Chapter 6839 Ace Juggernaut Concept Ves grew speechless. Of all of the hairbrained demands he heard in his life, an expert pilot requesting to merge his expert mech with a juggernaut certainly ranked in the top 10! "Did you tell Venerable Glendale how idiotic it is for him to pilot a juggernaut?" "I did, sir." Alexa calmly responded. "One of the reasons why mechs had reached their current size is because it has reached an optimum balance between scale and control. If expert pilots force themselves to pilot mechs that are larger than the standard dimensions, then they will find it exponentially more difficult to cover the enlarged mech frame with their true resonance. At a certain point, their resonance shields will not be able to cover the entire frame. This is a fatal defect as the parts of the mech outside of this barrier will no longer enjoy any strong protection." One of the most important reasons why expert mechs were able to dominate many standard mechs was because the former was able to block many attacks with the help of resonance shields. The strength of a resonance shield depended on many factors, but it was generally determined by the size of a mech, the quality of its resonating materials and the resonance strength of a mech pilot. However, there was no effective way to extend the range of a resonance shield or an expert mech as far as Ves knew. The only 'proper' solution was for the expert pilot to advance to the rank of ace pilot. At that stage, the resonance shield transformed into a proper Saint Kingdom, which could not only negate attacks, but do all kinds of other stuff! It was not impossible for an ace pilot to amplify the performance of an entire juggernaut at this stage! Since that was the case, why didn't ace pilots switch to piloting ace juggernauts on a wider scale? After all, bigger was better! It should definitely be worth it for ace pilots to control a war machine that was as large as a destroyer! The story was not so simple. Since Ves was able to come up with the idea, so could others. He recalled that the mech industry had dabbled into ace juggernauts multiple times during the Age of Mechs. While it was certain that a lot of these attempts remained secret from the public, a few stories did manage to find their way into the public sphere. What was clear was that pretty much every attempt ended up in failure. Ace juggernauts that were hundreds of meters long possessed much greater scale than any standard ace mech. Just killing them was much more troublesome as they could clad themselves with thick armor and protect their core components under lots of additional layers of alloy plating. They could even mount titan shields that were ordinarily designed to protect starships or fortified bases to frustrate their enemies. Ace juggernauts were also able to leverage far greater physical strength, making them ideal for swinging down blades that could chop an entire starship in half! Their large structures also allowed mech designers to mount them with all sorts of warship-grade armaments. They could fit a broad array of plasma cannons, torpedo launchers and other ridiculous modules. While controlling them all without any dedicated personnel imposed a large burden on the individual, an ace pilot possessed superhuman capabilities and should just be able to command all of these weapon systems! All of this already sounded strong enough, but with the inclusion of true resonance, such a powerhouse could definitely beat up hostile battleships and come out unscathed! So why hadn't these monstrosities showed up on the battlefield? There were many reasons why. The fact that they were slow and clumsy caused them to be unable to keep up with most if not all ace mechs in battle. It couldn't be helped. Juggernauts were so massive and enormous that their mobility could only be raised to 'average' at best. Most ace mechs were designed and built to be a lot swifter than standard mechs. Each of them relied on speed to keep up with each other and overpower any enemies that were slower. In an age where important battles may be decided by the outcome of a duel between ace pilots, being too slow to block the attacks of an ace mech could be fatal! This was why ace juggernauts turned into an epic failure. Their massive melee weapons became useless if they couldn't be swung fast enough to hit a small but agile ace mech. Their abundance of ranged armaments granted them a lot of firepower, but again, an ace mech was able to evade or circumvent them easily enough. Once an ace mech snuck close enough to stab a juggernaut in the back, there was very little the big and clunky machine could do to protect its most vulnerable point! Ace juggernauts also weren't worth it from a cost perspective. It took an exponentially greater amount of resonating material for an ace pilot to adequately resonate with the full mech frame. If the juggernaut ever got damaged, repairing it was much slower and more troublesome than repairing a small and compact ace mech. No mech workshop possessed the capabilities to repair heavy damage on a juggernaut! Only shipyards or large-scale workshops possessed the capacity to fix up these giant machines. All of these disadvantages killed the ace juggernaut movement before it could even kick off. Nobody was stupid enough to waste so many resources on a big pile of metal that could easily be exploited by enemy ace mechs. "Have you told this guy how awful of an idea it is to pilot a juggernaut?" "I did, sir, but he insisted on it." Alexa said. "Why?" "That requires a longer explanation. How many times have you met Venerable Kolak Glendale?" "..." Alexa threw Ves a knowing look. "Exactly. You have developed a good relationship with the first expert pilots to emerge in the Larkinson Clan. You showered them with