<P> The story is set in the 31st century, in a world where humans have regressed to primitive tribal societies as a result of some unknown calamity . Their technologically advanced predecessors are vaguely remembered as the "Old Ones ." Large robotic creatures known merely as "machines" now dominate the Earth . For the most part, they peacefully coexist with humans, who occasionally hunt them for parts . However, a phenomenon known as the "Derangement" has caused machines to become more aggressive towards humans, and larger and deadlier machines have begun to appear . There are three tribes that are prominently featured: the Nora, the Carja, and the Oseram . The Nora are fierce hunter - gatherers who live in the mountains and worship nature as the "All - Mother ." The Carja are desert - dwelling city builders who worship the Sun . The Oseram are tinkerers known for their metalworking, brewing, and arguing . </P> <P> Aloy was cast out from the Nora tribe at birth, raised by an outcast named Rost (JB Blanc). As a child, she obtained a Focus, a small augmented reality device that gives her special perceptive abilities . After coming of age, Aloy (Ashly Burch) enters a competition called the Proving to win the right to become a Nora Brave, and by extension, a member of the Nora tribe . Aloy wins the competition, but the Nora are suddenly attacked by cultists . Aloy is almost killed by their leader Helis (Crispin Freeman), but is saved by Rost, who sacrifices himself to save Aloy from a bomb . When Aloy awakes, a Matriarch explains that the cultists had gained control of corrupted machines . Aloy also learns that as an infant, she was found at the foot of a sealed door . An Oseram foreigner called Olin (Chook Sibtain) informs Aloy that the cultists are part of a group calling themselves the Eclipse . Olin indicates that the reason Aloy was targeted by the Eclipse was due to her resemblance to an Old World scientist named Dr. Elisabet Sobeck (also voiced by Burch). </P> <P> Aloy locates the remnants of the company Faro Automated Solutions and discovers that the old world was destroyed nearly 1000 years ago after Faro lost control of its automated "peacekeeper" military robots . The robots, which could self - replicate and consumed biomass as fuel, overran the planet and consumed the biosphere, stripping Earth of all life . Project Zero Dawn, a top secret project spearheaded by Dr. Sobeck, was a plan to create an automated terraforming system to eventually shut the robots down and restore life to Earth . Aloy is then contacted by Sylens (Lance Reddick), a secretive figure interested in uncovering what happened to the "Old Ones". Aloy eventually learns that Dr. Sobeck was sent to an Orbital Launch Base to complete Zero Dawn and Sylens reveals that the base is located under the Citadel, the centre of Eclipse power . Aloy heads for the base and inside, she learns that Zero Dawn was a vast underground system of databases, factories, and cloning facilities all controlled by a single artificial intelligence named GAIA (Lesley Ewen). Once all life had been extinguished, GAIA developed a countermeasure to deactivate all of the Faro robots and then build its own robots to restore the Earth's biosphere . Once the planet was habitable again, GAIA reseeded life on Earth based on stored DNA and taught the first human clones not to repeat their predecessors' past mistakes . It is also revealed that HADES was one of GAIA's subsystems designed to enact controlled extinction if the outcome of Zero Dawn was not favourable for human existence . Aloy reaches Dr. Sobeck's office, where she downloads a registry to give her access to the door from which she was born . She is captured by Helis and sentenced to death at the Citadel, but escapes with the help of Sylens . </P> <P> Aloy helps the Nora tribe fight off the Eclipse and then enters the door beneath the Nora mountain . She finds a recording left behind by GAIA, revealing that a signal of unknown origin caused HADES to activate and seize control of her functions . As a last resort, GAIA self - destructed in order to stop HADES . Without GAIA to maintain the terraforming process, the entire system began to break down . As a contingency plan, GAIA created a clone of Dr. Sobeck in the form of Aloy, in the hope that she would find GAIA's message, destroy HADES, and restore GAIA's functions . Aloy learns that Dr. Sobeck sacrificed her life to ensure the Faro robot swarm would not find GAIA . Aloy manages to obtain the System Override necessary to destroy HADES . Sylens admits that he was the original founder of the Eclipse, originally tempted by HADES' promises of knowledge . With Sylens's help, Aloy surmises that HADES wants to send a signal to reactivate the Faro robots so that they can once again extinguish all life on Earth . Aloy kills Helis and helps fight off waves of corrupted machines, before stabbing HADES with Sylens' lance, ending the war . Aloy then journeys to Dr. Sobeck's old home, where she finds her corpse, and has a moment of mourning for her predecessor . In a post-credits scene, HADES is shown to still be alive, but trapped by Sylens, who intends to interrogate HADES to find out who sent the signal that activated it in the first place . </P>

Who made the machines in horizon zero dawn