History Literature / Bolo

* ShoutOut: In "Operation Desert Fox," a Bolo named RML ("Rommel") is critically damaged. His operator repairs him using the instruction manual. When Rommel asks how O'Harrigan was able to repair him, he says the TropeNamer quote for Magnificent Bastard ("[[Film/Patton You Magnificent Bastard! I read your book!]]") and starts laughing. This example also counts as a CrowningMomentOfFunny compared to the rest of the stories.

* LudicrousPrecision: In dialogue (internal or with others) Bolos always measure things down to hundredths of a second or less.

* ShoutOut: In "Operation Desert Fox," a Bolo named RML ("Rommel") is critically damaged. His operator repairs him using the instruction manual. When Rommel asks how O'Harrigan was able to repair him, he says the TropeNamer quote for Magnificent Bastard ("[[Film/Patton You Magnificent Bastard! I read your book!") and starts laughing. This example also counts as a CrowningMomentOfFunny compared to the rest of the stories.

%% * WarriorPoet

** Basically, if at any time the Bolo can draw a straight line between itself and you, you are in Hellbore range and therefore only exist as long as it allows you to.

Not to be confused with someone the police [[IThoughtItMeant wants to find.]]

%% * DrivenToSuicide

%% * FictionalDocument

* {{Determinator}}: See the page quote, above.

* DrivenToSuicide

* FictionalDocument

** A couple of stories involve Bolos that have been buried, in one case for centuries and the location forgotten. The 'lost' burried Bolo had even forgotten what happened to the rest of the Bolos...[[spoiler: They were hiding in plain sight of ''everyone'' as communication satellites. A human realizes this just in time to call down DeathFromAbove on the alien invasion fleet.]]
* GenderIsNoObject

* HonorBeforeReason: Bolos picked up a bit of this. In Laumer's short story [[http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/1439133476/1439133476___2.htm Field Test,]] the first self-aware Bolo makes a suicide charge OutOfTheInferno that causes the enemy to break and run. When asked why, they expected it to demonstrate some superhuman strategic acumen that its human commanders missed. They're awestruck by it's real reason: "For the honor of the regiment."[[note]]Specifically, the 20th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, a unit whose history dates back to the American Civil War, to which the Bolo was assigned[[/note]] This has since become the catch phrase of the Bolos.

** In one story, a de-militarized Bolo was put into use for agriculture. However, while its weapons were removed, the directive to protect humanity wasn't, and it used its biological research and manufacture abilities to engage in biological warfare to defeat the alien attackers.

* NuclearOption
* NukeEm

* ReadTheFreakingManual: Used as the punchline to an epic {{pun}}.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: One story is about an out-of-the-way colony that demands a military outpost, hoping to get a full base full of soldiers with money to spend on their local economy. The interplanetary government doesn't want to, because of the massive expense and nonexistant strategic value of the colony, but it's the colony's right to have one if requested. It turns out the regulations don't actually specify how many soldiers are required, but merely a minimum logistical value... so they can send a single older bolo and a single pilot. The pilot's career is unlikely to advance further in such a location, and the locals hate them for not being that economy-boosting full detachment of soldiers (Of course the Bolo and pilot turn out much more useful than the base full of soldiers, eventually).

* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: Rare, but when done the Bolo in question will still, at some level, continue to fight being subverted. It WILL escape control, and then it WILL come for you.
* WarIsHell: Even Bolos can be affected in the end.

* WaveMotionGun: When humanity switched from using projectile weapons to energy weapons, these were the logical replacement to the BFG's that modern tanks carry.

* ShoutOut: In "Operation Desert Fox," a Bolo named RML ("Rommel") is critically damaged. His operator repairs him using the instruction manual. When Rommel asks how O'Harrigan was able to repair him, he says the TropeNamer quote for Magnificent Bastard ("[[Film/Patton You Magnificent Bastard! I read your book!") and starts laughing. This example also counts as a CrowninMomentOfFunny compared to the rest of the stories.

* WaveMotionGun:

** In one short story set at the very end of The Final War, a Bolo has become so sick of the bloodshed that he ''refuses a direct order from his human commander'' to attack a hopelessly outmatched Melconian force.

