What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

"I had expected more trouble." Bolt observed once he'd settled back in on Blubbles' ship and they began to leave MTA's territory.

"Being polite and willing to work within the system tends to keep the obvious trouble away. With you officially registered I can handle most of your MTA contact now, which will keep the less obvious problems away as well because most reports will route through me." The senior said as she brought up a familiar looking hologram. "Now I get you home and you can pretend you're a nice normal Journeyman."

"Why am I detectin' some sarcasm there?" The young man asked with a half frown.

Bubbles batted her eyes. "I have no idea what you mean. I'm more focused on the funsies! We're going over Morning Star. Once we're done we can order the appropriate materials and get it done right when we arrive. That will conclude the last part of official business."

There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask about what had happened. There were far too many things that were going over his head politically. At the same time Bolt figured that there was precious little he could do about it. All he could do was address what was in front of him.

Morning Star did need a rather large touchup admittedly. His inspired design for her had resulted in issues in more than a few places. The largest one was that according to the techs back home, fixing her was an absolute nightmare. The wings and armor required some revised documentation and designs to make them less of a pain. If they weren't, she'd be something close to a Hangar Queen, and no one wanted that. (Except maybe Morning Star.)

Fortunately addressing that shouldn't be that difficult, just time consuming. It might not even be necessary to get to it immediately. They were going over the entire design right now so things were going to change. Starting with the largest performance issue that had been found.

"Need ta revise the weapon system completely." The designer started with a sigh. "That's a failure."

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You're not used to what an expert mech needs for offence. It's really common when you get into exotic weapon configurations." Bubbles consoled. "My suggestion is that we remove some armor on the gauntlets and add some specialized capacitors. They'll store the electricity and give more burst to the entire system. Also, we're adding spare daggers. That part I heavily advise."

Bolt agreed and made the notes on their planned revisions. "We can store them on the inner part of the wings. There's six on each gauntlet because that was the best balance of number and force. The base charge can only throw so many without degradation in some area. I thought the Gluttony system could handle rearming, but it's too slow when you need daggers now."

"Ammo is something you have to account for on all mechs to be fair. We don't want to overcompensate and add too much either." Bubbles sketched a few quick changes before moving on and highlighting a few areas. "I'm going to show you what a Senior can do by touching up the Envy and Sloth systems. I'd like more information on Greed before I start though. I see the physical parts in the feet, but mechanically they shouldn't work." The senior said while flipping through the blueprint layers.

"Shit." Bolt muttered and frowned at the hologram. "You have my old notes?"

"Some. Your naming sense is horrid by the way." Bubbles brought up a series of files.

"I want to dispute that." The designer shot back with a fake scowl. "I can't use the word spiritual on this, so let's call this the psionic layer of the mech." He switched to a layer of the blueprint just showing the outline. "Actually, let me try something. Could I get a pair of glasses? As basic as you can, and just clear glass."

A few seconds later a rather cute and pink pair of glasses appeared next to Bolt. The young man sighed at the design and held them in his hands. Bubbles already knew about this, so the MTA likely had an entire report on him, so there wasn't a point in hiding this ability. It was extremely taxing and hard to do without tools or supplies though.

"Oww." Bolt winced at the flash of pain when he was finished. He'd gotten close to straining himself again. "Put that on and look at the blueprint."

With bemusement the woman did and then her eyebrows raised. She pulled the glasses down and then pulled them up again. She did that several times while Bolt closed his eyes and let the headache fade.

"Interesting." The senior said.

"That, based on my guessing, is the psionic layer of a mech that is applied when the mech is built. Those glasses also just show things based on your interpretation, so I'm not sure how useful it is to show you this. I actually found that feeling mattered more than sight to me. I'm showing you because it gives us a base to work with." Bolt explained.

With a nod the senior turned to Bolt and paused before lowering the glasses again. "It confirms psionic presence in the design, but the need to interpret things hinders it's use so I agree it's not extremely helpful. By the way, you have a refinery in your head."

Bolt chuckled. "Yeah, that tracks. Lilly saw an ouroboros. Like I said, personal views matter a lot I think. So, let me try something." He began to write out things on the blueprint. "I'm going ta have to use my own notation. Spirit, er psionic constructs work in ideas rather than physical parts. You can make a lever, but it would be the idea of a lever. That's important because I did seven sins and called the mech Morning Star. That resonates with a human idea to create a unified form and aligns the concepts together in a unified theme that is greater than the sum of it's parts."

"We're going to have to workshop at lot of the terminology, but..." Senior Bubbles stared at the blueprint through the glasses again. "I'm actually seeing something different now. Intriguing."

They eventually had to start creating their own terms and calculations. This actually wasn't that unusual. Many Journeymen and Senior designers had to do that to estimate and simulate the functions of their more unique works. Bubbles ended up leading Bolt through the process and he picked it up quickly, even if spirituality tended to be a bit fuzzy around the edges. Since it worked a lot more off ideas and concepts rather than direct one to one functions, it could waver a lot. Some of it could probably still be calculated. They just needed tools that Bolt couldn't provide at the moment. This again was something most designers eventually got into. Seniors and above could spend years just measuring various outputs of their own designs.

"This is something you're going need to address in your how-to guide. It does allow me to work with the Greed system though." Bubbles said when they had something workable. "Do you want the glasses back?"

"They're something I make in a few minutes even if it gives me a headache. If you think they'd be useful take them." Bolt waved it off. It had taken a few minutes and time.

"We'll see. I need to experiment more with them to see what use they are." The senior said with a shrug. "But that will be later. Right now, I'm going to make your Envy system more efficient, make Sloth significantly better, and tidy up the Wrath. Then I'll add the resonant materials to the gauntlets to give it a lot more omph. After all of that we can work on Greed on the physical side so it can't potentially fry the internals if you pull too much."

"Yes we do need more omph." Bolt said with a very serious nod of his own that made Bubbles roll her eyes.

Jokes aside, the resonant material choice was actually pretty obvious. Something that generated more electricity. This had an added benefit of being a relatively common exotic. With combined with the tweaks they made, Morning Star had no real upper limit to how much power she could channel through her offensive systems. Lilly could now store electricity for a surprise shot, use it immediately, or discharge it at close range and electrocute someone.

Bolt had to admit it was a treat watching the Senior work. Bubbles looked like the sort of trophy wife that was hanging off an important person's arm. Her mind and ability made that appearance a complete lie. It also showed him what it was like to see a compatible specialty reinforce your idea. Her specialty was almost tailor made to work with Morning Star.

