432.18 // Recall on Previous Generation Droid Line
Industrial Automation’s Kuat branch, a droid manufacturing firm specializing in cutting-edge astromech units, has announced a galaxy-wide recall of the last generation of their latest model the, DE series. Their public relations spokesperson gave this explanation to news outlets when asked about the recall for the droid model, popular with independent contractors and small business freight companies for their reasonable price tag and trusted reliability,
“One of our Lead Engineers found a potentially dangerous subroutine error that, if triggered, could cause a catastrophic meltdown in the unit. It’s highly unlikely, and we have no reports of the bug causing any damage,” the company spokesperson said as they continued, “but we don’t want to trust that this error won’t cause serious troubles down the line. Effects could include a dangerous detonation of the unit, as well as even EMP bursts that could wipe out on-board electronics including life-support systems on freighters.” The spokesperson finished by reassuring their consumers, “All clients will be issued a new DE series droid from our latest generation, free of charge, with reassurances that all issues with programming have been resolved.”
When asked why this glitch existed in the first place, IA’s spokesperson responded that programming is incredibly byzantine with astromech units of all types. They cited that in order to process intense cosmological calculations in the short time it takes requires an abundance of algorithms and subroutines to work complex tasks in tandem. Occasionally errors are bound to happen.
However, competitor manufacturing company Cybot Galactica, known for their historically popular C3 series protocol droids, issued their own statement on the recall,
“We have industry standards for a reason. Subroutines like this are extraordinarily rare, and the fact that it’s been embedded within these trusted and reliable machines for over a cycle now is something that no other company has had happen in living memory. It’s a miscarriage of safety and, in fact, we call upon the Galactic Republic to launch a full investigation into how this ‘bug’ was implanted anyway. Something this severe could indicate no less than sabotage.”
The Associated Presses have not found any evidence to support a theory that malignant intentions were involved with this programming error, however, the Galactic Republic’s Senatorial subcommittee on Business Ethics and Oversight did say that they would launch an investigation to clear the air. Industrial Automation responded saying they would fully cooperate with whatever the Galactic Republic required in order to clear their name of malfeasance.
More on this story as it develops, this is Quan Regal of the Associated Presses