The research directions favored by the mechers and the Terrans said much about their scope and ambitions. The Mech Trade Association favored huge layouts and grand ambitions. The mechers were not content with developing incremental improvements. They sought to reinvent the market for biomechs and fundamentally change humanity’s relationships with biotechnology. The Mech Supremacists and Transhumanists did not hesitate to invest huge amounts of money and resources to realize their ambitious layouts. The Terrans meanwhile remained more grounded in their research and ambitions. They had big dreams as well, but they did not have as much room to squander so many resources on research and development. This was why they largely sought to develop biomechs that possessed enough practical value to earn a profit within a decade. Ves personally liked the approach adopted by the Terrans. Its biomechs were at least a lot more practical and affordable than the crazy stuff developed by the mechers. Even if Terran biomechs were not affordable in an absolute sense, the cost-benefit ratio was at least within acceptable bounds. The mechers of the old galaxy clearly paid less attention to this parameter. They had money and resources to spare. What they did not have was better mechs, so they were willing to invest massive sums just to produce marginal improvements. Although the MTA was probably one of the least efficient organizations in the Milky Way Galaxy, Ves and pretty much every other mech designer was still grateful that the mechers invested so much manpower and resources into these wild ideas. This was because the research and applications that emerged out of all of these research projects usually managed to trickle down to the masses. The mechers clearly did not share all of their research results, and it could take one to four mech generations for them to generously pass on a fraction of their new technological advances to the general audience. Even so, the MTA still ensured that the mech industry became more and more sophisticated with every passing year. The development of mechs had never stalled or lost momentum at any point during the entirety of the Age of Mechs. One of the reasons why the mechers were continually able to keep mechs fresh and exciting was exactly because they conducted research that no one else dared. There were many innovations that could only be attained with immense capital or plans that stretched for half a century. No other institution was willing to entertain such research aside from the only superorganization that was completely dedicated towards mech. "You may not be aware of this, but the Arboreal Project that you are developing in cooperation with our biomech designers and biotech research teams already incorporate minor design applications derived from our Rapid Adaptation Biotechnology." Master Laila Rebecca Devos informed Ves. That took Ves by surprise. "Really?" "Do not harbor any illusions about it. Our work cannot be considered a true implementation of Rapid Adaptation Biotechnology. We are only able to apply minor improvements on your TE Wood-based biomechs whenever it is convenient. If you want to design a true rapidly adapting biomech, then you will need to start from the ground up and adopt a different approach towards biomech design. It is currently difficult to design such a product by using bioengineered wood as your primary material. Flesh is faster, more malleable and easier to program." "I see. That makes sense." Wood was more rigid and inflexible than flesh. This made the former harder to change and less prone to adaptations. While there were many ways to make wood more malleable, the costs outweighed the benefits. "Do you Terrans have any biomech design applications that are actually useful to the Arboreal Project?" Ves asked with a touch of impatience. "There is." Master Laila said in a measured tone. "It is one of the reasons why we support your initiative to develop a biomech based on wood. The tech is highly contentious and it is not one we wish to reveal to the public at this date. If you had not earned our trust, I would not mention it to you at all, because it is not a capability that we are eager to share to the public." Ves started to have ideas about what this secret tech may be. "Is it an innovation that violates a taboo?" "Yes, and not in a small manner. It is classified tech that we have only ever thought about using it against the native aliens, and even then we are reluctant to permit it because it will harm us as well in the long term. The main reason why we have taken it out of our secret archives and updated it is because we may not have another choice." Master Laila Devos decided to show Ves what she meant instead of describing the secret weapon with her own words. The projection of a typical planet showed up. Ves did not recognize it, but he could see that it featured a mix of greenery and urban development. The foreign architecture clearly showed that the planet was occupied by an alien race. It was unlikely that the biosphere was compatible with the human race. One day, a Terran fleet arrived in orbit. Instead of engaging in orbital bombardment or sending down mechs to raid the alien cities, the fleet instead launched a fat torpedo that plunged into a lake before drilling through the bottom. Nothing seemed to change at first. It was only after time went by that earthquakes started to occur. Their frequency rose quickly. Eventually, entire tectonic plates started to shift, causing apocalyptic damage to most urban settlements. Eventually, a massive tree burst out of the lake that used to absorb the fat torpedo! It turned out that it contained a massive bioengineered seed that had taken root inside the planet. Once the seed had sprouted, it had voraciously absorbed much of the surrounding nutrients to grow at a rapid speed. The earthquakes that rippled across the planet were all caused by the rapid growth