The Mech Touch

The great day was approaching. More and more dignitaries and guests arrived in Yernstall in the past few days.

Unlike the product reveal that previously did not attract the attention of every major player due to underestimating the impact that Ves could make, no one looked down on the founding of the Red Collective.

l'ven though the current blueprint of the RC caused it to turn into an empty shell that needed to be propped up by other major players, it had the potential to grow into power and rival the current Red Two one day.

With a Lower Council that served as the best way for the masses to have their interests represented at the galactic level, the mandate of the RC was much stronger, This reason alone prevented the Red Association and the Red Fleet from sabotaging this initiative, The only viable way for the mechers and fleeters to maintain their duopoly over red humanity was to take similar measures to open themselves up to the space peasants.

This was not acceptable for multiple reasons, Since the RA and the RF rejected any notion of granting control to the masses, letting the RC serve as a venting mechanism to those same folk was the best available alternative.

To be honest, not a lot of people possessed a lot of confidence that the RC’s Lower Council and Upper Council could get too much done, Aside from instituting common sense and widely accepted policies, the strong splintering of power and authority led to a circumstance where no one was strong enough to get stull done alone.

That also included Ves.

The only way to produce meaningful change was to convince enough people with voting power to support a specific cause.

This had to be done for each and every initiative, This was a tiresome and exhausting endeavor that would certainly sap everyone's energy.

Ves had initially conceived of the RC operating in this inanner, but now that he was about to become one of its eminent leader, he partially regretted his decision.

His ambitious design for the RC ended up hurting himself.

What was the point of becoming a member of the Upper Council when he couldn't get anything done unless he hoodwinked other councilors into supporting his schemes?

While the Coalition of Faiths should give him a fairly stable power base, it was far from enough for him to attain a majority in the 150-seat Upper Council.

Aside from that, the Lower Council also played a crucial role in enacting legislation, Ves had a much weaker hold over it. Only a few religious organizations were powerful enough to effectively control the government of particularly religious states, Ves was pretty sure he could get the representatives that answered to the Hex Federation and the Colonial Federation of Davute to vote according to his direction, but that was just two councilors out of 500.

If Ves wanted to use his position in the Upper Council to pass laws that benefited him directly, then he had no choice but to do his best to sell his plans in the hopes of forming a majority of supporters in both councils.

How tiresome.

Perhaps the only good news was that he did not have to do all of the work himself. Gavin had already been working to expand his political staff in order to handle all of the groundwork involved with drumming up support and tracking the stances of every senator and representative of the two councils, As the hours passed by, Ves entered an armored transport that subsequently began to ascend into the air under much heavier escort than usual.

His destination? A heavily fortified space station that currently orbited La Reine.

The structure was massive and striking. Made out of special transphasic hyper crystalline materials that Ves could not even begin to understand, the soon-to-be Central Headquarters of the Red Collective was a collective construction effort of all of the major players of red humanity. Each of them covered a portion of the extremely high construction bill and offered their tech and construction expertise to put the striking construct together.

Just as its name betrayed, the Astral Octagon was shaped like a giant octagon-shaped diamond that happened to be floating in space. Its appearance alone could take people's breath away, and those who came closer could feel a wellspring of indeterminate energies brooding inside.

Ves did not even have the clearance to know the details of the extraordinary energy sources residing in the center of the 15-kilometer long space fortress.

All he knew was that the Astral Octagon had enough power to fire battleship-killing energy beams, project azure energy shields that could withstand the bombardment of multiple alien warfleets, slowly move around in space and even teleport to another star system in an emergency!

Of course, that latter capacily was extremely draining and damaging to the systems of the Astral Octagon, so this function was only reserved for the direst of circumstances.

Ves actually felt incredibly impressed at the features of the Astral Octagon that he was authorized to know. He had no doubt that it hid a whole lot of other surprises, but even his high position prevented him from learning any further information, It frustrated him a bit, but he figured that he had no good reason to know all of the Astral Octagon's strengths and weaknesses, Perhaps the biggest regret about this massive accomplishinent of human engineering was that it did not turn into a grand work.

The Star Designers who could create grand works of this scale needed a lot more time, resources and other conditions, It was not realistic for them to create a grand work similar to the Astral Octagon in less than a year, and especially when red humanity suffered from a shortage of high-grade resources.

Ves actually learned that the people responsible for designing the Astral Octagon actually drew a lot of inspiration from older grand works that were still operating in the Milky Way.

Copying the design elements of similar grand works and updating them to current standards was a good way to produce an excellent space station, but it would never turn into another grand work.

