The Mech Touch

5975 First Interim Session

The large-scale expansion of R&D activities was a big move.

However, the Larkinson Clan had grown large and wealthy enough to support such an ambitious endeavor.

Though Ves had to allocate a bit of time to guide the process, he became relieved when he confirmed that the other leaders of the clan were able to handle most of the work themselves.

It helped a lot that the Larkinson Clan not only hired a lot of bright and talented second-raters, but also started to hire first-raters at an increasing rate.

First-raters were generally superior in everything. They were also a lot more capable of supporting the future activities of the Premier Branch. There was no way the Larkinson Clan could continue to rely on second-raters alone anymore.

However, the recruitment of tens of thousands of first-raters also reduced the cohesion of the clan.

The first-raters still maintained an inherent class superiority towards their 'lesser' brothers and sisters.

The second-raters on the other hand disliked the elitism of the snooty first-raters.

While the Larkinsons mostly managed to reduce the tension between the two groups by keeping them apart for the most part, this could not persist forever.

Ves wished that the two groups got along better, but the firm sense of separation between the two had become so ingrained in modern human society that it was impossible to erase the barriers entirely.

The most he could do was to ensure that the Larkinson Clan continued to offer EdNet slots to the second-raters. So long as a clansman earned enough Larkinson merits, they could redeem a quota and hopefully earn the qualifications to become a first-rater by the time they completed their accelerated virtual reality learning programs.

Many second-raters were satisfied with this arrangement. The clan did not possess a lot of EdNet slots, so competition for them was fierce.

What mattered was that the criteria for securing them was open, transparent and fair. Ambitious clansmen just had to figure out a way to contribute more to the clan than their rivals.

As the clan's R&D organizations quickly started to establish or expand their operations, there was an even greater sense of optimism among the Larkinsons.

They were growing more powerful by the day. It was not just Ves that was making progress. Plenty of Larkinsons, both old and new, benefited from the rising tide of the Larkinson Clan.

As the Dark Zephyr Mark III gradually came closer to completion during all of this growth and expansion, Ves occasionally had to step away from his work in order to meet his other obligations.

After several months of preparation work and behind-the-

scenes negotiations, the Evolution Witch finally saw fit to organize the first session of the Interim Leadership Council.

Ves expected for the recently appointed chief councilor of the ILC to organize a session sooner, but she was apparently a lot more thorough than he expected.

He knew enough about high-level politics that stuff like this always involved a lot of horse trading outside of public view. He had no doubt that the Evolution Witch approached every member of the council in advance in order to figure everyone's goals and bottom lines.

The god pilot may have even forged a few agreements in advance.

Red humanity could not wait too long. The Red Collective needed to get up and running in less than a year, so the Evolution Witch had to put a lot of effort into realizing Ves' original proposal.

Strangely enough, Divine Lucie Miyazaki never approached Ves about the Red Collective before the first session. Her plans evidently did not require her to establish any preliminary agreements with him. He felt a little insulted by her decision to skip him over.

Then again, Ves had repeatedly made it clear that he did not wish to get bogged down by the affairs of the Red Collective. The best thing he could do was to leave all of this politicking to others and focus most of his attention on his mech design projects.

When Ves entered the Hyper Chamber built inside Diandi Base, his entire surroundings changed into one of the grandest and most solemn meeting chambers he had ever seen.

Huge stone walls formed a huge cylindrical room that was topped by a transparent dome.

The light that descended from above began to take on rainbow shades. Once the light fell onto the floor, they began to illuminate a large variety of sparkling gemstones.

The way the light shone on the floor produced dynamic images that resembled mechs and mythical beasts in action.

In the center of the exaggeratingly large meeting chamber was a circular table that could easily accommodate over a thousand people.

Instead, only 100 high-backed seats were spaced relatively far apart from each other.

The wooden chairs were made out of exotic wood. What was interesting was that the chairs were also embedded with flowers, leafy branches and other active plant structures.

Bouquets of sparkling and lovely smelling flowers extended from the edge of the circular table.

Together with the colorful light shining from above, the flowers added a strong touch of warmth and life to the meeting chamber.

Ves already noticed that he was not the first to arrive. Plenty of councilors had arrived as well. Each of them had already found their designated seats.

A small line that was only visible to himself guided Ves to his own chair. He immediately noticed that it was positioned next to a larger and more ostentatious seat.

His lips pressed into a line. Great. The Evolution Witch most definitely forced him to sit adjacent to her own position.

He shrugged and began to sit down on the remarkably soft and comfortable seat. The wood looked hard, but it was actually soft and malleable enough to adjust to the contours of his compressed body.

Nobody spoke out loud. If they communicated with each other at all, they did so over private channels.

Ves did not really recognize the councilors who came early. The projected nameplates set in front of them helped to clarify their origins.

