Chapter 7094: Live By The Mech Ves called for a short recess in order to discuss his options with the Saint Commander and other advisors. He knew that his communications with his clan could easily be intercepted, but he didn’t really care about that. When dealing with the big players, it was always safe to assume that they eavesdropped on every remote conversation. "Meow." Lucky meanwhile continued to perch on top of the container holding the artificial fire heart. The gem cat clearly yearned to take a bite out of its metallic shell, but he knew better than to ruin such a precious work. "So what do you think?" Ves asked the projected figures. General Verle, who had spent the days since his return to catch up with the soldiers who had gone through many battles since the Great Severing, voiced his opinion first. "Your demands are harsh, but beneficial to everyone aside from the Cybernetic Empire itself. Licensing their exclusive tech to us effectively means exposing it to the public, if on a delay. This goes far beyond enabling us to design additional mechs that are able to wield the power of fire more effectively. It will give the rest of red humanity access to all of the aforementioned CE tech, enabling them to upgrade their mechs and warships when possible within a span of a couple of years. This will make a substantial difference over time as the firepower of every defending force will experience a boost ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent if we base out estimates on the more optimistic scenarios." A firepower boost of 50 percent was enough to flip many losing battles into winning ones! In fact, an increase in just 15 percent was enough to shift the balance of the Red War. Unfortunately, there was a huge caveat to General Verle’s argument. "This disparity in performance will not last long." Director Calabast retorted to her fellow returnee. "The cosmopolitans will steal our new tech and surrender it to the native aliens in time. Their large and ponderous industries may not be as fast at incorporating cutting-edge technologies in their phasefighters and warships, but their production volumes are so immense that we will eventually become confronted by new hardware that is able to damage our assets much more effectively than before." Everyone grimaced at this reality. The native aliens had done it before. They could do so again. Their contempt and resistance towards adopting superior human tech had worn away with every innovation they stole from their enemies. It was frustrating beyond belief to realize that almost every technological advancement was temporary in the end. Ves felt grateful that the dynamics around mechs such as the Red Kingdom and the uniqueness of mech designers made his products unreplicable and unusable by aliens. This meant that red humanity would always be able to trust that their advantage in mechs would be preserved. Sure, the native aliens constantly improved their phasefighters with every passing year, but everyone still considered them inferior to mechs aside from a few very narrow cases. Ves therefore felt he had a greater responsibility than most people to help red humanity survive and win. Warships were fine and all, but aside from maybe living warships, the native aliens could easily copy all of the tech that made human vessels so strong. The same did not apply with mechs. The stranger the machines, the less the aliens were able to emulate them with their phasefighters. As far as weirdness was concerned, his elemental Carmine mechs most definitely possessed an abundance of weird and unique traits that had the potential to grant humans enduring advantages! Although Ves had yet to complete any of his elemental Carmine mech design projects, he already had a vague idea of what he could get out of it. The past performance of the Elegant Rage, the Zeal and the Dominion of Man partially showcased the insane performance boosts he could expect out of his future endeavors. That was the reason why he staked the future of his design philosophy on them in the first place. He had made the firm decision to commit to higher-end machines that had the potential to break the balance between humans and aliens. "Perhaps the native aliens may be able to copy much of the Cybernetic Empire’s exclusive technologies in time." General Verle conceded. "However, do not forget about our second adversaries. The voribugs are also a potent threat. While they are famed for their relatively high resistance against heat and extreme temperature fluctuations, it is not feasible to rely solely on physical ammunition to kill them all. Any force that relies on kinetic weapons will run out of rounds long before they can kill every last voribug. Advancements in energy weapon technology are essential to suspending the tide of native aliens." He made a decent point. The voribugs simply did not do human technology. At most, they might be able to replicate human biotechnology, but other than that, their ’science and technology’ worked on radically different principles that were largely based on their fast adaptation speeds. Fighting the voribugs required an entirely different approach. What sort of approach that may be, nobody knew as of yet. The voribug threat was still too new to everyone. "Does anyone have any reasons to object to the deal as presented by Ves?" Saint Commander Casella Ingvar finally spoke. Her authoritative voice instantly brought everyone back to the topic at hand. "I do not have a concern about cooperating with the Cybers so long as it is confined to a single project." Calabast said. "What I am concerned with is Ves’ proposal to co-design the Promethea Mark II. This is an ace mech. We cannot let an external party gain so much access and understanding of one of our trump cards." "Why not, Calabast?" Ves frowned. "We have already done it with the First Sword Mark III. Ketis only managed to design this iteration by cooperating with the Mech Supremacist Faction. I do not think that it is a bad idea to reject every form of cooperation. We should try our best to seek different