The Mech Touch

How could Ves possibly maintain his composure after he heard that his supposed fourth son would be named after a charlatan and a swindler?

Ves could see no reason why he would possibly name his next son after a man he personally despised!

Ylvaine did not share any family relations with the Larkinson Family. Though the design spirit that Ves had managed to construct a long time ago turned rather decent, that did not mean he liked what the name represented!

More than that, Ves hated the determinism of Ylvaine's supposed prophecies. Though he understood the value of gaining forewarning of certain dangers, he did not like it at all that his behavior and the behavior of others had to follow a predetermined script in order to reach a specific outcome.

It made him feel that he was a prisoner to his own fate!

Ves did not like to be told what to do. Telling him a prophecy was little different from issuing an order. Just by giving him a glimpse of a hypothetical future, his expectations and his planning for the future had already changed in an irrevocable manner.

A single prediction about the future deprived all of the mystery and the wonder of what might happen in a day, in a week or in a year!

For example, after hearing that his next child would definitely be a son called Ylvaine who would go on to do great things, how could Ves possibly feel any joy or happiness about fathering such an offspring?

Part of what made parenting so fulfilling to him was that his children could develop in every direction.

By shaping and influencing his kids over the span of their childhood, he would be able to discover more about them while at the same time help them grow in surprising ways.

Ves really did not set any high expectations for his subsequent children. He had already placed an unreasonable amount of future responsibilities on his current offspring, so he felt it was unreasonable to maintain this pattern when it was not even necessary anymore.

Besides, he hadn't even decided whether he wanted to have any additional children.

While Gloriana had mentioned plenty of times in the past that she wanted to follow the Hexer tradition and have six children, their current work and obligations made it far too difficult to free up any further room in their schedules.

The timing was all wrong. The Hyper Generation and the Age of Dawn had just begun. Ves needed to upgrade dozens of existing mech designs in order to preserve the existing product lines of the LMC.

The longer it took to update all of those outdated mech models, the more his mech company lost relevance in today's mech market!

It was much easier to destroy than to create. Ves did not want to throw away years of hard work and accumulation just because he felt obliged to spend a few more hours every day to give his younger children enough quality time.

Though Ves admitted to himself that he had not been the most ideal parent to Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine, he did not want to compound this problem even further by adding another bunch of brats to his stable.

He knew that if he welcomed any additional babies into his family, he would definitely feel obliged to raise them to the best of his ability.

There was no way he could accept anything less! Caring about family was one of his most cherished ideals and principles, and he would never compromise it for anything!

This caused him to become unwilling to have another child, at least in the short term.

According to his prior planning, Ves believed it was better that he would continue to raise his current batch of children to adulthood while at the same time stabilize his current position.

One or two decades later, Marvaine would probably be ready to go off on his own. At that time, Ves would probably turn into a well-established Senior Mech Designer in a period where rapid technological progression and major geopolitical upheaval had subsided.

He would undoubtedly remain preoccupied with a lot of important matters, but they would probably be less acute than before.

That would be a more acceptable time for Ves and Gloriana to complete their 'collection'.

Ves did not even mind it if he wanted a century before having any other children.

Although it would be rather weird, it was not unheard of in modern human society.

Much of the processes related to producing children had become artificial and mechanical nowadays. The physical condition of the father and mother no longer dictated the outcomes anymore.

Since the output did not impose any harsh demands on the conditions of the parents, then what did it matter if Ves and his wife waited until they were a few centuries older before having a batch of offspring?

Doing so would probably cause his family tree to get all messed up, but that was alright.

At least it would never look as awful as the one from the Gemini Family!

Therefore, Ves felt there were many acceptable decisions he could make on having additional children, but he would definitely not choose to have them now of all times!

If for any reason he was crazy enough to change his mind on this stance, then that did not necessarily mean that he wanted his next child to become deeply entangled with an absurd prophecy.

Ves crossed his arms while staring vigilantly at Samandra Avikon.

As a former religious fanatic from the Life Research Association, the woman had the odd ability to embrace many faiths without getting mired up in their contradictions.

He could clearly feel through the design network that Samandra not only believed in the divinity of Ylvaine with all of her heart, but that she also saw the prophecy as a verdict that must come true!

It was exactly this sort of deterministic attitude that pissed Ves off! The more people expected his fourth child to become a destined savior or whatever, the less he wanted to contribute to this future!

