Are Ogres supposed to be intelligent and self-aware?
A. Because Laumer’s Bolo supertanks ARE self-aware, the original Ogre background explicitly made the Ogres NOT self-aware. They are programmed with excellent personality simulators and seem self-aware, but that is just to make them easier to command verbally (as well as more terrifying to the foe). But they are just machines; they have no “soul.” Some of Laumer’s Bolo stores are quite sentimental… “monster tank with a heart of gold.” The original Ogre background presented the contrasting view: they are simply engines of destruction, doing what they are programmed to do. But a decade later, as the Ogre background developed, we decided that at the end of the Last War some Ogres did develop self-awareness. Why? Purely for literary and gaming reasons. Self-aware Ogres would behave in ways that “programmed” ones wouldn’t making for an interesting variety of opponents. Self-aware Ogres could even, conceivably, be used as player characters, and the Factory States period is intended as a rol
