‘kind and ordered’ is a better goal [than justice]

The robot valet Uncharles, on the last page of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model (2024), “Epilogue,” p. 373.

Excerpt

“Justice is a human-made thing that means what humans wish it to mean and does not exist at all if humans do not make it,” Uncharles said. “I suggest that ‘kind and ordered’ is a better goal. It is possible that the world was once both kind and ordered. It is possible that it may be so again.”

It’s telling, I think, that Tchaikovsky practiced law before becoming a sci-fi author. Justice plays a significant role towards the end of the novel.

I have no duties and in their absence the world creeps in

The robot valet Uncharles, in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model (2024), “Interconnection IV,” p. 251.

Uncharles has been told that he’s been infected with the "Protagonist Virus" which supposedly gives him free will and agency. An excerpt of Uncharles’ thoughts, italicized in the original:

There is no evidence of any such thing as the Protagonist Virus, especially in relation to my personal history.

If there is no such thing, why am I a mere service model, trying so hard to construct an argument against it?

These things should not matter to me. Only my duties should matter.

 And yet I have no duties and in their absence the world creeps in . . . 

I live every day like it's my last: with a lot of yelling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth

 --- Weird Al Yankovic, interviewed in the documentary Weird Al: Never Off Beat (2023), around time code 31:12