The Mech Touch

Ves continued to receive briefings on all manner of confidential information in the next two days.

The fog that long obscured the true foundation of red humanity slowly peeled away.

Although Ves had no illusion that he was able to learn all of the secrets held by different factions and organizations, just the intel shared by the Secret Department was enough to give him a much better understanding than before!

At the very least, he had a better idea on who he could afford to provoke, who he should not provoke and who he could ally with. He also learned of a few weaker and declining powers that he may be able to annex if the conditions were right.

Ves also gained a much greater insight on the true war situation of red humanity.

The numbers and graphs painted a bleak picture to him. On the whole, the statistics roughly matched his expectations.

The original 5 defensive bands in the border regions had served their purpose and successfully blunted the tip of the Red Tide Offensive for the most part.

The god pilots that continually circulated through many beleaguered star systems had destroyed more enemy warships and other assets than anyone could count.

The salvage gathered from these annihilations played a crucial role in propping up the war economy and helped to mitigate the resource shortages suffered by every industry. However, that did not change the fact that the situation in the rear was not that optimistic.

When humans originally invaded the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy, they first appeared in the galactic rim and built Bridgehead One at one of the most remote and obscure star systems.

While this strategic choice meant that humans were able to sneak into the Red Ocean and gradually infiltrate the surrounding territories without prematurely alarming the13 major alien races, the fact of the matter was that red humanity's current territorial holdings were not that impressive in terms of resource endowments.

The situation in a dwarf galaxy like the Red Ocean was different from a much larger galaxy like the Milky Way, but the general pattern was still the same. All of the more resource-rich star systems were much more prevalent around the galactic core. What this meant was that even the native aliens were losing a huge amount of tons worth of high-grade alloys every day, they still had a lot more to spare!

The loss of manpower was also fairly minor. While the native aliens were starting to lose an increasing amount of veteran soldiers and powerful phase lords, their population bases in the Red Ocean were so large to begin with that they could easily sustain this consumption for a long time!

"How can the Red Cabal command the native alien races to send out so many of their soldiers to die?" Ves asked with clear confusion on his face. "I mean, if you told human soldiers to suspend their cozy guard assignments and command them to engage in a mission as suicidal as diving head-first into the jaws of a god pilot en masse, they would probably rebel against their superiors. Why are these aliens so willing to accept near-certain death?"

Closier-17 crossed his arms again. "The native aliens are not human. Do not ascribe human emotions and behavior to them. To answer your question, the alien leadership employs many means to motivate their soldiers into the Red War. They rely on religious fervor and fanaticism to motivate the most pious and devoted believers among their population. Many of the aliens who we have been fighting so far are those that answered most eagerly to the divine commands of their supposed gods."

"I see. Poor fools. Their native gods don't care about the lives of their believers all that much. However, I don't think that every alien fleet is staffed by religious nuts. There are a large number of more professional alien forces among them that have overperformed compared to their peers. Then there are the phase lords. They are no idiots who can be persuaded to give up their lives. How are the alien leaders able to motivate them as well?"

"What else? To the elite and professional alien soldiers, the Red Cabal or any sufficiently powerful ruler is promising them a chance to attain godhood. If not for themselves, then their relatives or descendants. Every alien family wishes for one of them to transcend into a god and elevate all of their living relatives in turn. This is the most desirable and often the only viable means for ordinary aliens to ascend to a higher class. Even if the probability to do so is 1 in a million or 1 in a billion, that is still enough to motivate countless aliens to fight for this tiny opportunity."

That sounded rather ridiculous to Ves, but he knew how popular lotteries could be. Not everyone studied math and learned how probabilities worked. Far too many individuals only paid attention to the astronomical jackpot, unaware of how many of them would have to suffer the penalty for losing!

"And the phase lords?"

"Most of them can easily be controlled by the Red Cabal. The phase whales can offer a large variety of incentives to persuade phase lords to take part in the Red War. Lesser phase lords are the easiest to fool as you simply have to offer them a phasewater production system to risk everything in the hopes of advancing further. Greater phase lords are seeking to promote themselves to the same level as ancient phase lords. Their greed and desire to attain the ultimate form of godhood is endless."

"Do ancient phase lords actually exist?" Ves asked. "All red humanity has seen so far are lesser and greater phase lords. Is it possible for the latter to turn into True Gods?" "There should be." The Secret Keeper responded. "We have worked hard to understand the true situation. So far, we have gathered enough intelligence to prove that most alien races have managed to produce a small number of ancient phase lords that still live to this day. Most mortal aliens have long forgotten their existence, as these old and powerful beings have chosen to withdraw from the public eye. These ancient phase lords are the true guardians of the major alien races and serve as one of the strongest guarantees of their continued prosperity. Most of them have chosen to guard their home planets and other highly strategic locations. There are also ancient phase lords that have decided to seclude themselves inside their own pocket spaces and never made an appearance again."