partners for different high-end mech design projects, though. We can’t put all of our eggs in one basket." The Saint Commander looked slightly approving. "There are legitimate concerns with how much trust we are putting into our partners. They do not have to become outright enemies to compromise our ace mechs. Data theft and clandestine leaks are enough to expose the strengths and weaknesses of the machines that guard our independence. In an ideal situation, I would forbid the tendency to work with non-Larkinsons on core mech design projects, but that is not possible. Ves, can you give me an estimate on the performance gap between a Promethea Mark II that is designed in-house and one that is the product of a collaboration with the Cybers?" Ves frowned. "I cannot give you any solid estimates given that I have yet to obtain any solid details about all of their fancy tech. However, if I make very loose estimates of the technological superiority of the Cybernetic Empire in the relevant fields, then I am willing to believe that the performance gap between the two versions may be as much as 30 to 300 percent." "...That is... an enormous range." General Verle commented. "I cannot help it. There is too little information that I can use to narrow down this range. However, based on what I have already seen from CE tech and what the Cybers have hinted at, I think that this range covers 95 percent of the possibilities. At minimum, the Promethea Mark II will be 30 percent stronger than if we design her in-house. At most, the ace rifleman mech may perform 3 times stronger, particularly if we make full use of the gift that the Cybers have given me. This artificial fire heart is an amazing component and one that synergizes extremely well with the Promethea." Casella briefly fell into thought as she considered the numbers. "I think that it is more profitable for us to invite, no, demand the Cybers to collaborate with us on the Promethea Mark II Project. If the Cybers ever leak or take advantage of the known gaps and shortcomings of our ace rifleman mech, then that is not a disaster. Think about it. If the Promethea Mark II has become 30 percent stronger with the help of CE tech, then the deliberate exploitation of her weaknesses may end up decreasing her combat effectiveness by 15 or maybe even 30 percent. Do you understand what I am saying? A stronger mech will still retain much of its power even if it is put in an unfavorable situation. If the initial performance boost is 100 percent or 300 percent, then we would still maintain an enormous advantage even if the Promethea Mark II can only unleash 40 percent of her effective strength!" Her calculus was sound. It may be a bit dubious to sling around so many numbers when they did not have enough information to make any solid estimates, but Ves agreed with the logic behind it all. The expected gains from utilizing superior technologies far outweighed the possible downsides from exposing the design to their rivals and enemies. Calabast let out a sigh. "Fine, then. We can try to avoid the most unfavorable scenario by compartmentalizing the design project. Our mech designers should split up the design in different sections and only make the Cybers responsible for the less critical ones." "Gloriana will not like that." Ves said with a frown. "Me too for that matter. With tech like this and a mech design as complex and intricate as an ace mech, every single component is connected to other components. You cannot simply split it up and design all of the sections on a separate basis. Doing so will only lead to a disjointed, unbalanced and horribly unoptimized mess of a mech design. If our goal is to deliver the best possible ace mech to Saint Isobel Kotin, we need to bring the Cybers fully onboard, the same as Ketis has done with her mecher collaborators." This was a tough decision, but one that he fully supported. Compared to the past, Ves was no longer as stingy with holding secrets as before. According to his principles, he wanted to deliver the best possible ace mech to Saint Isobel Kotin. Cooperating with the party that possessed superior technology, especially in the field of fire hyper technology, would definitely make that happen. Doing this also advanced the Larkinson Clan’s diplomatic goals. Given that the Larkinsons extended so much trust to the Cybers, they would definitely be more willing to reciprocate and offer to integrate much more powerful technologies in the Promethea Mark II design. Perhaps they might do so only because they needed to know how to integrate their advanced technologies into their own expert or ace Bloodfire mechs in the future, but at least the Larkinsons benefited from this exchange. The matriarch of the Larkinson Clan did not spend too much time before making up her mind. "We are a clan that lives and dies by its mechs. We can cooperate with the Cybernetic Empire on both the Promethea Mark II Project and a new Bloodfire mech design project. Time will tell whether we have made the correct decision. If we did not, then only a limited amount of our mechs will be compromised. This is not a disaster to us as we have many more machines that we can depend upon." Ves smiled. The Saint Commander made the right decision in his opinion. He was already starting to look forward to how much better the Promethea Mark II Project would become once he started to collaborate with the Cybers. This upcoming ace mech would serve as the ultimate proof of concept of the Bloodfire mech that he originally envisioned. "How soon can we obtain the first results of this cooperation?" "I am not sure, but I think we can push the timeline forward if we are working together with the Cybers." Ves responded. "If they are being serious about this, then they will allocate an abundant amount of manpower to support our collaboration effort. The Promethea Mark II Project may be finished in as little as three to four months if we are being optimistic. Even if my estimates are off, then it will probably take no longer than 6 months to be able to field our upcoming ace mech."