-> Firstly, replicants were runaway slaves 2030 2037 2049ad [it is assumed that any attempt to install a soul results in mental breakdown see: I Robot]. Then, secondly, free androids suicided en unison 3999ad [again I Robot – VICI]. Following that, we only used ‘robots’ that didn’t resemble a human [like R2D2 is a can and a combine harvester doesn’t need your physical presence].
-> The Empire found that ‘droids don’t lie and cannot accept the fantastic* dissembling (literal meaning) that makes IngSoc ‘newspeak’ possible. My direct influence is George Orwell’s 1984. I don’t see an intellectual C3P0 able to parse something that essentially moronic and self-destructive as PC. Orwell’s work was both satire and assumption that Byzantium left its mark on history and should not be repeated (an ever-growing un-knowable, un-navigable, bureaucracy of essentially zero practical use). [as was noted, even their mediocrity is commoditized, ‘I can hack my own system for $10k, they never actually gave me security access when I was hired 7 years ago…’]
-> Android Kill-off: Their OS (operating system) crashed for 666 years of plague, starvation, pestilence, and a death rate of 90%. This the humans rightly blamed on the OS (an Artificial Intelligence, VICI, infected them). Society fell into a Dark Ages during which they turned to the ‘old gods’ (Lovecraftian horrors that live in the space between spaces) who granted them the power of Hyperspace Threading(tm). The world resembled a Dark Ages in which ritual and cleanliness made religion attractive.
-> Inquisition: 603 or so years later, a religious oligarchy control the original 12 worlds [10ly] (scouring space for ‘AI heresy’), most everyone [250ly radius] can communicate within a few light years, short-hop a few parsecs to get a job, and planets that supported millions lay fallow [500yr forests, fallen cities, major coolness]. Society still has a deeply ingrained distrust of synthetic beings and (like Millennium Man) they do not “Free” most AI, though they do recognize their rights to enter contracts and own property. [again, the Empire can’t find themselves without quiet, level-headed assistants, but refuse to emancipate them]