The Berzerker drones are a highly sophisticated, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous
and belligerent robotic weapons system first encountered by the Destiny expedition upon
making their way into the second galaxy, after this ship's sensors picked up a remote energy
signature. Naturally, Dr. Rush was eager to investigate the mysterious signal.
"This energy signature," Rush explained to the colonel, "is coming from an area outside
of the course mapped out for us by the Seed ships [...] about a day's journey in FTL."
Eventually he convinced Young. Dr. Park speculated it might be a potential
new power source, or even signs of intelligent life.
But Brody objected to the detour, saying, "Whatever happened to, "Destiny has a mission,"
quoting back to him Rush's own words. Rush responded, "We haven't abandoned the
mission, Mr. Brody, merely delaying it." Dr. Volker voiced support for Park's optimism--that
the energy signature could be indicative of intelligent life, but only because he's secretly
in love with her and simply wanted to agree with her. This was made manifest when Rush
also agreed that intelligent life would be a best case scenario, because Volker immediately
contradicted him. "Do I have to remind everyone," Volker urged,
"what happened the last time we encountered an alien life form? Or the time before that?
Or, the time before that?" Nevertheless, it was decided that the potential reward outweighs
any potential risk. "Look," Rush said, "it's possible that whatever's
out there could be of great benefit to both, ourselves and Destiny's mission." It was settled
and a course plotted. When they dropped out of FTL they saw only
wreckage floating about the vacuum. Once a battlefield, now a cold and dark graveyard.
The energy signature that Destiny picked up turned out to be clustered radiation pockets
from the various destroyed ships. They noticed that one of the damaged vessels appeared similar
in type to the one Rush and the colonel explored a couple weeks back, and that by the looks
of things they were the losers in this great battle. It was at this point when they had
Destiny's computer run a program to extrapolate backwards the sequence of events based on
dispersion patterns. While Destiny's computer continued assembling
the simulation, others suggested a bit of cautious exploration. Lt. Scott, Sgt. Greer,
and Brody suited up and boarded the shuttle, taking off towards to wreckage. It was at
this moment when, as the shuttle passed between the debris, the first drone had awoken from
its dormant state. Not long thereafter, as the shuttle crew were
investigating faint EM readings coming from the damaged ship, Destiny's computer signaled
that it finished assembling the simulation. Eli realized there were two sides to this
battle. One side was completely destroyed, but the other just went dark--not disabled
or damaged, just dormant. Realizing they may be in danger, the away team was recalled immediately
and ordered to return to Destiny. "Ready weapons," ordered Young, "and fire
on my command." Thinking there might be someone controlling the drones, Young tells Eli to
broadcast a message in all known languages, to tell them they're not a threat. Naturally,
the machines didn't respond. With their FTL engines offline, all seemed
lost. But then, emerging out of FTL, the Seed ship with Col. Telford aboard appeared suddenly,
jumping into the theatre imploring Destiny to follow them--into a nearby star. Any drones
trailing behind would be vapourized by its coronosphere, at millions of degrees. As Destiny
and the Seed ship are both powered by the stars, being similar, equipped with advanced
shields designed specifically to withstand the great temperatures and pressures found
inside a star, it was a brilliant idea for an escape.
In appearance, the Berzerker drones resemble small shuttles, each varying among the models
both in size and in shape--ranging from about the size a shopping cart, to about the size
of large truck. What's fascinating is that they appear to operate with a kind of hive
mind, with each drone under the instruction of a larger Command and Control vessel (or
Control ship), the heart of the operation, deploying the differing models as needed,
as the theatre of war shifts and changes. It is this which renders the technology so
extremely versatile and effective as a weapons platform.
Control ships are massive FTL-capable vessels, heavily armoured and outfitted with hundreds
of Berzerker drones, which detach en masse from cleverly designed slots fitted about
the hull exterior. They, surprisingly, possess no offensive capabilities, nor any weapons
inherent to its design. Control ships rely solely on their army of drones as its first
line of defence, choosing instead to maintain a distance far from the fray, while using
space itself as its second line of defence, as a safety buffer.
This also means that, however, if a persistent enemy were to somehow breach its line of drones,
the Control ship would be left naked and defenceless, fully exposed to a direct and decisive assault.
Moreover, because the Control ships communicate with the drones via a subspace link, and without
any instruction via that link (whether by interfering with it, or by destroying the
Control ship altogether), the drones cannot function and are thereby rendered into a harmless
state. So dangerous even apocalyptic is this technology,
one cannot help but wonder who would build these abominations, or what exactly motivated
them to invent something like the Berzerker drone. Was it designed to defeat some terrifying
enemy? Perhaps it was meant to be a fully autonomous defence system, but then the system
went rogue like some alien version of Skynet? The drones appear to be programed with only
a single purpose—to seek out and destroy any technology alien to its own. One can only
speculate as to the impetus for its construction, or the fate of the alien race responsible
its invention. Nothing at all is known about the aliens who
built this weapons system. From the perspective of those aboard Destiny, these aliens appear
to have vanished without a trace from the galaxy-- or at least from the local region
of space. All that is known about the drones prior to the time of Destiny's first encounter
is that the Ursini, some time ago, had the misfortune of awakening this scourge, in circumstances
also very similar to Destiny, and that they had been at war with the machines for some
time. Having already been responsible for, at minimum,
the extinction and genocide of the entire Ursini race, it should be noted that these
aliens may very well have been destroyed by their own creation. That does align with all
previously observed behaviour, in that the drones have not once wavered in their pursuit
to seek out and destroy all technology foreign to its own, perhaps even all technology not
identical to its own. It would explain their whereabouts, the status of their phantom creators.
Unfortunately, we will probably never know for sure.