The Mech Touch

Ves was not entirely sold on the biological ultra-large cockpit thing, but he was willing to give Vector and Lady Romanda a chance to prove their combined work and vision.

Both of them had already reached the rank of Senior Mech Designer. That meant that they had overcome the initial struggles of a low-ranking mech designer and solved enough problems as Journeymen to reach a relatively mature stage of their progression.

Senior Mech Designers mostly knew what they were doing. They did not need any hand-holding. If they promised to produce a certain result, then it was perfectly fine to assume that they would deliver what they promised. At most, they might request a delay due to suffering unforeseen setbacks, but first-class mech designers of their caliber should never fail to complete their assignments.

This was why Ves withheld the remainder of his doubts. It was best if he let Vector and Lady Romanda cook. They should be intelligent enough to notify Ves if they encountered any problems that might cause them to revise their estimates on their work.

Ves dropped by Jovy's design lab a short time later.

Due to the advanced nature of Jovy's design philosophy, he was not able to work on something awesome straight away. This left him with the more mundane and basic tasks such as securing the appropriate component licenses and seeking selective cooperation from various different technical consultants and equipment developers.

The Swarm Project had to be as cost effective and mass producible as possible.

On the surface, this might translate into using widely used industry standard materials and components, and that was partially true.

However, it was better and more efficient in the long run if the mechs of the Swarm Project developed its own new standards. This meant that it was not enough for the design team to make use of off-the-shelf component designs.

While every Senior Mech Designer was capable of designing basic mech components from scratch, it was better if dedicated R&D teams completed the assignments instead.

Jovy was currently in charge of setting up and coordinating all of the work involving third parties.

Since the Swarm Project was supposed to be a confidential project, Jovy had to be careful about communicating his requirements. He only issued commissions to internal RA research teams, and preferably ones that were run by Survivalists or Transhumanists.

Even if a bit of information leaked, it was mostly inconsequential as nothing related to the Carmine System was added to the specifications.

"How's it going, Jovy?"

"It has been… challenging for the researchers and developers to take our requests seriously." The RA Senior responded even as he drafted another carefully worded letter. "You and I both know that the Swarm Project is a high priority for the Evolution Witch, but we cannot clearly communicate that to others due to the need to maintain secrecy. Even if I tone it down, too many people will try to investigate us in order to learn what is occupying so many high-level resources of our Association."

"Oh. Will this be a problem?"

"Not completely. Perhaps I am being uncharitable. I have already requested Master Goldstein's assistance. With his cooperation, we should be able to lay a few more false trails and split the commissions up between multiple different dummy research projects. That should at least make it harder for outsiders to connect the dots."

That sounded like a basic but clever approach. It had its limitations, but it was a practical enough solution.

"So what kind of help can we expect from all of these groups?"

"The works. We will be able to obtain customized versions of armor systems, flight systems, weapon systems, power generators, hyper shield generators and so on that are adequately tailored to the needs of all three iterations of the subordinate mech. The developers will try to make these mech parts and systems as cost-effective and easy to produce as possible. This means that they will try to avoid making use of convoluted tech and difficult-to-source materials. The performance of all of these parts will not break any records, but they should at least meet the standards of the current mech generation."

The first commercial Carmine mechs were never going to become performance monsters.

Ves was used to designing mechs as of late that overperformed on the battlefield such as the Fey Fianna, the Ultimatum and the Transcendent Punisher Mark III.

However, these were powerful second-class and quasi-first-class mechs that were targeted towards more advanced or elite mech pilots.

There was not much point in pairing powerful mechs with very weak mech pilots, because the latter could never draw out of the full potential of the former.

The Swarm Project was very much deliberately aimed at the bottom segment of the market because it was unlikely that Carmine mech pilots that just started out would be able to match the performance of professional mech pilots.

Even if Ves designed a more premium Carmine mech, he seriously doubted that employers would be stupid enough to invest in these expensive machines and hand them over to Carmine mech pilots who never fought a single actual battle in their lives!

All of this meant that Ves did not try to aim for peak performance in the subordinate mechs of the Swarm Project.

The Red Association's R&D teams were renowned across the galaxies. The scientists and engineers who worked for the mechers were among the most innovative and knowledgeable professionals in their respective fields. They were only slightly topped by their counterparts from the Red Fleet.

Instead, Ves sought to find a sweet spot between affordability, reliability and ease of use.

As Jovy began to elaborate about all of the commissions he made, Ves generally became satisfied with what he heard.

The Red Association's R&D teams were renowned across the galaxies. The scientists and engineers who worked for the mechers were among the most innovative and knowledgeable professionals in their respective fields. They were only slightly topped by their counterparts from the Red Fleet.

