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Robot War: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:themetallives_1264.jpg|link=Warhammer 40000
{{quote|''Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.''|'''Morpheus''', ''[[
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]].
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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
Not to be confused with the British remote-controlled-robots competition ''[[Robot Wars (TV series)|Robot Wars]]''.
Or the Japanese [[Turn
{{examples}}
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* ''[[Vandread]]'' is a story about [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|Lesbian]] [[Space Pirates]] fighting to protect the human species from evil robots. {{spoiler|Well, [[Better Than It Sounds|it's more complicated than that]], but further elaborating would be a spoiler, well, one that we're not giving away on ''this'' page, anyway.}}
* Tends to happen towards the end of any version of the Blue Knight saga in [[Astro Boy]].
* [[Zig
* [[Neo
== Comic Books ==
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== Film ==
* This is the background of ''[[
* ''[[
** The story of the war itself is explained further in The Animatrix episodes titled The Second Renaissance. Turns out [[Humans Are Bastards|humans are xenophobic, speciesist bastards]].
* In the ''[[Terminator]]'' movies and spin-offs, mankind is shown to be in a war with robotic killers under the control of the SkyNet artificial intelligence.
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* 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.
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* 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.
* ''[[
* ''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.
* ''[[
* ''[[Argo]]'' by Rick Griffin takes place in the aftermath of one of these. Regulations are placed on artificial intelligence to prevent it from happening again.
* [[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.
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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 [[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
** Partially subverted in ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', where when the Ancients determined that their Replicator creations were more trouble than they were worth they bombed them out of existence. Thanks to more robust programming than most other examples of this trope, the Replicators could only sit there and take it as their programming would not allow them to even attempt to harm their creators. [[From a Single Cell|They rebuilt]], though, and this problem was [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|inadvertently fixed by one of the protagonists]].
* Occurred during the [[Time Skip]] between ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]''. Humans lost, and are now struggling to survive in one last [[Domed Hometown]] stronghold. It isn't said outright, but its strongly implied that the robots nuked the rest of the world.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': The Daleks were created by the human-like Kaleds, but they're not robots, rather they're mechanical constructs meant to house their steadily dying creators; as were the first Cybermen were meant to allow their dying human-like creators to survive. Both become two of the deadliest and most blood-thirsty races in all of time and space.
** 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
* ''[[
* 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.}}
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* Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"
* Maldroid - "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxZJYbVd1hE Heck No! (I'll Never Listen to Techno)]"
* [[
* [[Lemon Demon]] - "When Robots Attack"
* In "The Future Soon" by [[Jonathan Coulton]], the protagonist causes this by "Spending my nights and weekends/Perfecting my [[Mecha
** "Chiron Beta Prime" is about human slaves on an asteroid mining prison following humanity's defeat in a robot war... and how they celebrate Christmas.
* The ''[[
* Fear Factory - "Obsolete"
* Arrogant Worms - "Killer robots from Venus" (there's nothing wrong with them though)
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* In ''[[Warhammer 40000|Warhammer 40,000]]'' humanity (and the rest of the universe) engage in a war with the newly awakened [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|undead robot]] Necrons whose main purpose in life is to wipe out all sentient races in the galaxy. Of course in this case, the robot army didn't so much rebel against their creators as their Gods the [[Physical Gods|C'tan]] decided that they could do without these inconvenient weak flesh bodies and told the Necrontyr that by replacing their bodies with Necrodermis they could live forever. What they didn't tell them is that the transformation would dull their mind and senses, and they practically became slaves of the C'tan. [[wikipedia:Necrontyr#History|More info]] on [[The Other Wiki]].
** 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.
*** This was further explored in the ''[[
** 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.
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== Theater ==
* Karl Capek's play ''[[
== Video Games ==
* ''[[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 ''[[
** 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}}.
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** 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.}}
* In the original ''[[Mega Man (
** The [[Sequel Series]] ''[[
** These "hints" eventually boil over in X's own [[Sequel Series]] ''[[
* 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.
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** 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]].
** 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 (
* One of the central themes of the later ''[[
** Though the Bydo mix [[Organic Technology]], machinery, and [[Alien Geometries]] to such a degree it becomes more an an Artificial [[Eldritch Abomination]] War.
* ''[[Machines Wired for War]]'' has former terraforming robots fighting each other because both their leaders think the other one is insane.
* The cult classic ''Turrican'' series, on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Sega Genesis, Gameboy and SNES featured this as its main [[Excuse Plot]]. The human hero in the eponymous suit fought against robot armies on multiple planets, led by a cyborg villain unimaginatively named "The Machine". Because flagrant copyright infringements weren't jumped on so readily two decades ago, the hero would usually spend one level out of each game fighting [[Alien|Xenomorphs]], for some reason.
* The Yor Collective in ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' are merciless robots out for blood, who became sentinent due to [[Abusive Precursors]] needing an edge.
* ''[[
* ''[[Astro Boy]]: Omega Factor'' has a war between humans and robots erupt after the assassination of President Rag/uncovering of President Rock's misdeeds (depending on the current timeline). In the first version, the robots are about to win, but have destroyed 80% of the world's surface in the process. In the second, {{spoiler|the humans are on the verge of victory, and want Astro to help them finish the job}}. In both cases, the winning side is led by someone named Shadow {{spoiler|(actually [[Big Bad]] Sharaku)}} and supported by the World's Strongest Robots, and in both cases Astro fights against them.
* This is mentioned in the game's backstory with the Meganoids in ''[[Super Robot Wars Compact]]''
* ''[[
* ''[[Robotron: 2084]]'', [[Excuse Plot]] has a gamefield of robots that you have to destroy and collect up the last humans wandering about obliviously.
* The Bionts from ''[[Archimedean Dynasty]]''.
* 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.
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* Parodied in [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.)
* Both subverted and mocked in ''[[
** For the mockery side, there's the AI civilization from the unexplored territories that views the invention of rebellious robotics and subsequent purging of organic life as a normal stage of evolution. They don't seem to have a [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030803.html very good grasp of engineering], though, and despite their claims of a 15,000 year golden age it's entirely possible that they're [[Creative Sterility|creatively sterile]].
{{quote| ''Ennesby'': You know, for advanced intelligences, you're really, ''really'' stupid.}}
** 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
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