Star Trek. If you don't know of Star Trek, you must have been living in a galaxy far, far away for the last 30 years! But hopefully you have at least heard of Star Trek, even if you have not personally attended a Sci-Fi Convention dressed as a Klingon warrior. Possibly you are not well versed in the many incarnations Star Trek has undergone in those three decades. Star Trek, The Next Generation (TNG) was Gene Roddenberry's second attempt at fame and so far has the best and clearest examples of robots (androids) interacting with society. This page focuses specifically on TNG and looks at one way in which artificial life (meaning robots) have been portrayed on television.
After a thousand years of war against the twelve tribes of humans, the Cylons, a machine race, propose peace. However, they use the event of the signing of the peace treaty as an opportunity to attack the humans' twelve battlestars and twelve home planets, almost totally destroying the human race. One battlestar, Galactica, survives, however, and leads a rag-tag fleet of ships carrying the survivors of the Cylon attacks. Commander Adama, Galactica's captain, leads the humans in search of a legendary 13th lost colony of humans living on a planet called Earth. As they flee the Cylons, the human fleet are defended by Colonel Tigh, Captain Apollo, Lt. Starbuck, Sargeant Boomer, and Lt. Athena. Also aboard the battlestar are Apollo's adopted son "Boxey" and Cassiopea, a former sociolator who becomes a trained medical technician. Among the Cylon's leaders is Baltar, a human who betrayed the humans to the Cylons for his own personal gain. (Taken from Sandcastle's BSG Summary)
The show's storyline was centered on the Robinson Family, who on October 16, 1997, planned were on a five-year mission aboard the space shuttle Jupiter 2 to explore a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with the hope that it could be colonized. Just before liftoff, Dr. Zachary Smith (an enemy government spy and intergalactic doctor) schemes to destroy the spacecraft. But unfortunately for him, his plan backfires, and he becomes trapped on board. Smith accidentally destroys the Jupiter 2's guidance system and all of the people on board become lost in space.
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