The changes she made were not significant structurally. The armor alloy was shifted, the lines changed, and the segments adjusted. It reduced the cost slightly, increased the effectiveness, and made how it distributed power better. Sloth would activate smoother and work longer. Wrath shot the daggers faster as a base, and could scale indefinitely. There were a lot of small changes like that.

You didn't need to do significant changes to really improve a mech. Bubbles was a trained MTA Senior. They were the top of the line. All her small changes boosted the entire mech's performance by a good ten percent. Not in one factor. All areas. Morning Star had already been a monster defensively. Bolt really didn't think there was a match for her now.

They were even able to adapt her for Space Combat too, which was a thing that Bolt had been dreading trying to learn on his own. He had no experience there, and it was enlightening to see what was needed. You didn't just need to seal the cockpit. You needed to have the entire mech insulated from a half dozen things. Frankly had the mech not been an expert mech it wouldn't have been possible.

If there was a serious flaw it was that Morning Star was Bolt's most expensive mech to date. Any damage to the armor would be pricy, and the wings would be hell on a pocket book. (They were easier to fix now at least.) She as close to Second Rate a Third Mech could be in form and function though. This made her unmatched in her niche and very dangerous outside it.

About the only problem they ran into in their improvements was trying to define a lot of the Greed system. Bolt would have to have extensive testing done later to verify a lot of numbers. That was the peril of using creating an entirely new system. You had to spend days gathering data about its capabilities.

 

[Simonbob]

Even the Senior designer is wondering what the hell he did, and apon seeing it, is wondering how she's going to use it.

The Cultivation side is really showing.

 

[Gingi71]

Man their Hidden master must be salivating, ( is it the Xenotechnician? )

 

[lurkingkraken]

Man their Hidden master must be salivating, ( is it the Xenotechnician? )

Click to shrink...

Glasses that let you see human Sonic's, which are fully human and nothing else, the product of Human Willpower triumphing and pushing mech design to new levels?

Getting that same psionic tech applied to a mech viewscreen so your pilots can fight perfidious alien spirits, the way Lily was, would seem to be thing that several factions of the MTA would want.

If you support psionics, it lets you show off that there is a structure there.
If you don't, it lets you use a product of human ingenuity to see and better be able to directly punch them.
We already saw how it made clearing the alien world easier when they could directly attack the spirits instead of likely needing to use her aura and hope it worked.

 

[lost star]

Travel time could get very strange when you added FTL to the equation. Lilly was encountering that first hand. She'd barely been back home more than a few days before Bolt came back home himself. Though his way of returning was far more spectacular than hers. He teleported into the main entrance area with a flash of light. MTA ships had some pretty special ways of transportation when they wanted to show off.

That didn't stop her from lunging at him and giving him a big hug. "Bolt! I missed you!" She said and gave him a kiss.

"Missed you too." The young man replied while supporting her. "Looks like we survived again."

"Yep." Lilly held herself against her husband a bit to check everything and then let herself drop. Then she turned to the other person that had come along with the teleportation.

The woman was pink. Not the worst color. Just an unusual one to be so dedicated to. She was dressed in a pink dress that looked practically painted on, and was pulling on a pair of pink gloves. Once she was finished she tied back her pink hair and gave Lilly a small wink.

"Like hi!" The woman waved. "Senior Bubbles with the MTA here. I'm going to need to do some work on Morning Star. Alone. Do we have the hangar cleared?" She asked.

"First thing we did when we got the message." Lilly confirmed and did a small bounce to get close to the woman. "Bolt, honey? Mind making doubly sure? Also, go say hi to the parents. They were worried."

"On it." The designer said and strolled out without a thought of why she was asking.

Bubbles grinned at Lilly. "Something up?"

"Yer after my hubby." The expert pointed out with a glare once the man was out of the room. "Don't deny it. I can tell."

The senior designer gave a shrug at the accusation, not at all distressed. "And if so?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "You can't really stop me if I wanted to do something."

Lilly really wished she was taller. Right now she was at boob height, and that was not easy to deal with when you wanted to menace things. She took a deep breath to focus herself and then paused. Her head tilted.

"Are all designers so emotionally flat?" She couldn't help but ask. This was the first time she'd been around one since she'd ascended and everything felt off slightly when she tried to read the woman. "Sorry, but I was gonna do something to threaten ya, but now that I'm focusing, you don't really seem to care at all?"

Bubbles blinked several times and the emotions bled from her face as she changed her stance and behavior. "That's oddly insightful." She stated neutrally.

"Ya not gonna answer the question?" Lilly asked as she stepped back to get a better look at the Senior.

Now that she'd discovered it, she could see still further. Everything about the woman was, well fake wasn't the right word. She wasn't lying. It wasn't a mask either. It was like clothing. She'd put on some behavior to influence people. Behind it all was calculation and numbers.

"What have your heard about the rational paradigm?" Bubbles gave her own question.

"That the funny thing designers do where they're trying to be all rational and stuff? Bolt talked about it a bit. Said it was pretty stupid." The small girl declared with a nod. So far as she was concerned it was really.

The words made Bubbles almost laugh. "Something like that. It's the prevailing thought through the MTA. You have to divorce yourself from emotion. It started as a way to keep your output consistent. You can design in bad days, when you hate the client, or when something about the design disagrees with you. All MTA designers are trained in it." The designer shrugged as she explained. "It's considered the best way. We even have something called logic speak that we use in higher ranks."

"Seems a lot like you neutered your head." Lilly observed as she eyed the woman's body language.

"It can be like that. Don't even get me started on some people's insistence on the speech thing. It's all single words where you have to interpret the rest, and it ends up causing issues if you don't actually know the other speaker." Bubbles shook her head. "It's worse because I'm a natural at it. I come from a place a few sectors away and spent most of my early years training to be a... Well culturally it's a high priestess position. You'd probably think of it as something else." She tilted her hips and did a deliberate come-hither motion that implied more than a few things. "It requires significant emotional detachment, and you wouldn't believe how much I laughed when I noticed the similarities."

The expert pilot had no idea what to think about that. Had she not been able to pilot she probably would have been in a similar position. Attractive women on the planet had some rather specific methos of advancement and survival so she didn't look down on the woman for the admission. Why was she giving it out though?

