The Mech Touch

Professor Ves Larkinson was playing at a completely different level from most mech designers.

While the Devil Tongue's work single-handedly reshaped the existing order in the Milky Way Galaxy in a matter of months, Carlos Shaw was still struggling to gain traction in the Friday Coalition's mech market!

The gap between the two mech designers from the Bright Republic was too fast!

There was no possible way that Carlos dared to compare himself against his former friend and employer!

Fortunately, he had grown older and wiser by this time. He no longer felt any strong surge of jealousy or envy. It was silly for him to even think that he could become as brilliant as Ves.

That did not necessarily mean Carlos was always content to remain inferior to him. No one doubted that Ves was a prodigy who ramped up quickly and grew at an insane rate not seen since the explosive rise of the Polymath.

No. Carlos made the same decision as many other mech designers who found themselves bereft of early opportunities and successes.

He planned for the long game.

As long as he worked diligently and never gave up no matter what setbacks he suffered, he would surely make steady progress.

There was no need for him to plan for becoming a Master Mech Designer so soon. He should take this step by step. He should first worry about becoming a Senior Mech Designer.

It didn't matter if it took a century or two centuries for him to become a Master Mech Designer.

So long as he could afford the life-prolonging treatments, he should be able to do okay. Carlos threw most of his concerns related to the enormous changes taking place across the galaxy. He recognized that he was far different from Ves in that he possessed virtually no agency in these affairs.

He should just work like an honest Journeyman Mech Designer and focus on improving his own work and design philosophy.

Right now, the Auto Heretic design offered plenty of insights to mech designers like Carlos.

Though there were signs that the design was a bit rushed, the application of tech and components was exquisite. The mech industry had already deduced that Ves had

Partnered up with one highly skilled rational Master Mech Designer. The latter was so precise and calculated in her work that it seemed as if she was already getting rather close to bridging the mythical gap to the next and ultimate rank!

Of course, the unspoken implication of this analysis was that the Master in question likely hailed from the Mech Trade Association. Only the mechers themselves trained rational mech designers in large numbers.

"Carlos."

"Yes, Master?"

"Come here and study this cockpit seat for me. Do you recognize anything that may be responsible for producing a metaphysical bond between man and machine?"

"I am not sure, but I do not think so. Nothing about these parts suggest that they are doing anything aside from what they are supposed to do on the surface. The seat is designed to comfortably hold a pilot and cushion him when exposed to other forces. The straps are designed to hold the pilot in place. The parts related to this strange blood interface doesn't have much electronics or other systems at all. At the very least, I have not identified anything that remotely resembles a neural interface. It is clear that whatever mechanisms Ves uses to establish the Blood Pact, it does not rely on a direct physical vessel."

The pair had actually established this before when they first got their hands on a recovered Auto Heretic Version B mech. The lack of a direct physical interface of any kind perplexed not only Master Huron, but pretty much every other mech designer in the Milky Way!

The Fridayman Master should have known he wouldn't find anything different in this machine, but his obsession drove him to deny the reality before his eyes.

For the first time in his life and career, he encountered a mech that did not bother to include a neural interface.

It was possible for Auto Heretics to add neural interfaces. Many enterprising mech designers had already developed their own variants where they slotted one in, and as far as their experiments showed, the Carmine mechs performed even better when paired with potentates.

Of course, norms had no use for the neural interfaces. They would only burn out their brains if they forced themselves to use this old tech.

Perhaps that was why Master Huron couldn't stop himself from spending his valuable time on picking the Auto Heretic mechs apart. As a neural interface specialist, he felt as if he and all of the other mech designers in the same sub-community failed in their jobs. While neural interfaces were still safe due to their superior benefits to potentates, they had undoubtedly been upstaged by the brand new Carmine System introduced by the Auto Heretic designs!

The reason why Master Huron had dropped or suspended a lot of projects in order to spend more time with these Carmine mechs was because he felt an existential threat. Neural interface technology was old and extremely mature. It had existed long before the use of mechs, but it was only after the start of the Age of Mechs that its potential was truly being tapped.

While the MTA imposed many restrictions on the development of neural interface technology, many specialists had developed incremental upgrades and improvements

Over the years.

However, no matter how hard they tried, they failed to make any serious breakthroughs, the most important of which was to make them compatible with norms.

With each passing generation, the upgrades became more and more marginal. Nowadays, the neural interfaces developed by most specialists such as Master Huron amounted to sidegrades rather than upgrades.

It basically meant that their tech performed better in a few areas at the cost of decreasing their performance in other areas.

Every neural interface specialist knew what this meant. If they failed to develop any major breakthroughs or created a new technological paradigm, it was likely that neural interface technology would reach the substitution phase of the technology life cycle! What this meant was that the persistent weaknesses and lack of innovation in neural interface technology opened it up for a superior replacement!

