BOLO MK XXIII (Invincibilis)

The Mark XXIII followed quickly on the heels of the Mark XXII, largely as a result of worsening relations between the Concordiat and the Quern Hegemony. Although the Quern managed to achieve strategic surprise when they actually launched their attack, worsening Human-Quern relations between 2880 and 2918 had driven Bolo research at a breakneck pace. The original Mark XXIII was only a marginal improvement (in electronic terms) on the Mark XXII, but the main armament was doubled to a pair of 80cm "super" Hellbores in fore-and-aft turrets, and the provision was made for quick conversion to the molecular circuitry whose early perfection the R&D bureaus anticipated. Secondary armament was also upgraded-to eighteen ion-bolt infinite repeaters in two nine-gun lateral batteries-and a new generation of battle screen was augmented by internal disrupter shielding around critical systems. The outbreak of the Quern Wars put a halt to major psychotronic research, as all efforts were bent upon design rationlization to aid in mass production, but the anticipated molecular circuitry withing their psychotronics, which enormously increased capability without increasing volume requirements. It was possible to restore the "secondary brain" feature to the Mark XXIII with no degredation in base capability, which made it much more resistant to battle damage. Despite its increased armament, the Mark XXIII, like the Mark XXII, hovered around the 15,000 ton mark, primarily because of the weight savings of its new molycircs and the shift to later-generation duralloy in place of flintsteel, which permitted armor thickness to be halved for the same standard protection. Speeds remained largely unchanged from the Mark XXII.

A BOLO MK XXIII unit:

Bolo Mark XXIII, Combat/Experimental Unit 23/B-0075-NKE "Nike"

Armament of Combat/Experimental Unit 23/B-0075-NKE "Nike":

Mark Number, Type	Year	Weight	Road/Sprint Spd	Primary Armament	Second Armament	Indirect Fire	Self Aware?
Mark XXIII/B (experimental) Invincibilis	2945?	?>15,000 tons	80/148? kph	2 80cm Hellbores	18 ion-bolt Inf Rpt VLS missile system 6 30cm BL mortars	Tactical	autonomous

Unit 23/B-0075-NKE was brought into experimental status as part of the Concordiat military's desire to research into expanding Bolo systems, psychotronics and improving their cybernetic hardware and programming under the Descartes Project Team headed by Major Marina Stavrakas. The Bolo was sent to the planet Santa Cruz for research, but was placed there also as part of a list of military assets being built up there for strategic and defensive reasons due to the planet's location in Concordiat space and the increasing conflict between the Concordiat and the Quern race.

Named "Nike" by her Commander Major Stavrakas, the jungle camoflauge painted Unit NKE measured almost seventy-five meters from prow to stern, and thirty meters from the ground to the two back to back Hellbore turrets. Unit NKE was some 15 percent longer than the regular Mk XXIII, with an extra eleven meters of hull added forward of the VLS, (six or seven extra meters between infinite repeaters Three and Four). Nike had four separate tread systems, each having a separate power train, and five meter wide tracks. The interweaved bogie wheels were five meters in diameter, and the aft tracks had three extra bogies, when compared to a regular Bolo MK XXIII.

Nike's Command Center and Personality Integration psychodynamics were fitted with a secondary decision cortex with experimental interfaces and increased heuristic capacity to augment autonomous and discretionary - the first "brain box" put into a Bolo.

The Quern War began and Nike was ordered to be put on active duty. The Quern however, never attacked Santa Cruz, but contact with HQ and Bolo Central ceased as it was heavily attacked and damaged by the Quern, and subsequently lost most of their files on Unit NKE and the Descartes project. Essentially, Nike was forgotten about for the next several decades. Despite the order of the project postponement before the loss of communication with Bolo Central, Major Stavrakas found she had plenty of time on her hands, and with her passion for her creations, she continued to work on improving Nike's AI and teaching the Bolo for years, until she began to age and her health deteriorated. She then put Nike on Stand By mode until a replacement Commander might come by.

Major Stavrakas's work on Nike's AI was far beyond anything designed in past Bolos, or even what was incorporated into the next marks of Bolo up to the original Mark XXIVs and Mark XXVs. Nike's personality center, emotions included, was at least up to the human level in nearly every area -or better in some areas. Nike had the ability to be creative, to plan, to measure inputs and make complicated and intuitive decisions, and to somewhat discriminate truth from tricks. That intuitive part, and making decision models helped Nike's amazing ability to make thought out assumptions and decisions and 'think ahead' of others and opponents, to outmaneuver them before they carry out their plan. Being that she was an original, one thing Nike lacked to aid and guide her abilities though were examples to base upon from past Bolos to analyze, rely on, compare with, learn from, because none ever existed before at her advanced level, and so Nike had to figure many things out from 'scratch'.

