During the mission The Last Stand you go to an inn by the sea in the Marshlands, I believe. This is where one of the tanks with the linear accelerators appears. On examining the dead bots there I noticed they look humanoid, at least how they are propped up against walls or containers
Anyone else noticed this? I totally forgot for a while but wanted to discuss this for some time now.
Could you remind me where this is?
On the coast west of Norrmyra base, a lot of green shipping containers, iirc.
Main plot spoiler (why the machines are what they are, Holberg , and FNIX) and why I think those robots look like that:
Holberg was behind the Stridsmaskin program, remote controlled combat machines (the autonom enheter). Von Ulmer’s team were responsible for providing the brain-machine link to make it all possible. Officially, should Sweden fall to chemical or biological weapons, soldiers in bunkers would operate the machines in safety to save Sweden. Only that’s not quite what’s going on.
The military was developing something called IASG-90, the gas you encounter in bunkers and as an attack from certain machines such as the military harvesters. Dr. Sköld, doctor and surgeon for Saltholmen naval base described it as “toxic, albeit not lethal and seems to quickly induce a deep comatose state that we haven’t been able to reverse at this stage. [Victims’] vitals are strong, their brain activity is unaffected, but evidently, any exposure to this substance is extremely dangerous.”
I’m sure you read the “Om Kriget Kommer” Civil Defence pamphlet back in Yttervik. Who didn’t? When the siren started, the local people went to the bunkers as instructed, and then for some reason got moved out to another. That reason was to expose them to IASG-90 gas, and connect them to the remote robot controls. Their brain function is being used and directed to control the whole robot invasion. The people trapped there are comatose, and likely unaware of what they’re really doing, but their natural reactions and subconscious motor control allows Holberg and FNIX to use them as component computer chips for their robot armies. Remember the CCTV screens in FOA 35? The lack of bodies in town?
Don’t forget the tales we heard of people being taken by harvesters shortly before The Cataclysm. Both FNIX and Holberg have their own armies and their own goals. Holberg could harvest the military to get his plan going, to use civilians to expand his army. I suspect FNIX is doing similar.
These aren’t the only robots to fall in poses like these. I think it’s caused by the fact their movement is inherently human in origin and as they ‘die’ confused they take a natural pose. Every time you destroy a robot, you’re giving a trapped victim another painful and traumatic death experience.
Thank you for this detailed analysis! Yes, these are the ones. There is also one in front of the building leaning against a truck (?).
Of course I did! Very likely at least, probably. I guess. 
I am not sure I get the connection to the background you illustrated to a 100%, though. At first these bot bodies looked like runners to me, from colors and components. On second l found their poses look human and they seemed to be a different type. Or are they actually runners?
In any case this is the only location all over the map(s) where I found robot bodies taking a humanoid pose. Or I didn’t look closely enough.
Are you saying these are Holberg’s runners where other runners are pure machine and fall like doggos?
EDIT: By humanoid pose maybe I only mean that they seem to lie on their backs.
I don’t think they’re meant to be humanoid, just severely damaged Runner chassis.
Regarding the “Om Kriget Kommer” pamphlet, it’s funny you mention it. They still exist, I recieved one last summer 
The connection was that the runners are still people. As this was the soldiers Last Stand, perhaps it went to melee?
Some runners you meet were probably backed by animals (the FOA35 shipments memo from Science of Deduction hints at this). I know the regular ones you meet generally explode, but the victims have had longer plugged in. No doubt there are more real technical reasons. Perhaps the direction of the game changed a little while building and that mission has assets from when the robots were to be more humanoid?
Edit: Each one in my montage is on its back. Curiouser and curiouser…
The one exemplar on the bottom left of Flick’s montage, or the one I mentioned in front of the house, is leaning against something with its back. In this game this is a curiosity.
That part I get, and the distinction between human-backed and animal-backed bots makes sense.
It is just… when I first encountered this location, the special tank with the linear accelerator and these odd bodies made me look for the hidden entrance to a very special secret science lab explaining these even stranger findings.
Agreed. A lot of weird stuff going on at Norrmyra…
Continuing the discussion from Humanoid robots? spoiler:
I love the story ideas! But sadly it looks like from the pictures above, that the dead runners were pasted into the human body pose. The human bodies we find in the map are in the same pose as those robots… Not saying the ideas are wrong (they make sense to me), it was just something I noticed.
I think the point of this is that they could have been put there by something, why else would there be runners in a humanoid pose? The robots surely would not have done that, there are plenty of other places where the are dead robots (part of the terrain) and there are robots that have been stationed there.
More like someone.
There is a cult in game who worships machines as gods. It could’ve been them.
