While many people celebrated the return of Bridgehead One, the RA and RF largely reacted in dismay after hearing about the defection of almost all of the personnel stationed in the star system. The only ones who held true to their oaths after half a century of isolation were the expert pilots and ace pilots loyal to the Red Association and a handful of other states. Their continued refusal to the Polymath's tempting offers once again exemplified the virtues of high-ranking mech pilots. Of course, the self-crowned Cybernetic may have been able to convert a handful of them to her cause if she tried hard enough. The fact that she did not do so was probably out of respect for these human heroes. She may have become a Star Designer whose work encompassed many different industries, but she could never forget her roots as a mech designer. The Polymath also let these high-ranking mech pilots depart from Bridgehead One without incident. She even gave them permission to bring away their personal machines, much of which was stuffed with new and innovative technologies. Naturally, it did not take much thinking for the RA and the RF to deduce that letting them return to their respective groups was a plot. The pilots possessed a vast amount of information about what they experienced in the last 53 years. Even if they had not had much contact with the citizens of the Cybernetic Empire, they could witness the gradual transformation of the central star node as well as its society. Their mechs also contained massive amounts of value. The Star Designer likely did not implement more than a fraction of 53 years worth of constant technological progression. However, what little she did chose to add to the machines most definitely put them at least two whole generations ahead of the current generation. This was just a conservative estimate. The tech the Polymath and the army of scientists and engineers of her empire managed to invent and iterate upon was enormous. They had proven their capacity to produce superior products out of the same pool of base materials. The differences in performance of many parts and systems ranged from 10 percent to 50 percent. In fact, the Cybernetic Empire also invented tech that could outperform existing solutions by 300 percent, 1000 percent or even higher! Nobody had a clear idea just how extensively the Polymath had single-handedly pushed the frontier of human science and technology forward. It was impossible to predict how much progress a Star Designer could make in a few months, let alone 53 years. People could only make a very loose estimation based on spurious assumptions. Even then, they probably underestimated the Polymath's productivity over such a long period. The most powerful and advanced star system of red humanity had fallen under her sway. There were 12 Dyson spheres that were not only capable of providing astronomical amounts of energy that could be used to power enormous banks of supercomputers. No other Star Designer had so much processing power at their disposal. While the limited environment and inability to import massive amounts of materials from the rest of the new frontier most definitely limited her R&D potential, she could still divert lots of research into improving existing tech and systems. She most definitely placed a high priority on raising the efficiency of existing tech and materials. Finding out solutions to obtain more for less was vital in making progress in a star system that could no longer bring in more materials. The Cybernetic Empire also extensively reformed and rebuilt all of the existing holdings in Bridgehead One. Many planets had become unrecognizable. High-density housing had become a lot more prevalent. Large space arcologies provided additional homes and workplaces for billions of natural as well as batch humans. All of that extra room became necessary when the Cybernetic Empire had transformed at least 50 of these planets into battlestations of enormous proportions! Although these war planets could also house billions of people, they would not be able to enjoy much comfort. However, the planets were so heavily armed that they could easily resist the attacks of alien assault fleets, including those led by lesser phase lords! If they faced enemies that they could not defeat, then the war planets also had the option to move away. Their enormous thrusters enabled these titanic armored globes to slowly move away from the orbits of the nearest stars. Although their acceleration rates were atrocious, at least they could still move, which was better than any other planet! This gave many people ideas. What if the Cybernetic Empire deployed these war planets to the frontlines of the Red War? The Polymath must have made them mobile for this express purpose. There was no other reason to go through the trouble of embedding them with enormous thrusters and developing a planetary-grade warp drive! However, since their normal acceleration rates were so low, their warp travel speeds were also fairly poor. A typical starship equipped with a superdrive could complete an interstellar journey in a single day. A war planet may take months or years to complete the same journey! This was an enormous setback to those who wanted to deploy the war planets to the frontlines. "So these 'war planets' can move to different star systems, but their interstellar traversal speeds are lower than that of outdated alien warp-capable starships, is that correct?" "Yes, sir. There is a probability that the Polymath is deceiving us about the true mobility of her war planets, but we deem this to be unlikely. She can raise her bargaining power by claiming that they can reach a destination in a shorter time frame. The fact that she is frank about this limitation serves to reassure us and limit our expectations. The war planets can still be useful in defending our territories, but only up to the zones around Bridgehead One." Leaving aside everything else, the war planets could still be used to help red humanity keep hold of more territory if the Red War had become a lost cause. Yet that did not offer the RA and RF much consolation. The more territory red humanity lost, the more the balance of power shifted towards