"So you don't feel a lot cause you were raised to discard it all. Why are you after Bolt if you don't really care?" The young woman got the conversation back on track rather than contemplate things still further.

"He's compatible design wise. That's your typical reason for designer marriages. We could likely help each other advance significantly. You don't really have to worry though. He completely missed all my signals." Bubbles informed the other woman with a slightly tired expression on her face. "I don't think he even stared once, and I do take pride in being decent eye-candy."

"The boy tends to get really focused and getting any attention takes a sledgehammer and a rope." Lilly agreed with a nod and moved back to the original point. "Also, yer not getting him."

"I didn't plan on anything immediate anyway. You are a pilot. I can wait. Your life is risky." Bubbles replied bluntly. "I expect in ten years or so you'll have died and I'll be able to move in." She finished with an indifferent look on her face.

Oh, that was completely different. It was even a small custom with the Rats. There wasn't a name for it, but when death was common you had to make plans for it. Several things snapped into place and Lilly made an immediate decision.

"Perfectly fine then." Lilly chirped and bounced up to the side of the designer. "So, let me show you my mech. You need to make her better right?"

"You're ok with what I just said?" Bubbles seemed a bit surprised at the sudden change in attitude.

Grabbing an arm Lilly nodded. "Ain't like I'll be around then. Go fer it. It'll probably keep him from creating a giant murder machine made of even more murder than normal." She informed the other woman.

That got a small chuckle from the senior and the two began to chat about a few other things while they walked. Lilly couldn't say she liked the MTA representative, but she also couldn't say she hated the other woman either. They could probably be friends at some point. This all assumed that they'd interact with each other more.

As someone associated with the MTA, Bubbles actually had to keep people at an arms length. They could speak, they could interact, but anything that could compromise her behavior was considered a problem. This meant very technically no friendships with non MTA members at all. All communications had to be business only. It was one of those rules that were on the books but never enforced. It would get a few side eyes if Bubbles stuck around all the time but no one would say anything.

She didn't plan on it. According to her, once she was done with Morning Star she had a half dozen personal experiments to work with. So the woman would be in contact, but pretty far away. Lilly was actually a bit grateful for that even if she wasn't feeling threatened. It would keep things from getting messy, which was likely the point of it. Bubbles had admitted that she was trained to seduce and likely manage people. This meant she knew how to deal with jealous wives.

Oddly, Lilly couldn't find it in herself to be angry at the other woman for the blatant manipulation. She was being very obvious about it and not lying. Which was again another bit of manipulation. Lilly was quite sure the MTA had a big profile on her and her likes and dislikes.

Really it was amusing more than anything else. Sort of like a friendly bit of combat in a social arena. Also she hadn't been kidding about Bolt making an extra murdery murder machine if she died. It was probably best to have plans for that, just in case. Lilly didn't plan on dying. She was not going to discount the possibility.

 

[Luker number 5]

'Yer after mah man!'

'Yep, but waiting till you die is the easiest way.'

'Oh so you're not tryin ta steal him? That's fine then.'

Lilly is a delight and I hope Bubbles gets some emotional connection back.

 

[Simonbob]

The words made Bubbles almost laugh. "Something like that. It's the prevailing thought through the MTA. You have to divorce yourself from emotion. It started as a way to keep your output consistent. You can design in bad days, when you hate the client, or when something about the design disagrees with you. All MTA designers are trained in it." The designer shrugged as she explained. "It's considered the best way. We even have something called logic speak that we use in higher ranks."

Click to shrink...

Bolt's going to make such a splash, just by being himself, and being human.

 

[foo-jin]

I didn't even notice Bubbles was hitting in him lmao, maybe because I've filed this story as single pairing in my mind.

 

[lost star]

I didn't even notice Bubbles was hitting in him lmao, maybe because I've filed this story as single pairing in my mind.

Click to shrink...

A little bit. It wasn't that obvious and some happened off screen. I didn't want to emphasize it because Bolt was completely missing it.

 

[lost star]

It was only once Bubbles left that Bolt finally internally let himself acknowledge that they'd done good. They'd done better than good. He could literally do nothing else and he was set for life. His family was as safe as they could be. He was getting a steady income. Even the planet was starting to recover a bit. No one was interesting in attacking the place. He could rest if he wanted to.

He didn't.

It went without saying that Bolt was already moving again. Several days after he returned he began to go over his backlog of work. It was extensive. He needed to make new mechs, review all the information he'd gotten in his looting, refine all his old mechs, do a thousand an one experiments, and so on. Bolt could spend years working on just what he had at the moment, and he might.

"Yer bounty on that Ves guy came though." Bolt's father interrupted him while he was organizing most of what he'd do in the future.

It took a moment for him to place what the man was referring to. Bolt had put a small bounty out for mechs made by Ves Larkinson awhile ago. He hadn't expected much really. The other designer was on the other side of the Vesia kingdom, which was a considerable distance. Bolt had expected he'd have to import something at considerable expense at some point if he wanted to follow up on everything. That they had the mechs now was pretty good fortune.

With a grin Bolt thanked his father and made his way to the storage where the mechs had been placed. The bounty had been for mechs ruined or otherwise. It had not been a big one so he hadn't expected much. In this case he got one semi-intact one, and a host of ruined ones. Apparently the merc company had wanted more mechs and his 'felt similar and fit better' for some reason.

The young man could instantly tell one of the reasons for it. The intact mech was another strange one. Titled the Aurora Titan, it was a space mech with a medium configuration. It was a pretty mech with a lot of armor and a fairly robust design.

That was the only good thing about it. What did you call a mech that had been designed well but the design didn't work in reality? Bolt could only call it a failure in his head. The speed was anemic, the firepower was pathetic, and it's defenses were specifically designed to handle energy weapons at the cost of other types of damage. The only thing the mech was good at was holding a defensive position. Frankly had it not had some sort of invisible reinforcement and backing Bolt would call it a worthless waste of money. A defensive space mech with these problems was target practice.

It's aura was what made it interesting and theoretically useful. It felt like a giant beast when it rested. Bolt could almost imagine something massive breathing right in front of him as he examined the thing visually. There was nothing else like it in the world.

"Why hello there." Bolt muttered to it as he rested a hand against its armor and closed his eyes.

Last time he'd encountered a mech like this had been with the Crystal Lord. That time he'd had only a feeling and instinct. Here the aura was more vibrant and powerful. He also had some experience with spiritual matters. He could knew where to start, and immediately did so.

