The Mech Touch

"Were you drunk when you came up with this stupid mech?"

"Er... no. At least I don't think so. I was... in a special creative mood, I guess."

To be honest, Ves did not know what he was thinking when he came up with his latest mech concept.

The draft design he showed off today looked like an upright humanoid elephant creature with a pair of solid legs, four arms and a long and flexible trunk!

Although it looked formidable at first glance, every decent mech designer could immediately list its many shortcomings. It was a mech that did not look like it belonged in a space battle in the slightest!

How could Ves possibly come up with such an absurd spaceborn mech?

It was as if he formed a list of all of the deficiencies of the current mech lineup of the Larkinson Army, drank himself stupid and picked the first ridiculous idea that came to mind in order to resolve as many shortcomings with a single design as possible!

Although Ves indeed generated a lot of doubts about this highly unorthodox mech proposal, he did not dismiss it out hand.

When he thought about it a bit more, he found that its logic was actually quite sound!

His greatest difficulty was convincing others that he was being serious about introducing this new mech to the Larkinson Army!

"That... is not a dedicated ranged mech." Ketis stated. "It has four arms, and one of them is holding an axe."

"Yup. That is because its large frame bestows a lot of mechanical power to its limbs. It is a waste to leave all of that strength untapped. Besides, I don't want this new mech of mine to be unable to defend itself at close range. It needs to be able to protect its transmission channels from various threats."

Gloriana made her own remark. "I understand that you positioned the Transcendent Punisher Mark III as a powerful defensive ranged mech solution. It is logical to keep it stationary considering its comparatively enormous mass."

"That is right, honey." Ves replied with a loving smile.

"THEN WHY ARE YOU PROPOSING TO DESIGN A HEAVY MECH AS AN OFFENSIVE SOLUTION?! Can you not see how slow it will be when movingin space?! Adding this ridiculous mech to our offensive formations will slow down all of the mechs that it is accompanying!"

"That is true... under normal circumstances. This is not a normal circumstance."

"Explain."

Ves smirked and highlighted a specific module in the unusual draft design. "Look at its flight system. It's big, right? It can provide a lot of forward acceleration to this hefty mech frame. Sure, it won't be able to dance as nimbly in the void of space as our light mechs, but nobody is asking for that. Look at this cruise drive. Don't you think it looks larger and more powerful than the ones in the previous sketches? You guys haven't completely adapted to the Phasewater Generation. Even if my proposed Elephant Project is twice as slow as our medium mechs, as long as its cruise drive can amplify its speed twice as much, it can still keep up with most general offensive maneuvers!"

His wife looked at Ves as if he had gone completely bonkers!

"Did you hit your head too hard with that hammer of yours? This is the opposite of a cost-effective mech! The amount of phasewater needed to fabricate this powerful cruise drive may be four times or ten times as much as the cruise drive of a medium mech! The scalability of this new and experimental tech is too poor!"

Ves shook his head. "What you are saying is not wrong, but it doesn't matter. We are living in an age where red humanity has fallen into an existential crisis. Multiple alien races from multiple galaxies have the potential to overrun our fragile patch of space in the corner of the Red Ocean. We need to go all-out and fight aggressively in order to keep our heads afloat. This ambitious mech design is a reflection of our need to push our mechs to the extreme."

"I think it is better for all of us if you take the time to explain your vision for your latest proposal, sir." Merrill O'Brian spoke up. "It will give us more clarification than if you keep replying to these ad-hoc questions."

"You're right. Let's begin with the most distinctive feature of the Elephant Project. I am sure you are asking why it has four arms. Isn't two arms standard? Well, this is a heavy mech, so it has a lot of room for additional modules and weapons. The four arms grant my new mech a lot of flexibility and versatility. One of the arms holds an axe, while the other three arms can be used to hold other equipment. For example, our current situation demands a lot of additional hard firepower. The Elephant Project may not be a totally dedicated ranged mech platform like the Transcendent Punisher, but it can freely carry a pair of transphasic luminar crystal cannons and keep firing them for a long time due to its large energy reserves and high heat capacity."

The other mech designers began to comprehend why Ves did not discard this ridiculous mech concept out of hand.

Even though it looked like a slow and unwieldy heavy mech, as long as its mobility no longer became an issue due to the addition of a powerful cruise drive, it might actually make for a decent offensive mech!

The key to this machine was that it was multiple times more massive than a typical medium mech such as a Bright Warrior.

This meant that it could bring a lot of hard firepower to the table!

The four arms offered the Elephant Project a generous combination of versatility and power. The limbs all looked thick and strong, so they could easily carry a heavy mech weapon each!

Ves displayed various different loadouts in the central projection.

In one striking image, the sketch displayed the Elephant Project wielding an axe, a shield and two heavy luminar crystal cannons!

The cannons were especially designed for the Elephant Project as each of them effectively merged with an arm in order to grant greater stability and control.

This particular configuration turned the Elephant Project into a balanced and versatile heavy assault mech that could fire a lot of powerful energy beams in the approach of a battle.

