Chapter 6651 Retreating Order Just as the mech pilots fighting for Herzog Kadan had discovered, Carmine mechs generally functioned a lot better if they had solid direction. This was why Ves designed the Jacket Commander to accompany the Yellow Jackets back in the Red Ocean. While not everyone took the Jacket Commander model seriously, those that did saw great value in using them to keep the undertrained and poorly disciplined Carmine mech pilots in line. Unless the pilots assigned to the Yellow Jacket mechs were former veterans who had been forced to retire due to age or injury, the ones that just started out were not soldier material in the slightest! Whether it was their piloting skills or their ability to understand what to do on the battlefield, they were largely rookies despite whatever gaming skills they possessed! The virtual mech simulation games did a pretty decent job of giving norms the fantasy of piloting a mech, but the reality was that the simulation degree of those games were far lower than the professional simulations used by actual mech pilots! After all, the inability for norms to interface with mechs through the neural interface was the biggest obstacle. Without overcoming this hurdle, there was no point in trying to go for realism! Along with other limitations between games and actual battles in reality, a lot of gamers" found out the hard way that dominating their opponents across the galactic net did not mean they turned into expert pilot material as soon as they entered the cockpit of an Auto Heretic! Of course, perhaps these gamers might be able to translate their game sense into much more valuable mech piloting competences after they received proper training. It was too bad that virtually no Carmine mech pilot was patient enough to go through the full 10, 12 or 15-year mech academy experience! They also did not express much interest in going through a shortened 5-year training program just to be able to learn the basics of controlling their machine without HALM assistance! "These Carmine mech pilots are too pampered and lazy! This is exactly why the MTA prohibited or heavily discouraged high degrees of automation in legitimate mech designs. As soon as mech pilots no longer need to work so hard to become a competent. fighter, they will always take the lazy option 9 out of 10 times!" The critics had a point. If these norms had no choice but to receive professional instruction to adequately pilot their machines, then they would reluctantly do what was necessary, as was the case in the Red Ocean. However, because such an easy option was already available from the start, many Carmine mech pilots had already taken for granted that 'real' mech piloting should be a more equitable form of cooperation between man and machine! The mere mention of this idea was sacrilege in the halls of the MTA. Even though they were rather heavy-handed in their enforcement of their principles, there were good reasons why they insisted on imposing their own order! "The Auto Heretics are poisoning the space peasants by giving them all of the wrong ideas about mechs. We should have been more forceful in punishing the people who produce and make use of them. Now look at what has happened! Only a month has passed and already the norms are taking it for granted that they are supposed to control their Carmine mechs as if they are the captains of their own ship while the 'living mechs' serve as the crews that executes the commands!" This was indeed what was taking place. While there were still Carmine mech pilots that was willing to go through the effort of learning manual operation in the hopes of being able to become equals to professional mech pilots, there was a growing majority that was too lazy to go through all of that effort and simply trusted their 'battle partners' to do all of the hard work! "You don't understand, Charles! The old model of man unilaterally controlling the machine is outdated and will soon be relegated to the dustbin of history as far as I am concerned. The new model of man cooperating and sharing responsibilities with the living machine is the future of mech piloting!" "How can you say such a thing, Josie!? Do you know what kind of disaster you are setting yourself up to? If you continue to let an artificial intelligence maintain control over your own weapon, it can always turn it against you and the people you care about. Have you forgotten your history lessons already? There were many attempts in the past where people stupidly trusted in their automation to make their lives more convenient. They're all dead now because their own systems went out of control and ruined their lives! This is only the latest repeat of that horror story. Mark my words. Your Auto Heretic can never be trusted!" "That is a lie! You don't understand at all! If you would just lower your resistance and try out an Auto Heretic yourself, you would know that your fears are overblown. These Carmine mechs are not controlled by those stupid and exploitable Als. They aren't integrated with any advanced AI processors as far as we know. They are living mechs. They possess their own souls. They have to because without this quality, they wouldn't be able to form Blood Pacts with humans such as ourselves. It is the bond between our souls that tells me that I can utterly trust my battle partner to have my back at all times. The pact will break before he ever betrays my trust?" "Wait a second, did you refer to your Carmine mech as 'he'? You have gone mad. You have gone utterly mad! From the moment you think of your machine as a person, it is already too late for you to return to sanity." Discussions like this took place in both third-rate states and first-rate states. It