5031 Recontextualizing Mech Models As the expeditionary fleet approached the territories beset by alien raids, the Golden Skull Alliance started to form more plans and coordinate their actions. It was not enough for them to defeat a bunch of mediocre raiding fleets. Their combat strength was far too great to waste on cleaning up the riff raff. What they truly had their eyes on were the staging areas where many of the smaller alien raiding fleets resupplied and started their missions! Destroying crucial alien infrastructure would disrupt a lot of arrangements and award a lot more MTA merits. Not only that, but there was bound to be a lot more phasewater and other valuable resources in these places! The opposition was significantly greater, however. The defenses of these staging heavily depended on how many raiding fleets were present in the star system. This was why it became extremely important to track the condition and movements of the more powerful alien raiding fleets. It would not be good if one of the more powerful fleets that had at least one formidable battleship in their lineup came back all of a sudden! What was even worse was the possibility that warships hailing from the Red Cabal or the major alien races might drop by as well! This was why the plan to attack an alien stage area had yet to be decided. The various alliance partners wanted to collect more intelligence and gain more assurances that they would not get ambushed by a superior alien warfleet. While all of this took place, Ves continued to split up his time on many different priorities. From working on previously stalled mech designs such as the Eye Project to forming the complete syllabi of his upcoming courses at the Eden University of Business & Technology, he felt happy with returning to a productive routine. Of course, he also had to spare a bit of time each day to raise his children. Venerable Benjamin's surprise recovery helped a lot with ensuring that Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine grew up with the correct values. He was able to cover for the times when Ves could not be present himself. As Ves continued to accomplish a lot in the Red Ocean, Veronica also experienced busy days. The cyborg cat not only acted as a substitute mech designer for all of Ves' ongoing mech projects, but also became exposed to an entirely different world. Cynthia Larkinson set a lot of new plans in motion now that she regained her body and stole a portion of the authority of the Water Scroll. Though she declined to share her full plans to her son, it was clear that she was planning to launch a massive offensive against the Abyss Empire and the Compact cultists that caused so much trouble! Ryncol Larkinson had to fulfill his own responsibilities, so Ves did not have many chances of getting a glimpse of his highly evolved Devil Tiger. It had grown far beyond its initial form, and his mother had induced massive changes to it that somehow bound it closer to his father! Fortunately, Ves was able to examine it extensively enough to develop a lot of ideas on how to upgrade and enhance its performance despite all of its weirdness. "What is mother up to?" Veronica asked Helena as the young design spirit held the cat in her arms. "She promised to tutor me on different stuff, but I hardly see her nowadays." "That is because time is of the essence, brother. Our mother has gained a lot of power, and now is the time to strike. If we wait too long, our enemies will adapt and make it much harder for us to attain our goals. We are not just trying to defeat them. My mother is attempting to take full control over the Nyxian Gap. This is a much greater goal. Once we are able to claim complete sovereignty over this region, we can truly establish our empire in this galaxy." Veronica's expression started to scrunch in concern. "Why do I have the feeling that I won't like what my mother has planned? I'm family, you know. Why are you still keeping me in the dark?" Helena patronizingly patted the cyborg cat on the head. "It is true that we are trying to keep you away from our plans, but it is for your own protection. You aren't able to defend yourself against our strongest enemies. We prefer it if you stay out of the limelight. There will be many more opportunities for you to assist us after we have resolved the immediate dangers within and around the Nyxian Gap." Ves did not like it at all. A lot of changes were already taking place in the Red Ocean. Now he discovered that his mother was not content to remain still in the Milky Way! As events continued to unfold in both galaxies, Ves made a lot of progress in completing the Eye Project. Despite his persistent neglect of the design project, Ves still spared a bit of thought on it from time to time. Now that he accumulated a lot of possible ideas and design implementations, he was able to employ them in quick succession now that he focused on completing them as fast as possible! It helped that the Eye Project was a simple mech by nature. Ves just had to design a relatively straightforward second-class marksman mech without too many bells and whistles. There were three distinct traits that set it apart from the competition. First, it was a living mech. Though many of his latest advancements did not apply to a mass production model, his recent advancement to Senior meant that he could still ensure that every copy of the Eye Project would start out a little stronger in this aspect! Second, it was armed with a fairly powerful luminar crystal rifle. Ves tried his best to make it as precise and hard-hitting as possible at a fairly modest budget. He restricted it to a laser weapon in order to cut down on a lot of redundant elements. Third, turning Vulcan into its design spirit should grant its pilot a lot of help with identifying the weak points of its targets. