The Mech Touch novel Chapter 221

His grandfather didn’t look surprised when Ves made his request. "Any good mech workshop needs a crew of human hands. It’s good of you to realize that. Too many manufacturers are seduced by the total control they have over their bots that they don’t realize that their perfect arrangement falls apart once it bumps into an obstacle."

"I already know about the whole automation debate, grandfather. I won’t follow in the footsteps of the Terrans."

Pretty much everyone in the galaxy knew about the dangers of relying too much on bots. A few hundred years ago, the Greater Terran United Confederation once thought to replace all menial labor with bots, and reached a remarkable degree robotization in their society.

All of this went dandy and fine, until some groups of undisciplined dissidents hacked several widespread models of bots, causing widespread destruction and mayhem. Bots went rogue as they attack the humans they served or caused deliberate fires and explosions.

The unprepared Terrans found to their horror that they depended so much on bots for their everyday life that they could hardly muster a response to the rogue bots.

Even worse was when their battle bots became compromised as well. While they possessed much tighter cybersecurity, rampaging bots had forcefully invaded the headquarters of the companies who made them. The rebels made off with libraries filled with source code and other critical files, which they used to devastating effect.

The so-called Bot Rebellion as it became known had fractured the largely unified humans into disparate islands of calm, as some bulwarks managed to eliminate the bots early. By the time the Terrans managed to get a grip on their own territory, the dream of uniting the human race under a single political entity had been shattered. _{fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm}

"I’ll send you one of my chiefs. It will take a lot of persuasion to relocate from Rittersberg to Cloudy Curtain, so you better offer him some good conditions. I suggest you look somewhere closer to fill up the rest of your roster."

"Thank you for that, grandfather. I’ll be sure to treat him well."

Ves realized that Benjamin must have made a great sacrifice by parting with one of his chiefs. The Larkinsons always cultivated their own crop of technicians in order to be assured of their loyalty and qualifications. As long as he had a trusted chief watching over his technicians, Ves didn’t have to worry about their conduct.

They closed the call after his grandfather estimated that the chief should arrive in a month. Ves figured he’d wait on hiring more mech technicians until then, as he wanted his new chief to make his own selection from the local workforce.

Ves spent the next day preparing his workshop for the new additions. He moved over the existing machines so that it offered enough space for two distinct production lines.

The old production line consisted of his second-hand printer and his second-hand assembly system. While a little slow, the old line sufficed in fabricating unmechs like the Marc Antony Mark II.

The new production line took up a lot more space. The basic production process started with inputting raw materials in the Dortmund printer. Bots brought over the parts it spat out to his new assembly system which should rapidly construct a new frame.

Any parts that required compressed armor went through a few more steps. The Dortmund printer fabricated an embryo which would then be submerged in a special solution in the chemical treatment machine.

Once the formula did its job, the altered embryo would then be put in an alloy compressor which will subject the unfinished piece of alloy to enormous forces. After that, a proper piece of compressed armor should come out of it, which would then be taking to his new assembly system to be put on a mech frame.

Despite the additional steps, Ves envisioned that the new production line should be able to work much faster than the old one. At the start, it might take a couple of days to fabricate a comech. The second one should be finished a little faster, while the third one took even less time.

This went on and on until the learning curve finally flattened. By that time, Ves boldly predicted that the new production line should be able to finish a comech within a single day.

"The most time consuming portion are the chemical treatment and the alloy compression phases. While it’s not possible to automate them completely, if I can hire or train a specialist to take charge of these machines, he will be able to optimize their processes."

Perhaps Ves obsessed a little too much on arranging his production lines, but establishing a good flow saved a lot of money and time. It was better to plan his arrangements beforehand than to do it while he had a ton of orders to fulfill.

The next day, a small fleet of transports arrived at his workshop. After his security checked over the goods, Ves finally received the new additions to his workshop.

In order to save time, Ves tasked Carlos with setting up the machines. "While they look sophisticated, they’re mostly self-contained so they should work right out of the box. Just run some diagnostics and start a few test projects to make sure they work according to specs."

"Are you sure you want me setting up these expensive machines?" Carlos asked apprehensively. After all, while he didn’t know their exact models, they all looked extremely expensive and far beyond what a typical mech boutique should own.

"It’s still within the range of your capabilities. Just don’t drop anything and you’re good to go."

"If you say so, boss."

Ves predicted that Carlos should take a couple of days to insure the machines had been installed correctly. Even if the bots sped up the installation, his fabricator still needed some time to check all of their functions.

In the meantime, Ves decided to start on designing the three models he’d present at the Vintage Festival. Gavin and Marcella sent him different reports that gave him some insight into his target audience.

"They’re not simple lastgen fanboys."

Many visitors of the Vintage Festival merely wished to relive the past, but the ones with money had more discerning tastes. They should be his actual target segment. After skimming through the reports, Ves got a sense of what kind of product should appeal to their desires.

"Lastgen mechs will soon be used and discarded en masse in the upcoming war. This is the eventual fate for most outdated mechs, but it’s a sad outcome nonetheless."

Those in charge intended to send out the lastgen mechs to the forefront of the battle because they were expendable. While this was the most logical and efficient decision to make, it nonetheless rested on the assumption that lastgen mechs could no longer contribute to society.