In 1920, Czech journalist and author Karel Čapek introduced the word “robot” (derived from the Czech word “robotnik,” for “worker”) with the play Rossum’s Universal Robots, or R.U.R. Set on a remote island housing a factory that mass produces robots for customers worldwide, the humanoid beings are made from artificial organic material via a secret formula. Factory manager Domin tells Helena, a campaigner for humane treatment of robots, that robots are mechanically more perfect, have enormously developed intelligence and are strong as two-and-a-half men, but have no soul, emotions or will, and wear out in about 20 years. Domin predicts that in ten years the company will produce so much that things will be practically without price, ending poverty, with all work done by living machines. In the second act, those 10 years have passed but the utopia has not been realized. In America, workers made redundant by robots have attacked and destroyed them, leading manufacturers to arm their robots; war has broken out in Europe, with robot soldiers increasingly used. Biochemist Dr. Gall says universities petition to restrict production, while shareholders refuse and governments clamor for more. Robots begin organizing and revolting; Helena destroys the secret formula, and a ship arrives with pamphlets calling robots “more highly developed than man” and to arms.