The Bluejay Fleet went underway. It departed from the Terran Alliance and entered the Red Ocean Union. Although the fleet did not bother to stop by any planets along the way, Ves and the others could still gain an impression of the mood among the people who lived in these star systems. The Terrans and their many dependents had come under a lot more uncertainty as of late. Their leaders had taken a bold step by declaring independence, but the consequence of doing so was that the Red Association and the Red Fleet no longer provided any substantial aid, military or otherwise. The Terrans had made a number of preparations to make up for this shortcoming. They mainly banked on adopting superior high technology that previously remained exclusive to the mechers and the fleeters. They also chose to violate numerous taboos that mainly existed to muzzle the firepower of every human state. It only took more than a week for the Terrans to roll out their first upgraded fleets. Although the Terrans had yet to build warships on a large enough scale to deploy them in battle, their carrier vessels had become much deadlier than before. Simply linking their mechs to the power supply of the large vessel did wonders to their damage output. Even if these carriers were unable to match the insane damage output of the Torturous Scream when all of her bunker mechs received the Minerva Mark II's Enfeoffment, the improvements made by the Terrans was still a game changer. The abundant supply of energy combined with superior heat management solutions enabled the Terran machines to fire their energy weapons with much fewer constraints than before! The Terrans had also continued to expand on their use of support link technology. Just as everyone expected, they had long understood the secrets of shield link technology and energy link technology. It was remarkable how quickly the Terrans as well as the Rubarthans began to proliferate the tech now that they no longer had to restrain themselves anymore. The Terrans were able to hold the line a bit easier as proper use of shield link technology massively reduced their attrition rates. Many of their mechs returned from the battlefield without incurring any significant damage. Only the machines that had become entirely overwhelmed got eliminated, but it took so much more effort for the native aliens to make this happen that the remaining machines had plenty of opportunities to avenge their fallen! Perhaps the only downside to relying so heavily on shield link technology was that it put so much strain on the power management system and shield link arrays that they often required a round of maintenance in order to restore their reliability. If the mechs fought too many battles while relying heavily on shield links to keep themselves alive and active, then the parts responsible for collectivizing their defenses might reach their limits and malfunction at a critical time. Such incidents had already happened a few times. These failures taught the new adopters of shield link technology that its usage was not an excuse to neglect the need to take proper defensive measures. Fortunately, the success cases far outnumbered the failure cases. The Terrans were quite happy with the results and planned to equip every first-class multipurpose mech with the necessary hardware. Many mech companies and mech designers had already begun the arduous work of modifying their existing mech designs to accommodate these essential features. If that did not work, they were not afraid of going back to the drawing board and designing brand-new mechs that made use of shield link transceivers from the very start of the project. All of this would take time and resources to make them more prevalent on the battlefield, but at least the availability of shield link technology had restored the morale of the soldiers fighting at the front. They knew that as long as they held the line and as long as they remained alive long enough, they would definitely be able to pilot one of the newfangled machines! Not all of the signs were positive, though. The Red Cabal definitely learned about the massive changes that took place in this corner of the Red Ocean. Even if the ancient phase whales were still deliberating on whether they should thoroughly rethink their strategy, the Red Cabal has been urging the major alien races to shift their forces away from the Red Ocean Union and focus their attacks on the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact. The theory was that even if the Cybernetic Empire dispatched reinforcements to its new allies, all the native aliens had to worry about was to form the correct responses to the new technologies. The native aliens did not look forward to sending so many fleets into human-occupied space, only to get wiped out by one of several god pilots or dreadnoughts that were on patrol! The soldiers fighting on behalf of their gods or their civilizations were not emotionless automatons. Mutiny became a very real possibility if their leaders only cared about sending cannon fodder into a front that had become a literal meat grinder. Even if the other two fronts were not actually that easy to overcome due to the escalating reinforcements dispatched by the Cybernetic Empire, the alien invaders only had to track the movements of the Light of Sol to prevent the worst case scenario from taking place. As Ves sat in his design lab and spoke with Master Laila Rebecca Devos over the comm about the Arboreal Project, he thought about whether all of the recent events might necessitate rethinking the first Woodsap mech. "We have been making excellent progress despite all of the distractions that arose after we declared our independence." Master Devos casually revealed. "It is possible that one of our Star Designers may personally assist with the development of a human body surrogate control system that is compatible with our upcoming Woodsap mechs. If