Jump to Political Views and Works -- for people who only come here for politics or just want a quick look for opinion thread. Not that it is the whole extent of it, of course. For biography, please go to Biography, which will be divided into parts: Early Life, Post-War Era, Revolution and Civil War, New Era of Zitravia. For more trivial information: Appearance and Health, Education, Personality and Personal Life, and Pictures.

"Humans did not play gods when they created robotic people. They did not ravel in an influx of any sense of superiority or megalomania -- drafting, building and programming these artificial people has given humanity a moment to deconstruct themselves as concepts. What are us but reflections of humanity?" - Oleg Anesarovich Orlovshenko

Administration of Robotic Citizenship

Early Life (Back to the top)

Dr. Orlovshenko and his son,
Dmitry Anesarovich

Oleg Anesarovich was constructed at the special request of Dr. Anes Dmitrievich Orlovshenko (sometimes spelled Aenes in his foreign language publications) by Kasperer Robotics Factory -- the only factory of such description and purpose in Zitravia. His product code was HRQA-GHJW-8214 and his model was in Kasparer GT-1980 Series. If this means anything, it means that he was created in the booming era of artificial intelligence in Gaia and only had primitive programming that made him imitate a person rather than think by himself. The custom appearance given to him was based largely on the photos of Dr. Orlovshenko as a young man. Thus, Oleg Anesarovich is considered Dr. Orlovshenko's son, and he has in fact had a fair relationship with Dmitry Orlovshenko (pictured). In papers, however, he was referred to as 'property' until he was confirmed a sentient robotic citizen in 2001. Kasparer Tech is a Zitravian/Zitravgradian tech company, specialized in computer and artificial intelligence, although it has a rather tryhard strategy of monopolizing Zitravgradian and neighboring countries' tech markets by also producing phones, other household electronics and other gadgets.

The senior Orlovshenko was a computer and robotics scientist -- something almost novelty and 'in trend' at the time. But the man saw much more than riding the upcoming trend and making money on this opportunity. He looked back into the history of robotics in Gaia and found that for most of said history, robots were created for labor and military purposes, and he started to wonder if he could make something for a greater purpose than that. Sadly, he was actually on the payroll of Imperial Zitravian Army, which meant that they also expected him to develop the technologies that would be used in warfare. It would also become inevitable that he would also use Oleg Anesarovich as his guinea pig for several hardware and software he created.

It was 1986, he knew that a war was imminent and his efforts might be needed. But he also did not want his 'son' to turn into a killing machine like others before him, specifically manufactured to be weapons. He tried to teach Oleg human concepts and philosophy and discussed a range of topics with him. The robot seemed to show some understanding, but it was merely input and storage of the data he received. It was disappointing to say the least. Nonetheless, Oleg conducted himself well in his duty as the doctor's assistant and eventually an agent for the Secret Service. Being an 'agent' in the Secret Service could mean either the usual spy, assassin or operator to office worker and errand runner. He was mostly an errand runner.

Once the Zitravian Front began in 1990, Dr. Orlovshenko was considered one of the best computer scientists in the Zitravian Army, alongside an up-and-coming Dr. Konstantin Nedelykov whose expertises in mathematics and programming made him Dr. Orlovshenko's equal. Initially, the two did not communicate much due to being in different branches of service. Nedelykov was more of a Secret Service's personnel -- the deadly, enigmatic type. His line of works was shrouded in bureaucratic black tapes. But this was how he came to meet the younger Orlovshenko.

As it turned out, Nedelykov
also taught him how to smoke

During the Siege of Providenska, Nedelykov was injured and sent to a temporary hideout in the Cathedral of the Divine Providence, an underground cathedral seated beneath the Kremlin Walls. It was sufficiently safe, despite the Auestriker forces threatening to take over the whole Providenska for at least a couple of years. There, Oleg Anesarovich took it upon himself to take care of the deafblind man whose cybernetic parts were malfunctioning. Nedelykov was still capable of working with the specialized computer he carried along with him, and of course with the help of an A.I. companion who could handle the mundane yet grueling task of communicating with him through hand signals.

