The Bolo Stories of Keith Laumer and Ogre the Cybertank Wargame

It probably was destiny to eventually write some mecha fiction.  I grew up with Bolo and Ogre, so even without the Japanese mecha influence, the seeds were already there.  From the Japanese perspective, mechas are about humanoid fighting machines with hotshot/hot head pilots fighting against some evil threat.  From the western perspective they are robots who are efficient war machines that fight wars sometimes for justice/survival and sometime for more pragmatic reasons.  The Japanese believe everything has a spirit, but some of that is also found in the Bolos, but not so much for the Ogre!  I've tried to find synergy between these two influences in my Exocrisis stories, but here is a little article about the battlefield robots of my youth.

BOLO!
You have to love the name "Intercontinental Siege Unit," but that is what a large Bolo is capable of.  These enormous, sentient robot tanks were etched into the memory of a couple of generations of western SF fans in the form of print stories, by Keith Laumer, well before any movies or even the term "drone" was used for robot combat units in the 1970s.  Armed with Hellbore cannons, infinite repeaters, force shields, and thick armour, they have fought on numerous alien worlds to defend humanity.

The stories have held up pretty good with time and I still go back and reread them every so often.  In fact, other authors such as David Weber and many more have just added to the number of Bolo stories over the years.  You would think a stories about robot tanks would be boring as it is about a thinking robot who doesn't have romance, or personality conflicts, or all that human emotional baggage, but the stories are often about people involved with the robots, even if the Bolos are the centerpiece.  These robots act for the honour of the regiment, they are fiercely loyal to their human masters,even when discarded as junk, and they seem to be able to develop friendship with a human commander who is often their pilot.

The stories are now available as ebooks (such as "The Complete Bolo") which is great, as my old copy of Bolo is nicely yellowed now.  Hopefully a new generation of SF fans can enjoy these stories.  Make sure you get the original stories by Keith Laumer first, and not the later Bolo add-on stories to start.  A couple of my favourites are: Relic of War and Combat Unit, but they were all good.  If you've had too much about good, loyal robots then it is time to read the Berserker series by Saberhagen to get some bad robots afterwards.

Ogre, the Wargame
Ogre was Microgame #1 from Metagaming in the 1970s which is now gone.  However, the designer, Steve Jackson bought up the rights and is still producing the game.  I have like a second edition of the game and it is a simple introduction of wargaming with map and cardboard counters.  The game has one player taking the role of an enormous cybernetic tank, while the other player commands a force of conventional armour, infantry, and artillery to stop it.  The game design on this and the followup game GEV are just classic and I doubt it will ever go out of style.

The Ogres were probably influenced by the Bolo stories, especially for the initial artwork, but they are really their own original invention.  It is a niche wargaming franchise with loyal fans, but I don't think many people have heard of it in the last fifteen years or so.  There were multiple expansions for the game, and even miniatures and a crazy Kickstarter to build a giant Ogre Deluxe Box.  I was interested in the edition, but only wanted a box with plastic miniatures, not 3D cardboard standups.  Definitely check out the artist's website below for the original Ogre art.

• Designer's notes to the Ogre wargame
• J.D. Bell's GEV short story at Steve Jackson Games
• The original artist's website.  http://www.projectrho.com/ogre.html
• http://www.examiner.com/review/retro-board-game-review-the-world-of-steve-jackson-s-ogre-and-g-e-v
• http://www.goingfaster.com/ogre/background.html

The World of Exocrisis Blue
More Military SF Reviews
More SF Topics

Using Tokyo as a Model for Edmonton

Edmonton Churchill Square Panorama. Click to enlarge.

Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo.  These are big Asian cities with massive infrastructure projects, and they have that high tech, living in the future vibe.  When describing a future city without dilapidated public transport, amazing architecture, and rich cultural experiences with tradition, modernity, shopping, history, these are all places that have that.  Only Shanghai and Tokyo would have a long history pinned down, but theses cities have been massively redeveloped too.

To write about future cities, their successes, and problems, you need to look at these mega cities.  These cities have their own problems with traffic congestion, overcrowding, poverty, but they also have amazingly glamorous faces that just overwhelm you with massive scale, fun, and interest.  I live in Alberta and travel regularly between Edmonton and Calgary.  Both are mid-sized cities in North America, or teeny tiny cities in China where a middle sized city in the tens of millions.  This means there are many growth potentials and being small makes you nimble to be able to leap frog the big boys.  In our cities, you have space to grow, even if you don't think so.  Both cities have invested in light rail transit (trains are the way to go), upgraded freeways, business development, and the arts.

Tokyo City Hall is huge, but the city is 50 times the size of Edmonton.

