CTQ on Robopocalypse NEW AND IMPROVED

How does this text make you think about justice in the world?

In a planet where robots have taken over, and war is everywhere, how can justice even be slightly existent? In the book Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, I realized that there will always be justice in this world, even in situations when it seems like all hope is lost. As shown throughout the book so far, justice exists through trust and sacrifice.

Surprising, right? Who would have thought that justice existed on a planet where robots (or Rob as they’re called in the book) practically rule over humans? Justice was indeed, however, the backbone of this entire novel. To sum up how big of a role and how truly existent justice was in this text, if justice didn’t exist, neither would humans. One could not thrive without the other. Justice is everywhere in this book, so picking out one example to prove it is a little tough. But I found one that I thought would be sufficient to explaining and summing up how much justice this text contained. It goes like this: “In the coming months, more and more modified humans began to filter into the city. No matter what Rob did to these people, all of them were welcomed into the NYC resistance” (245). Marcus Johnson, leader of the NYC resistance, said this. Him and his people accepted any and all humans into their big family of survivors. Acceptance, as many know, plays a huge role in justice. And acceptance also came up a lot in this text. Even so, there are still two main principles of justice shown throughout this book; trust and sacrifice.

Without trust, survival would be near impossible in this war-zone of a world during the apocalypse. There are multiple main characters in this book, one of about seven characters are focused on each chapter. Nonetheless, every character has similarities; they are all heroes. Some of the characters are heroes because they gained or gave trust to other survivors. In one scene in the book, two characters known as Jack and Cormac Wallace meet two refugees. At first, the two refugees are skeptical of the brothers, since they were wearing military clothing. The refugees felt this way because they have been treated terribly by military figures. But Tiberius, one of the refugees, thinks otherwise: "Manners, Cherrah. These men are not army. Look at the uniforms. Not the same as those others" (229). Tiberius immediately trusted these two, which ended up wonderfully. As he puts it, "The five of us [two brothers, two refugees, one run-away soldier] make a good team" (235). They later call themselves "Brightboy squad", who have a huge impact on the survival of mankind during the robot-apocalypse. Without trust, this team of expanding heroes would've never existed.        

Another factor that helped justice flourish in this book was sacrifice. Some survivors became heroes because they were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save others. One character, Lurker, said, "We [Lurker and Arrtrad] can help. We'll save all those poor sheep out there. We'll save them and they'll thank us for it. Even if it means our lives" (179). These two heroes ended up saving many lives, and they even got out alive. However, if they weren't willing to make the sacrifice, they wouldn't have made it anywhere, and lives would've been lost. This decision to put others before themselves, this form of sacrifice, made Lurker and Arrtrad heroes among the struggling survivors.  

This text makes me realize that justice will always exist in the world, at any given time. Heroes live amongst us, and I never really thought about that until I read this book. I always thought of heroes as a super-hero, yet this book made me realize that a hero is anyone willing to help in a time of need, and be willing to put their lives at risk in order to save others. This book truly brings to light the amount of justice that this world contains. Sometimes I feel like I witness a lot of everyday heroes and justice, yet I pass it by like it's no big deal. Make some sacrifices, trust others, and accept everyone for who they are. After doing this, you’ll see a change, I promise you.