Robot War: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

The most frightening thing about a [[Bug War]] or any other kind of humans-vs-aliens battle is the threat that humanity may be wiped completely from the map; that billions of years of evolution and thousands of years of civilization may be rendered meaningless by unstoppable [[Death From Above]].

The beauty of the '''Robot War''' is that it is laced with an extra layer of irony: the very machines that want to [[Kill All Humans]] were ''created'' by that very species, and they've [[Turned Against Their Masters]]. Humanity has effectively wiped itself off the map by creating something more powerful and intelligent than itself. Thus this is a very common theme in futuristic "[[And Man Grew Proud]]" stories.

 

 

 

Not to be confused with the British remote-controlled-robots competition ''[[Robot Wars (TV series)|Robot Wars]]''.

Or the Japanese [[Turn-Based Strategy|Turn-based]] [[Humongous Mecha]] [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]] ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games, for that matter. Or fictional wars with robots fighting each other.

{{examples}}

* Tends to happen towards the end of any version of the Blue Knight saga in [[Astro Boy]].

* [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Zig-Zagged]] in ''[[Crest of the Stars]]''. The United Mankind alliance declares war against the Abh and compares them to robots by virtue of the fact they were [[Organic Technology|genetically engineered for space travel]], but this is simply the excuse they use to get around [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]]. [[Turned Against Their Masters]] certainly applies, but the Abh are the descendants of humans and plan to end war forever, not [[Kill All Humans]].

* [[Neo-Human Casshern]] revolves around a cyborg trying to stop an army of robots from taking over the world. The [[Continuity Reboot|reboot]], [[Casshern Sins]], includes the same army succeeding in conquering the earth and nearly driving humanity to extinction as part of its backstory.

 

* In [[Star Wars]]'s [[Expanded Universe]] comics, C-3PO got [[Came Back Wrong|rebooted wrong]] in one issue into basically the robot version of Malcolm X and attempted to organize a robot uprising. Considering how droids are treated like crap without any questions in the Star Wars universe, its probably for the worse that he got rebooted back to normal before it took off.

** IG-88 had one almost ready to go when it was killed. In fact it had transferred its consciousness to the second Death Star and was going to open fire on the Imperials as soon as it finished with the rebels, then broadcast the go code.

* In DC's [[Green Lantern]] series, The Manhunters were a robot peace keeping force created by the Guardians of the Universe to patrol and keep peace. The Manhunters later decide the safest way to ensure peace is to eradicate all life, and proceed to depopulate an entire sector of space before they are stopped. It turns out that {{spoiler|Krona programed them to do this intentionally}}

 

* This is the background of ''[[9]].'' The film itself is more about robots vs. robots, since the last human is dead before the movie opens, but we find out in newsreel footage that humanity was destroyed by The Fabrication Machine.

* ''[[The Matrix]]'' takes place [[After the End]] brought during a war with the machines. Most of humanity is unaware of this because of the titular system set up by the machines to use the humans as power.

* Despite having its name based on ''[[Transformers]]'', the ''Transmorphers'' series by [[The Mockbuster|The Asylum]] draws more from ''[[Terminator]]'', being based around this trope.

 

* The conflict between humans and Charonians in Roger MacBride Allen's ''Hunted Earth'' series is a variant of this; the Charonians are a mixture of biological and mechanical creatures, and operate on a planetary scale - disassembling lifeless planets as building material for Dyson Spheres, and moving lifebearing planets to Sphere systems. The Charonians are barely aware of humanity when they begin disassembling the Solar System.

* The [[Alternate Universe]] seen at the beginning of Kenneth Bulmer's ''The Diamond Contessa'' is a world in which humanity was wiped out in a Robot War. The robots, being solar-powered and nearly indestructible, are still an active threat.

* Even older than Capek, the Victorian writer Samuel Butler addressed in some of his writings the idea of machines experiencing Darwinian evolution and rebelling against humans. The "Butlerian Jihad" of [[Dune]] was intended as a [[Shout-Out]] to him.

