The Mech Touch

In a span of several hours, Casella and Imon Ingvar's impression of the Red Ocean had completely changed.

Just like many other humans, the pair of siblings completely dismissed the threat of alien civilizations.

They thought that the indigenous alien races were weaker because the Big Two easily rolled them over and because they emerged from a smaller and weaker dwarf galaxy.

Perhaps this was true, but that didn't mean that the major alien races were pushovers!

There was one aspect about the phase whale race that had a profound influence on the alien civilizations of the Red Ocean.

The phase whales invented the most popular means of FTL travel in the dwarf galaxy. The warp drive as humanity has labeled it allowed them to travel to different star systems. After translating the biological tech into a mechanical form, the warp drive eventually spread and passed onto many of the other sentient alien races.

The Red Ocean warp drive was not the most powerful or effective means of FTL travel to the indigenous alien races, but it was the cheapest and least cumbersome way to get around.

Anytime a human encountered a native alien in the new frontier, there was a high chance the latter traversed the stars with the help of a warp drive.

[The Red Ocean warp drive achieves superluminar travel through different technological principles than the standard human FTl drive.] The AI tour guide explained to the Ingvars and many other museum visitors. [The warp drive is capable of compressing material space, allowing a ship to traverse a greater distance in the same time and at the same speed. Although humanity has independently developed technology that is able to achieve the same effect, it is not as efficient and effective as the Red Ocean version due to the absence of phasewater.]

"Warp… space?" Imon frowned.

"Have you forgotten your space travel lessons, already? Normal FTL drives work by dragging a starship into the higher dimensions where distances are apparently shorter. This alien warp drive tries to do something similar but by warping the existing dimensions that we all live in. Both try to achieve the same outcome through different means."

"Ah, I get it now. I think."

[The Red Ocean warp drive possesses several distinct advantages. The most notable is that it allows for fast and highly controllable intrasystem travel. It is not as vulnerable to gravitic interference as standard FTL drives, which means that a starship can traverse quickly to a planet with its help. Warp drives can also work in many different hazardous space regions where conventional FTL drives cannot function.]

"That's good to know. We can definitely use these new drives."

"They're probably expensive though. They're not only new, but they also need phasewater to function."

[That is correct. The performance of a warp drive is heavily dependent on its design, its underlying technology and the amount of phasewater incorporated in the system. The greater the amount of phasewater, the greater the degree of space warping. The most powerful warp drives can even allow multiple ships that do not necessarily possess their own warp drives to travel at superluminal speeds.]

"Can the warp drive be combined with an FTL drive?" Casella asked next.

[It is not recommended to do so without integrating the two technologies into a single cohesive system. Many human vessels have been lost after their operators performed reckless experiments with combining two separate drives.] The AI tour guide warned. [In principle, it is possible. The latest and most advanced public FTL drives models already add space warping capabilities to familiar human technology. This is the safest and most recommended method of taking advantage of warp technology.]

The theory was simple, really. Ignoring all of the advanced scientific principles and calculations, the new warp-enhanced FTL drive initially worked the same as the normal version.

When a starship transitioned into the higher dimensions, they traversed the same distance as normal, but space happened to be compressed. As long as the vessel got out of the higher dimensions, they found themselves a lot further ahead than if they just soared forward in the material realm.

It was like taking a shortcut.

A warp drive had the effect of compressing space, and apparently humanity managed to get this effect to work in the higher dimensions as well! By activating the warping function in this special state, a starship could reach its distant destination a lot faster!

This was the same as a person taking a shortcut, but instead of traversing it on foot, the individual also rode an aircar!

"Do you understand now, brother? Taking a shortcut and riding an aircar are two separate ways to get to a destination faster. Instead of choosing one over another, it's a lot more effective to apply both at the same time!"

Although this was a massive oversimplification of how all of this tech worked, the analogy was quite good.

"How effective is the warp drive?"

[At the same cost and conditions, the Red Ocean warp drive is 3 to 8 times slower than an FTL drive. The performance of a warp drive is largely dependent on the amount of phasewater it incorporates and how much space it needs to warp. In general, most alien starships are substantially slower than their human equivalent. However, the warp drive is more stable and can operate in more challenging conditions such as anomalous space regions and in areas close to planets. This also allows alien forces to evade attacks and pursuit from human vessels that do not possess the means to hinder enemy warp drives.]

[How can this be done?]

[There are many different methods to hinder nearby alien starships from activating their warp drives. The Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance has developed a range of products that are effective at different levels and different situations. It is recommended that each fleet carry at least one warp interdiction solution.]

This was definitely something that Casella would be paying attention to. She believed that General Verle should already be aware of this, but she would follow up on this issue just to be certain.

