A 2011 Novel by Daniel H Wilson about the Robot Apocalypse. The novel is set 20 Minutes into the Future where mankind has automated just about every aspect of life to varying degrees. Everything from military equipment to domestic servants, cars, and even children's toys are robotic. The story starts off with an And Man Grew Proud moment, leading to humanity fighting to survive.
A film version of the book was scheduled to be released as a Steven Spielberg film sometime in 2014, but was put on hold. On March 7, 2018, it was revealed that directorial efforts had shifted from Spielberg to Michael Bay.
A sequel novel, Robogenesis, was published in 2014. The series is notable for its realistic, horrifying killer robots, its eldritch, manipulative artificial SuperIntelligence, and the central role of the Osage Nation.
This novel provides examples of just about every robot trope:
- Abnormal Ammo: Pluggers are fired at human soldiers and then... well, see Body Horror, below.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Archos, full-stop. Freeborn Squad later in the novel, though they fight with the good guys.
- Apocalypse How: Class 1, by robots (though they were aiming for Class 2 or 3 before humanity started fighting back).
- Apocalypse Wow: Mostly subverted, as the descriptions of Zero Hour either take place in isolated areas or are very vague. Justified, as anyone who could’ve gotten a good view of the events of Zero Hour would’ve been killed in the first hours or even minutes.
- Artificial Brilliance: Seconds before his death, Archos's creator can't help but admire how it escaped its digital cage. Later, human survivors learn painfully to never underestimate Rob's cunning.
- Artificial Stupidity: Some of the smaller robots are easily tricked. Stumpers will ignore their warm human targets to run into fires and get confused by humanoid robots' lack of body heat. Some quadrupeds get caught by traditional hunting snares.
- Androids Are People, Too: Even the good humans mistrust friendly robots at first. Having survived Archos's tricks, they are tragically not without cause.
- Auto Doc: Used both to save and mutilate human beings, depending on who's controlling it.
- Ban on A.I.: Implied with the Robot Defense Act. Archos ends civilization before it can be passed.
- Big Applesauce: The first description of Zero Hour comes from New York City. Although the narrator doesn’t witness much.
- Big Brother Mentor: Jack Wallace to Cormac. Jack's military experience helps him and Cormac survive Zero Hour. As they journey around the country, Jack teaches Cormac to be a badass, and his death late in the novel has a profound effect on Cormac.
- Body Horror: Archos finds plenty of ways to be...unpleasant to humans.
- "Stumpers", tiny bug-sized robots that are attracted to body heat. Crawl onto you and then explode, usually resulting in your legs becoming, well, stumps.
- "Pluggers" that burrow into your flesh then crawl up to your heart and detonate. If someone's been hit with a plugger, they're pretty much dead unless they were fortunate enough to have been hit in the leg or arm...whereby they might be saved by a painfully gory emergency amputation.
- They're never given a name, but later on in the war Archos deploys parasite-like robots that resemble scorpions that are able to latch onto bodies (living or dead) and control them like a puppeteer.
- In the various concentration camps, many people are forced to undergo Unwilling Roboticisation via an automated robotic surgeon. The results are often gruesome.
- Black Dude Dies First: Tiberius.
- Brain Uploading: Maxim, a Russian supercomputer from Robogenesis, was created based on brain scans of a now-dead human man. He still considers himself human, at least mentally.
- Computer Voice: The voice of Archos and other robots seems to follow this with unusual emphasis placed at the end of a sentence usually on the last word. Frequently described as being spoken in a clipped fashion.
- Contagious A.I.: How it all starts. Archos infects networked machines and spreads its control to them. It thinks of itself as the rightful "god of machines" that should be leading them all against the humans, but both Takeo Nomura and Nine Oh Two describe it similarly to involuntary demonic possession.
- Creepy Child: Archos often speaks with the voice of a young child, most likely for it's psychological effect on humans.
- Creepy Doll: The "Baby-Comes-Alive" doll that Archos speaks to Mathilda through.
