The Mech Touch

The ball started to roll as soon as Ves concluded his impactful meeting with Gavin.

"Three days. I need three days to bring most of the representatives of the major religious organizations to a virtual meeting." Gavin boasted. "The churches may not be willing to agree to play along with you right away, but they will at least send a delegate to hear you out. These people should know better than to rebuff our invitations. You are not only a tier 3 galactic citizen, but also the deputy chief councilor of the Interim Leadership Council. Aside from that, your previous 'dealings' with the Hexers and Ylvainans are proof that you have been accommodating towards organized religion in the past. That should make you much more credible than other human leaders."

Ves nodded in agreement. "So long as these fellows understand that this may be their best and possibly only chance for their respective faiths to occupy a greater place in human society, they will have enough reasons to cooperate with us. It doesn't cost them much to send an envoy. If they cannot be bothered to give us this little courtesy, then put them on our blacklist. We need to establish a clear system of rewards and punishments in order to corral all of these messy groups."

Three days was not a long time. While Gavin proceeded to make the arrangements for a hasty meeting, Ves turned his attention back to the Swarm Project.

A short time had passed since Lady Romanda Devos officially joined the design team of the secret project.

The woman had been spending most of her time aboard the Tarrasque. That was where the design team was able to work on the Swarm Project with a reasonable degree of secrecy. If any information leaked out, then Ves at least wouldn't bear any blame.

"So what have the two of you been up to these last few days?" Ves wondered as he stepped inside one of the secure design labs deep inside the heavy cruiser.

Professor Vector Loban and Lady Romanda Devos maintained a respectful distance from each other as they manipulated two separate design interfaces centered around the same work.

Both of them had already spent hours on refining a fairly sizable biological contraption for the first-class version of the Swarm Project.

Vector turned his seat around in order to face the new arrival. "Well, as you can see, we have been exploring the viability and practicality of integrating an oversized biological cockpit in the design of the first-class subordinate mech of the Swarm Project."

"Why start with the first-class iteration?" Ves questioned. "Isn't it easier to start simple with the third-class iteration and work from there?"

"Normally, that is a good approach, but both Romanda and I are first-class mech designers. We are more familiar with first-class technologies, materials and tolerances. Aside from that, it is easier for us to design a first-class biological system and simplify it to complete a second-class and eventually a third-class version. If we followed the reverse order, then we would have been forced to design many new biological subsystems from scratch."

"Oh. will you need a lot of time to complete the development of the third-class version of this biological cockpit, Vector? Whether to include something like this to the third-class subordinate mech or not, it is best if I have this option at my disposal in time."

That caused Vector and Romanda to exchange glances with each other.

"We have yet to prove the usefulness and cost effectiveness of these radical biological cockpits." Lady Romanda stated. "We have only just begun our work. We need more time to refine our designs. In addition to that, I also need to complete testing for the prototype Carmine mechs that incorporate cockpits of many different sizes. If you wish to obtain definite answers, then you should come back in a week. We should be able to present answers supported by empirical data."

Ves frowned. "Okay. I will wait, I suppose. The two of you should have already formed a few guessed based on your initial work. Tell me this. Do you think it is worthwhile to amplify the size cockpits of our initial Carmine mechs and turn them into biological constructs? Many people are unaccustomed to biotechnology. A lot of potential customers will turn away in revulsion if they are asked to enter a cage of meat and bone."

"We do not believe the problem will be as bad as you say." Lady Romanda shook her head in disagreement. There is an overwhelming demand for norms to pilot mechs. Many enthusiastic mech fanatics will do whatever it takes to suppress their disgust at biotechnology in order to realize their dreams. Besides, the Carmine System is already a fairly invasive biological system. No Carmine mech pilot can avoid the need to link up their blood circulation system with that of a Carmine mech. We may as well make the biological aspect more obvious in order to clearly convey to the pilots what they are about to engage with. Many studies have shown that many negative reactions towards biotechnology are due to unfamiliarity. As long as the Carmine mech pilots have grown accustomed to their biological cockpits, their revulsion will fade."

That was a plausible theory. Ves did not worry about this problem anymore. He instead focused on other issues.

"What about the logistical and economic burden of deploying a cybernetic mech on a large scale?" Ves asked another question. "I mean, many mech forces and even larger organizations are completely unfamiliar with using any sort of biotech alongside their conventional tech. We cannot ask them all to refit their carrier vessels and hire a huge amount of biotech workers that know how to deal with the biological components of our Carmine mechs."

Vector Loban smirked. He already anticipated this query from Ves.

"Your concerns are legitimate, but the biotech industry already offers many solutions to reduce the barrier as much as possible. I have sought out specific biomatter formulas that are designed to be used in situations such as this. The cockpit that we are working on might look hauntingly complicated to repair when damaged, but it is actually very easy to return to pristine shape. You simply feed it with the appropriate raw materials and let it do the rest."

He pulled up simulation footage of a rudimentary biological cockpit that sustained severe damage to its exterior as well as parts of its interior.

