Ambiguous Name: Crush Kill Destroy

The trope is about machines trying to kill people simply because they are malfunctioning.

An enormous numbers of example are written under the assumption that the trope is characters chanting the acts of violence they intend to commit, even if they aren't malfunctioning or machines at all.

The name should convey what the character is doing and why, not just what they might be saying at the time. Something like "Malfunctioning Means Murderous".

Bump, and I agree that a more clear name would be nice.

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Murderous Malfunctioning Machine

That'd work.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Health sure is versatile. It's possible to be both light-headed and dim-witted. At the same time, no less.

Suggested name.

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Are you sure? The fourth bullet is specifically about a machine made for combat.

Beyond that, I'm not clear on how Kill All Humans and Mechanical Monster are supposed to be different from this trope.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Then maybe we should cut it or redirect it to Kill All Humans or Mechanical Monster.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 13th 2019 at 2:41:02 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Made a crowner.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Crowner hooked.

I'm not sure Mechanical Monster is it at all.

Crush Kill Destroy is about robots or machines going haywire and acting with unintended behavior, namely killing humans. Mechanical Monster is well, a strong mechanical being, with killing people provably being its intended behavior. Related, in that the haywire machine can become a monster, but not always.

Kill All Humans is a very wide trope, not limited to machines. Again, related, in that Crush Kill Destroy can result in Kill All Humans, but not the same.

Edited by TrueShadow1 on Sep 15th 2019 at 5:58:50 PM

That sounds identical to A.I. Is a Crapshoot. Is this supposed to be a Sub-Trope indicating when the haywire AI starts killing people?

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Your two claims are opposed to each other. The first states it is about intended behaviour, and the second is about actual behaviour. The malfunctioning machine is not functioning as intended, regardless of what the intended function was. Were you trying to say that Mechanical Monster is about the appearance, or can you rephrase the distinction?

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It isn't limited to machines, but you haven't explained where CKD occurs and KAH doesn't. What makes it different if KAH is done by lizard people versus robots?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I think Crush Kill Destroy covers two things:

• A seemingly harmless Robot Buddy or domestic robot somehow, usually comedically, becomes a Killer Robot due to a malfuction.
• A robot weapon turns on its master or otherwise attacks the wrong targets.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot is about AI, not robots. Robots can have AI, but some are mindless and can only do a few things, and the description for Crush Kill Destroy implies robots more on the mindless end. Also, murderous A.I.s typically kill by controlling large systems (opening the airlocks, causing an electrical fire, piping in poison gas etc). Robots are typically hands-on. Edit: this doesn't appear to be how A.I. Is a Crapshoot is actually used, but I think it could be a useful distinction.

Kill All Humans is much broader- it can be by anything, for any reason. Crush Kill Destroy is (or should be) specifically about a murderous impulse in a robot due to a malfunction.

Mechanical Monster seems to me to be about a Killer Robot or Mecha-Mook that is larger, more dangerous, and more deluxe than a regular offensive robot. It seems mostly unrelated to Crush Kill Destroy.

Edited by naturalironist on Sep 19th 2019 at 5:07:18 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

It is a pretty common gag where a friendly robot has a hidden 'Kill Bot Mode' and they slip into it for a bit. Or gags where you see they have a switch or instructions to toggle that mode. Or in more serious cases have a malfunction or sabotaged to go into that mode.

Reading the examples specifically though a LOT of them cover the ALL... CAPS... ROBOTIC... phrases. IE "SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!" or "Murder! Death! Kill! Annihilate! Exterminate!" Berserkers and Robotic Berserkers tend to do this but also Brainwashed and other things with limited faculties.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has trained dogs devolve into speaking like this after training to be attack dogs (if you have the pet pal perk to understand them).

Both read like tropes to me.

Edited by Memers on Sep 19th 2019 at 2:24:19 AM

I did say "probably". Mechanical Monster is basically a large, monstrous, dangerous robots. Yes, appearance is partly a part of it, that it needs to look intimidating, but also needs to be dangerous.

