Suicide is another indicator of the defective transfer of Korby into the android.
That is a good point.
Kor-Bot* Korby was casual of killing, obviously unlike the real Korby was. I gotta wonder if that casual disregard of existence extended to his own existence as well, especially once he realized that he wasn't like the real Korby. Perhaps in destroying himself, the Kor-Bot was, in a way, casually solving the problem of eliminating what the real Korby would have perceived as a threat to humanity.
Andrea was a part of that plan, too, so she needed to be dealt with. In addition, I believe that whatever of Korby was left in the android was finally repulsed by Andrea's efforts to emote, and he saw her as it were as an example of what little girls are
not made of. Since killing was to Ruk and the Kor-Bots nothing more than switching off a light, the issues with her existence were taken care of in the same way.
* - Yeah, what a great name,
f14peter!
In addition, considering the age of the android construct, it seems odd that it started to break down. Ruk lasted for many centuries with little mental degradation. Maybe because he was made by the Old Ones?
Well, Kor-bot Korby's mental breakdown occurred after coming into contact with the landing party, and that party included Korby's fiancée. Prior to that, existence was likely much more routine (computer-science-related pun intended, I suppose). Once the landing party came, existence was much more dynamic, and I think that coping with that exposed unexpected flaws in the androids and in Kor-Bot Korby's plan.
^ Which is funny considering how TNG embraced the concept of an android being a valued member of the crew. The implied message in "What are little girls made of?" is that androids can be hot, but they don't belong in human society.
Well, the Kor-Bots were intended to replace humanity, not cohabit with it.
Korby didn't intentionally suicide. He meant to knock of Andrea, and thought she was carrying a hollow-point phaser. Turns out it was loaded with full plasma jacket ammo.
No.
Korby said that he only copied Kirk's consciousness into the android but could have continued the transference of Kirk's consciousness so that it completely went into the android double.
Ruk said that the Old Ones started turning the androids off and the Old Ones were destroyed by the androids. Maybe Ruk when he first started tending the machines wrote a new subroutine into the android's programming that would recognize emotional tendencies and "rewrite" them with a more logical mechanical behavior.
Maybe Korby was trapped in a living nightmare inside the android body as Ruk's subroutine was slowly erasing his humanity from the android's brain. He was prevented from talking about the android plot to subjugate others much like an assimilated being by the Borg. The appearance of Chapel could have awakened Korby's humnan half and the subroutine flared even more to rewrite such unacceptable behavior. Korby recognized his losing battle and didn't want the androids to take over other worlds so he killed himself along with the last android, Andrea. A subtle horror story written by Robert Bloch.
That's an interesting idea. Kor-Bot Korby did say that Ruk was tending the machinery. I suppose that what would have been in Ruk's mind as "fixing" it is not at all out of the question.
In the final scenes of "What are Little Girls Made Of?" Dr. Roger Korby, confronted by his own failings and his less than human nature now that he inhabits an android body, commits suicide while smooching the android Andrea.
Umm, technically Korby doesn't kill himself. It's Andrea who pushes the trigger. You know, the 'droid who just killed one of her brothers-in-artificial-arms by mistake and was trying to cope with the fact that she was now an accredited murderer. Plus with the whole kissing thing.
So we can debate whether Korby wanted that to happen (that is, his hand helps Andrea's in pressing the trigger), or whether he wanted nothing of the sort and only too late realized that Andrea was holding that gun (that is, his hand makes that realization but is too slow to do anything about it).
Timo Saloniemi
Korby knew she was holding the gun, and he also wraps his hand around the hand that is holding the gun and presses. If that's not deliberate, I don't know what is.
Uh, yeah. There's no debate here, because there's no question that Kor-Bot Korby intentionally caused the weapon to disintegrate both himself and Andrea.
