"Big Boys Don't Cry" by Tom Kratman
TL;DR When roleplaying a Nazi, Maggie the tank gets addicted to orgasms and now wants to kill all humans.
This story first appeared on the internet about fourteen years ago as Bolo fanfic. Much like E.L. James, Kratman decided that what was missing from those stories was creepy nonconsensual BDSM. Yes, this story is basically 50 Shades of Grey for the Bolo-verse.
Like several other stories from the pathetic puppies, this story was expanded/rewritten prior to being published by Beale's Castalia House. As usual, this did not improve the product. It did file off the Bolo serial numbers -I'm sure Laumer's estate is grateful.
Maggie is a sentient tank who has been sufficiently damaged that she's now being cut up as scrap parts. Because her memory has been damaged she is able to access an area that was previously locked to her. The story largely alternates between Maggie reminiscing about terrible things she has done at the behest of cartoonish evil government types, her final moments as they start to take her apart, and long, boring lectures about tanks. About two-thirds of the way through Maggie starts remembering how she was conditioned to become a killing machine (spoiler: It involves orgasms.)
So the lectures are just like reading Tank Wikipedia, if there were such a thing:
“This increased weight even as it reduced both mobility and armor protection. A second was that it was nearly impossible for a tank commander to control more than his main turret and driver. A third, but less well understood problem was that mounting a secondary turret was inconsistent with mounting the best protected turret, just as mounting a second cannon in that turret made it impossible to mount the most powerful possible main armament.
For some reason I could not fathom, these lectures are largely supposed to be published by the University of Woolloomooloo Press, a fictional university from a Monty Python sketch.
Anyway, this is a crapsack world so pretty much everyone is awful. There are corrupt members of the military who evacuate valuable minerals and leave poor civilians to die. Then they steal planets because they have valuable resources the government wants. And while it's all handled without the least bit of subtlety, I don't disagree that these things are terrible. The problem is that the real world is usually less black and white than what is portrayed here.
Kratman does have some other talking points he works in. Here's a message from Kratman about gays in the military tanks without a gender:
“The last remaining vehicle, however, named THN but, because of certain peculiarities in its crystalline brain, (to wit, being unable to decide whether it was male or female, hence never given a nickname, and never fully integrated into the unit), ...
Yep, they just don't fit in. And do you know who Kratman thinks is useless, the UN:
“It probably didn’t hurt matters when, one Friday afternoon, following the fall of Beauharnais and the presumed deaths of almost half a billion human beings, a Washyorkston mob stormed the offices of the United Planets Organization, trampled the security guards into bloody jam and dragged to the lampposts some one hundred and twenty-seven members of the Assembly of Man. There would have been more had most of the members not signed out earlier that morning on a long paid weekend.
But the worst are those feminists:
Magda Dunkelmeier, the new governor, was a modern woman, certainly modern in her attitudes. She was certain-absolutely convinced-that only some sort of men’s conspiracy had removed her from the center of moving and shaking. Either a conspiracy, or perhaps the machinations of the little bimbo of a CD-Seven who had not only caught the eye of the Secretary, but coveted Dunkelmeier’s previous job.
[...]
First, she concluded, there would have to be cultural reform, forced down the people throats if necessary. Then industrialization, afterwards proper democracy. After that was accomplished, recognition and a victorious return from exile were sure to follow.
But first things first.
“Worship as you please,” said the governor to a collection of clan elders. All men, she noted, with significance. “But this seclusion of women, their covering their faces in shame… this must stop.”
Hey guys, I had no idea it was THE FEMINISTS who caused the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (And also the side with sex-based oppression is the sympathetic side.) Yes, the feminists and their liberal allies made poor Maggie murder innocents.
And how did this all happen? Well during Maggie's basic training she is put into simulations where she is tortured when she questions commands or fails to meet objectives. And when she kills people, she gets pleasure. Sexual pleasure. Here she is roleplaying a Nazi officer:
My pleasure center tingles very strongly. I shiver in the command hatch. Again our gun belches and the pleasure I feel at seeing another hit grows accordingly. With our first five shots, three of the enemy vehicles are destroyed. The pleasure is overpowering, indescribable. I search my data banks for a word for what I am feeling. It is “orgasm.”
I want more. I never want it to stop. I order my driver, “Forward.” The Tiger lurches then rolls. Our turret, turns left and right and left again as the straining gunner sobs with the effort. Enemy infantry caught while riding a tank are hurled high into oblivion. I laugh as their arms fly wide in the wind. “More!” I command. More. I want more. “Fire!”
Yes, that's right. The reason Maggie fights is because she's an orgasm junkie. But now that she knows what they have done to her, she decides it's time to kill all humans.
Stories about disaffected soldiers betrayed by their government are not a new thing, and Kratman doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The villains of the piece are universally extreme parodies. The methods of Maggie's conditioning are unconvincing and having her roleplay an SS officer is basically the story Godwining itself. How can I take it the least bit seriously after that?