The entire building from further out. That big plaza in the first photo is up there are treetop height.

Edmonton City Hall.  Not as big but very nice and more people friendly with the big pool in the summer and the ice rink in the winter.

I created a fun blog post about Edmonton at my Tokyo site here. We do have a great place under the sun.

I watched the film Lost in Translation again after watching it years ago.  After having visited Tokyo I don't know how you couldn't have fun even on your own - you have to be seriously depressed to not have fun like it showed in that movie.  When you travel to these big cities you realize just how much happens in them, and examining their successes in infrastructure development and cultural experiences can only benefit Edmonton and Calgary.

I'm going to focus on a few things for Edmonton.

• Invest more in the arts scene from art education during K-12, live music, public art, theatre, and art galleries.  This may mean more grants and making cheap real-estate available for art galleries and art studios.  Those horribly underutilized downtown LRT stations with the big empty spaces could become artisanal malls that open year round after facilities improvement and definitely better security.  By artisanal, I mean anything to do with a craft from hand sewn goods, to organic farmed produce, custom bicycles, and any art from painting to computer games.  You cannot direct growth like this as it is typically organic, but once you have critical mass, it is self-sustaining.  The JR East company in Tokyo has developed many spaces under their rail lines into different types of themed malls, and some train stations have markets just for "local" food and products.  The closest equivalents to these are City Centre Mall / Churchill Station and Southgate Mall / Southgate Station.

Outside Shibuya Station at night.  It is busy.

• High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton. Bring the cities closer together at a loss, but we blow tons of money anyways - so why not lay infrastructure that will be useful in the future.  For me, the rail trip would be nice, but for families, it needs to be as cheap as driving on an annual basis (yearly passes anyone?).  Attending museums, concerts, and doing business should be pleasant to get to in either city.  Highway 2 kind of sucks to drive on now.  A bullet train, with a table and leg room, and some good food and drink is the way to go. You can even turn seats around so you can have 4 seats facing each other and a table in between.
• http://www.railway-technology.com/features/feature1216/
• http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/what-50-years-of-bullet-trains-have-done-for-japan/381143/
• http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/30/-sp-shinkansen-bullet-train-tokyo-rail-japan-50-years
• http://www.jaunted.com/story/2014/7/13/17949/1808/travel/How+to+Hop+the+Nozomi+Shinkansen+Bullet+Train+from+Tokyo+to+Kyoto

Bullet Trains

• Better development of commercial real estate and mass transit together.  In Tokyo and Hong Kong, the rail companies are private or are like crown corporations.  BUT they operate efficiently, make profits, and don't ask the public for capital funds to develop.  They are bigger than Edmonton Transit as they make money on operating malls and commercial buildings around the train stations.  They exploit the fact that every train station is a hub and can generate revenue.  Empty train stations are sad - instead of having a bustling busy area that exists around most train stations in Tokyo or Hong Kong.  And yes, the train systems use smart cards which are also used at vending machines and many stores, especially the ones in malls run by the rail companies.
• http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/05/new-yorkers-sadly-lopsided-scorecard-tokyo-transportation/2022/
• http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/05/secret-tokyos-rail-success/2044/ 
• http://www.citylab.com/commute/2011/10/why-tokyos-privately-owned-rail-systems-work-so-well/389/

Shiodome City Center Building Ground Level With Big Atrium

Looking up from Ground Level at Shiodome City Center

Shiodome walkway (+30 level) underneath a monorail line. The street is below this.

• Big mega developments are fun, but expanding and densifying places like Old Strathcona are good.  We have to get people out and build up existing hubs.  The arena project will work if it can actually hub people when there isn't a game or concert (fingers crossed).  West Edmonton Mall is a nice mega project, but we also need other areas to build up and retain their original charm at the same time.
  
  • http://tokyoexcess.blogspot.ca/2012/03/shiodome-megaplex.html
  • http://tokyoexcess.blogspot.ca/2012/07/roppongi-hills-and-mori-tower.html

• The fancy metal sculpture that looks like a pile of mirrored balls by the Whitemud should have been in Churchill Square like the Sky Gate in Chicago.  And yes, let's have a big statue of Wolverine there too, but we need a feature piece of art for our central town square.
• http://www.play-scapes.com/play-design/contemporary-design/vaulted-willow-marc-fornes-edmonton-canada-2014/
• http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/petition-calling-for-wolverine-statue-at-city-hall-garners-support-1.2773624

Giant Head at the Bow Tower / Calgary

• Roofing over Churchill Square would be cool to create a all seasons space.  More mega building projects that attract people and not the monster traffic interchanges we seem to build so they can be seen from orbit.

