ROBOTOID

Real Name: Robotoid

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-5555; see comments) robot

Occupation: Servant (see comments)

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Servalan

Enemies: Scorpio crew (Kerr Avon, Dayna Mellanby, Orac, Vila Restal, Slave, Soolin, Del Tarrant)

Known Relatives: Ensor the Elder (creator)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Formerly Ensor's laboratory

First Appearance: Blake's 7 Monthly#1 (October 1981)

Powers/Abilities: A massive machine, the Robotoid's right arm ended in a blaster-like weapon that fired energy bolts (possibly a laser), while its left arm ended in a massive pincer which could rend and bend metal with ease. It was strong enough to rip through several inches thick steel bulkheads with ease. Its frame, already sturdy, was protected from attacks by a forcefield, and it could counter attacks intended to drain it apparently using some sort of anti-matter countermeasure.

Height: 10' (by estimation)
Weight: Unrevealed
Visual sensors: Color unrevealed
Hair: None

History:
(Blake's 7 Monthly#1 (fb) - BTS) - Ensor was a scientific genius, especially in the field of computers; among his inventions were Orac, the universe's most advanced A.I. housed in a cuboid box small enough for one person to easily carry, and the Robotoid, a highly advanced automaton that had been one of Ensor's earliest creations. After Ensor's demise Orac had fallen into the hands of a group of rebels led by Roj Blake, and latterly by Kerr Avon. Meanwhile the rest of Ensor's equipment and notes, including the Robotoid, were scheduled to be transferred to the Terran Federation's Science Museum. However, the cargo manifest of the spaceship transporting Ensor's effects passed over the desk of Commissioner Sleer (secretly the recently deposed despot, former Supreme Commander and former President of the Federation Servalan, now trying to rise to power once more). At that moment Servalan had learned the location of Avon's rebels after their ship, the Scorpio, was sighted hiding in an asteroid belt. Knowing she needed to move swiftly before the rebels could get away, Servalan spotted the Robotoid listed in the cargo manifest and decided to use it to set a trap. She sent a small Federation battleship and even smaller Adraxa class vessel near to the Scorpio's location, and had the former attack the latter. As Servalan had hoped the Scorpio came to the rescue and destroyed the battleship, and then when they saw that the Adraxa class ship appeared to be critically damaged and about to be pulled down by a nearby world's gravity, the rebels saved it by scooping it up into Scorpio's cargo hold. The rebels then headed down to their hold to find out who they had rescued.

(Blake's 7 Monthly#1) - Moments after the rebels entered the Scorpio's hold the Adraxa class' hatch opened and the Robotoid emerged. Declaring the group terrorists it immediately attacked, opening fire with a laser-like weapon mounted at the end of its right arm. Ever cynical and cautious Avon had come to the hold armed and returned fire, but his blaster's bullets did no harm to the heavily-armored Robotoid. The rebels fled towards the flight deck where the remainder of their weapons were stored, but the Robotoid ripped through the steel section doors they closed behind themselves. On the flight deck the rebels prepared to make a last stand, while their A.I. Orac identified their opponent as an advanced Robotoid, adding that his sensors indicated it could repel plasma bolts. Seconds later the Robotoid smashed through the doors to the flight deck, and as multiple blaster shots left it undamaged the rebels realized their opponent had some sort of forcefield. One of the rebels, weapons inventor Dayna Mellanby, threw an experimental explosive device at it, engulfing it in fire and draining its power, and for a moment the Robotoid seemed to be reeling, until it activated an anti-matter countermeasure that stabilized its condition. As it resumed its attack it stomped towards Orac, who had been abandoned on the floor during the melee, and as the Robotoid was about to step on and crush Orac, the A.I. protested that it was a machine, and therefore not covered by the Robotoid's instructions to destroy all the terrorists. The Robotoid paused, lifted Orac off the floor, and announced that only creations of its master Ensor were permitted to survive, since by its logic only such machines were fit enough to rule the galaxy. Surprised to learn that they shared a creator, Orac stated that only a defective machine would obey the orders of some as illogical as Servalan. As insulted as an emotionless machine could be, the Robotoid retorted that no machine of Ensor were defective, since they were the finest creations ever, although it admitted to being one of Ensor's first efforts. Orac challenged the Robotoid to prove it was fit by answering a supposedly logical question, a riddle the rebel Vila Restal had posed it earlier that day - "What goes up a chimney down, but not down a chimney up?" The Robotoid struggled to make sense of this and declared the query illogical, but Orac (who had himself declared the query illogical when Vila had posed it) responded that the question was perfectly logical and insisted that the Robotoid's failure to figure out the answer was proof that it was malfunctioning, and therefore should logically self-destruct. Accepting this, the Robotoid burned out its own circuits and collapsed.

Comments: Created by Ian Kennedy.

