One:Alies
Most post-Event popular scholarship presents the Autonomous Local Individual Extermination Systems as frightening killer robots, a symbol of how dark and how dangerous they see the world. These sensationalist scaremongers concentrate on the multi-legged, insectoid chassis; the knife-sharp mandibles and the infra-red heat-seeking capabilities of these otherwise harmless robot helpers. Even the nomenclature is hyperbolic--instead of using the perfectly clear acronym A.L.I.E.S., people instead choose ridiculous names such as "Deathbots" or "Murder Spiders".
Certainly it can be unpleasant to witness them Assisting one of the broken people, but the alternative is simply to allow those folks to pass their difficulties1 unhindered. And I cannot deny that there have been occaisional, isolated incidents in which faulty diagnostic hardware has caused one of the A.L.I.E.S. to mistakenly identify and Assist a healthy person or, in one case, an entire village. But for the most part these are our robot friends, working together with us to restore the world. Our A.L.I.E.S. indeed!
1By which I refer to that regrettable disease referred to by our more excitable writers as "Carla's Gift".
