Some robots have it easy; these robots have a mission. They are specifically made for spying or espionage missions. They dodge bullets, perform recon, shape-shift, whatever is necessary to find out what someone else doesn't want them to know. Their design can overlap with the Surveillance Drone. When paired with another human spy, it may overlap with Androids and Detectives.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Lupin III: Part II once has a mechanical fly serve as a listening device. In the Geneon dub, Jigen describes it as "a flying pun".
Literature
- Whateley Universe: Frequently used by Gadgeteers and Devisors, though at Whateley Academy they mostly use them to steal each other's ideas; for example
, one is found which slowly moved around the Workshop tunnels, masked by both technological and magical means, eavesdropping on any conversations it came across. The Intelligence Cadet Corps (a club for wannabee Teen Superspy and Kid Detective types) use them to keep track of the Bad Seeds, the Masterminds, and anyone else they deem 'suspicious', including some of the teachers - which gets them into considerable trouble with the school administration.
Live-Action TV
- Hymie from Get Smart, who was programmed by KAOS to impersonate a CONTROL agent and act as a mole for them. He now works for CONTROL, though his new programming prohibits him from being an agent.
Tabletop Games
- Dark Conspiracy supplement Darktek:
- Snoopbot: 200 kg, built like a trashcan with three legs. Has a full detection/analysis suite and an expert system AI.
- Probe Drone: used for exploring hazardous areas. Has brackets for mounting sensor modules.
- Robobugs in GURPS Ultra-Tech are good for this. The much larger nanomorph is basically James Bond with superpowers.
Toys
- LEGO:
- Some advertisements for LEGO Mindstorms suggest using the kits to make one of these, though in practice, it's not very good at it just because of how loud the motors are.
- The Spyrius faction from LEGO Space, a group of spies who steal technology for profit, is headed by one named Major Kartofski. They use two giant-sized versions, the Recon Robot and the Robo-Guard, both of which come with claws for grabbing stuff and boxes for stashing stolen data. A magazine feature also mentions an unspecified robot who can turn invisible (save for its red hands) using a special helmet.
Video Games
- Command & Conquer:
- Command & Conquer: Generals has one as an American Support Power, launching a spy drone that gives vision and detection of a large section of the map.
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: The Empire has the Burst Drone, a dragonfly-shaped robot that flies and detects infiltrators. It can also attach itself to vehicles to slow them down and blow itself up to damage them.
- The Spy and Advanced Spy from Machines: Wired For War can plant mines and steal enemy research.
- In Team Fortress 2, one type of robot that appears in Mann Vs. Machine is a robot version of the Spy.
Western Animation
- The eponymous device in the Jonny Quest episode "The Robot Spy".
Dr. Zin: Once inside your laboratory, it gathers information through these antennae and stores it in a memory bank and brings it back to me.
- The various versions of Transformers have had a number of robots on either side of the conflict whose specialties are in espionage, intelligence, and/or surveilance, with personalities and modi operandi spanning the whole gamut, from Prime's Soundwave, an eerily silent hacker and master of surveillance who seems to hear everything, to sneaky, snarky Rattrap of Beast Wars, who relies on quick wits, a handful of built-in gadgets, and a distaste for fair play to keep his skidplate intact while behind enemy lines, to the deep-cover spy Shockwave of Animated, a Decepticon double agent who has an Autobot named Longarm as one of his alternate modes,*and in that guise rose to be head of Autobot intelligence.
- The eponymous robot from The Zeta Project, spun off from Batman Beyond. His full name is Infiltration Unit Zeta, which tells you something.
Real Life
- Truth in Television: Modern scout drones are basically this, except remotely operated. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine the possibility of autonomous scouting drones — true "spy robots" — in the near future.
