The Mech Touch

"Nine different expert candidates. Nine different personalities. Nine different problems."

Ves pressed his fingers against his forehead. Recognizing potential risks in time was always good, but it did not help him maintain his stress levels. Burdens continued to pile up on his shoulders as time went on. It wasn't easily to be the leader of a clan that was numbering past 30,000 members and counting!

For now, the expert candidates didn't possess enough power and influence to pose a threat to him. Yet that didn't reassure him much as the story would be completely different once they broke through to expert pilot.

Once they became demigods, their status changed dramatically. It was impossible to treat them like regular Larkinsons. In the traditions of the Larkinson heritage, extraordinary mech pilots always enjoyed immense respect. Even if Ves tinkered with the rules of the clan in order to curb their power, he couldn't do much to prevent others from idolizing these supreme soldiers.

Worshipping high-ranking mech pilots was one of humanity's universal traits. In the Age of Mechs, almost every society put expert pilots up a pedestal.

The only difference was how high the states raised them. In Vicious Mountain, extraordinary mech pilots wielded an incredible amount of authority. In the Hexadric Hegemony, expert pilots still had to bend their heads in front of the matriarchs of their society.

What gave Ves another headache was that the Larkinson Clan was a martial organization at heart. Just like the Cross Clan, the Larkinsons adhered to a culture that valued military strength and personal prowess.

If Ves hadn't proven his courage and valor by participating in the Bright-Vesia War and personally leading Task Force Predator into the Nyxian Gap, he would have never been able to command so much respect from his own clansmen.

Yet no matter how many battles Ves participated in, he could never become as popular as an expert pilot.

It sounded silly at first. As a wildly successful mech designer, Ves was single-handedly responsible for enriching the Larkinson Clan. With hundreds of billions of hex credits pouring into the coffers of the LMC every month, Ves could outright buy expert pilots if he wished!

Unfortunately, far more people in the clan admired Venerable Joshua than the clan patriarch who lifted them from their third-class roots.

Mech designers were too distant and aloof to the general public. While the barriers to become a mech designer weren't high, it was extremely difficult to become a Journeyman and achieve true success.

Most mech designers actually didn't earn that much respect. Those that did were so rare that they were seen as unfathomable wizards. The work that mech designers engaged in was so technically sophisticated that no average person was able to appreciate their brilliance.

In short, Ves may be the leader of the Larkinson Clan, but he would never be its foremost star. The Larkinsons were too predisposed to regarding expert pilots as heroes.

"I don't see why you're so upset about that." Calabast idly remarked as she draped her body across his couch. "You're not a vain person as far as I know. No matter how much expert pilots are hogging the limelight, the real power lies with you. The expenditures of the Larkinson Clan are enormous and cannot be separated from your earning power."

"Meow~"

Lucky squinted his eyes as he comfortably rested onto the Black Cat's stomach. Strong fingers rubbed across his tiger-striped form.

Ves pensively paced around his stateroom.

"Popularity is a weapon. Once the expert candidates I've mentioned turn into expert pilots, their obsessions and pet peeves will become amplified. I don't know about you, but I don't want our clan to turn into an advocacy organization that is only preoccupied with fulfilling the personal and political objectives of a bunch of uppity mech pilots."

"I see." Calabast briefly paused, causing Lucky to pat at her uniform in complaint. She resumed pampering the gem cat. "I'm not unsympathetic towards your problem, but it is not that easy to do something about it. From what little I know about expert candidates, they are already a lot more set in their ways than regular mech pilots. People who are able to rise above mediocrity are always.. different."

"I know that, but that doesn't mean I can tolerate every personality. Tamarin Larkinson wants to elevate the status of trueblood Larkinsons to the detriment of others. Percival Larkinson is traumatized Sentinel. Avi Case wants to transform the Larkinson Clan to the second coming of the Bright Republic. Zimro Belson, one of your own men, feels he needs to cleanse himself and the Black Cats! What do you think will happen if any of them gains a massive voice?"

Outside of his expectation, Calabast did not exhibit the paranoia that he expected from a controlling spymaster.

She nonchalantly shrugged. "I'm very much aware of Zimro's inclinations. It is not bad for the Black Cats to have such a person around. A truly competent organization should never be homogeneous. A bit of diversity is essential to keep everyone on their toes, and there is no better way to keep my men in check than to put an adversarial member in their midst."

Ves put his hands on his hips. "How you manage the Black Cats is your business, but once Zimro advances, he becomes an issue to the rest of the clan. Perhaps his inclinations aren't as problematic, but we're all going to get our hands full once someone like Tamarin and Avi gains a greater voice."

"Ves, Ves, Ves. Didn't you listen to what I just said?"

"About how you manage your Black Cats?"