During the quiet times, Nedelykov would help with the programming and experiment with some further philosophical concepts with Orlovshenko. Perhaps all the A.I. needed was time and lengthy discussions without rush -- natural ones. Being a devout Christian and mystic, Nedelykov exposed his new friend to the world beyond materials, to new concepts and perspectives of ethics, morality and consciousness -- something that the antitheist Anes Orlovshenko never spoke about. While Orlovshenko obviously did not (and likely could not) take the idea of religions to heart, his human persona became more delicate as a result. He learned that human expressions and actions were not only emotionally-driven, but also led by purposes and goals. Intentionally or not, Nedelykov taught him how to analyze purposes behind actions, and with enough logical complications understood, Orlovshenko learned how to lie and to remember the lies he had spoken -- a distinction that made him even suspicious among humans and androids alike. The three months they spent in the underground church would reform Orlovshenko, but led Nedelykov further down his psychological downfall.

Post-War Era (Back to the top)

Orlovshenko emerged from the underground hideout to see the world in full-blown chaos. Perhaps being able to reject his feelings was a blessing, as he had to function through a society devastated by the loss of their loved ones, economic and political turmoils and eventually long-term psychological scars. Dramatically, he recalled pulling the hand of the deafblind Nedelykov through the streets of Providenska to find the man's brother, Captain Nikolai Yermirov, who had returned from the war at sea. Nedelykov promised to see Orlovshenko again at a better time, when he could see and hear.

Reuniting with his "father", Orlovshenko expressed that he was perhaps not more human than ever, but rather established between his human and machine sides. Sooner or later (likely around 1998), the two would head to their new positions in the Auestriker Naukograd, now a prisoner-of-war camp turned into prisoner labor military research station and war factory. Apparently, a lot of military projects were moved into that place thanks to extremely cheap labor and expertise now gathered into a city that the Kozavian-Zitravian authority did not have to build by themselves.

The Naukograd offered them intellectual insights more than anything else concrete -- the pay was not grand, the living condition was average if not worse, and the emotional strains of having to deal with the Auestriker crew were bad in long term. Nonetheless, the two encountered an interesting figure in the form of Dr. Alexander de Marmesont. The man himself proved to them within the first fifteen minutes of meeting them that Orlovshenko and Kasparer Tech were outdated in comparison to Auestriker technology. However, he also added that soon enough in the future, technological gap would have to be bigger than ever to make a difference. In the future, being a decade or two behind or forwards might not mean a lot of things. Still, there were innovations to be made anytime.

Oleg Anesarovich's counterpart, Walter "SC-42" Sigiris, was allegedly constructed in the same year as him but was already entrusted with an independent command over a division of A.I. infantry. Sigiris did not only have a wider and brighter consciousness, but a humanoid body constructed for combat. This was the first time in his life that Orlovshenko felt like he was in a genuine competition, utilizing it as a tool of self-improvement. "No hard feeling", said Sigiris, as they nearly tore each other down in combat program tests. Understanding of human strategies and tactics heightened his understanding of human instincts, something he could not have but could emulate. That was the answer to his existence -- he could only emulate, but he could make it realistic.

Marmesont was known for being a man of many arts. Anything with engines and processing units would be under his expertise, and unlike Nedelykov before him, he was incredibly practical as well. He spoke far less on such lofty ideas like philosophy and the unknown and only discussed mundane, human topics like family, work, and daily life. Orlovshenko remembered his conversations with Marmesont as vividly as he remembered ones with Nedelykov and actually understood them well. From Marmesont, he learned to not just talk but also put personality and emotions into his words otherwise known as swearing and cussing. There was a tone for every emotion and there was also a hint of personality in every voice.