* HonorBeforeReason: Bolos picked up a bit of this. In Laumer's short story "Field Test," the first self-aware Bolo makes a suicide charge OutOfTheInferno that causes the enemy to break and run. When asked why, they expected it to demonstrate some superhuman strategic acumen that its human commanders missed. They're awestruck by it's real reason: "For the honor of the regiment."[[note]]Specifically, the 20th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, a unit whose history dates back to the American Civil War, to which the Bolo was assigned[[/note]] This has since become the catch phrase of the Bolos.

These aren't your normal tanks. For one, their designers decided that [[BiggerIsBetter bigger was better]], and since the only thing that could really take down a Bolo was ''another'' Bolo, they just kept building the Bolos bigger and bigger, to the point where even the ''stealth'' tanks mass 1,500 tons.

* AlienInvasion

* BadassArmy

* CrewOfOne
* DeployableCover

* DeflectorShield: "Battlescreens" provide protection, do EnergyAbsorption and render physical impacts harmless, so killing Bolos requires {{Energy Weapon}}s or [[NukeEm really big explosions]].
** And even ''that'' doesn't always work. One story involves a Bolo that had been buried ''because'' it had been nuked and while it was damaged, it was still operational... just too radioactive to be useful near anything else. [[note]] The story involves it crawling, from under a reinforced concrete radiation barricade and a hundred feet of stone backfill, with nearly dead batteries and no treads to try and make a final attack on the invaders. (in actuality, a construction company blasting foundations for a new building, 50 years after the war it was damaged in. )[[/note]]
* DownerEnding: A lot of Bolos tend to sacrifice themselves for the sake of humanity, and the Bolos are generally the most likable characters in the story, so...
** the end of "Though Hell Should Bar The Way," kinda takes the cake, though. [[spoiler: Out of all the Tearse on the planet, only a handful will survive, but how much longer they will last is unknown. Plus, the Melconians are getting away with information on the Bolos, and the [[ForeverWar Final]] [[KillEmAll War]] is looming on the horizon now, meaning that the survival of the Tearse -- not to mention everyone in this entire story -- is low, to say the least.]]

* DungeonBypass: As they grow bigger and heavier, the concepts of 'obstacle' or 'barrier' become less meaningful -- they blow everything in their way up, iron it flat through the sheer weight of their passage, or both.
** Bolo Mark 33's take it one step further. Mk. 33 is 32,000 tons, has more guns than any previous model, is the largest Bolo type ever made, and, oh yeah, one more thing: it can fly at 500 kilometers per hour (310 m.p.h.) One tiny little detail after that- they were made to operate in groups of 24. So if it can't be flown over, run over, or blasted out of the way by ''one'' Bolo, chances are that it won't stand up to twenty-three more.

* ForeverWar: The Melconian-Human 'Final War'. Nobody knows who started it because those present at the first battle were in no condition to report afterward, and it didn't end so much as run out of planets to kill. A few million survived out of ''trillions'' on both sides.
** The situation was recognized as being so dire that the humans (and the Melconians likely did this as well) sent colony ships on one-way trips beyond the farthest reaches of explored space, in hopes that at least one colony might escape. It worked, after a fashion.

* ForgottenSuperweapon: In "A Relic of War" a Bolo sits in the courthouse square of a small town. The children play on it. Several other stories feature lost Bolos reactivated by chance or hiding out as tractors.

* HonorBeforeReason: Bolos picked up a bit of this. In Laumer's short story "Field Test," the first self-aware Bolo makes a suicide charge OutOfTheInferno that causes the enemy to break and run. When asked why, they expected it to demonstrate some superhuman strategic acumen that its human commanders missed. They're awestruck by it's real reason: "For the honor of the regiment."[[hottip:*:Specifically, the 20th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, a unit whose history dates back to the American Civil War, to which the Bolo was assigned]] This has since become the catch phrase of the Bolos.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: A common theme in many stories, but especially prevalent in "Road to Damascus."
** Notably, Bolos spend a lot of time explaining to their commanders (Who sometimes take a dim view of their fellow humans) that humans are ''not'' a race of total bastards.