A small army of bots approached and placed stacks of alloy bars and other materials next to the cockpit.

The damaged biological construct slowly proceeded to absorb all of the raw materials before beginning to regenerate its battle damage.

It only took less than a minute for the biological cockpit to return to an undamaged state!

The sight reminded Ves of smart metal mechs. Machines like the Devil Tiger were also capable of performing similar feats.

This was not a coincidence as many smart metal systems were directly inspired by biological systems!

It was because of his familiarity with smart metal mechs that Ves immediately noticed a potential issue.

"This is an accelerated timelapse of the regeneration process, right? How long does it actually take for a biocockpit in this condition to get fixed?"

"Ten days or longer depending on how many bones need to be replaced or regenerated. It takes a large amount of energy and effort to produce bones that are hard and tough enough to withstand the rigors of combat. Biotech factories can produce them at a faster rate by relying on large growing facilities. A biocockpit cannot possibly reach the same level of efficiency, especially if it cannot be supplemented by an external power source. This is why any bone damage will force the Carmine mech to stay in her berth for an extended period of time. The more damaged the cockpit, the longer the regeneration time as many of its biological processes are impaired."

Ves huffed and shook his head. "Thought so. That is way too long, Vector. The enemy won't wait for our cybernetic mechs to take their sweet time to return to a combat-ready state."

Lady Romanda decided to voice her own opinions.

"It is better than nothing, Professor Larkinson. The actual results will not diverge too much if we reduce the biotech content. The Carmine mechs will predominantly be fielded by auxiliary units. These units will not be as well-funded and well-equipped as proper military mech forces. There shouldn't be enough mech technicians on hand to service every Carmine mech at a time. If the Carmine mech unit has sustained heavy damage from a prior engagement, then the workers will be hard-pressed to repair all of the damaged machines within a couple of days. In this scenario, it is actually much more advantageous if the ultra-large biocockpits can be repaired without requiring any direct involvement from repair crews."

That sounded like a realistic scenario. The ultimate point that Vector and Romanda tried to make was that they weren't actually giving up anything important by committing to a fully biological ultra-large cockpit.

"Okay. Let's assume that you can equip every class of subordinate mech with self-repairing biological cockpits. How much will it cost, and how well do these cockpits perform?"

"We are not entirely certain about the cost for all three iterations of the subordinate mechs." Vector answered. "Our initial outlook for the first-class and second-class iterations are fairly optimistic. We believe that we can keep them affordable in relation to their target audiences. The greatest challenge is the third-class version of the Carmine mech. It is very hard to design an affordable cyborg mech with self-repair capabilities for the biological components. If we are not able to make it cost-effective, then we may have to design an ultra-large cockpit based on conventional technology."

Ves did not like this answer.

"No. This is unacceptable. I do not want to see such a major discrepancy between the different classes. Either their ultra-large cockpits are all biological, or all metallic. Under no circumstances should third-class Carmine mechs feel as if they got screwed because they only have access to a 'crippled' version of our Carmine mech line."

"You are making a steep demand here, Ves. We will try our best to develop a practical solution for the third-class mech, but you will have to accept the need for compromises in order to satisfy your demand."

"What sort of compromises are you talking about, Vector?"

Vector pointed at the projected Carmine mech that he had been working on. "Well, the first-class and second-class iterations will already underperform compared to a completely conventional mech at the same price level. The inclusion of an ultra-large cockpit lowers the efficiency of the designs. Converting to full biotech for the cockpits also makes them less durable and less resistant to different shocks and stresses. This is an unavoidable tradeoff if we want to retain the self-regeneration properties of the biocockpit."

In other words, the ultra-large cockpit introduced additional reductions in performance by converting into full biotechnology.

Although the advantages were obvious, were they really worth it if they made the Carmine mechs and their mech pilots easier to eliminate at once?

Enemies armed with stronger and more impactful weapons would be able to destroy both the ultra-large cockpit and the Carmine mech pilot upon direct impact!

This result rendered the advantage of preserving the Blood Pact and the advantage of self-repairing cockpits useless.

Toughness mattered!

There were good reasons why the chest plating of many mechs were awfully thick!

Ves furrowed his brows as he continued to study the design in the projection. He tried his best to estimate whether all of these compromises would lead to an excessively high loss rate when the Carmine mechs finally showed up on the battlefield.

He was unable to form solid estimates due to a lack of sufficient data and theory. The design process was still in the early stage. A lot more work needed to be done before Ves was able to make a definitive judgment.

"I don't know whether this will work the way we want, but… I am willing to give you two a chance." Ves eventually decided. "The two of you certainly sound confident enough, and your cooperation with each other appears to be productive so far. Since that is the case, let's proceed with biological ultra-large cockpits. Just in case, do keep the possibility of replacing the biological cockpits with conventional ones. I want to have a backup option available in case the biological solution does not meet our needs."

"Will do, Ves. We will not disappoint you. There should be more advantages to employing a biological cockpit. We theorize that it may synergize quite well with your living mech technology."

"Let's see"

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