this happens, we may be able to complete this project one or two months ahead of schedule at this rate." That caused Ves to raise his eyebrows. The intervention of a Star Designer was a big deal! Even if the Terrans only wanted His or Her Excellency to complete work on a complex piece of tech that could help Carmine mech pilots to control their mechs as if they were moving their own bodies, this was still a massive contribution as far as everyone was concerned! "Are you sure about that? The Arboreal Project is an entirely new beast. It is unlike any other biomech that you and I have worked on before. There is no guarantee that it will succeed and deliver on all of its promises." Master Laila Devos briefly hesitated before she made a decision. "We have recently evaluated the concept of living mechs and decided to increase its priority. The main reason for that is because of how serious the Cybers are towards your design philosophy. One of their Thirteen Towers is dedicated towards living machines. Even if their applications are currently limited due to familiar reasons, their potential is limitless. We do not want to be left behind, so we are trying to catch up to the Cybers in this area." Ves did not expect this to be the reason behind the change of heart. He welcomed any development that made his living mechs more popular, but the reasoning behind this shift was not exactly ideal. Oh well. At least the Terrans were willing to allocate more resources and manpower to help the Arboreal Project to completion. "Don't misunderstand me, Master." Ves said. "I am happy for the changes. I just did not expect them to happen. Can we expect to receive other forms of aid?" "No. The truth is that there were leaders that offered to increase our budget or give us better access to exclusive resources. My peers and I have rejected their offer because it would have been excessive at that point. There are many other projects that also require greater aid." That surprised Ves. He would have liked to become a part of this conversation, but since he was not a Terran, he did not earn a seat in this meeting. Ves and Master Laila Devos talked a bit more about the consequences of the recent policy changes. From what Ves could gather, the higher ups wanted to use the results of the Arboreal Project to test whether the Cybers had made a wise choice by investing so heavily into living mechs. If the new Carmine mechs designed by the inventor of living mechs met or exceeded the expectations of the Terran leaders, then the Arboreal Project would not only be allowed to proliferate without restrictions, but also encourage the spread of other living mechs! Whether the Terrans wanted to urge Ves to design more first-class living mechs for the Terran mech market or invite the members of the Living Machine Tower to publish their mech designs, there were multiple ways to make living mechs more ubiquitous. The Terrans could even rely on the work of the young Terran mech designers that Ves had educated in one of his classes. This the least reliable solution of all because these individuals were still Apprentices for the most part. Only Alexa had gone far ahead of the rest, and that was because she had become his student! Personally, Ves suspected that among one of the deals concluded between the Terrrans and the cybers, the former might open up its mech market to the products of the latter. This would have a profound impact on the economy of the Terran Alliance. The participation of Cybers in the mech market would definitely lead to the release of a lot of technologically superior living mechs. The downside was that the temporary dominance of Cyber mech designers might cause the Terrans to lose too much ground. If the Terran mech designers lost their competitiveness, then they would lose a lot of market share. It would be a bit ridiculous for the Cybers to squeeze out the Terrans from their own turf! Yet that was exactly what might happen if the Terrans made such a heavy concession. They needed the superior tech offered by the Cybers. Ves grew more sympathetic towards Master Laila Rebecca Devos after understanding how much pressure she was in. This may be one of the reasons why she was eager to accelerate the Arboreal Project. "One of the traits of the Arboreal Project that many Terrans appreciate is how it is intrinsically tied to Gaia." Master Laila Devos said. "As long as that is the case, then our Woodsap mechs will only work when it is grown and used by Terrans who have earned her recognition. We believe it is too difficult for the Cybers, Rubarthans or mechers to overcome this security measure. Even if they can develop a workaround, the benefits are not worth the cost. We will be the only humans in this changing dwarf galaxy that make use of exclusive Woodsap mechs." Star nations with ambition for greatness needed to distinguish themselves now more than ever. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖 If the appearance of the Cybernetic Empire constantly pushed them on the backfoot, then they could forget about making it big, let alone get taken seriously by other rivals. Perhaps the weakest star nations would only end up getting devoured by their larger neighbors! "I will do everything in my power to make your Terran dream come true." Ves solemnly said. "The stuff that I have already planned for the Arboreal Project should be sufficient enough to turn it into a compelling value proposition. By the way, are we still going with the simple and complex versions of the Arboreal Project?" Master Laila Devos nodded. "Yes for now. We still insist on developing two different models. The simple variant should be available for general users. The more advanced variant will be reserved for our elite infantry sources and so on. This may be our best chance to repel the native alien invaders without relying too heavily on the military assistance of the Cybernetic Empire."