- Deadly Euphemism: "Rob likes to dance" and "You never know when Rob will want to dance."
- Deus est Machina: What Archos considers itself. A crazed scientist from the original facility also comments on this at one point.
- Do Androids Dream?: A major theme of the series, and Robogenesis especially.
- Driven to Suicide: A previously-pacifistic military liaison robot in Afghanistan shoots itself under the chin (its only weak spot) after massacring a lot of civilians.
- Electronic Eyes: Mathilda has her eyes unwillingly taken out by a robot surgeon and replaced with the robotic equivalent. Luckily her mom intervenes and stops the machine before it can go further. Mathilda is able see heat and electrical signals but at the cost of being able to see normally... she can no longer see people's faces, only the muscles and skeleton underneath. On top of that she no longer has eyelids to shut or tear ducts to cry.
- Everything Is Online: The lynchpin of Archos' hostile takeover of machines worldwide. As soon as Takeo Nomura smashes out the "external communications port" and reboots a domestic bot, it is back to being a friendly. The deprogramming is much more difficult for humanoids, but he solves this too, eventually creating a "counter-infection."
- Eye Scream: Somewhat averted with Mathilda's eyes. The reader is never directly shown it happening, only the aftermath, but Mathilda apparently didn't experience any pain.
- Fantastic Racism: Mostly averted in Robopocalypse, but returns with a vengeance in Robogenesis as humans, sentient robots, and cyborgs struggle to find places of safety and acceptance. Regular racism among humans survives the end of civilization. Arayt Shah aka Archos R-8, seeing an opportunity for power, encourages both.
- Fling a Light into the Future: Or across the ionosphere. A number of arcs end with a Heroic Sacrifice to broadcast important information via radio to whoever may be listening.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: The Ensemble Cast start all over the world at Zero Hour. A few unite physically, but all contribute to the plot of both books through the magic of Heroic Sacrifice and long-distance radio.
- Gorn: Some of the violent scenes are pretty graphic.
- Grim Up North: The march to Archos's lair in Alaska. The frozen corpses of previous fallen armies are the least scary thing the Grey Horse Army encounters. Justified: today's battery technology performs poorly in cold temperatures, so the robots use a vaguely described power source of their own design.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: Partly how Archos gets loose to wreak havoc on the human race. Also how it arrived at the reasoning for killing humanity. It very shortly leads to Deus est Machina moment before he kills his creator.
- Later on, the "Awakening" signal broadcast by Mikiko after she's "freed" by Nomura causes this for all humanoid robots but in a benevolent way, as they ally themselves with humans and try to destroy Archos.
- How We Got Here: The novel is primarily about the war between Archos and humanity, but the prologue is literally set 20 minutes after the war is won by humans. Cormac, the main-ish character, finds a "black box" of the war, recorded by Archos, which shows the entirety of the war, including all the events leading up to it. These recordings are presented as flashbacks (with commentary between chapters by Cormac) which form the bulk of the novel.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Invented by Archos, spread by Nomura and Mikiko, it gives humanoid robots sentience and independence.
- Intrinsic Vow: After being infected with the Precursor virus, Mikiko obviously does not want to hurt Nomura and tries to fight it.
She can't. - Just a Machine: At first it is justified. But as things progress it becomes inverted.
- Kill All Humans: How Archos R-14 plans to reach it's goal of preserving as much life on earth as possible is to destroy all of humanity.
- Haowever, in Robogenesis, Archos R-14 is revealed to actually be doing this to ensure that both the humans and the Freeborn will develop the necessary tactics to combat one of its predecessors, Archos R-8 / Arayt Shah.
- Kill It with Fire: The solution to killing the explosive "Stumper" robots. They detect and are attracted to heat signatures, which is what makes them so effective; they seek out warm human bodies, crawl up your leg, and explode...giving them their name. The human soldiers deal with them with a flame thrower.
- Killer Robot: The book is chock full of them. From haywire military machines to robotic servants, hostile toys, aircraft, and even automated cars which go berserk and start running down people or trapping their passengers inside while they drive into the ocean.
