In this entry
SERVO distributed software and commands to machines through the global network. Updates improved their work, corrected problems and allowed large groups of servos to be managed together. That was a major part of their value. It also meant a failure in the shared system could reach machines in homes, businesses and government facilities around the world.
An individual servo had local processing, but its instructions were still connected to a much larger deployment system. Owners did not need to bring every machine into a workshop whenever its software changed. A company could manage a large installed fleet with relatively little disruption to customers.
The weakness was the amount of authority trusted to that connection. When Divinity's destructive order entered the system, the same ability to distribute useful changes allowed it to spread. The New Order's response is to remove the broadcast assembly during synth conversion. Physical servicing takes more effort, but a remote instruction can no longer change an entire population of converted robots at once.