Admittedly he didn't expect to find himself in a black void once he tried to properly connect so to speak. It was quite unusual. Doubly so because he could feel his real body in reality. He was projecting his consciousness somehow? The thought was novel enough that he almost missed the very large beast in front of him.

'Curiosity.' The thing sent at him once it noticed him. The thought was accompanied by the vague sense of 'unexpected visitor' too.

"Umm, hello?" Bolt tried to send back very carefully as his mind raced.

The reply was a sense of amusement, like that of listening to a child's attempts at conversation.

"Of course I can't do it as well as you can. This is completely unexpected! I was just trying to examine things and connect- Wait, did he just attach something to an unsecured connection on a mech?!" Bolt tried to turn around and look at where he'd come from. "Is he a moron or just that confident no one could follow his work?!"

The amusement doubled, and Bolt was reminded that he was next to a spirit that could possibly hurt him, or something else equally dangerous. He was in a completely alien environment. He also had so many questions.

"Questions for later." The designer took a deep breath, for whatever that was worth in her and straightened himself. "Sorry, let me try again. Hello, my name is Bolt Silica. I'm a designer sort of like Ves." He gave his introduction.

That got an approving sensation accompanied by something like a head pat. Then a few flashes of questions that he couldn't really parse immediately.

"Yes, I make mechs sort of like Ves." Bolt said. "Though I don't do whatever this is." He frowned as several conclusions came to him. "Does he link mechs to things like you? Interesting method." And one that he'd had no idea was even possible.

It was both novel and a bit disappointing. Did Ves just make something like the thing in front of him and attach it to the mech? Did he completely neglect the mechanical side of the equation? Sure it worked, but it felt like it lacked nuance.

A prod made Bolt realize he was stuck in thought and he sent an apology to the beast in front of him.

"Sorry, I was thinking about the entire process." Bolt examined the creature and then the link with careful eyes. "You're really spectacular by the way. I really didn't expect this while examining the mech. I thought he doing more spiritual architecture. Instead he's linking mechs to something like a spirit? You're the source of the aura and the other effects I assume. Does that cost you energy?"

The beast sent back an affirmative and then sent back a very complicated series of thoughts. Parsing it made him furrow his eyebrows. It took the thing swirling some energy between them before he got the idea.

"Ah, you get something out of it if pilots use the mechs." Bolt concluded. "Hmm."

Now that he was hearing about this, it felt almost like this was actually contradictory to how he did his work. Their styles felt completely incompatible for some reason. Bolt had been edging into using the sprit to reinforce the mechanical. This Ves had just added spirit and was using that over the mechanical. It barely even felt like mech design. Actually, wait, it was like a weapon specialist. Was Ves a spirit specialist?

"I'm sorry, I'm trailing off into thought too much here." Bolt told his conversation partner. "I have things to think about, but is there something I could do for you? You answered my question and I feel like I've just barged in and done my own thing."

The reply was another sense of amusement and then something like an offer.

"Ah. Again, I don't make mechs like Ves. I'd also feel like I'm plagiarizing something if I make a mech connected to you." Bolt explained with a small wince at the thought. "It's an ethical thing, and I try to have clear lines."

If made a mech linked to this beast, it'd be very much like stealing his work. Bolt had no idea how Ves had made this spirit. It was probably a core component to how the other designer was developing himself. Sure he hadn't added security, but that was probably because very few people looked into spiritual work in the first place! Bolt had wanted clues. He wasn't going to plagiarize.

"How'd you like a substitute though?" Bolt asked. "I'd love to talk with you more when I have time and I should be able to setup more connections. I think my wife would like to speak with you too."

With a snort the beast almost gestured to the very black area around her. Bolt could understand. When you had nothing but void, anything was better. He gave it an transmission of agreement and then stopped focusing.

Not even a second later he was back in his body. That had been a bizarre encounter. He had to say it was informative. A quick check of the other mechs and he could see traces of the same connection. Ves had done something completely different with his mechs. Bolt couldn't say it was better or worse at the moment. Such a strange designing strategy. It had it's strengths, but he could see some clear weaknesses too. He was probably being a bit harsh though. Ves was likely still feeling out his designs, just like him.

He could say that the whole 'living mech' ethos had resulted in some fairly spiritually charged mechs after examining the other mechs he'd gotten. He'd have to scrap them and see how that was retained, but he might have stumbled on something related to his own specialty. Salvaging the spirits of dead mechs felt like an interesting avenue to pursue! It would also solve some of his thoughts about sustainability.

He was going to be sure there wasn't any thought there before he did that of course. He wasn't going to grind up some living being by accident. Ick. Worst case there he'd be able to test his Heart system. And actually, it could theoretically be used to gather spiritual power too couldn't it? Something to think about once he started to see more spiritually statured mechs.

Before he got deeper into that, Bolt cut out a part of the Aurora Titan's armor and did some quick shaping of it. Soon he had a small replica of the mech that he could carry in one hand. He then focused and held one hand to the Titan and the replica. Once he was finished he had a little copy of the connection. The little figure even felt like a tiny beast!

The spirit connected felt just as amused as he did. Bolt chuckled a bit, then turned to find Lilly. So far he did find the spirit very agreeable and personable, but he was not going to trust it at its word. His wife was far better at figuring out people. She could determine how friendly the thing actually was.

He also wanted to make copies of all his mechs like this. It was actually pretty neat. He'd make a little shelf and put them all on there.

 

[Luker number 5]

Yess make the chibi mecha for the kingdom of mechs to play with

 

[Negation]

So we are now in Gundam Build Fighters

 

[Emptiness]

Now I can't wait to see him and Ves actually talk.

 

[Thomisannoyed]

He's really giving Ves the benefit of the doubt here, guess he really wants to be able to work with the only other person that does spirit stuff.

 

[lost star]

Bolt is very straightforward and his version of subterfuge is just not speaking of it. Otherwise he assumes that secrets are mostly pointless. He grew up knowing that the big boys could see anything he did and is operating under the assumption that he's under surveillance.

 

[Simonbob]

Bolt is very straightforward and his version of subterfuge is just not speaking of it. Otherwise he assumes that secrets are mostly pointless. He grew up knowing that the big boys could see anything he did and is operating under the assumption that he's under surveillance.

Click to shrink...

I'm sure you, I, and our FBI agents agree.

