The helots were a slave/serf class in ancient Sparta who were owned in common by the citizenry. ¹ In technostist terms, they're droids who are publicly owned and work for the State and/or the People. They can replace traditional public roles, and they can be used for new ones (self-repairing cities). They are public servants. They differ from droids, who are domestically owned, and technotarians, who work for a business or enterprise. Your municipality should have a number of helots. I made the example in another thread about imagining the relationship between myself, droids, technotarians, and helots.