The Mech Touch

A few days went by as Ves continued to hold meetings and get all of his balls rolling. Since he had already addressed the most acute issues preventing his organizations from going forward, he began to spend an increasing amount of time on an issue that was very dear to his heart.

The Larkinson Family, at least the branch that followed his departure from the Bright Republic, needed to transform.

Now that Ves tentatively managed to gather hundreds of trueblood Larkinsons and their dependents, he needed to take care of them and provide them with a new structure.

Right now, the Larkinsons were numbly residing on Kesseling VIII without a clear idea of what they should do. This was not necessarily a problem, but it would definitely lead to cracks if the confusion persisted.

For this reason, Ves paid an increasing amount of attention into forming a new structure for the new family. He already thought long and hard about this subject during his travels aboard the Scarlet Rose.

Though he wanted to implement his blueprint for the new family immediately, it was not as simple as that. While he deeply desired to grasp total control over the new family, Ves could not afford to alienate his relatives.

For this reason, the Larkinsons who followed him were granted a say in how to shape their future structure as a collective entity.

The elders and other notable family members formed an assembly to discuss and vote on the proposals that would permanently alter their branch of the family.

Some thirty-odd middle-aged and older Larkinsons all gathered in a conference hall at the Friedhold Estate, which housed all of the members of the Larkinson Family.

The Friedhold Estate was almost as boisterous as the old Cloud Estate to Ves. Each time he attended an assembly meeting, he passed through the grounds where numerous young children played with each other.

Their laughter and joy always seemed to refresh his mood and remind him of what was at stake.

He was fighting for their future.

The changes to the Larkinson Family should not only advance his interests, but also the interests of his other relatives! His children and their children must benefit from the sacrifices made by their parents!

Only such a cohesive family entity would be able to stand the test of time!

Ves did not wish to preside over a family that allowed selfishness and infighting to run rife.

Perhaps other families believed that internal competition was the key to maintaining their internal vitality, but Ves never believed in this nonsense!

The original Larkinson Family may have failed to live up to its potential, but its stability and harmony provided every Larkinson with a comfortable living environment.

He did not wish to lose this harmony! If their children grew up in a competitive environment where each of them had to fight and learn to be cruel to each other, then they might grow stronger out of it, but at what cost?

"Family is important! This must never change!"

Fortunately, most of the other Larkinsons agreed with this principle as well. There were very few objections towards maintaining a harmonious structure within the family. The Larkinsons ought to foster cooperation as opposed to competition, and contests for attention and resources should be minimized as much as possible.

"It's not possible to do without competition entirely." An ambitious elder Larkinson stood up. He had been one of the proponents of introducing more reasons for the younger generation to fight each other. "If every Larkinson can breeze through their youth with a silver spoon in his mouth, then how will he end up when he grows up? I bet you that he won't be able endure any hardship!"

"Will you have our children beat each other up, then?!"

"I'm not saying that. I am just suggesting that we should introduce some.. incentive programs. Didn't we already hold a small search some time ago to determine which lucky young Larkinsons get to intern at the LMC's design department? All of the seeds we've chosen have all demonstrated their intelligence and talent! Since it worked out this time, why not hold multiple programs set up to cultivate our brightest talents?"

"And what of the Larkinsons who fall short or bloom late? Will you deprive them of their share in the resources provided by the family?!"

"They will still get their share! The LMC is prosperous enough to support the upbringing of millions of children, let alone a couple of hundred! Rather than see it as taking away from the majority, we are instead concentrating our most potent means on cultivating a small number of elites. Only through these means will we be able to raise qualified successors for our family!"

"That's a waste of money! We already did fine with giving each child an equal amount of attention! You can't control who can become a wolf and who will end up as a dog. Let us leave our descendents to sort that out on their own when they graduate and embark on their careers. This is how Ves Larkinson and all of our expert pilots came to be! We couldn't have predicted that any of them would become remarkable before they were ready to prove their ability."

This issue was one of the most contentious one in the family. The proposal by the elder who wanted the Larkinsons to be more proactive in cultivating elites was a softer and more acceptable alternative to his earlier proposal.

Even Ves felt sympathetic for it. While he still wanted to spread out resources equally and without bias, he also wanted to motivate the younger Larkinsons to work hard and never take their current gains for granted.

He waited until the argument started to lose steam.

One of the lessons he learned in preceding over the assembly meetings was that he should let the ones with strong opinions expend their energy. If they thought they hadn't finished laying out their arguments, they would not hesitate to expound on their views!

Rather than attract their ire, Ves would rather stay silent and let the cantankerous elders throw their spittle at each other until they all became doused in saliva!