This meant that these R&D teams were definitely able to fulfill their commissions.

However, not everything was perfect.

The RA's famed R&D personnel were so swamped with requests that they did not have the time to fulfill everyone's wishes. Mech designers of different factions fought tooth and nail against each other just to raise their own commissions up the priority list!

The researchers and developers among the mechers were also insufferably arrogant. Much of Jovy's problems was due to trying to overcome the dismissive attitudes that they held towards a mere young Senior like himself.

These were people who were regularly entrusted with strategically important assignments by Master Mech Designers and occasionally even Star Designers!

"Does it help if my name gets attached to the requests?" Ves asked.

"No! Absolutely not!" Jovy vigorously shook his head. "It would have the opposite effect. You have become a magnet for trouble. Too many people are interested in your work. They take every small data point of you and try to extrapolate that in order to predict your next moves. You can't imagine how many groups have set up dedicated observation teams just to remain up to date on your activities. For example, many people have reacted with surprise and occasionally alarm when your office has begun to reach out to many different faiths."

"You should already know why."

"We do. We… understand the rationale behind your latest scheme. We cannot say we approve, but given the dire state of red humanity, we are not inclined to take steps to discourage you from proceeding with this course of action. You should be aware that we would have supplied you with a different answer if we were living in a different time."

Ves sneered. "Then it is a good thing we have left the Age of Mechs behind us. Don't get me wrong. I like the old days. Our civilization truly needed centuries of peace and stability to regain our collective sanity and regain what we have lost due to our own hubris. However, you can't deny that your overly restrictive policies and intrusive meddling has kept our society stagnant for too long. Not only did our war readiness sink to the lowest point in millenia, but technological progress outside of mech design has been lagging over many generations. Now that we are actually in serious trouble again, lots of progress is happening all of a sudden. Our society is changing faster than the previous four centuries combined, and technological development has entered the fast track."

"What is the point that you are trying to make, Ves?"

"Frankly speaking, I think that the Unbound Humanity Faction has become the defacto standard in the Age of Dawn. Whether you admit it or not, we cannot and should not stick to old and outdated customs. This bias you have against religion is… not entirely unfounded, but it has no place in this age. Who cares about the Five Scrolls Compact. Your boogeyman has become old news. Our true enemies are the native aliens of the Red Ocean and the more distant aliens of Messier 87. Against their combined might, I fear that we may have little choice but rely on the power of faith to maintain parity with these powerful enemies."

Ves wanted to say that for a while now. He did not know why he suddenly mustered up the courage to criticize the RA's stance towards religion, but he was glad he did so. He wanted to get this burden off his chest.

Jovy no longer paid attention to his current work. He fell into thought as he tried to process Ves' arguments and put them in the context of the current times.

"Religion is not a benign force, Ves." Jovy plainly stated to his friend. "You should know that as well, since you have been raised in a strongly secularist state. Superstition may have its place in controlling the masses back when we thought that gods such as Thor or Zeus generated lightning in the skies. People wanted answers, and the first charlatans among them purportedly supplied them with ones that made sense to their societies at the time. We have outlived those days long ago. Those gods do not exist. They are unfalsifiable existences, so they are entirely irrelevant unless we have obtained hard proof that can change our conclusions. If anything, the only gods that deserve to be worshiped by the masses are our god pilots. They are the only 'gods' who are concrete and real."

"I don't disagree with you, Jovy, but we don't have the luxury to work with the people who match our ideals. We have to work with the people who are actually a part of our society, and many of them do not share your stance on religion."

Ves never noticed that Jovy was an even stronger secularist than himself. The mecher truly inherited the attitudes of his Association.

"Regardless, be careful about who you engage with, Ves. You may think you are set to exploit all of these faiths for your own benefit, but the reverse may actually be the case. Those millenia-old churches are run by people with vision. They will seek to twist you into becoming their puppet. If you are not careful enough, you may end up facilitating their rise without possessing any means to keep them in check. More and more people will rise up in opposition against you in order to hold back the greedy and unbridled ambitions of all of these religious organizations."

The Survivalist gave Ves a necessary dose of reality.

This was a very necessary reminder. Ves had been taking these churches way too lightly. He needed to stop underestimating them just because they had been forced to keep their heads down all of the time.

The entire reason why they had remained relatively low-key for the most part was precisely because the Red Two never gave them any slack!

As long as the Red Collective rose up and proactively sought to satisfy their interests, then an extreme reaction might ensue!

Ves would then be guilty of unleashing hundreds of not thousands of monsters onto human society!

"I… I will pay attention to this, Jovy. I won't let these religious nuts have free reign."

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