Robecca Steam

Robecca Steam is a robot and daughter of a mad scientist. Her father seems to not be alive anymore, because the box shown at Toy Fair referred to her as an orphan.

Classic Monster
Robecca is a robot, a mechanical variation of the simulacrum archetype that in recent decennia has developed such as to no longer adhere to several definitions of what constitutes a simulacrum.

The oldest 'robots' found in stories are the Automata of Hephaistos, the Greek god of technology and craftmanship. "Automaton" is Ancient Greek for "self-moving", and mythologically applied to a group metal creatures resembling organic creatures that Hephaistos had created for various purposes. Most of them were animal-like in appearance, but Talos and the Golden Maidens were humanoid, and the latter even Hephaistos's personal assistants. It is arguable whether the Automata were actual robots or, equally likely, living statues made of metal. It is known various ancient cultures, among which the Ancient Greek, have had possession of or knowledge to impressive machinery, some of which are still not understood by modern science. At the same time, myths also featured more magically animated creatures such as Galatea (ivory), Pandora (earth) and even humanity as a whole (earth), leaving it unclear how the Ancient Greek envisioned the metal creatures in their myths.

The earliest definite robot or robot designs known about are creations by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1495. The idea of creating mechanical creatures to perform various kinds of labors has since been pursued with slowly building fervor. It wasn't until 1920, however, that finally the term "robot" was invented. Before, various descriptive phrases and words like "automata" had been used. "Robot" has been coined in the book R.U.R. from Karel Čapek. It is adapted from a word found in many Slavic languages and means "work" or "worker" to "slave" and "slavery". The term was further popularized by Isaac Asimov.

As simulacra, robots are creatures used in fiction to generate fear for what is similar but not quite the same (automatonophobia, xenophobia, and a slice of technophobia), but also to question what a being needs to be considered worthy of personal sovereignty. In short, what makes a human 'human'. Or in Robecca's case, what makes a monster 'human'.

Meta Timeline

 * September 22, 2011: Mattel requested the trademark for Robecca Steam.
 * December 30, 2011: Walmart.com set up pages in preparation of the releases of Robecca Steam, Venus McFlytrap, Rochelle Goyle and Jackson Jekyll.
 * February 11-12, 2011: Robecca Steam is introduced at Toy Fair. The first images of her make it to the internet on the 11th. On the 12th, images are found of Robecca Steam in box.
 * February 13, 2012: Robecca Steam's profile is published on the Freaky Fab 13 microsite.