To be pedantic, Saberhagen's Berserkers are leftover Von Neumann war machines left over from a conflict which ended millenia, if not epochs, ago, when their creators and their creators' enemies were both rendered extinct. After which, the Berserkers decided that their mandate to annihilate their creators' enemies extended to the elimination of all organic life, everywhere.(It's hinted that the Berserkers might have turned on their creators as well -- it's been suggested that Keith Laumer began writing the Bolos as a thematic counter to the Berserkers).
The Berserkers are antagonists who would make good minibosses in a Doc Smith novel -- these things throw planets around, and use Dinosaur Killers casually (when they're not nova-ing entire star systems).
The Berserker series has a certain "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" element, in that the various organic races of the Milky Way galaxy were getting seriously beaten until Homo Sapiens joined the conflict, and began giving the Berserkers their first defeats in a very long time.
The Berserker's aren't as smart as Bolos, but they're not dumb -- they've created new versions of themselves in various shapes and sizes, including Terminator-esque infiltration models, and they've learned how to enslave "goodlife," their term for any organic being that serves the Berserkers (brainwashing, conditioning, even some cases of people born into servitude to prisoners/goodlife).
The Berserkers are antagonists who would make good minibosses in a Doc Smith novel -- these things throw planets around, and use Dinosaur Killers casually (when they're not nova-ing entire star systems).
The Berserker series has a certain "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" element, in that the various organic races of the Milky Way galaxy were getting seriously beaten until Homo Sapiens joined the conflict, and began giving the Berserkers their first defeats in a very long time.
The Berserker's aren't as smart as Bolos, but they're not dumb -- they've created new versions of themselves in various shapes and sizes, including Terminator-esque infiltration models, and they've learned how to enslave "goodlife," their term for any organic being that serves the Berserkers (brainwashing, conditioning, even some cases of people born into servitude to prisoners/goodlife).