of all of its roots and the cavities that emerged after so much underground water and minerals got sucked away. This ultimately produced a gigantic tree that thrust up in the skies and almost seemed to breach the atmosphere! The growth of this gigantic tree absolutely devastated all life on the planet. The earthquakes, the depletion of minerals and the dramatic disruptions to the climate generated so many mass extinction events that the globe had practically been cleansed of all life! Almost nothing of value was left by the time the tree had grown immensely tall and thick. Its size and mass had already exceeded the scope of most moons and already comprised a significant fraction of the planet. Ves was both horrified and fascinated by this vision. "Does this have anything to do with biomechs at all? So far, all I have seen is a weapon of mass destruction. The scale of devastation is only slightly less than what the Destroyer of Worlds has wrought on alien planets." "Wait for it, Ves. This display has not yet reached its end." The enormous tree began to wilt. Enormous leaves the size of battleships came loose and floated in the wind before they fell in many different locations, some even reaching the opposite side of the planet! At the same time, the trunk visibly began to shrink as the tree gave back its resources to the planet it spawned from. The globe was undergoing a profound transformation. Even its roots began to break down and return what it had plundered from the underground environment. Soon enough, a pristine planet emerged at the end of this profound transformation. The massive tree had become much diminished by the end of this impressive display, but was still large enough to tower over the surface. Many of the ships of the Terran fleet descended on the surface. They released colonists that readily began to build settlements on the surface. The human colonists did not bother to wear vacsuits or hazard suits because they could easily breathe the local air. "This tree… terraforms planets?" "The World Tree embodies both destruction and renewal." Master Devos solemnly affirmed. "We can bioprogram it to perform many different assignments." This became obvious when a part of the trunk opened up. An entire city made out of wood emerged! Millions of Terran colonists readily moved into the city and could immediately make use of the facilities without needing to install any additional hardware. All the way up to a crowd, a lot of leaves and branches parted to the side in order to make space for a huge flat surface that was made out of dense mineral-heavy wood. Dozens of starships descended from orbit and landed on the flat crown. Once they opened up their hatches, a surprising development took place. Wooden biomechs emerged from hidden cargo elevators! The so-called World Tree appeared to have produced each of these bioconstructs. They were all controlled by AIs for now, but Ves could easily imagine human mech pilots taking them over. This was not all. Existing biomechs, both damaged and undamaged, exited the landed carriers and entered the World Tree. They soon emerged from the crown. Each of the bioconstructs had received comprehensive repairs and upgrades that made them as good as new! Due to the fact that the planet’s resources were likely different from the ones used to build the original biomechs, the material compositions had become more difficult. Even so, the biotech mastered by the Terrans allowed them to integrate many different materials in the same biomechs while keeping their performance and structure surprisingly consistent. When the carrier vessels were done with replenishing their biomechs, they set, but not before loading in another massive seed that was concentrated with critical minerals and other nutrients needed to grow a World Tree on another planet! The World Tree finally shrunk even further. It had diverted a large amount of mass into large wooden growths that eventually morphed into wooden bioships. Through the vessels did not look as solid, reliable and well-built as proper warships, these grown biowarships still possessed most of the necessary parts needed to traverse the stars and assist with waging war. Human crews arrived and installed all of the necessary hardware that couldn’t be produced by the World Tree. This included superdrives and other pieces of high technology that could only be produced through special means. The new bioships soon began to lift off the World Tree and joined the fleet waiting in orbit. The expanded armada subsequently moved out in order to conquer another planet. "Amazing, is it not? When I learned about it for the first time, I became fascinated with the possibility of using it to turn all alien planets into human ones." "It is certainly a big invention." Ves said. "I wonder why you Terrans developed it in the first place." "It is not difficult to deduce that we developed the World Tree in preparation to make use of it to conquer alien territories as quickly and effectively as possible. If we entered a second Age of Conquest, we thought about relying on the World Tree Project to rapidly accelerate our conquests. The World Tree allows us to conquer, destroy, terraform, extract resources and produce new mechs and other war materiel much faster and more efficiently than any of the alternatives. It is a means for us to conquer vast amounts of alien territories while keeping logistical disruptions at a minimum. One of its greatest advantages is that it can theoretically allow an invasion fleet to continually push into enemy territory without needing to return to friendly space in order to replenish lost mechs, supplies and possibly even warships. Each World Tree planted on a resource-rich planet can solve many of its problems." What a horrible but ambitious invention. Even though it encompassed way more than biomechs alone, it showed that the Terrans were not incapable of devising and realizing big big plans!