The Mech Touch

"I am honored by your appreciation." Ves modestly replied.

It never hurt to be thankful for the MTA for dumping a massive amount of MTA merits on his lap.

It was rare for the MTA to let go of its stingy ways for once. He wanted this to happen again!

Master Goldstein's expression became warmer as he stared at the younger mech designer. "You are an example to all second-class pioneers, Mr. Larkinson. Despite your calling as a mech designer, you hold true to the noble intentions of a pioneer. You have frequently contributed to the conquest of the Red Ocean by exposing numerous secrets and defeating multiple alien threats. On top of that, your alliance has done more to increase our Association's reserves of phasewater than 99.9 percent of your peers."

"We are… pleased to be of assistance. The more phasewater you can equip your troops, the better our invasion will progress."

"Well said, Mr. Larkinson. Phasewater is the most important strategic resource of the Red Ocean. The more we obtain, the sooner we can complete our conquest. However, too many pioneers are unwilling to surrender any deposits or caches of phasewater they come across. They only think about enhancing the combat power of their own forces. While we are willing to tolerate private use of phasewater, the problem is that too many of your fellow pioneers are only willing to deploy their upgraded troops against their own kind."

Now that he thought about it, a lot of pioneers indeed focused all of their energies on fighting against each other. It was pretty normal, to be honest. Who wanted to bring their forces all the way into the deep frontier and gamble on their lives away?

The biggest reason why no one liked to fight against alien forces was that it was impossible to predict their strength!

The variety of alien forces was incredible. The weakest alien warships and fleets tended to be on par with third-class forces, but the most powerful ones could easily give the MTA and CFA a run for their money!

The Golden Skull Alliance certainly had experience with that. The expeditionary fleet had fought against a pakklaton refugee fleet, a heavily-wounded but titanic astral beast, a large fish-whale enclave, an alien pirate base that turned out to be a prison for an unclean whale and a modern hybrid alien battleship!

All of them were alien in nature, but there was a huge difference in strength between the weakest and strongest alien forces!

Many other pioneers that ventured into regions frequented by aliens also enjoyed similar experiences.

On a good run, these pioneers only bumped into ragged alien refugees who could never pose any serious threat.

On a bad run, they might easily stumble into a pristine alien warfleet or warship and get blasted into pieces before they could run away!

Even first-class pioneers such as Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik were not exempted from this risk!

In short, venturing into the deep frontier was like jumping over a canyon. Even those who made the best possible preparations always risk a plunge due to all of the uncontrollable variables at play!

It was no surprise that a lot of pioneers were far more comfortable with setting down further away from the frontlines.

The hinterland of human-occupied space had become so devoid of aliens that the only enemies that people had to worry about were their fellow human competitors!

For example, the principal enemies that the Davute power bloc were concerned about was not the aliens, but the Karlach power bloc!

Both port systems aimed to become the premier trading hub of the Krakatoa Middle Zone, and the magnitude of interests at stake exceeded any profits gained from targeting the aliens!

They at least knew a lot more about fighting against human mech forces than taking down extremely formidable alien warships.

This was familiar territory to them. The degree of uncertainty in fighting against the same old human mechs was much less, and many people preferred it that way!

The centuries-long vendetta between the Fridaymen and the Hexers was also another typical example of human infighting.

Old states from the Milky Way Galaxy did not magically let go of their grudges and hatreds when they founded colonies in the Red Ocean.

The Hexers loathed the Fridaymen for good reasons. The Fridaymen on the other hand were desperate to wipe out their old archenemies before they had a chance to make a comeback!

Since both of their colonies were situated in the Magair Middle Zone, fighting against aliens was the least of their concerns. Enough time had passed for this region to become an entrenched human province!

Ves had always known that most pioneers never showed any interest in fighting against external threats, but he never really thought that any of their actions were wrong.

The pioneers in the new frontier simply perpetuated the existing conduct from the old galaxy.

Competition was a natural part of not just the human race, but many other alien races as well!

Though humanity also had a higher-than-average propensity for infighting, Ves and many other humans of the current age had grown so accustomed to it that they never thought that it was wrong!

Evidently, Master Goldstein held a different opinion.

"My fellow Survivalists and I hoped that opening the Red Ocean would allow humanity at large to become accustomed to directing their hostility against the enemies of our race. Back in the Age of Conquest, many wars against alien empires were largely fought by private human interests rather than broad coalitions that represented a significant proportion of our civilization. We hoped to encourage pioneers such as yourselves to take the first steps to reviving this old habit. Unfortunately, it appears that we have overestimated the courage of those that have entered the Red Ocean with great ambitions."