Once the mechs of the Larkinson Clan collided with an enemy force, the Elephant Project could either keep providing support at a modest distance or go in and use its formidable bulk and melee equipment to push through weaker defensive lines!

The second sketch showed the Elephant Project wielding four heavy luminar crystal cannons, one for each of its thick and solid arms!

While the mech would not be able to achieve high accuracy and precision due to its inherent design shortcomings, it didn't matter as long as it lay siege onto a large warship!

In order to keep the hungry energy weapons fed, this version of the Elephant Project mounted additional external battery packs.

While the addition of these battery packs increased the mass and decreased the mobility of the Elephant Project, it did not matter as long as the mech was solely used to bombard starships at a distance!

"If we had a few hundred of these Elephant Project mechs in this particular configuration in the last battle, those wheednar warships would have folded twice as quickly as before. While I cannot make any solid predictions about its staying power, a single one of these cannon-wielding heavy mechs should easily be able to output at least eight times as much damage as a ranged medium mech. This is a huge boost in both firepower and efficiency when you consider our limited mech capacity."

Ves had made sure that the Elephant Project remained compact and reasonable enough in size to fit in a standard mech stable!

This was extremely crucial in a situation where the Larkinson Clan was unable to acquire more carrier vessels.

Replacing a bunch of medium mechs with Elephant Project mechs was an easy way to increase the amount of firepower that the Larkinsons could bring to bear against enemy warships!

Of course, the Elephant Project might be able to pose a significant threat towards warships, but it was less handy at defeating mechs.

The Elephant Project was completely incapable of dogfighting against other mechs. While its ability to wield melee weapons may be useful in fending off enemies up close, it would fare particularly poorly against mid-range rifleman mechs that possessed enough agility to evade many heavy cannon attacks.

Still, it was impossible for this proposed mech to excel in every area. Ves was already happy that the Elephant Project could fulfill a range of different roles by virtue of its large range of viable equipment loadouts.

Ves was not completely satisfied with this particular weapon combination. He did not come up with the Elephant Project just to carry four heavy luminar crystal cannons to a fight. He might as well remove the arms and affix the cannons directly onto the large mech frame if this was the case!

He changed the projection to a configuration that looked a lot different from the other ones.

While one of its arms still held an axe, the other three arms appeared to be holding thick and armored cables!

"That looks familiar." Gloriana spoke.

"It should." Ves grinned. "Remember the Blessed Squire that we designed all of those years ago? This is the jumbo spaceborn version of that old design. Those cables are designed to mount on other friendly mechs, particularly ranged mechs, for the purpose of supporting them. These cables cannot only siphon excess heat away from other machines, but also channel energy so that the recipients can fire their energy weapons once again!"

This was a completely different way for the Elephant Project to contribute to a fight!

While it was a lot simpler for the Elephant Project to wield a bunch of cannons and open fire on enemy targets, it would be horribly lacking in precision and efficiency.

Instead of undertaking this role itself, the heavy mech could instead support other ranged mechs that were much better at this job!

"If we employ the Elephant Project as the spaceborn version of the Blessed Squire, it can substantially increase our weight of fire at the beginningwhile also increasing the staying power of our mechs if a battle ever rages." Ves explained his rationale. "Compared to the mechs of the Cross Clan, our own mechs tend to get exhausted a lot sooner. This is a deadly flaw that can screw us over in any large battles that drag on for hours. It is extremely unwieldy to force our exhausted machines to return to their motherships in order to replenish their spent energy cells. What we need is a more dedicated support mech that is filled to the brim with energy cells and heatsinks that can quickly and urgently replenish our combat machines in the field."

This was actually a good argument. It was similar to the one that justified the existence of the Blessed Squire, though its glow wouldn't be too unique in a mech army that was already flooded with living mechs!

Gloriana actually looked as if she was starting to come around to this idea. After all, she already supported and participated in the development of the original Blessed Squire.

"How quickly can the Elephant Project replenish a friendly mech?"

"That depends. I need to look further into the right technologies." Ves responded. "I am hoping that the Elephant Project can fully replenish a friendly mech in a minute or less. This way, the heavy mech can hang back and avoid attracting too much enemy fire. Any longer than that will not only make it too conspicuous, but also make the mech too vulnerable to enemy counterattacks."

It would be great if connecting to one of its cables could quickly replenish the energy reserves of a ranged mech by 20 percent or so in a matter of seconds. This was enough to enable a completely drained machine to contribute to a battle for a respectable amount of time!

"Why did you decide to add an elephant trunk to the mech, Ves?" Ketis couldn't help but ask. "No offense, but it makes your mech look... dopey."

"How eloquent." Ves replied with a smirk. "I added it because it adds a theme to my mech. Besides, this trunk is not a piece of decoration. You can think of it as an additional limb. It can serve a surprising amount of uses, from grabbing an extra piece of equipment to repelling enemies that can get too close. Since we are talking about a heavy mech, this design has more than enough capacity to accommodate an extra strong limb!"