The Mech Touch

After the live feeds of the four battlefields finally shut down, the main broadcast returned to the podium where the leading figures of the Red Two became visible once again.

Fleet Admiral Stanley Argile and the Lord of Thermodynamics both looked proud.

It had been risky to broadcast the four battles as they unfolded in real time, but their gamble paid off handsomely!

They managed to showcase their power and remind everyone why the mechers and the fleeters maintained their hegemony over human society!

Ves and many other people leaned forward in order to hear what the two leaders had to say next.

"As each of you have witnessed moments before, we have developed and implemented many revolutionary technology advancements." The old Star Designer spoke first. "These changes are primarily brought by the radical changes in our environment. Constant exposure to E energy radiation has led to the formation of many new hyper materials. Many of them are still too fragile to incorporate into any combat platform, but rarer varieties have already begun to emerge that can be utilized to produce a qualitative leap in the performance of all of our mechs as well as warships."

Half a dozen projections appeared above his head that showcased select pieces of footage.

Each of them played back footage of the first-class multipurpose mechs and the warships that participated in the operation.

The dreadnoughts attracted the most attention because their use of hyper technology was by far the strongest!

While it was impossible for most people to ever become qualified to have so much power at their disposal, they could still dream.

The Lord of Thermodynamics smiled as if he could sense the collective yearning and aspirations of red humanity.

"Our goal in developing these new technologies is not to withhold them from you, but share them with you. We hope that you can make use of our new technological innovations and standards to resist the aliens at a much greater degree of effectiveness than before. As of this moment, the Phasewater Generation has come to an end so that the Hyper Generation can take its place!"

The Hyper Generation!

Ves and his wife both shared meaningful glances with each other. They already predicted this months in advance.

The Lord of Thermodynamics began to explain the central technologies and other changes that would characterize the upcoming decades.

"Phasewater technology has not become irrelevant with the passing of the mech generation that has introduced it to the masses. Superdrives, minidrives, transphasic energy shields and transphasic weapon systems will continue to hold value, especially when they can all be combined with hyper technology."

The synergies between the two could be great, as evidenced by the seemingly magical performance of the azure energy shields.

"However, the common demand for phasewater to produce these technological applications has limited their availability too much. This is why we welcome the arrival of new tech. Unlike phasewater technology, hyper technology is not dependent on the supply of a single rare and expensive material. The new technological branch encompasses a wide variety of applications, each of which can be better served by using different hyper materials. It may be costly to obtain the more high-end variants of hyper materials, but there will be such an abundant supply of lower-end alternatives that every citizen should be able to afford a product that is derived from hyper technology."

This was the charm of hyper technology!

People across human space identified so many different hyper materials in many different places that their diversity started to match that of exotic materials!

Even if the majority of those hyper materials were not that impressive, they still provided third-rate states as well as the poorer second-rate states plenty of ways to strengthen their own forces!

The Lord of Thermodynamics briefly explained the key tech that the Red Association intended to share with the public.

"During the previous battles, we have displayed many impactful technologies, of which there are three that form the foundation of the Hyper Generation. Defense is important to all of us, so let me briefly introduce the basic principles of azure energy shield technology."

The Star Designer kept his explanation as basic and truncated as possible in order to prevent laymen from getting lost.

This was not enough for mech designers and other engineers to get started with this new tech, but there was no reason for them to show any impatience.

Mech designers such as Ves and Gloriana already knew that they could access much more technical explanations and specifications by visiting the Red Association's information portal.

"I knew it." Ves said. "I knew that azure energy shields were related to the water element."

The Star Designer clearly explained that the Red Two developed a variation of a transphasic energy shield that somehow enhanced their properties with water hyper materials.

While it was unclear how water hyper materials affected a transphasic energy shield, the results were clear to see in reality!

"We understand that not everyone has access to enough phasewater to produce an azure energy shield generator. We have therefore decided to publish more generic versions of hyper energy shield technologies. They are vastly more economical and are not dependent on the supply of phasewater. Different attributes of hyper materials can produce substantially different effects. A fire hyper material can increase an energy shield's resistance against fire, heat and other associated phenomena. If hyper energy shields are not enough for you, then you may be able to meet your needs with hyper armor systems."

The Lord of Thermodynamics briefly highlighted a couple of interesting and creative examples of hyper armor systems.

For example, reinforcing metal armor with metal-attributed hypers made it even tougher and more resilient than before! This was probably the most standard and effective combination for general purposes.

Those who wanted to leverage their armor systems in a different fashion could try to make use of other attributes as well as combinations of attributes.

The Star Designer briefly touched on playing with combinations of different hyper materials.