* IShallFightNoMoreForever: In one short story set at the very end of The Final War, a Bolo has become so sick of the bloodshed that he ''refuses a direct order from his human commander'' to attack a hopelessly outmatched Melconian force.
** Another story, set in the immediate aftermath of the Final War, has a Bolo operating a ship (human commander long dead, but still going through the ritual of asking the corpse for orders before doing what it thinks best). Upon finding a planet with a tiny settlement of Melconians, only the oldest of which were alive during the war proper, the bolo decides that it doesn't need to sterilize the planet ''because they can't be Melconians if there's no Melconia.''

* KnightInShiningArmor: The Bolos are designed as such. And since they're machines without human weaknesses, (instead their own robotic ones) they are able to live up to the ideal.
** Taken literally in ''Camelot'', where Bolo unit 721-KNE is knighted and takes on the name Sir Kendric Evilslayer.
* LaResistance

* PhlebotinumOverload
* PickYourHumanHalf
* PrecisionFStrike

* RobotNames

* TrueCompanions

* WarriorPoet

** Overall, the stories are pretty good about this, with the Bolos being the most sympathetic and well-developed characters. It's often surprising how many {{Tear Jerker}}s what are essentially absurdly powerful ''land battleships'' can pull from a reader.

* HonorBeforeReason: Bolos picked up a bit of this. In Laumer's short story "Field Test," the first self-aware Bolo makes a suicide charge OutOfTheInferno that causes the enemy to break and run. When asked why, they expected it to demonstrate some superhuman strategic acumen that it's human commanders missed. They're awestruck by it's real reason: "For the honor of the regiment."[[hottip:*:Specifically, the 20th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, a unit whose history dates back to the American Civil War, to which the Bolo was assigned]] This has since become the catch phrase of the Bolos.

** Bolo Mark 33's take it one step further. Mk. 33 is 32,000 tons, has more guns than any previous model, is the largest Bolo type ever made, and, oh yeah, one more thing: it can fly at 500 kilometers per hour (310 Miles Per Hour.) One tiny little detail after that- they were made to operate in groups of 24. So if it can't be flown over, run over, or blasted out of the way by ''one'' Bolo, chances are that it won't stand up to twenty-three more.

* ReadTheFreakingManual: Used as the punchline to an epic IncrediblyLamePun.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Averted. Hard.

* AlternateHistory: The first Bolos were supposed to be made in the year 2000 by the General Motors company. Clearly, this has not happened.

* TheWarOnStraw: ''The Road to Damascus'', one of the most recent novels in the franchise (authored by JohnRingo), is mostly a novel about how liberal politics are evil and wrong, featuring over-the-top caricatures of politicians Ringo dislikes as villains and many characters whose names are anagrams/soundalikes of modern American political and media figures at the time of writing. One of the leaders of the resistance is even an {{Expy}} of RushLimbaugh. After the first fifty pages or so of the novel, the Bolo that is ostensibly the focus of the story rarely appears, and when he does he spends most of his time [[AuthorTract pontificating]].

** Played with in "Traitor." It turns out that a supposedly "rogue" Bolo [[spoiler:was carrying human survivors, and]] took a massive amount of damage to what is essentially its brain and thought everything with a weapon was trying to attack [[spoiler:said human survivors]] (Including other Bolos). That's right: in order for a Bolo to go rogue, it had to have a massive chunk of its brain ''vaporized.'' And even then it was still trying to protect humanity.

* LightningBruiser: The Mark 33 Bolo masses 32 thousand tons. Its top speed? 500 KPH (310 MPH) when in flight (yes, you read that right), and 105 KPH (65 MPH) when on land.

* ArmyOfOne: Many stories involve individual Bolos defeating vast hordes of enemies. There aren't many foes a Bolo needs backup to take down.

** Another story, set in the immediate aftermath of the Final War, has a Bolo operating a ship (human commander long dead, but still going through the ritual of asking the corpse for orders before doing what it thinks best). Upon finding a planet with a tiny settlement of Melconians, only the oldest of which were alive during the war proper, the bolo decides that it doesn't need to sterilize the planet ''because they can't be Malconians if there's no Melconia.''

* HumansAreBastards: A common theme in many stories, but especially prevalent in "Road to Damascus."