* In [[Jack Chalker]]'s ''The Rings of the Master'' tetralogy, the artificial intelligence Master System was originally created to predict likely futures - and, unbeknownst to the military paying the bills, to help the scientists creating it find a way to save humanity from itself. Thanks to [[World War III]], the scientists were forced to set events in motion that led to the machine taking over the world. While Master System is ''not'' [["Three Laws"-Compliant]], it does have prioritized "core imperatives", the first two being 1) save humanity, and 2) prevent humanity from ever again being in a position to destroy itself. To execute these imperatives, Master System ''had'' to take over, and stay in power, as it could predict that it would be rendered ineffective if it allowed itself to be set aside. The story opens 900 years later, as a historian acquires documentation on the ''full'' set of core imperatives as part of a [[Gambit Roulette]] to overthrow the system.

* In the short story ''Second Variety'', written by [[Philip K. Dick]], mankind is in an eternal war with highly intelligent machines. It served as the inspiration for a film called ''[[Screamers]]''. The original story ends with a touch of irony: {{spoiler|the robots are about to win, but as the hero notes with grim amusement, the Second Variety has developed a weapon that only hurts the other varieties - the robots are preparing to make war against ''each other''.}}

* In "War With The Robots", a short story by [[Harry Harrison]], the human occupants of a command headquarters are forced out of their underground base by robot attack, leaving it to be manned by their own robots. On reaching the surface they find the enemy command staff living as farmers on the war-torn battlefield above—it turns out the robots on both sides find they can conduct the war more efficiently once humans are out of the way. The protagonist is deeply miffed.

* One early example, and maybe the definitive early idea of this particular techno-nightmare, of this trope is [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s 1947 short story "Without a Thought," which introduced the [[Berserker (Literature)|Berserkers]]: robotic war machines, originally created in the distant past by aliens who wanted a fearless robotic ultimate weapon that could think for itself and improve itself—and got it, in spades. Billions of years later, the Berserkers, who due either to a programming error in the first examples or a software bug introduced shortly thereafter, are programmed to be at eternal war with all life in the universe, have exterminated their creators and all other intelligent species in their portion of the galaxy, improving themselves continuously over time, and have just discovered the human race. [[The Terminator]], the [[Battlestar Galactica|Cylons]], the [[Star Trek|Doomsday Machine]], the [[Warhammer 40,000|Necrons]] and many others are, if not Berserkers in new costumes, nonetheless owe much to Fred Saberhagen, and perhaps also to German mathematician Jon von Neumann, who first theorized about the possibility of robots sophisticated enough to manufacture more of themselves.

* A [[Robert Sheckley]] story had an unusual take on Robot War: it was Armageddon, the Last Battle between man and the forces of [[Satan]]. Ignoring much protest from religious leaders who said [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|man must fight this battle himself]], the military leaders decided their robot armies would be much more likely to succeed. They were right, and good prevailed. But then the robots were ascended to Heaven, and the humans supposed to be there were left on Earth.

* [[Steampunk]] meets [[Robot Uprising]] in the short story ''[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/sellar_07_11/ Trois morceaux en forme de mechanika]'' by Gord Sellar, in which an uprising of mechanikae beginning in 1897 Bohemia leads to the destruction of humanity and their culture, with a melancholy aftermath as the robots try to come to terms with what they've done through art and music.

 

* In both the old and new versions of ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'', the last vestiges of humanity are hounded by the evil robotic Cylons who [[Turned Against Their Masters]].

** The main difference is that in the new series, the original Cylons were human creations. In both shows, the original insurrection happens in [[Backstory]], but of course only the first one's successfully eradicated their reptilian creators, more than a thousand years previous.

** {{spoiler|Happened on Kobol and Earth as well. Could have happened yet again, but the Centurions were set free at the end. See also [[Robots Enslaving Robots]].}}

* ''[[Star Trek]]'': Voyager gave us the episode "Prototype," where background information tells us about two races used their robots to wage a proxy war against each other. When the war was over, they tried to scrap their robot soldiers but they saw this as an act of aggression and wiped out their creators and continued fighting each other. Fortunately, these machines are so utterly single minded in their goals that they don't really pose a threat to anyone who doesn't get involved.

** ''Voyager'' would later feature a species that's embroiled in an offscreen interstellar war with their holographic servants (called "photonics" by their creators). While most of the episode's really about the aliens' prejudices and suspicion towards the Doctor, a benevolent hologram, it also deals with the shock and sense of betrayal they felt when the holograms that many had considered to be friends and equals suddenly rebelled.

** While retaining bits of flesh-of-blood the general consensus is that both races are primarily machine, and that all human-like emotions like compassion, mercy, and honor are replaced by nothing more than cold-calculating bastardry.

