The Mech Touch novel Chapter 521

A question bubbled up from his mind. "Why does the MTA tolerate mind manipulation to this extent?"

"Why does the CFA prohibit everyone from building armed warships while they field countless armadas of them? Why do the Big Two prohibit the use of weapons of mass destruction while employing them liberally in punitive actions? All of them stem from the same reason. Can you guess why?"

Ves frowned and puzzled over what they shared in common. "Is it because the CFA and MTA is powerful enough to ignore their own rules?"

"That’s part of it. They aren’t being hypocrites for the fun of it. The reason why they break their own rules is because doing so increases their power. It’s simple as that. Do you think humanity will last against the the aliens occupying the other half of the galaxy if we outlaw all of our warships? That’s too naive! It’s the same story with weapons of mass destruction. Just because our society moved past their use doesn’t mean we can afford to abandon them entirely!"

This was a familiar refrain to Ves. The Common Fleet Alliance often justified the necessity of wielding enough power to wipe out every inhabited planet in human space by claiming that they needed it to stop the aliens from doing it themselves.

It helped that the two trans-galactic organizations largely kept by their promises and didn’t abuse their power. Humanity had begun to take their neutrality and self-appointed caretaker roles for granted.

Despite their obscure leadership and murky governance, trust in the two overarching organizations never wavered after the commencement of the Age of Mechs. They guarded the current order and most humans in the galaxy thought they did a pretty decent job.

Anything beat the waning days of the Age of Conquest. _{freewebnσvel.cøm}

"Okay, just because the CFA and MTA are allowed to get away with breaking their own rules doesn’t mean that mech designers should be allowed to do the same. Is the power boost really worth the risk of irrevocably damaging the brains of elite pilots?"

"Your tone suggests that even the slightest risk will lead to disastrous consequences. That’s not the right way to look at this issue. Everything of value carries some risk. Take fire, for instance. Long before our race has left for the stars, our primitive ancestors hunted animals and foraged berries to sate their hunger. The discovery of fire advanced their civilization to a remarkable degree. Fire can hurt, yes, but it can also cook our meals or help with forging the building blocks of a permanent civilization."

"Fire is different from mental manipulation through a neural interface. You could argue that the former is absolutely necessary for the advancement of humanity, but mechs work fine without the latter."

"I disagree." She said. "Beyond a certain point, there is a limit to how much we can maximize the performance of a design. Highly advanced technologies and miraculous exotics are extremely expensive to licence and reproduce. On the other hand, up to a certain point, neural interfaces are mostly identical. It’s not the hardware, but the software that gives them an edge. An exquisitely-programmed neural interface can elevate the performance of a man-machine combination by as much as fifty percent, all without adding to the material cost of the mech!"

Ves shook his head. "Just because it’s cheap isn’t a good reason to resort to such a dangerous practice."

"Then let me give you a more practical reason. Even if you decline to make use of this tool, others won’t. The entire reason why every elite mech makes use of mental manipulation is because their competitors are certainly trying to maximize their utility. Not only can they complement the mental blind spots of their mech pilots, they also make it a lot easier and more intuitive to call upon resonance. Remember Lord Javier’s flashy last stand. You might think he’s an idiot for naming and calling out his special moves, but it’s a way to trigger a predetermined routine that facilitates the activation of a specific resonance effect. Granted, most mech pilots don’t broadcast their moves in the open air."

"Hold on for a couple of minutes. I need to think this through."

This was new information to Ves. Perhaps that was why Lord Javier didn’t go down easy. Constantine Reeve must have incorporated a custom neural interface that covered for the weaknesses in his piloting style. In addition, if the neural interface registered all of his special techniques beforehand, then it was extremely easy to trigger them by calling out specific phrases.

This put the issue in a complicated light. Though Ves had only heard about this from Iris, Ves didn’t need to corroborate her claims from another source. She was an expert in this matter and had no reason to lie. His intuition also led him to believe that she spoke the truth.

Where did that leave him? Should he revise his entire stance towards manipulating the minds of mech pilots?

In truth, it wasn’t as if Ves did something similar with the X-Factor. As he grew increasingly more proficient in Spirituality, his designs began to make a definite impact on the moods and thoughts of the mech pilots that used his products.

Was he a hypocrite to accept his own brand of affecting minds while rejecting something similar through the use of neural interfaces?

Ves closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

No, it was not the same. Neural interfaces were exceedingly delicate and it only took a single misstep to damage a mech pilot’s mind. As for the X-Factor, though they might push a mech pilot to do things they didn’t want to perform, as far as Ves was aware of, a mech’s spirituality never hurt any mech pilots.

They worked on two completely different levels. Neural interfaces manipulated through physiological means, while the X-Factor worked in the imaginary realm. The former imposed specific behavior onto mech pilots, while the latter expressed the living thoughts and instincts of the imaginary entity that Ves attached to the designs.

One was dead, while the other was alive.

"That’s the difference."

Other mech designers treated mechs as a lifeless tool. Tools weren’t alive, and certainly wouldn’t be able to express their own thoughts.

In contrast, his mechs possessed the spark of life. As living entities, they deserved a say in the manner of which they would be used. Through the X-Factor, mechs transferred some of their thoughts, instincts and skills to their pilots so that the latter wouldn’t dominate the man-machine connection.