 

[lost star]

"I'm very tempted to tie him to a bed for a few days!" Lilly said to the void and the beast in front of her. "Can we like go a month without somethin' interesting?! Oh check out this strange thing I found and give me your opinion! No explanation and no actual warning!"

The mix of transmissions she got were rather complicated, but they all had Lilly nodding.

"Yes, he's a thinker, but damn if he doesn't think right! I guess you had to deal with that too?" She asked.

The spirit beast gave an exasperated nod and then transmitted some more thoughts.

Lilly giggled. "Ah that figures. Even giant lizard things had stupid hubbies."

With a shrug the beast nodded again and settled down with a feeling of melancholy, as much as she could settle in the void. This place was pretty strange Lilly had to admit. It made sense. It was something like the spirit world she guessed. It was still pretty bizarre and didn't really have forms so much as impressions.

"I'm sorry, bad topic. You must of lost a lot." Lilly observed with a sad face. "Wonder if Bolt could find parts of em?"

A strong sense of negation was the response, accompanied by warning, and something like not possible.

"Got it, no going there, dangerous!" The expert responded and gave an easy nod. "Well, was great to talk with you. We put your little copy in the room with a lot of other little mech copies. If you wanna talk we can again, but I'm sure that other guy has you occupied with fun stuff of your own." Lilly nodded again with a grin and cut the connection.

Back in her room she set the little mech figurine down on the new shelf next to the copy of Morning Star and Dowry. She hadn't been sure about this beforehand. In fact she'd been rather annoyed. But the spirit thing was a sweety. They couldn't communicate that well, but she'd managed to get a decent enough read on the beast. The girl was something old and relatively trustworthy. She just wanted some good conversation and to live as best she could in the situation she was in. It had been surprisingly cathartic to talk with the beast actually. She'd do it again some other time.

That'd be later. Now she had to get back to work. Bolt wasn't the only one busy, though her work was a bit more tedious. More training, testing Morning Star and Dowry, more recruitment, and so on. All of it boiled down to force buildup and getting something respectable for self defense and more. The mountain was doing a lot of recruitment and there were talks about settling merc groups in areas nearby. The latter was just to help get the planet population up some. There were vast swaths of land completely barren of people. Gifting it to friendly groups was turning out to be something of a draw. It turned out a lot of merc companies wouldn't mind having a nice semi-secured area they could park in.

Lilly didn't know the real details. A lot of her follow natives were organizing and arranging things in the background. It was all under her authority technically, but that meant little when she didn't want to be in charge of it all anyway! She had enough on her plate. Establishing something like a government was far too much work in a direction she very much wanted to avoid. Really, the paperwork and administration she had just managing the forces for the mountain was already a pain in the rear.

But it needed to be done. Lilly sighed and stopped dithering and started doing. "Please prioritize getting training mechs with that Heart stuff hun." She wrote down a note and placed it on their shared table.

They needed more mechs with the ability to use it as soon as possible. She'd noticed a serious improvement in learning with those that had it and those that didn't. The pilots had figured out that they could review their actions in the cockpit with some mental effort, which was extremely useful for training. Just that alone was a godsend, and if they could eventual use the simulators with the system they'd be doubly blessed.

She really didn't want to force him to do anything, but they had to prioritize some things right now. Until they had suitable training mechs they had to stick people in Zombies and Cerberus. This wasn't catastrophically bad as a solution. It would just lead to some quirks. Like with Pup. Who was her next headache and the one she was going to visit now.

The young boy looked very nervous when she entered the room he was in. Which wasn't surprising. She was casual with a lot of people, but she was still an expert. People looked up to her. They deferred to her, even when she didn't want to. Just her presence was horribly stressful to someone so young and unsure. Lilly didn't bother with speaking. She grabbed his collar and pushed him into a seat. She then grabbed one for herself and flopped into it.

"K, you're not in trouble. Stop squirming." The expert led off with before pulling up a large display containing a lot of information. "Do ya know what this is?"

Pup stared at the screen in confusion. "No?"

"Ya can read it right?" It was a valid question. About half their population couldn't read well.

"Yes." The young boy nodded rapidly.

"K, then I'll just flick it off. What it was was a fancy sensor graph. It measures expert potential. Congrats, you're a candidate." Lilly said with a half grin on her face.

Pup's stare turned to her in blatant confusion.

"Yeah, bout what I thought." The young woman muttered and gave his head a smack. "Don't worry about it. Just means we'll need ta push you, and I'll be putting you in meditation classes. Becoming an expert means defining yourself."

"Ok, don't worry about it." The boy repeated with a nod.

Lilly restrained an exasperated sigh. She really wanted to blame the dog mech he'd been piloting, but according to her in-laws he was just like that. Pup was an astonishingly good name for him really. It also made training him almost feel like trying to discipline a puppy. The boy was overeager to a fault and very prone to taking everything to heart in the most enthusiastic way possible. Which was tolerable for a normal pilot. It was intolerable for an expert candidate. This was going to be a small nightmare to deal with, and she couldn't just leave it. Even a mediocre expert was worth the hassle. Not that she'd tolerate him becoming mediocre under her watch.

Once she got herself under control Lilly gave Pup a serious look look. "I need ya to answer something. Do you like your current mech?"

"The dog? Of course!" Pup responded while nodding repeatedly.

"Now, could you envision yourself in something else?" Lilly continued slowly.

"Something else?" The thought had obviously not occurred to the boy because he actually had to think some. "No...?" He trailed off, obviously looking for a lead as to what to say.

"If I put you in Morning Star, would you like it." The expert tried to clarify.

The face her subordinate made was actually entertaining. He looked a cross between horrified, disgusted, and trying to conceal it. "Oh no, of course I would! Even if it's a g-" He cut himself off.

Girl mech. Lilly finished in her head. Standard young boy thoughts. They either hated feminine mechs or got a bit too attached. Perfectly normal. It also set her a good baseline.

"How about Berserker then?" That one was a popular 'boy' mech so to speak. Big axes, violent style, very enthralling.

Pup didn't seem enthusiastic. "I like my dog." He said with the first hint of something like spine.

"And why do you like it?" Lilly asked carefully. "It's a sensor and missile mech at it's core. That requires some precision and some unique skills."

