The Mech Touch

The third major session of the Interim Leadership Council began to reach its conclusion.

The councilors held many discussions and formed a consensus on many different contentious subjects.

Of course, with Ves effectively in charge of the session, he had done what he could to nudge and push the outcome in his favor.

Nobody missed how he essentially abused his authority as deputy chief councilor for his own selfish interests. It was quite blatant to all of these highly experienced politicians and schemers.

The key was that Ves never crossed the line. He knew his limits and he only sparingly made a strong move to secure his more important objectives.

What was also important was that Ves understood the need for give and take. He could not allow himself and his faction to win every single policy debate.

No matter what Ves thought about the Guardians of Order, the faction possessed enough support and held legitimate concerns towards the danger posed by cultivators. They served as a necessary check and balance towards the unbridled ambitions of those who mastered the art of wielding the power of E energy.

Although the Guardians of Order had not been able to stop the rise of the Coalition of Faiths, the former at least managed to impose a few limits and prevent the Red Collective from potentially turning into the second coming of the Five Scrolls Compact.

The specter of that dreaded cult continued to spook a lot of old-timers who became affected by the ravages of the dark days of the Age of Conquest. There were plenty of people who sought to prevent history from repeating and sought to obstruct as much as possible, not realizing that red humanity's context was completely different this time.

Fortunately, there were enough level-headed people in every faction that ultimately agreed that more needed to be done in order to halt the Red Tide Offensive.

Any fears about enabling the return of the Five Scrolls Compact or similar degenerate organization became moot if all humans in the Red Ocean became extinct in a few years!

It was due to this crisis that loomed over everyone's heads that the third council session ultimately got a lot of stuff done.

The councilors preferred action over inaction, and would rather try out flawed solutions that could potentially backfire than to do nothing and allow the structure of human civilization to collapse around themselves.

He should not expect this amicable atmosphere to last for long. If red humanity successfully defended itself against the Red Tide Offensive, then the urgency would drop, causing the different factions to become a lot more proactive about defending their own interests!

00:43

Many councilors were high-tiered galactic citizens with proven accomplishments, so it did not surprise Ves all that much that they could be quite accommodating to each other when the need was great enough.

He should not expect this amicable atmosphere to last for long. If red humanity successfully defended itself against the Red Tide Offensive, then the urgency would drop, causing the different factions to become a lot more proactive about defending their own interests!

That was a problem for later. Ves did not have the luxury to think too far ahead. His schedule was packed to the brim and he was juggling too many different concerns at the same time. Trying to wrangle this session into a somewhat satisfying conclusion for the majority of councilors already took a toll on his mental balance.

Though Ves continued to project an image of confidence and strength, in reality he had grown more than tired of trying to keep up with all of the subtle and multi-layered political games played by the councilors.

He was pretty sure that he had missed the subtext and double meanings of a lot of remarks.

From this aspect, Ves was not suitable to serve as the deputy chief minister.

Yet strangely enough, the councilors did not disapprove of him for this reason. It was the opposite. They actually expressed occasional signs that they were more than willing to tolerate his continued leadership over the ILC.

Ves knew why. Compared to these old foxes who often had a century or two centuries worth of politicking under their belt, the man currently sitting on the highest seat was a novice in comparison!

It was a lot easier for them to get away with subtle maneuvers under the supervision of an amateur politician like Ves. They knew that as long as they did not commit any obvious violations, they could actually get away with a lot more schemes than if the meetings were presided by one of their own ilk.

Once Ves figured this out, he felt kind of stupid. They probably equated his own little ploys and schemes to the drawings of a toddler. It was just too easy for them to manipulate his mood and judgment!

Ves even started to suspect that some of the concessions he received during this session was not because he obtained powerful backing or made a persuasive case, but because they wanted to feed him with enough success to justify his current position!

Though Ves felt rather insulted that he was being patronized by all of these elder statesmen as if he was a child, he was mature enough to understand that this was not actually a bad deal from his perspective.

At the very least, his power base was still very real, which meant that he could never be reduced to their puppet. As long as he became the permanent leader of the Upper Council, Ves remained confident that he could continue to abuse his position to his advantage on occasion.

Since the wiley councilors so badly wanted a political dummy as their chief, they had little choice but to indulge his periodic wishes!

After all, if Ves ever became frustrated or if he was deemed incompetent, he may actually vacate his seat at the head of the Upper Council and make way for a much more competent predator!

Many of the councilors did not forget that the Evolution Witch presided over the previous two sessions of the Interim Leadership Council.

That was pretty much one of the worst situations to operate in by all of the career politicians!

They knew that they could never get away with any form of deception in front a god pilot. The highly driven and inflexible nature of a god pilot also made it a lot harder for them to cede any ground. The Evolution Witch also built up a lot of infamy for disregarding the wants and desires of the people in her orbit.

These reasons and more all encouraged the councilors to conspire to keep the Evolution Witch as far away from the Red Collective as possible!

