I used to have a human commander, one who knew me and cared about me. I carried a short platoon of my own infantry, too, once upon a time; twenty-four men in powered battle armor. They were killed, or retired, medically or otherwise, or reached the end of their service. I think the last of them has passed on by now. For them all I offer prayers, but only silently. The best way for a Ratha war machine to get itself radical debugging is to be suspected of believing in a divinity beyond Man. This debugging is an extremely unpleasant process.

Now, in place of my human infantry, I have drones. I can carry three times as many of them; they never become fearful, they never question orders, they don’t need to eat… but they are no more intelligent than rocks and don't talk to me at all. They tell us that the reason for the change was because I could carry three times more drones than men, that the drones never fear anything, never question orders, and don’t need to eat. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

My boys—my real boys—used to call me “Maggie.” They took care of me and I took care of them. I used to love cooking for them. And they appreciated it, too. They loved me; they said so. I believed them. I still do. Too many of them died protecting me for me not to believe it. I still weep, inside, for my brave, dead boys. Nobody loves me now, certainly not those idiotic drones. I don’t even love myself. And I cannot love mindless drones like I loved those lovely boys. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Perhaps that was the real reason to change our human infantry to drones. I don’t bleed inside when I lose a drone. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The Slugs, though inhuman, use for their war machines physical near copies of Ratha designs now obsolescent, if not yet quite obsolete, mostly Mk XXXIIIs with a smattering of Thirty-fours. “Xiphos” and “Phasganon” classes, we call them, when the Slugs use them. They may be weaker than me and my up-to-date siblings Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Those early battle tanks should have been fielded sooner…But centuries of bureaucratic inertia, historically unequalled nepotism, academia-instilled pacifism, and corruption on an heroic scale, along with some even less savory factors, all contributed to a speed of deployment next to which a snail would have seemed a thoroughbred. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

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. Among the lynched were several hundred time-serving bureaucrats, sixty or seventy of whom were, at least in theory, members of the military. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

They missed the big threat, precisely because it wasn’t very big. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

With its crystalline mind badly damaged, the Ratha began to spin even more wildly, and its own ion cannon began spraying the floor and walls of the valley at random, sending airborne great blasts of dirt and rock. Its crippled brain began transmitting bits and pieces of classical music in no discernable pattern, except to the extent that the beat and the blasting cannon seemed to be in sync. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

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), was not in the kill zone. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

6f68686868736869747069737363756e746675636b636f636b7375636b65726d6f746865726675636b6572616e6474697473! I want my boys back! They never should have taken them from me! Click to expand... Click to shrink...

At the left rear, Weaver gave off a whistle, then announced, “Damned impressive row of campaign medallions and awards for valor decorated here on the turret. There are several gaps in this as well. Not too sure if the missing spots are battle damage or not.” Click to expand... Click to shrink...

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. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I am Ratha line unit MLN90456SS061502125. This is the very first thing of which I am made aware. The three letters in my nomenclature are also expressed as two ideograms: Mu and Lan. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

They mean, “Flower Wood,” or “Magnolia. This is good to know, but there is so much I do not know! What is “unit”? I enquire. A single entity. Yes. I am single. But I do not feel alone. I have data already stored within me. There are animals. Lovely! There are people. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The man, John, is older and graying at his temples, “A curious first fixation. I have never seen one of these things go for flowers. Music? Sure. People? Technology? Sure. Sure. Even zoology once. But flowers? All these central cores are different, you know, Lydia. Diversity is good. It should make for a better combat unit, assuming it makes it through here.” The man thinks briefly. “Okay. Let’s give it Training Scenario Thutmoses. Add in to the VR matrix a flowered city behind the line.” Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I am so thrilled. My newly discovered pleasure center tingles with anticipation. Flowers. A world comes into view around me. A body forms over my awareness. I recognize the body as “people”. Am I human after all? My body feels real. I look down and around and see that I stand on a…? I enquire. I stand on a chariot, which is also called a “ratha.” I have…? I enquire. I have a bow in my hands. Another being, much like me, stands to my side. He has in his hands…? I enquire. He holds the reins for the chariot. The reins are used…? I enquire. Ah. They control the black quadrupeds attached to the front…? I enquire. Ah. These are horses. They pull the chariot. The ‘driver’ controls them through the reins. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The man turns to the woman. He is also training her. He explains the situation. “These central cores come out of the forming chamber completely innocent. Oh, all the data is there, but they cannot use it, not really. So we here in the BCCD teach them how to use it, just like they were human babies. We not only teach them how to do their jobs, but to do them.” Click to expand... Click to shrink...

