Ves thoroughly enjoyed his talk with Hugo Fournier. The batch human and living mech design specialist was the first person who lifted up the veil that obscured the details of the Cybernetic Empire. Through Hugo, Ves gained an insider's look of what was actually happening in this new superpower. Bridgehead One had completely become unmoored from general red humanity. Its 53-year-long isolation had resulted in massive deviations in culture, laws, expectation and identity. Although Hugo spoke well and came across as easy-going, Ves knew that the Cyber appointed to speak to him most definitely went through strict social training. Many bigshots received this kind of training. They mastered it even, or else it would have been difficult for them to work their way up the hierarchy. As a former space peasant and third-rater, Ves never really blended in with the more sophisticated crowd. Fortunately, he never saw the need to go through social training himself. People sought him out because of his capabilities as a mech designer and spiritual engineer. Ves had long concluded that it was enough for him if he let his work do the talking on his behalf. This happened to be an effective solution. This was the reason why the Cybernetic Empire took him seriously and why one of its envoys had broken the ongoing information blockage just to give Ves a better idea of what he was dealing with this time! Although Ves never let loose of his vigilance towards the Polymath's schemes, the Cybernetic Empire was still a power worth consorting with. Its technological lead was undeniable and inescapable. Nobody could ignore the Cybers when they had so much technological goodies in their hands. As a mech designer, Ves could not escape the allure of superior tech. From archetech to shield link technology, superior tech was the factor that could turn good mechs into great mechs. If Ves wanted his products to remain competitive and fulfill its responsibilities to the best possible extent, then he could not afford to offend the Cybernetic Empire. This was why Ves purposefully buried his ambivalence and vigilance towards the Polymath in the depths of his mind. As much as he harbored a lot of suspicions towards the self-crowned empress' goals and motivations, her tech was the real deal. If Ves did not find a way to gain access to all of that juicy knowledge and licenses, then other mech designers would most certainly do so, thereby gaining a huge lead in the mech market! As his first talk with a representative of the Cybernetic Empire continued, Ves made sure to squeeze out plenty of relevant information from the heavily augmented batch human. "As far as our mechs are concerned, our empire's mech forces have developed a heavy preference for energy weapons." Hugo casually revealed to Ves over the comm. "As you know, despite having a hundred planets at our disposal, the supply of relatively hard metals and materials that are suitable to be used as ammunition for kinetic guns is ultimately finite. This is why our mechs have a heavy bias towards energy weapons. All it takes to fire them is to supply them with energy, which we happen to have in abundance due to all of our Dyson spheres and swarms." That made a lot of sense. The Time of Isolation completely cut off Bridgehead One from the rest of the Red Ocean. The supply of raw materials had ground to a halt, which had very serious consequences to a massive central star node that previously relied heavily on imports from the old galaxy and the new frontier to maintain its original consumption. "How good are your energy weapons?" "Good." Hugo offered a nearly useless reply. "I am not permitted to share any specific details with you unless we have established a more formal cooperative relationship, but I can assure you that our energy weapons are better than anything that the rest of you are currently making use of. This includes the alien-derived luminar crystal weapons that your Larkinsons heavily rely upon. Our Imperial Majesty has been far-sighted enough to recognize the importance of energy weapon development that one of our Thirteen Towers is solely dedicated towards its development. The Energy Weapon Tower also happens to be one of the largest of its kind." That was crucial information! From what Ves surmised, the Polymath essentially set up the Thirteen Towers in order to concentrate and marshal her Empire's relatively limited R&D, industrial and military capacity into 13 strategically important sectors. It was a rather grand and clever way to ensure that the Cybernetic Empire did not scatter its manpower and capital on too much different stuff. By focusing all R&D and related activities through these 'towers', the Cybers would be able to get a lot more stuff done in less years. Of course, all of this came at the cost of delayed or entirely stagnant development in other technological fields that had the misfortune of not falling into the scope of the Thirteen Towers. Ves could already guess without needing to ask for further information that kinetic ranged weapons likely did not receive anywhere close to the amount of R&D that energy weapons received. While kinetic weapons were not necessarily inferior, the fairly restricted environment of Bridgehead One imposed too many constraints on its development. Ves could not claim to have figured out the Polymath, but he could easily imagine a ruthless and highly rational Star Designer like her deciding that investing manpower and resources into developing better kinetic weapons was not efficient. "We are proud of the performance of our energy weapons." Hugo said without ambiguity. "The warfleets that we have sent to the Rubarthan Pact will soon demonstrate their offensive capabilities in full view of the rest of red humanity. You will all be able to witness a small demonstration of how much technological progress we have made during the Time of Isolation." That sounded like a big boast, but the Cybers likely had the advanced tech to back up this assertion. "Has the Energy Weapon Tower mainly focused on improving