The Mech Touch

The mech designers of the Red Association belonged to a different class from the rest of their kind.

Their circumstances were far different from that of the space peasants that had to work under greater pressure.

Ves did not think that any mech designer outside of the sheltered garden of the Red Association would have the luxury to pursue a career based on designing a combination of disproven concepts such as multi-pilot mechs and juggernauts.

Only the Association had the wealth and resources needed to raise a mech designer like Polak Neziri to an exceedingly high standard only to allow him to pursue an absurd design philosophy!

Although the mechers had correctly designated his design philosophy as Class VIII, it sure sounded like Class IX to Ves!

Still, Polak's rationale was superficially logical enough that his ideas might actually produce useful results.

Ves agreed that juggernaut mechs might be able to make a comeback now that overall mech technology had advanced a lot compared to the earlier generations.

The ability to mount an actual warp drive or superdrive onto their massive frames massively expanded their utility and significantly reduced their logistical burden!

By treating them as a combination between a mech and a starship, Polak's gigantic multi-pilot mechs had the potential to field a war machine that combined the raw firepower of a small warship with the control and finesse of an ultra-heavy mech.

That said, Polak's ambition still had a lot of questionable aspects to it that limited his chances of realizing his ambition.

"Your idea is daring, but it doesn't entirely address all of the shortcomings of oversized machines." Ves gently responded. "Resources may be easier to obtain within the Red Association, but 1 doubt that your fellow mechers will be pleased to expend a lot more resources for a single machine. You can get a lot more combat power out of it if you use all of the raw materials to construct as many normal-sized mechs as you can squeeze out of them. Oversized mechs also do not stimulate the growth of mech pilots as much as the ones that we use today. Our industry has spent multiple generations on dialing down their sizes and dimensions to the most optimal parameters."

Polak remained undeterred. "Respectfully speaking, professor, I have considered all of those arguments more times than I can count. I believe in my idea. There are so many assumptions about mechs that have been set in stone centuries ago. While there were good reasons to establish those facts in the past, our context is much different than before. We have access to much more advanced technologies. We have come into contact with many new and amazing materials. As far as I am aware, many mechs are struggling to fight against warships because they lack the scale to compete against a combat platform that far exceeds their tolerance."

"So your answer to the problem of getting outscaled by alien warships all of the time is to reduce the disparity in this aspect?" Ves curiously raised his eyebrow.

"That is partially what I am attempting to realize. If I can present a set of multi-pilot mechs that can strike as hard as an armed starship while also possessing the transphasic armor and transphasic shield generators that make the alien vessels so difficult to defeat, we can fight and resist the aliens on the same front."

"That sounds... convoluted." Ves furrowed his brows as he continued to question the practicality of Polak's design philosophy. "Ido not deny that your large multi-pilot mechs might actually be able to hold their own on the battlefield, but... these designs of yours are intricate and complex. These are niche products that are not necessarily competing against other mechs, but seek to replace the role of warships. Armed starships are much more fleshed out and have an enormous amount of infrastructure backing them up. I think it is probably cheaper and less demanding in terms of manpower to stick with warships whenever you need to employ heavier firepower."

Warships had become so entrenched within the Red Two that they could not easily be displaced.

Any proposed replacement did not just have to match the performance of a warship, but had to go above and beyond in order to push back the inertia that protected warships from getting threatened!

Despite the persistent problemand and overall lack of practicality of Polak's bold vision, Ves still admired the man for possessing the courage to explore a branch of mech design that had fallen into neglect for so many years.

If Polak failed, then he would pay the price for his overreach as well as his lack of ability.

If Polak somehow defied the odds and succeeded in his venture, then he would make a substantial contribution to red humanity!

This was why Ves did not look down on Polak's ideas. The Journeyman Mech Designer put his very career on the line by embracing an unusual design philosophy, just like Jovy and Ves himself for that matter.

After chatting a bit more with Polak, Ves turned towards the last friend that Jovy brought over.

"What do you specialize in?" He asked Osman Carter-Tezrein.

The olive-sldnned man looked and dressed himself in a more subdued manner than the rest of his colleagues and peers. The only abnormality that stood out was when he spoke his words.

The man had integrated a special vocalization device in his throat that caused his sounds to echo and take on additional dimensions that human speech lacked.

"My design philosophy falls under Class IX, just as yours. I am actually a biomech designer. To be more specific, I am not concerned with designing brand-new biomechs from scratch before growing them out of a pool filled with raw materials. Instead, I specialize in the sub-branch of biomech design that takes existing beasts from various origins and essentially convert them into pilotable biomachines."

