Chapter 7151: Large Uplift Project While Ves appreciated Andraste’s input, she needed to go to bed. He called over Lucky and instructed his cat to make sure that her daughter returned to their stateroom. "Don’t let her wander off in random directions!" "Meow!" Once the red-headed girl left the design studio, Ves could finally tackle his work without too many interruptions and disturbances. He refined his drafts and added a few features that he had previously overlooked. There was still a lot of room for expansion and upgrades as he had yet to investigate what the RC could offer. He followed up on that by contacting his chief of staff and telling her to call for an update from the Enforcement Department. The department head had personally promised that Ves would gain expanded access to the internal stores and tech database. It was not wise to finalize his designs before he understood what was possible. Aside from that, Ves also intended to consult another source for assistance. He transmitted a few innocent messages to Gloriana and Ketis. On the surface, he merely relayed a summary of his weapon design ideas and asked them to provide their input whenever convenient. In reality, he embedded very subtle coded messages into the sentencing and formatting that relayed his request to meet each other in the System Space at a very specific date and time. An hour went by as Ves continued to work, though he was not able to make too much substantive progress due to keeping a lot of design choices open. Since that was the case, he decided to enter into various tech libraries and databases in order to study the latest advancements on hyper technology and E-technology, particularly in relation to a handful of familiar E energy attributes. When the time had almost come, Ves began to space out while watching the clock very carefully. On the instant the right time had come, he instantly conveyed his intention to enter the System Space. Just as expected, Ves along with Ketis and Gloriana appeared at the base of the meandering trail that led to the top of the mountain. The transition from an indoor naval environment to a natural outdoor environment was jarring, but Ves had entered the System Space enough time to get used to the abrupt shift. The same went for Ketis, while Gloriana needed a moment to balance herself. "Hello again, Ketis." Ves first greeted the swordmaster who he hadn’t spoken to in person for a while. "How is the expeditionary fleet doing these days?" "Fine." She said. "I am actually looking to upgrade it into a first-class fleet, but this is such a gigantic and expensive endeavor that progress is slow." Ves raised his eyebrows. "I thought that you are resistant to letting the expeditionary fleet turn into a force that is out of reach to second-class mech pilots." "My opinions haven’t changed, but... it is frustrating to see a highly experienced and highly successful second-class fleet like ours do so well... only for the results to mean little in the greater scheme of things. I hate to admit it, but only victories against stronger forces can drive back the native aliens from a territory and keep it safe over a longer period of time. Other second-class forces can handle the weaker alien fleets more or less. They will suffer greater losses than us, but they do not have to enter into battle as often if we are able to relieve the entire war theater by using our improved first-class mechs to slaughter their crack troops, destroy their staging points and kill their phase lords." Ves exchanged glances with his wife. Both of them understood that this was not going to be a quick and easy job! "You need to complete a lot of steps in order to get this done." He told her. "First, you need to acquire tens of thousands of first-class mechs, of which the cheapest are already many times more expensive than the quasi-first-class mechs that we currently field. Then you need to retrain all of those mech pilots on how to fight at this elevated level. The mostly old, fragile and outdated starships of our first fleet also need to be upgraded wholesale, which not only eats up an astronomical amount of funding and first-class bulk resources, but also requires you to book the orbital drydocks necessary to perform the mass refits. Then you have to convince the partners of the Golden Skull Alliance to play along with this expensive endeavor." This was such a huge project that Ves could not imagine getting it done within 5 years, let alone 10. Just the difficulty of trying to find enough shipyards to convert so many second-class starships into first-class ones was unimaginable. In fact, it may be faster and less troublesome to just construct completely new first-class starships straight away. The Larkinsons could pass on their second-class vessels to other forces or sell them off to other groups. Surprisingly, Ketis did not appear daunted at all. She smirked. "This is not an impulse decision, Ves. I have already discussed bits and pieces of this plan with the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance for numerous months. Do you truly think they are content to fight with second-class or quasi-first-class hardware for the remainder of the Red War? They have been saving up the rich amount of spoils they have accumulated with every victory to fund and supply the materials for the massive upgrade effort for years now. We have destroyed enough alien phasefighters and alien warships to upgrade the exterior and much of the internal structural components of pretty much every mech and warship in our combined fleet. We are currently spending time on designing the right first-class hardware that can easily adapt the salvaged materials that we have stockpiled." Ves had to admit that reusing plundered materials could make this immense effort a lot more affordable. Besides, it was not as if the Larkinson Clan was poor to begin with. Even with the rising inflation and the increasing difficulty of doing