couldn't be helped. The suppression from the Big Two and the so-called Guardians of Peace was anything but airtight. The Auto Heretic mechs and any information about them kept slipping through one of the many different gaps. Meanwhile, shady and underground mech manufacturers kept producing them as if there was no tomorrow. It only took a relatively short time for the rapid proliferation of Carmine mechs to stir up trouble in every corner of human space. They especially became a more common sight on more rural and less developed planets where the Big Two's footprint was not that great. The Auto Heretics also became popular in private asteroid bases and grungy space stations where honest folk usually tried to stay away. They even began to show up on planets that were used as hunting preserves! Many different hunters who used to be unable to hunt huge exobeasts due to their lack of genetic aptitude had embraced the new Carmine mechs with great joy! Even though they lacked the skill to operate their machines skillfully, they were able to skip the learning curve and go straight into the hunt by relying on their HALMs to perform all of the complicated mech operations! Of course, these hunters usually overestimated how effective they became and how much their young and inexperienced living mechs could actually defeat deadly exobeasts, but at least they had a chance to make their dreams come true! The people who opposed the rise of Carmine mechs were way over their heads on this matter. There was no way to put the cat back into the bag once it got out, especially when there were many third parties that secretly did their best to support the naughty feline in the shadows! To their credit, the established powers adjusted their general strategy once they found it was a lost cause to prevent the rise of the Auto Heretics and the increasing number of variants released at a rapid rate by other mech designers. The Big Two and the Guardians of Peace showed signs of no longer wanting to bother with trying to keep Auto Heretics away from rural planets and more obscure space habitats. They simply did not have the numbers or support to enforce their own order. Doing this allowed them to concentrate their manpower and assets in more prosperous, developed and centralized locations. Port systems, most industrial systems and particularly large and important space stations all received much more extensive patrols and monitoring. Public support for the Guardians of Order was also a bit higher in these places because many citizens increasingly began to hate the violence and destruction that followed everytime Carmine mechs became a common sight in a neighborhood! This unfortunately led to a rapid rise in incidents that only spread misery to everyone. On one ordinary day on a relatively modest and out-of-the-way planet in a third-rate state, a large estate suddenly started to get attacked by huge lasers that were powerful enough to melt through alloy walls! The estate was owned by a local realtor that was earning well in a nearby city. However, that wealth was not enough to beef up the security of his country estate by much, and it certainly was not enough to hire mechs for security! The security guards on foot initially attempted to make a stand by relying on the turrets to fend off the mech, but the Auto Heretic was able to deal with these inflexible defenses before they could inflict too much damage! When the guards had nothing left that could be used to harm a mech aside from heavy one-use missile launchers, they took one more look at the tall and intimidating mech and promptly ran away! Not that it helped, because the mech mercilessly aimed its energy rifle at the fleeing ants and continued to shoot in their general direction. "Hahahaha! This is so easy!" The Carmine mech pilot did not even have to put in the effort to aim because his living mech would automatically correct: every time. This was like playing a game with an auto-aim cheat, but better because he was destroying the enemies he once vowed to kill to the last man! The mech continued its rampage and began to shoot at every employee or family member of the man that the Carmine mech pilot loathed beyond anyone else. "Kill! Kill! Kill!" The Carmine mech pilot showed no hesitation and felt no remorse about killing so many people that was not responsible for bringing him to ruin. It was only after he managed to enter the back garden and found the realtor who forced him from his home that the Carmine mech pilot finally paused. "W-W-Who are you? Why did you do this?" "Have you forgotten my name already? Figures. It was because of you that I lost my home, my job and my dignity! Did you ever think that I would come back with an Auto Heretic and pay you back for all of the pain I have suffered?" "You... you are mad! Even if you want to take revenge on me, why kill all of the people who have nothing to do with your grudge! I may be guilty of what you accuse me of, but my wife and daughters are completely innocent!" "LIES! YOU ARE ALL GUILTY! THEY HAVE TAKEN THE MONEY YOU EARNED FROM TAKING AWAY MY HOME, SO THAT MAKES THEM GUILTY! EACH AND EVERY PARASITE MUST DIE!" The Carmine mech pilot did not deign to kill the culprit who was responsible for making him homeless with the energy rifle of his Auto Heretic. Instead, his machine slowly strode forward even as his target scrambled to his feet and attempted to run away into the nearby woods. There was no way a tiny human could outrun a massive mech. It only took a short amount of time before red splattered all underneath the foot of the Auto Heretic. The Carmine mech pilot felt lost after he had completed his revenge. "What... have I done?" Power was not always a blessing.