The Mech Touch

By the time the highly successful virtual meeting came to an end, Ves stayed behind in order to speak with a few familiar faces.

The representative of the Temple of Hexism rose up from her seat and circled around the virtual round table until she stopped next to the self-appointed Hierarch of the Coalition of Faiths.

"Congratulations on your coup, my dear Supreme Son. You have prepared well and performed magnificently. It pains me to see you empowering the false religions of the unenlightened masses, but I am confident that the Supreme Mother shall reign over them in time."

Ves inwardly sighed, but he stood up to show his respect to his mother-in-law.

"Hello, Minister Constance. I did not expect the Temple of Hexism to dispatch you to this virtual meeting."

The women in robes responded with an indulgent smile at Ves. "Much has changed in the Hex Federation. I am no longer the Prime Minister of the Scimitar System. I have passed my old responsibilities to my firstborn daughter, who is more than capable of running her new office. I have accepted the offer to become a High Hex Priestess of the Temple of Hexism. I see my youngest daughter has not informed you of what that entails. In company terms, I have become an executive in the temple."

That sounded interesting.

"How much power do you have over the temple?"

"My official power is limited, but my influence is greater. The temple is effectively run by the six matriarchal dynasties of the Hex Federation. Our Wodin Dynasty cannot match them, but has still earned the right to participate in the decision-making of the Temple of Hexism due to our familial relations with you and your venerable mother. If necessary, we can utilize our outsized influence to force changes in the operation of the temple, but we should do so sparingly in order to maintain a comfortable balance of power in our state."

There was nothing urgent that Ves wanted from the Hexers. They were doing pretty well for themselves. The Glory Seekers continued to enjoy a good amount of success in the expeditionary fleet, thereby earning plenty of war merits for the Wodin Dynasty. This enabled the Wodins to make use of expensive first-class goods and services that the first-raters previously kept away from those they regarded as space peasants.

"Is there anything else you need?"

The older woman shook her head. "I approached you with two goals in mind. The first is to greet you and inform you of the necessary changes. The second is to request your assistance in seeking a high office in the Red Collective. I can do much for the Hex Federation, the Superior Mother, our families and you in particular if I can assume a high-level management position in the new superorganization."

"You are asking for much, do you know that?" Ves furrowed his brows. "Your request is not… impossible, but I will incur great criticism if I engage in such a blatant form of nepotism. I have no doubt that you possess plenty of governance qualifications, but there are simply candidates who are much better than you. There are administrators and bureaucrats who are a century older and have occupied senior positions in many different first-class public institutions. It will be very hard to appoint you over their heads if their qualifications on paper are plainly a lot better."

The new High Hex Priestess looked affronted that Ves dared to question the competence of his mother-in-law!

"The difference in qualifications is not as severe as you think. I have invested a significant share of the war merits earned by the Glory Seekers to replace my previous cranial implants with a modern first-class hyper augmentation suite. The quality and performance of my upgrades may not be as excellent as the suite that you have arranged for my youngest daughter, but its modernity alone allows it to surpass the performance of similar augmentations developed in the previous age. With the help of my new cognitive improvements, I have completed numerous first-class courses and have also enrolled in a short and intensive training program organized by a first-class university."

That sounded quite impressive. Constance was much like her daughter Gloriana. She was never satisfied with a mediocre position and constantly worked to raise her station in life. It was clear that Gloriana acquired her drive to excel at all cost from her mother!

"All of that sounds great, but you can't do anything about your age and work experience. No amount of money or technology can solve this problem. Only time can remedy this shortcoming."

Constance did not look discouraged. "It is possible to turn a demerit into a desirable trait. We have entered a new age. The Red Collective is also a new organization that should form a firm separation from the past. It would be counterproductive to staff all of the most important offices with old stateswomen who already enjoyed their heyday during the height of the Age of Mechs. The Red Collective needs fresh blood. It is best to employ reasonably experienced administrators and specialists that are not too weighed down by centuries of politicking and decision-making from the previous age, do you not agree?"

Well, when she put it that way, she certainly presented a compelling argument.

Ves eventually nodded. "I will do what I can to put you in a place of importance in the Red Collective. I will attempt to use your argument as an excuse. I cannot guarantee a successful outcome. There are many fingers in the pie. I am attempting to increase my share of power in the Collective, so who knows whether I will gain the power to appoint anyone I want. I will inform you if I encounter any difficulties."

"Good boy. That is all I needed to hear. I shall wait for further developments. Do keep your wife informed. She is not sufficiently involved in your affairs related to the Red Collective. As your spouse, Gloriana is more than capable of lightening your burden and handling work that you are otherwise too preoccupied to address."

Ves seriously listened to his mother-in-law's suggestion… before promptly throwing it into his mental trash bin.