"The use of hyper materials that are characterized by only a single attribute can already produce adequate or even excellent results. Azure energy shields are much stronger than any other variation of shield technology because water hyper materials happen to produce fantastic synergies with phasewater. However, you can produce a much greater variety of effects if you combine two or more attributes. The threshold of success is much higher, but those who persist in this research will be rewarded by developing more unusual effects to alter the performance of our existing technologies."

This was an area that Ves had yet to explore in a serious fashion. He had already experimented with it a bit, so he knew that it was absolutely not simple to find a successful combination of different hyper materials!

"Attributes of hyper materials have inherent reinforcing, neutral or conflicting relationships with each other." The old man continued. "We have already formed an extensive database that lists all known interactions that we have discovered to this day. We welcome your input and will reward you if you register a new interaction that we have yet to record."

A very meaningful diagram came into view.

Ves grew a lot more serious.

His mother had shown this diagram to Veronica before when she taught basic cultivation science!

The theoretical model also featured prominently in several of the enlightenment fruits that he had eaten as of late!

"Our universe works in ways that may sound archaic to you, but our research has confirmed the veracity of this model. The five elements of fire, water, wood, earth and metal are foundational attributes that can produce many powerful effects if combined correctly. Wood can promote the effects of fire for example, which is a synergistic effect that can possibly increase the firepower of laser weapon systems, as strange as it may sound. However, take care not to counteract the effect of one hyper material with another one. Earth absorbs water for example. Clever use of this anti-synergistic relationship can allow you to form effective countermeasures."

This subject matter was huge, but Ves did not pay too much attention to that. He was already familiar with the basic theories on the five elements.

What Ves found astonishing was that the Star Designer was willing to present this loaded subject in one of his most important announcements!

It seemed as if the Red Two gradually declassified the secrets that humanity tried to withhold from the public for a long time.

Were the mechers and the fleeters preparing to reveal the existence of the Five Scrolls Compact one day?

This was a massive change in policy and one that was bound to produce a lot of ripple effects!

After the Lord of Thermodynamics touched upon attribute combinations, he went back to introducing a slate of other tech.

The introduction of most offensive and defensive hyper technologies did not introduce any revolutionary concepts to Ves and Gloriana.

They had already been dabbling in this area and even produced a few successful technological advances.

Of course, their private research results were nowhere near as comprehensive, systematic, complete and effective as the work of the Red Association!

It was therefore good that the mechers intended to share all of this valuable knowledge.

This way, the Larkinson Clan could avoid a lot of detours and make use of a lot of interesting hyper tech developed by third parties in the coming years.

The downside was that the adoption of all of this standardized tech reduced the differences between the Larkinson Clan and other groups.

The work that Ves had put into the development of fourth generation luminar crystal technology did not become obsolete all of a sudden, but the introduction of the Hyper Generation enabled other parties to catch up by adopting standardized hyper weapon systems!

"Do you feel upset at this?" Gloriana asked her husband. "I know that you have spent a considerable amount of time and effort developing your new phase disruptor beams and copper beams. Our rivals and competitors should quickly be able to develop weapon systems that can produce similar results without investing so much into research."

Ves did not look displeased. "I already saw this coming. How can 1 be upset about it when 1 already had plenty of opportunities to feel this way in the past. 1 don't think my private research is a waste because the technological specifications released by the mechers are mainly relevant to more standardized human tech. Luminar crystal technology requires different solutions, and the process of researching new attack phase crystals has given me first-hand experience and a more solid foundation into exploring hyper technology."

The Red Association could take away his head start, but it could not erase his skills!

Now that he had developed a competence in researching hyper technology, Ves could continue to innovate in this field and develop a new head start in another aspect!

After explaining all of the hyper variations of the most common weapon systems, the Lord of Thermodynamics finally touched upon the most relevant hyper technology in relation to the current war!

Projections of the Spacelock and the Army of One suppressing the spatial abilities of the opposing ancient phase whales appeared next, reminding everyone that the best way to defeat the native aliens was to suppress their phasewater technology to the greatest extent!

"Space suppression technology is an evolution of existing technologies such as warp interdiction technology. It combines the use of phasewater with space hyper materials to efficiently generate a powerful field that can dampen all abnormal spatial phenomena. The effectiveness of this tech is powerful enough to not only prevent alien warships from activating their warp drives, but can also reduce the strength of transphasic energy shields."

Ves already suspected as much, but it was nice to receive confirmation.

The value of space suppression technology was extremely high!

Everyone who fought a serious battle against the aliens knew how annoying it was to get blocked by strong transphasic energy shields all of the time.

If space suppressors could truly cause those fancy defenses to lose a lot of strength, then the upcoming war would likely proceed a lot better than Ves originally anticipated!