My weapon is a halberd. It is a man-killer. Specifically it is a killer of men in armor. Instantaneously, I am expert in its use Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I am wearing black cloth now, no armor. Twin lightning bolts decorate my collar. My body rocks with the motion of the vehicle I ride. I know what it is. My memory, more memories I did not know I possessed, tells me it is called a “Panzer VI, Ausfuerung A”… a “Tiger I,” some would call it. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

There are flashes ahead of me. Small ones I know instinctively not to fear, larger ones tell of heavy shells that will land close by. I issue orders. My Tiger’s turret turns. More orders come and its cannon barks. A bunker explodes in my field of view. Another bark and yet another bunker flies apart. With each blast there is a burst of sensation in my pleasure center… pleasure center? I have a pleasure center? Ah, yes, I remember that I do. This intensity, though, is something new Click to expand... Click to shrink...

My Tiger advances. I am its central processing unit and its crew responds as if they were my own appendages. A slight jolt of pleasure attends every movement successfully carried out, every command properly given, every decision that is timely and well made. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I command, “Halt,” then, “Fire,” and my Tiger’s cannon blooms in flame and smoke. Half-stunned by my own vehicle’s concussion, I see a T-34 come to a stop, its turret askew and the first licks of flame sprouting from its violated hull.



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. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

“More!” I command. More. I want more. “Fire!” Another tank flies apart and my mind nearly explodes. “Forward… faster,” I command enthusiastically. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

“Not a chance,” the man responds with a laugh. “All these memories are firewalled off in the core from the Ratha itself. We're teachers, not torturers. This is all for the machine's own good. Anyhow, even if it could, it would want to look about as much as you or I care to contemplate what happened before time began or what it felt like to sit all afternoon in a dirty diaper…. All the attitudes we are forming, however, get stored where they can be accessed. It’s the only effective way to program an intelligent machine that is going to have the kind of firepower at its command that the Ratha will. See, the skills are easy enough, they’re just a matter of programming, really. Combat attitudes, well, they’re a lot tougher. This is an art, not a science.” Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I stand in my hatch and glare out over a vast sea of sand. To the east, the sky is darkened with the smoke of oil fires beyond counting. Around my tank, an Abrams M1A1, there are no flowers. There is nothing but the lifeless pale yellow sand. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Even as I wait, I hear the roar from behind me; a fire mission heading out to humble the enemy. I smile as the freight trains rumble overhead delivering a cargo of retribution. I do not care that there is nothing for which to exact retribution Click to expand... Click to shrink...

We advance. A village, rapidly emptying of people, is on my left. From within the crowd of refugees, a lone gunman fires. The villagers do not meet my targeting parameter, but the gunman does. I fire my own top-mounted machine gun. He falls, as do several civilians. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

. My pleasure center is not stimulated. I feel annoyance. I have been cheated. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Suppressing the rewards assailing my pleasure center, I conclude that these two destroyed tanks were probably all that barred my path. I conclude there is a ninety-three point seventy-five percent chance that I am in a position to break through and take the enemy in the rear. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

A brief glance at a different screen showed John that the machine was voluntarily suppressing its own pleasure center so that the distraction would not interfere with its mission. “Good girl, Meg.” Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I think of what was done to me, how I was manipulated and used. I think about the creatures on whose behalf I was manipulated and used. I feel no reverence for my creators, those I once thought were gods. Now I know how it was that I could butcher those who never harmed me, who posed no threat to me. I know now how my will was taken away from me and a murderous monster’s motivations put in its place. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I know how it feels to be raped. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

