The Mech Touch

Those professions ordinarily never came into contact with each other. Their fields of expertise almost never intersected with each other.

In the rare cases that they did, their combined efforts usually produced atrocities such as organic mechs!

In a way, the god species of Aeon Corona VIII should be an offshoot to the early research to design an organic mech. Instead of starting from scratch and attempt to create a perverse form of life from nothing, the exobiologists and mech designers who presumably survived the Starlight Megalodon’s crash had taken an existing species and messed with their genes so much that they didn’t resemble their predecessors at all!

What Dr. Tillman couldn’t wrap her head around was why the exobiologists and mech designers would be so bored to make such an effort. "It takes a lot of research, experimentation and iteration to implement so many modifications. The larger the species, the more resources and time you need to make sure the modifications haven’t resulted in any adverse effects."

Ves couldn’t supply her with any answers. Other than guesses, they had nothing to go on. All they knew was that it took decades to perfect the modifications. The god species that emerged from the fruit of their labor eventually went on to spread across the planet as the absolute apex predators of the changing ecosystem.

The engineered exobeasts dominated to such an extent that they even prevented the human descendants from taking over the entire planet!

The god species as well as the blessed and cursed people all came about through the intervention of the exobiologists stationed on the Starlight Megalodon. Over thousands of years of degeneration and decay, only their work withstood the test of time.

Where were the mechs?

Why hadn’t the blessed people maintained the technological standards of their forefathers?

Why did the blessed people get to rule over the city while the cursed people had to fend for themselves in the wild?

All of these consequences sounded like a mad scientist’s dream. It was as if the exobiologists who survived the crash worked for the Five Scrolls Compact instead of the CFA!

Ves could never imagine the sober scientists and researchers in the employ of one of the Big Two to be so unrestrained.

The worst part was that the captain or the admiral aboard the battleship must have approved such a drastic intervention. The exobiologists and mech designers could have never completed such a massive project without the full support of the rest of the survivors.

As Ves tentatively identified all of the aspects about the exobeast’s biology related to mech design, it became clear that the wild god had been explicitly designed to facilitate control.

One strange gap in the center of the brains puzzled him however. "I don’t know much about the brains, but shouldn’t there something be inside this cavity?"

"About that.." Dr. Tillman said as she adopted a careful expression. "We’ve encountered the means to which a wild god supplied the energy to call down those tremors."

The doctor switched the projection to an image captured as a handful of men in hazard suits retrieved a murky crystal the size of a human child from the giant brains.

"Is that one of those fancy god crystals!?" Ketis uttered from behind.

Tillman shook her head. "Not quite. It’s an inferior copy of the so-called god crystals. Chief Dakkon is researching it right now at the mobile labs, but so far we’ve been able to determine that it is a lot cruder than the god crystals embedded into the hides of the sacred gods. As far as we know, it doesn’t have the ability to call down an energy tornado, nor is it able to store any pure higher-dimensional energies."

"Then what is it?" Ves asked.

"As far as we can tell, it stores an intermediary form of energy derived from the higher-dimensional energies when they devolve into something simpler when they spill over into the material dimensions. It’s the process of accumulation that is particularly interesting."

"How so, doctor?"

"Chief Dakkon and I developed a theory about this as soon as we identified the properties of the murky crystals as we are referring them to. While the higher-dimensional energies are largely contained in the astral winds that blow at least a hundred kilometers over the surface of the planet, a miniscule amount of spillage still occurs. Nothing is ever perfect, and even the astral winds deviate from the rule from time to time."

"You believe that the higher-dimensional energy that escapes from the astral winds devolves into a lesser form of energy once it descends on the planet?"

"Exactly. More than that, the native wildlife is somehow capable of absorbing them into their bodies. The energy slowly lands on the grass, which gets grazed by herbivores. Those herbivores gets eaten by predators, who continue to eat prey who are contaminating with a miniscule amount of intermediary energy. The predators continue to accumulate more of this contaminant as time goes on until they die and get eaten by other predators."

What Dr. Tillman described was the process of bioaccumulation of substances. Even if the astral winds only release a minute amount of intermediate energy, they eventually concentrate into greater amounts as the plans and animals get eaten by other animals.

"And in this engineered ecosystem, the god species sit at the top of the food chain." Ves stated. "These wild gods and sacred gods grow so large and live such long lives that they are probably able to accumulate a scary amount of intermediate energy!"

Dr. Tillman mentioned another revelation. "The murky crystals themselves aren’t exactly mundane either. According to Chief Dakkon, the crystals themselves are formed from intermediate energy! This is why we’re experiencing many difficulties in analyzing them. Our equipment and scanners aren’t able to cope with something so advanced!"

Both Ves and Ketis widened their eyes. They knew the implications of this revelation. Energy and mass were related to each other. In the right circumstances, mass turned into energy and vica versa. However, such a transformation often came pared with a huge release or consumption of energy!

The most typical example of this phenomenon was the ubiquitous nuclear weapon. Both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion involved tiny reactions that released a tiny amount of energy.

