Humanity, and just about every other intelligent race, had been wiped clean off the face of Gladius, crushed under the heels of the endless metallic tide. Relentless machines had first swept through Planet 1 like wildfire, the spark first starting in the hostile desert expanse of the Wasteland. It only took mere days for hundreds of factories to produce a robotic army in the millions, and just hours after that, the machines struck, first all but wiping neighbouring factions off the map. The factions of the Wasteland fell first, mostly due to them being barely-organised scavengers and survivors. They were utterly crushed without much effort. Not even Mr. House's mighty army of Securitrons or the might of the New California Republic could withstand the endless assault. The whole invasion only took a single day, unprepared for the sudden and lightning-fast strike. 

The Xing and Indian Empires were the next to fall. The Xing fell first, having lackluster technology and resources. The Indian Empire, now seeing that the machines were much more powerful than they thought, began to fortify its cities. It was all for naught, however, as the first strike was not from a million war machines charging in, but an attack from within. The Great Firewall was demolished as a great cyber wrecking ball smashed right through, severely weakening the empires defences and extracting troop movements, not to mention disabling their vehicles and giving out false orders. Only in its weakened state did the machines finally attack. They came forth like a great hurricane, blasting apart futile defences as massive metal titans created earthquakes with every step. As the machines began to close in on the empire's capital, the Mad Dictator Gandhi, in sheer desperation, launched his prized collection of nuclear weapons at his own empire. They were, however quickly knocked out if the sky by advanced anti-nuke systems. Gandhi, his guards, and every one of his concubines were slaughtered that night, along with his associates.

When the machines first landed on New York, the forces of SHIELD and the combined forces of both heroes and villains fought valiantly, but still fell one by one against the advancing horde, they own weapons reverse-engineered and used against them. The raging symbiotes were but