• Adding flair to the city like the canals, a funicular, or fancy art lamp posts that act as solar powered charging stations and wi-fi hubs are also great ideas.  We need to do stuff that gets noticed in design magazines and set trends around the world.  It has to work good, look well designed, and we need to build cred.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Tree_%28solar_energy_device%29
  http://www.fastcoexist.com/3036929/change-generation/londons-iconic-red-phone-booths-are-becoming-solar-powered-charging-statio

• Where is our sky deck or eagle's eye observation gallery to see the city?  

• What is our city's identity, theme, or slogan.  If we don't have a good one, we're better off with none and not spending a cent.  No PR agencies please (so far the ones for Alberta / Edmonton projects haven't been all that great).  It might be better to wait to see if some of these developments take off build one on our successes.

• Reign in the expansion of suburbs unless the real estate developers build denser developments with high rises and connections for rail transit.  Our city can't afford low density suburban development as the cost of infrastructure, police, firefighting, buses, road maintenance, etc., costs too much.  If burbs keep going in, they'll be second class neighbourhoods unless they foot majority of the bill for these things.  Much like smaller towns and older neighbourhoods, they should also have central areas with services and amenities for walkable communities.
• http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/transit-expert-urges-city-of-edmonton-to-consider-route-re-design-1.2978692
• http://streetsblog.net/2014/12/11/how-to-make-transit-succeed-in-a-sprawling-city/
• http://www.tokyobybike.com/2014/12/how-suburban-tokyo-promotes-cycling.html

Some of these things sound kind of science fiction-like, but that is what I write for fun.  I also write about Tokyo over at my Tokyo Excess blog too!  I like Edmonton and I'm not saying it should be Tokyo, but we need to take tips from successful cities and innovate to catch up.  I just hope some of these things happen to make the city a more vibrant place.

Finally, just some thoughts about what the future economy would be like.  We're currently highly dependent on oil and gas for our prosperity.  What happens when alternate energy, especially solar + battery storage takes off?  Price of oil will plummet again, but oil is still used for chemicals and plastics.  Basically, we need to do more final processing in the province of oil into products and not export crude to gain the most value of the the resource.

• http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/12/19/What-Next-After-Oilsands/
• http://singularityhub.com/2014/07/13/the-world-in-2025-predicts-abundant-solar-power-and-food-tailored-drugs-gene-therapies/
• http://grist.org/business-technology/now-is-the-time-to-invest-in-solar-because-people-are-stupid/
• http://grist.org/climate-energy/how-solar-can-provide-over-half-the-planets-electricity/
• http://boingboing.net/2014/06/12/the-total-area-of-solar-panels.html
• http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/solar-has-won-even-if-coal-were-free-to-burn-power-stations-couldnt-compete
• http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/10/elon-musk-solar-scaling-plans-could.html
• http://theenergycollective.com/solarbusiness/2193306/something-astounding-just-happened-solar-energy-world

Chinese and Italian Supermarkets of Edmonton

Edmonton has a bunch of great ethnic supermarkets.  There are Lucky 97 and T&T supermarkets for SE Asian, Japanese, and Chinese foods.  There is the Italian Markets and then a few smaller, but well stocked, Korean stores.  You could be inclined to spend an hour or two in the big ones, and places like T&T and the Italian Market have places you can sit down to have a snack or lunch too.  Places like this add character to any city and to any story or novel you want to write, so don't forget the little details that could make things more interesting. 

In my Neo Ace novel, I have the Alien War displacing a portion of Japanese population to live in Edmonton and many other places in Canada.  Canada accepted refugees and they brought a bit of Japan with them and it fits well into the Canadian landscape.  The book is partially based on anime memes of mecha academies and adolescent pilots, but unlike parent meme, the adults and combat veterans really run the show.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of the ethnic goodies from these supermarkets.  You could make pasta dishes, curries, and more!  The variety of foods, snacks, and drinks makes ensures you'll be have a good time with your tastebuds afterwards.

Yummy Italian sodas

Olive oil

Pasta

Canned tomatoes

Latte and lunch of pastries

Found this once, but not again.  Was a great soda.

Green tea Kit Kats from Japan

Ramune Soda anyone?

Deluxe Pocky

Miso Soup

Make your own Japanese style curry. Absolute yum!

Wasabi Pocky

Choose your death by chocolate

Hello Kitty!

Deluxe Meiji Melty Kiss Chocoalates.

Fresh crab

Dried squid, chewy, fishy, and leathery.  Like it as it is tasty or run away screaming.

That's all!

Devon Voyageur Park South of Edmonton

The fall of 2014 has been pretty nice except for the freak snowstorm / cold snap in the second week of September.  There's been plenty to see and do, especially getting out a bit to see the fall foliage in the parks.

