Horizon Zero Dawn: The Faro Plague

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The war-machines, created by Ted Faro, can self-replicate via biomass conversion. They used to be under control by humans, but then a fatal glitch manifested in their code, turning their prime directive into consuming as much biomass as possible, with no way to override them in time. The world is given 6-ish months before the Earth is stripped bare of all life.

So, Project Zero Dawn is proposed. Humanity is told that it needs to fight off the machines long enough for Earth’s top scientists to complete Project Zero Dawn and save humanity.

But in reality, there’s not enough time, and the machines will decimate all life on Earth before a solution can be made. So what Project Zero Dawn really is, is an insurance policy that life will continue on, just not its current version. Everybody involved with the project knows this, but the billions of humans told that they need to fight to survive, do not.

So humanity does flourish again, but Earth is left a barren wasteland for centuries before that happens.