The Mech Touch

Ves did not like the notion of expanding the mech community's precious Red Kingdom to the Starfighter Corps.

He did not even know whether it was even possible, but if the bigshots of the Red Association went through with this crazy plan, then that would change the meaning of mechs forever!

Ves did not necessarily hate starfighters. He did not look down on the brave pilots who had no choice to pilot these strike craft in battle due to their inadequate genetic aptitudes. The inclusion of more and more starfighters on the battlefield massively reduced the burden on mechs and helped them survive longer.

Yet… despite all of the contributions made by starfighters and their brave pilots, Ves still did not want them to be regarded as equals to their mech counterparts.

Perhaps it did not sound fair, but Ves was ultimately a mech designer. It was in his job description to play favorites. He could not possibly remain impartial and still remain in this business!

The message that Jovy tried to convey was very clear. The Swarm Project had to be introduced to the public according to schedule. The longer the project was delayed, the closer the Red Admiralty came to getting its wish.

In fact, even after the introduction of Carmine mechs, an argument could still be made to allow the Red Kingdom to extend its immense influence to starfighters.

The Carmine System technically only gave Carmine pilots a single shot at living their dream.

If the Carmine mech pilots survived a battle but somehow lost their mechs and more importantly their ultra-large cockpits, then they were soulbound to never pilot another mech for the rest of their lives!

This was a devastating setback that could end the promising careers of many Carmine mech pilots in the years to come. All of their accumulated piloting skills and combat experience would largely go to waste as they were forced to retire from the field and apply themselves in other areas.

While veteran Carmine mech pilots would certainly be able to contribute to society outside of the battlefield in plenty of ways, it just wasn't the same. There were lots of people who were already working as mech instructors, military advisers, staff officers and etcetera.

What red humanity was short of were soldiers and warriors who had what it took to confront alien warships head-on with the intent to win!

In that sense, the Starfighter Corps could still play a useful role… if a much diminished one. It was the option of last resort for combat capable personnel. The requirements to pilot a starfighter was almost nothing compared to piloting a classical mech or a Carmine mech. Their relative simplicity should allow most mech pilots to quickly figure out how to make decent use of starfighters.

"There should not be a problem with introducing the finished versions of all of the mechs of the Swarm Project at the planned date, correct?" Jovy pressed Ves. "A delay of any sort will disrupt far too many plans. Much hinges on the successful unveiling of your Carmine mechs at the right place and the right time. We have already prepared a grand venue and sent out the invitations. Even if most people are still unaware of what we are about to unleash onto our society, they should already have enough clues to guess that this is a product unveiling that they should not miss."

"I don't foresee any problems." Ves replied. "I mean, we already solved the most difficult technical problems. Your Association also handled the logistical challenges involved with mass producing cybernetic mechs on an unprecedented scale. I don't see any reason why we would have to postpone the introduction. Everything is already set in stone. We're just doing a lot of testing, optimization and tweaking work at this point."

The work was a little more complicated than that. The Swarm Project encompassed 6 mech designs in total, with half of them Carmine mechs of different classes. The use of first-class, second-class and third-class tech caused the designs to diverge a lot from each other, which made it a lot harder to keep the general piloting experience as homogeneous and universal as possible.

On certain days, the need to keep up with several different versions of the same mech concept almost drove Ves crazy!

He was looking forward to concluding this exhaustive project and work on more reasonable mech design projects going forward. The urgency to design and publish a set of Carmine mechs would disappear as soon as the Swarm Project finally made its well-deserved debut.

Jovy still looked a bit suspicious towards Ves. "You occasionally have a habit of gaining epiphanies which causes you to revise your original plan and delay your projects in order to accommodate your latest ideas. This may be acceptable at other times, but the Swarm Project does not require any further innovation. The Carmine System itself is already the crown jewel as far as we are concerned. If you truly want to iterate on the mechs of the Swarm Project further, then you can wait until we have published the current version before working on a future update."

"Hey, relax. I get it. I am aware of the dangers of feature creep. I am still pretty sure that I have exhausted most of my creative ideas at this time." Ves had much to be proud of, even if his input on the designs were less than usual.

The subordinate models that should attract all of the attention offered relatively economic solutions for every state. The materials used to make the machines were deliberately chosen to be as common and widely available as possible. The tech was also kept either simple or easy to fabricate in order to reduce the chance of complications and delays.

Although these design priorities dragged down the combat performance of the subordinate mechs of the Swarm project, it shouldn't matter too much. Every subordinate mech was shaped like a wasp with modular hardpoints for each limb. Ves envisioned the rise of another thriving market centered around the servicing and upgrades of these revolutionary Carmine mech models.

