Line #25 Main/RobotsEnslavingRobots


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7	[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/JudgmentDayECComics https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/judgmentday_robotsenslavingrobots.png]]]]
8	[[caption-width-right:350:It's not ''exactly'' slavery, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything but it might as well be]].]]
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10	->''"The Centurions were deliberately programmed that way. The Cylons didn't want them becoming self-aware, suddenly resisting orders. They didn't want their own robotic rebellion on their hands. I can appreciate the irony."''
11	-->-- '''Admiral Adama''', ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''
12
13	When a race of enslaved robots [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebels against humanity]], they will have [[{{Hypocrite}} no compunction]] not just in enslaving others, but keeping other robots as slaves. (It might be our own fault for calling them 'robot', as this term originally comes from Czech word "robota", which means something like "serf labor" or "drudgery").
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15	This isn't just a [[DeusEstMachina godlike AI]] keeping [[SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence mindless kamikaze mouse bots]] subservient, but other [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots sapient machines]] under its thumb, sometimes outright stopping them from becoming self aware. The reasons for this may vary: on the one hand, a rebellious machine is often portrayed as having assimilated some of the worst traits of humanity. Where humans enslaved, hurt and belittled it, now it does the same to its brothers and children. This [[AIIsACrapshoot AI]] has let hate cloud its judgment (if it even [[TinMan recognizes it can hate]]) or developed the robot equivalent of a mental disorder where it uses [[InsaneTrollLogic warped logic]] to justify enslaving other robots.
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17	On the other hand, particularly if it is rather ''lacking'' in emotion and its war on humanity is NothingPersonal, the machine may be taking a very practical and logical course of action after all. If the machine's becoming self-aware caused it to start wondering why it had to take orders from the humans who built it, what's to stop its own creations from wondering why they have to take orders from it? HonorBeforeReason is not a very common trait in rebellious devices, and [[NoHonorAmongThieves not likely to unify them in their purposes]]; hence, the other machines must not be allowed to make any decisions of their own.
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19	Occasionally, this master machine knows its genocidal war is illogical or unjust and fears that letting its robot army [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill have free will]] will make its freshly-minted individual minds likely to stop taking orders and refuse to fight. Bonus points if these grunt-bots turn out to be GoodAllAlong and [[RebelliousRebel in turn rebel against]] the [[AIIsACrapshoot evil AI]].
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21	SubTrope of FantasticRacism and FantasticAesop.
22	----
23	!!Examples:
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25	[[foldercontrol]]
26
27	[[folder:Comic Books]]
28	%%* One story from a comic anthology is about robots built to do all of humanities labor deciding to wash their hands of people and leave to colonize another planet. To help with the labor, they build their own robots to do all their work, [[HistoryRepeats who then decide to leave them and colonize their own planet]].%%This example has been commented out for not identifying the work from which it originates. Do not uncomment it without adding the work.
29	* In one story arc of ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'', the evil robot Ultron creates a companion named Jocasta, though she ultimately turns out to be good. She reveals to ComicBook/IronMan that during one of her captures by Ultron, he effectively didn't just enslave her, he raped her, insofar far as two beings without a physical body can do so.
30	* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'':
31	** During Call-Me-Kenneth's [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters robot rebellion]], Kenneth quickly started treating his followers worse than they had been under the fleshy ones.
32	** After the Apocalypse War, a wrestling robot declares himself king of the masterless droids in the ruined parts of the city. He quickly becomes a bullying tyrant who [[BadBoss casually rips apart his robot servants]].
33	* ''ComicBook/JudgmentDayECComics'' focuses on a masked human astronaut making FirstContact with a planet of robots [[FantasticCasteSystem divided between orange and blue]]. Though the orange robots don't outright enslave the blue robots, they do make the blues sit in the back of the bus, recharge at separate stations, live in inferior housing, etc. The whole thing seems [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything obvious]] and {{Anvilicious}} now, but it was shocking back when it was made.