the owner of the richest, most populated and most developed central star node that still remained in human hands. Fortunately, the Cybernetic Empire had not neglected the need to build up more mobile and conventional combat assets. The CE already disclosed that it had fully mobilized a whopping sum of 180 warfleets. Each of them could be told to deploy to the frontlines of the Red War at any time due to abundant preparations. Each warfleet comprised at least 50 warships, 50 carriers and 20 support vessels. Only a minority of them consisted of capital ships, but there were still many fleets that had way more hulls at their disposal. This also meant that every warfleet could also deploy at least 1 mech regiment's worth of mechs in combat. The Cybernetic Empire did not just focus all of her industries on the military sector. It turned out that the one system nation state also produced a massive amount of civilian starships. After all, the factories needed to keep running while the workers also needed to be put to good use. The Polymath most definitely understood that one of the growing shortcomings of red humanity was the growing shortage of starships. To be more specific, interstellar shipping came under increasing stress. Transport vessels got lost due to commerce raiding or had to be converted into carriers in order to carry mechs into battle. This came at a detriment to shipping. The orbital shipyards available to red humanity tried and failed to replenish the lost transport ships. It did not help that these resource-hungry production facilities needed to be supplied by a huge number of industrial goods! Therefore, the deterioration of shipping lanes directly impacted the production of starships, which subsequently strained logistics even more, which caused orbital shipyards to become even less efficient! Many strategists and planners worried about this negative feedback loop, but they could do nothing to solve the problem. They simply did not have time to address the shortage of transport vessels. It just so happened that the Cybernetic Empire had bought 53 years worth of uninterrupted production time. "During the Time of Isolation, the CE's factories and orbital shipyards produced over 200,000 transport vessels." "Say what?! 200,000 hulls?! Truly?!" "Yes, but do not expect quality from them. They are designed with efficiency, affordability and ease of use in mind. They are slow, fragile and low-tech. While they happen to be modular and easily upgradeable, this will take up additional production capacity as well as orbital shipyard capacity." "How many orbital shipyards does Bridgehead One contain?" "We have counted a total of 512 orbital shipyards, but there are many other orbital facilities that may or may not possess limited shipbuilding facilities. The function of these stations are not always clear." "512?! If these orbital shipyards can produce a single first-class or second-class combat carrier a month, the Cybernetic Empire can enrich itself in record time by selling its monthly output! Wait, the Cybers have likely exhausted their reserves of easily accessible metals and materials. They will need to import an astronomical amount of materials from other locations in order to feed their orbital shipyards as well as many other factories." "Correct. We do not believe that the Polymath is happy to sell all 200,000 transport vessels to the rest of red humanity. At the very least, she will not let go of them easily without securing supply contracts to fuel her hungry industries." After the initial rounds of contact, it soon became clear that the Polymath and her loyal Cybers were not that eager to share their technological, industrial and military accumulation with others. The fears of the mechers and the fleeters came true. The Polymath refused to give away the vast majority of her scientific advancements for free. Just as the Big Two maintained their superiority over the rest of humanity for a long time by building up a significant technological lead, now it was the turn of the Red Association and the Red Fleet to suffer the same treatment at the hands of the Cybernetic Empire! The war planets did not show any signs of moving anytime soon. Their enormous thrusters remained completely cold and their planetary-grade warp drives continued to stay dormant as they had for many years. The 180 or so warfleets that were raring to go to the frontlines and beat back the native aliens did not have permission to set off. Whether they would do so ultimately depended upon negotiations between the Cybernetic Empire and the various powers of red humanity. Initial indications showed that the Cybernetic Empire very cleverly sought to establish mutually beneficial relationships with the newly independent Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact. The latter had become especially desperate to forge an alliance and receive military aid after a tide of evolved voribugs had begun to assault its border regions! "What a disaster. Our hegemony has come to an end. Internal dissent and division has grown far past the point of containment. The Red Association and the Red Fleet will not collapse, but it is impossible for us to maintain the same amount of control over the states as before. We may even be forced to relinquish our right to enforce our laws upon the population and return to our original duties, which is to regulate mechs and warships." This represented an enormous fall from grace. The mechers and the fleeters were previously the undisputed rulers of the united human race! Was there a way for the RA and RF to force the Polymath into surrender, regain possession of Bridgehead One and claim her enormous accumulation of civilian and military assets? Maybe. Sending a pair of god pilots may be enough to humble the Polymath. Yet no one dared to make this suggestion. The Star Designer had 53 years to prepare for Bridgehead One's return. She most definitely spent a lot of time on researching and developing countermeasures against every known god pilot. Even if the First Flame had not pledged his service to the Polymath, nobody wanted to test the theory that she had developed superweapons that were strong enough to counter god pilots.