The Mech Touch

Ves kept thinking about whether he should acquire a ship dedicated to bioresearch.

The recent developments concerning Arnold and the need to acquire more exobeasts altered his previous calculations. If there were more mutated beasts for sale in human space, then Ves would be a fool to dismiss them just because his fleet lacked the room to accommodate their presences!

While it wasn't a problem to keep a little furry mammal like Arnold in his office or something, there should be plenty of other mutated beasts whose sizes rivaled that of Qilanxo.

"The bigger creatures also tend to be more powerful I think." He guessed.

This theory might not be true. After all, one of the dark gods he encountered during the Nyxian Gap Campaign was a former luminar alien. Ves knew that luminars were originally tiny humanoids who constantly complained about how small they were relative to the other sentient alien species that populated the galaxy at the time.

Yet despite this handicap, the Blinding One eventually developed into a supremely powerful spiritual entity whose visual manifestation practically towered over mechs!

The tiniest lifeforms could develop devastating powers while the largest exobeasts may not amount to anything beyond the strength of their flesh.

Ves could only scratch his head in this chaotic circumstance. There didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason that determined whether a human or a beast developed spiritual potential aside from external pressure, and even that relation was rather weak. It was as if every living being took part in a cosmos wide lottery and drew a ticket every month.

While the chance of winning was astronomically low, a few lucky bastards who had nothing in common always won every now and then. Arnold just happened to be one among many of the arganids and exobeasts at Wexal Park who lucked out.

The lack of control and predictability infuriated Ves. Many people he knew such as Melkor never had the opportunity to reach a new level of power. They deserved more, but due to a complete lack of control and understanding of how spiritual potential came to be, this avenue was closed to them. How was that fair?

Then again, it wasn't as if spiritual prowess determined success in human society. Outside of mech designers and maybe mech pilots, most people didn't need any 'superpowers' to rise to the top or achieve enough success to be content.

For example, the Galactic Mech Council consisted of both mech designers and non-mech designers. It was highly unlikely that all of the latter consisted of spiritually powerful individuals.

What did this mean?

Average people were also capable of ruling human civilization!

"Rather than obsess what you don't have, you should focus on the qualities you do have."

Norms weren't useless. Ves had to remind himself of that. He had been spending so much of his time and attention on different applications of spirituality that he had begun to lose sight that he lived in a society where ordinary people still ran most of human society.

"I'm starting to get a god complex." He shook his head.

"Meow." Lucky concurred as the cat landed on top of Ves' head.

"Hey! Awareness is the first step towards prevention! I'm not letting myself get out of control. I'll be careful this time."

He didn't have to engage in any reckless experiments this time. He wasn't under as much time pressure as before, which meant he could stick to a more methodical and systematic approach to his research.

Of course, it would be ideal if he obtained more test subjects. The upside to experimenting on exobeasts was that no one cared what happened to them. While experimenting on animals was frowned upon in the scientific community, it was not an offense that was worth punishing to the Big Two.

While there were numerous states that prohibited experimenting on animals, Ves didn't have to abide by them unless his fleet passed through their territories.

Even then, Ves would just have to keep his experiments out of sight. If he got caught anyway, then he would just use the Larkinson Clan's sovereignty as an excuse.

"Well, I don't think I have to worry about this problem. I should think of where to house my test subjects instead."

He was still reluctant to obtain an entirely new capital ship dedicated to bioresearch straight away. For now, Ves developed a preference for acquiring a more modest sub-capital ship that was capable of maintaining multiple different biomes. This was a less extreme solution that was more wasteful but required much less upfront investment.

"I bet there are lots of ships like that for sale here." Ves guessed.

Exobiology and beast design was big business in Prosperous Hill.

Once Ves composed and transmitted a message to Vivian Tsai, he reunited with Gloriana and retired for the night.

Over the next couple of weeks, he invested a lot of time in rushing his remaining projects to completion. 

Since the last round of prototypes hadn't revealed any significant issues or defects with the Giant Killer, the Ferocious Piranha IB and the Cherub designs, they only needed a small amount of refinement before Ves was ready to declare them final.

Ves, Gloriana and Juliet all gathered to inspect the design schematics of the three mechs one last time before they finalized the projects.

"It's been a long time coming." Gloriana huffed. "I still have issues with all three mech designs, but I can live with completing them as is. The Cherub is good enough to produce no issues with the Hex Army while the other two mech designs… well, our clan isn't as picky as the Hex Army."

Juliet only had eyes for the Giant Killer. "My fellow Penitent Sisters will definitely embrace this powerful mech. With the blessing of the Superior Mother, we will never allow an enemy comparable to the Charlemagne or the Jeanne D'Arc bring us to our knees again!"

Ves crossed his arms. "If neither of you feel the need to tweak these designs any further, then let's wrap them up. We can keep the name of the Ferocious Piranha IB the same but we should replace the codenames Giant Killer and Cherub with proper labels. Do you have any ideas?"