He smiled. It seemed the Evolution Witch took his advice seriously. In a council as important as this, the god pilot had gone out of her way to invite representatives of the middle and lower zones to add their voices to the sessions.

None of these councilors were under the illusion that their voice carried as much weight as the genuine bigshots of red humanity.

However, their role was not to decide, but to inform. All they needed to do was to voice the concerns and opinions of the humans that always got ignored whenever the leaders of human civilization made big decisions.

More people steadily entered the impressive meeting chamber by remote. They all came from different parts of human-occupied space, but they all took this initial session extremely seriously.

This became obvious from the way they dressed. Each of them had opted to wear extravagant outfits that could easily allow them to maintain dignified appearances within the Star Emperor's court.

Colorful fabric, exquisite embroidery, embedded jewels and geometric patterns caused the men and women to look as if they were ready to have their appearances recorded in the history books of red humanity.

Ves looked down at his own outfit. He had not been complacent enough to attend this virtual council setting with just his regular patriarch uniform.

His wife made sure to choose a custom smart dress uniform for himself that was predominantly red and white. Subtle gray embroidery and dashes of golden filigree added much-needed sophistication to the ensemble.

Though the outfit would not win him any contests, he believed it looked good enough to pass muster.

Once over half of the seats became filled, the more important councilors arrived.

A trickle of tier 1 and tier 2 galactic citizens arrived and took their seats.

Almost everyone paid little attention to the tier 2 galactic citizens. No one directed a glance at notable leaders such as Master Vayro Goldstein and the Mace of Retaliation because more impressive figures arrived at the same time!

Ves started to see a lot of familiar faces at this point. Not every tier 1 galactic citizen had been invited to the Interim Leadership Council, but that made the identities of the ones that did attend the first session all the more important!

Fleet Admiral Stanley Argile briefly nodded towards Ves in greeting before he went back to exchanging a few words with Fleet Admiral Amelie Jameson.

The Light of Sol was the first god pilot to arrive, but the Spacelock came right afterwards. Neither of the two interacted with each other. They instead chose to take their places at the opposite sides of the circular table.

As several more Star Designers, god pilots and admirals entered the meeting chamber by remote, Ves grew a little disappointed that a few friendly god pilots had been left out of the council.

Neither the Fist of Defiance nor the Destroyer of Worlds joined the Interim Leadership Council.

Perhaps it was for the better. The Star Designers but especially the god pilots had done their best to suppress their powerful domains. The projection technology that formed their illusionary bodies deliberately made everything fuzzier in order to weaken the transmission of extraordinary power.

While the measure was effective to an extent, it was impossible for most people to disregard the God Kingdoms of multiple powerful god pilots!

This was why it was for the best if only a handful of god pilots attended this session.

As time passed by, only one seat remained empty.

It soon became occupied when the Evolution Witch directly teleported herself into the meeting chamber.

Unlike every other councilor, the leader of the Transhumanist Faction was the only person who was physically present in this space.

Her presence was stronger than any other god pilot, but she had done a good job at suppressing and diminishing her overpowering domain.

It at least ensured that all of the second-class and third-class representatives could face her without feeling compelled to lower themselves to their knees in supplication.

The god pilot, who chose to dress herself in a heroic suit that looked just as refined and sophisticated as the others, started the session after only a short delay.

"<nullb>Councilors of red humanity. Each of you have received an invitation to join the Interim Leadership Council to begin the vital process of reforming our society. Professor Larkinson has lifted a mirror in front of us, and has exposed the flaws that continue to exacerbate our problems. He proposed the establishment of a Red Collective in order to meet the needs of the public and adapt the people to the latest age. I find myself in agreement with this goal, but doing so is not straightforward. The premise of the Red Collective sounds simple enough, but everyone has a different idea on how it should be run. Many challenging policy questions have emerged that we must resolve in order to secure enough public support."

The Evolution Witch continued to explain what she sought from the Interim Leadership Council.

There was no need for her to grandstand as the people gathered here were beyond this level of manipulation.

Even the weakest second-raters and third-raters were all reputable and renowned statesmen of their respective states. They were hardly representative of ordinary space peasants.

"<nullb>There is a great matter of uncertainty and ambiguity in the role that the Red Collective must play in our society." The Evolution Witch continued. "<nullb>We can only discuss a part of the policy issues that we must decide upon sooner rather than later. They can entail questions such as how extensively cultivation needs to be centralized. We will also discuss whether we should make cultivation available to any human,or whether we should limit cultivation to a small selection of vetted and approved individuals to engage in cultivation."

All of this sounded important alright. Ves began to take this session more seriously. He did not want the Red Collective to grow too powerful and nosy. He needed to make sure that it did not try to amass too much power during these council sessions!

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