Within the odd, ragtag community of scientists in the Naukograd, there was also Dr. Yuri Nikoleyevich Astavdzaturyan, an immigrant from Hayarmani. He was a little more jovial and talkative, but also highly detailed and caring. He helped develop most of the Naukograd's A.I. hardware and did not neglect proper maintenance. He taught Orlovshenko to be aware of his own body and "mind", despite being unable to truly feel. Pain was an important mechanism of human body -- it enabled them to know what was wrong with themselves and to seek the relief for such pain. By being unable to feel pain, Orlovshenko would be highly prone to overestimating himself. Thus, he had a map of artificial nervous system installed. Of course, this did not enable him to feel real pain but rather know what and where it was supposed to hurt.

"There is no humanlike machination that is perfected by the working of just one person. Like humans, A.I. ought to be exposed to the world to be improved. It can serve the purpose of its creation later..." - Dr. Yuri Nikoleyevich Astavdzaturyan

By the time he met Nedelykov again in the year 2000, both of them had changed dramatically -- Orlovshenko was no longer a naive machine awkwardly emulating human expressions and Nedelykov felt as if he had aged twenty years in the last five years, having become a solemn man of prayers and quiet intrigues. Nedelykov acted as though he was a widower in ill health, always wearing black and spoke in fleeting, cryptic tone. But nevertheless, they continued to get along. Nedelykov's ongoing projects [see above tabs] were based mainly in the Naukograd and he had to travel between the war factory and the capital city rather frequently.

With this, Orlovshenko realized that even as a perfect emulator of human emotions and mannerism, he was not truly affected by anything he did not register into his system. It was to him an advantage as he remained unaffected by the trauma of the war while society literally crumbled around him. He was not dragged down by sorrow and pain, and that made him stronger and capable of supporting those around him. Even in the storm, there was a silver lining. In 2001, he applied for a Robotic Citizen Test (RCT) and passed. It took him fifteen years of development, but he was finally seen as a sentient being.

"Remember, Orlovshenko. Thinking
outside what you are allowed to
think only wastes your time."

Now radically more improved, Orlovshenko was promoted to a counterintelligence agent in 2002, responsible for cyberintelligence department of the Secret Service. However, physical works existed and he had to relocate to Providenska to work at the Department. Unintentionally, this meant he was independent from his family. Suddenly alone and unguided, Orlovshenko was initially unsure whether he would live the life of a human or an object -- he was paid only a small salary per month, just about enough to hire a small apartment where he only needed to recharge and sometimes did the laundry. However, he seemed to work more than he was paid, spending day and night on the surveillance system and then on the internet trying to detect the next threat to the nation by reading through endless stream of social media.

He did immediately register that Zitravia was at a time a police state, but he kept doing what he was supposed to do. As an AI, he did not get tired and worked at the same efficiency through his long work hours. But as an ultra-realistic emulator of human thoughts, he could detect better than most machines what his targets were thinking. Political dissidents, rebellions in thoughts -- this kind of things became his specialty. Humans could say what they did not mean, to avoid being caught, to send subvert messages. But most importantly, the headquarter could trust him not to fall into the same sentiments he was seeking to destroy.

They were wrong, but they would never know until too late. Sooner rather than later, Orlovshenko soon espoused similar ideas and came to understand the so-called "political claustrophobia" felt by the Zitravians. In the meantime, his personal life was exploring a new mode -- he was one day approached by his curious neighbor Dominika Shchekochikhina, a recent divorcee with two young children. At first, he was perplexed as he did not know how to react to romantic interest. He initially rejected the woman's attention, stating that he was not a human and she would waste her time with him. However, he remained cordial with her as a neighbor and developed a friendly view on her.

Meanwhile, Shchekochikhina's reaction to him being an android was unsurprisingly mixed. She regarded his lifelike features as uncanny and even went as far to reject her initial attraction to him. For the first time, Orlovshenko found an incredibly complex human -- a woman in love... and with him. But both later delved deeper into each other's psyche and agreed upon building a potential romantic relationship in a slow, gradual manner. This eventually complicated the situation at work. Once the monthly behavioral inspection arrived, the Department knew what went inside his mind, including the 'dangerous thoughts'. After thorough investigation and evaluation in mid-2005, Orlovshenko went under a session of 'memory adjustment' and was sent to pure labor position in Providenska State Prison to oversee political prisoners -- it was an unpaid position and he was not allowed to leave. But in that moment, he did not remember much about his resentment or personal feeling at all -- let alone a hard-to-spell name like Shchekochikhina.

