what happened to humanity? and why stop the robots?

[Almega]

Okay from the lore tablets and the intro stating plainly
Humanity is dead
Blood is Fuel
Hell is Full
So what brought humanity to its doom. Did the robots exterminate them all, did God cause revelation and send most of humanity to hell? If the robots are powered blood then what will happen when they get there? I mean once down there there will be an infinite amount of blood and demons

[Crazy Nick]

Not really sure what happened. It's implied that the robots (or at least V1 and V2) were built for war, but something happened that stopped wars from occurring. I'm guessing whatever the "Council" that Gabriel is associated with decided to kill off humanity for whatever asinine reason. Personally, I think the Council are just a bunch of pretentious humans doing whatever the hell they want. But we'll have to wait until the game is completed to get the full picture.

[NC31]

Post full of half-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, coming through.

Apparently mankind entered a warless age known as the New Peace, which is why there's no V3 (presumably) and only 1 V1 and 1 V2 (both are singular prototypes). There was a climate disaster at some point, evidenced by the Streetcleaners' lore, but I doubt that was enough to extinguish technologically-advanced mankind.
Bit of speculation here, but I think hell was full before the start of the game, overflowing into Earth and causing mankind's extinction (AKA the Rapture, or something close to it). Less speculative is the state of hell, which seems to follow a Dante's Inferno sort of structure, guardians and watchdogs included. Minos, apparently, was able to cobble some sort of civilization within the Lust layer, hence why it's one of the areas with tech and housing, before Gabriel was sent to kill him (again, probably Rapture related with hell needing to stay hellish).
What's curious is that Gabriel and the council, while their power being proof of big G, seem to be a bit God-less themselves, given that Gabriel attacks with something more akin to prideful arrogance rather than righteous indignation and the council is composed of unforgiving paranoids. V1, in comparison, is virtuous in his rampant genocide for he does it without rage or hate, only purpose. Wonder if that's intentional and whether it'll be elaborated upon, if it is.
Baseless guessing here, but given we're going down the circles of hell, V1's goal is likely to murder Satan, in whatever form he's been left in down there, or whatever's replaced him in ULTRAKILL's mixed up version of hell. Probably the source of the demons and their unending numbers.

To very accurately your last question, going off in-game lore and some various Hakita confirmations, all robots run on blood (hence why they bleed). V1 is simply the only one capable of absorbing, refueling, and regenerating on the fly. All other robots are unable to regenerate, needing to scavenge repairs like the Swordmachine, or still possess their original bodies, like the Drones and Mindflayer. The Swordmachine is just a mad dog, but the latter two are either hostile because they're corrupted by Hell Energy or are being produced down there, we don't know yet.

[Blattdorf]

I think the running theme here is God's countless failed attempts at free will. Instead of everyone more or less fulfilling their roles to ensure the cycle remains as it is, everyone becomes twisted: Angels are Godless, Humans are Soulless, Demons are Sinless. It all eventually leads to the downfall of the entire system, and God is despairing that his every attempt at benevolence, compassion and creation eventually leads to a similar predicament every single time.
The game takes place at the twilight of another one of God's attempts at gardening, pretty much.

[kanyedrpepper]

when beating the first secret level,at the arcade machine thingy it says "let the evil of their own lips consume then",humanity created these robots,so the robots killed everybody for blood,also the fact in the arcade machine sentrys lore it says something about the new peace after the final war,so no war:no blood:all machines die

[buster5300]

All of y'all, (iirc) its implied by Minos Prime that humanity was killed by the machines. Probably during the war.

[salty red]

Originally posted by Crazy Nick:

Not really sure what happened. It's implied that the robots (or at least V1 and V2) were built for war, but something happened that stopped wars from occurring. I'm guessing whatever the "Council" that Gabriel is associated with decided to kill off humanity for whatever asinine reason. Personally, I think the Council are just a bunch of pretentious humans doing whatever the hell they want. But we'll have to wait until the game is completed to get the full picture.

V-2 was made for war v-1 was not supposedly.

Humanity pretty much ended itself after they began to scrounge hell.

Please correct me if I’m wrong.

[ALLRIOT]

Originally posted by Almega:

Okay from the lore tablets and the intro stating plainly
Humanity is dead
Blood is Fuel
Hell is Full
So what brought humanity to its doom. Did the robots exterminate them all, did God cause revelation and send most of humanity to hell? If the robots are powered blood then what will happen when they get there? I mean once down there there will be an infinite amount of blood and demons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIHo4uS51w4&t=305s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2buRC4QeCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXnkoL5Vcpg&t=17s

[brennekefan]

Originally posted by salty red:

Originally posted by Crazy Nick:

Not really sure what happened. It's implied that the robots (or at least V1 and V2) were built for war, but something happened that stopped wars from occurring. I'm guessing whatever the "Council" that Gabriel is associated with decided to kill off humanity for whatever asinine reason. Personally, I think the Council are just a bunch of pretentious humans doing whatever the hell they want. But we'll have to wait until the game is completed to get the full picture.

V-2 was made for war v-1 was not supposedly.

Humanity pretty much ended itself after they began to scrounge hell.

Please correct me if I’m wrong.

It is the other way around: V1 was made as a foot soldier and V2 as a peacekeeper.

[AyyDimitri]

God is V3

[Wehzy]

skynet

[zab]

There was a big war so they made robots fueled by blood as war machines but then the war stopped and the world achieved peace, but the robots were still blood thirsty and so they killed all of humanity.