Ves understood exactly what caused all of those optimistic pioneers to get hit with a harsh dose of reality.

"The infrastructure of the Red Ocean is awful." Ves gently told the MTA Master. "When people dream about becoming pioneers, they rarely take into account that it is impossible to buy starships in bulk. Since every ticket that can pay for passage through the greater beyonder gate only covers 20 vessels at most, a lot of new arrivals will discover that amassing a fleet that is large enough to fight against the aliens is exceedingly hard. This is only a single adverse factor. There are many other factors that inhibit pioneers from doing what you want, such as the inability to purchase large quantities of phasewater on the open market. How can all of these pioneers build enough transphasic mechs to take on aliens warships? Aside from that, it is ten times harder to fight against alien forces without bringing our own warships."

The Mech Trade Association should definitely be aware of the difficult circumstances that most pioneers ended up in. It was therefore a bit unreasonable for Master Goldstein to expect anything better out of this class of people.

The man was definitely smart enough to recognize this unfortunate truth.

"You are correct." The bald man admitted. "We have not eased the circumstances of pioneers, but they weren't supposed to receive much assistance to begin with. They are meant to demonstrate the initiative, creativity and self-sufficiency of individual human groups. If we have to hold their hands, there is no reason to hold any expectations for them. Pioneers are meant to thrive under adversity. We have already accounted for the fact that the majority of them will fail. We anticipated that enough of them would succeed and set a positive example for them. Our models have predicted that the proportion of successful, contributing pioneers will increase once the Red Ocean has more time to develop."

"I take it that the results in reality have not matched the predicted values produced by your sophisticated models."

Not even the Mech Trade Association could get everything right. The biggest problem that all powerful people and organizations suffered from was their inability to understand the difficulties of their lessers!

Master Goldstein's answer to that did not conflict with this pattern.

"We did not account for the cowardice of many pioneers. Too many of them have made wild claims, but few ever think about matching their words with actions. Humanity is in a much more dangerous state if only a few exceptions such as yourself are willing to rise above common squabbles."

"If that is the case, Master, then why doesn't MTA take any measures to correct this imbalance? You can easily encourage more pioneers to fight against the aliens if you help build more infrastructure, penalize human-to-human conflicts, allow pioneers to keep more phasewater they have discovered in the wild for themselves and offer greater assistance and protection to pioneering fleets that travel to the deep frontier."

This caused Master Goldstein to shake his head.

"We have tried to push through these measures, but there are too many other factions and groups that are opposed to any changes in the status quo. There are parties within our Association that see human infighting as a positive development. I will not explain the reasons why, but it is enough for you to know that we Survivalists are in the minority when it comes to taking greater measures against alien opposition."

The Survivalists were among the most scared and pessimistic members of the Mech Trade Association. It was in their nature to overestimate every enemy and make a lot of contingency plans in case a known or unknown threat rose to become an existential threat to humanity!

Perhaps the other factions thought that the Survivalists were being alarmists again. Even if the native alien races started to cooperate with each other while assimilating more human technologies, they still lacked the scale to compete against the enormous war machine of the Big Two!

"So where does that leave us?" Ves asked.

There was a reason why someone as important as an MTA Master spent so much time on describing these greater policy considerations to a mere second-class pioneer.

"If we cannot make our Association make the necessary changes as a whole, then our Survivalist Faction will take action within the limits of our authority." The older man replied. "For example, I have tried to maximize the rewards issued to your alliance to the greatest extent possible. We are aware that there are too many anecdotes about failed pioneers circulating in our society. We may not be able to reduce their occurrence, but we can do our part in counterbalancing them by propagating positive examples. The great achievements of your Golden Skull Alliance shall serve as a shining example that even second-class pioneers can fight against aliens and be rewarded for their service."

"Wait a minute." Ves straightened his back. "Are you saying you are going to use us in a publicity campaign?"

Goldstein shook his head in regret. "Oh, we would like to, but that would violate the neutrality clause of our Association. We will let the sum of your merit award do the advertising. A single incident may not be enough to change the behavioral patterns of pioneers, but once dozens of positive cases begin to emerge, we believe that more and more copycats will emerge."

That…. might not work as well as the Survivalists hoped. Ves knew that most pioneers simply weren't equipped to fight against the aliens. The majority of them lacked an ace mech and ace pilot that could fight against larger alien warships and defeat them in open combat!

However, the Survivalists had their own plan, so it was not up to Ves to tell them that their plan was doomed to fail.

"Okay, I understand. I am grateful for receiving such a great reward for our contributions."

"You are welcome. A part of the reason why we are willing to reward you so much is because we are optimistic about your future. I advise you to think carefully about spending your new MTA merits."