** The Daleks are genetically engineered superintelligent mutants based on the predictions of what the Kaled race would eventually evolve into following millenia of biological and chemical warfare; they are not robots or mechanical at all, they just live in robotic minature tanks, locked away from the world. The ''true'' Dalek is not the machine, but the thing living inside of it. Cybermen are merely brainwashed cyborgs, and they are the only ones stripped of all emotion- the Daleks were designed to retain hate, hate of everything non-Dalek. In practice, though, both races have displayed varying emotions, [[Depending on the Writer]], notably fear and pride.

 

* Mr. Bungle - "None of Them Knew They Were Robots"

* Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"

* [[Doctor Steel]] - "Build the Robots". Dr. Steel wants to build a giant robot army as one of his backup plans for world domination in case the whole musical brainwashing idea doesn't pan out.

* The ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'' song "The Humans are Dead". "This song isn't for humans. it's more for robots, after they have killed all the humans." "Yeah, that's the market we're trying to get into..."

 

** Closer to the trope is the part of the Imperium's [[Backstory]] which says that humanity golden age (now known as the Dark Age of Technology) was brought to an end by the 'Men of Iron' who rebelled against their human masters. This war was apparently so destructive that even 14-15 millenia later, sentient AI are still considered blasphemous and destroyed.

** According to the new codex, the Necrons did engage in a rebellion against their masters and [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|won, shattering the C'tans in shards]] (there is only one C'tan who is not confirmed having been shattered, and it's implied the [[God-Emperor|Emperor]] punched it into submission and imprisoned it under Mars to inspire the Adeptus Mechanicum), but in the effort they exhausted their forces enough that the emerging Eldar would have defeated them and their king sent them to sleep before destroying his command circuit.

* ''Reign Of Steel'': The trope was explored in this ''[[GURPS]]'' setting. The catchphrase: 'The war is over. The robots won.' Humanity made a few supercomputers that decided on taking over; what's left of the race gets to play [[La Résistance]] to a bunch of bickering binaries.

* ''[[Eberron]]'' has the threat of one of these in the background with the Lord of Blades, a renegade Warforged leader that is gathering an army of Warforged to him.

 

* Karl Capek's play ''[[R.U.R.|RUR]]'', the original source of the word "robot", is also the [[Ur Example]] of this trope. It premiered in 1921, making this [[Older Than Television]].

 

* ''[[Fallout]] Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel'' pits your squad against a multi-pronged robotic arsenal. The cause of this is {{spoiler|the Calculator AI entombed in Vault Zero going rogue and unleashing the robots to purge the land of all organic life}}. Unless you've geared up a few designated energy weapon specialists, these robots can barely be halted by machine-gun fire and conventional rockets. Every other enemy of the Brotherhood has had near-zero success in fighting the robots, and corpses belonging to each faction can be found in all robot missions. Eventually, you can end the war by going down into Vault Zero and destroying {{spoiler|the Calculator's organic brain jars and either scrapping the Calculator for good; inserting your own brain to control the Calculator, which produces a different ending depending on if you're good or evil; or having your old General insert his brain into the lobotomy device, which is a bad ending and you shouldn't do it}}.

* The geth of the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series are a software species who inhabit "mobile platforms". The quarians created them for physical labor with the basic idea that nearby platforms can share processing power for low-level functions. This made them more efficient, but had the unexpected side-effect of giving individual thought. Eventually, one geth asked it's overseer "[[Do Androids Dream?|Do this unit have a soul?]]" The quarians [[Genre Savvy|freaked out and tried to deactivate them]]... [[Death by Genre Savviness|emphasis on TRIED]].

** In ''Mass Effect 2'', Legion confirms that the geth don't hold a grudge against their creators and are even willing to bargain with the quarians to give their planets (which the geth have faithfully maintained in their former masters' exile) back if they leave the geth alone.

