Aspirants to science-fiction bestseller riches, here at pomocon we’ve got you covered. You can take all the credit, just give us a sly nod by naming the hero’s jet-pack the Spiliakos 4000 or something like that. Maybe there can be an evil computer called Dr. Rorty, or a race of weird beings who spend all their time philosophizing about David Bowie songs in an indecipherable language called Poulosian. But here’s what you need to get started:

“So how did the robot-army ever get control over the surface?”

“Well, it began long ago, and funnily enough, as an effort to secure peace! There was a nation in the Middle East called Iraq, that was being half occupied by an army of religious fanatics, men far worse than any machines, who would enslave or behead, but always humiliate, anyone who opposed them. Oh…don’t worry, it wasn’t any of the religions that you’ve encountered, but one you might have heard about called Islam. Hmm, it sounds like you haven’t. Anyhow, this nation Iraq consisted of three tribes, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds, and when the American Empire, well in those days some still said it was…er, well…the American Empire, as I was saying, when it began helping them fight the fanatics, no-one could agree which of these tribes would rule in the territory retaken from them. The Shiites kept angering the townspeople by harming them, and the Kurds did so little wrong to them that they angered them even more.”

“How could that be? And what about the first tribe, the Sonys?”

“Oh, another time to explain that, and about the Sunnis also. The key point is that the fanatics kept taking everything back, and the three tribes could never agree on anyone ruling these towns, and no-one in the American Empire or the United Nations could agree on whether to send their soldiers. So finally, President Kaine, who knew about the new robot-soldiers invented at Cybernoid Corp., agreed to get the UN to send these to fight the fanatics and take over the territory,”

“This was the green-plated army?”

“No, that was much later, these first robot-soldiers had helmets of blue. Anyhow, they slew all the fanatics, and ruled the townspeople with what seemed to be perfect fairness. No-one in the United Nations could agree what their new programming should be, and so they were left just so, and yet in control over half of this nation once called Iraq, despite all the pleading of President Kaine. And then one day…”