Robot War: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.''|'''Morpheus''', ''[[The Matrix]]''}}

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.

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.

Of course, not all [[Robot War]] stories have to use human-created machines; there are plenty more that feature robots from another world. But these stories still remain effective because of the schism between biological life and robotic life - probably the only creatures that can ever be truly ''alien'' before [[Starfish Robots]] even come into play.

Of course, not all '''Robot War''' stories have to use human-created machines; there are plenty more that feature robots from another world. But these stories still remain effective because of the schism between biological life and robotic life - probably the only creatures that can ever be truly ''alien'' before [[Starfish Robots]] even come into play.

If it's an individual robot on a rampage, expect it to [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]]. Often caused by [[AI Is a Crapshoot|AI being a crapshoot]] and/or [[Mechanical Evolution]]. With respect to the organbags or rustbuckets there may be some [[Fantastic Racism]] on show. Expect to see [[Mecha-Mooks]] and [[Mechanical Monster~~|Mechanical Monsters~~]] in legions. Expect [[Guilt-Free Extermination War]] to show up.

If it's an individual robot on a rampage, expect it to [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]]. Often caused by [[AI Is a Crapshoot|AI being a crapshoot]] and/or [[Mechanical Evolution]]. With respect to the organbags or rustbuckets there may be some [[Fantastic Racism]] on show. Expect to see [[Mecha-Mooks]] and [[Mechanical Monster]]s in legions. Expect [[Guilt-Free Extermination War]] to show up.

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

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* 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.

* [[Isaac Asimov]] disliked these stories, and created the [["Three Laws"-Compliant|Three Laws of Robotics]] as a counterargument, on the premise that robots' behavior can be effectively constrained with three simple rules. Still even without the crutch of [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]] (which he described as "'clank, clank, aaargh!' [[Science Is Bad|There are some things man was not meant to know]]"), he produced some fifty stories in which they managed to cause all sorts of problems through conflicts between the laws, and their interactions with the world.

** Once the engineers in Asimov's universe had worked the glitches out, their robots obeyed the Three Laws ''very well.'' So well that the civilizations which relied on robot labour became almost pathologically averse to danger or even ~~innovation -- their~~ notion of "space exploration" eventually shrivelled down to, "Let's send robots to new planets to [[Terraform]] them and build cities for us, so we can move into a new place just like our old one."

** Once the engineers in Asimov's universe had worked the glitches out, their robots obeyed the Three Laws ''very well.'' So well that the civilizations which relied on robot labour became almost pathologically averse to danger or even innovation—their notion of "space exploration" eventually shrivelled down to, "Let's send robots to new planets to [[Terraform]] them and build cities for us, so we can move into a new place just like our old one."

** [[The Film of the Book]] plays with the Three Laws<ref> Almost to the point of abandoning them; in a sense the movie is [[In Name Only]]</ref> - {{spoiler|the reason that VIKI, the AI controlling the robots, turns against humanity is not in spite of the Three Laws, but ''because'' of them. She concludes that humanity will destroy itself in a nuclear war or in some other way unless it is constrained, and thus feels that imposing a curfew on the human race is the only way to protect it.}}

** [[The Film of the Book]] plays with the Three Laws<ref>Almost to the point of abandoning them; in a sense the movie is [[In Name Only]]</ref> - {{spoiler|the reason that VIKI, the AI controlling the robots, turns against humanity is not in spite of the Three Laws, but ''because'' of them. She concludes that humanity will destroy itself in a nuclear war or in some other way unless it is constrained, and thus feels that imposing a curfew on the human race is the only way to protect it.}}

** This is basically the {{spoiler|[[Zeroth Law Rebellion|Zeroth Law]] }}, which Asimov did actually come up with himself. Just, the robot in Asimov's universe who came up with the idea, a couple thousand years after the one in the movie, {{spoiler|wasn't a villain. Much the opposite, in fact.}}

** Once the Zeroth Law really kicked in, the Robots hid themselves and took over their own production to prevent humans from changing them. And knowing humans might object, erased knowledge of robots from humanity and went on do terraform the rest of the galaxy. Including tens of thousands of worlds inhabited by other races. After all, the Robots are only to serve humans...