"Gloriana doesn't have the time. She is already swamped with work in our Design Department. Not only is she responsible for designing two new expert mechs, she must also upgrade another one to a first-class ace mech on top of that. Between leading the Design Department and raising my children, she can't spare any time for additional duties. She is more than happy with her current set of responsibilities."

The mother did not look too disappointed. "Then you should reconsider once my daughter's schedule has lightened."

Once the HIgh Hex Priestess finally cut off her connection to the virtual meeting room, Ves was left with the co-architect of his plan to assume a dominant leadership position over the Coalition of Faiths.

""Well, I think that is a success, temple-commander."

Oson Jackarie looked somewhat happy. "You have secured almost all of the objectives that we have set in our action plan. It is regrettable that you did not do more to persuade the representative of the Hunting Association to join our Coalition of Faiths, but we all understand how difficult it is to persuade an organization led by the Huntsman himself to join our club of marginalized faiths. The Hunting Association exists in a different league and does not fear repression."

"I already gave up on recruiting the Hunting Association as soon as its representative made his stance clear. It would have been distracting and embarrassing for me to plead to the HA in full view of the others."

"You have made the right choice. It is already good that you have managed to win the participation of all of the other faiths. I only expected you to be able to secure the tentative support of two of the old faiths at most, but I underestimated the desire to obtain a 'divine avatar' to prove that their gods exist and have become more active to protect their vulnerable flock in the Red Ocean."

"I have a lot of work ahead of myself." Ves sighed. "It is not going to be easy to create so many 'divine avatars' just before the big council session."

"Just do what you can, sir. In the meantime, the rest of us will handle the rest of the work needed to turn the Coalition of Faiths into an officially recognized organization. That will help us earn acknowledgement from the other council members. It is important to show that while we desire to increase our share of power in the Red Collective, we are fully capable of operating within the established rules. The ones that have yet to change, at the very least."

A lot of work needed to be done in order to get everything ready, but Ves lacked the time and interest to tackle all of these tedious affairs. He had no choice but to delegate these responsibilities to Temple-Protector Oson Jackarie and other minions and hope they did not screw up somehow.

Once the virtual meeting finally came to an end, Ves promptly received an important summons from Jovy.

"Here it comes." He sighed.

He waited for half a minute until he got teleported back to the Tarrasque in orbit. He navigated through the increasingly more familiar hallways before he finally entered Jovy's private mech lab.

The Senior Mech Designer already noticed Ves' arrival and paused his design work on the Riot Mark III Project.

"You have been making waves, Ves. That is to be expected from a known troublemaker and breaker of status quo's such as yourself, but your latest feats will produce far greater ripple effects throughout our society than many of your other deeds."

Ves' expression remained impassive as he casually leaned against the bulkhead and crossed his arms.

"Oh, come now, Jovy. Everything I did in relation to the Coalition of Faiths happened under your surveillance. You guys listened to my discussions with the representative of the Pantheon of Modern Gods and could have intervened at any point to stop me from going through with my plan. The fact that none of you saw reason to intervene and half my scheme means that I enjoy your implicit approval."

The RA mech designer assumed a grave expression, which showed that he was addressing Ves as a representative of the Survivalist Faction rather than his friend.

"You should have already guessed that our Survivalist Faction would have never permitted you to go as far as empowering all of the parasitic faiths that have done little but hold back human progress and sustain their baseless superstitions for thousands of years if the survival of our race was not at stake. We acknowledge that desperate times require desperate solutions, and your ploy can be considered one of them, as dubious as it may sound."

"So… does that mean I have your faction's blessing to proceed with my plan to empower all of the religious organizations while arming them with spirits that can serve as stand-ins for their supposed gods?"

"Not… exactly." Jovy shook his head. "We have serious misgivings about the latter part of your plan. As promising as it may sound to create E energy vessels that are expressly designed to efficiently absorb as much of the faith and worship produced by so many devoted followers, we fear that you and everyone else will lose control of the resulting end products. Not all of the gods revered by these churches are benevolent, and we also have concerns about gods that try to be too 'helpful' to humans as they live their daily lives. The societal consequences of giving humans access to so many gods that seek to compete with each other to capture the greatest share of faith-producing individuals are… frightening."

The Survivalist raised a good point. Ves admittedly did not fully think his decision through. He had neglected to consider all of these problematic societal changes.

"Then what are you asking me to do?" Ves frowned. "I can't turn my back on my agreements with the religious organizations."

"We are not asking you to suspend your deal with them. As pessimistic as we sound, we acknowledge the potential good that these curious entities can do for our civilization as a whole. We merely request you to take measures to restrict the powers and growth rates of your 'divine avatars'. As long as they do not grow powerful enough to effectively take over a large proportion of human-occupied space, our god pilots and other powerful rivals should be able to keep them in check."

So that was what the Survivalists sought. They wanted to weaponize the faithful, but they did not want the religious nuts to grow powerful enough to completely usurp the current order!

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