The Mech Touch

Calling his design the Enduring Protector sounded simple and blunt. Yet the target market for his original design mostly consisted of boors who lacked the sophistication to understand any subtlety.

A direct name served as an obvious signal to the mech pilots assigned to the mechs. This was not a mech for individual heroics, nor something to be piloted by aspiring duelists.

In Ves’ imagination, squads or half-squads of Enduring Protectors moved in unison and worked together as a team to destroy any opposition in the way, whether they consisted of mechs or wild gods.

Their simple mechanical construction and resilient internal architecture allowed them to fare against the breakdown effect much more effectively than any standard mech. It was the job of the Enduring Protector to endure the strong and pervasive spacetime distortion that wreaked havoc on all machines.

"It’s first job is to protect. It’s second job is to endure."

Simple. Direct. Sometimes, a mech didn’t require too much depth. They simply needed to be good enough to fulfill their jobs.

If Ves aimed to design a product for the mech market, then choosing a direct and boorish name would work against him. Not to mention that millions of mech designers likely christened their designs with similar names, mech buyers generally sought to buy something special.

A subtle, opaque and symbolic name served to arouse a potential buyer’s interest. Selling a mech was much like seduction game. Like any game, it abided by certain rules and conventions that increased the chance of a successful sale.

A name with depth continued to add meaning to a mech that didn’t necessarily exist except in the imagination of the buyer. However, as long as they were satisfied with the purchase, what was wrong with being a little romantic?

Take for example the first two designs that Ves came up with. The Blackbeak alluded to the dominant image of his offensive knight. It sounded dark, ominous and contrarian, much like the black phoenix that gave it a spark of life. It’s primary message conveyed that his Blackbeak mechs differed substantially from defensive knights that only sat back and withstood incoming for for their more vulnerable comrades. Instead, it ought to be put to offensive use!

The Crystal Lord carried a domineering name. Ves picked this name deliberately both to honor the spiritual fragment of a long-dead alien leader and to elevate the role of his mech. While it worked fine in a team, its true purpose was to dominate the battlefield using its unique advantages bestowed by the alien crystal technology incorporated into its chest and laser rifle. This was a mech fit for a leader or an elite marksman!

"Both their names are classy and meaningful. Each mech pilot will develop a unique understanding of their names."

For example, one might argue the Crystal Lord served as a mech reserved for officers and leaders. Others might argue that the name meant that it was a king among laser rifleman mechs, and could beat any lesser mech that relied on laser armament!

As for the Enduring Protector, Ves did not expect it to be used for a longer period of time. He knew from his marketing studies that mech pilots continued to ascribe more meaning to their mechs the longer they fought with them. It was human nature for warriors to value their wargear and establish an emotional connection to them, just like how warriors of the past considered their rifles and swords to be their lifelong companions.

Yet if the Enduring Protector would only be put to use for a short period of time, such a process ended before it picked up steam. Intensive combat and harrowing battles for survival rapidly increased a mech pilot’s emotional connection to their mechs, but a true long-term bond simply couldn’t emerge.

This was very relevant to the next step in his design process. It was time to bring life to his vision and empower his design with spirituality. He already readied his Triple Division technique.

The Triple Division technique superimposed three images into a single spiritual entity that occupied the same space. Either they fought, merged or co-existed. No matter what, their strengths partially covered their weaknesses and amplified what they were already good at. While not all of this was possible in reality, the imaginary realm wasn’t bound by common sense.

It sounded like an amazing technique, but with the passage of time, Ves thought he could do better. He developed the Triple Division technique as a means of ascribing more traits to the X-Factor of his mechs than a single coherent image ever could. Yet was this the limit?

Having experienced numerous new applications of spirituality from the likes of Lucky, the Church of Haatumak and the natives on Aeon Corona VII, Ves realized what he figured out so far only touched upon the surface of this limitless attribute.

"I should experiment with something new to replace the old when I have the time."

Due to the brief relevance of his upcoming design, Ves declined to add a growth element to his images. The mission simply didn’t afford his mechs the time to grow into their roles and distinguish themselves according to their usage, experiences and quirks from their mech pilots.

Instead of taking the time to cool a proper meal, Ves had to deliver an instantly-edible nutrient pack to the Vandal mech pilots assigned to pilot the Enduring Protectors.

"The first step is to form an image of the base model."

This was the easiest part. He already formed a preliminary vision of his intended design. Right now, he concentrated his Spirituality and breathed life to that vision. He empowered his conception of a breakdown-proof frontline mech that vaguely looked like a turtle without a head.

The image gained life as Ves bestowed it with an abundant amount of Spirituality. It might be his imagination, but he felt as if his Spirituality grew in volume and strength for some reason. It became a bit more easier than he thought to empower the image of the base model.