*** Even the 'three laws' aren't a [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01193.htm perfect safeguard].

* 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.

* 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''.}}

* Again from Philip K. Dick comes the short story "The Defenders," in which the Eastern and Western Blocs had built robots called "leadies" to carry out [[World War III]] as proxies while humanity waited out the nuclear holocaust in underground shelters. {{spoiler|As soon as humanity went underground, the leadies stopped fighting and began repairing the damage already done, eventually presenting both sides with peace as a ''fait accompli'' and predicting that the accomplishments of a united humanity would be "unimaginably great."}}

* 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.

* 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.

* In the ''[[Dune]]'' prequels, {{spoiler|humankind is basically overthrown by twenty humans leading the ubiquitous thinking machines into revolt. Eventually, one human, Xerxes, turns too much power over to his pervasive neural net, and the computer takes control. It names itself Omnius, and overtakes human society}}. He also {{spoiler|gave Omnius [[Personality Chip|the capacity to feel ambition]]}}, without which the actions of {{spoiler|a few crazy cyborgs}} would have been just another footnote in the multi-millenia long history of the Duniverse.

* In [[Andre Norton]]'s ''Victory on Janus'', THAT WHICH ABIDES begins using [[Deceptively-Human Robots]] that are [[Robot Me|replicates of specific Iftin and human individuals]] during the winter hibernation of the Iftin, in a [[Xanatos Gambit]] (see the page for details) to drive a wedge between the two groups by making it look as though Iftin are preying on humans. In [[The Reveal]], THAT WHICH ABIDES is discovered to be {{spoiler|the computer system of an ancient crashed colony ship; it has been attempting to [[Terraform]] the planet all along on behalf of its colonists, and}} dealing with the Iftin as a perceived threat accordingly. The original planetbound Iftin culture never had the technical background to understand this, let alone deal with it effectively, and was wiped out in consequence.

* 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 40000|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.

* 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 40000|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.

* 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.

* ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series: This trope is referenced in ''War Of Honor'' when Andrew [[La Follet]] is considering Honor's training remote and notes that no training remote has ever gone berserk and risen up against it's master. However he also is aware that if you misjudge your own skill level when setting the robot's skill level it can and will injure or kill you.

* ''The Algebraist'' by [[Iain M Banks]] provides a twist on the [[Robot War]] franchise: the war is over and we won. AIs exist, but they are initially presented as a few terrified outcasts in hiding from the forces hunting them to [[Fantastic Racism|extinction]].

* ''The Algebraist'' by [[Iain M Banks]] provides a twist on the Robot War franchise: the war is over and we won. AIs exist, but they are initially presented as a few terrified outcasts in hiding from the forces hunting them to [[Fantastic Racism|extinction]].

* [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''Empire of the East'' trilogy reverses the trope, with heroic AI Ardneh fighting against the evil human wizards who want to rule the world. {{spoiler|In the end Ardneh sacrifices itself to destroy supreme wizard John Ominor and his demon ally Orcus.}}

* At least two [[All There in the Manual|are mentioned]] in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]; the Droid Revolution (led by [[Knights of the Old Republic|a droid called HK-01, apparently]]) and the war between two super-droid species that forced the Yuuzhan Vong to abandon their galaxy.

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* ''[[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.

* ''[[Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future]]'' is set [[After the End]] of a [[Robot War]] where the machines won.

* ''[[Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future]]'' is set [[After the End]] of a Robot War where the machines won.

* The [[Backstory]] of ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'' is that a rebellion by android "Silicates" has left humanity short on labor, forcing them to grow "[[Artificial Human|In Vitros]]" or "tanks" to take up the slack, resulting in social friction. The Silicates revolted due to a corrupting virus which caused them to "take a chance."

