Mechanoid (Empire of the Machines)

The Mechanoids of usually simply referred to as the machines are a mechanised alien race appearing in Borg King's novel Empire Of The Machines. Through the novel the machines launch a massive invasion of Earth in an attempt to destroy its population and consume all resources and technology.

Description
The Mechanoids are a massive race of mechanised beings and a deadly galactic menace that travel the galaxy moving from planet to planet to expand their empire. They travel across space via their mobile and fully metallic homeworld possessing a huge fleet of ships and a population reaching well over a trillion. The machines themselves function and resemble something similar to that of an insect colony. All of the machine castes appear to be almost insect or crustacean in appearance and and connected via a hive mind, meaning the entire race is one giant organism. The machines are ruled and controlled by a powerful entity known as The Controller, also known as The Creator. The Controller is a massive machine that is wired into the very core of the Mechanoids homeworld. From here it controls and processes all instructions to its forces. These emotionless creatures see themselves as the perfect beings and all other organic species as an infestation and therefore serve only one purpose, extermination. Upon discovering a new world to invade the machines launch a massive attack on the population. Any attempt at resisting the machines forces usually results in massacre due to The Mechanoids advanced weapon technology. When the species has suffered a significant drop in its population due to the machine forces attacks they will begin to assimilate any and all resources and technology. Gradually the planet will begin to transform into a machine world with any form of vegetation being replaced with metallic cities. When the planet has been stripped clean of life and resources the machines will then colonise it and move on to the next planet.

Origin
The Mechanoids were created thousands of years ago by an unidentified race to function as workers and warriours. The Controller was created to better control the machine forces however it gained sentience. In doing so it assimilated all knowledge of the galaxy and turned on its creators who ultimately became their first victims. Their creators' homeworld was then transformed into The Mechanoid homeworld and their quest for galactic domination began.

Invasion Of Earth
The Mechanoids eventually encountered Earth and launched an invasion. Humanity first became aware of the threat when a deep space probe was destroyed by the machines on their approach to Earth. The machine planet then positioned itself in orbit of the sun between Earth and Mars and launched orbital attacks to destroy Earth's nuclear defences. Next they launched thousand of their ships to begin the assault. Many major cities were attacked and reduced to rubble which was quickly consumed by the machines harvester ships for resource. Within one day humanities death toll had reached two billion and was continuing to rise. Military forces all over the world desperately attempted to fight back against the invaders but all weaponry proved to be useless against the machines protective shielding. Many countries suffered devastating losses with major cities including London, Washington DC, Miami, Boston and Las Vegas being completely destroyed and Australia suffering a loss of 90 percent of its military force. As a last resort a nuclear strike using one of the last remaining missiles was ordered but even that failed to make any effect on the machine forces. But despite the overwhelming odds The Mechanoids were completely destroyed seemingly by a single human child. How was this done, well you'll have to read the novel to find out!