After the world was ended for the sixth time—back when the occasional society-decimating cataclysm was still considered a problem—a team of Army engineers set out to end the end of the world once and for all. After performing several months’ worth of math in several days, and drinking several dozen gallons of military-grade coffee, they concluded the most effective way to stop any future Armageddons was to hunt down and kill the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
To do this, the engineers created twelve Horsemen of their own, each the size of a large Army personnel transport and resembling a Minotaur—assuming the viewer was either an eight-year old with an overactive imagination or eating mushrooms.
The Horsemen were over-armored, loaded with two of every weapon known to mankind, and programmed with a stripped-down, African-warlord version of the standard murder-drone programming. They were put through a rigorous, dedicated training regimen, but kept veering off-program and targeting live kittens instead. A few of the more even-headed engineers considered scrapping the program entirely prior to launch, but they were all mysteriously set on fire.
“I think I can… talk the philosophers out of this,” said Phil. “I don’t know what you’re going to do about… them, though,” he continued, indicating the walking war-crimes.
“I can take ‘em,” said Timmy.
The Horsemen were successful in murdering the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. After a meteor strike ended the world for the seventh time, it became apparent that they had been significantly less successful in actually stopping any apocalypses. This made the Horsemen mad.
“Are you fucking crazy?” asked Catrina.
The Horsemen weren’t actually supposed to be capable of anger, but, due to a misplaced one in the Horsemen’s coding, they were able to work themselves into a rage on the same level as an old-money douchebag with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement forced to wait in a line of perfectly reasonable length.
“Nope,” replied Timmy. “Just awesome.”
The Horsemen went on a rampage and murdered half the world’s population. They were only stopped after Japan built a team of brightly-colored robots shaped like jungle cats. The Japanese robots actually failed to stop the Horsemen the first three times, but then they were reconfigured to connect into one other and given a great, big sword and then the world was saved. Well, eventually it was. The battle actually sank Japan and ended the world for the eighth time. But then, then the world was saved. For, like, a month.