“What a Bolo is capable of doing that a human is not is evaluating that decision. An experienced commander and his Bolo are constantly engaged in a joint examination and evaluation of the tactical environment. The commander’s function is to provide general direction, to isolate the objective and to adjust and prioritize that objective. It is the Bolo’s function, within the framework of that general direction, to formulate and execute tactics to accomplish their purpose. And it is that partnership which accounts for the combat enhancement to which I referred a moment ago.”
“I believe you’re telling me the truth, Benjy, but that still seems difficult to believe.”
“Perhaps because you, like many humans, are better able to recognize and comprehend the capabilities of a Bolo than you are to recognize and accept your own gifts,” Benjy said almost gently. “Nonetheless, it is true, and the correlation between human command and enhanced combat performance can be clearly tracked over the history of the Brigade. Admittedly, the enhancement was most pronounced in the earlier days of the Brigade. Through the emergence of the Mark XXV, it was very noticeable, which is not surprising in light of the limitations and constraints imposed upon Bolo self-awareness and autonomy up to that time. From the date of the deletion of the inhibitory software of the Mark XXV two Standard Centuries ago, the degree of enhancement has declined, of course. That, in fact, was one reason the Brigade acceded to the pressure in favor of the independent deployment of unmanned Mark XXV Bolos for some years.
“That, however, was as much a civil government-inspired economy measure, adopted in light of the considerable expense of training Bolo commanders, as a tactical innovation, and it was never fully accepted within the Brigade, for several reasons. One of them, as subsequent analysis clearly confirmed, was that even a fully autonomous Bolo was less capable in combat when not paired with a human commander, which is why the practice was discontinued with the Mark XXVI. That same capability advantage remains statistically differentiable even today, although the capabilities of increasingly advanced psychotronic circuitry and software have improved to a point at which the speed with which Bolos process information, even linearly, has very largely overtaken the human ability to process it intuitively.
“However, with the introduction of direct Bolo-human neural interfacing in the Mark XXXII, the enhancement level has gone up once more, and very sharply. While I obviously have no personal experience of the capability, it would appear from my analysis of the battle reports which have been disseminated that the direct linkage between an organic human brain and a Bolo’s psychotronics allows the human’s intuitive processes to function at very nearly Bolo data-processing levels and speed. It is, in fact, that advantage over the capabilities of my own psychotronics which truly relegates Bolos of my generation to obsolescence.”
Maneka felt a sudden irrational flush of irritation whose strength surprised her. She didn’t care about what newer models of Bolo might be capable of! She was Benjy’s commander, and hearing him calmly state that anything rendered him “obsolescent” infuriated her.
Obsolescence, she thought. What a filthy concept!
She knew her reaction was irrational. That it partook of the Operator Identification Syndrome the Academy instructors had so earnestly warned their students against. Yet there’d always been a stubborn part of her which remained emotionally convinced that “obsolescent” was a label invented by humans to justify discarding intelligent machines-people-who deserved far better from the humanity they had served so well.
“In addition to its overt effect on combat effectiveness, however,” Benjy continued, apparently oblivious to her sudden emotional spike, “I believe there is another, uniquely human reason for the practice of pairing human commanders and Bolos and committing them to combat together. Put most simply, it is a sense of obligation.”
“Obligation?”
“Indeed. Maneka, do not make the mistake of assuming that your own emotional reaction, your own sense of bonding with the Bolos with whom you serve, is unique to you. It has, throughout the history of the Brigade, been a major concern, not least because of the fashion in which it has so often caused Bolo commanders to hesitate to commit their Bolos against overwhelming Enemy firepower. Ultimately, Bolos are expendable, yet it is often easier for a Bolo’s commander to consider himself expendable than it is for him to consider his Bolo in the same fashion. This is the reason your Academy instructors warned you about the dangers of OIS.
“Yet even while they warned you, the entire Dinochrome Brigade suffers from an institutional form of OIS. The traditions of the Brigade, of mutual obligation and of duty, require its human personnel to risk injury and death beside the Bolos they commit to battle. It is a self-imposed, never fully stated, and yet utterly inflexible requirement which probably has seen no equal since the ancient Spartan mother’s injunction to her son that he come home carrying his shield in victory… or carried dead upon it.
“It is, in fact, a very human attitude, and the fact that it is irrational makes it no less powerful. Nor, I must confess, is it one-sided. In the Bolo, humanity has created a fully self-aware battle companion, and I suspect humans do not truly realize even now how fully they have succeeded in doing so. Bolos, too, have emotions, Maneka. Some were deliberately introduced into our core programming. Duty, loyalty, courage if you will. The qualities and emotions required of a warrior. But there is also affection, and that, I think, was not deliberately engineered into us. We fully recognize that we were created to fight and, when necessary, die for our creators. It is the reason we exist. But we also recognize that if we are asked to fight, and when we are asked to die, our creators fight and die with us. It is a compact which I doubt most humans have ever intellectually examined, and perhaps that is your true strength as a species. It was not necessary for you to consciously grasp it in order to forge it in the first place, because it is so much a part of you, and yet you have given that strength to us, as well as to yourselves.”
The baritone voice paused, and Maneka stared at the glassy eye of the main visual pickup. No one at the Academy had ever suggested the existence of such a “compact” to her. And yet, now that Benjy had bared it to her, she realized that it underlay almost everything she had been taught. It was the unstated subtext which completed the explanation of the fierce bonds of loyalty between the Brigade’s legendary commanders and the Bolos with whom they had fought and died.
“I… never thought of it that way,” she said slowly.
“Indeed not,” Benjy said gently. “There was no need for you to do so. I wonder, sometimes, if you humans truly realize what a remarkable species you are.”