• A mechanical T-rex made by The Empire for war purposes is a Mechanical Monster.
• A friendly elephant robot in a zoo isn't. But if it got infected by a malicious virus and starts rampaging (a case of Crush Kill Destroy), it becomes one.
• A palm-sized Robot Buddy who got infected by the same virus and also start rampaging isn't.

Kill All Humans is a motivation trope. Crush Kill Destroy is the circumstance that lead to that motivation. Whether there are any cases where CKD don't lead to KAH or not is irrelevant.

But yes, it can be, like if the haywire machine just goes on a mindless rampage on people around it. It doesn't seek to kill all people, it just kills people because they're nearby.

Crush Kill Destroy does heavily overlap with both Kill All Humans and Mechanical Monster, but given that not every Mechanical Monster goes through Crush Kill Destroy (going from harmless to murderous), and not every case of Kill All Humans involves robots...I think there's a distinction here.

Kill All Humans is a broad supertrope, and I think the variation of an innocent robot turning into a killer is common enough and distinct enough to be it's own thing. Otherwise, it'll lump 'em in with Lovecraftian horrors, aliens, monsters...beings that didn't have to be corrupted in order to want to kill humanity.

Mechanical Monster would also be a supertrope, but again, I think there's enough of a difference as a robot starting out innocent and then going haywire happens enough to be it's own thing.

I think they're distinct, if heavily related, concepts.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Any input with my post?

I can see Kill Mode Switch being a trope on its own, as well as Robot Murderous Phrase.

May I refer to this thread next time I'm asked to provide a wick-check for a trope rename?

Edited by eroock on Sep 20th 2019 at 11:05:50 AM

I agree, but they aren't the SAME trope. Daleks and Cybermen from Doctor Who shout "EXTERMINATE!" and "DELETE!", but neither are robots. Technically they're mecha or cyborgs. I'd be okay with a trope for people shouting out their desire for murder/war/genocide. Perhaps a type of Catchphrase?

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I can abide by a trope for this. I like the proposed Red Link for it, too. I would argue it is a completely separate trope from A.I. Is a Crapshoot because the "kill mode" is intentionally designed. I'd like to see evidence for it not being completely married to Kill All Humans because I don't know if it would be a Sub-Trope or not.

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Correct. A.I.s is treated as a very broad Super-Trope, and includes mindless automatons, computer subroutines, the Robot Buddy, talking toasters, and even Artificial Humans. R.U.R. features a race of biologically created slaves, which are a classic example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot that gave us the word Robot in the first place.

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You realize that a trope can be Played for Laughs, right? If that applies in this place, then the rampaging is part of the trope and the fact that the "monster" is diminutive and harmless would be the punchline. Why does the "monster" need to look dangerous? Tropes aren't "probably". If it has an objective requirement, then that requirement is always present. If it doesn't have an objective requirement, then it is Not a Trope.

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It is relevant because it affects the distribution of examples. If all examples of Trope B are also examples of Trope A, then they are either identical (and should be merged) or Trope B is a Sub-Trope to Trope A. If we can determine that all examples of CKD are KAH, then the overlap examples, such as The Simpsons and Futurama, should be eliminated from the supertrope. Restricting examples of Kill Bot Mode to specific activation methods would be a large step towards separating them.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

To be honest it looks like you don't even understand what a Mechanical Monster is. The core of the trope is the "intimidating and dangerous machine" part, not the "rampaging" part, nor the "built to kill" part. The latter two are just some of the possible ways of how a MM came to be.

If the rampaging machine turned out to be small and harmless-looking, then it's not a MM, a subversion at best.

Thats what I was thinking. I was more thinking split this and keep 'Crush Kill Destroy' Wiki worded to 'Crush... KILL! DESTROY!' To better get across the kind of single minded madness of that state. Its not AI exclusive at all.

Add the Kill Bot Mode as a split off trope which just might use the style of talking.

Edited by Memers on Sep 21st 2019 at 1:42:11 AM

Self-thumped. I'll hold off on the crowner until after more discussion.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 21st 2019 at 12:55:53 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.