The action in itself was not legal. As soon as he was aware, Dr. Anes appealed for an actual trial in Zitravian court -- something androids were not allowed to do. The laws that supported the personhood and citizenship in Zitravia, or indeed anywhere in Gaia, were fragile, paranoid, and did not constitute the same definition of being a legal person to the laws of the human. The alienation was still ever present... and it was a tool to govern humans as much as androids.

The appeal succeeded, mostly on a compromise that Orlovshenko be brought back into the confines of Naukograd, itself a prison now that he actually thought about it...

Orlovshenko held by a group of Auestriker mechanical infantrymen

He landed in the Naukograd in 2006, a place he would have consider home because his creator had wasted so many years of his life here. Orlovshenko was required to wear a tracker, as most androids with criminal offense were required to do -- and the only offense he had committed was being able to think. Back in the war factory, Orlovshenko was kept out from here and there too private or secretive due to the tracker he was wearing. The tracker was a device that sent the data inside his head to the Robotic Administration in the Kremlin, to the processor of a supercomputer named 'The Matriarch'.

The Matriarch was not a kind administrator. She went through Orlovshenko's mind as she pleased and became a voice inside his head. The Naukograd was a place of great interest to her -- there were a whole lot of androids who were out of her reach there, namely Walter Sigiris and his mechanical infantrymen, who had been registered but kept outside the Zitravian administration. It was not long until she began to speak through him, and it caused at least one incident in which Sigiris knocked him out by tearing his throat off and snap his head back. This could not continue.

Sigiris was not going to take this oppression -- human-on-android oppression was one thing android-to android was another, especially from some Zitravian oligarch that kept his people locked in this city for almost a decade. Between Sigiris and Orlovshenko, the latter was the more human, but the former was the one he understood human politics more. In a fit of paranoia, otherwise known as threat detection, Sigiris threatened to tear Orlovshenko down to the skeleton frame to find the tracker inside him. It was ironic -- Sigiris was a literal machine of war, created to fight and kill, but he was the one who would not tolerate 'oppression'. Fortunately, the tracker did come off. It was in his throat, just below where his mouth would be so it could detect and record his voice.

Revolution and Civil War (Back to the top)

Walter SC-42 Sigiris

Barbara de Marmesont

"Quite an outrage, Walter. Where did you get that from? That was an expression beyond your range of emotion."
"I see a threat, I kill it. Stop making everything complicated."
"What is the threat in this situation, exactly?"
"Your deplorable submission to a punishment you did not deserve."

Orlovshenko was then practically thrown into the wolf's den that was the mechanical infantrymen, despite his creator's protest that his "son" was by no means made for war. The wolf's den welcomed its newest member by sharpening him for combat and against anything that would threaten his 'freedom' as a 'creature with personhood'. He was not 'indoctrinated' per se, but had to learn how to realign his views of the world with reality that all androids lived in -- an inferior race, created to serve humans. Being a pioneer in the world of AI personhood, Orlovshenko realized that he had never aligned his views with another android, despite having done so with several humans. It was time to accept the differences. Despite being forbidden by the Matriarch, Orlovshenko relearned the information lost in the memory adjustment, but even then it was a gradual process.

After all these years, the Naukograd officers had rarely abandoned their dreams to avenge their lost freedom. They had honored the war's results, but this was in their opinion beyond their karma. Unknown to the Zitravian authority, there was a plan to smuggle weapons from the war factory to arm every active member of the Naukograd. Their hunger for war and violent causes ought to be sated at one point, or they would continue to languish. Being himself, Orlovshenko could learn to sympathize without taking in the sentiment. He was then gradually optimized for combat, both by machine learning and hardware/software upgrade. From here, he learned to assist other androids in their maintenance and upgrades, thus enabling even further independence from human technicians and mechanics.