Did a walk down near the Devonian Gardens near Devon.  The riverbank down here is really pretty and there were plenty of  people out and about enjoying the sun.  The north bank is this great looking cliff and there is the massive bridge you can walk over to the other side on.

Military and Science Developments For Your Scifi

In the last month there have been a number of interesting articles posted that science fiction authors should heed.  Technology is really at the beginning or in the midst of a paradigm shift.  In some ways it is going to be a race between the new tech and the full impact of global warming to see how the world will change around us.  Science fiction is often predicated on technological expectations or projections and the fiction that becomes classic versus antiquated will often be sorted out in these changes.

Futuristic lighting at an LRT station.  Kind of looks like a reactor core too.

Items that scifi authors need to heed include:

• Cheap energy is the future.  Could be fusion, solar, zero point, or whatever.  The future of energy is cheap and plentiful for any science fiction written off of our current technology base.  Forget the energy crisis or any type of artificially imposed shortage crap (like Windup Girl - great story - lousy tech).
  http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/21/the-coming-era-of-unlimited-and-free-clean-energy/
  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26284-sunflower-solar-harvester-provides-power-and-water.html#.VDBARBZMGCg
  http://grist.org/climate-energy/how-solar-can-provide-over-half-the-planets-electricity/
  http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Transforming-the-Power-Grid-Lessons-from-Germany-and-Japan
  The following post from Robert Jackson Bennett was pretty good at explaining a likely cheap boom in cheap and efficient solar power.  If you don't believe in cheap alternate energy your writing is going to look antiquated.  It would be like having space explorers that use slide rules instead of computers or exploring strange new worlds by candle light instead of a rich sensor sutie.
  http://robertjacksonbennett.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/rethinking-the-apocalypse/
• Ditch the rockets or even space planes for mass commercial transportation into space.  I'm a big fan of space elevators.  Rockets could be there for military use though.
  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-21/japanese-construction-giants-promise-space-elevator-by-2050/575620
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/10/02/the-space-elevator-extreme-science-fiction-thats-still-a-long-way-from-science-fact/
  
  
  
  
  
• Manufacturing and the creation of many items (such as clothes, food, working machines, spare parts) is going to radically change even just with 3D printing.
  http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/09/20/3d-printing-will-impact-future-rundown-companies-keep-eyes/
  https://gigaom.com/2014/03/20/hp-we-have-solved-3d-printings-biggest-problems-just-wait-until-june/
  http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/21/3d-printers-skintight-spacesuits-space-elevators-the-future-is-coming-to-space/
• Think about your transportation in urban areas if you are going to touch it as it could shape how your cities are designed or how you're going to do a futuristic car chase.  Is it going to be automated vehicles like Minority Report, superb train systems, flying cars, etc.
  http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/09/the-four-transportation-systems-youll-meet-in-the-future/380904/
  I also really like Tokyo, which is a very futuristic city in many respects (I blog about Tokyo over here at Tokyo Excess).  The Guardian ran a really interesting article about how the Shinkansen bullet train allowed Tokyo to become the monster city it is today.
  http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/30/-sp-shinkansen-bullet-train-tokyo-rail-japan-50-years
• Will your future cities be well planned or be dystopian nightmares.  Will they be slums and overpopulated dense metropolises or look like some nice city out of Star Trek.  What factors would make it this way?  And you'll need to ditch the scare resources and energy excuse.
  http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/09/dystopian_city_and_urban_policy_city_planners_should_read_more_sci_fi.html
• Of course, technology still isn't perfect.  This is an interesting article about how solar activity disrupted a modern battle in Afghanistan.
  http://www.science20.com/news_articles/factor_in_space_bubbles_or_the_terrorists_win-145480
• At the same time, fighter jets and missiles need to get way better to keep up with laser weapons and new tracking / interception systems.  Battles will get very interesting if point defense or area defence systems prevent artillery and missiles from being used.  Lasers would make conventional fighters obsolete too.  The Iron Dome system from the Israelis make anti-tank missiles and mortars/rockets ineffective or way less effective too.
  http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/lockheeds-new-laser-super-turret-could-change-air-comba-1635210849
  http://www.israellycool.com/2014/09/15/reader-post-iron-dome-israel-ends-the-long-battlefield-reign-of-the-missile/
• Finally, there was a great little video made about space battles and how they could work.  Hint, laser weapons are good only at relatively short ranges, not millions of miles, and vector changes are cooler than you think for maneuver.  Explosives, including nuclear weapons need contact detonation as there are limited blast effects in space, but nukes could kill you with radiation like a neutron bomb.
  
  
  

More Scifi Topics