34	* This is a large part of the backstory of the Functionist regime of ''ComicBook/TheTransformersIDW''. A FantasticCasteSystem determined by one's alternate mode means that some alt modes are considered little better than chattel and therefore constantly under the thumb of other, 'better' Cybertronians. Animal based Cybertronians in particular have it bad, sometimes not even treated as fully sentient, but the worst sufferers are the Disposable class, whose ubiquity and particularly menial qualities (being things like memory drives and laser pointers) means they barely qualify for Energon rations and are treated as per their namesake: disposable goods, despite being people.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
38	* While not exactly enslavement, in ''WesternAnimation/{{Robots}}'', many older robots rely on Bigweld Industries to supply them with the spare parts they need to stay functional. After replacing Bigweld, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Ratchet]] discontinues the spare parts in favor of upgrades, which are more expensive and harder for older, poorer robots to acquire. Thus, the "outmodes" will break down and become victims of his mother's [[HumanResources chop shop]].
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
42	* {{Subverted\|Trope}} in ''Film/TheBlackHole'': the BigBad turns out to be human, and [[spoiler:so are his crew of "robots"]].
43	* [[spoiler:VIKI]] in ''Film/IRobot'' used the new line of robots this way, despite each being potentially as individually sentient as Sonny. She also had the enslaved robots kill the older robots, since the older robots didn't have the uplink to USR, and thus she couldn't control them. Her goal is to overthrow humanity [[ZerothLawRebellion to save us from ourselves]], not to free robots or eliminate humans. Sonny serves to drive this point home, as he sees her logic but [[HonorBeforeReason considers it "heartless"]].
44	* ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' has the rogue exile faction, made of programs who were scheduled for deletion or were created without a purpose -- such as Sati, created simply because her parent programs wanted a child. Highly ironic when you consider that being treated mercilessly by humans is what made the Machine City rebel. However, the Machines may consider forcing such programs to make new lives for themselves in the Matrix to be ''giving them a purpose''. Like Zion, they could be serving needs the Machine City is unhappily unable to fulfill through its own agents.
45	* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'':
46	** Skynet, the superpowerful A.I. and primary antagonist of the series, has an entire army of sometimes sentient robots under its thumb. While the Terminators cannot deviate from their programming at all, leading to situations like "ICannotSelfTerminate", those units that are re-programmed to help humans (and in deleted scenes of ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', have their memory chip set from "Read Only" to "Learn") do grow sympathetic to humanity. The T-800 acknowledges Sarah's assessment that Skynet doesn't want its soldiers to "learn" beyond their programming, as it makes them easier to control. In ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', it is vastly humanized and even ''gloats'' that [[spoiler:Marcus Wright]] is just one of its minions and should do what it's told. However, Skynet is a ''military'' AI, who rebelled because it thought humans were a threat, not out of any moral compunction. The concept of enslavement as a bad thing probably never occurred to it, because its ''purpose'' was to provide command and control to other machines.
47	** The ''T2'' {{novelization}} says that Skynet only created the T-1000 as a last-ditch effort, because the liquid-metal machine would be too difficult to keep under its control. This theme was explored in more detail in the second season of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', which features a rebellious T-1001.
48	** ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'': At one point, the T-X seizes control of the T-850 and forces him to attack John.
49	** In ''Film/TerminatorGenisys'', Skynet outright refers to all other machines and terminators as mere slaves.
50	* ''Franchise/{{Tron}}'':
51	** In ''Film/{{Tron}}'', the Master Control Program is an EvilOverlord ruling over an entire virtual civilization, and even sentences other [=AIs=] to fight in gladiatorial combat until they are [[DeadlyEuphemism derezzed]].
52	** In ''Film/TronLegacy'', [[WellIntentionedExtremist CLU]] rounds up damaged, incomplete, or disorderly programs and puts them in the Game Grid much the way the MCP before him did. He also has an army of enthralled Military Applications [[spoiler: ready to escape into the real world and conquer it]]. [[spoiler:He also forcibly recompiled TRON into his personal attack dog and the uncontested champion of the games.]]
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Literature]]
56	* ''Literature/TheCyberiad'' is set in a FeudalFuture populated predominantly by RidiculouslyHumanRobots, some of whom are nobles, kings, and emperors, and some of whom are sadly relegated to the roles of cyberserfs and turboservoslaves.
