The Mech Touch

The entire assembly hall was frozen in shock.

The opening speech of the long-awaited conference of the Survivalist Faction completely detonated everyone's minds!

The hall still remained silent even after the Xenotechnician unveiled his radical plan.

No one dared to say or transmit anything. Neither praise nor scorn escaped from their lips.

It was not wise for them to catch the Xenotechnician's attention and receive a black mark in his eyes.

Even though the old Star Designer was generally known to be kind and tolerant towards people, what if a single mistake could cause them to miss out on a promotion or get passed over for an important mission?

It was better for everyone to keep their mouths shut and let the bigshots make all of the decisions behind closed doors.

Small and insignificant figures like Ves and Jovy had no say in the matter. It was the couple of hundred Master Mech Designers and other high-ranked dignitaries that all held enough power and influence that had the qualifications to pass judgment on this matter.

That was not to say that the rank-and-file members and associates played no role at all. The Xenotechnician, the Fist of Defiance and the Polymath still needed to win over a sufficient degree of popular support in order to ensure they could roll out their ambitious plans without hindrance.

As the Xenotechnician deliberately gave the tens of thousands of gathered attendees enough time to process his explosive words, he steadily finished his pitch.

"Remember who we are. We are beings of rationality. I hope that you will not allow your unreasonable biases and hatreds to cloud your judgment. We cannot afford to endanger our race and cause the deaths of trillions by acting on our emotions and stubborn attitudes about past grievances. It is all well and good to despise the aliens and reject any notion of collaborating with them, but if that attitude does not result in an improvement in the balance of power, it is an atrocious strategy that will only hasten our collective suicide."

The old Star Designer who apparently possessed no scruples pointed at the projected map of the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy.

Compared to the previous situation where only a tiny part of it was friendly towards red humanity, the new scenario looked a lot more optimistic than before!

"Our race did not always possess the hubris that we are known for today. Back in the Age of Space, we were at a heavy disadvantage. We kept a lower profile. We did not make enemies out of the surrounding alien empires. We compromised and made concessions in order to bide for time. The cosmopolitans served a necessary purpose for us all. Without their noble sacrifices, humanity would have never been able to survive long enough to enter the Age of Conquest. Learn from the past. Recognize that there are times where we must bend and stretch. If we have done it before, we can do it again. The taboos have served their purpose during the Age of Mechs. Do not allow these outdated and ill-fitting rules to prevent us from doing what is necessary. We can violate any principle as long as our cause is just."

The Xenotechnician's message was clear. He wanted the Survivalists, the Red Association and all of red humanity to completely abandon any tenet and principle that made up their foundation for many generations as long as it got in the way of his radical plan!

A lot of people silently held mixed thoughts towards the old and respected Star Designer. A lot of them developed a genuine disgust towards the faction leader's plan and attitudes.

If he was any other person, he would have long been jeered off the central podium!

In fact, the outcast would have suffered worse consequences. A few of his words sounded so subversive and treasonous that enforcers would have probably taken him into custody and be made to confess all of his illegal plans and rat out all of his fellow conspirators!

This would not happen. The Xenotechnician was simply too great of a figure to apply this treatment. He had become a Star Designer a long time ago and made far more contributions to humanity than the Polymath. So long as he remained in his current position, he could continue to speed up red humanity's technological development, thereby saving an innumerable amount of lives in the years to come!

The living fossil was untouchable and he knew it. He boldly mentioned a proposal that entailed making up with the cosmopolitans and cooperating with them as if their many crimes in the past was all water under the bridge.

Ves admired the Xenotechnician in a way. The Star Designer had become one of the ultimate authorities of the human race. His power and influence had reached a height where he could boldly defy conventions and break the rules that restricted other people without suffering immediate consequences!

It would be a long time before Ves could reach this promising stage.

Still, as much as he admired the old Star Designer for presenting his proposal without fear, Ves felt a lot more ambivalent towards the actual idea.

Rationally, the Xenotechnician was right. War did not care about feelings. It cared about results. The plain truth of the matter was that red humanity was too outnumbered and too lacking in resources to fully exploit its few advantages.

None of the people gathered in the assembly hall were stupid. Each of them had been carefully selected for their competence and their ability to contribute to the Survivalist Faction. They represented some of the best mech designers and other professionals of their society. Few of them denied that the Xenotechnician's plan had actual merit.

So long as his blueprint could prolong the survival of red humanity, who cared if they had to break a taboo or three?

Yet... humans were more complex than that. They were not Als who were willing to disregard everything in the name of logic.

