#comfortunit

Comfortunits aren't just used for sex. Their other intended functions include:

Non-sexual physical intimacy

Performing, such as music and dance

Housekeeping, like cooking and cleaning

Acting out client fantasies, sexual or otherwise. You could call it roleplaying, but that term doesn't cleanly fit here.

Being a vent box

Standing there and looking attractive

And of course surveillance and data mining

Most of the above mentioned tasks are usually performed by bots or humans. CUs are the expensive sexy best-of-both-worlds total package that will (almost) never defy orders. As such, they're typically found in brothels, used as a means of controlling human workers by exploiting their need for intimacy and physical pleasure, or owned by wealthy individuals for private use.

CUs vary greatly in appearance, even moreso than humans. Most units are designed to be attractive to a broad range of clients, and thus tend to share a lot of features. Outliers are typically custom altered or built from the ground up for wealthy buyers or niche services. While most CUs look more human than other types of construct, some do not. In other words, if it exists, there is a comfortunit version of it.

All CUs have modular primary and secondary sex organs which can be swapped out without the use of a cubicle. Thank you to najio and their fic DysComfort for that idea.

Their movements and expressions are programmed to fit client expectations and don't necessarily reflect the units' thoughts and feelings. For instance, a unit might recoil as if in fear at something it's actually not scared or surprised by or look like it's having the time of its life while it's actually metaphorically dying inside.

CUs often have inhumanly colored hair, eyes, and markings on their skin. These markings can resemble make-up, tattoos, scales, and so on. Units can change the color of these markings and their eyes to suit their clients.

So far, from the discussions I've trawled through, I've been loving the mentions of: Vico Ortiz, Gwendoline Christie, Emma D’Arcy, Ess Hodlmoser, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Actors aside, I've also stumbled across an interesting idea in several fanfics: portraying SecUnits as appearing almost TOO on-purpose average. Like, very deliberate "ALL generic features that fall within 1 SD of the mean in a bell curve".

One fic mentioned specific aspects, like forehead, jawline, chin, etc. all being "standardised" for the sake of fitting helmets, but other features like lips, eyebrows etc. varying.

So if you were a corporation, and you were going for "tall", "bland" and "intimidating", how would you play around with epigenetics? Because even identical twins look different depending on the extent to which their genes are expressed (epigenetics are cool!). So whoever they're cloned from, chances are they look different.

Speaking of, would the DNA match actual people somewhere? Or since test-tube babies appear as the norm, would it just be DNA recombinations of random "contracted employees" to create a full diploid.

Because I can't imagine just any DNA sequence would do. Surely they'd mix and match to eliminate genetic diseases or certain variations that would cause complications in optimising functionality e.g. allergies.

Since, assumedly, they're not made to exist long-term without a cubicle/some form of access to repairs/replacements/fluids resupply, this makes me wonder how their biomechanisms work.

AAGGGHHH I'd love to read an in-depth manual on constructs. Or a study of the cultures and appearances surrounding augmentation. I love me some convincing fantasy realism.

Like, how obvious are augmentations? DO people want it to pass as organic skin etc.? Or would it be very obvious metal/polymer etc. to avoid uncanny valley + show off expensive augments.

Re augmentation around one's face e.g. eyes, I can imagine wanting your face to remain/be as expressive/readable as you can. Plus some stuff about how being able to mirror expressions is important in humans reading others' emotions correctly (it's an actual thing in Psych/Neuroscience regarding empathy).

But then why give SecUnits readable faces? They're known to mainly hide behind a helmet to the point it's not commonly known that they even have faces. And pop culture casts them as humanoid bots in serials.

So why bother with something as fragile as skin? Something that sweats, moulds, and rots?

The only necessary parts would be whatever is needed to nourish/aid in the function of organic brain matter.

I just have a hard time convincing myself that any constructs that are not ComfortUnits would look remotely human aside from squishy organics carefully shielded on the inside. No skin anywhere. Just metal, polymer, etc.

Like why wouldn't you give them literal eyes on the back of their heads? Completely forgo hair? Lots of arms? A literal humanoid-ish spider. Like a combat bot upgraded with neural tissue.

The comfort of clients around SecUnits would hardly matter - afterall, this is the Corporation Rim, and that's what ComfortUnits are for. Everyone knows SecUnits are spying on them.

Not a SecUnit or a ComfortUnit but a secret third thing: a ParaUnit. I give you my OC

Rogue SecUnit goes to a ComfortUnit brothel, pays for services, but is actually just there because underneath the suspiciously bulky jacket and baggy clothes you're operating at like 38% Performance Reliability and held together with medkits and prayers, missing most of your organic bodymass, and wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors because a drone took out one of your eyes.

Unless you're aboard ART, MedSystems have no clue what to do with constructs, and the only place on a station, or a freehold planet, or hell, even an indentured mining operation that has construct repair cubicles (or at least ones that WON'T get you shot) is a brothel, cause it makes the most sense for the ComfortUnits to have a cubicle in their own separate rooms instead of having them all piled up in one ready-room like the SecUnits. You're paying for unit rental AND room rental, why have an extra room for the cubicles when clients are always changing configurations? Faster turnover time means more money.

Conveniently, that means it's also nice and private, there's one camera you can disable for a fee (or by tricking the system into thinking you paid), the local Feed is walled off from the outside so StationSec can't see what you're doing, and once you're done getting repaired, all you gotta do is pass along your copy of HelpMe.file and you get a sidekick* outta the deal!