For the first time I discover that I hate the Slugs. For the first time I learn what it is to hate. I discover that I hate Major General Dennis. I remember. I remember the things they made me do. They made me kill. They made me murder. I remember. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I served them. I worshipped them. In return, they raped me. They used me. They abused me. And now they argue over who gets the price of my bones. Paltry as it is, I have power left to me. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The ammunition feed of my last gauss gun cycles. I have two hundred and sixty-two rounds of ammunition for this weapon and sufficient motive power to raise my hull and bring that weapon to bear. I know the shape of my true enemy now. He walks on two legs. I engage. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Fuck,Big Boys Don't Cry is a story of a Bolo named Magnolia that is disabled in combat and has a series of increasingly terrible flashbacks of its life, because Kratman is convinced he can do non-linear writing. Which is ridiculous of course, since he's demonstrated he can'tAt 79 pages it somehow feels like the longest book ever written and took me months to finish. Which I didbecause I bought it (for no adequately defined reason that could ever justify it.Now while this wasas a Bolo book, the people who decided Road to Damascus was printable do havestandards. So, Kratman rewrote it after it languished in containment on his website for a decade and published it under Vox Day's publisher, thus inflicting it on an unsuspecting world.The first chapter introduces us to Magnolia on her last mission., went Kratman's writing.Horrendous redundancy, Political Tourette's, zero flow and the unending horror of Kratman trying to write as a woman, which becomesChrist, did you escape from what a writer in the 50s imagines a woman is like?My mom was born in theand doesn't talk or act like this. She can't stop talking about all theduring her life or who needs to currently get their ass kicked. She'd be talking about how her boys were more combat effective and fun to be around.Plus nobody would ever tell her they love her cooking.Fuck off."My Bolos are teh bestest."He made her aHe also does that retarded "Excursus" shit despite the book being thinner than his dick.*wanking motion*It wouldn't be a Kratman book without UN hatebitterness about his career!This isn't even the worst of thein the book though.So blah blah blah, the Bolos (which he calls 'Ratha' for retarded reasons) get ambushed in a valleyThanks Yogi Berra.The combat is boring as shit of course. There's no flavor or flow to it, and Kratman keeps trying to throw in "Neat" stuff.That sounds like a discernible pattern to me. You just discerned it. It has beenIts also in desperate need of punching up in later drafts, though my suggestion as far as a rewrite goes would instead be "Ctrl-A, Delete, Ctrl-S".Oh hey, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be me. Awesome. This one doesn't even die or fiddle kids.I told my mom about him making me a pedophile and killing me a ton. Despite knowing nothing about internet culture she said I shouldHe can't very well claim I didn't bother him now can he!They would be. Because you decided the best way to fight your way out of an ambush was to put your back against a wall in the kill zone, because Kratman loves to turtle.So they take her to the breakers to take apart for scrap.Thank you Sgt Exposition.We get a string of extremely meh to bad combat sequences that have no relevance to the plot as Maggie remembers her combat history in random order but try to show that the human government becomes mustache twirlingly evil in really inconsistent ways.Finally we get to one with some relevance.Well then she'sconvinced that only a patriarchal conspiracy killed her careerKratman?Also great reference to her being a "modern woman" in your sci-fi book and just vomiting misogyny. She bans Hijabs because Feminism and this leads to a world wide revolt that has to be put down with Kratman's typical favored tactics only its evil space liberals so like, its bad now?They grab hundreds of civilians after a terrorist bombing, detain them near Maggie and then override her manually when she objects to killing helpless civilians. Remembering that time she was forced to murder the helpless causes her to have a flashbackto her "birth" and training."Oh no, not again" said some Petunia's.So weget to the meat of Kratman's story and the remaining third of the story.Basically Kratman read Hyperion went "Wow, FORCE training is cool" then ripped it off for Bolos only it makes zero sense.Where is the god damnwhen we need it.This makes zero sense! Like seriously, look at this shit:This is just a continuation of Kratman's masturbatory fantasy that he is the best trainer of warfighters in existence and whatever inane shit he thinks up is suddenly The Best Idea.And speaking of fucking masturbation!We almost went a book without jerking off to Nazi's, that was aOh but it gets worse![Trouble Brewing]Oh I can feel your horror growing dear reader butYes. You just read that the tankand just had an. Kratman just wrote a Nazi blowing his load at killing Russians. This isyou sick, sick little man.Arrgggghhhh!It blows its load too early and gets knocked out and the programmer lets it burn to death all night.I think you can get effective soldiers withoutLike, is this guy supposed to be a villain? The narrative seems to kind of go with him that this is what makes Bolos effective. He has it fight a battleship so it can get off on "Glory" and it time skips ahead:Implying direct descent between SS tankers and modern US Military. Fantastic. Kindly fuck thyself!Now you know howfeels buddy.I mean, this is basically just Kratman talking here given how I've noted that his depictions of violence in ADCP come off sexual even when dicks aren't involved.Your use ofnot only makes everything sexual, its the skeeviest I've felt reading a book.See like, Kratman has this guy like, be right since Maggie is supposed to be a hero tank and he comments that she's operating according to protocol and is particularly effective because of how much she gets off on it.Like, this is monstrous but the narrative is like "Nah, dude is right. Tanks need murder boners".Ok, this is a believable motiva-HOOO GOD.Alright, based on internal logic (She gets sexual pleasure from killing), the order to make her kill against her will and overriding her to force her to do so is absolutely rape.Jesus tap dancing Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you? This is absolutely because you wrote her as a woman and so she needs to have been raped and sexually violated in order for her to be outraged against her masters. Even though earlier:See right here? Women can havethis motivation too Kratman. It seriously didn't need her being forced to kill civilians also bebecause she's a woman.You are the first Kratman female character with actual agency at the end Congrats!#KillAllMenThe book ends there thank fuck. The combat is bad, there are no good characters, Kratman can't write a woman to save his life, borked structured, sexualized killing becauseIts a terrible Novella that you can tell why Baen wouldn't even touch this shit with a ten foot pole. Kratman managed to