The Mech Touch

Despite the transition to the Age of Dawn, it was still hard for most Terrans to feel too much urgency in their own situations.

Sure, the Devos Ancient Clan invested more in the defense of the New Constantinople System by building more overt defensive facilities across the planet, but much of this ongoing war preparation effort did not make the students feel overly threatened.

They were all highly skilled and highly educated talents. No matter whether they possessed civilian or clan backgrounds, each of them had already risen above the vast majority of ordinary colonists by virtue of getting accepted in a good educational institution.

In a society where the learning capabilities and the teaching effectiveness of an entire society was incredibly developed, the difficulty ol getting into a serious university was exceedingly high!

If the Eden Institute of Business & Technology did not raise its educational standards to such a ridiculously high level, then pretty much any average Terran high school graduate would have been able to get accepted!

This was obviously not conducive to selecting the most competent and capable elites to form the next generation of leaders and other figures that could prop up the Terran Alliance.

It was due to their recognition of their own elevated status that the students all possessed the confidence that they would be able to get to safety before the 'common people'.

Even if a large fleet of alien warships appeared in the New Constantinople System without warning all of a sudden, the students and the professors of the Eden Institute should be among the first batches to get evacuated from the danger region!

What Ves tried to do was to pop this illusionary bubble. He wanted them to recognize that their importance might not be as great as they assumed.

Whether it was true or not, it was always a good idea for people to start thinking more proactively about their own agency rather than put their blind trust on their respective organizations!

"I rebelled against my own family." Ves plainly stated even as his ship was continuing to endure attacks from all sides. "I would have done decently if I just did what my family told me, but I would have never been able to uplift myself and my clan to this height in record time if I allowed myself to be constrained by people whose interests are too far apart from mine and does not sufficiently support my endeavors. While I am not saying that you should learn from my example, my message to you all is that you should not put blind trust in the institutions that you depend upon. Each of them are fallible in their own ways. The best way to ensure that your own interests are being met is to build a group or organization that answers to you. That is what I have done."

The Terrans did not appear so receptive to his latest point.

Few if any of the people in the audience seriously entertained the idea of breaking off from the families or organizations that raised them and granted them so many conveniences in their lives.

Almost no one was able to attain success in the Terran Confederation by relying on themselves. Some form of backing was always essential for anyone to get ahead in a society that was far too intricately intertwined with ancient and highly established power blocs.

Ves understood this dynamic well enough. It was not his intention to make enemies with a lot of powerful Terran family organizations by turning their descendants into rebels.

He just wanted to shake up their mentalities and question whether it was in their best interest to remain on autopilot. It was not necessarily wrong for them to dedicate their lives to serving other people and organizations. Loyalty was a virtue and family was important.

What he did have a problem with was people who mindlessly allowed themselves to get exploited without receiving their due in return. Ves had already witnessed far too many individuals get screwed by the selfish or foolish decisions made by the leaders they trusted far too much.

After a brief moment, Ves moved on with his lecture.

"I won't go any further on this specific topic for today. It deserves a more in-depth discussion. Let's get back to the heart of this course. The Eden Institute agreed to let me teach you Frontier Wisdom because it recognizes that it is useful for you to learn to be more proactive in an age where a lot of new possibilities have opened up and where your safety can no longer be guaranteed as before. My course is particularly relevant to students who aspire to become a pioneer like myself and take their fates in their own hands."

The majority of students who enrolled in this course had no plans at all to become a pioneer and subject themselves to the risk of death like this daredevil of a professor!

After all, they were all studying to become mech designers or business executives. Once they graduated, they would go on to work in well-protected design labs or office buildings that were ideally far away from any battlefields.

Not everyone was necessarily like this. There were always dreamers among them who yearned for a better future than the trajectories they were supposed to follow.

The new professor had made a sufficiently powerful impression on at least a few students for them to consider this more dangerous but exciting alternative.

"At the start of this class, I mentioned the dire state of red humanity in the new frontier." Ves spoke. "My course is not designed to solve all of these difficult high-level problems. It is centered around helping you navigate this dangerous frontier environment. In ordei to do that, we must begin with a basic model that ties all of my lessons together."

A new projection appeared that displayed numerous different keywords that all related to each other in one fashion or another. Each concept conveyed a lot of advantages and could form the basis of power of any organization.

Ves swept his hand towards the theoretical model.