As Ves formed all of these guesses and realizations, he wished he could have figured this out a lot sooner.

Not that it would have prompted him to change his strategy all that much.

He just felt like he had been acting like a clown without knowing it all of this time.

There was a big difference between remaining completely clueless and gaining awareness that he was being plotted against.

Ves actually wanted to leave this virtual meeting hall and get back to his design lab even harder.

He didn't belong in this place. Ves felt a lot less excited about the Evolution Witch's intention to foist him into a dominant leadership position in the Red Collective. He was simply not ready to hold so much responsibility.

He tried his best not to let his doubts and anxiety spill over his current confident persona. No matter what, showing weakness was a very bad idea. Perhaps his current stream of thought was just a temporary affliction that would go away in time.

Ves could think about his performance and what different people sought from him after the session had come to an end. He really wanted to get a hold of the Evolution Witch so that he could directly learn what she expected of him. It was frustrating for her to treat him like a chess piece without giving him an explanation of her grand strategy.

As the long and exhausting session finally came to an end, Ves stood up once more.

Everyone directed their attention to the second-youngest councilor in the virtual hall.

In fact, he should have been the youngest out of them all by a huge margin, but the unexpected entry of Lieutenant-Commander Astrid Jameson caused him to lose this particular bragging right.

"Councilors." He said with a polite smile. "I am pleased that we have concluded another productive session. Our Interim Leadership Council has made a large amount of progress by determining how the Red Collective ought to be funded and how it should be governed. The implementation of a Lower Council that will finally grant the masses a voice at the highest level of our civilization as well as the creation of an Upper Council that empowers the greatest contributors of our race's promising cultivation community will give our Collective the foundation and strength it needs to prosper for centuries to come."

"The day of the founding of the Red Collective draws closer." Ves continued his official-sounding speech. "Now that we have made enough decisions to form an initial framework of the Red Collective, I expect that our future members and contributions will intensify their preparation work. We must construct the headquarters and branch offices that will anchor the Red Collective in our society. We must recruit the huge amount of first-raters, second-raters and third-raters needed to staff all of the offices and research institutions. We must also form contracts with many suppliers and agreements with the states that will host our offices to ensure we can exercise our mandates without suffering too many constraints."

This was a huge amount of work. Even with the active support of the Red Two and the first-rate colonial superstates, it was impossible to complete all of this work within half a year, let alone a decade!

Many of the councilors felt proud of what they accomplished. They were among the few humans who had been chosen to become the architect of a powerful new institution of human civilization. Their contributions already shaped the history of their race and could potentially change the lives of an unending amount of descendants in the subsequent years and ages!

Of course, all of this was dependent on the survival of red humanity.

"The day of the founding of the Red Collective draws closer." Ves continued his official-sounding speech. "Now that we have made enough decisions to form an initial framework of the Red Collective, I expect that our future members and contributions will intensify their preparation work. We must construct the headquarters and branch offices that will anchor the Red Collective in our society. We must recruit the huge amount of first-raters, second-raters and third-raters needed to staff all of the offices and research institutions. We must also form contracts with many suppliers and agreements with the states that will host our offices to ensure we can exercise our mandates without suffering too many constraints."

This was a huge amount of work. Even with the active support of the Red Two and the first-rate colonial superstates, it was impossible to complete all of this work within half a year, let alone a decade!

Fortunately, it shouldn't take much time to set up the skeleton of the Red Collective before the day it officially entered into operation.

As long as the most essential structure of the superorganization came online first, the rest could be addressed in the following years and decades.

"According to the schedule, you should expect to attend at least two more major sessions before the Interim Leadership Council has completed its mission." Ves continued. "After that, some of you will go on to join the Lower Council. Others will enter the Upper Council. No matter where you end up, I hope that we can all continue to contribute to the growth and prosperity of the Red Collective, as our race needs a strong guiding hand on how to harness the power of cultivation."

The changes were happening far too quickly for Ves' liking. It should have taken at least a decade to properly debate and plan out the formation of an organization of this magnitude, but all they had was only a single year!

Though Ves found it jarring to prepare for a future where the Red Two would be joined by another peer, he also had reasons to welcome its formation.

"On the subject of kinship networks, now that we have decided to make use of it with the appropriate monitoring and restrictions, we do not have to wait until the Red Collective has entered into operation to make use of them already. With the aliens trying to tear apart the 3rd defensive band, we need to acquire any advantage that we can get in the short term. The first kinship networks designed for the Terran Alliance, the Rubarthan Pact as well as the New Elites Program have already been optimized and iterated upon for more than a year. They have been waiting for final approval for months, so now that there are no hurdles anymore, they can come online within a week. Be prepared for widespread changes, though I expect that their owners will only gradually let people into the kinship networks."

Though the existence of kinship networks was not strictly a secret, this was the first time they would be deployed on a wide enough scale to attract the attention of all of red humanity!

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