Emotionally, Ves felt the urge to punch the Xenotechnician in the face. Did the man not recognize how foolish it was to cooperate with a group of human traitors who materially aided the aliens for many years?! The cosmopolitans personally handed over a lot of human high technologies to the aliens, thereby exacerbating the conflict and contributing to the defeats of many more human fleets and colonies!

The Cosmopolitan Movement set fire to red humanity in the first place. Now, it allegedly offered to come around to help the Survivalists put out the very same conflagration that they were originally responsible for! It was pretty clear to most people that these bastards were playing both sides in order to pursue their own interests!

Still... did red humanity have any other choice?

That was the question that every attendee had on their minds right now. They only heard out one proposal so far. The other two faction leaders were ready to present their own plans.

The Xenotechnician closed his speech by appealing to everyone's sense of duty.

"Centuries ago, we formed the Survivalist Faction to prepare for an indeterminate apocalypse that few people thought would be coming. We formed a brotherhood to stand vigil over our civilization and undertake any necessary actions to save us from threats from within and without. Now, the time has come for us to fulfill our essential purpose. Do not betray the hopes and intentions of your predecessors by betraying our founding mission. Let everyone else call us sinners if they wish. At least they will still be alive for them to voice their complaints."

With that, the old Star Designer ended his address and disappeared within a blink of an eye.

Everyone remained silent even though their emotions were anything but calm!

Though Ves tried his best not to extend his spiritual senses and poke around when he was surrounded by lots of powerful individuals, he could still pick up the anger, disgust, confusion and unwillingness in people's hearts.

No matter whether they were simple young mech officers or Master Mech Designers who belonged to the same generation as the Xenotechnician, none of them could remain impassive in the face of this extreme proposal!

A brief intermission ensued where the seated individuals were finally given a chance to recover and listen to the next speech with clearer heads.

Though people started to chat with each other, they were all clever enough not to voice any direct opinions about the Xenotechnician's outrageous plan.

 "So this is going to happen two more times?" Ves softly asked Jovy.

The other young Senior Mech Designer nodded. "That is correct. This is part of how we operate. Our faction is founded on the premise that we must cooperate and do anything that is necessary to ensure the continuation of the human race. If a situation ever arises where our members are strongly divided between several alternate proposals, we agreed to gather together so that we can properly hear out every side before discussing the merits of each choice. Once we have cast our vote, our entire faction must implement a winning plan without any further interference or opposition. The worst thing we can do is to allow lingering disagreements to sabotage a course of action that may be the only way to save our entire race."

That... made a lot of sense. This was a good way to solve a contentious issue, though it clearly had its faults.

For example, what if the Survivalists voted to embrace the Xenotechnician's proposal, only for it to suffer all kinds of setbacks and accidents in the ensuing years?

According to the rules, the faction had to double down and continue to push their current plan to the end regardless of whether the actual reality deviated from reality!

Jovy understood Ves' doubts. "We cannot afford to get bogged down by doubts and second thoughts. In many cases, there is no time to change our minds and do everything over. Our enemies will not accommodate us. We can only make a single bet and ride it all the way. That is why it is crucial for our upper management to be as thorough and inquisitive as possible before they cast their votes. They only have one week to essentially decide on how red humanity intends to resist the hostile alien races."

Ves frowned as he still felt there were a lot of loopholes to this approach.

"I can see that you and your fellow Survivalists are all pragmatic and reasonable enough to support a plan once it has been decided. What about the other groups? I think you will find it much harder to persuade the other factions as well as the fleeters, Terrans, Rubarthans to play along with your crazy ideas!"

Jovy's expression grew stern. "We will do what we can to make that happen. At the very least, we will be taking the initiative. Doing nothing is not a solution. That will only lead to our inevitable deaths as the aliens steadily grind away at our forces and territories. If we want to win, we must be proactive. The leaders of all of those other groups are all intelligent and responsible enough to know that as well. So long as we can gather enough support from friendly stakeholders, we can exert enough pressure to convince the remaining holdouts to cooperate with our plan. Compared to us, the other groups and factions are too divided and not decisive enough to present a viable alternative."

His description of the other groups was probably not too far off the mark. Ves did not possess a clear understanding of how the other factions of the Association were doing, but he was quite aware that the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact were still mired by lots of differences in opinion.

The abrupt isolation from the Milky Way Galaxy had caused the displaced people to have no clear plan in place on how to govern their colonies without any further direct support from their home states.

They couldn't even make up their minds on how to run themselves. How could they possibly form a consensus and unite around their own plan?

The Survivalists possessed a strong advantage in this regard!