Calabast nodded. "Since you didn't get the hint, let me spell it out for you. Currently, you view those expert candidates as problem cases. While you're not wrong to view them that way, they are only problems if you let them stir up trouble. On the other hand, as long as you find a way to take advantage of their inclinations, they might become assets instead."

"That's playing with fire." Ves frowned. "Expert pilots can't be controlled. They can easily bite the hand that feeds them. Jannzi has already done so. I don't want other dogs chewing on my flesh."

"You're not thinking this through, kid. From what it looks like, expert pilots will keep emerging from the ranks of the clan. Are you determined to transform each and every expert candidate? It won't work as well as you think. Both the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony have performed plenty of studies on this topic. Expert candidates are strong because of who they are right now. If you attempt to indoctrinate them into different people, you will be robbing them of the source of their strength. If you don't believe me, you can try. I can guarantee you that you will ruin the potential of most of your expert candidates."

Her words splashed cold water over his plans. Ves froze as he took in her explanation. Her arguments conformed with his own theories on the progression of mech pilots.

Ves thought that it was not that problematic to change the ideology of expert candidates, but if the Coalition and the Hegemony failed to achieve good results, then why should he do any better?

Certainly, he had a secret weapon in the form of spiritually-enhanced mechs, but they merely increased a mech pilot's spiritual accumulation as far as he knew. The intangible willpower that represented the true source of strength of a mech pilot could not be elevated by outside factors.

Otherwise, more advanced states as well as the MTA would have been able to pump out a lot more expert pilots!

His glower deepened. "Are my hands tied, then? Is it futile to proceed with the plan to set up the Mech Pilot Management Bureau?"

"I didn't say that, Ves. I still support your idea. I'm just warning you to tone it down. People aren't machines. You can't just reprogram and expect them to function normally. In my line of work, we often gain better and more consistent results if we merely nudge people into the right direction. We have learned the hard way that if a nudge turns into a shove, the individual in question is liable to push us back. Don't make the same mistakes we did. If there is one notion I agree with you, it's that our expert candidates are all assets."

Ves approached and sat down on another couch. He looked at her with a helpless expression.

"Instruct me, then. How should we manage our expert candidates?"

"It's not too complicated. You can still attempt to influence your expert candidates, but you need to be careful about changing their core values. You can't be too heavy-handed in their treatment. It's a lot better to set up the situation that encourages them to alter their course on their own accord. However, it is crucial that you don't go too far with this. You can moderate an expert candidate's inclinations but you cannot force him to adopt the opposite stance."

She continued to give him some advice on how he should address this issue. Her overall message was that if he objected to any of his expert candidates, he could only lessen the severity of the problem. However, more often than not, he couldn't make it go away.

"There is only one real way to prevent expert candidates with troublesome motives from turning into threats. You can stop them from advancing in the first place." Calabast remarked.

That was indeed a viable, if sub-optimal solution. Ves felt very uncomfortable about crippling the future of any of his expert candidates. It was no different from engaging in political machinations. The Larkinson Clan should never pit Larkinson against Larkinson.

"In the end, I should just accept I will have to deal with troublesome personalities?" He asked.

"Not per se. Look at the current state of our five expert pilots. Venerable Jannzi is quite a handful to you, right?"

"Yeah. I should have paid more attention to her. If I knew she would end up this way, I would have taken the Shield of Samar away."

Calabast frowned. "That's exactly what I'm warning you against. You can't go against your expert candidates like this. If Jannzi was able to advance to expert pilot anyway, then her resentment against you would have settled in too deeply. If your act ruined her progression, then her absence in crucial moments such as the Battle against the Abyss would have led to a lot more losses." 

He understood her implicit message. No matter how troublesome it was to deal with an expert pilot with a problematic agenda, they were still assets to the clan. Their strength was undeniable and the Larkinson Clan wouldn't be as strong if Ves ruined their future!

"I brought up Venerable Jannzi for a reason, Ves." She continued. "Even though you consider her a headache, is she really damaging your interests?"

"Uhmm.."

"She isn't." Calabast smirked. "That's because you've employed other ways to neutralize her threat. Putting her in the Hall of Heroes, making her a member of the Larkinson Court and so on are all viable ways to limit how much trouble she can stir up. Yet these measures aren't as good as employing a counterbalance."

"A counterbalance?"

"An opponent. Isn't Venerable Joshua highly opposed to her stance? His existence constrains Venerable Jannzi. So long as he voices his support for you, Venerable Jannzi won't be able to gain enough traction in the clan to curb your authority."

"That works?" Ves dubiously asked.

"Think about all of the expert pilots and expert candidates that you have. Many of them can be nudged into butting heads against each other. This is how large organizations truly manage their expert pilots. They can be quite a handful if they left to their own devices, but once they get into a conflict with others of their kind, they will be so consumed by them that you can just sit back and relax!"

He had to admit that this approach sounded very elegant! Instead of trying his best to suppress the problem cases, why not leave the job to other expert pilots? It was perfect!