Robot War: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

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

 

* 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.

** 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.}}

*** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

 

* This is the war the titular city of ''[[Mortasheen]]'' is fighting against the genocidal technophilic civilization of Wreathe. Subverted in that Wreathe's robots are under human control, fighting the monstrous inhabitants of Mortasheen and {{spoiler|the supercomputer that really runs the show in Wreathe is very, very pro-human}}

** 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 ''[[Gaunts Ghosts]]'' novel ''First And Only'', where the [[MacGuffin]] the heroes are chasing after turns out to be a {{spoiler|Standard Template Construct machine that produces Iron Men, albeit one that was warped by the power of Chaos.}}

 

* ''[[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}}.

** 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}}.

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Robot War]]