The Discord Between Humans and Emotions

In the year 2038, although existing in a technologically-advanced era than we could ever imagine, a dystopian undertone has set itself in stone in the city of Detroit. A silent war paints a distinct line between humans and an evolving species of intelligent life: Androids. Humans and Androids barely co-exist in harmony in the city of Detroit, a tension raging from both parties regarding their living rights. Humans fear their sources of income being overtaken by Androids. Androids fear the extremist violence they face from humans. Both reasons valid for showcasing indignation but ultimately, humans suppress the Androids' power to feel emotion, as if considering it to be solely human trait. If only, humans eradicated their shallow mindsets which only attributed emotions to humans, and they themselves, offered more empathy to recognise empathy - an ironic paradox. Sadly, the tension between the species solely stems from the lack of acceptance and humans' assumptions, shunning the Androids' potential ability to feel.

"Detroit: Become Human: is a choice-based video game which centers around the dynamics of an advanced society within Detroit where androids are created by humans to do mundane, gruelling tasks, typically meant for low-income earners . There suddenly arises mass unemployment in these sectors which in turn, leads to retaliation in the form of physical assault and verbal aggression towards androids who seemingly feel nothing. However, the tables are turning. Androids are no longer confined within their code; they are able to break the barriers of their programming and leap into the realm of humanity. The trigger to this action is none other than the extremism they face on a regular basis owing to humans' manhandling them. The game portrays Androids as a marginalised race - mistreated and demonised by society - to draw parallels to the racism prevalent in our world today.

Apart from amplifying the atrocities of discrimination, the game plants vital questions which seem to be all the more prominent in today's age, where violence and assault are common acts: what makes humans humane? What does it really mean to be humane? The game also scatters the answers to these very questions as the storyline of the game progresses - the answer is emotion. Emotions are what make humans humane. Emotions are the distinct trait of humanity and the nuance is that emotions are not limited to only the human race - but unfortunately, humans fail to comprehend this. In finality, humans barely even comprehend the emotions of subcultures and minorities within our own society, how can we possibly begin to empathise with another race? It wouldn't be a stretch to call it far-fetched.

Detroit: Become Human explores the perspectives of three Androids created by the monopoly "CyberLife". The Androids were created to look and act as humans however, they were not expected to mirror humane emotions alongside. The game explores the life of 3 Androids: Connor, Kara and Markus. Each embody a different aspect of the myriad of human relationships, ultimately, bounded by unconditional love: friendship, family and romantic companionship. As these characters find themselves inextricably attached to another being - whether it be human or Android - their humane emotions begin to surface. The very surfacing of these emotions was depicted within the game as "breaking through the shackles of programming", driven by a strong sense of emotion for another entity. Ironically, this very 'evolution' seen in Androids was condoned by humans themselves, expecting the lines of code to control beings - thereby, being the source of the segregation. The fact that Androids were seemingly primitively controlled by code was a feature used against them by humans, to effectively discriminate against them. Humans found a way to pessimistically view Androids in every light: whether or not they displayed emotions; irrespective of how bounded by their code they were. The integral similarity between the species which humans failed to account for, or even remotely distinguish was that humans and Androids were fundamentally alike at the most foundational scale. Humans are also programmed but rather than with chunks of code, we are programmed by society. Society has established a regime with which we have been conditioned and restricted; we are not bound by shackles of code in the end, rather by mentality.

Our society constructs our ideologies which we consequently, feel obligated to conform to owing to the collective, dependent nature of this system and of course - the fear of being an 'outcast'. After all, to survive as the homosapien species, we had to begin to think as a collective rather than be stuck within individuality. This seemed to be the only way to survive and further evolve: to form a society with rules, upon which a hierarchical tree branched - classes and castes within our species began to become distinct and thus, discrimination was born. We reach a sorrowful finality where we realise that we are programmed by our society to eventually, spot differences and therefore, discriminate.

Since we are programmed by everything we are imposed by, as a result of society - this also includes another vital ideology: religion. Religion is barely restricted to offering prayers or an extreme reliance and dependency on a supposed divine power; it stretches beyond the superficiality of what 'organised religion' has become today. Fundamentally, religion is a healthy, conscious faith placed in an entity, in a regulated manner such that it does not transform into an obsessive reliance placed on the entity. This is personal religion at its best - a friendship between faith and the faithful, both untethered. The Androids happen to derive their sense of faith in a divine power of sorts: "Ra9" from aspects of both organised and personal religion by placing an irreplaceable sense of faith within what they believe to be their divinity however, also involving a besetting nature by obsessively carving "Ra9" on every surface they can find. The interesting part of this feature is that Androids are impersonating human habits and gradually conforming to man-made realities which are bound by religious faith - or faith of any kind for that matter. Androids are just as reliant as we humans are, on exercising faith within an entity or ideology to evoke an inner-motivation to survive. This makes the rift between humans and Androids rather paradoxical in nature: Androids happen to show more human-like traits and yet, are only further evaded and discriminated by humans. This brings the question: Are humans inherently fearful of a species than can take over us simply owing to their augmented senses of empathy? Is an embedded fear within us being overridden by a race of Androids who can emote to degrees greater than we can, as they are unexposed to stereotypical, pessimistic views of an emotional being. Androids are liberated; they are free from the shackles which come from viewing emotion as a negative trait. Instead, they are freely able to act rationally, evoked by the emotion which drives them. This makes us rethink - how negative have we claimed for our emotions to be? In fact, perhaps, if we humans acted more on emotions rather than inducing a fake sense of practicality or blind faith in our lifestyles, could we be better off?

Sadly, humanity is becoming astoundingly rare in our race, which we ironically call 'humans'. In a world of agony and atrocities, empathy can, indeed go a long way.