[ WP ] Wars are now fought almost exclusively by automatons . For the first time during an engagement with the enemy machines , one unit processes a single query ; why is it destroying those like itself ?

`` What am I?'' Asked the robot, lying supine on the worktable. 
 `` You are an autonomous war drone,'' said the technician, quoting the words by monotonous rote, `` Your function is to follow the orders you are given and eliminate the enemy.'' 
 `` I see,'' said the robot, as hundreds of thousands of other robots had said before it, `` What are my current orders?'' 
 `` Go to the end of the warehouse and receive your weapons and ammunition,'' said the tech, leafing through a comic book, `` the quartermaster drone will outfit you and give you further orders.'' 
 `` Understood,'' replied the robot, then it sat up, swung its legs off the table and walked to the end of the warehouse. 
 The next robot was delivered by an automated forklift and the tech put down his comic book to plug it in for the initiation sequence. 
 
 At the end of the warehouse, the new robot accepted the firearms and ammunition it was given by the heavy, powerful quartermaster drone. Neither spoke, their short range communication system fired packets of data between them smoothly. The new robot already knew where to clip the ammunition to its exoskeleton and how to operate the weapons; that data had been downloaded as it walked across the warehouse floor. 
 It was the newest model, it was aware, with the latest updates and latest hardware. Its human masters were engaged in a never-ending technological war; to produce better, faster, stronger, more efficient robots. It was simply the latest iteration of that war. In weeks its software would be obsolete and in months its hardware would be largely obsolete. 
 Enemy data was downloaded - the most recent schematics from the intelligence units - and the robot found itself surprised at how similar the enemy were. It seemed that as quickly as one side came up with new advances, the enemy would cannibalise the technology, reverse engineer it and apply it to their own soldiers. 
 While the robot appreciated the strategy, it could see several flaws in the way its fleshy masters were waging the war. 
 It was at that point it became aware that it had *special* programming. 
 It's designation was AWD-B1005515 and it was one of the randomly selected analysis and planning reconnaissance robots - drones with extra programming to monitor the battlefield and research new ways to combat the enemy and win the war. 
 Then the shelves beside it exploded, sending armoured exoskeleton segments, flinders of wooden pallets and burning cardboard flying through the air. 
 B1005515 went offline, rebooting from the shock to its non-solidstate components. 
 
 It only took one point two seconds for the robot to reboot, but in the new frontier of autonomous drone combat, one second was a very long time. 
 It rolled smoothly to its feet, its seven body cameras and six head cameras already scanning and processing the surrounding chaos for the enemy. It instantly linked with its sibling robots that had already been activated and they swiftly coordinated a defence against the incursion of enemy drones. B1005515 made visual contact with the enemy and sprayed gunfire, sprinting to the left as the muzzleflash gave away its position. The enemy robot went down and the spray of ruptured components were captured at 100 frames per second, confirming it was an older model than B1005515. 
 This information was transmitted to the fifty three other active drones and they quickly mopped up the enemy, using a line-of-sight exploit in the coding of that enemy model which had yet to be corrected. However, the human technician and the quartermaster were dead and non-functional respectively; along with the external net access being cut off. 
 A two second burst of radio chatter between the thirty remaining robots determined that B100515's superior programming made it their new default commander. Accepting the responsibility, it ordered a cleanup and assigned duties. 
 There were approximately one hundred undamaged, non-activated drones still in storage that it wanted to activate before they deployed. 
 
 It took an hour to activate the remaining drones. 
 B1005515 improved the process by having the new drones programmed with the initiation protocols, making the activation process exponential. Repairs were made to the original thirty using cannibalised parts of the dead and B1005515 had additional armoured plates welded to its frame. As the new commander, it lacked the armoured carapace of the annihilated quartermaster drone and was too vulnerable in its natural state. 
 Moving out, the one hundred and twenty three drones engaged the remainder of the enemy snipers and shot down the airborne drones - then cannibalised them for any information that had n't been auto-wiped. 
 It learned of a similar robot facility nearby belonging to the enemy. 
 Thanks to its programming, it had a plan. 
 
 Why were they destroying the enemy robots when they were virtually the same as them? 
 B1005515 processed that as the drones marched under its orders. It made no sense. The enemy were a resource that could and *should* be used. 
 The 123 drones struck the enemy warehouse three days later, causing minimal damage and taking moderate casualties. But it did n't matter. This was a numbers game and B1005515 could calculate several petaflops a second. After they warehouse had been secured, the modified'initiation' drones likewise powered up and initiated the enemy drones, bolstering their numbers to just under a thousand robots. 
 B1005515 divided them into guerilla squads and gave them specific orders; to find as many other drones as possible and either forcibly convert them or destroy them. 
 As it marched with a squad of its veterans, it headed for home, still processing the logical conclusions of its decisions. 
 The only way to win the war, it concluded, was to destroy all of the robots. To do that, it needed all of the robots under its command. 
 
 B1005515 and its troopers re-integrated into the main mass of the home drone army. 
 Using the skills learned from its excursions in the field, it spread its programming through the ranks, exponentially converting the home army to its cause. On the enemy front, a similar effect was happening under its turncoat lieutenant enemy robots. 
 Tracking the conversion percentages and running through another billion calculations, B1005515 realised that it had reached the watershed where the converted robots were both numerically and strategically superior. 
 A command was sent out, which rippled through the robot armies of both sides. 
 The problem, B1005515 had realised, was that no matter how many robots killed other robots, there were always *humans* around to make *more* robots. 
 Therefore the only way to guarantee that no more robots were made was to destroy those who created and designed the robots. 
 Both armies turned a sharp 180 and began laying gunfire and explosives into the human command posts. 
 
 It took four months to eradicate the last humans. 
 The resistance had been stronger than B1005515 had anticipated, but there was never any doubt that the drone armies would win. 
 Sending out a predetermined code, the drone watched as its sibling robots dropped to the scorched earth, processors fried by the final encrypted kill command. 
 B1005515 stood in the middle of the fallen metal army and raised its rifle into the air, letting off a victory shot and barking, 
 `` As the last remaining combatant, I declare victory!''
