The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5766 Indignant Mech Designer

The double revelations had taken the entire mech community and other communities by storm!

The exposure of cultivation did not produce an excessive impact on society because of how little people knew. Astrid Jameson and the other speakers shared so little about cultivation that most people had little idea what this was all supposed to mean.

The reaction towards the revelation of true mechs was considerably stronger!

Mech designers across human-occupied space reacted to Master Alice Cantor's disclosure on true mechs and incomplete neural interfaces with surprise and dismay!

Rather than celebrate the revelation that mechs were capable of doing more than they thought, mech designers instead felt as if the Association had held back an important piece of technology.

The labels employed by the mechers did not help.

The use of the term 'complete neural interface' suggested that the mech community had been working with deliberately weakened and less effective ones all of this time.

The term 'true mech' was worse. It conveyed the connotation that every mech designed, built and used by the community at large were never authentic enough from the perspective of the MTA and RA.

Had mech designers and mech pilots been lied to all of this time?

How much did they miss out when the mechers kept these crucial technologies under wraps all of this time?

All of these questions and more plagued the mech designers who had just learned about the existence of this hidden branch of mechs.

Joshua looked concerned at his wife. His reaction was not as exaggerated as that of Ketis.

"Why are you so angry, Ketis? Don't the mechers hold back proprietary technologies all of the time?"

"This is different!" Ketis growled in fury. "It is the principle that counts! The mechers have held on to this tech for at least four centuries. Maybe they are correct that true mechs were not necessary anymore during the Age of Mechs, but they have made this decision themselves. It is one thing to invent a new tech but withhold it from the public like Ves has done many times. It is another thing to take existing tech that has plenty of time to reach maturity, but take it away and degrade our tech base!"

Joshua still did not understand. He may have become a powerful ace pilot candidate, but he still had little clue about the design side of mechs.

"Even if that is the case, aren't you overreacting to the withdrawal of specialized tech? According to that woman, true mechs are only useful against unconventional threats, which aren't all that common for a long time."

Ketis shook her head in disappointment. "Just because a specific threat has receded is no excuse to take away its counter! What is especially egregious is that depriving complete neural interfaces from the wider mech community has inhibited its development. Master Cantor mentioned many possible problems relating to their use, from making true mechs more difficult to pilot to increasing the probability of brain damage. However, no flaw is permanent. Every problem can be fixed as long as there are enough people working on it. This is the foundation of our mech industry. There are many neural interface specialists among us who could have improved upon many aspects of complete neural interfaces. Maybe they would have reduced the dangers of using them so that they become almost indistinguishable from incomplete neural interfaces. It is the fact that the arrogant mechers never gave us the chance to do so that has done us all a disservice!"

Though Joshua still found it difficult to comprehend why his wife was so outraged about this, he trusted that she was right.

"I wonder what it is like to pilot a true mech." The expert pilot wondered. "Maybe you can upgrade my Everchanger by replacing its old neural interface with one of these new complete versions."

"Don't think about, Joshua. The Red Association may have decided to disclose this secret tech, but it is not in a hurry to share it with the greater community. The mechers clearly want to stay in control. They are clearly afraid that 'cultivators' may become powerful enough one day to overthrow the rule of the Red Two. This is why they intend to drastically increase the amount of true mechs in their mech rosters. When their production and use of these new machines has exceeded a certain scale, it becomes exponentially more difficult to hide their existence. The mechers have little choice but to disclose the existence of true mechs on their terms, or else the inevitable leaks will make them look even worse."

"Yet they still haven't given us a timeline on how they intend to roll out this new tech."

Ketis crossed her arms. "I won't get my hopes up if I were you. True mechs are a weapon that is as valuable and strategic as warships and weapons of mass destruction. Depending on how they work, they may not be all that useful for high-ranking mech pilots such as you, but they can still be useful for countless ordinary soldiers. The fact that the mechers are so selfish that they will likely restrict the tech for a long time is still galling. If a new threat ever explodes that true mechs can effectively deal with, then most of us will not be able to gain that protection in time because the mechers only have so many true mechs in their possession."

Ketis vastly preferred to design her own solutions to emerging threats. It galled her to be reduced to a bystander while the Red Association held all of the cards.

"Don't you have a good relationship with the Mech Supremacist Faction, Ketis? Maybe you can ask your buddies over there for a favor."

"My relationship with them is not that good." Ketis shook her head. "Besides, if Ves does not fare well in this public inquiry, I wouldn't be surprised if the mechers will deny him access to complete neural interfaces. I will likely face the same restriction since I am working for Ves."