Their destructiveness came from the fact that such a reaction happened so many times at the same time that the tiny bit of energy being released built up to an enormous explosion!

Therefore, any phenomena that involved mass turning into energy or vica versa had to be handled with care.

Right now, Ves honed in on the fact that if the process of forming the murky crystals could be reversed. The Flagrant Swordmaidens might be able to solve their energy shortages in that case!

"Do you know if the murky crystals can be used as a source of energy?"

The exobiologist shrugged. "You’ll have to ask Chief Dakkon for that. As far as I’m aware of, the murky crystals aren’t very good at their jobs. They’re filled with impurities that hamper their function."

Ves planned to do so later. Right now, he wanted to discuss the implications of discovering some mech-like traits in the carcass of the wild god. The influence of mech designers was actually fairly slight except for the inclusion of a biological neural interface. Incorporating this growth was so blatant that the exobeast’s skull developed a deformity in order to accommodate this growth!

It was Dr. Tillman’s turn to ask a question this time. "This isn’t my field of expertise, but do you think that a mech pilot will be able to interface with a wild god without complications?"

"I’m barely knowledgeable about neural interfaces and neurology myself, so I can’t answer that question. I do think that it would be reckless for a mech pilot to attempt an interface with a feral beast, especially if we annoyed it by taking it into captivity or something."

"Why do you believe this is the case? Haven’t the natives managed to do so successfully?"

"Yes, but the blessed people have established a bond with those creatures. A wild god on the other hand is a wild beast that is certainly antagonistic to strange organisms like us. Have you ever heard about what has happened when neural interface technology initially came into being?"

The doctor grimaced. "Far too many accidents occurred. Many participants incurred permanent brain damage."

"It’s not until fairly recently that our researchers refined the technology to the point where it’s somewhat safe to interface with an animal mind. Before that, most attempts at connecting the mind of a human to the mind of an animal ended in failure. The few success stories happened when the animal in question is a loyal family dog or the like. Both of their minds needed to be in sync to some degree for the procedure to be safe."

"I’ve heard of this!" Ketis chirped from the background. "They say that some crazy dog enthusiast tried to overwrite the consciousness of his pet dog with his own mind! They never told us whether the procedure succeeded, but the authorities quickly came and shut the entire place down."

"Yes.. that happened a long time ago." Ves pressed his lips. "The final result was probably so gruesome that the authorities don’t dare to publish the results. In any case, these incidents show that interfacing with the mind of an animal is a hugely risky affair. I’d say that the organic interface that has grown inside the heads of these exobeasts makes the process possible without employing any complicated machines. However, they probably don’t do anything to reduce the inherent risks of such a procedure."

He would absolutely not agree to any experiment to let a mech pilot ride on the back of a random exobeast and attempt to interface his mind with it. The outcome wouldn’t be any different from the countless failures and horror stories that littered the past.

Even if the natives managed to succeed in their attempts, the Flagrant Swordmaidens should at least learn how they managed to do so safely before making their own attempts.

After a couple of hour’s worth of discussion, Ves and Ketis finally departed from the cold chamber. His expertise wouldn’t be needed to analyze the rest of the wild god’s carcass.

The mood outside had become a lot more cheerful during this time. The smell of charred meat started to proliferate in the air.

The barbecue had begun! The exobiologists finally pronounced some portions of meat to be safe for consumption!

Though the scientists declared that they weren’t completely sure if eating the meat would harm their bodies or lead to any unintentional reactions, none of the Vandals and Swordmaidens cared.

All they wanted now was meat!

"C’mon, you’ve been cooking the same strip of meat for more than an hour now! Is it done yet?!" A Vandal yelled.

"Hold your horses, already!" An angry cook replied. "We’re heating them as fast as we can, but this meat is resistant to heat! It takes a while to cook the insides thoroughly!"

An impatient Swordmaiden couldn’t help but retort. "Who cares about that! I’ve eaten hundreds of exobeasts raw! My genetically-modified stomach can digest nearly anything!"

Under the exhortation of the Swordmaidens, the cooks buckled under the pressure and served a slightly underdone piece of god steak to the winner of the invisible competition.

From what Ves could gather from the men, Captain Orfan and Lieutenant Dise both claimed that they should be the ones who deserved to take the first bite.

Predictably, they hadn’t been able to come to an agreement.

Captain Orfan may have won her duel against Naeduvis, but the sacred god hadn’t exactly been the most stellar opponent.

Lieutenant Dise at least had the honor of surviving a duel against the Tyrant of the Wastes, an exobeast so powerful that its dreadful lightning abilities match those of an ace mech!

The two decided to resolve their argument in the simplest method possible: by stepping into the sparring ring and slugging it out against each other!

Predictably, the Swordmaiden officer won.

Once she took the very first bite, the Swordmaidens cheered while the Vandals sulked. Captain Orfan had to make do with the honor of taking the second bite.

That day, almost everyone filled their bellies to their heart’s content.