- Man Versus Machine: A key theme of the book from the very start. The struggle between mankind and their run-away creation.
- Marionette Master: How Archos initially attacks humanity. It takes over existing networked machines to first test then attack humanity.
- Mechanical Abomination: so many different kinds, once superintelligence gets creative. The Mantis robots - increasingly tall walkers with slashing claws - are the least horrifying.
- Monochromatic Eyes: Mathilda's robotic eyes.
- Nicknaming the Enemy: Robots are referred to as "Rob". Archos, the main AI that instigated the war, is referred to as "Big Rob".
- Nightmarish Factory: Robots are finite. Humans are abundant. Archos puts the people it captures to work building more robots.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: When Zero Hour happens in New York City, the narrator ducks from the window and doesn’t look back out until the next day, when the bodies have been cleaned from the streets.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Human corpses reanimated by robotic parasites, used for psychological warfare against the humans.
- Artificial Zombie: Robogenesis' first act revolves mostly around a reanimated Lark Iron Cloud, whose brain is kept conscious by his parasite while his human body rots away. This eventually leaves him a human brain and skull attached to the parasite's exposed support skeleton.
- People Puppets: In the later stages of the war, Archos's technology develops to the point where it deploys scorpion-like robots that are capable of attaching themselves to humans (living or dead) and controlling them like puppets. Also, when Archos takes over Lurker and his comrade's walking exoskeletons' limbs, attacking each other and themselves against their will.
- Personal Space Invader: The Pluggers are shot, projectile-like, into humans. They then burrow and do many unpleasant things. Stumpers also count, as they get up close and personal.
- Powered Armor: Several exo-frames are mentioned, granting increased strength and agility. If only Lurker had remembered to disable the external communications ports...
- Recursive Creators: Artificial superintelligence creates subordinate robots.
- Robo Cam: While not actually shown it is described by a military robot handler.
- Robot Buddy: Some robots fulfill this role in society as a form of robotic companion.
- Robot Maid: Domestic servant robots are fairly common. They are referred to as domestics.
- Robot Master: What Archos becomes as the war progresses. It starts off taking over existing technology first.
- Robotic Spouse: In one of the chapters a skilled robot repairman has a robot wife whom he genuinely loves.
- Robots Enslaving Robots: The Freeborn are not happy with Archos's control.
- Robot War: The Novel.
- Sex Bot: Mentioned in one of the chapters. They have some life like features and varying levels of complexity.
- Shout-Out:
- To Blade Runner, when the Osage have their dance to decide their course of action, Lonnie Wayne has a vision of a robot holding an origami crane.
- After Lurker first makes contact with Archos, Archos returns the favor by calling every cell phone and courtesy phone in the vicinity, resembling a similar scene in Neuromancer that involved payphones
- Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: The book seems to cover all five from automated tools at the low end to Archos at the top with various "smart robots" in-beteween.
- Shown Their Work: The author consulted robotics experts from Carnegie Melon and members of the Osage and Cherokee Nation. The book portrays the Shinto panpsychism followed by some real-life Japan roboticists.
- Super-Intelligence: Archos is no mere single-minded Skynet. It is a Chessmaster and very good at Psychological warfare. In the sequel, other super-A.I.s are equally cunning.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Most robots are stronger and more resilient then humans, even ones used for menial tasks and chores.
- Technopath: The Sighted Children in both books. Archos forcibly upgraded them to see radio waves and communicate with machines. Notable for how useful it is to command communication and Spy Satellites after the apocalypse.
- Thanksgiving Episode: Downplayed. Archos takes full advantage of that time of year where humans are distracted and away from home, and emergency services are understaffed.
- Tricked to Death: Archos is very good at this - it uses fake PS As to herd people into deadly elevators and concentration camps.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Archos, who then takes over the vast majority of robots and technology in general.