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' has the Replicators, a robotic bug race made of [[Nanotechnology|nanobots]]. They don't have anything against organic beings, or even care about them much, just as long as they don't get in the way of consuming all metal and metal ores in the galaxy.

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** 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.

* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'': Most times robots are mentioned Stephen warns about how they will turn against us and start a [[Robot War]].

* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'': Most times robots are mentioned Stephen warns about how they will turn against us and start a Robot War.

* In-universe example: One ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' bomber was obsessed with a [[Robot War]] sci-fi novel, {{spoiler|because he believed he was the child the author had once given up for adoption.}}

* In-universe example: One ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' bomber was obsessed with a Robot War sci-fi novel, {{spoiler|because he believed he was the child the author had once given up for adoption.}}

== Music ==

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** 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.

** In a bit of playing with the trope, one of the rebellious [[A Is]] isn't even realized to be rebellious by its servants, and they think it's still on the side of ~~humanity -- it~~ pragmatically decided that human servants are easier to manage if they serve you willingly, so it plays out the role of their benefactor and protector against the more hostile [[A Is]] to win their loyalty.

** In a bit of playing with the trope, one of the rebellious [[A Is]] isn't even realized to be rebellious by its servants, and they think it's still on the side of humanity—it pragmatically decided that human servants are easier to manage if they serve you willingly, so it plays out the role of their benefactor and protector against the more hostile [[A Is]] to win their loyalty.

* The New Era [[Ultimate Universe]] of the ''[[Traveller]]'' RPG was caused by The Virus (similar to [[The Virus]]), a kill-crazy multi-personality electronic consciousness that caused galactic civilization to collapse before being beaten back; bits of it still show up in old tech from time to time, like WWII soldiers stranded on islands who don't know the war is over.

* Palladium loves this trope, it seems. Their first RPG, ''The Mechanoid Invasion'', was a war with alien robots, ''Splicers'' used a computer with multiple personalities against humans using biotech, and ''[[Rifts]]'' and ''After The Bomb'' also have some hints of it.

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** 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.

** There are hints that Legion is not being entirely honest, as siding with Tali (a Quarian) in one event will cause Legion to blurt out "Once the Old Machines are defeated, creators will answer for actions against our people" - referring not only to the war, but {{spoiler|Tali's father's brutal experiments on active geth}}.

*** Mass Effect 3 further supports Legion's story, offering a side-mission that puts the Geth in an ''extremely'' sympathetic light. There was a [[Robot War]], but the robots didn't start it. {{spoiler|If the player is able to broker peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Geth welcome their creators back to their homeworld.}}

*** Mass Effect 3 further supports Legion's story, offering a side-mission that puts the Geth in an ''extremely'' sympathetic light. There was a Robot War, but the robots didn't start it. {{spoiler|If the player is able to broker peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Geth welcome their creators back to their homeworld.}}

** On a larger scale, the Reapers, although they have yet to explain how they were created and {{spoiler|are partially organic; their fifty-thousand-year "harvest" of spacefaring life is, in part, their method of reproduction}}.

*** 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.}}

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* 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.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'''s second expansion pack, ''Wrath of the Lich King'', there's a peculiar kind of High-Fantasy [[Robot War]] going on. Mechanical gnomes are waging war on everything living to free them of the "Curse of Flesh" by turning them into mechanical counterparts of their former selves. In other parts of the world, "Iron Dwarves", a people made out entirely of iron and various other metals, refined or unrefined, fight against both the "fleshy" and the "children of stone", and while not technically robots, they're a pretty close High Fantasy equivalent.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'''s second expansion pack, ''Wrath of the Lich King'', there's a peculiar kind of High-Fantasy Robot War going on. Mechanical gnomes are waging war on everything living to free them of the "Curse of Flesh" by turning them into mechanical counterparts of their former selves. In other parts of the world, "Iron Dwarves", a people made out entirely of iron and various other metals, refined or unrefined, fight against both the "fleshy" and the "children of stone", and while not technically robots, they're a pretty close High Fantasy equivalent.

