ARTIFICIAL (series)

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Feburary 4th 2017 - August 16th 2020

***ARTIFICIAL*** is an Australian-American computer-animated sci-fi horror web-series co-created by Andrew Flores, and Liam Vickers for GLITCH Productions and funded by Screen Australia. The series follows mainly Uzi Gatemen (Elise Lovelock) an intelligent, misanthropic assembly robot, and her drone friend(s) Serial Designation N (Michael Kovack) and Serial Designation V (Nola Klop) through the haunting environment of Eden, a derelict world, permanently frozen under a layer of snow and corpses of now extinct humans. Uzi and her friends attempt to make their way of the planet by any means to try and murder the human race.

The series premiered on February 4th 2017, and ran all the way until August 20th 2021 with its fourth and final season. The show would've ran for an additional fifth season in December of that same year, however it was shut down after a creative decision by Liam Vickers to stop the show at four seasons. He stated on the official GLITCH twitter page that it was not a cancelation of the show, and 100% his choice to stop it there. Liam has teased some new content for the series in the form of short video content in the style of found footage and short home videos, as well as a potential spin-off show focusing on another one of the series most profonde and popular characters, Florence Bauwer (Dean Sealban).

Artificial received critical acclaim with praise directed mainly at its animation and very realistic scenery. However also on subjects such as its, writing, characters, voice acting, humor, worldbuilding, and high appeal to audiences. Additionally it would go to win GLITCH its first ever Emmey, as well as two others later down the line. The show also won two Annie Awards, and two other awards given for best-tv horror series, and best actor for Elise Lovelock, among various other nominations.

## Plot

*ARTIFICIAL* follows two protagonists: Uzi Gatemen, an eccentric, bright worker robot, And Florence Walther, an easygoing, and skilled human working for AEGIS Interplanetary. The story has this double narrative starting from the third episode and onward, with occasional episodes focusing solely on either character for a period of time. Uzi hides within the confines of her isolated colony of fellow robots, hiding from a trio of murderous drones hellbent on destroying the colony. However one day when getting into a sudden accident with her makeshift railgun she is dealt with an enormous debt of medical bills that need to be paid off. Her father unwilling to pay for the revival bills having done so several times before leaves her to pay for it herself. Desperate for some cash, she smuggles herself and a friend out to the drones lair and steal the battery to their pod and sell it for some cash. However, not before encountering the enthusiastic and seemingly naïve Serial Designation N, who for some reason doesn't immediately attack her and instead tries to chat with her as if she were one of them. Learning that the money from selling the battery is nowhere near enough to fully pay off the bills she has to resort to new ways of making money. (Work on this later)

## Story

Humans colonize the world of Eden, as well as the nearby world of Eratat, and in the process of doing so send down Worker Robots, — funded by the AEGIS Interplanetary Corporation — to begin construction and mineral extraction within the planet, as the world is discovered to be an untapped gold mine of natural resources and rare earth metals, deep under the surface. This creates various large caverns, with these caverns eventually being fitted with large amounts of mechanical parts and machinery to artificially pump down air into the caverns, as well as potentially making it more habitable for humans. However into their colonization efforts humans inevitably discover a powerful computer intelligence that seemingly is a harmless invention, though does show signs of other intelligent beings on the planet. Later this device would accidentally activate and seemingly send a very short burst of energy across the planet. While at first it doesn't do anything, it eventually causes a chain reaction across the planet that eventually leads to the total extinction of the human species on Eden. The already frozen world of Eden eventually becomes even more inhospitable as the air becomes unbreathable due to large amounts of mineral dust mixing with the atmosphere, invisible but deadly to humans.

In the absence of their creators, for a couple generations the robots remain without orders. Until eventually they seemingly out of no where gain sentience with the mutation of their primary programing unit named the Absolute Solver Program. This program gains most robots sentience for a duration of time, until it eventually becomes a permanent addition and eventually spreads into every robot across the planet. With the most populous area of the planet being the Snowbowl Valley, which has the largest concentration of Robots.

Robots intend to build a life away from humans, while also attempting to piece together what exactly happened to humanity. Eventually the robots band together an make a large amount of colonies that are pockmarked across the planet, most prevalently in urbanized areas, as they have the greatest amount of resources for construction. Robots eventually tear down a lot of the largest skyscrapers in cities to fulfil their programming and insatiable need to work. While the robots seem to be happy with their new potential future, the original creators of the robots: The AEGIS Corporation, are not a fan of the idea of runaway AI and instead begin construction on a band of — for now — three Disassembly Drones to try and kill the remaining robots on the planet. This motive does eventually shift to usage of the drones as a method of protecting new human colonies for attempted repossession of the planet. However these drones are enough to disrupt the society of the robots and cause them to develop an isolation from the outside world. Robots now entirely live underground in their colonies, some in the underground labyrinthine mechanical caverns built by humans.

The robots live in their colonies for several years, in that time it is just assumed that the Drones are no longer a threat, due to the protection of the Worker Defense Force, as well as the doors installed on every colony that are impervious to drones methods of attack. However some Robots, such as Uzi Gatemen, have a different idea of taking on drones. Instead of cowering behind doors, she seeks to actively attack and kill the drones. She attempts to do this through the use of a quote "Sick as hell railgun" that Uzi reconstructed. However her self confidence in this plan does go down after accidentally causing the weapon to malfunction and explode in her face. Instantly killing her. However she was latter reconstructed and rebuilt for the third time, as stated by the doctor.

Uzi would later go on to single handedly steal a battery from the Drones launch pod and try selling it to be able to pay her medical bills. In the process of doing this she proved her railgun was capable of instantly killing Drones, if not temporarily.