business in a more complicated new frontier, the clan still sold a lot of mechs, received a lot of rewards from the Red Three and salvaged a lot of valuables from the battlefields. The same applied to the alliance partners such as the Glory Seekers, the Cross Clan, the Adelaide Third Fleet and the Boojay Clan. However, just having a lot of money and resources was not enough. The clan was notoriously lacking in infrastructure. "What about the shipyards required to do all of the naval refits?" Ketis remained optimistic. "That is admittedly a bigger challenge. This requires a lot of diplomacy and horse trading, which I am not necessarily good at. I passed my request onto the Saint Commander and let her do the work of approaching the relevant parties. She told me that it may be possible to make arrangements with the Terran Alliance and more recently the Red Fleet since our relations have improved so much with them. Their own needs are great, but as long as we are willing to give them superdimensional matter and other goods, they may just accept our orders at the required scale." "Our alliance partners aren’t as wealthy." Ves pointed out. "I am not sure whether we are giving them any superdimensional matter out of pity or friendship, but even if we do, it shouldn’t be enough to make them available for trade." Ketis shrugged. "They will have to make their own arrangements. We have been propping them up and offering a lot of direct and indirect aid to them since they have been such reliable partners for so many years, but at a certain point, they need to earn their way to becoming a legitimate first-class power by relying on their own strengths. You should know that groups like the Boojay Fleet have been trying to get this done for multiple generations." They talked a bit more about the difficulties and complications of trying to promote into a proper first-class power. While it was not completely necessary to pair first-class mechs with first-class starships, a disparity between the two could really screw over the former one day. Second-class carriers and support vessels were slower, more fragile and most importantly a lot less resistant towards warp interdiction. The more superior versions of alien phasefighters and alien warships could catch up to them with greater ease and block their attempts to engage in warp travel and flee the battlefield. Once the aliens demolished all of those vulnerable starships, the first-class mechs would run out of energy and other resources sooner or later! That would turn them into sitting ducks! The only way to salvage anything valuable out of this mess was to eject the cockpits of the first-class mechs in advance and have all of the surviving mech pilots board the fastest starships before getting away. That would still cost the Larkinson Clan a lot of hardware! Of course, it was not strictly necessary for the Larkinsons or the other alliance partners to arrange their own transportation for their own first-class mechs. They could try and partner up with an organization, state or star empire that possessed plenty of spare carriers or cargo vessels. They could ferry the expensive mechs to where they were needed. In fact, they did not even have to stick around. No matter whether a mech force made use of first-class, second-class or even third-class starships, they could all be used to transport mechs to a fortified planet before leaving to undertake other transportation assignments. The mechs would have no effective way to retreat even if the planet fell, but they could still fight like hell and contribute a lot to the local defense effort. At worst, the mech pilots could abandon their machines and pile up on evacuation vessels that left just before the planet succumbed to the invaders. In short, it was not the end of the universe if the remaining alliance partners failed to make any progress in forming a first-class fleet. "How long do you think this uplift effort will take for the Larkinson Clan only?" Ves seriously asked. "If we leave our alliance partners out of the picture, then around 4 years." The swordmaster replied. "This is just a loose effort. If we make more progress on some fronts, we can shorten that to 3 years. We could also get delayed to the point where we won’t be ready until 6 years have passed." "That’s okay. I understand the complexities involved. In order to get this done, you need us to design a whole range of first-class living mechs, right?" Ketis nodded. "Yes. Retraining mech pilots is a serious pain, especially without using any EdNet quotas. We can still do it much easier these days than in the past. The auxiliary qi cultivation methods have done wonders in improving a mech pilot’s capacity to learn complicated science and theory that were previously beyond their level. They do not even have to install high-quality implants in order to keep up with their theoretical studies, although it can still provide a lot of help. In any case, much of the reason why we need to wait at least 3 years is because it takes at least that much time for most second-class mech pilots to reach the absolute minimum standard of a first-class mech pilot." That sounded plausible. "I see. So there is no immediate hurry in designing the first-class living mechs, correct?" "Yes, but I would still like you to work on them sooner rather than later. We are not looking for anything fancy or complicated. No multipurpose mechs. If we want the transition from second-class to first-class to go as smoothly as possible, the first-class living mechs should ideally comprise of straight conversions of familiar mech models such as the Bright Warrior, the Ferocious Piranha, the Transcendent Punisher, the Valkyrie Redeemer, the Redaxe, the Stingripper and so on. If you can design first-class versions of them that possess the same feel and characteristics, then that would be great." "I will see what I can do." Ves said while exchanging another glance with his wife.