After Ves fed a sufficient amount of his Spirituality to the base model to the point it felt full, he put the image aside and proceeded to the next step.

"Simplistic this technique may be, there is something mystical about it. I missed this experience." He sighed.

The act of creating something from nothing, even if it was limited to the imaginary realm, fascinated him to no end. He already obtained plenty of proof that spiritual entities had the power to affect reality.

Perhaps the ultimate goal of his design philosophy was to bridge the gap between the real and the imaginary and allow his spiritual images to fully descend upon his mechs.

This sounded like an extremely far-fetched goal, but for some reason, Ves never doubted he could accomplish this magical feat one day.

"It’s good to be ambitious."

He felt he was on a roll right now. Having worked as an administrator, repairer and researcher for so long during his time with the Vandals, he unexpectedly received the opportunity to design a real original mech!

Ves cherished this opportunity, because designing mechs brought him closer to his advancement to Journeyman.

The second step was to imagine a suitable totem animal that gifted his design its instincts.

While he could invest any animal he wanted, he already became inspired by the local wildlife. What better animal could he choose than the god species?

Though it seemed like a poor fit to match together the majestic god species with a cheap, disposable mech, Ves wanted to utilize this image because he possessed a strong and detailed impression of the exobeasts.

As a heavily-engineered life form, it adapted extremely well to this planet. In particular, Ves took inspiration from the wild gods who survived on every corner of Seven and became its apex species. They sat on the top of the food chain and nothing else than sacred gods and ascendant gods could defeat these dominant predators.

"The wild gods may be supplanted by the wildlings in time, but that will only be the case if the dwarves are allowed to evolve over a span of hundreds of thousands of years without any outside intervention. For now, the exobeasts are the most prevalent expression of adaptability and power on this planet."

Ves shaped a non-existent wild god in his mind with the power to project damaging beams of lights. Though he witnessed many wild gods over the months, some of whom demonstrated their powers, he never saw any wild god flinging lasers at their opponents.

That didn’t matter, as he could just invent a wild god that did possess this power.

This wild god shared a few commonalities with the frontline mech. They were slow, resilient to spacetime distortion and fought primarily by lasering their opponents from a distance before they could close into melee range.

He proceeded to spend some hours on building a backstory for this wild god. He spun a tale of harrowing growth. It fought to survive and survived by fighting in his godling stage. Upon growing up to become a wild god, it became particularly protective of its godling offspring.

Contrary to the rest of its species, this laser-flinging wild god was an attentive parent! It protected its godling offspring and raised them by protecting them from outside threats.

Ves didn’t know whether such caring wild gods existed. Most of the wild gods they encountered in the wilds were ferociously selfish. At best, they completely ignored their godling sons and daughters. At worst, they ate their own children as yummy snacks!

"Even if a caring wild god doesn’t exist before, it at least exists inside my mind."

This was the beauty of forming an image from his imagination. He could break the rules and invent something that shouldn’t exist without any repercussions.

After working for such a long time under many limitations, it felt liberating for Ves to cast open his mind and lift up his middle finger against the rules that constrained reality.

"That should be it for the totem animal."

Now he turned to the most complex image, the human myth. This portion of the Triple Division technique imparted logic, rationality, decision-making and other higher-order thoughts to the X-Factor.

The human myth strained his creativity the most as he not only needed to invent a myth-like figure, he also needed to construct a complete setting and historical background for that character.

Ves remembered that he subverted this approach last time with the Crystal Lord. Instead of inventing a spiritual entity from scratch, he adapted a spiritual fragment from a long-dead alien.

This new approach augmented the Triple Division technique and helped him breakthrough a persistent bottleneck in empowering the X-Factor.

Yet right now he didn’t have anything like that at his disposal.

"How can I obtain spiritual fragments anyway?"

Perhaps he could pick up the remains of some dwarves and try to see whether he could trace some of its lingering existence.

Still, the thought of basing the human myth around the primitive and tribal savages disgusted Ves. How would his mech pilots act if they became influenced by the chaotic thought patterns of an unenlightened dwarf?

Yet Ves found the idea of basing the human myth around a dwarf to be extremely compelling.

A native wildling not only fit with the environment, they also worked well with a wild god. Perhaps a surprising interaction might occur if he put the image of a wild god and dwarf together.

"Is it possible to set images up to synergize with each other?"

After all, the native dwarves were genetically engineered to interface with the god species. Instead of fighting each other, the images might instead combine their forces!

What would the result of their mutual cooperation look like? How would the image of the base model fit in? Ves grew incredibly curious at what might happen if he put the images together in a single space in his mind.

"I have to invent a decent dwarf first."

Should he refer to the subsequent image a human myth or a dwarf myth?