   Blake's 7 was a BBC television show created by Terry Nation that ran for four series (seasons) of thirteen episodes apiece from 1978 to 1981. It told the story of a group of unlikely rebels fighting against the totalitarian Federation that ruled Earth and its many colony worlds. The Blake of the title was Roj Blake, once the leader of the Freedom Party, a populist movement that had sought to challenge the Federation's corrupt rule, but the dictatorship had murdered most of the Party's members, and Blake was only spared to avoid creating a martyr. Instead he had initially been brainwashed to denounce his movement and then forget it had even existed, and when that failed he was framed for abusing children, crimes which would destroy any remaining public support he might have, and then sentenced to exile for the rest of his life on a penal colony. However, during the months long voyage to the colony the penal ship encountered a highly advanced but seemingly abandoned alien ship; knowing that whoever claimed it for salvage would be rich for life, the penal ship crew decided to do so, but after the initial boarding party were killed by on-board defenses it was decided to instead send some of the expendable convicts in, with Blake among those chosen. Perhaps predictably for anyone not blinded by avarice as the penal ship crew were, Blake and co. not only managed to disable the automated anti-intrusion defenses, but also commandeered the vessel, which they dubbed the Liberator. And so Blake began a new rebellion on board a ship far faster and more advanced than any single Federation vessel but crewed with a disparate gang of criminals - and yes, including both Blake and the Liberator's A.I. Zen, there were seven of them.

   Show creator Terry Nation was also the creator of the Daleks, the most popular villains on the long-running BBC show Doctor Who. By the late 1970s Marvel U.K. had acquired the license to publish a tie-in title, Doctor Who Weekly (later Monthly, and then Magazine), and it had proven to be a major success. This probably was what motivated Marvel U.K. to go after the license for Blake's 7 too, as it was often touted to be a somewhat darker spiritual successor/sibling to the other show (and more on that later). However, by the time the magazine was launched Blake's 7 had already begun airing what would prove to be its final series, and the last episode was broadcast before the magazine's fourth issue was out, with (spoilers) an ending that infamously appeared to depict almost the entire regular cast being slain, gunned down one by one by the Federation, with only one survivor, the new group leader Avon, not yet dead but surrounded by Federation troops as the screen cut to black and the end credits rolled even as gunshots rang out instead of the theme tune. As such, it's probably a sign of how dedicated the fanbase was that the magazine managed to keep going for 23 issues and two seasonal specials before coming to an end two years after that finale.

   By the time the magazine started the titular group were much changed from the original line-up - thanks to cast changes, several of the original members, Blake included, were dead or missing in action, and the original vessel, the Liberator, had been destroyed, to be replaced by the Scorpio. There weren't even seven of them unless you counted both the inanimate supercomputer ORAC and the Scorpio's flight computer Slave (note that the rebels didn't give it that name; that was down to the Scorpio's original owner, a villainous individual who the rebels killed). As fans used to joke, "Blake's 7: there's nobody called Blake and there aren't seven of them."

   Returning to the comment that Blake's 7 was sometimes seen as being a sibling show to Doctor Who. The second series of Blake's 7 ended with the Federation about to be attacked by an invasion of then-unseen aliens. Terry Nation originally intended to reveal these invaders to be the Daleks, but those plans were nixed by the producers. Nevertheless, this fact lingered in the minds of fans, strengthened perhaps by Tom Baker (the fourth Doctor, whose time on Doctor Who coincided with Blake's 7 airing) and Gareth Thomas (the actor who played Blake) both mentioning in interviews that they were friends and had tried to arrange a small crossover between the two shows (they'd wanted a scene where the Doctor and Blake pass one another in a spaceship corridor, casually acknowledging each other by name, and then just continuing on without further interaction, with the same scene to be seen twice but from two different perspective, once in each show). During the period when Doctor Who was off the air the show's expanded media began including subtle references to planets and organizations from Blake's 7; however, these could be dismissed as Easter eggs until the fourth Doctor novel Corpse Marker included Carnell, a secondary character from Blake's 7, in a prominent role; this was further reinforced by a series of licensed audio dramas which not only reused Carnell but also included another character played by Avon's actor Paul Darrow, with it being heavily implied that Darrow's character was Avon using an alias to hide out after he survived the massacre that killed his former Scorpio crewmates. Then an official Doctor Who audio drama, Three's a Crowd, mentioned a Federation and used distinctive teleportation sound effects from Blake's 7. All of these seem to confirm that Blake's 7 is set in the same reality as Doctor Who, usually assumed to be Earth-5555.

   Ensor was a genius computer scientist that had appeared in the TV show; considered the greatest computer scientist of his age, he was responsible for constructing the super A.I. Orac that had ended up part of the crew. His first name was never revealed, so because his son, also called Ensor, had also appeared on the show, the two were distinguished from one another as "the Elder" and "the Younger." The younger Ensor was also a genius computer scientist, if not quite on a par with his father, and so it would be tricky to say for sure which was responsible for creating the Robotoid had the comic story not also made clear that the Robotoid and Orac were both products of the same man. It's uncertain exactly what the Robotoid's intended purpose was; its strength and heavy shielding suggest it wasn't intended for household duties, but do not confirm it was intended for combat - for example, they would also be advantageous if it was to be used for working construction or mining in dangerous environments. The weapon it wielded at the end of its right arm looks to be part of its body, but could have been intended for cutting metal or even just temporarily fitted to it by Servalan's people.

   This profile was completed on 04/15/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Blake's 7 Magazine. 

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Robotoid has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Blake's 7 Monthly#1, p31, pan5 (main image)
Blake's 7 Monthly#1, p33, pan6 (head)
Blake's 7 Monthly#1, p32, pan2 (ripping through steel door)
Blake's 7 Monthly#1, p34, pan 2 (burning out its own circuits, while dropping Orac to the floor)
Blake's 7 Monthly#1 cover (cover of first issue)

Appearances:
Blake's 7 Monthly#1 (October 1981) - Ian Kennedy (writer, art), Stewart Wales (editor)

First Posted: 09/18/2026
 Last updated:  04/19/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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