Why might a robot's memory be unreliable after the Apocalypse?

Setting

A nuclear war between two superpowers happens, and nuke after nuke is fired at nearly every country on the globe. The war, which lasts for about 4 hours, kills over 3 billion people, and many more were killed from the resulting violence, pestilence and starvation. During that time, known as the "Great Fall" by future generations, no records of the world immediately after the apocalypse were made, as people were either dead or too worried about survival to make any entries into journals. So, most accounts of the "Great Fall" era were written DECADES or more after the fact. Which means, most modern of those accounts were unreliable.

26th century

It is now the the twenty-sixth century, and historians are finally realizing that those accounts of the Great Fall were unreliable. They found this out because many of the accounts mention the Midwestern Empire being involved in the war, but the Midwestern Empire wasn't formed until 40 years after the war. Their are also mentions of Kodiakist Churches being destroyed in the fighting, but the Holy Mutant Kodiak wasn't even born yet. So, the historians search and search to find out what really happened during the war, what year was that it when it happened, and who fired the first shot. This is a major plot point.

The Androids

The androids were mechanical beings created or do tasks like cleaning and fighting before the war, and though many of then died and were destroyed during the war, many did survive, even all the way up to the 26th century. Almost all androids are fitted with a video recording camera, and can, at any point, rewind and show their memories to anyone who asks. Most androids turned them off once the war was finished, which made it easier for them to survive as the Nor has a limited supply of fuel. But, they can still access the memory saved into them. The historians really just have to asks an android computer to see one segment of their memory of the war, and everything would be solved.

But, I don't want it to be that easy, for the sake of not making my story five pages long, so how could you make it so that the androids' memories are also unreliable?

posted over 6 years ago

DT Cooper‭

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