Slowly but surely, a clear line of division emerged within Ves’ enterprise.
The ‘old guard’ consisting of the original Brighters and Larkinsons mostly concerned themselves with the mechs.
The newcomers in the form of Ylvainans disproportionately consisted of spacers. They were crawling all over his ships!
Did Ves like his division? No. Was Ves forced to accept it? Yes.
It was not as if complete segregation had occurred. There were still enough Brighters in the fleet to add some diversity to the crews.
Ves had no interest in managing this situation any further. He passed on his instructions to the fleet coordinator and other people and left them to address his concerns.
In the meantime, he completed his analysis of the test results. The new Deliverer performed admirably with the new neural interface. Though the test only showed the positive sides of the high-capacity model, it was enough to show that there was definitely a reason for its existence!
When Ves went back to Gloriana and showed her the benefits of the new model, she glanced at him with an expression of distaste.
“This only shows the potential of a high-capacity model. All you have shown me is that there is some merit to employing it to our top mech pilots. Most of your mech pilots are not up to that standard yet. They won’t be able to derive enough benefits to compensate for the higher likelihood of suffering permanent brain damage.”
Ves sighed. “I already told you, Gloriana, it’s not just that. A less restricted neural interface will always increase the bond between mech and design spirit.”
The two already discussed this topic, so they didn’t bother to rehash it any further. Suffice to say, Gloriana remained skeptical, while Ves insisted on doubling down on this new neural interface.
At the very least, it didn’t appear to be some sort of trap from the MTA! Ves had already used his exalted status in the Ylvaine Protectorate to his advantage by consulting some of the local neural interface specialists.
The ones who answered back in time had all studied the high-capacity model in detail and judged it to be exactly what it said on the tin. Just like any other neural interface license offered by the MTA, it was devoid of backdoors and secret programming!
With that reassurance, Ves felt completely at ease with its use. He even wanted to make it a standard addition to all of his future mechs! This included both commercial designs, commissioned designs and private designs!
“I doubt the mech markets will appreciate a mech that incorporates such a dangerous neural interface.”
Ves grinned. “I don’t mind. I’m always pursuing quality over quantity. Even if my products become less attractive, it is still worthwhile to impart them with high-capacity neural interfaces unless I absolutely have to make a lot of sales!”
That shouldn’t be necessary, he believed.
“I suspect that many of your customers will rip out its stock neural interface and install a safer version in its place.” Gloriana retorted. “You might as well develop a ‘safe’ variant and a ‘performance’ variant or something. You can derive most of your sales from the safe variant while satisfying your need for accomplishment with the performance variant!”
“That.. sounds interesting. I’ll think about it, though I don’t favor it. I don’t want any product confusion to occur.”
He didn’t want to deal with all of the whining and buyer’s remorse that would inevitably take place when customers ordered the wrong edition of his designs.
At a certain level, Ves wanted to keep his sales volume low. The Desolate Soldier attracted way too much attention, and not always for the right reasons. Even now, a lot of Soldier mechs were being sold in various parts of the Komodo Star Sector. Most customers sought to abuse their glows to their own ends!
Wary of attracting too much MTA attention, Ves wanted to limit the application of his mechs. Focusing on the high-end market and targeting skilled and elite mech pilots would allow him to continue his passion while at the same time prevent his mechs from proliferating out of his control.
When Ves went back to trying to empower his Larkinson mech, he worked the high-capacity neural interface into the design.
After that, he attempted to explore how he could facilitate the spiritual aspect of the man-machine connection.
This was a rather nebulous area as Ves didn’t have an actual mech to output telemetry.
“This data can’t be simulated.”
In truth, a lot of models existed that could simulate the performance of a neural interface, but only specialists were able to make the most of them! Laymen in this field like Ves would probably do more harm than good.
The results weren’t accurate enough. Human brains were simply too complex to model completely. Aside from the conventional reasons that skewed the results, the models didn’t include anything related to spirituality!
With such an influential variable missing, how could Ves put his faith in any of these models?
If Ves wanted to make headway into integrating Ancestral Possession into his Larkinson mech, then he needed to wait for two events.
First, he needed the cooperation of the Golden Cat. Ves glanced at the Larkinson Mandate, which appeared a lot more hollow than before.
Everyone felt the Golden Cat’s absence. Clixie and Lucky yowled mournfully at the book.
Ever since Ves introduced the Golden Cat to Qilanxo, the Sacred God took the newborn spiritual product under her wing!
Ves had no idea how the teachings proceeded, but everytime the Golden Cat returned to the book to take a nap, she seemed more and more aware and confident of herself.
It was as if the Golden Cat was rapidly growing wiser every day!
The second condition he needed to wait for was the fabrication of a prototype. Only with an actual, physical mech would Ves be able to finetune the integration and cooperation between the Golden Cat, the mech and the mech pilot.