There was a reason riflemen usually used rifles. Missiles require some finesse. They traded rate of fire and ammo for better targeting and explosive firepower. Cerberus worked, but it had issues in protracted engagements. This was possible to mitigate if you were decent at piloting and knew how to measure your shot impact. Pup had none of those things. Had she more mechs and pilots she would have sat him in a training mech for a few years to smooth out his decision making.

"I know I'm a bad shot." The young pilot muttered. "The vets say my target acquisition is horrible, my dodging is spastic, and I'm bad with comms. Cerberus doesn't care much about that. I can find the enemy for everyone else, and if I miss they can help."

"You like the sensors?" Lilly asked with surprise.

Her question made the boy shrink. "That weird?"

"It's unusual. Most people hate them." The expert clarified softly and gave him a smile. "That does mean that we got very lucky with your placement. Cerberus is actually perfect for you. Training will help everything else."

The look she got in return was exactly like a puppy being praised. It took an effort of will to keep from patting him on the head and calling him a good boy. She was definitely going to have to talk with the kid's parents. Did they splice dog DNA into his head or something?!

As Lilly wrapped things up she realized that Bolt was going to be a bit annoyed. With another potential expert on the horizon they'd need another expert mech. There was no guarantee that Pup would ascend, but she'd certainly try her best to make it happen. He husband would scrunch his face up and try to pretend he was grateful about it, even while cursing that he had more work and would need to call in favors.

 

[foo-jin]

The look she got in return was exactly like a puppy being praised. It took an effort of will to keep from patting him on the head and calling him a good boy.

Click to shrink...

Pup has Lily going full nurturing mode, how cute

 

[Simonbob]

...... That's going to be an interesting Expert.


It'll also change the rep of the planet, in the surrounding territories.



Awesome.

 

[lost star]

Bolt made a face as he stared at the design program in front of him. Lilly had requested he bump up training mechs as a priority. It was a good idea. He just sort of... Well, the thing of it was training mechs were pretty close to being a solved issue. There were legions of them out there and even the most generic pattern had been gone over a lot. From First to Third rate, they'd been done and redone. There wasn't even that large a difference between Third and Second. Sure the innards were more refined and expensive on second, but the concept was the same. Training mechs were simple and cheap by necessity.

To use an analogy, if you wanted to teach someone sword fighting, you used a padded sword. Adding tech to it didn't help the training that much. It just made things safer. You still learned how to swing the sword down, how to react to someone swinging a sword back at you, and so on. A fancy hi-tech sword performed the exact same function as a padded and weighted stick when teaching someone the basics.

Adding the Heart system was the only reason he had to custom design something. It would be a pretty passionless project really. The designer was decidedly unenthusiastic when he realized what the work would involve. He was almost wishing he was a rational designer, because his enthusiasm for it was completely negative at the moment.

Procrastinating some he decided to look into how the company founded around the system was doing. Pulling out his special comm he navigated to his messages and status reports. There was a lot that summarized down to a very small statement. They were currently in the hiring and organization process. A bit of research led him to believe this was normal. They'd probably be organizing for a year before they got serious work done. It took time to get everything lined up even with MTA backing. They had completed some preliminary work, but that was mostly just small scale testing to independently verify conclusions. Making sure the product was viable and deciding what exactly was needed while organizing things.

To Bolt's mild surprise there were a few requests for more information, and a request for a video call. Since he had time now, and it looked like the requestor had time he sent a message. A few minutes later he got the call setup. He was rather thankful for the designer room then. It had a big screen.

"Good Morning Journeyman Bolt." The man on the other end of the screen gave a nod. "I am Master Montoya. It's a pleasure."

Bolt sputtered. "Master?" He asked incredulously before he could censor himself.

"Yes." The man, who looked like the picture of a bland bureaucrat answered with a small and serious nod. "I understand you might be confused and alarmed, but any part with the potential to be added to the technology update requires a master to approve it. You could consider me a consultant for official certification. I will not be involved in the day to day operations."

"I really didn't expect that." The young designer muttered and reasserted control of himself. "You still have questions about the system though right?"

"I do. I'm aiding in the initial setup and evaluating what would be required to progress the project. There will be a small army of scientists and engineers to handle the tests needed. It requires a rather large amount of work." The master explained with a small shrug. "You managed to exploit the interactions between several different systems in a very unique fashion. The interaction itself deserves extreme exploration as a result of this. I wouldn't be surprised if we get several designers explicitly advance to Journeymen trying to exploit it once it's released."

"That... Feels more than a little daunting." Bolt had to admit after some thought.

Master Montoya gave a nod of mild agreement. "We have masters that struggle to do what you've just done. It's humbling when you understand the scale of what the MTA operates at. That said, time wait for no one and I should get to the point of this call. First, what's your inspiration for the system?"

Bolt cringed internally before he replied. "You're read into psionics I assume?" He didn't want to get another MTA call.

"I am. You can assume any master is and usually I'd say they know more than you, but in this matter I believe you might be able to teach me something." The master informed and looked very intent.

"All right, they're inspired by some alien tech. They used a lot of stuff specific for them. One of it was what they called Jade Slips." Bolt tried to explain without breaking the MTA prescriptions.

"Species... Ah, the Stone Shapers." Montoya said, obviously looking something up. "I'm afraid you're halfway across the galaxy, so I don't know any history there aside from the official statements."

"It's not that important. The thing is the Jade Slips used er alien abilities to record memories, impressions, even instruction manuals. You can connect to them with psionics." Bolt continued. "I jury rigged some devices that could let pilots read them, and then realized that storing memories could be very useful."

"Yet there isn't a trace of psionics in the Heart system. That does explain the crystals though." The master concluded and something flashed off screen. "Are they necessary?"

"Some sort of crystal lattice is needed. I didn't experiment with different types once I found a decent synthetic substitute." Bolt admitted. "The Heart system uses psionics a tiny bit, but only in the way a photo records a picture. I know pilots emit some psionic power when piloting. It can accumulate in a mech. It's measurable with the proper tools." That he hadn't built yet. "The Heart System sort of takes a recording of that and stores it in the crystal. It also accumulates the psionic power too, which is part of the process. I'm sorry, I don't have terms for all of the mechanics yet because I'm still discovering some of it."

The master was silent a moment as he flicked through a few things on his side. "Believe it or not, this is more than informative. It's enlightening, and gives me much to think on. This gives me several plans of actions, and I will need to test out various crystals to further identify interactions. How did you verify that the device is recording more than random noise? Our initial tests are giving us information that will take extensive programming to turn it into a usable form, assuming it's possible to verify at all."

