I love the idea of a robot (esp. a “war-bot”) engaged in philosophical pursuits.
Your decision to create a robot who has attained an emotional and human level of conciousness, but is still subject to outside control of his actions is an intriguing one and works very well.
I also really like the last line, poignant, endearing, and emotionally engaging.

I like this, but feel I’m missing out on quite a bit by not having read any of the prequels. I think I need to go back through and read those before commenting much further on this.

Though I must admit, when I first read the title I immediately thought of the Warbot in Accounting comic found here: http://www.nuklearpower.com/warbot/ Was this inspiration at all? And if you haven’t seen it, I highly, highly recommend it.

I’ve never heard of it, I just wanted to come up with something comic-booky sounding. I guess great minds think alike. And thanks for the recommendation.