The Larkinson Clan didn't have to worry about lacking options. The Big Two had started their invasion of the Red Ocean over five decades ago. That gave the MTA and CFA plenty of time to reverse-engineer the alien warp drive and apply its technological principles in many different applications.

The new warp-enhanced FTL drive or 'superdrive' as most pioneers and adventurers called it had already made a big splash in the new frontier.

Destinations that previously took months to traverse could now be shortened to a week or even less!

A modern superdrive did not necessarily have to employ both their warp and standard FTL functions at once. They could activate them separately depending on the occasion.

Many starships mounted with the new superdrives gained a lot more tactical flexibility for this reason. By utilizing their warping function in isolation, they were able to reposition themselves rapidly inside star systems where the influence of gravity blocked sensitive FTL drives from allowing any ship to transition into FTL travel.

This could easily change the course of many space battles! One of the most difficult aspects about space combat was the sheer distances involved. It could take days or even weeks for one fleet to catch up against another fleet.

In practice, it was actually fairly easy to outrun and escape enemy pursuit. Space combat only occurred in situations where one side was stuck close to a planet or when a fleet had just emerged out of FTL travel and still needed to cycle their FTL drives.

All of this would change forever once warp drives and superdrives became more ubiquitous throughout human civilization.

If not for the annoying fact that both these techs required phasewater in order to function, it would have already begun to spread among the pioneering fleets on a large scale!

As it was, Casella figured that only the first-rate fleets were able to upgrade their starships with warping technology. Second-class pioneering organizations such as the Larkinson Clan probably had to wait a decade or two for the supply of phasewater to become large enough to drop the prices to a more reasonable level.

Of course, there were other ways to obtain phasewater aside from buying them from the open market at extremely exorbitant prices.

"We should try and find a phasewater deposit so that we can mine it ourselves." Casella determined.

"Is mining the right word to use for phasewater? It's a liquid, not a rock."

"We'll try and harvest the phasewater, are you happy now?!"

The need to upgrade each ship in the Larkinson fleet with superdrives should keep the clan busy for a long time. Mobility was vitally important and could directly affect a fleet's chances of survival.

It was conceivable that a fleet equipped with superdrives could never be defeated by a fleet without this tech!

This was because the former completely possessed the initiative. If an enemy force was weaker, then the superior fleet could use its warping capabilities to quickly close the distance and force an engagement. This applied even if the confrontation took place in the inner half of a star system!

If the opposing fleet happened to be larger and stronger, then the warp-capable fleet could just run away at such a rapid pace that the enemy never had a chance of catching up unless something went very wrong!

And this was just the influence that warping technology accomplished. Phasewater was a much more versatile exotic substance. It enabled and enhanced the performance of other forms of superluminar travel, from portal jumping technology to beyonder gate technology.

All of these other means fell outside the scope of the museum tour, though. When Casella attempted to probe the AI for details on other FTL travel tech, she didn't get any satisfying answer.

The only solid answer she received was that the phase whale race mastered the greatest means of alien transluminal travel methods. Some of their more obscure forms of faster-than-light travel hadn't been leaked to other alien races!

All of this made Casella more excited. Though she did not consider herself to be a daredevil, she nonetheless developed the desire to obtain all of this powerful new tech for the Larkinson Clan.

From what it sounded like, warping technology was not just a luxury. It was an essential means to increase the chances of survival for the Larkinson Clan!

While Casella immersed herself in her fantasies, Imon asked the AI tour guide a different question.

"What about the minidrive? Are the drives that can be installed onto mechs the same as warp drives?"

[Minidrive technology is a derivative of warp technology. A minidrive is a warp drive that is miniaturized into a small form factor. They cannot currently enter into the higher dimensions due to numerous different limitations as both standard FTL drives and superdrives cannot be miniaturized to this extent. They are therefore slower at standalone space travel than other solutions.]

It was a lot safer to just park a mech inside a carrier and rely on the starship's capabilities alone to travel to another destination.

Both Imon and Casella understood that minidrives, while amazing, still possessed many limitations. They cost a lot, they required a lot of energy, they were sensitive to damage, they required regular specialized engineers to maintain and took up valuable capacity that could be used to improve the other parameters of the machine.

Still, as mech pilots, the Ingvar siblings were attracted by the romance of piloting a mech that could independently travel from one star system to another. Carrier vessels no longer became a limiting factor. Mech pilots weren't necessarily screwed anymore if their motherships blew apart.

All of these exciting possibilities could not be achieved without collecting enough phasewater, though.

The endless uses of this exotic material fully explained why so many pioneers were crazy about finding and claiming phasewater deposits in the new frontier! The presence of phasewater on a planet or a star system was the main criteria for pioneers to decide whether they wished to start a colony!