existing energy weapons or did its researchers devise new variations that are based on different scientific principles?" "Both. You do not fully understand what a tower means to us. Almost each of them employ so many scientists and engineers that they can support the projects of both dreamers and realists. We have refined existing weapon systems by at least several mech generations by our conservative estimates. We have also devised new and original energy weapons that work particularly well against specific opponents or under specific circumstances. We expect to produce devastating results when fighting against the native aliens." That did not come as a surprise. The Polymath and all of Bridgehead One prepared to defeat the native aliens for over half a century. That was a huge amount of time for them to devise all of the countermeasures that they needed to potentially shift the balance of the war. The native aliens had developed a grudging respect towards humans and their ability to innovate. Humans had proven many times over that their tech was much more diverse and superior than what the aliens could invent. They operated in completely different environments. The Milky Way had seen long periods of turbulence where humans were forced to pursue strength at great speed in order to defeat their existential foes. Every technological edge had to be pursued in order to survive. The Red Ocean had long turned into a stagnant pool where the major races all refrained from engaging in major wars, thereby causing their drive to develop stronger war weapons to drop to the bottom. The native aliens were slowly beginning to turn around, but it took a lot of time as well as members of the younger generation to mature and replace their old and decrepit leaders. Humans did not have to worry about that because their scientists and engineers had always been pressured to develop effective new ways to kill enemies, if only because humanity had become so addicted to infighting. Bridgehead One already hosted a large number of R&D institutions, each of which employed highly competent experts in their respective fields. There was no chance at all that any of them would be close-minded or too set in their ways to accept change. They could complete a lot of R&D projects in a span of 53 years! This was why everyone looked forward to seeing the Cybers demonstrate their advanced tech in actual battle. It was not enough to hear the Cybers boast or even make the rare decision to publish hard data on their new mechs or other products. People needed to see the new tech in action before they could fully understand the immense gap between contemporary human tech and what increasingly became known as CE tech. It was so frustrating that the Cybers refused to share their advanced tech to the masses thus far! For an empire that hosted a population that numbered in the tens of billions, it was extremely remarkable that none of them had leaked the design schematics or documents related to one of the countless advanced technologies developed by the Thirteen Towers. This told Ves that the Cybers may very well be subjected to invisible restrictions that none of the relevant parties were authorized to know. It would not surprise Ves if the Polymath gained the ability to monitor the thoughts of her subjects in real-time through their cranial implants or their own version of a kinship network. "Everyone can easily guess that your warfleets will be able to smash the native aliens, but how will they fare against the mutated voribugs? I doubt that you and the other Cybers have spent so many years preparing against a threat that you could not foresee." The projection of the batch human remained optimistic. "That is true. We still need to see what the newly strengthened insectile race is capable of now, but our analysis thus far does not leave us with too much concern. The voribug subspecies known so far are not inherently superior to the mechs, starships and other military hardware fielded by humans and aliens. Their only strong advantage is their quantity. This is not an insurmountable problem for our forces. Our energy weapons are efficient and can maintain sustained fire. We also did not neglect the development of explosive ordnance." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮 Hugo sure sounded confident, but Ves did not feel as certain. Sure, he was operating on much less information than the Cybers, but he had a feeling that the mutated voribugs shouldn't be so easy to defeat. As a mech designer who specialized in living mechs, he possessed a strong sense of the strengths and weaknesses of organic life forms such as these new voribugs. Although he could not back up his words with hard proof, he felt it in his guts that the mutated voribugs had only revealed the tip of the iceberg! The mysterious controlling intelligence had to be a lot more cunning than was apparent on the surface. This facade of a simple, unrestrained invasion of both human and alien space made it far too easy for people to underestimate the voribugs. After all, humans often developed the impression that it should be easy for them to outsmart an unintelligent and arguably non-sentient species of swarming insects! Ves feared that for all of their technological superiority, the warfleets of the Cybernetic Empire may be in for a rude awakening! The Red War had repeatedly taught red humanity not to grow complacent. The native aliens, though technologically inferior, could always find new ways to overcome their challenges. Every enemy deserved respect, particularly those that thought they could make an enemy out of the entire Red Ocean! As Ves looked at the unmistakable pride exuded by the Cyber, it became clear that the people of Bridgehead One had lost the caution and humility that became increasingly more prevalent among red humans. The Cybers believed so much in the strength of their CE tech that they could not conceive of a situation where they would actually lose! This arrogance would probably come to bite the Cybers in the butt.