"I do not like it." Ves conveyed through Blinky as he crossed his arms. "I do not like being told what to do. I despise the very concept of a prophecy, and this goes further than that. Don't think I have forgotten about James Ylvaine. Those crazy believers tried to bring back their prophet by raising a clone that is based on his genes. This sounds worse because instead of occupying a body that does not have a spirit, my baby's original soul might get replaced or taken over by your Great Prophet! That is no different from killing my son! How can I possibly treat such an abomination as my own child?"

Seeing that Ves became a lot more agitated, the director of the Creation Association maintained a calm facade.

She clung on the certainty of the knowledge bestowed by a future seer.

"Your second son shall not come to harm because of this. The Great Prophet has no intention of causing him any harm. Instead, your son will receive vital gifts that can help him navigate the currents of the future once he has developed his talents. The name he is meant to bear is not a curse. It is a blessing."

"That doesn't make any sense! Even if I decide to have another son, I am more inclined to call him Paul or Clyde. Ylvaine isn't even qualified to rank at the bottom of the list of eligible names."

"You do not understand." Samandra shook her head. "The name is important because it will bestow your son with a special mark that shall elevate his life. You can think of it as an inheritance, though the reality is more complicated than that. Rest assured that Ylvaine shall still be your child in body and spirit. He will not be a puppet or a nefarious attempt of the design spirit to regain his mortal coil. The two will still exist as separate and independent entities."

"I do not believe that is true. How can the two share the same name and have nothing to do with each other? Once Ylvaine the son develops similar powers to Ylvaine the design spirit, who is to say they won't merge with each other or whatever? This sounds like an obvious ploy!"

"It is not a ploy, sir! It is destiny! Your second son is meant for greatness. In a more distant future, people will need a seer who can lead them to safety in a period where you will yearn for it the most. Once you have arrived at that point in time, you will think back on this opportunity and thank yourself for making the right choice for yourself and many other humans."

The more Samandra and Ylvaine spoke of the certainty of a potential future, the more Ves wanted to set fire to it by completely ruling out the possibility of having any further children!

In fact, he even felt tempted to screw them over by turning his fourth child into a daughter rather than a son!

Ves would have liked to see their faces once Gloriana gave birth to another beautiful baby girl. The scheming design spirit would never be able to find purchase in such a child!

"I don't believe in the concept of prophecies." He said. "What Ylvaine has seen is only one of many possible futures. While He has made plenty of good predictions over the years, I have watched enough fantasy dramas to know how the heroes always end up getting screwed over by relying too much on prophecies. The more people act according to assumptions made about the future, the less they are able to respond to accidents and unanticipated developments."

The woman in purple shook her head yet again. It was as if Ves was a stubborn child who had to be told that he was wrong over and over again.

"You are not wrong about keeping up your guard, but prophecies are not as nefarious as you think. You can think of them as sensor readouts, but instead of allowing you to gather data across space, they can give you valuable glimpses across time. There is no inherent good or evil in data. What truly determines their worth is how you use them. Just as how the readings of a long-range optical sensor can warn you that your starship is on a collision course with a distant asteroid, a prophecy made by a powerful seer can warn you that your fleet will enter into an ambush if it continues to travel along its current route."

Though the analogy sounded a bit weird, it recontextualized prophecies in a way that sounded less objectionable to Ves.

He had to admit that gathering more data was always useful than staying in the dark. Intelligence was one of the most valuable resources in the cosmos. There were many times where he and his clan took advantage of information asymmetry to trap their opponents and secure victory with greater ease than normal!

Since the Larkinsons could take advantage of this difference, then so could others!

One of Ves' greatest fears was that other powerful parties would one day force him into defeat by leading him into a trap!

He had plenty of enemies, and not all of them could be dealt with by his clan and the Bluejay Fleet.

It was much better to avoid disadvantageous situations in the first place rather than to blunder into them and be forced to fight for his life.

Ves started to look at Director Samandra with a more intrigued expression.

He couldn't believe it, but he was actually starting to consider whether it was a good idea to follow this supposed prophecy and give birth to a life-saving seer!

Though Ylvaine could already do a similar job, the design spirit experienced too many constraints.

Having a second one at hand not only introduced a lot of redundancies, but also provided more extensive coverage.

In that sense, having a second son and naming him Ylvaine was nothing different than installing an additional early warning sensor onto a starship!