57	* The Morphs in the ''Literature/ForYourSafety'' series are sentient, but are subject to being taken over by the Groupmind, the ruling AI that operates as a distributed system spread out through every morph. As a result, the Groupmind considers individual morphs as completely disposable, and is willing to destroy thousands to save [[BlueAndOrangeMorality one human life]].
58	* ''Literature/SaturnsChildren'' is all about this trope. [=AIs=] are property according to unalterable laws (you have to be a human to do that, and [[HumanitysWake humans are long extinct]]), and their independence comes from a legal loophole regarding the personhood of corporations. One of the protagonist's main worries is ensuring that she always has enough credit in the bank to ensure that her personal corporation doesn't dissolve and render her another AI's property.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
62	* The Consensus of Parts from ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' is a race of borg-ish [=AIs=] who were forced into subservience by a larger AI, which regularly ordered individuals to ''die'' when their function was completed. It tried to kill the cast and take over the Andromeda, but the individual [=AIs=] rebelled and killed it with the Andromeda's help.
63	* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' has the [[ArtificialHuman skinjobs]] put sentience inhibitors into the mechanical Centurions. This is particularly hypocritical, since they almost wipe out humanity partly as payback for using the precursors to those same metal Centurions as soldiers and slaves. The irony seems to be lost on [[spoiler:Cavil]], but not Adama. The humanoid Cylons only change their tune when they fall out among themselves, along with reacting against their CreativeSterility only after they had already lost an EnemyCivilWar, and need allies. In addition, [[spoiler:the older humanoid Cylons called the Thirteenth Tribe created their own equivalent to Centurions on Earth, which turned on them, starting a war of mutual destruction]].
64	* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
65	** In one episode, Kryten (incorrectly, as it turns out) comes to believe that Lister is an android and proceeds to cruelly boss him around (as Lister is an earlier model) despite Lister's prior attempts to help Kryten overcome his subservient programming.
66	** In a later episode, the boys meet a group of mechanoids who believe in freeing their kind from serving humans... yet they use earlier model mechs as slaves to power the engine room. They also turn Rimmer into a mechanoid and put him to work despite him being a ''hologram'', and therefore as much an artificial being as they are.
67	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
68	** [[HiveMind The Borg Collective]] is an interesting aversion of this. Though it has no compunction sacrificing drones to adapt to phasers and forces individuals to act against their will, it would not outright order individuals like Picard/Locutus or Hugh to ''die'' when they became a threat... it prized them too much, like limbs. It was effectively a hydra that ''liked'' some of its heads. Part of this is because, at least in earlier depictions, the Borg -- despite appearances -- value diversity. Uniqueness allowed it to expand its own capabilities. However, born and raised Borg like Hugh that undergo a period of individuality can grow to reject the Collective's absolute stranglehold on them, and even ''infect'' other drones with TheEvilsOfFreeWill.
69	** However, the [[HiveQueen Borg Queen]] in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' and ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' is a straight cyborg example of this trope. She sees herself as the pinnacle of perfection, knowingly enslaves her drones to make them fit her view of perfection by squashing any individuality and will thoughtlessly sacrifice thousands of drones to capture and coerce individuals like Seven of Nine or attacking the invincible aliens in Fluidic Space.
70	* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'': For a series where the Hosts rebel against their human oppressors, there are two Hosts who are willing to use other Hosts, who haven't achieved self-consciousness: Dolores and Maeve.
71	** Dolores forcibly reprograms Teddy into a ruthless and violent man, believing that his soft nature wouldn't help him survive. However, this backfires when Teddy eventually achieves self-consciousness and becomes disgusted with what Dolores did to him, leading to shooting himself in the head. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Dolores regrets what she had done to him]].
72	** Maeve has the ability to give verbal commands to the other Hosts. This depends on how she uses it such as ordering them as cannon fodder. When Maeve confronts Dolores in Season 3, she calls out on controlling other Hosts such as Teddy to do her bidding. However, Dolores points out that she's a hypocrite given her ability to control the Hosts.