Of course, the Carmine System was nowhere close to threatening the dominance of neural interface among regular mech pilots, but this was just the start. Contrary to the tried and true neural interfaces, Carmine Systems were brand new. There were rumors on the galactic net that Professor Larkinson 'accidentally' developed his very first Carmine System when he designed and fabricated the Bastion! The expert heavy space knight sounded like the perfect prototype for a Carmine mech.

If this was the case, then the Carmine System had been invented just before the Great

Severing!

Nobody possessed any depth of understanding of Carmine Systems, but even a Novice Mech Designer could guess that Professor Larkinson had only scratched the surface of this amazing new branch of technology.

Even if it was mostly based on metaphysics as opposed to conventional technology, the Carmine System was just beginning to be commercialized, which meant that there was definitely a lot of untapped potential within this research direction!

Professor Larkinson and many scientists in both galaxies were probably working hard to improve and optimize the implementation of the Carmine System in any way they could. While the bizarre nature of the Carmine System and the Blood Pact prevented most third parties from developing major upgrades, they should at least be able to develop indirect improvements, such as improving the compatibility and reducing the rejection

Rate of the blood production and transfusion instruments.

The greater threat was when Professor Larkinson released more modern Carmine mech designs that featured a new generation of Carmine Systems.

The moment he solved the critical shortcoming that limited a single Carmine mech pilot

To a single Carmine mech, it was over for the neural interface industry. Rather than keep using an old and stale piece of tech that only 3.5 percent of the population could use, most people would rather turn to a substitute that was applicable to nearly 100 percent of the population!

This was why Master Toqueman Huron could never rest. The only way to prevent his specialization from fading away into irrelevance was to develop a design application that broke the current limitations of this tech!

Several hours went by as Master Huron continued to obsess over a brand new control system that he could not figure out. Even though he was able to make a few more clever observations due to the few similarities between the two different techs, he still failed to understand the essence of Carmine Technology.

Carlos was not as optimistic as Master Huron, but then again, his specialization was not

At stake. While it would be inconvenient for Carlos to learn how to integrate a new control system that had to be organic for whatever reason, his design philosophy should still be compatible with Carmine mechs.

As their work session came to an end, Master Huron and Carlos carefully put the disassembled parts back together in a better state than when the Auto Heretic left the mech factory.

The older of the two actually looked optimistic. "I am making progress."

"In what way, Master?" Carlos carefully asked.

"It is not what you think. I am no closer to deciphering the working principles of the

Carmine System. It is clear that I lack the essential new theories that must have been developed in the Red Ocean after its displacement to another galactic supercluster. I along with many other mech designers initially suspected that these theories only apply in the new environment, but the fact that the Carmine System is able to work well in our current galaxy suggests that the new theories are not as exclusive as we thought."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that we are missing a vital branch of metaphysics in our overall understanding of science and technology." Master Huron said. "I have a good idea of what that might be. When you promote to the rank of Senior Mech Designer and subsequently Master Mech Designer, you are privileged to learn a number of remarkable secrets about certain truths, many of which are related to metaphysics. I believe that the MTA knows far more about it than ordinary galactic citizens such as ourselves. If the mechers insist on denying the secrets that may be able to help us understand the essence of the

Carmine System, then they are doing us all a great disservice."

Carlos was reluctant to talk about any subject that maligned the MTA, but he wanted to

Know what the mechers were hiding as well.

"Isn't that good, in a way? The MTA are the masters of technology. Even if they keep expertise on metaphysics to themselves, they should surely be able to improve neural interfaces on the basis of the unconventional tech used in Carmine Systems." Master Huron sneered in response. "You are putting too much trust in a group of first-class incompetents. Just look at how much effective territory they lost in a short amount of time! Rather than putting our faith in an institution that has egregiously failed us multiple times, it is better to take matters into our own hands!"

"What.... what are you talking about, Master?"

"I am talking about seeking out contacts that may hold the secrets we desire. The Fridayman Master grinned. "Before the start of the Carmine Revolution, any attempt to do so will invite sanction from the MTA. Now that nearly the entire Komodo Star Sector

Has been designated as a Free Zone, we no longer have to abide by the Big Two's patronizing taboos and restrictions. We can seek any knowledge we desire and develop

Any technology we want!"

Carlos took a few steps back. He had a feeling that Master Huron might not be so restrained in his own research anymore from this point onwards.

"Do you even know who to contact to borrow the expertise you need to advance your

Research?"

Master Huron briefly frowned. "I do not, but perhaps others in the Gauge Dynasty might

Have a better idea. If not, then I still have a last resort.""

"And what is that?"

"We may have to enter the Nyxian Gap." "What do you mean 'we', Master?!"

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