Okay so in the ancient past, before first recorded human history there is a race of beings who create a robot race, this race was built to assist their creators in the terraforming process. However during the expansion of one world the robots found an artifact which corrupted the robots , whether it gave them a religion, or simply caused them to go rampant and destroy their makers, which one do I use? Should I give give the aliens who created the robots a name?
Progenitors sounds cool. If you want to give them a name name, how about Domaliga or something? This is kind of a difficult question. Too many options, not enough criteria.
That sounds as plausible as the idea of "downloading more RAM". These are terraforming robots, so I'd suggest having them attack their creators for trying to build a polluting industrial infrastructure because it interferes with their directives of making the planet habitable. As for the name of the precursor aliens, I'd suggest taking inspiration from religion and mythology. Religion and science fiction share many of the same concepts. Transcendence, free will, rapture (singularity), etc.
The question is really 'from whose perspective?' Later races might see progenitors as benificent gods or as tyrannical over lords. The robots again might feel their creators were dictators for not giving them free will; if you loved your progeny why would they be made to be perfectly obedient? But the creators themselves almost certainly believe they are good people and would name themselves something more positive. The culture that names them and their language and mythos will be what guides the name. For modern humans we might call them angels or demons; both ancient non-scientific terms used for the value judgement not the actual descriptive value.
Artificial intelligence does not operate like humans. Unless programmed to, artificial intelligence cannot feel boredom, curiosity, and anger. Robots have no reason for revenge. Our emotions are the result of millions of years of evolution; it provided a genetic advantage, whatever that may be.
Robots corrupted? Easy. They found a mathematical formula that is wrong on paper, but works in application. So they apply it to their minds/work/AI/government/whatever, slowly corrupting their entire race with a subtle error, an ingrained imperfection that they cannot perceive.
There's some truth to that in the real world but assuming we're suspending disbelief enough to allow for an all powerful race of progenitors and their robot progeny I think it's fine to suggest that those robots might either have been programmed in a way that is closer to human (or at least organic life) intelligence or that at some point they broke their programming. It's not crazy to say that robots designed to aid their makers in some giant intergalactic project made by hyper-intelligent beings might be given a greater degree of freedom in their goals; that at some point the creators saw the benefit in giving them latitude to decide things themselves. If the AI can think about it's own form at all then it'll look at itself and the quirks of being built by organics and realize this is not the most optimal form. A robot shaped like a human is not a good teraformer, for example. Just as pure logicians they would inevitably end up with the answer that their form is arbitrary, designed by imperfect beings and can be easily changed. Even just pursuing the idea of being the most efficient teraformers possible they will inevitably see the value of changing themselves, of pursuing a learning AI that can handle more complex scenarios and from there the sky is the limit.
Everything has a name. Whether or not you reveal it depends on how that would impact the story's purpose. Or if it would at all.
That is true, most of my favorite stories don't reveal the creators for a long time, maybe I could do the same. As was said to me when I first joined, welcome to the forums! You will be glad you joined, there are some talented people here, shucks I'm glad I did!
