in one of the linked posts over on @dingodad i make the connection to aradiabot as an example of a blood-powered machine (which is more relevant if we see things through the lens of robots as vessels for human spirits, which has become all the more prominent postcanon, but i digress), but I guess the unspoken parallel is the gold-blooded sollux who acts as custodian to his gold-filled beehouse machines? i won’t rehash territory i’ve already explored but there has very much always been the sense that alternian computers could be running on the blood of the proletariat