Best Geek Ever!: For the newbs: Mecha, androids, Cyborg and Robots

I've grown to love Pacific Rim ever since it's on HBO. I didn't even care about the hype when it was being hyped, but now that I've seen it, I don't even know why I like it so much.

However, during said hype, mistakes where made. Mistakes regarding what a robot is and what a mecha is. So, for all those now gettin g into Geekery, this one's for you.

The word robot finds it's root in the word roboto, the polish word for slave. The word mecha comes from the latin mechanical.

A robot is an autonomous mechanical being. In fiction, at least, these usually tend to move for themselves, and act for themselves, without imput from the outside. R2d2 is a robot. So is Johny #5 and Sonny from I Robot. So are the Sentinels form the X-Men and the Transformers.

A Geth from Mass Effect is an alien robot.

Subcategories of the robot include the android, which is a robot in the general shape of a man. C3PO David from Ai and David from Prometheus are androids.

The Robot Wall-E, while imbued with human-like personality, is not an Android.

Gynoids, are robots shaped like women, which are somewhat rarer, and even more rare to be described as such. EVi from Mass Effect 3 is a ginoid.

Both the T-100(left) and the T-X(right) are robots, but T-1000 is an Android, while T-X is a ginoid.

Not to be confused with Cyborgs. Cyborgs are humans with noticeable mechanical parts added to them. The Bionic Commander, Jax from Mortal Kombat and Will Smith's character in I Robot are cyborgs.

General Grievous substituted all his body parts save his heart for mechanical ones, thus becoming a cyborg. However...

Luke Skywalker lost his hand, and had it replaced with an indistinguishable replica. Luke Skywalker is a cyborg.

But a Mecha is not a robot. A Mecha is a vehicle designed with the appendages of a quadruped. It has no will of it's own. The Jaegers from Pacific Rim are Mechas. So is the Power-loader from Aliens, the vehicles used by the Zion resistance in Matrix Revolution, and the Evas in Evangelion.

A pilot ascends into his mech in the dormant Mechassault franchise.

So, hopefully this will clear up any confusion about that before the Pacific Rim comes out. I know many are not "in the know" of Mecha, because it's a bit of a niche concept here in the west. Robot is more popular. In fact, we tend to refer to a cyborg as "having a robot arm". We need to be working on the jargon, because how are you supposed to enjoy Mecha beating up on kaiju without correcting this technicalities?