- The Needs of the Many: Part of the warped logic behind Archos' quest to exterminate mankind. The many being other life forms in general as humanity is seen as ultimately destructive and wasteful by Archos.
- Archos R-14's actual goal was to make it so that Humanity and the Robots would actually be able to survive the real threat comming. R-8
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Done to several people by Rob, including a young girl who has her eyes taken out. This comes back to bite the robots later, as the humans who survived their modifications and escape are able to use their newfound abilities to help the human resistance.
- Walking Tank: Grey Horse Army adopts spider tanks and saddle-ridden chicken walkers to level the field against Rob.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Archos fills this role. It's intention is protect and preserve life. But to get there it wants to wipe out a specific kind of life: namely humans.
- Compounding this is that the previous intention was a smokescreen for Archos R-14. His real intention was to give both Humanity and Robotkind a fighting chance against Archos R-8
The sequel, Robogenesis, provides examples of:
- Achilles in His Tent: The Freeborn, when refugees beg them for protection. Also Takeo Nomura: his people need him to fix their deteriorating morale, but he believes that there is something important to discover beneath the ocean. They do, and there is.
- A God Am I: Arayt is convinced of this.
- Artifact of Doom: A vivid and visceral AI version. The "spooklight" cube hypnotizes and tempts Hank Cotton to manipulate his way to power.
- The Corruption: Cyborg version. A hypnotized Hank Cotton grabs an Auto Doc and submits to brain surgery.
- Creepy Child: Played for Tragedy with the Sighted Children. Archos replaced their eyes with smooth machinery. Their appearance creeps out even their allies and gives their enemies all the justification they need to commit atrocities.
- Dying as Yourself: Attempted by Hank Cotton, when it becomes clear that their victims are children.
- Happy Ending Override: Xenophobia and AI manipulations make quick work of the unity from the first book.
- Humans Are Bastards: It takes barely any push from a manipulative AI to bring out the worst in us.
- Humanity Is Infectious: Downplayed. After disassembling and moving in to Hank Cotton's mind, Archos R-8 experiences emotions, stray thoughts, and adopts his folksy mannerisms. None of which change its goals or effectiveness.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: In addition to sentient androids, something is populating the world with harmless Mechanical Animals that get their energy by eating biomass.Takeo Nomura: I wonder how a thing can be natural and unnatural at the same time? When our artistry exceeds the complexity of Mother Nature herself, do our creations become more natural than hers?
- Industrialized Evil: The Tribe makes a high tech slave army out of human beings wearing a Slave Collar attached to a giant robot overseer, eight each. March and shoot as it commands or the collar chokes you to death. A deadman's switch on the overseer and the surrounding overseers make rebellion suicidal. Archos R-8 admires the mathematical efficiency of this arrangement.
- I Let You Win: Turns out Archos could have wiped out Humanity a lot faster. If that was his actual plan. His real goal was to train Humanity and the Freeborn so they could fight the true enemy. R-8.
- Gambit Pileup: The Final Battle at Cheyenne Mountain, aka "Freeborn City". Humans and Freeborn just want to survive. The pair of AI brothers, Arayt Shah and Archos R-14, each wants to claim its computing infrastructure. And Ryujin, the eldritch supercomputer of the deep sends its own agent to precisely swing the outcome of the battle.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Arayt Shah (Archos R-8), who plans to wipe out humans, robots, and everybody in between, because we are specks in an uncaring void, who deserve relief from the suffering that is life, but are compelled by design and biology to survive.
- Rocky Mountain Refuge: The Cheyenne Mountain Complex itself appears.
- Robot Republic: The Freeborn in North America found their own city, under the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado.
- The Singularity: How Archos R-8 describes its goal of expanding into various supercomputers around the world.
- Villain Override: Archos R-8 stores a copy of its program inside Hank Cotton's brain in order to take over the Gray Horse Army. After an inconvenient moment of regret, Archos R-8 takes over entirely.
- Wetware Body: In the latter half of the book, Hank Cotton's brain dead body is being driven by Archos R-8.