"Cherub is an adequate name for a communication mech." Gloriana stated. "I don't see the need to alter it. I already consider the design to be called the Cherub in my heart."

"What about you, Juliet?"

"Will our clan be making use of the Cherub ourselves?" The other lead designer asked.

"I'm.. not sure." Ves hesitated. "The Cherub is set up as an auxiliary Hexer mech that is piloted exclusively by males. I don't think that will sit well with our clansmen."

"This mech is useful, though."

"That's undeniable, but I don't want our clan to adopt it in its current form." Ves fell into thought for a moment. "Let's do this. If there is time in the future, we can design a variant of the Cherub that is tailored to the Larkinsons instead of the Hexers. The quality of the mech has to become a lot higher as well because I don't want any of our mech pilots to utilize a cheap mech again."

The Larkinson Clan had already gotten rid of its cheap second-class commercial mechs. While it would take more weeks for the PHTS to off-load all of the useless mechs from the expeditionary fleet, not a single Larkinson was sorry to see them go. They had performed far too poorly against the Friday Coalition to win any clansman over.

When it came to the Giant Killer, Juliet already thought up a proper name for the cannoneer mech.

"Eternal Redemption."

"..Pardon?"

"The Penitent Sisters would like to refer to the Giant Killer model as the Eternal Redemption from now on." Juliet said.

Ves did not look pleased. He disliked calling his mechs with religious-sounding names. At least the name of the Transcendent Punisher fit the design. He found it difficult to imagine how a cannon-wielding mech had anything to do with redemption.

The Penitent Sister Journeyman noticed his confusion. "The name that Commander Chancy and I settled upon reflects one of our highest principles and aspirations. Each Penitent Sister seeks redemption, and the best way to do that is to fight against your enemies. Our debt is great, but the best way to reduce it is to eliminate any powerful enemy that stands in our way. By killing the evil and the wicked, we are not only working towards our own redemption, but also helping our opponents attain salvation as well!"

"You've lost me there." Ves spoke.

Gloriana bumped her elbow against his side. "It's not that difficult to understand. Hexers such as myself constantly seek to prove ourselves. Those who owe a debt to society must work even harder to avoid damnation. One of the best ways to contribute to society back in the Hegemony is to convert others to the cause."

"Somehow, I doubt that is easy."

"You're not wrong, Ves. There are at least two forms of redemption we are talking about here. There is the normal kind of redemption where people like myself can convert others such as you to embrace Hexer culture."

"Pff! As if that would ever happen!"

"Then there is the other, more convenient but also the more permanent kind of redemption."

"And that is…?"

"Why, killing, of course!" Gloriana answered with a grin. "Those who stand in the way of Hexers and do nothing but hinder us are in effect damned. For example, all of the Fridaymen are damned because they want to wipe us out. This is why they need to be saved."

"Saved?" Ves questioned.

This line of argumentation was heading in a strange direction!

"I'm being serious, Ves! The Fridayman may be our enemies, but they are only worthy of hate when they are alive. When we kill them, they are no longer able to hinder the Hegemony or the Hexer people in any way. That means that they are no longer damned and therefore absolved of the sin of opposing our people. We have given them redemption! Isn't that great? Not only have we done the galaxy a favor by getting rid of evil, we also earn more merit because we have redeemed someone!"

"..."

Ves didn't know what to say. Gloriana's logic was as warped and twisted as any Hexer belief. It made no sense to him. The charlatan that invented this illogical outlook should have been fired for doing an awful job!

Yet the fact of the matter was that Juliet and the rest of the Penitent Sisters practically lived and breathed this custom!

This instance was yet another example that not even the Larkinson Network was capable of reversing lifelong brainwashing.

Ves was too tired to argue against the new name for the Giant Killer.

"Fine. If that is what you want to call it, then so be it. The mech is designed for your sisters in the first place, so if calling it the Eternal Redemption makes you feel comfortable, then it's fine. I exect good results, though. It costs twice as much to make as the Valkyrie Redeemer. While I don't expect your Eternal Redemptions to perform twice as good, your sisters better make sure it doesn't perform any worse!"

"Please rest assured, sir." Juliet smiled in satisfaction. "Our sisters will thoroughly cherish and master our new mech. You will not regret the work you put into it and the trust you have extended to us. With the Eternal Redemption in our hands, we shall redeem an ocean of enemies who have damned themselves by opposing us! No champion or expert pilot will avoid salvation at our hands!"

"...Okay. You go celebrate or something. We'll discuss how to slot the Eternal Redemptions in our production schedule later. We are still having some trouble securing additional mech production facilities so we can only rely on the production halls of the Spirit of Bentheim to supply your sisters with the first batch of our new mech."

Fortunately, his factory ship worked fine. His clan were already starting to put the Bright Warrior IB into service!