That did not sound good. Joshua grew more concerned about Ves' performance in the public inquiry. He hoped that the patriarch would be able to redeem his work.

"How do you think these complete neural interfaces work, Ketis?" He asked as he continued to wonder how the different tech would affect the piloting experience.

"I have never studied neural interfaces in-depth, so I cannot say anything solid about them." The woman replied. "If I have to make a lot of educated guesses, then I think they are neural interfaces that have raised the upper limits so high that you can form a much deeper connection with your mech than before. I think that the processors and the programming of the true mech have also been modified to account for these differences. Since the goal is to turn cold hard machine logic into a barrier against metaphysical attacks, then the burden of forming a deep connection with such a lifeless existence may be heavy enough to strain most mech pilots. I suspect that factors such as genetic aptitude and specialized cranial implants can make it easier to pilot true mechs."

There was too little information to know for certain. What Ketis really wanted to know was whether true mechs were only confined to first-class. It would greatly disappoint her if that was the case.

Joshua meanwhile thought about the description given by his wife and equated it to other machines.

"You know, these true mechs sound rather similar to the Nullifier mechs fielded by the Battle Criers. They don't make use of complete neural interfaces, but they carry Lufa's glow instead. From what I have seen and heard, Lufa is good at neutralizing all kinds of metaphysical stuff. He also makes the mech pilots of the Nullifiers feel numb and less emotional while they are interfacing with their mechs."

"Now that you mention it, you have raised a good point. Maybe you are right in that they are similar to each other. The Pacifier and the Sanctuary models also produce similar effects. The difference is that Ves is the only mech designer who can design these living mechs. True mechs can be designed by anyone who has access to complete neural interfaces. This makes the latter more universal and therefore more desirable to the mech community. Besides, I do not think the Association approves of any tech that relies on an external entity to function."

That still meant that the Larkinsons already possessed their own equivalent of true mechs.

"Are you saying that we do not need true mechs in the first place?"

"I cannot make that claim with further information." Ketis shrugged. "The Red Association hasn't published enough hard data on true mechs to make a proper comparison. If I have to make a guess, I can believe that they are much more effective at neutralizing negative effects on the mech pilot than the Nullifier model, but also come with greater side effects. The consequences of giving more ground to the logic engine of a mech in the man-machine connection means that it may make the mech pilot less emotional in combat. The pilots of true mechs will find it more difficult to break through."

That was a huge downside if it turned out to be true. Ketis had no way of knowing whether this was the case. She could only speculate based on her own shallow understanding in this field.

Joshua did not consider that to be a big problem, though.

"True mechs can be assigned to older veterans who have begun to lose their edge. Their chances of breaking through are so low that they may as well pilot these true mechs instead. They are also more suited for veterans since these true mechs are more difficult to pilot."

"It depends on what a complete neural interface actually does. I am still frustrated at the fact that I do not entirely know what is missing from the neural interfaces that I have used in my mechs. I am not as obsessive about this as Gloriana, but I am really irritated at the thought that my mechs are less than they could have been."

Perhaps Ketis was simply overreacting. As she herself had stated earlier, much of her ire came from the condescending terms utilized by the Red Association.

As the pair continued to watch the broadcast, Ketis began to receive messages from many different clansmen.

They all wanted to ask her opinion on this developing situation. A few people thought that she knew what Ves had in mind, which she didn't. Her former mentor never asked her to assist in his defense.

"How is the clan doing, Ketis?"

"People are concerned, but not too much." She answered. "Many of us have witnessed how resourceful Ves can be. I don't know whether he is able to fulfill all of his goals in this public inquiry. All of this unexpected news has thrown him off-guard and forced him to react to new information without enough preparation. I am actually growing more concerned for him. Did you just listen to what Master Castor has said? She is questioning the reason why living mechs should even exist."

"What?! That is an absurd question! Of course living mechs have reasons to exist! Any mech pilot who has handled them knows this truth!"

"She is not trying to convince diehard fans such as you. What she is actually doing is casting doubt on all of the other people who don't know living mechs as well. Aside from that, she is also trying to suggest that Ves has strayed from the original purpose of mechs. This is a much more concerning attack because she is not actually wrong on this front. Ves has taken his works much further away from other mechs than is normal. The question now is whether he has gone too far with this. Mechs aren't originally supposed to be self-aware and able to move by themselves, but now third order living mechs have gained this capability. It is up to the public to decide whether this is right or wrong."

"I hope that they make the right choice." Joshua said with evident concern in his voice.