His friends were already familiar with Osman's highly unusual and macabre design philosophy, but it was still a shock to Ves!

If the previous design philosophy wasn't already crazy enough, the idea proposed by Osmon sounded even more insane!

"Does it actually work?"

"It does... more or less." Osman replied with less certainty in his tone. "My progress is slow because it is not possible to design and 'build' my biomechs in a virtual reality environment. The Design World is fantastic in many ways, but it has never been able to simulate biomechs as well as I would have liked. I am glad that the Association has taken the limitations of my work into account. I am entitled to an allowance that allows me to occasionally gain access to a real exobeast or designer beast that I can convert into a dedicated war machine."

The enthused biomech designer projected a few clips of his 'biomechs' in action.

Ves immediately understood the appeal of this unconventional approach. The biomechs were all made out of excellent beast stock. The monsters harnessed by their pilots retained a significant portion of the advantages of the converted beasts, but also received a lot of enhancements derived from all of the technological upgrades.

As Ves continued to study the select pieces of footage, he began to entertain another question.

"Since all of these large beasts were technically alive when you started to operate on them, are they still... alive and aware after they have been converted into biomechs?"

"Only barely." Osman replied in a manner that made it clear that he had supplied the same answer countless times before. "It is perfectly safe and controlled. Before 1 do a conversion, I study the brain structure of the alien beasts before selectively removing parts of the neural tissue that are redundant."

In other words, Osman lobotomized each beast that passed through his hands to make sure his works did not regain a mind of their own and went on an uncontrolled rampage!

Suffice to say, Ves had a lot of doubts about this idea as well.

One of the areas he was most concerned about was that lobotomizing the beasts might not be enough to turn them into mostly empty husks.

If their spiritualities were strong enough, these beasts might still be able to retain greater awareness despite losing much of their brains!

With Messier 87's exotic radiation making everyone and everything stronger, all of those dangerous beasts that Osman depended upon to do his work might not remain as docile as he expected anymore!

Ves did not voice his suspicions in this area. The Red Association should have enough knowledgeable experts in its ranks to spot or anticipate this possible danger well in advance. There was no need for him to meddle into the affairs of such a powerful organization. At least some of Osman's teachers and mentors had to be aware of the greater dangers.

"It sounds rather challenging to mass produce any of your works." He remarked. "You need to have an enormous supply of beasts that are all consistent enough to perform a standardized transformation procedure on their bodies. All of this work has to be conducted or supervised by trained specialists. Then you have to convince mech pilots to put their lives on the line by piloting your unusual biomechs."

Osman merely smiled in response. "My work brings additional challenges and complications, but I enjoy the work The Association is willing to provide me with a modest amount of support so that I can bear the extra expenses of exploring this approach to biomech design."

"I see. Have you ever thought about letting mech pilots interface with a biomech that retains a greater vestige of a conscious mind?"

"I do. All of my teachers and supervisors forbade me from conducting any experiments in this direction. Similar attempts have been made in the past, and all of them ended in disaster. I am not allowed to touch this research direction until I have thoroughly exhausted all of my current possibilities."

That would take a long time. Ves did not think this idea had much chance of success. Beasts were fundamentally different from living mechs in too many ways.

Osman decided to ask a question of his own at this time.

"I have studied your living mechs and I find that your work has a surprising amount of parallels with my own. Both of our machines are alive. Their living properties may diverge from each other, but the common characteristic of both of our design philosophies is that the machine possesses at least a small amount of autonomy and awareness. Have you ever designed or participated in the development of an actual biomech? Did you manage to make it alive according to your own definition?"

Ves briefly recalled the meat suit that he had neglected for a long time. Joshua and the Everchanger had grown strong enough to reduce their dependence on external add-ons.

The development of the Everchanger's mounted wargear had also become stalled as more important projects rose to greater prominence.

Ves did not think that his clan should phase out the use of mounted wargear. He developed a number of interesting new ideas on how to make use of them in the age, but he needed to clear his current workload in order to dedicate enough time to turn his vision into a reality.

"I have not yet designed a complete biomech from the ground up." Ves responded. "I intend to try out in the future, but I am not in a hurry to do so. Right now, metallic mechs present plenty of possibilities to me. I am not lacking for options and I have not yet reached the point where I have grown bored to the point where I need to work on radically different design projects in order to stimulate my mind."

"Understood, professor."

Ves knew that Osman wanted to propose a possible collaboration, but the man did not dare to voice this request.

Their status had grown too far apart from each other. Osman needed to advance to the rank of Senior at the very least in order to for a collaboration to make sense!