That caused Ves to frown. He knew better than to assume that those hidden ancient phase whales had died from old age. One of the strengths of phase lord cultivation was that it was absurdly effective at extending the lifespans of organisms.

Those ancient phase lords should easily be able to live for millions of years!

"So the native aliens still possess a strong reserve of ancient phase lords?" Ves asked in a depressed tone.

"Yes. They are likely weaker than their ancient phase whale counterparts, but that is no excuse to underestimate them. Their existence and their likely presence at the most important star systems of alien empires makes it extremely risky to launch a direct assault on those locations. Do you understand now, chief councilor? The Red War is a conflict that has already damaged the foundation of our civilization, but the major alien races have only suffered a few cuts and bruises in comparison. Their core foundations remain completely undamaged. In fact, we may even be doing the native aliens a service by killing off so many of their cannon fodder."

"Huh? How does that work?"

"Think about the history of the Red Ocean prior to our arrival. The major alien races generally lived in peace alongside each other. While they are certainly not friendly with each other and avoid mingling with each other whenever possible, they have managed to maintain a stable equilibrium where wars are unlikely to break out. This has persisted for so many years that complacency has taken root in their societies and spread out their corruptive influence. By the time we appeared and posed a threat to the native alien empires, their many faults led to a cascade of failures, causing them to perform terribly against our conquest fleets."

It did not take much thinking to figure out what the Secret Keeper was getting at. What was the best way to rectify a stagnant and decadent society?

"War." Ves whispered as realization dawned in his expression. "The native aliens... want to clean up the garbage. The more low-value subjects can be cleared out, the more room opens up for more worthy replacements. If any of the conscripts sent to the frontlines manages to persevere and survive the baptism of war, they will become a lot stronger and more useful once they return home. This is an excellent way to revive a society." The old Societal Revival Theory reared its head yet again. Even the native alien leaders had managed to figure out that long-term peace and stability inevitably weakened the

Combat readiness of their societies.

The Secret Keeper slowly nodded. "I see you understand. Right now, the native alien leaders have begun to take us more seriously, but they are not in a hurry to go all-out against us. They still maintain many standing forces in the rear that they have yet to mobilize against us. On the one hand, they still do not take us seriously enough yet. On the other hand, they want to avoid losing too much of their armed forces by letting them get slaughtered by god pilots with ease. The alien leaders are still on guard against each other, and do not dare to send too many of their warships to the frontlines at once. This gives us enough breathing space to survive, but it also means we are locked in a battle of attrition where we are at a heavy disadvantage."

"We need to turn this war around in a big way." Ves frowned. "The Deep Strike Plan should have given us hope of completely throwing the native aliens into disarray, but ever since Bridgehead One got isolated, I don't know if we can still go through with our

Original plan."

"The Bridgehead One issue is problematic, but there is not yet cause for despair. We have confidence that the greater spacetime bubble will be breached. The isolated star system not only holds the Polymath, the First Flame and the Dominion of Man, but also numerous grand works and entire planets and space stations populated by the most formidable scientists, engineers and other works."

"I know about all of that, but even if they can cobble together a solution, the time differential is too great. Time moves a hundred times slower inside that bubble. I fear that there is not enough time for the people who are trapped to break their cage from

Within."

Secret Keeper Closier-17 acknowledged Ves' pessimistic outlook. "Your words may very well be true. There is no denying that the Deep Strike Plan is at risk now that we are cut off from the greater beyonder gate. If too much time has passed without any positive developments, then we must eventually accept that we cannot proceed according to the original master plan. That... may be the moment where the Xenotechnician makes his move. Once he reintroduces his Diplomacy Plan to a red humanity that is much more desperate and running out of options, think about how we will react to his proposal." Ves' expression grew uglier. "If the Xenotechnician really pulls this off at the right timing, then I fear that not as many humans will be eager to cling to their increasingly empty belief of human supremacy. Between honor and survival, almost everyone will pick the latter over the former."

Was this a part of the Xenotechnician's grand scheme?

If this was true, then this painted a frightening picture!

In order for the Star Designer to realize his goals, he gained a strong incentive to make red humanity lose a lot of battles and suffer a huge amount of losses! ƒ

Only when red humans got repeatedly brutalized would they be willing to embrace the

Notion of allying with friendly alien races!

This incentive to lose was extremely poisonous, because made the Xenotechnician a lot less reliable than before!

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