Activation

Amy The Perfect Girl gets activated

Activation, booting or start-up is a process that changes a fembot's operational state from "off" to "on". This can also refer to a scene which depicts this process in fiction. The fembot can be activated by a user, remotely, or by itself. This can be done with a remote control device or an on/off switch built into the robot. Some more sentient androids can activate themselves. Starting an android up can be accompanied by verbally or graphically conveyed diagnostic information; sometimes accompanied by the make and model number of the android. Often, a fembot that activates will give a default greeting when they come fully online.

An activation scene is often the first time a fembot character is shown to an audience, and this type of scene is also used to convey the fact that the character is a robot. Other types of reveal tropes may be included in activation scenes, including access panels, assembly, robovision and robotic motion.

Scenes like this can also be followed by programming or reprogramming scenes, and the purpose of these scenes can also be to convey to an audience that a character is a robot.

Example from a story

Excerpt from General's "Blue Chips"

Jennifer’s head raised back up and stared straight ahead. “Cyrex systems model 3057-101a. Prototype OS SPI2.5 – Jennifer 1.7. Commencing diagnostic.” She once again began slightly moving her body in a jerky fashion, and then said with a calm monotone voice, “Motor systems…nominal. CPU….nominal. Sensors….nominal. Communications…..note: wireless networking manually disabled. Memory……nominal. All systems are functioning within acceptable parameters.”