As Ves sensed the intensity of the argument dropping to a point where most Larkinsons were more than ready to move on, he finally issued his own view.

"I think both sides have merit. Any Larkinson that is raised within our family should never grow up deprived. Our children shouldn't have to struggle to enjoy their best and happiest moments of their lives. As long as the Larkinson Family is financially secure, it should dedicate a basic level of resources and training to every member of the younger generation without any prerequisites."

"At what level will you set the baseline?" Clinton Larkinson asked as he looked in concern.

"It depends on the level of prosperity of the LMC and the Larkinson Family. I think we should determine a formula to decide the family's budget on this spending. However, it is important to keep the welfare 'basic'. By that, I mean that it should be enough to give every descendent a significant advantage over ordinary people, but not much more."

"Does that mean you want to allocate half if not more of the budget on raising a handful of elites?"

"Not quite. That's a bit extreme, even for me. Rather than choose a reward structure that is bound to make most average Larkinsons resent the chosen descendants, I would like to institute a regime that gives every Larkinson an equal chance to gain more resources. The key is that they will have to work for their rewards. There should be no bias. Everything must be fair in order to maintain the integrity of the system!"

This was something that Ves thought up when he silently listened to the two sides arguing. Both of them had their good and bad points, but that also made him feel uneasy in adopting either of them. No matter what he chose, he felt as if he would condemn the new family to an unhealthy future!

Desperate to reconcile the two sides, Ves eventually came up with this suggestion.

Most of the Larkinsons looked intrigued. Though it didn't quite suit either sides, it wasn't unacceptable for them to embrace this compromise solution.

"A fair competition." Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson said in support of Ves. "I think this solution will work very decently. The key is to maintain both fairness and competition at the same time. The most useless ones amongst our descendants will still be able live well, but they won't be unjustly taking away too many resources reserved for more deserving youngsters. Meanwhile, those who are talented will definitely be able to rise up the ranks and gain the rewards they reserve without depriving other Larkinsons of their own opportunities."

Each Larkinson deserved the same opportunities! This became the core creed of this particular subject matter!

Every elder had already tired of this discussion. They already heard the two sides out and were more than willing to embrace a decent-sounding proposal that just happened to be acceptable to most!

Ves felt very pleased when he managed to resolve this matter in an acceptable direction. While outcomes like these didn't happen all the time, at the very least he managed to enhance his prestige and prove his ability to lead the new family.

He not only showed his ability to listen to the opinions of others, but also impressed everyone by showing he was creative enough to come up with novel compromises!

While Ves found these assembly meetings to be tedious and not very efficient, he persisted through them. Not only did he wish to convey himself as an acceptable leader, he also wanted to guide the future direction of the family!

After another long assembly meeting that lasted for an entire afternoon, Ves stepped outside the conference hall and took in the grassy gardens and the children, some of whom were playing with mech figurines.

He couldn't help but smile at the sight. Even after a very abrupt departure from Cloudy Curtain, the youngest of them quickly adapted to life at the Friedhold Estate.

However, Ves did not wish for these children to attend Ylvainan schools or become friends with Ylvainan peers.

The Larkinsons never needed to pray for victory! They earned it themselves! That was what a true Larkinson should be in his eyes! Depending on others was for the weak!

Determining where to settle the Larkinsons and how to shape their growth environment was another contentious subject that Ves did not look forward to discussing.

"What are you thinking, Ves?" Clinton Larkinson asked.

The old man was chewing some kind of minty stimulant that stirred Ves' nose.

"Nothing much."

"Don't lie."

"Well, we still have a lot of matters to settle." Ves said. "Some of them are bound to leave many Larkinsons unhappy. We are literally deciding the future of our branch of the family. Decades, centuries and even millennia from now, our family will continue to be shaped by the assembly meetings held over a couple weeks. Don't you think that is… frightening?"

Clinton slapped his aged and skinny hand on the younger Larkinson's back.

"That's responsibility for you, kid. This is nothing compared to leading your company or the issues you need to deal with in the future. The fact that you are uncomfortable with holding so much responsibility is a good sign. It tells me that you're not letting your power go through your head. It also tells me that you care enough about us that you don't want to make a mistake."

That was quite insightful of the elder Larkinson!

"Power, huh…"

One of the main reasons why he wanted to split off from the old family was to embrace greater power. Yet now that he was wielding more influence over the Larkinsons than in the past, he had become timid all of a sudden.

Why didn't he feel this way when he led the LMC? Why was he much more willing to take risks with his mech company but not with the future of his family?