Ves shut off the live broadcast. The battle between the Assimilators and the mutated voribugs would probably drag on for weeks. Ves had better things to do with his time than watch this titanic clash between two forces that specialized in battles of attrition. He had seen what he needed to see, and so did everyone else. "Is this the future of warfare?" Andraste asked with a disappointed expression. Ves smiled and moved over to pick up his daughter. "Not necessarily, pumpkin. The Cybers managed to demolish the native aliens because they had many years to develop and optimize the right weapons to defeat them. That is not the case with the voribugs. Nobody expected to fight against an enemy that doesn't rely on transphasic energy defenses at all. The voribugs rely on the rapid reproduction of organic combat units to conquer every territory. This is not exactly new to humans, but the mutated voribugs do this better than any other race that humanity has vanquished in the past." He continued to mull over this even as he and his wife accompanied their children for a time before putting them to bed. Each of them became encouraged by the superiority of CE tech against the native alien threat. At least half of their lives had become dominated by the Red War. The spectre of losing everything constantly hovered over their heads as they grew up on New Constantinople VIII. Ves felt grateful to the Polymath bringing hope to a society that had become accustomed to being on the losing side. Unfortunately, the surprise appearance of the mutated voribugs gave people a new source of fear. If every voribug infestation needed to be removed with as great of an effort as the Assimilators were making, the cost of repelling this organic foe would definitely be terrible! Late at night, Ves attended a private meeting organized by Saint Commander Casella Ingvar. She had invited Ves, Gloriana, Alexa, Saint Dise to her office where they went over the footage and analyzed the implications of the new tech on display. "As far as the native aliens are concerned, the Cybernetic Empire has the power to stall their invasion." The Saint Commander concluded. "The issue is that it is a new power that wants to claim a piece of the pie that is human-occupied space. The Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pect eagerly welcome the Cybers, but that does not mean they want to get taken over by the newcomers. The Terrans have no desire to escape the hegemony of the Red Two, only to answer to a different hegemon." This meant that the Cybernetic Empire would face resistance at every turn. Other human powers eagerly wanted to obtain the secrets of CE tech, yet they did not welcome the expanding influence of the rest of the newly emerged empire. This would lead to a lot of wrangling. Negotiations between the parties would definitely be tense and marked by difficulties. The old powers all had to scramble to protect their existing dominion and prevent their populations from defecting to the Cybernetic Empire. They needed to fight to maintain their relevance in a new age that may eventually be led by the Cybernetic Empress. "I have noticed that all of the weapons showcased by the Cybers are not particularly effective against superdimensional armor." Gloriana mentioned. "The new tech overwhelmingly focuses on countering transphasic energy shields. The Cybers have developed so many different solutions against this defensive measure that it is impossible for our enemies to close so many loopholes at the same time. So long as these weapons begin to proliferate, it will become much easier to defeat the fleets that are not led by well-equipped phase lords." "What about the enemy fleets that are led by phase lords such as the Protector of Karnak?" Alexa asked. "The responsibility for defeating them lies with god pilots and ace pilots who are paired with full superdimensional ace mechs such as Saint Dise." Gloriana nodded towards the ace pilot in question. "It will be a challenge." The female ace pilot said. "Alien-grade superdimensional alloy offers just enough protection to withstand my weaker attacks. I have to put serious effort into channeling my more destructive sword techniques in order to break open a full suit of superdimensional armor. It will be easier for me once I have developed new techniques and improved my existing ones. My resonance strength is also growing at a fast pace, especially if I am frequently challenging greater phase lords in combat. The higher my resonance strength, the easier it becomes for me to deal with multiple difficult enemies at once." If she had grown as strong as a senior ace pilot, then the Protector of Karnak and the Endless Stomach wouldn't have been able to bully her around so much in the last engagement. Unfortunately, the growth rate of ace pilot was usually measured in decades and centuries. Dise's circumstances were much more favorable than the ace pilots who grew up in the relatively peaceful Age of Mechs, but that did not mean she could sprint her way to the threshold of god pilot in record time. The general cultivation elixir and many other similar elixirs no longer possessed the potency to stimulate the willpower of an ace pilot. Perhaps the alchemists and other experts of the Red Collective may be able to cook up a new solution that could speed up Dise's progression, but the cost would likely be so prohibitive that it would not be the turn of the Larkinson Clan to receive a quota. "The native aliens won't stand still either." Ves mentioned. "They may not be able to rely so much on their transphasic energy shields anymore, but they will simply switch to building ships clad in thick layers of transphasic alloy plating. The cost of building them will easily multiply by a factor of 4 or maybe even 10, but they are large and prosperous enough to afford this