Mangolikesrobots - Behold: Fruity Robot

interview_3aC

I got into piloting during the Third Generation. For the historically illiterate, that’s before the breakpoint, not after. Summer Offensive, Chelsk Offensive, ‘81, ‘82… All that shit.

When you say pilot now, people get a certain mental image. It wasn’t like that, back then; end of the day, a G3 frame is basically just another kind of tank. Hot like hell inside and full analogue control. You had to think five, six, seven seconds ahead sometimes, because that’s how long it’d take you to string together the inputs for what you were doing next.

I was good. I mean, I’m good at my job now, sure, but… you should’ve fuckin’ seen me then.

... Anyway. Long and short of it is, I got unlucky. Everyone does, sooner or later. Coterie railcannon caved in part of my cockpit, crushed my leg to dogmeat, and that was that. A few years later, they’d have amputated, plugged in a spare, and sent me back in, but this was ‘83, the tech wasn’t there yet. We were hearing about it, you know, shit on the grapevine about the brain-machine barrier, weird tests underground out in Lysk, but I don’t think any of us really believed in it.

I wanna say I knew what was coming, but I didn’t. Nobody did.

So. Cockpit breach. Fucked leg. They did a lot of work, got it to where I could walk on a good day, but it was obvious I wasn’t gonna cut it any more. Took my pension, checked out, spent eight years in the worst dyke bars I could find. Don’t really wanna talk about that part. That’s not what you’re here for, anyway.

So I’m a few years down the line, losing my mind somewhere in Sengrade, and I get a call. It’s this guy I used to know, I never really nailed down what he did, Information maybe, and he’s telling me about this program they’re spinning up over in Lysk, and sure that rings some alarm bells but what am I gonna do, say no? I don’t even need to hear the specifics, he’s trying to tell me it’s the next big jump in frame tech, it’s gonna win us the war, whatever, I’m already halfway onto a train.

The job turned out to be the Fifth Generation. Not only was the brain-machine barrier real, but they’d smashed clean through it. I said a G3 is basically a tank, right? So I was expecting an iteration on the form. Sharper, sleeker sure, but at the end of the day just a prettier-looking tank.

Well, I was dead fuckin’ wrong. Seeing something that size move that way, it’s… I don’t think I can put it into words. Go find a poet or something. Ask them what they think about Gen 5.

… Didn’t come for free, of course. The neural throughput on a machine that size will cook an unprepared brain like a fuckin’ egg. You need to be dosed to the gills on a whole cocktail of ten-syllable shit to take it for more than a few minutes, and the drugs make you weird. Horny, mostly - I’m sure you’ve heard about that - but you’re also looking at impaired impulse control, difficulty with long-term thinking, emotional disregulation, mania… Plus, there’s something in the cocktail or the link or both that is bastard habit-forming. You see them counting the hours between sorties. They adjust to the hyperstimulation, get calibrated to it, and then everything else is just too god-damn quiet.

Think maybe it’s carcinogenic, actually, but you didn’t hear that from me.

So, yeah. Weird. Command doesn’t want weird operating superweaponry. Weird doesn’t make sound tactical decisions. Which means all the shit that makes somebody a functioning soldier - the long-term decision making, the impulse control, the ability to give a fuck about the rules of engagement - it had to be outsourced.

The term they used at first was “special consultant”. Then “special consulting officer”, once we hit field testing. It wasn’t “handler” until later.

The first crop of us - I’m just gonna say handlers, I know how you’re gonna wanna spin this, I get it - were all ex-pilots. G3, mostly; Gen 4 didn’t leave a lot of material to work with. I guess the idea was we were the closest you could get to a G5 candidate’s frame of reference, but it was pretty clear within the first few months that that was bullshit. Some of us took to it, some of us washed out. A lot couldn’t take the wetwork, which I guess I can sympathise with.

Me, I handled it fine. Better than I should’ve, maybe. Being a tanker didn’t do shit for me, but my dad, he was a dog trainer, and… Yeah, well, you get the idea.

… No, no. The other kind of wetwork. You know what I mean.

…

The leg? Ha. Yeah, they offered me a prosthetic. ‘Course they did. But, call me a hypocrite, whatever you want - by that point I was six months in and I knew with total fuckin’ certainty I didn’t want the link. I spend enough of my time helping the military put their shit into peoples’ bodies, you know? I don’t want it walking home with me.

… No, I don’t understand why they keep signing up. Early days, sure, nobody knew what it did to you back then, but there’s been leaks, people’ve talked - hell, I’m talking right now. You can find our burnouts in any dive in the country, or what's fuckin' left of them. The candidates now, they know what we do to people here, and they just keep coming, and coming…

Though, you know… I think sometimes about the first time I saw a Gen 5 machine take off, that first day on the program. The way it moved against the blue-black of the sky, like it weighed nothing at all. And I almost get it.

you're not wrong but this doesn't exactly help solve the problem

also going through this character development especially wrt insecurities about my voice and it is one of the best things i've ever done for myself - that shy little thing trying its best to disappear in its corner could never internalize that it was okay to just be.

finally realizing after all this time that i've surrounded myself with people that don't see me as a burden, that actively want me around, that actively want me to be annoying because they enjoy my company. finally allowing myself to reach out and be that kind of annoying to people i care about the same way i wished others would reach out to me, and only having it received positively. realizing that if displaying an interest in people wasn't received positively, why should i stick around?

(also coming back to your first point, allowing myself to get into it and just let go and then being told my voice has caused a partner to soak through multiple layers of clothing is a fucking ego boost like no other and i'll never go back)

it's a lot of words to say 'just b urself' in a roundabout way but it's so fucked up how much better life really gets when you can truly internalize that and live how you want to live

Recently I’ve been working on making cute noises on purpose when I cum. I lived for years in a house where I felt like any noise I made was a bother, so I learned to do everything and quiet as possible. The way I place my feet when I walk makes me near silent and I regularly surprise my roomies by appearing in a room with them. I can bawl my eyes out silently. I can also masturbate without making a noise other than letting out the occasional held breath.

This sucks! I’m sick of being quiet! I want to be loud and take up space! I want my roomies to know when I’m in the room with them by my footfalls, I want them to hear when I’m sad, and I want sexual partners to hear me moan when I’m close! I want to exist!

Reblog this to tell prev to touch themselves