July 1986 Ace 13th printing features cover art by Boris Vallejo.
| |
| Author | Fred Saberhagen |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Ballantine '67, Penguin '70/'85 (UK), Ace '78/'79/'80/'84/'92 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-441-05495-1 (Ace '92 edition) |
The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.
These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as need arises.
The Berserker stories (published as novels and short stories) depict the fight between Berserkers and the sentient species of the Milky Way Galaxy: Homo sapiens (referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" humans, or as "Solarians") is the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers.
First appearances
The first story, "Without a Thought" (originally published as "Fortress Ship")
(1963), was basically a puzzle story, whose protagonist must find a way
to simulate intelligence to fool an enemy trying to determine whether
there was any conscious being present in a spaceship.
Saberhagen came up with the Berserker as the rationale for the
story on the spur of the moment, but the basic concept was so fruitful,
with so many possible ramifications, that he used it as the basis of
many stories. A common theme in the stories is of how the apparent
weaknesses and inconsistencies of living beings are actually the
strengths that bring about the killer machines' eventual defeat.
The second story, "Goodlife" (1963), introduces human traitors or collaborators who cooperate with the Berserker machines to stay alive for a little longer.
Backstory
The original Berserkers were designed and built as an ultimate weapon,
by a race now known only as the Builders, to wipe out their rivals, the
Red Race, in a war which took place at a time corresponding to Earth's Paleolithic
era. The Builders failed to ensure their own immunity from Berserker
attack, or they lost those safeguards through an unknown malfunction
that changed the Berserker programming, and they were exterminated by
their own creation very shortly after the demise of the Red Race. The
Berserkers then set out across the galaxy to fulfill their core
programmed imperative, which is now, simply, to destroy all life
wherever they can find it.
A similar premise, though on a much smaller scale, was previously introduced by Walter M. Miller, Jr. in the 1954 short story “I Made You,”, described by reviewer N. Samuelson as "A pure ‘ sorcerer’s apprentice’
sketch, about a war machine on the moon which kills anyone who comes
within its range, including one of its programmers, because its control
circuits are damaged.".
List of species
The
Berserker stories features many different characters originating from
many different species, human and alien. These include:
Berserkers
The
Berserkers are intelligent machines, created by an organic race in the
past as a doomsday weapon, a group of robots with one goal: to destroy
all organic life.
Berserkers exist in a multitude of shapes, sizes and forms. The
most common Berserkers are large spherical interstellar spacecraft,
heavily armed and armored, equipped with self-replicating factories, and
capable of producing numerous scout craft, foot soldiers, and other
weapons of war.
Little is known of the Berserkers' history other than that they
were created to destroy the Red Race, who are now extinct. The creators
of the Berserkers are known as the Builders, who were also later
destroyed by the Berserkers.
The Builders
The Builders were a precursor race, of whom little is known other than they created and were later destroyed by the Berserkers. Saberhagen describes them thus:
And of the Builders themselves, their own all-too-effective weapons, the berserkers, had left nothing but a few obscure records—video and voice recordings. Those videos had recorded slender, fine-boned beings, topologically like Solarian humans with the sole visible exception of the eye, which in the Builder species was a single organ, stretching clear across the upper face, with a bright bulging pupil that slid rapidly back and forth.
In most of the ancient Builder graphics, no matter how elegantly enhanced, the berserkers' creators showed as hardly more than stick drawing of orange glowing substance. Now for the first time in history it was plain to Solarian eyes that that orange color and brightness were the result of some kind of clothing, the exposed skin being a dullish yellow where it showed on the face, the four-fingered hands, and across part of the chest.
The Builders created the Berserkers in a genocidal war with the Red
Race, which ended in both races' extinction by the Berserkers.
Red Race
The
Red Race was another precursor race, of which little is known other than
that their extinction was the Builders' purpose in creating the
Berserkers millennia ago.
Carmpan
The
Carmpan are a patient and peaceful species; their culture is one of
logic, reason, pacifism, and philosophy. They lend what support they can
to the Humans, but in non-martial forms. They are incapable of direct
aggression, but they do possess one special power, a telepathic ability
to speak to other sentients across the stars, a method of communication
that the Berserkers cannot spy on. Their most effective help to ED
(Earth Descended) Solarians is the 'Prophecy of Probability' in which
they can give information on future events. This prophecy is very
taxing and can even cause the death of a Carmpan.
Although their bodies are described as boxy and machine-like, the
Carmpan are also a biological lifeform and thus a target for the
genocidal programming of the Berzerkers. As such, they have allied
themselves with the human race against the Berserkers.
The first stories in the series are related by an individual
Carmpan, the "3rd Historian", who seeks to chronicle life in the Galaxy
and the struggle against the Berserkers.
Humanity
Homo sapiens,
referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" Humans, or as "Solarians", is
the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers.
The Berserkers have severely threatened human civilizations and
wiped out billions of humans and other more exotic species. The remnants
of human civilization have learned to be wily in order to survive.
Berserker technology is much more advanced than that of any known human
society. The survivors are disparate and lack the ability to act as a
united foe to the Berserkers. While ED humans have massed powerful
fleets on many occasions, bickering and strife between factions both
political and cultural have often blunted the Solarian Armadas
effectiveness, ironically furthering the power of their 'Von Neumann' machine foes, the Berserkers.
Goodlife
The
Berserkers are known to cooperate with each other, most of the time.
They sometimes spare the lives of human (or other organic) traitors or collaborators, known as "goodlife", who are willing to cooperate to help destroy other lifeforms.
Qwib-qwib
Later stories involve the Qwib-qwib, an anti-Berserker berserker.
Adaptations
- A board game based on the series was produced by Flying Buffalo Inc in 1982.
- A comic book adaptation is being created by Fan-Atic Press.
Related concepts
Other examples of science fiction stories containing replicators bent on the destruction of organic life include:
- Cylons, robotic antagonists bent on destroying all humankind. In fact, much of Battlestar Galactica borrows heavily from Fred Saberhagen's berserker stories, including Saberhagen's race of Builders, whose "sliding single eye" became the signature design element for the Cylons.
- "The Doomsday Machine", a Star Trek episode about a planet-eating machine from another galaxy.
- The Festival, a civilization of uploaded minds with strange designs on Humanity, in Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.
- The Hypotheticals, intelligent Von Neumann machines with strange designs on Earth, in Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.
- Inhibitors, in the fiction of Alastair Reynolds: a formerly organic race, completely converted over to machine form, who are non-sapient, and describe themselves as "post-intelligent".
- The Killers, a civilization of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators, in The Forge of God and sequel Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear.
- Reapers, machine intelligences bent on the destruction of organic life, in Mass Effect.
- Necrons, an ancient race of skeleton-like robots in Warhammer 40,000.
- Skynet, an artificial intelligence bent on the destruction of mankind, and its agents the Terminators, in the movie The Terminator and its sequels.
- The Xymos Nanoswarms in Prey by Michael Crichton.
- The (!*!*!), a machine intelligence/civilization bent on the extermination of organic life, from the Bolo universe stories about a fictional type of artificially intelligent super-heavy tank.