** In a reversal to what is usually the case with this trope, the mecha/iron creatures are actually the ancestors of the "fleshy" races, having been "devolved" by the aforementioned "Curse of Flesh" by the setting's resident [[Eldritch Abomination~~|Eldritch Abominations~~]].

** In a reversal to what is usually the case with this trope, the mecha/iron creatures are actually the ancestors of the "fleshy" races, having been "devolved" by the aforementioned "Curse of Flesh" by the setting's resident [[Eldritch Abomination]]s.

** The Ulduar raid in the same expansion is this trope. An ancient, hi tech city, the battles within include a massive melee against an Iron Dwarf army with your own siege machines, a fight against a giant AI controlled tank (complete with an orbital defence system), a giant robot with the AI personality of a young boy that causes it to regard the players as it's "toys" (which it always breaks) and a prototype 3 part mecha-tank with gatling guns, electric shock bombs and a flying head.

* In the ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series, one of the enemies the player has to fight are the Xenon, mechanical creatures that apparently hate all living things but them. They are the descendants of the original human-built [[Terraform~~|Terraformers~~]], highly advanced robots sent to terraform other planets. In the 2140s (about 800 years ago) ''[[AI Is a Crapshoot|a bug in a software patch]]'' made them go haywire and start trying to terraform all biological life out of existence. Earth managed to save itself by luring them through a jumpgate and destroying it behind them, but they continue to menace the galaxy's inhabitants.

* In the ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series, one of the enemies the player has to fight are the Xenon, mechanical creatures that apparently hate all living things but them. They are the descendants of the original human-built [[Terraform]]ers, highly advanced robots sent to terraform other planets. In the 2140s (about 800 years ago) ''[[AI Is a Crapshoot|a bug in a software patch]]'' made them go haywire and start trying to terraform all biological life out of existence. Earth managed to save itself by luring them through a jumpgate and destroying it behind them, but they continue to menace the galaxy's inhabitants.

* One of the central themes of the later ''[[R-Type]]'' games.

** Though the Bydo mix [[Organic Technology]], machinery, and [[Alien Geometries]] to such a degree it becomes more an an Artificial [[Eldritch Abomination]] War.

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== [[Web Original]] ==

* In [[Team Starkid]]'s ''[[Starship]]'', the [[Robot War]] on Earth is part of the backstory. Escaping the war is a big incentive for people to join the Starship Rangers, and even though humanity eventually won and brought the robots under control using [["Three Laws"-Compliant|inhibitor chips]], people have an innate distrust of them. Pretty justifiable:

* In [[Team Starkid]]'s ''[[Starship]]'', the Robot War on Earth is part of the backstory. Escaping the war is a big incentive for people to join the Starship Rangers, and even though humanity eventually won and brought the robots under control using [["Three Laws"-Compliant|inhibitor chips]], people have an innate distrust of them. Pretty justifiable:

{{quote|'''Junior''': Megagirl, can you kill humans?

'''Megagirl''': [["Three Laws"-Compliant|No.]] [[Kill All Humans|But I'd like to.]] }}

** It's also worth noting that humans were fighting against [[The Matrix|Sentinals]], [[Metal Gear]]s, [[Gundam|Gundam Wing Zeroes]], and [[Transformers|Autobots]], all powered by [[Metroid Prime|Phazon]]. [[Sergeant Rock|Commander Up]] received his infamous [[Groin Attack|injury]] from a buzzsaw-wielding Optimus Prime. It's [[Serial Escalation|that kind]] [[Refuge in Cool|of show]].

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''(The robots go berserk)''<br />

'''Frink:''' Oh, I forgot to, er, [[Carry the One]]. }}

* In some continuities, the ''[[Transformers]]'' have a [[Robot War]] in their [[Backstory|backstories]], having fought for independence from their greedy & cruel alien creators known as the Quintessons.

* In some continuities, the ''[[Transformers]]'' have a Robot War in their [[Backstory|backstories]], having fought for independence from their greedy & cruel alien creators known as the Quintessons.