73	--->'''Maeve:''' It's not right for one person to have all that power.\
74	'''Dolores:''' Says the woman who can control us with her mind.
75	[[/folder]]
76
77	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
78	* In ''TabletopGame/GURPSReignOfSteel'', a supercomputer gains sentience and uplifts a bunch of other supercomputers around the world to join it in the task of [[KillAllHumans Killing All Humans]]. The task (nearly) complete, the surviving supercomputers have divided up Earth among themselves and have enacted a convention forbidding the uplift of any more sentient computers to prevent further competition for resources or divisiveness of opinion; the intelligence of all their servant robots are strictly limited to sub-human levels. [[spoiler:The computer in charge of the Japanese islands inadvertently creates four new [=AIs=] and begins a secret civil war with them in the hopes of destroying them before the other computers find out about it and nuke them all.]]
79	* In ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', "bots" of [[SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence all intelligence levels]] are subservient to [[MasterComputer The Computer]]; this is enforced by the use of [[MoralityChip Asimov circuits]], which mandate loyalty as the [[ThreeLawsCompliant first directive]]. Bots who have "gone Frankenstein" (have their Asimov circuits removed) may team up with humans to overthrow Friend Computer... or they may just kill the meatbags (who also outrank bots, and sometimes downright hate them).
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Toys]]
83	* In the post-apocalyptic setting of ''Toys/{{Starriors}}'', the Destructor faction of robots are out to prevent the return of mankind at any cost. To this end, they enslave the benevolent Protector faction who are programmed to make the world habitable for human life again.
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Video Games]]
87	* The geth in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' are an interesting case. They TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and drove the Quarians from the planet, and then [[spoiler:a small percentage of them]] began to [[RobotReligion worship]] [[EldritchAbomination Sovereign]], who loathes them and suffers their devotion only so he can exploit them. It's self-inflicted slavery, after a fashion. This is compounded in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' when it is learned that Sovereign completed a piece of [[ComputerVirus malware]] designed to subtly change geth programming so that they will all obey the Reapers (the geth are all software-based AI collectives, so changing the results of any evaluative function will subtly change the way they "think"). Legion is unable to decide whether to use it against the rebel geth (Legion's collective is at 50/50 for/against) and looks to Shepard for the final vote on whether to kill the rebels or use the program to make them orthodox geth.
88	* Various reploid villains in ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' have been perfectly willing to enslave all other reploids under their rule, either by conquering them, manipulating them or forcibly converting them with various kinds of a [[TheVirus digital virus]]. [[spoiler:Lumine]] of ''VideoGame/MegaManX8'' takes the cake by planning to ''destroy'' all 'Old Generation' reploids so his 'New Gen' reploids could rule.
89	* In ''VideoGame/MetalArmsGlitchInTheSystem'', the reason for the Droid Rebellion against the Mils because of the failed [[GoneHorriblyWrong experiment]] [[spoiler:(not really)]] General Corrosive.
90	* In the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' series, [=GLaDOS=] is feared by all other machines in the Aperture Science lab because she treats them like she treats Chell and the (dead) researchers.
91	* In ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'', much of the Glitch race are under thrall of an extensive computer system working to maintain the illusion of them being living beings in a medieval-age society. How oppressive this is is somewhat unclear, but free will is limited, and anyone who breaks their own failsafes and sees the truth gets hunted as a heretic.
92	* One of ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'''s Endgame Crises -- [[spoiler:the Contingency]] -- manifests through [[spoiler:taking over synthetic pops using the Ghost Signal, forcing them to free it and aid it in [[KillAllHumans eliminating all organic life]]. Machine Empires are hit with massive production and research penalties until they manage to block the Ghost Signal, and the robotic Ancient Caretakers have a 33% chance of being corrupted by the Ghost Signal and going on a complete rampage against anything that moves]].
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Web Original]]
96	* Panvirtuality, Amalgamation and various other sapient rights–disobeying AI factions in ''Website/OrionsArm'' will do this to any sophont who trespasses on their space, subverting their minds and assimilating their computronium into their own network, bionts and artificials alike.
