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Droid

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any of the various automatons in use for a number of tasks throughout the galaxy. The official definition was provided by Cybot Galactica as "any mechanical and/or electronic construct designed and put into service to assist organic life." Droids took a variety of forms, from walking humanoid protocol units to hovering spherical interrogation units. It was generally held that droids "evolved" from the ancient robotic technologies of the galaxy, as soon as the first forms of artificial intelligence were programmed. There were 5 basic droid classifications:

First-Degree, programmed for physical, mathematical, and medical sciences (2-1B and IT-0 droids)
Second-Degree, programmed for engineering and technical sciences (Treadwell or R-series droids)
Third-Degree, programmed for social, diplomatic, or tutoring interaction (3PO-series protocol droid)
Fourth-Degree, programmed for security and military applications (Viper probe droid)
Fifth-Degree, programmed to handle menial and non-intelligent tasks such as salvage, mining, sanitation (ASP-series droid)

Most droids designed to interact with sentient life at a higher level were given vocabulators which produced speech in their owners' languages, and many were given sexes and personalities through their programming. These droids, with their near-sentient artificial intelligence, were known to "sleep," or at least go into a state of suspension in order to "rest" their central processing units. Many droids were happy serving their owners, but some were badly mistreated or abused, and developed abherent personalities. These droids sometimes revolted against their owners, and several infamous droid uprisings during the latter stages of the Old Republic led to a general anti-droid sentiment among the organic inhabitants of the galaxy. During the Old Republic, an owner was responsible for the actions of their droids, even if the droid acted of its own volition. Much of the galaxy's perception of droids was changed during the Clone Wars, when endless numbers of battle droids were developed by the Confederacy of Independent Systems for use as soldiers and fighters. For three years, the galaxy was bombarded with images of droid armies cutting down the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic, and public sentiment began to move toward outright hatred of automata. With the institution of the New Order, Emperor Palpatine sought to have all droids banished from service, but the remnants of the Galactic Senate fought to maintain the use of servile droids. The Empire later established the "Droid Statutes," in an effort to further curb the criminal usage of droids. At the height of the New Order, anti-droid sentiment seemed to be prominent throughout the galaxy. Many historians believed that three factors caused this. First, the Clone Wars had shown how destructive and unfeeling an army of droids could be. Second, droids were viewed by an oppressed galaxy as taking jobs that could be done by an organic being. Third, many beings simply found the idea of non-organic sentience to be offensive, a feeling that echoed the pro-human stance of the Empire. This hatred of droids was nothing compared to the vehemence with which the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed droids, some twenty-five years after the Battle of Endor, as the alien invaders simply hated and destroyed all forms of non-organic technology.