The Defenders (short story)
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The Defenders is a 1953 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick.
The story deals with the Cold War era (Dick being a contemporary of the Cold war). It depicts an alternate universe as viewed today, (but this was a visionnary view at that time because the short story was written in 1953) where the nuclear war had burst years ago and the American people are living in subterranean cities under earth surface to avoid radiations due to Nuclear mayhem on surface. The Americans keep the world-destroying war going on on the irradiated surface from the underground, by using Soldier-like robots (which are autonomous). One day, they decide to return on the surface...
In the end of the short story, we find out that contrary to what Americans thought, the war has ended for long now and the robots have been maintaining a peace with the Soviets on Earth for a long time. The subterranean dwellers were not informed because they were believed by the machines to be too immature and belligerent to understand the futility of war.
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