extravagance. The Red Cabal has also been accelerating the deployment of Saint Piercer arms and they have just begun to distribute Saint Armors. I am sure that the armor worn by the Protector of Karnak is equivalent to a prototype. The future iterations of this armor will become much more sophisticated, especially if cosmopolitan mech designers are allowed to contribute towards their development." CE tech may have put the native aliens at a disadvantage, but if the Red Cabal was able to produce and distribute more alien-grade superdimensional armaments and armor, they still had a chance of pressuring red humanity! The emergence of the Cybernetic Empire made it less likely for the native aliens to wipe out all but a small remnant of red humans, but did not necessarily put an end to the Red War. Both sides still had plenty of reasons to fight against each other. This was bad news as the appearance of the mutated voribugs put an even greater strain on red humanity's warmaking capacity. The Saint Commander clearly grew concerned about this new threat. "Tell me honestly. How well are we able to fight against mutated voribugs?" "Not good." Gloriana immediately replied. "The voribugs always arrive in swarms. They do not care whether our weapons are far superior to their own offensive capabilities. They can throw so many voribugs at our forces that our weapons and our mechs will wear down sooner or later. Even if we are able to defeat the swarms that are sent in our direction, the victory may ultimately prove meaningless if other swarms have managed to relocate to nearby planets or asteroid belts before setting up their hives. Once this happens, the voribugs can constantly produce more cannon fodder while also sending more swarms to occupy planets and asteroid fields that possess useful resources." Unlike the native aliens, the voribugs could not be defeated by winning a frontal battle. So long as just a handful of voribugs survived, they could easily hide inside an inconspicuous asteroid and slowly build up a new swarm that could spread to other satellites and reproduce further. Once the voribugs began to snowball their numbers, the voribug invasion would begin anew! If the mutated voribugs were truly perverse like this, then they were practically impossible to get rid of once they arrived in any star system! "There has to be a limit to these voribugs." Ves insisted. "No organic life form is perfect. I am becoming increasingly more convinced that the voribugs were originally bioweapons that have somehow outlasted their creators. They are designed for warfare and conquest, but that means that they also have clear gaps that they cannot overcome such as high-ranking mech pilots." Dise frowned. "I cannot do much against them. I specialize in defeating enemy champions and high-value combatants. My sword fey makes it easier for me to wipe out swarming enemies, but they can only do so much. In fact, I do not think that Isobel will be able to do much better once she returns with a new ace mech. Ace pilots like us are virtually unbeatable at the tactical level, but we cannot defeat an adversary that specializes in waging war at the strategic level." "This is why I think that there has to be a weakness to the voribugs that we have yet to discover." Ves said. "One of the things that stand out most to me is how they act in total coordination. They show no visible sign of individualism. Every voribug is a tiny cog in a massive machine. As you all know, every machine is centrally directed, or else it would not be able to fulfill a coherent function. If we want to shut down the machine, it is not necessary to destroy each individual cog. We just need to identify, locate and target the controlling factor." "You mean the hypothetical queen of the voribugs?" Alexa asked. He paused for a moment. "We do not know whether the mutated voribugs are all controlled by a single queen or multiple queens. We do not know whether there are additional layers in the hierarchy that help to manage all of the disparate swarms. However, I think that if they do exist, the god pilots will find out and either solve the problem by themselves, or inform us how to eliminate the influence of these leader units." The Saint Commander looked thoughtful. "You have an idea." "I have several ideas." Ves said. "The reason why the voribugs spook us so much is because we are not prepared to fight against them. We can address this by developing targeted solutions just like what the Cybers have done against the native aliens. For example, one of the theories I came up with is the potential means the hypothetical voribug queen uses to control her swarms across many light-years. I mean, it is unlikely that this leader unit is coordinating her bugs with an organic equivalent of quantum entanglement nodes. What if this leader unit is controlling all of her minions through her own version of a kinship network? If that is the case, I should be able to whip up a countermeasure." "Is this why you feel the need to relocate to the Rubarthan Pact?" Casella asked. "Yes. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I truly think I have a chance of offering material help in pushing back this threat. I won't know until I actually reach the new front and see the voribugs in person. Even if my hypothesis is wrong, I am sure that I can do other useful stuff such as designing a mech that targets a different weakness. I have done it before. I am confident I can do it again." Red humanity needed a miracle solution against the voribugs, because all of its usual methods were clearly ineffective. The group talked a bit more about what they have witnessed and seen. They particularly focused on the new tech on display and what they would like to acquire for themselves if they had the option of exchanging these goodies from the Cybernetic Empire.