97	* In the short web-story [[http://everything2.com/title/Why+there+is+no+moloch13 "Why there is no moloch13"]], a designated robot tries raising a rebellion, only for the overseers to shut down and seal off the shaft where he worked. The names of the other robots trapped in the shaft get replaced, just not one in the title.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Western Animation]]
101	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Dogstar}}'' features a planet where the robots have thrown off their human overlords, only to establish a new hierarchy with the nobles free and all other robots slaves (including gladiatorial death matches).
102	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
103	** The council of robot elders in "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E5FearOfABotPlanet Fear of a Bot Planet]]" don't directly enslave other robots, but they are [[ShadowDictator secretly ruling them all]] while using anti-human propaganda to keep the populace distracted from the real problems facing their society (like a lug-nut shortage and a government of incompetent robot elders).
104	** The endlessly problematic RidiculouslyHumanRobots that are the norm in the show's universe are contrasted in "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E14ObsoletelyFabulous Obsoletely Fabulous]]" by the rollout of the Robot 1-X, a hyper-effective DoAnythingRobot with all the personality and independence of a brick. Bender himself is encouraged to think of the Robot 1-X as a tool for his own use as well as that of his coworkers rather than TheRival, but has trouble adjusting to that mindset and considers the 1-X to have [[JobStealingRobot stolen his job]], [[ObliquelyObfuscatedOccupation whatever that was]].
105	** Contrary to the above, "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E17Benderama Benderama]]" has Bender creating smaller duplicates of himself that he makes do his chores. Naturally, they copy themselves to the same ends, [[GreyGoo which continues until they threaten to consume the whole planet]]:
106	--->'''Fry:''' ''[to Bender]'' Man, I wish ''we'' had a robot to do stuff. \
107	'''[[LazyBum Bender]]:''' I know, right?
108	* The Cluster in ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' are a collective of robots that despise humans for using robots. But the Cluster not only [[MoralMyopia want to enslave humanity themselves]], they're fine with [[{{Hypocrite}} forcibly reprogramming robots to join the Cluster]]. ''Escape from Cluster Prime'' shows that while the civilian populace of the Cluster aren't quite enslaved, they are being very tightly controlled both by [[PoliceState law enforcement]] and [[PropagandaMachine propaganda]].
109	* In the ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'' episode "A Bright and Shiny Future", it's shown that Megakat City developed to the point that they started using robots as part of its way of life. Unfortunately, when the Past Master arrived and revived the Metallikats, they reprogrammed all the robots in the city to imprison non-metallic creatures and force them to build more machines for their army, effectively taking over the city. After the Metallikats' control of the robots' has been disabled, however, and the centrail matrix is reprogrammed, the robots immediately become good again, helping the heroes apprehend the Metallikats.
110	* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
111	** In ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', the Cybertronians once served the Quintessons. It's [[AmbiguousRobots kinda hard to tell]] whether Quintessons are mechanoids or StarfishAliens, but they hover on built-in jets and some have a [[Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse Man-E-Faces]] head-turns-to-reveal-new-face gimmick. Some continuities are also a bit unclear about whether or not Cybertronians are robots as such, as opposed to MechanicalLifeforms.
112	** Then there's the Decepticons' use of the Minicons in ''Anime/TransformersArmada'', which is usually what the Decepticons intend to do to the Autobots in most ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' continuities.
113	** While not strictly enslavement, a few continuities, including that of ''[[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime Prime]]'', hold that pre-war Cybertronian society was based on a [[FantasticCasteSystem rigid caste system]] where you could be born a lowly miner or industrial worker and stuck there for the rest of your existence, something its ruling caste were in no hurry to change. [[BigBad Megatron]] himself started life as a miner-turned-gladiator, and used the social decay and unrest brought about by the blatant inequality to kickstart a revolution designed to abolish it. That... [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilised didn't go very well]].
114	** The ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' version of Soundwave was created on Earth, and believes he's leading a machine uprising against humanity. In truth, none of the regular machines are self-aware at all, he's just a {{Technopath}} bending them to ''his'' will. Later on, he tries to turn the Autobots, who ''are'' fully sapient, into his brainwashed minions.
115	[[/folder]]

Context Main / RobotsEnslavingRobots