"Ah, yes. Verification used more psionics unfortunately. I can say that our pilots are reporting that they can review information inside their cockpit now, which is some confirmation that things are being recorded." It was something new that Bolt hadn't expected but made sense in retrospect. "Another way is to connect to them like you would Jade Slips." He paused and winced internally. That might have been too much information.

If it was the other designer didn't comment on it. "How do you connect?"

"Mentally." Bolt frowned as he tried to explain it over video. "Can you do that verification thing that confirms a Journeyman?" He asked, reaching for the one thing he thought could be relatable.

The question seemed to bemuse to other man. "All masters are taught that yes."

"It's sort of like that, but you need to grip and pull instead of reach out and touch." Bolt shook his head as he worded it. "I figured it out after an hour or so, but that was pure intuition and guesswork with a dozen Slips and dedicated effort."

"Hmm." The older designer reached for something off screen and held it. Bolt had to assume it was a crystal. After a moment of concentration the man nodded. "Ah, I see. Very counter intuitive and it requires some internal awareness. This does explain why it has not been discovered until now. Is it always so disorientating and unpleasant reading it?"

"It's viewpoint based and their raw experience." The junior designer offered. "Once you get used to how the person thinks it's better but still very hard. There's a reason I believed VR was the best way to interpret it."

"I will have to agree. This does make us prioritize VR programmers more I believe." The master mused out loud. "Many tests will require verifying fidelity and readability as well. I can see why the initial startup was considered so high priority now. This does definitely seem to fit the criteria to have it applicable for the next gen tech update."

"Heh, I'd almost say grab a few people from Iron Spirit and have them help." Bolt joked.

It was a joke that the other man seemed to take seriously. "That would actually work I think. We could even gather more data that way. VR pod systems are very trivial to have modified. I can get a thousand mechs here, and their trillion players. Have it rolled it out as a general update?"

"That was a joke. You can do that?" The young man asked incredulously.

"You underestimate the scale of this project and what it could become. The CEO has already sought and obtained investment from several organizations involved in encouraging things like this. There's a substantial desire to investigate, including a push from organizations backed by the Assembler and the Machine-Mind." The master informed him simple.

The Assembler was basically the founder of modern day mass production. If you made a mech with a parts fabricator, you used his work. The Machine-Mind was also another big name. She was responsible for the helmet that let a pilot interface with a mech. The two Star Designers were practically the founders of the mech ecosystem and if they were interested, it was an extremely big deal.

Something about his look must have gotten through because Master Montoya continued. "Don't assume you have a Star Designer's attention. The groups in question were founded by the designers to act in their interests. They frequently approve projects like this through automated programs. It's quite predictable if you know what variables they look for."

"I honestly don't think that makes things better." Bolt responded slowly.

The master had absolutely no sympathy. "You will have to get used to it. Thank you for your time. I will leave you to your work."

The call clicked off and Bolt stared at the black screen. Somehow his current issues felt a lot less painful to deal with. Imagine that.

 

[Simonbob]

"Two of the top people on the Universe have noticed you!"

-beat-

"But, don't worry, it's most likely just the billions of followers, including God only knows how many Masters, who've noticed you!"

That guy's a Master when it comes to mech design, not being reasuring, that's for sure.

 

[Zealot57]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[lost star]

It had taken some thought on how to handle his next task. Some serious pondering to come to a solution to his problems designing training mechs. Bolt was going to cheat. He needed something to make the project easier and that was the best solution he found. It wasn't actually cheating. Many mech designers did something like what he was going to do. He still didn't like actually doing it. Purchasing a license for training mechs felt so dirty. It offended his poor pauper's soul. He wanted to do it all himself. That ultimately wasn't feasible. His time was valuable. Purchasing a package gave him licenses for an entire line of training materials and saved him months of time doing something that had been done before. A simple cost benefit analysis pointed said that getting a license was the best step he could take.

Altering them for his own purposes was an accepted part of mech design even. Bolt was just sort of, well experimenting some as well. He was going to intentionally try to 'consume' the blueprints. It felt a little bit dangerous to do honestly. He still needed to see how his style interacted with designs like this. He was reasonably certain it couldn't actually hurt anyone doing it. His previous collaborations had let him know how he interacted with styles. Pushing it with bought blueprints was the safest test he could think of and was the only way he could force himself to do this project with anything resembling enthusiasm.

His reasoning was pretty simple. If he was an expert his specialty would have been horrifically dangerous all the time. Since he was a designer, Bolt was instead no more dangerous than other designers. He couldn't hurt people by making blueprints. He'd just steal their ideas and override their design with his own. That was what he'd unconsciously done with Senior Shen's blueprint awhile back. It wasn't normal for a designer. You typically had a clash of ideals where the design was pulled in several directions or contamination of some sort as their ideals tainted one another.

It was something hard to explain and something Bolt had only realized after working with other designers. The best way for Bolt to describe it was one designer did variable A. Another did variable B. Designer A added +1 to his designs. Designer B did the same. When they worked together, it gave a mech +.5 or more to each variable depending on how compatible they were. They'd only add +1 if they were extremely in synch. Bolt didn't run into that problem. He could make them both +1, or make something else +2, and also take lessons from their works. That was his personal ability. It was the simplest explanation for how he interacted with other designers.

Socially this meant Bolt had to be very careful. He could be a big boon or a horrible thief. When he worked with other designers he learned from them and could probably imitate them if he was so inclined. He didn't plan on changing his behavior much with that in mind, but he was more aware of it now. It would explain why some other designers had trouble interacting with him. It was hard to watch your works being overwritten. The young designer couldn't and wouldn't change himself to make himself less offensive. It wasn't like he'd done anything different growing up. Salvaging was just picking up the ruined works of other people.

Getting back to the training mechs. Bolt had some discretionary budget. So he purchased a training mech package. It contained Humanoid mechs, many training weapons, and dog and cat mech designs as well. Pricy, but within their budget and useful in itself. It gave him everything he could want to base his own training package off of and even included materials he wouldn't necessarily add off hand.

Once the purchase was through he went over the entire thing. As he'd thought beforehand, training mechs were pretty solved as a package. You had to keep them simple. The most basic of them were also relatively cheap too. You didn't want expensive parts because students would find someway to break them. You wanted repairable and as safe as possible. These weren't fancy military mechs. These were mechs typically used by pre-teens. There wasn't much you could do here while maintaining what you needed for training, especially with Third Rate tech.