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖 Vulcan had learned a huge amount of technical knowledge. The dwarves turned out to be an especially great font for information! While the dwarven Masters possessed a lot of high-level knowledge that Vulcan could not access for various reasons, it was already more than enough to collect a lot of general knowledge! Vulcan's understanding of technology was more than enough to identify the best ways to damage both human and alien targets. Ves harbored a lot of expectations for this feature. It could play an extremely useful role for any mech force. His only concern was whether the Eye Project would still be able to find a place in a mech community that transitioned to the Age of Dawn. Sure, all of his living mechs and design spirits were becoming stronger due to the influence of exotic radiation, but every other mech experienced similar boosts! There were a lot of mechs on the market that were designed by people who specialized in offensive ranged weapons. These products were becoming a lot more attractive as hard firepower became a much greater priority due to the need to punch through the defenses of large alien warships! Ves could already foresee that the mech market was about to undergo a lot of upheaval in the next few decades. Mech models that made sense in the Age of Mechs might not be as useful in the Age of Dawn anymore. The increased prospect of fighting against alien forces meant that mech models that were primarily optimized to fight against other mechs would lose a lot of value! With the introduction of Warship Tokens, the mech industry most definitely needed to put more emphasis on combating warships. Ves also predicted that many consumers would flock increasingly more to mechs designed by various Master Mech Designers. This was because exotic radiation amplified the performance of their works a lot more than lower ranking mech designers! Why settle for a mech designed by a paltry Apprentice when a similar machine designed by a Master offered up to 50 percent better performance while costing the same to produce?! Apprentices, Journeymen and Seniors urgently needed to find a way to become more useful if they wanted to keep their place in the mech market. So many changes were taking place that Ves could no longer predict whether the Eye Project could still become a good seller. "Well, it's not my problem." He shrugged. "That's what the Marketing Department is for. I am sure those guys will find a way to sell my latest product." He needed to be more creative about his next batch of commercial mech designs. He also had to learn how to make good use of exotic radiation if he wanted his next products to remain competitive. As Ves continued to think about his next projects as he was in the process of optimizing the Eye Project, he briefly paused his work when he received an important notification. Ketis and her fellow collaborators completed the Samurai Project! Ves paused his design session and went down to the workshop where the swordmaster stood triumphantly in front of her newly fabricated mech! Tifi Coslone, Sara Voiken and Merrill O'Brian stood a short distance away. They had made their own contributions to the Samurai Project. As Ves stopped next to Ketis and stared up at the impressive looking second-class swordsman mech, his gaze rested on the twin Stormblades that the mech was specifically designed to wield! "Hello, Ves." Ketis greeted him. "What do you think about my work?" "It is... similar, but different." Ves said after a few seconds. "It shares a lot of similarities with your previous work. However, I can see how you tried to make its identity more separate and distinct by making different design decisions and giving up control to your fellow collaborators. Has it been easy to manage all of the input from other mech designers who don't necessarily know much about swordsman mechs?" The swordmaster looked bemused. "It's a lot harder than I thought to lead a design project of this scope. There were too many times where Tifi or Sara wanted to push through their own design solutions despite the fact that it would ruin the overall balance and fighting potential of the Samurai Project or should I say the Stormblade Samurai model. I wasted far too many hours on explaining why they have to stick to my parameters." "That's project leadership for you. It will get easier over time." Ketis snorted. "That is easy for you to say. Everyone acknowledges your design skills and looks up to you. You have also become a Senior, so it is natural for you to command us Journeymen." "Hey, that was only a recent development!" Ves protested. "Anyway, I hear that you intend to produce your latest model in large batches in the near future." "I do. I first intend to fabricate a small batch of Stormblade Samurais so that we can test their performance against alien targets in the coming engagements. If the results are as good as I expect, then I will try and convince the Swordmaidens to trade in at least a part of their Second Swords with my new Stormblade-equipped mechs." "Do you have that much confidence in your Stormblade Samurai model? The Second Sword has always been one of your proudest works." Ketis let out a tired breath. "That was true in the past, but it has become increasingly more outdated. I intend to do something about it by working on the Mark II model, but I need more time to figure out meaningful improvements. In the meantime, the Stormblade Samurai should be a lot more useful in our current expedition as its Stormblade technology is much more effective at draining transphasic energy shields. Whether that remains true with all of the exotic radiation flying in the air, I don't know, but it shouldn't be a problem in the short term." "I look forward to witnessing its performance."