attention and attentively designed their mechs for them. You first granted them their own personalized prime mechs before moving on to giving them expert mechs and ace mechs whenever appropriate. Everyone can see how much you adore them. This is a rather common phenomena in the mech industry. You essentially treat Tusa, Stark, Orfan, Dise, Jannzi, Joshua and Casella as your surrogates." "Are you accusing me of living vicariously through those mech pilots?!" "Yes." Alexa plainly said. "This is not an accusation. This is an observation. This is not deplorable behavior. The more mech designers care about their favorite mech pilots, the more invested they become in supplying them with better mechs. The problem that people may have with your favoritism is that mech pilots who fall outside of your exclusive club may feel… neglected by you. They may develop the impression that you are treating them as nameless assets." "That is…" Alexa did not give him enough time to come up with an excuse. "It is true, is it not? Do not insult my intelligence and observation capabilities. Your behavior is clear to many Larkinsons, not just myself. The others never called you out on it, but I feel it is necessary to clear the air and bring clarity to this issue. Tell me honestly, sir. Are you treating the later generation of high-ranking mech pilots differently than the ones that became prominent before?" Seeing that his direct disciple had made such a thorough analysis on him, Ves saw no reason to put up a charade. "You got me. You're right. I do play favorites. The high-ranking pilots that you have mentioned earlier are the ones who I can trust with a high degree of confidence. They have been with me since the old days. They fought many powerful enemies on my behalf. We are all comrades who have forged our bonds in battle. That sort of brotherhood sticks with you for a long time. I don't share that kind of bond with the likes of Venerable Pedro Rodrigo, Venerable Kolak Glendale and the many expert pilots that came after. I don't think I can call up their name without accessing a database from my cranial implant. I have left the tedious job of getting to know them to Gloriana. She is responsible for giving newly advanced expert pilots their first expert mechs." There was a limit to how many mech pilots he found worthwhile to befriend in person. After accumulating a core circle of powerful and promising champions, he felt it was not necessary to forge any further bonds. Perhaps he might pay more attention to the likes of Venerable Zimro Benson. The man piloted the only high-ranking stealth mech of the Larkinson Clan. Yet even that did not rank high in Ves' priorities. As Ves stared at his subordinate, he felt grateful that he did not look at him with judging eyes. He knew that his behavior was not entirely fair to all of the champions of the Larkinson Clan. "Venerable Glendale has expressed understanding of why you are closer to the first seven champions than the rest." She said. "He is jealous, but he does not blame you. He just wants to earn your trust and appreciation, just as the others have done before. However, this is an uphill battle for him as he is neither able to fight under your direct watch nor able to outperform his peers." Ves nodded. "Glendale fights with the 77th Warborn Mech Division, right? I don't really make it a habit of watching much of the battle footage from General Ark's pet mech force." "He originally chose to join the Warborn because he assumed that he would be able to fight more meaningful battles under General Ark. His Greenaxe is also more suited when fighting against mechs than warships. Before the Age of Dawn, his decision made sense." "Is that why he wants to switch to piloting a juggernaut? Does he think he can perform better and earn my approval by piloting a massive machine that can chop apart alien warships and weaker phase lords alike?" "You have to admit that juggernauts may be more suitable when deployed against enemy warships." Alexa said. "Juggernauts are larger and less able to evade the attacks of warships, but their defenses are exponentially stronger. Expert juggernauts do not make sense, but ace juggernauts have the potential to become a devastating alien killer. Not only can they withstand an astronomical amount of damage, but when they are armed with melee weapons, they may become powerful enough to breach the spatial barriers of many greater phase lords with a single blow. If we make the ace juggernaut out of superdimensional matter, then its threat against enemy phase lords will become at least an order of magnitude greater!" Ves was forced to seriously consider this idea. The concept of an ace juggernaut initially sounded absurd to him, but now that he put all of the arguments in order, he realized that it had actually turned into a viable proposal! The enemies of red humanity had changed. No longer were humans fighting against each other. It was not necessary to design ace mechs with the assumption that they would fight against each other. Instead, mech designers needed to design more ace mechs that were geared towards fighting the latest threat, which was enemy warships and phase leaders. As far as Ves knew, none of the alien champions had displayed a penchant for speed and agility. They simply did not fight like light mechs because their mass and bulk did not allow for such absurdity. Even if they possessed warping capabilities that could speed up their traversal, any warp interdictor or space suppressor could shut them down. All of this meant that as long as a juggernaut was not too large and unwieldy, it should be able to trade blows against enemy phase lords on a much more even basis! However, that still did not make it sensible for Venerable Glendale to pilot a giant machine.