"This is my third and final lesson for this session. Every actor in the frontier is stuck in a struggle for resources. Whether it is an individual mech designer like myself or a large colonial superstate like your Terran Alliance, we are all reliant on resources to build up our forces and increase our odds of survival. Even the aliens who occupy most of the Red Ocean are short on certain resources that can further their military advantage. One defining feature about the frontier is that while there is a persistent shortage of many resources, there are greater opportunities to obtain them on both an individual and collective basis."

One of the keywords lit up at this time.

"Manpower is one of the greatest shortcomings of red humanity. The aliens have many more bodies that can mine resources, produce goods, conduct research and crew their warships. While I am reasonably confident that we possess an advantage in top-level leader figures such as god pilots and Star Designers, it is physically impossible for us to negate this enormous disparity in numbers."

Another keyword lit up next.

"Territory is a clear basis of power, wealth, and other resources. Without territory, there is not enough room for people to live on. Without territory, we cannot support so many industries needed to produce our war machines. Without territory, we cannot harvest enough raw materials to raise new fleets and armies. The aliens hold an overwhelming advantage in this aspect as well, so we must cherish what little we have in our hands."

A third keyword started to glow.

"As I have said before, raw materials are needed to produce the assets we need to resist the alien onslaught. In addition, we need resources to develop our colonies and fuel our economies. On a more individual level, resources such as phasewater can help us get ahead of our rivals and enable us to challenge stronger enemies."

Professor Ves started to grin. "Phasewater is the most emblematic raw material in the new frontier. It is a resource that can strengthen and empower almost anything. It plays an essential role in fortifying defenses against alien aggressors. You can never have too much of it. A big reason why I have personally led numerous expeditions into the deeper parts of the frontier is because I have been able to harvest hundreds of kilograms of phasewater. Each time I obtain another cache of it, I can readily use them to fortify my starships and upgrade my mechs without worrying about running out of it anytime soon. Doesn't that sound nice to you all? Do you think that you can obtain so much phasewater by yourselves?"

A lot of students shook their heads. They may be Terrans, but even they could only dream of getting their hands on more than a couple of grams of phasewater!

"He is right." Polina Devonshire whispered to Klaus. "I have yet to truly begin my studies in phasewater theory and transphasic energy shields, but Master Laila Devos already told me that I will need access to significant amounts of phasewater to make future progress. I won't be able to conduct advanced research or develop new transphasic products if I don't have actual phasewater to work with. If I can't prove to my employers that I can attain good results in my work, it will be hard for me to obtain the resources I need to further my understanding of phasewater technology."

Klaus did not dare to think so far. "Phasewater is too expensive to make it accessible to us. The professor is right in this regard."

As the students all thought about the difficulty of gaining access to this all-important resource, Ves continued to hammer his point.

"Don't you think it is odd that a second-rater like myself is swimming with phasewater while most of you will be lucky to ever get your hands on a couple of drops? The reason why you can never get enough phasewater to support your own design or business ventures is because there are far too many powerful organizations and state institutions that have a need for this strategic resource as well. Those who hold greater power and closer access to phasewater will prioritize their own interests over yours without exception. This is the downside of being at the bottom of the totem pole. It will never be your turn to work with significant amounts of phasewater if you continue to follow the rules of your society. If you don't go out of your way to grab it yourself, then you deserve to have nothing to do with this scarce resource!"

His words struck a serious blow to the confidence of many students. More than a few of them aspired to work with transphasic technologies, but they were so expensive and high-end that the more established players in the mech industry and many other sectors already laid claim to every existing supply!

Under normal circumstances, it might take an aspiring transphasic system specialist such as Polina several decades to become qualified to lead her own phasewater-oriented projects.

It was not entirely certain whether that would happen at all due to the rapid changes taking place in red humanity's society.

Without access to sufficient quantities of phasewater, most mech designers would never have an opportunity to ride this trend and stand out among their rivals.

This was why several ambitious students started to reconsider the matter of becoming a pioneer.

Even if they had no intentions of accompanying expeditionary fleets into dangerous regions, it might still be profitable to fund their establishments and make subordinates work on their behalf!

More and more Terrans started to get around to the eccentric professor's viewpoint.

There were too few resources to satisfy everyone.

It was not a good idea to passively stand by and wait for stuff to trickle in. That would only maintain the status quo at best, but it would never allow them to get ahead and advance their greater interests!

There were many ways to address this inadequacy, and becoming a pioneer was just one of many possible solutions.

Nonetheless, more and more students started to appreciate those who have invested heavily into their pioneering organizations and got rewarded for their efforts.

Even though a lot of pioneers failed and suffered heavy losses as a consequence, those who succeeded such as their new professor had been able to make meteoric progress!