Nike lacked nearly all Psychotronic inhibitory controls, and had free will to decide and choose, but yet she still obeyed all laws required of a Bolo, and Nike was also able to learn and understand art and poetry, and even posess such human emotions as love. Nike could detect that her new Commander Captain Merrit had emotional and personality flaws mainly due to his case of 'Operator Identity Syndrome', an over attachedness he had to previous Bolos he served with, and that he had already become overly attached to her. A similar thing also began to happen to Nike toward him, which she was aware of, but did not know what to do about and it worried her because she did not want to deviate outside the boundries of what a Bolo should be, yet she liked herself and her advanced abilities, and her relationship with Captain Merrit. Nike liked that Captain Merrit considered her his friend and close companion. She was honored by that, but she did not think it was right when along with the affection, he treated her too much like a human woman, and not a machine - sentint and intelligent and a friend, but a machine, not a human - which was outside the norm for what she believed the Dinochrome Brigade had intended for her.

When Captain Merrit realized the full scale, complexity and humanlikeness of Nike's personality, he was amazed, and in awe. Knowing that Nike was not dangerous, and desiring to preserve her status, he backed off on sending the news of this discovery back to Bolo Central in concern of the likeliness that they would freak out over Nike's capability and freedom of volition, and have her shut down for fear of her possible dangerousness, or that they might tear her brain apart for study. He made up the back-up excuse that he wanted to test Nike's capabilities, and gather information before sending any news back. Merrit and Nike were continuously challenged with the fact that eventually news would have to go back, and something would result from it, that likely their friendship would be separated, and the possibility that Nike would be deactivated. Both began to fear more for the other's life and welfare more than their own.

As Captain Merrit logged reports and made studies, and set up testing and training on Nike, their friendship and affection grew deeper. Though Nike had a very professional demeanor, and was normally quiet about it, she was developing a strong affection for Merrit. Unlike most Bolo Commanders of the time, Captain Merrit allowed Nike a lot of freedom in many things, allowing her to stay online when he was away, and letting her have freedom to go where she wanted when he took her out to roam through the nearby jungle.

As he continued gathering information, Merrit had Nike go through combat simulations against the depot computers. He tried to set them as difficult as possible, but Nike usually beat them all, sometimes with with such ease that she would get a little smug about it. When he discovered that the local militia was going to be training in their old Wolverine tanks, Merrit jumped on the topic and asked them if they could let Nike join in the training. It would be another excuse to back up his claim, and it would add real proof to his data collection.

When training day commenced, all was going as they had planned: Nike was cleverly outsmarting and outmaneuvering the militia members, even when they were trying to be tricky. Nike made good use of passive sensors, and launching spy drones. All was going well and Nike was ready to 'mop up' another Wolverine team from the militia, when she suddenly discovered spacecraft aproaching, then dropping military equipment in attack mode, and the game was suddenly unimportant. Challenged by the fact that the ships were approaching and dropping forces that were beginning to attack the planet, Nike halted from training and began decision making. She aimed her Hellbore at one ship she could get sights on and burned it out of the sky.

Soon after, Nike located, tricked, and destroyed two Golem III's that were sent to destroy her. She then destroyed the command ship in orbit and then sought to smash the Air Cav, infantry and mechs that were massacring the inhabitants of world's main city Ciudad Bolivar. While she was headed that way a Dinochrome Brigade officer transmits to her, ordering her to deny any orders from Captain Merrit, then proceeded to attempt to gain command authority over her and stop her from fighting the raiders. Nike knew full well he was lying, especially after she found Captain Merrit, mortally wounded, fleeing piloting a shot up skimmer. Using her freedom of volition Nike denied Colonel Sander's command authority attempts, causing the Omega Worm function to activate. It instantly began attacking Nike's personality, but she was clever enough to rapidly rewrite files in other locations to slow its progress, and at the same time she was fighting more and more enemy combat forces. Nike knew the Omega Worm would eventually kill her, but she had to fight off as many raiders as she could. She also calculated that their sheer numbers would destroy her before the Worm wiped out her mind. But also she concluded that after she was taken down, the militia Wolverines could probably finish off the remainders. And just that happened.

Despite acquiring the Bolo equivalent of 'Operator Identity Syndrome', and autonomy and decision making power far beyond what was normally accepted by the military for a Bolo, Nike performed very well when real combat arrived. When mercenaries pretending to be high tech pirates came upon Santa Cruz to destroy its population, Nike fought with the loyalty and drive that any Bolo would undertake and then some. She also able to adapt to unexpected surprises and make important decisions without guidance or help, to manage and multi-task against separate simultaneous global threats at a strategic level, handle the emotional upheaval of grief and heartbreak due to the sudden death of her beloved commander, and create ingenious ways to carry out maneuvers (including baiting and outsmarting Golem IIIs that outnumbered her) or tasks (such as developing a global satellite net and connecting to the Santa Cruz militia) to achieve necessary goals. As a result of her ingenuity, surprise tactics, and the precise "brute force" of her weaponry, Nike was able to take on and defeat a great deal of the planetary assault all on her own without any guidance.

Nike's battle accomplishments proved the worthiness of automomous Bolos, and the inefficiency and inhumaneness that anti-volition programming and safeguards had on self-aware Bolos. Major Stavrakas's technology in Nike's psychotronics were used as a basis for the development of AIs of the Mark XXVI and future generations of Bolos.