The Mech Touch

The day of the founding ceremony had arrived.

Scheduled to begin at noon standard time which was still synchronized to the clocks on Old Earth, Ves and every other human knew that history would change forever.

There was no way to stop the rise of the Red Collective anymore. Even if the native aliens or radical terrorists found a way to disrupt the ceremony, the stakeholders would just hold a quieter and much more private inauguration event elsewhere.

Too many people put their hopes and ambitions on the founding of a future rival to the Red Association and the Red Fleet.

While it was extremely unlikely for 'collies', as they had begun to be called, to rival the mechers and fleeters anytime soon, there was always hope for the future.

An extremely important component to speeding up the development and total combat power of the collies was whether the Hunting Association agreed to register itself as a sect at the Red Collective.

Doing so was an explicit act of submission that told the public that the Hunting Association agreed to abide by the regime of the Red Collective.

This was a politically high-stakes game and one that had far–reaching consequences to the future development trajectory of red humanity.

Ves was hardly the only stakeholder of the RC to make an attempt to pull the Hunting Association over to his side.

Other councilors and future high officials had made their own appeals. Ves hoped that they had done a good enough job to finally win the Hunters over when combined with his own risky gambit.

Of course, nobody knew whether the Huntsman or the people he entrusted to lead the Hunting Association agreed to play along.

Ves realized quite well that he had employed a dirty move in his attempt to bring the HA into submission. The rank-and-file Hunters had continued to talk and fawn over his 'leaked' proposal to design a set of 'Mergewater biomechs' that perfectly complemented their hunting habits.

Far too little time had passed for the hype surrounding Carmine mechs to pass. The idea that the Hunters would gain the exclusive privilege to pilot specially-designed Carmine biomechs that could continually grow alongside them in a physically imposing manner.

The imagination of Hunters and other people began to run wild as they imagined all sorts of amazing possibilities. They drew inspiration from old fantasy action dramas where the protagonists piloted similar monster machines that devoured their defeated prey in order to acquire the strength of their former enemies.

The popularity of those old shows not only gave the Hunters ready-made examples to help them imagine their own possible futures when piloting these Mergewater mechs, but also countered skeptics that argued that such biomachines had no value.

In any case, popular opinion among the Hunters decisively backed up the adoption of Mergewater mechs, even if it meant that the Hunting Association would have to bow its head to a greater authority.

Ordinary Hunters did not really have that strong of an attachment to the Hunting Association's independence. They were way too far removed from high-level politics to care about such nonsense. All they cared about was their immediate circumstances.

If integrating the HA into the sect structure of the RC meant they get to pilot the coolest and most awesome Carmine mechs ever, then they would gladly support this proposal!

As such, Ves' move had created a severe misalignment between the interests of the Hunters at the bottom and the leaders at the top. Their diverging visions and interests created the Hunting Association's first real crisis since it had been founded.

If the Huntsman or the other leaders failed to solve this contradiction, then the HA would continue to remain afflicted by dysfunction and a crisis of faith in the leadership of the organization!

The culprit behind this vile and underhanded scheme felt no remorse for what he unleashed.

As far as he was concerned, the Hunting Association failed to adequately address the relationship between Hunters and mechs. This was the organization's own fault, but not really, because how could its leaders ever anticipate that Ves would single-handedly tear down the genetic aptitude tyranny that had plagued humankind for such a long time?

The Hunting Association was far from the first group to grapple with the problems and the ripple effects resulting from the release of Carmine mechs.

Ves had become the great disruptor, whose amazing technologies invalidated everyone's carefully laid plans for the future.

If not for the fact that his inventions strengthened red humanity and help it survive in the long run, a lot more people would have tried to make him dead at the moment!

Shortly after Ves woke up, he continued to browse the news while he went through an elaborate cleaning and grooming cycle.

An entire army of stylists and fashion experts carefully optimized his appearance and dressed him up in ceremonial red robes that caused him to look like a priest of a new and rapidly rising religion.

He even got fitted with a high hat that enhanced his stature and caused people to look at him as a representative of the Red Collective rather than Ves Larkinson the mech designer.

Jovy and Vector briefly visited Ves while a team of experts selected the right jewelry and accessories to complement his stately appearance.

"Neither of us will be accompanying you for today." Jovy informed Ves. "This day is all about the Red Collective and your place in it. As liaisons for the Red Association, it is not appropriate for us to appear close to you. It will give off the impression that we are whispering words in your ears. You will likely be accompanied by a new advisor or assistant that will help you stay connected to the RC."

