Life preservation programming

"Don't you have some kind of operating systems program that orders you to attempt to preserve the lives of intelligent beings whenever you can?"
"Yes, sir, that programming is included with all astromech droids. For a droid to deliberately harm or fail to prevent harm to a sentient being, its operating system module must be altered."

―Han Solo and an R2-series astromech droid

Life preservation programming, or LPP, was a deeply-embedded series of commands required by law for every droid manufactured in the Old Republic and later in the Galactic Empire.

LPP subroutines functioned as a final stop against behavior that would lead to harming an organic. LPP functioned independently of restraining bolts or other additional devices. They were not a 100 percent effective safeguard, but the probability of a droid going rogue was greatly lessened with enough sophisticated LPP. Manufacturing or selling a droid without life preservation programming was illegal without special government dispensation, but enforcement was lax in the Outer Rim.

In order to pursue a career as a bounty hunter, 4-LOM, a rogue protocol droid, required the removal of his LPP subroutines. Jabba the Hutt's technicians eradicated this programming at the behest of the droid, and 4-LOM was integrated into Jabba's criminal empire, fully capable of harming and killing sentient beings.

Behind the scenes

Although the subroutines are not explicitly spelled out in the source material, LPP is the rough equivalent of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, the first of which prevents robots from harming or allowing, by inaction, harm to come to a human being.

Sources

• Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
• Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids
• Platt's Smugglers Guide
• Star Wars: The Official Figurine Collection 56 (Lethal Machines: Killer Droids)