France, A dog, A couple and Cupid) & “The Musician” (who plays a real piano), made by the french watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz during 1768-1774.

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Automatons were also related to magic shows, like the ones of french magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, also a great inventor of diverse kinds of artifact and automatons for his performances.

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Explanation of this Mystery Clock, made by Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin:

http://sundialfarm.com/portfolio/c-1839-exhibition-mystery-portico-clock-robert-houdin/

 

Not limited to the human figure, automatons exist in a myriad of other shapes and sizes like animal or insect ones. For example, the miniature “Singing Bird Box Nº 11”, made by the french inventor Blaise Bontems and his son, approximately in 1890.

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In 1918, the famous illusionist Erik Weisz (well known as “Harry Houdini”) starred in The Master Mystery film as the agent Quentin Locke, investigating a series of events and eventually confronting the mysterious and evil Q The Automaton.

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Q The Automaton (Looks familiar, right?)

 

During 1920 & 1925, when the radio still being something pretty new, some people and mass media speculated about new inventions in the future, making curious combinations related to automatons.

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One of many ideas, automatons made for stop manifestations, commanded by radio´s signals.

 

Personally, my favourite is “La Joueuse De Tympanon”, dulcimer player automaton of 45cm made by the german clockmaker Peter Kinzing in 1784, as gift for the queen Marie Antoinette:

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[TheKingDedede]

His name is a direct reference to the original Gundam, the RX-78-2:

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[Canis]

I clicked on this expecting a rundown of how WX's stats practically function...

I instead got more historical information than my history class has ever bothered to teach.

[Tapirus]

1 hour ago, TheKingDedede said:

His name is a direct reference to the original Gundam, the RX-78-2:

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Yes, and it's good explain and share information about the nature of automatons. 
 

1 hour ago, Canis said:

I clicked on this expecting a rundown of how WX's stats practically function...

I instead got more historical information than my history class has ever bothered to teach.

Sorry, the thread is about WX-78's design, not WX-78's gameplay. Anyways, thanks for read.

[ButterStuffed]

http://wxbrad.com/why-wx-is-the-abbreviation-for-weather/

Perhaps it's just coincidence but WX is also the morse code abbreviation for weather. Seems rather appropriate since WX-78 is one of the only survivors that has abilities directly connected to the weather.

[Tapirus]

21 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

http://wxbrad.com/why-wx-is-the-abbreviation-for-weather/

Perhaps it's just coincidence but WX is also the morse code abbreviation for weather. Seems rather appropriate since WX-78 is one of the only survivors that has abilities directly connected to the weather.

Nice, congrats for your find.

It´s nice see the small details of DS/DST due to his similarities with the reality, because you can notice Klei has made a great work to add stuff.

I´ll give one example: 

A 1924 newspaper talking about the future, mainly Radio Police Automaton (yes, the one I mentioned in my first post), comparing him to the alien machines from The War of the Worlds novel & A interesting image, from Winona´s trailer (Behind the Scenes).  

[Bluegeist]

I have some things to add!

The word robot was coined in a play called R.U.R., or Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920-21. The play is about synthetic, humanoid beings devoid of feelings that were made to serve humanity but who become self-aware and revolt. the word robot comes from a Czech word "robota" which means "a medieval peasant forced to work for a lord". WX does indeed seem to be familiar with the word and uses it often.

I think it is important to note that while WX seems to be an automaton, they also embody the concept of "evil" robots. A lot of the automata in the OP were made in a time when people looked at them as mechanical wonders. But once the Industrial Revolution hit, people weren't so keen  on them anymore. Automation led to these huge factories that had huge machines ran by humans, it was dirty, it was unethical work. regular people became afraid of machines because they felt that they were becoming like machines.

As I was reading the wiki article about R.U.R., I was struck by this: "One critic has described Čapek's Robots as epitomizing "the traumatic transformation of modern society by the First World War and the Fordist assembly line."" It made me think of Voxola, how I had also recently learned about Winona probably working as an assembler because WWI was the catalyst for women working in manufacturing. And that poster on her board about "automations" being a government conspiracy. Robots both strike wonder and fear in the hearts of humans.

I theorize that they were intended to be mass-produced (going by the still unconfirmed theory that Wagstaff made them as a Voxola product). Then the whole evil robot thing would make more sense, traditionally.

A more wild theory: judging by the picture we saw of a WX-like robot in Next of Kin, WX was intended to be 14'10'', but they were built 4'10'', either because they were a prototype, or it was a mistake due to the lack of clarity in the drawing (i find the dimensions hard to read. It looks like 14'10'', but is it? As someone who had experience doing technical drawings, this is not how you do them). And I just love this, because it would explain why none of the other survivors take their threats seriously.

More complaining about the drawing:

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If I had to build from this drawing, I would think the intent was for the top half to be 14' (or 4'?) and the bottom half to be 10''. Why not one dimension showing the height? Where are their arms? Why are there random hardware floating in space?

 

Ok I'm done