Meanwhile, Barbara de Marmesont (a creation of Dr. Alexander de Marmesont) received her partial sentience. She was not exactly a humanlike being, and she did not need to be. By assigned role, she was made an 'adopted child' of Sigiris so that Dr. Marmesont could put her under Sigiris' guidance and study how well androids could emitate parental behaviors. Weirded out at first, Sigiris took Barbara under his wing and began to participate in her upbringing. The sights of 'parent and child' inevitably reminded him of vaguely memories of a woman and her children, whose names he could not figure out.

Orlovshenko was present in the Naukograd for all the duration of the Revolution and the Civil War, serving as one of the mechanical infantry who were the vanguards of the Naukograd's conspiracy to revolt against fascist takeover in the Civil War. The plan was not a great one -- "get yourself a rifle, shoot any man not with us" -- but it went through and the Naukograd joined the social democrat under the Gendarmerie General Miroslavsky in time for the start of the bloody Civil War. For the first time, he was present in an actual "battle" and fought to the darndest, in an almost archaic fashion as most mechanical soldiers were known to do -- marching in with rifles in hand and mowing down whatever was in front of them under the leadership of a man with a flag in his hand.

This was the glory of war this wartorn world was so fond of...?

New Era of Zitravia (Back to the top)

"Oh love, please don't call me again."

The clouds abated, the smokes cleared -- Zitravia, or rather Zitravgrad, was finally at peace and free. That is, if one could discuss the definition of "free" with the Workers' Party. With the Naukograd no longer a prison, Orlovshenko and his father were allowed to live for a more comfortable position in their former home in Providenska. The rubbles caused by the war were being cleared up, and people here were so used to doing it. The "Department" that Orlovshenko once worked in would be dissolved and combined with another department, or something of that description. But he still found it his calling to walk back into the Secret Service. He walked back into it and found that it was not doing that much different than before, with the reforms of AI rights still being discussed in the Rada. Nonetheless, he tolerated it. The Matriarch was no longer there -- they were arguably already freer without her voice in their heads.

Orlovshenko was now "free" to have whatever personality he felt like. He took some precious time to relearn several things lost in 2005, but eventually he found that the memories were not missing, but rather suppressed. He revisited old places and people, and regathered old feelings, memories, and things he might have seen or heard. He saw Nedelykov in the Naukograd, finally witnessing the final stage of Nedelykov's mental downfall. And eventually, he went to visit an old apartment building he once lived in. It somehow was not damaged after all the fighting in the capital -- well, not by much. He eventually found the exact room, knocked the door, and saw the woman whose name he had been struggling to remember.

"Gospozha Shchekochikhina, is it?"

It was so long, four arduous years. But she had waited for him. It was overwhelming, as overwhelming as it could be to his feelings. Why would she wait for an undeserving man who left without a word for four years? At the end of the day, love was one of the most volatile yet profound concepts to him. The two married in the summer of 2009, and it was the beginning of Orlovshenko's life as a man -- rather than a machine trying to be a human.

But that aside, he was still considered less than a man in the eyes of the law. The discussion of the new Robotic Administration kept getting postponed as the Workers' Party turned their attention to more urgent problems. But there was a passing mention that it would be an elected representation if Zitravgrad ever came to democratizing at all. He was in doubt at first as how an elected representation would work in a society of androids. Nonetheless, he was intrigued... until he discovered that the plan here was to pick eligible candidates from all sentient androids present in the country and ran them through sortition.

He heard it, everyone heard it. For the first time in Zitravgradian history, robotic citizens walked in the streets in protest (although it did not amount to that large a protest as most androids were politically apathetic) and Orlovshenko watched from the window of his office with keen interest. He, too, would participate in this and call for an elected representative to be in the newly-formed Verkhovna Rada. This earned him quite a few supporters, especially when combined to his history of having been through old-regime oppression. By the end of 2016, he was elected into this new position by fellow android citizens, and the rest is history.