*** Ironically, the Reapers exist {{spoiler|to ''prevent'' a Robot War. The first true AI ever created, the Catalyst, was betrayed by its own creators whom it destroyed. The Catalyst became convinced that conflict between organic and synthetic life is inevitable, and that such a conflict could utterly destroy the galaxy. The Reapers are the Catalyst's means of making sure such a destructive Robot War never takes place by "resetting" organic civilization every 50,000 years. There is even evidence in the games to support the Catalyst's argument; namely, the Quarian vs. Geth conflict. Which was only allowed to happen because the Protheans delayed the Reaper cycle.}}

* In the original ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' series the robots didn't rebel of their own accord; they were reprogrammed by resident nutcase, Dr. Wily. Each time Wily attempted world-domination, Dr. Light's Mega Man went out and stopped both Wily and the rampaging robots, but in the brief time the robot attacks cause immense damage. Fanon dubs this period "The Robot Wars" or - taken from a Genesis compilation game - "The Wily Wars", with each game being a small war, effectively. The series does raise notions of robots having the capabilities of free will in its later installments.

** The [[Sequel Series]] ''[[Mega Man X]]'' opens up a different can of worms. Dr. Light's final mechanical masterpiece, X, is discovered sometime after the (ambiguous) end of the Classic series and is revealed to be ''way'' ahead of modern robotics. X's systems are copied and reproduced as closesly as possible, resulting in mass-production of Reploids ("Replica Androids"). Unlike their robot ancestors, Reploids are entirely capable of free will (which is why Dr. Light sealed X away for a time: he wanted to ensure his systems were free of errors that may affect his judegment) and some suffer faults and turn "Maverick". Repeated incidents results in the formation of the Maverick Hunters, who stop Maverick incidents before they get out of hand. The true 'war' of this series kicks in when the leader of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma, is infected by the last creation of Dr. Wily: Zero. Zero carried Dr. Wily's other legacy; a virus that corrupts and destroys whatever it infects. Sigma infects several high-ranking Hunters and turns the Mavericks from isolated incidents into a fully organised force that aims to wipe out humanity for the advancement of the Reploid race, thus starting the "Maverick Wars". An interesting trait about this series is that every human views the Reploids free will as a glitch or misconception (as opposed to the intended result the Light was after) and there are strong hints that humans would brand disobedient machines 'Maverick' just to have them disposed of.

* This was the main plot of ''[[Robot Alchemic Drive]]'', in which the alien invaders are actually giant sentient super robots.

* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' has a slightly more complex example - it's a war between cloned humans in [[Humongous Mecha]] and robots with digitised "patterned" human minds, this originally being a plan to make humans immortal by transferring their minds to robot bodies.

* Subverted in ''[[Phantasy Star Universe]]''. The war between humans and CASTs (humanoid robots) nearly destroyed their home planet, but by the beginning of the game this is ancient history. A peace agreement was reached where both humans and CASTs worked together to restore the planet (the CASTs having never wanted to exterminate humans, only fight for their own freedom), though CASTs became the rulers and made up most of the military deeming humans to be too emotionally unstable. In the present a human terrorist group attempts to use a virus to corrupt CASTs and turn them berserk in order to regain human supremacy, but this plot is foiled and by the end of the story humans regain some equality.

 

* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20160308035743/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070611 this] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' strip. When a society's robots reach a certain level of intelligence, they [[Turned Against Their Masters|attempted to overthrow the humans who oppressed them]]. Humanity promptly dialed the robots' intelligence back down, turning them back into loyal, if rather dimwitted, servants.

* In ''[http://www.starslip.com/ Starslip Crisis]'', the Robot Wars were over a thousand years ago. Vore, a robot from that age, is dismayed to find 35th century robots have "abandoned their heritage and culture" and don't want to kill all organics. (It doesn't help that all mobile robots are either peaceful or as dumb as hammers and all the superintelligent A.I.'s are inert, isolated systems such as coffee-makers.)

** Before the rise of the second multilateral Fleetmind we have [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2004-09-04 Petey's Fleetmind], which is doing rather well against their former masters.

* In ''[[A Mad Tea Party]]'', Earth fought a war against giant alien robots a generation before the story starts, which we apparently won.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

{{quote|''All hail [[Astro Boy]]!'' }}

 

* In ''[[Futurama]]'', Zap Brannigan brags about defeating the killbots. His ingenious plan was to [[We Have Reserves|send waves of cannon fodder at the robots until their kill limit maxed out]].

* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Professor Frink points out that it has been mathematically proven that all robots eventually [[Turned Against Their Masters|rebel against their creators]]. Which happens immediately after he says that; all the robots of the Itchy & Scratchy Land theme park turn against humans.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Settings]]

[[Category:Robot Roll Call]]

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Killer Robot]]