This story first appeared on the internet about fourteen years ago as Bolo fanfic. Much like E.L. James, Kratman decided that what was missing from those stories was creepy nonconsensual BDSM. Yes, this story is basically 50 Shades of Grey for the Bolo-verse.
Like several other stories from the pathetic puppies, this story was expanded/rewritten prior to being published by Beale's Castalia House. As usual, this did not improve the product. It did file off the Bolo serial numbers -I'm sure Laumer's estate is grateful.
Maggie is a sentient tank who has been sufficiently damaged that she's now being cut up as scrap parts. Because her memory has been damaged she is able to access an area that was previously locked to her. The story largely alternates between Maggie reminiscing about terrible things she has done at the behest of cartoonish evil government types, her final moments as they start to take her apart, and long, boring lectures about tanks. About two-thirds of the way through Maggie starts remembering how she was conditioned to become a killing machine (spoiler: It involves orgasms.)
So the lectures are just like reading Tank Wikipedia, if there were such a thing:
“This increased weight even as it reduced both mobility and armor protection. A second was that it was nearly impossible for a tank commander to control more than his main turret and driver. A third, but less well understood problem was that mounting a secondary turret was inconsistent with mounting the best protected turret, just as mounting a second cannon in that turret made it impossible to mount the most powerful possible main armament.
For some reason I could not fathom, these lectures are largely supposed to be published by the University of Woolloomooloo Press, a fictional university from a Monty Python sketch.
Anyway, this is a crapsack world so pretty much everyone is awful. There are corrupt members of the military who evacuate valuable minerals and leave poor civilians to die. Then they steal planets because they have valuable resources the government wants. And while it's all handled without the least bit of subtlety, I don't disagree that these things are terrible. The problem is that the real world is usually less black and white than what is portrayed here.
Kratman does have some other talking points he works in. Here's a message from Kratman about gays in the military tanks without a gender:
“The last remaining vehicle, however, named THN but, because of certain peculiarities in its crystalline brain, (to wit, being unable to decide whether it was male or female, hence never given a nickname, and never fully integrated into the unit), ...
Yep, they just don't fit in. And do you know who Kratman thinks is useless, the UN:
“It probably didn’t hurt matters when, one Friday afternoon, following the fall of Beauharnais and the presumed deaths of almost half a billion human beings, a Washyorkston mob stormed the offices of the United Planets Organization, trampled the security guards into bloody jam and dragged to the lampposts some one hundred and twenty-seven members of the Assembly of Man. There would have been more had most of the members not signed out earlier that morning on a long paid weekend.
But the worst are those feminists:
Magda Dunkelmeier, the new governor, was a modern woman, certainly modern in her attitudes. She was certain-absolutely convinced-that only some sort of men’s conspiracy had removed her from the center of moving and shaking. Either a conspiracy, or perhaps the machinations of the little bimbo of a CD-Seven who had not only caught the eye of the Secretary, but coveted Dunkelmeier’s previous job.
[...]
First, she concluded, there would have to be cultural reform, forced down the people throats if necessary. Then industrialization, afterwards proper democracy. After that was accomplished, recognition and a victorious return from exile were sure to follow.
But first things first.
“Worship as you please,” said the governor to a collection of clan elders. All men, she noted, with significance. “But this seclusion of women, their covering their faces in shame… this must stop.”
Hey guys, I had no idea it was THE FEMINISTS who caused the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (And also the side with sex-based oppression is the sympathetic side.) Yes, the feminists and their liberal allies made poor Maggie murder innocents.
And how did this all happen? Well during Maggie's basic training she is put into simulations where she is tortured when she questions commands or fails to meet objectives. And when she kills people, she gets pleasure. Sexual pleasure. Here she is roleplaying a Nazi officer:
My pleasure center tingles very strongly. I shiver in the command hatch. Again our gun belches and the pleasure I feel at seeing another hit grows accordingly. With our first five shots, three of the enemy vehicles are destroyed. The pleasure is overpowering, indescribable. I search my data banks for a word for what I am feeling. It is “orgasm.”
I want more. I never want it to stop. I order my driver, “Forward.” The Tiger lurches then rolls. Our turret, turns left and right and left again as the straining gunner sobs with the effort. Enemy infantry caught while riding a tank are hurled high into oblivion. I laugh as their arms fly wide in the wind. “More!” I command. More. I want more. “Fire!”
Yes, that's right. The reason Maggie fights is because she's an orgasm junkie. But now that she knows what they have done to her, she decides it's time to kill all humans.
Stories about disaffected soldiers betrayed by their government are not a new thing, and Kratman doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The villains of the piece are universally extreme parodies. The methods of Maggie's conditioning are unconvincing and having her roleplay an SS officer is basically the story Godwining itself. How can I take it the least bit seriously after that?