Ves predicted that he would have to depend heavily on intuition in order to make everything work. He didn’t really have a solid idea on how he could add the desired capabilities to his design, but he was determined to try!
In the meantime, Ves rejoined Gloriana in refining the more mundane aspects of the mechs.
Though their disagreement caused the mood between them to become awkward, that did not affect their passion and enthusiasm in the project.
The more they worked, the more they fell back into tune with each other. Ves and Gloriana had become very adept at preventing their differences from affecting their cooperation!
At this time, the primary structure of the four configurations had already been set. The pair and their design teams were beginning to work on the finer parts of the modular mech platform.
However, one set of decisions in particular was a bit more significant!
Gloriana brought up her suggestion. “All four configurations are powerful enough that they have some capacity left to spare. Why don’t we augment the mechs with secondary armaments? You’ve always been complaining about the lack of punch. This is your chance to rectify the imbalances!”
“I’ve already put a lot of thought on this option.” Ves replied while pressing his fingers against his forehead. “While there is sufficient capacity to diversify our mech’s arsenal, there isn’t enough room to add a killer weapon to their loadout.”
“Then let’s focus on diversity, then. The Larkinson mech are very expensive by your standards. Don’t you think it should have the power to fight back?
The lancer mech, the swordsman mech and the knight mech all possessed a lot of prowess in melee combat, but their ranged countermeasures left much to be desired!
Therefore, both mech designers had been thinking about giving the melee configurations some self-protection ability.
“Adding a secondary rifle is a poor idea.” Gloriana said as she crossed this item from the projected list. “The limbs of our melee mechs aren’t designed to wield ranged weapons. Accuracy will be poor. We might as well give the configurations a pistol as they are easier to handle.”
They quickly moved on to considering integrated weapons. There were many possible options here, though most were a bit too demanding on the design.
After browsing a lot of alternatives, Gloriana eventually paused her browsing on a page that displayed a missile launcher!
“Missiles! That’s it!” She grinned and clapped her hand in happiness. “This is perfect for our mechs! Missiles and missile launchers come in all shapes and sizes, so we can easily fit one on all four configurations.”
Ves was no stranger to missile launchers, especially the ones mounted on the shoulders of a mech. His old Caesar Augustus and Marc Antony models both used them to decent effect!
The last time he incorporated a missile launcher in a mech was when he designed the Adonis Colossus. Inspired by the aforementioned hybrid mechs, Vicent Ricklin’s mech harkened back to his early days as a mech designer!
That said, Ves never went very deep in the study and applications of missiles and missile launching systems.
Every missile included more than just the exploding part. The ECM, targeting and propulsion systems occupied most of the body of a mech, leaving just a modest amount of space for the payload.
“Missiles won’t necessarily solve the lack of offensive punch to our design, Gloriana. Only our lancer configuration stands a chance of posing a threat against a highly-armored target.”
She shook his head. “You’re still thinking in terms of the small and weak missiles used for enormous mass attacks. Don’t forget that there is a lot of variety in missile payloads. If you want to deploy your mechs on a routine patrol, then it’s sufficient to fill up their launchers with conventional missiles. If we are facing a tough opponent, then we can load the missile launchers up with a hugely potent missile!”
Ves had many problems with this suggestion. The Larkinson mech was not a true missileer mech. None of its four variants included this specialization.
“The targeting system will suck. With so little internal volume devoted to establishing locks and defeating ECM, those missiles launchers will look very unwieldy!”
“If they bother you too much, then we can fit the mechs with a smaller and lesser pair of missile launchers. Their capacity is smaller, but as long as our Larkinson mech can make each missile worth it, then I was fine with this decision!”
Eventually, they settled for a small and slimmer model that could be shaped to match the curved contours of the Larkinson mech.
Each missile launcher was so low profile that they could only launch four standard-sized missiles per salvo!
These missiles were fairly small in proportion to the mech. They usually didn’t possess the power to fell a mech with a single hit, so they were often launched en masse to achieve a greater result.
While the size of mech-based missiles was always rather small, their payloads vastly differed in damage type and potency. Some unleashed plasma upon impact. Others released an EMP effect.
Most missiles simply sought to inflict as much damage as possible with a focused explosion.
As Ves began to explore Gloriana’s suggestion, he realized that it was yet another decision that relied on superior funding and resources to raise the performance of their Larkinson mech.
There were many missiles laced with exotics that could pose a serious threat to any mech! All of them were expensive, and many cost as much as a mech!
This was an extravagant price, but not an insurmountable one to Ves! Since the Larkinson mech was an outlet of his passion, he didn’t hesitate very long before assenting to this addition!
Providing the four configurations with miniature missile launchers was a hugely beneficial change.
The rifleman mech configuration could finally deliver a stronger punch to its opponents. The melee mechs each gained some retaliation capabilities against ranged mechs.
While the mechs wouldn’t be able to carry a lot of missiles into battle, as long as their payloads were powerful enough, they didn’t need to bring any more firepower!