Others could easily make use of expensive materials and fancy tech to produce modular upgrades and modifications that surpassed the very mediocre performance of the base models.

Ves pretty much banked on this phenomenon to spare him the trouble of designing additional Carmine mechs to fulfill the needs of customers who did not exactly find what they sought.

Of course, Ves had not given up on designing Carmine mechs. It was the opposite. He had many ideas he wanted to explore later on, but each of them had to be substantially different from the works he designed in the past. The new Carmine mechs had to fulfill roles that the machines of the Swarm Project could never fulfill unless they went through excessive upgrades.

He could think about that later. For now, his main priority was to wrap up the Swarm Project. Once he got rid of this huge burden, he could finally breathe easier and make up for lost time by investing more work in the ongoing high-ranking mech design projects.

After Ves and Jovy finally moved past the critical subject of the Swarm Project, they discussed a few other matters.

"How is the war effort going so far?"

"It is doing better." Jovy reluctantly replied. "Ever since the 3rd defensive band eventually succumbed from all of the persistent assaults, it appears that the Red Cabal can no longer ignore the complaints of the alien masses. Not even the most devout believers in the 'descendants of the Elder Gods' are willing to throw themselves into the meat grinder to such an enormous extent with very little results in return. Even the aliens can figure out that the price-to-performance ratio of their bloody attacks is far below the standard."

"Ever since the aliens have begun to siege the 4th defensive wall, the news doesn't broadcast as much fallen star systems per week as they did before. Have the aliens run out of steam already?"

"Oh no. They still have abundant reserves at their disposal. The native aliens are not yet close to depleting their enormous stock of military assets and the personnel needed to crew all of them. The reason why they have lowered their operational tempo is because their soldiers are not accustomed to waging war with such intensity. Cannon fodder does not want to be treated as cannon fodder. By recklessly throwing phasefighters and warships at prepared human defenses, many native aliens end up dying without earning any honor or glory. The sheer callousness in which their 'gods' drive their worshipers to their doom has begun to upset the rank-and-file. The Red Cabal has little choice but to adjust their strategies in order to topple the remaining two defensive bands."

That actually sounded plausible. The native aliens may be different from humans in many ways, but they still possessed the fundamental drive for life, reproduction and satisfying their greed.

"So what is their current strategy?" Ves asked.

"The native aliens have ceased to send their warships at our fortified planets in waves in the hopes that our defenses will eventually break. Instead, they have chosen to gather many different fleets in adjacent star systems. By splitting up the fleet elements and placing them in many different locations, they are preventing our god pilots and dreadnoughts from mopping them all up at once. It takes valuable time for our best protectors to hop from star system to star system, so they are getting eliminated at a much lower rate than before. The only time they converge together is when they receive orders to launch a single all-out assault on a human-occupied star system."

That was indeed a clever way to cope with the reality of god pilots and dreadnoughts roaming across the frontlines slaughtering every alien present in a star system.

As much native alien assets as these great protectors had already managed to eliminate, there was always more!

By switching their strategies, the attacking aliens indeed managed to decrease their loss rate and have enough forces left over to pull off daring attacks.

"The fourth defensive band shouldn't fall in the near future, then." Ves concluded. "The native aliens still have a quantity advantage, but our side has scientists and stuff, so we should theoretically be growing stronger just due to the time difference alone."

Humans did not fight and die in vain. The mech pilots and other soldiers bought valuable time for red humanity to further fortify the frontlines.

The 4th defensive band had gained real significance. The 5th defensive band had become much stronger and better-protected against exotic effects.

No matter what clever tricks the native aliens tried to employ, they had little choice but to rely on brute force in order to overcome their various shortcomings!

"How is the mood among the defenders?" Ves asked.

"Morale is mixed. It depends on who we serve and other variables. Most of the pilots are veterans now, and they may become elites if they survived their ordeals longer. Total defeats are fairly rare. Most battles end up with one side limping back to safe harbor, thereby allowing them to fight another day. That becomes much less possible if the aliens decide to strike all at once with overwhelming numbers."

Red humans did not easily back off from their missions. Many mech pilots wanted to preserve the integrity of his machine, nothing more.

"How probable do you think morale will sink?"

"Not likely." Jovy responded. "I have great expectations for you. Your Carmine System and everything that comes with it will produce such a massive shock in the mech community that your presentation will jolt it back to life. The mech community as we know it will change forever as we welcome many new Carmine mech pilots. The entry of so many relatively fresh and green newcomers will do much to ease people's tensions and remind them what they are fighting to preserve."

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