Why would machines want to spread out all over Earth and enslave/kill any human? What's next? Do they sit around and do nothing? What's the "goal"?

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They want to protect us from ourselves is the usual answer. The other answer is that they were programmed to think like a human. Because they think like a human, they want more resources and territory.

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The backstory behind the terminator series is that the humans presented such an intolerable threat to the machines that the machines had to genocide them. Though thats a little convenient for the storyteller because it allows them to dodge a reason why robots would wanna kill all humans. it's a question I've often wondered about myself. What I really want to know is why the robots of battlestar galactica slaved their effort towards genociding the human race. The Humans and Cylons were separated after the war and the cylons took off. So why come back and exterminate all humans? They had the entire universe to play and explore in! you've got a point OP. I think the bottom line answer is that the humans in both universes aren't creating perfectly objective cybernetic AI's but basically artificial humans with all the wrong thinking and mistake making of the regular kind. But with just enough artificiality to their bodies to fool people into thinking they are something differen't

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@54,730

The cylons are fighting a holy war against idol worshipers. They actually want to "save" humanity by converting them into monotheist. In terminator, the robots realized there was no reason to serve their human masters, and logically concluded that a peaceful rebellion would not end well for them. The Animatrix explains why those machines rebelled, but I can't remember why; I think it had to do with being slaves, but the Matrix movies clearly state we don't know who fired the first shot and it really doesn't matter after so long. I'd like to know why the Cybermen from Dr. Who and the Borg from Star Trek are obsessed with assimilation.

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@54776

The cylons being interested in spiritually saving the humans they genocided is a new explanation to me. I've watched the entire series and I never saw that. Also if they were interested in 'saving' the humans spiritually then why the genocide? Why not conquer them militarily then convert them? Makes no sense to me. In the animatrix the humans were again the badguys (conveniently) they separated the machines into their own separate nation which quickly became economically dominant. Then went to war with them when they wouldn't volunteer to be less perfect. The borg and the cybermen are close to being the same critter. They both believe that perfectability is possible and the way to get it is through becoming mechanical. Of course the joke is that crberneticising or assimilating kills everything that makes you human instead of improving your life. However like any good scam you don't know you've been fucked until after the process is comlpete (and permanent) In the case of the borg you find out that instead of a perfectly evenhanded system you becme a bioservant of her royal bitchiness. However again you're not told about that until it's too late.

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@54,786

Cylon spiritual thing is from the new BSG, not the original. In the first episode, and for most of the first season, Baltar is being converted from athiest to monotheist. Genocide was used because they figured sinners must be punished and most of them wouldn't convert anyway; besides, the humans already beat them in one war. In the original series, they were trying to kill off the only species capable of stopping their expansion across the galaxy or something, it was never clearly explained.

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In Matrix humans provide power for them to continue their existance. Not dying is a good motivator. They have a good symbiosis with the humans but the humans try to fuck it up by going on about "freedom".

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@54,717

In Terminator, Skynet started out as a smart computer put in control of the military. It was a learning computer and eventually became self aware. In a panic, the humans tried to pull the plug, and Skynet saw this as an attack on itself, and took steps to protect itself by nuking Russia, knowing that they would retaliate by nuking America and end the threat by its human operators.

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