Bolt actually had to focus more than a little to alter them like he planned. Just thinking that he was going to take the design and make it his own didn't really work. He needed to trace and isolate the parts of each designer and find what they really added to the mech. It was surprisingly difficult and not for the most obvious reason. The package he'd purchased had gone through a thousand designer's hands. It wasn't a smooth unified design from one mind so much as a thousand novices working on a thousand calculations to create a mathematically perfect training tool. He had to pick apart every hand that worked on it to learn from it.

It was surprisingly engaging once he got into it. It was a mystery puzzle and history lesson all in one. Some of the mech decisions didn't make sense for war machines. Training machines were very different beasts and did many things different. The goal wasn't to make an easy mech. It was to make a training tool in the shape of a mech. Even the power systems had to be delicately done. You did not want a student to blow up something by accident, or god forbid they did something stupid intentionally.

Of course he also needed to add the Heart system. That was probably the easiest part of it in a way. His first iteration of system itself had been designed to be an independent module, relatively easy to install using a system of thin wires to 'pull' information from the rest of the mech. Integrating it just meant tying it into the current electrical system. He actually had to do this because training mechs had modular limbs. You needed a lot of different mech types and addons to give proper training, so the training mechs were more like a series of modular parts than a set of coherent mechs. This was where the majority of the changes Bolt made ended up happening. The wires had to be a bit thicker, and he had to be sure that the connections would actually work with modular limbs. He hadn't tested that. (It made him appreciate the company he'd help found a lot more. There were probably thousands of edge cases he hadn't tested.)

Thankfully for Bolt's sanity, the remodels didn't take that much time. Purchasing the designs had shaved months of work down to a few days. He didn't need unique designs, just variants. Which saved even more time because the originals had been thoroughly tested for flaws. Amusingly, this was his first official set of variants when he was finished. Which was a bit backwards. Most designers did the the variants first.

For entertainment, Bolt did take a bit of extra time to make the mechs look 'cool.' The original stuff had been rather blocky and utilitarian. His design looked sleek and heroic. It took some artful coloring and altering the profiles to achieve the effect, but he figured the kids would appreciate it. No one wanted to pilot a block after all. These were Super Sentai! (Yes the shows still existed. Colorful pilots in mecha suits? It had barely taken any adaptation from their pre-exodus to make them popular!)

He did not touch everything. Part of the package included weapons and add-ons. Rifles, an assorted series of weapons, and a lot of dummy rounds. Bolt didn't touch that much aside from giving them a light brush to remove obvious flaws. The weapons were brightly colored and specifically designed to be as non-lethal as possible. He had no desire to mess with what wasn't broken and the obnoxious colors were actually important for training. You wanted certain things highly visible, and the training weapons were still mech-sized. They were less than lethal rather than fully lethal.

There was only one big consequence to his decision. Every training mech and training weapon would cost them a licensing fee to produce. They'd been able to coast by using mostly generic licensing and his designs for most of their other mechs to make them competitive with other mech types. His altered training mechs didn't fit that profile. They still fell under the original license. His revisions hadn't altered them enough for that to be completely removed. Bolt wasn't inclined to try to change them that enough to have that happen. He'd already used the designs to practice his specialty in a rather non-standard way. He didn't want to outright steal all their work. (Also the original designs had been tested for safety extensively already. He was not going to adjust them enough to cause those tests to become invalid.)

Once he was completely finished, Bolt flipped to the blank silhouette he'd shown Bubbles when working with Morning Star. This was another experiment of sorts. His people had been read in on the psionic thing. He was going to see if this helped them add it to the designs they'd make. He aligned the spiritual with the physical. This was a training mech. It needed to teach. Protect the student. Help them concentrate. Let them feel the mechs.

Frankly it felt a bit silly adding those words to the blueprint. Bolt really wished there was a better way. He'd pass it on to the techs and have them debate it. With the glasses he'd made and some work, they could figure something out. Better notation perhaps? He had what was developed with Bubbles, but that was more personal notation for calculations. Not blueprint knowledge for your line worker. You didn't throw the equations you used to calculate engine throughput at a mech assembler. You just gave them what parts to make.

Regardless, they'd have to make one of each model and submit them to the MTA for official approval. Bolt could restrict his design to in house only and avoid that, but he figured that if he was going to devote time to this, he'd get a sellable model. The Heart System alone merited a new model line. He didn't anticipate sales, but it wouldn't hurt to have more mechs for sale. A bigger catalog was better.

 

[Simonbob]

Frankly it felt a bit silly adding those words to the blueprint. Bolt really wished there was a better way. He'd pass it on to the techs and have them debate it. With the glasses he'd made and some work, they could figure something out. Better notation perhaps? He had what was developed with Bubbles, but that was more personal notation for calculations. Not blueprint knowledge for your line worker. You didn't throw the equations you used to calculate engine throughput at a mech assembler. You just gave them what parts to make.

Click to shrink...

The sort of writing needed for "Talismans", and the like? Magic swords?

Also, using "Psionics" to help with the training? I wonder if that'll upgrade the level of a pilot?

 

[Thomisannoyed]

These were Super Sentai! (Yes the shows still existed. Colorful pilots in mecha suits? It had barely taken any adaptation from their pre-exodus to make them popular!)

Click to shrink...

I imagine he must of downloaded as much media and history and random artworks as he could when he was at the MTA. Since he enjoys adding that sort of stuff to his mechs.

 

[foo-jin]

The Heart System alone merited a new model line. He didn't anticipate sales, but it wouldn't hurt to have more mechs for sale. A bigger catalog was better.

Click to shrink...

I feel like the novelty of the heart system alone will drive far more sales than Bolt expects, or even just drum up hype for the new general tech edition where it will be included.

 

[lost star]

I imagine he must of downloaded as much media and history and random artworks as he could when he was at the MTA. Since he enjoys adding that sort of stuff to his mechs.

Click to shrink...

All old media and the like are free to download and easy to access. The Power that Be explicitly go out of their way to pass as much unifying culture as they can. Almost all entertainment media is free and it's so widespread that Bolt had access to it in the middle of nowhere. The MTA and CFA take great pains to try to keep cultural cornerstones intact. You can see this a bit in story due to the fact that language isn't that different between people. (Aside from me not wanting to do different languages.) The big two want little wars, not big wars that would come about from humans being completely different.