Areal grand work had to be approached as an original design project from beginning to end.

In any case, Ves did not feel as if he missed out on much. If everything went well, he would hardly spend time in the Astral Octagon in person, Not only did the Upper Council convene only a few times a year, the senators could always choose to attend the sessions by remote as long as they could establish highly secure connections.

Another reason why Ves did not look forward to spending most of his time in the Astral Octagon was because it was way too conspicuous.

The huge space facility was about to house much of the core administration of the Red Collective. It would hold the most valuable treasures, house the greatest databases and open up cutting-edge labs to conduct groundbreaking research.

To Ves, that sounded like a giant target that the Red Cabal and other enemies would definitely want to smash!

Perhaps staying in the Astral Octagon may make it easier for Ves to build up a network of allies and gain easier access to advanced tech and other goodies, but he would also isolate himself from the rest of his clan and the wider galaxy.

That was a surefire way to becoming one of those highand-mighty leaders who became horribly out of touch with society.

As his armored transport approached the Astral Octagon and managed to get straight inside a private hangar bay, Ves soon stepped out onto the flight deck under an escort of guards, The interior space looked empty and almost haunted, but Ves could easily imagine that the massive hangar bay would eventually become a bustling hive of activity, Other transport vessels and escort mechs had arrived sooner. Hundreds of councilors as well as other high officials were steadily arriving at the Astral Octagon in order to attend the historic founding ceremony.

Ves nodded at a handful of tamiliar faces before he directed his attention to the greeting party, A middle-aged woman that exuded a highly professional demeanor headed the small group.

"Welcome to the Astral Octagon, Professor Larkinson. I am Chief of Staff Eliza Mo Ragadan. I am in charge of your stalf in your capacity as the chief senator of the Upper Council”

The two shook hands.

“Chief senator, eh? Have we decided to change the name of the Upper Council to the Senate?"

"Not officially’ Eliza answered, "The Upper Council and the Lower Council will still retain their current names, but people have begun to use different terms on an informal basis. You should become familiar with this in order to avoid the impression of ignorance!

"Got it. Please lead me to my office?

"You do not officially have an office yet since you have not formally accepted a position of an organization that does not exist at this time.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I take it that you and the rest of my staff are stationed elsewhere!

The chief of staff nodded.

"That is so. We shall lead you to the temporary offices where we temporarily work;

“Can my escort mechs come as well?”

"The Astral Octagon was designed to accommodate the size of most mechs in the main hallways. That said, it is best to only limit your mech escort to a single machine to avoid congestion.”

"That is good enough?

Ves proceeded to follow his greeting party deeper inside the Astral Octagon, He attracted plenty of attention due to the company of his cat, his personal assistant and his conspicuous bodyguards, Naturally, the Dark Zephyr accompanied Ves from a distance as well. This was not an unusual sight as there were other powerful leaders who possessed enough pull to earn the protection of an ace mech.

Ves actually felt a little sorry that the founding ceremony had taken so many ace pilots away from the frontlines. He hoped that most of them would go right back to the border regions to prevent the native aliens from breaking through, Since the Astral Octagon was far larger than a typical metropolis, it was not feasible to travel by foot, Large crystalline floater platforms could be called in from any location to help Ves and everyone else to travel to their destinations al a speedy pace.

Once they reached the temporary offices, Ves was surprised to see that hundreds of secretaries, advisors, political analysts and more had already joined his staff.

He hadn't been paying too much attention to this stuff.

l'veryone rose up to their feet and made an extremely respectful bow towards the sole dignitary that wore a faney red ceremonial robe and hat.

"I feel kind of overdressed* Ves awkwardly said.

“You appear exactly like you should”

His new chief of staff reassured him.

"An upper councilor indirectly holds dominion over the entirety of our population, You must use your appearance to inspire absolute confidence in your ability to fulfill your responsibilities and serve the interests of our race and civilization. Ordinary individuals cannot assume such heavy duties. They will get crushed under the inassive weight and succumb to their own incompetence, To be able to reach this point despite your lack of professional qualifications in this aspect is an admirable feat.’

Her words made Ves feel better about himself, He no longer felt as out of place in the Astral Octagon as before.

"Thank you for your kind words. Please lead me to a private space so that we can talk about the important stuff. I take it that this founding ceremony will not entirely go according to our desired plan.

“That is so”

The woman said as she headed over to a private office on the far side of the hall,

“There are many tensions and disputes that are causing upheaval. Many of them are not directly related to you, so there is no need for you to pay attention to them in person. There are only a couple of affairs that you must take notice of before you participate in the ceremony:

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