Can Androids be taken apart and put back together?


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

Androids are biomechanical beings with a soul, but could an Android be taken apart (think C3P0 in Empire Strikes Back) and put back together without taking damage that would kill them?
If so, would the head and torso need to stay connected?


No, they’re vastly closer to humans than robots.


No, Starfinder has a definition of Android that is more in line Brainiac from DC Comics than Data from Star Trek.

As far as Star Wars like Droids, you could look into the SRO Race which is in the Pact Worlds books

SRO


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While my opinion is entirely unofficial, I would postulate that the very complexity that allows an android, or even an SRO to attract and support a soul makes it impossible from them to be disassembled without taking damage under normal circumstances.

I'd also postulate that there might well be technology, magic, or occult psychic techniques that could do that... but that such could also exist to take a human apart without doing any damage to them, and leaving them available for re-assembly.


About as much as other humanoids can be.
Which is probably more than you'd think, given the level of tech and magic in-setting. Kinda gruesome, though.

But yeah, Androids are mostly organic, more bioroids, vat-grown flesh augmented with tech, than real machines. They eat, sleep, bleed and get sick. Robots don't.
C3PO is absolutely not an android, for example. There's no meat there, that's an SRO if there ever was one.
And maybe you could make more of an argument for the ones with truly artifical bodies, like SROs and Amrantahs, but that still comes with some serious ethical concerns.

You wouldn't just chop up a human into conveniently sized pieces, or carve them down to a more practical format just because you can reassemble them and/or regrow the missing bits. It's technically possible, and it might be a convenient approach if you need to smuggle or exfiltrate someone. People are still going to look at you weird the moment you suggest it. Eoxians aside.
I imagine souled constructs would feel the same if you tried to dismantle them.

Second Seekers (Jadnura)

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"Lets find out..."


Can humans?

Yes, sort of, in parts, if you're careful.


Iain M. Banks' novel Use of Weapons has a guy who caters to decadent parties for rich people owning a device that can painlessly remove, artistically alter, and reattach chunks of flesh using some sort of field technology, so that people can wander around the party drinking a space martini while their abdominal cavity is exposed, a limb is reversed, or their nose is upside down on their forehead. Alas, our protoganist is forced to use the machine to cut through the bulkhead on a spaceship, shorting it out while a party is in progress and making the reversals...difficult.

I wonder how many Zakalwes there are in SFS.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Owen KC Stephens wrote:

While my opinion is entirely unofficial, I would postulate that the very complexity that allows an android, or even an SRO to attract and support a soul makes it impossible from them to be disassembled without taking damage under normal circumstances.

I'd also postulate that there might well be technology, magic, or occult psychic techniques that could do that... but that such could also exist to take a human apart without doing any damage to them, and leaving them available for re-assembly.

I'm reminded of Thanos vs Guardians of the Galaxy.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

There's one android NPC in an adventure who can cope well with being disassembled, but... er... they're unusual.


Wingblaze wrote:

Can humans?

Yes, sort of, in parts, if you're careful.

Isn't that exactly what the mechanical augmentations already do?

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