Ves nodded. "I have received a notification about that. This is a necessary measure as I have made sure that the Upper Council only convenes a few days a year at most. There is no need for this chamber to waste everyone's time and meet more often as all we do is check and balance the Lower Council."

Due to his direction during the Interim Leadership Council sessions, he had managed to steer the formation of an Upper Council and a Lower Council.

The latter was the 'real' legislative chamber of the RC as far as everyone was concerned. Lower councilors got appointed to their seats by winning elections in different states and major organizations that functioned like states. Once they got elected, the lower councilors were expected to do their jobs full-time at the RC's primary seat of power that was currently based in the Yernstall Central Star Node.

The Lower Council was meant to be occupied by professional politicians, statesmen, bureaucrats and other individuals competent in statecraft and governance.

They would make sure that the Red Collective not only operated with the mandate of the people, but also instituted proper laws that would ensure the superorganization functioned properly as it rapidly grew to an enormous scale.

The Upper Council meanwhile mainly consisted of powerful individuals or their representatives from other major stakeholders.

The old Red Two, the first-rate superstates, the Red Comm Consortium, the Hunting Association, various major religious organizations and so on all possessed the power to shift the direction of human civilization on their own, if only slightly.

That already granted them enough power to hinder the RC's plans and serve as obstacles. This was why it was better to just give them a seat in the Upper Council and allow them to push their interests in a chamber that was specially reserved to give them a measure of agency.

Due to this, the Upper Council had no reason to meet every work day and hold useless debates on the details of every policy matter. That work was left to the Lower Council.

Perhaps another way to view the Upper Council was that it sort of functioned like a chamber where the major players could band together to exercise a veto over any bill supported by the Lower Council.

It was inevitable for the Lower Council to try and vote in laws that damaged the interests of the mechers, the fleeters, the Terrans, the Rubarthans and a whole bunch of other people.

In order to prevent the major players who held much of the actual power over red humanity from growing upset, they gained a chance to stop bills from getting enacted through their participation in the Upper Council.

Of course, one upper councilor did not have the power to stop a bill voted in by the Lower Council.

The upper councilor needed to gain the support of other colleagues in order to build up a majority. That was a challenge in itself, and Ves expected to become subjected to a lot of persuasion, bribery, coercion and other forms of backroom dealing once he received a seat in the Upper Council.

Ves was confident that he could deal with it. He had made a huge amount of progress in the last six months that would help him secure his own power base.

The Coalition of Faiths that he managed to cobble together was not a happy family, but the religious organizations all knew that supporting Ves was the only viable means to expand their own presence in a society that still rejected them to an extent.

The support he gained from people who felt grateful to him for releasing Carmine mechs had already formed another pillar of support.

Although the hype surrounding Carmine mechs would eventually fade once people got used to them in their daily lives, most of them would still hold Ves in high regard.

His recent gambit with the Hunting Association already proved to Ves that he could use his status as the Father of Carmine Mechs to rile up public sentiment against a target!

The Hunting Association was merely his first victim. Ves hoped that this example would successfully prove that he was not a harmless mech designer who possessed limited influence.

So long as other players knew what was best, they should no longer try to provoke him or attract his ire!

"Gavin, have we received any indications that the Hunting Association is ready to give us the formal reply that we have demanded?" Ves asked his personal assistant.

The man shook his head. "Unfortunately, not. We have gathered plenty of clues that Vice Director Talas Redmond and other senior leaders have convened at their regional headquarters throughout the entire night. They are taking the political storm that you have unleashed upon them very seriously. I do not think they appreciate the headaches that you have caused for them. One way they can express their displeasure towards your stunt is to withhold their answer until the last minute. You have set a pretty clear deadline, and so long as they give you an answer a few seconds before the start of the founding ceremony, they will still be able to comply with your demands."

Ves frowned. That was true. He should have set a shorter deadline if he wanted to avoid this annoying circumstance.

This indicated that even if he was able to subjugate the Hunting Association, its leaders would still have no good feelings for him. That was rather bad and would definitely affect his working relationship with them in the future.

He couldn't care about that at the moment. He knew what was important. Compared to pissing off a bunch of high-ranking Hunters, he would rather bring the Hunting Association into the fold of the RC!

At best, he could try to placate the hurt feelings of the leaders in the future by designing custom Carmine mechs for them or something.

Once he secured his seat at the Upper Council, there were lots of ways for him to leverage his newly gained power and authority to satisfy the interests of other groups.

He just had to take into account that he was meant to serve the interests of the Red Collective as well.

And his own interests, of course..

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