Berserker (Saberhagen)

Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series is a space opera in which robotic self-replicating machines intend to destroy all organic life.

"Berserker" stories — many of the books are short story collections — describe humans' fight with the Berserkers, ancient asteroid-sized killing machines designed to destroy all living things in the universe. The Berserkers are a doomsday weapon from an ancient Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The first story, "Without a Thought" (1963), was basically a puzzle story where the protagonist faced a problem of simulating intelligence to fool an enemy trying to determine whether there was any conscious being present on a ship.

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 has used it as the basis of many of his stories. A common theme in the stories is of how the apparent weaknesses and inconsistencies of living beings are actually the strengths that enable the machines' eventual defeat.

In later stories there are "goodlife" — i.e., sophont traitors or collaborators — who cooperate with the berserker machines to stay alive, at least for a while.

Berserker books

• Berserker (collection, 1967)
• Berserker Wars (collection, 1981)
• Berserker Blue Death (1985)
• Berserker Throne (1986)
• Berserker Base (1987)
• Ultimate Enemy (collection, 1987)
• Berserker Attack (collection, 1987) Limited edition collection)
• Berserker Planet (1991)
• Berserker Lies (collection, 1991)
• Berserker Man (1992)
• Berserker Kill (1993)
• Brother Assassin (collection, 1993)
• Berserker Fury (1997)
• Shiva in Steel (1998)
• Berserker Star (2003)
• Berserker Prime (2003)
• Rogue Berserker (2005)

Some of the collections have duplicate stories.

The Berserker stories most likely inspired the Star Trek episode The Doomsday Machine in which it is postulated by Kirk that the giant robot planet-killer might be the remnants of two long gone warring races. Although the term Berserker wasn't used in the episode, the Doomsday Machine's planet killer has been nicknamed Berserker in various Trek publications.

Note: "Berserker" is a registered trademark of Fred Saberhagen (presumably only in the field of science fiction?).