The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6401

Coining the phrase 'Carmine Revolution' was a stroke of marketing brilliance.

Ves recognized the allure of this revolution and intentionally mentioned it when everyone paid attention to his every word.

Just as expected, people eagerly embraced it because of their intense desire to trample the genetic aptitude tyranny and secure their chance to pilot a Carmine mech!

The Carmine Revolution had practically become red humanity's latest sacred cow. No one was allowed to tarnish it or challenge it in any way. Skeptics that dared to question the safety or the reliability of the Carmine System quickly became subjected to deluge of abuse, regardless of whether it was warranted!

This was not a violent revolution, nor a revolution that ended any government regimes.

This was a spiritual revolution.

The cloud of fear, doubt and uncertainty completely swept away once Ves lit the bonfires of the Carmine Revolution.

From this single spark, all of red humanity became inflamed with newfound passion and optimism!

The oppression of the Red War and the terror spread by the murderous native aliens no longer cast a dark shadow over everyone's hearts. This was because everyone drew sustenance from the brand-new fire spread by the revolution!

As Ves stood in front of the exhibition hall,, he listened to all of the cheers and felt how extensively he managed to arouse the collective will of an entire civilization.

It was at this moment that he felt he had served his ultimate purpose as a mech designer.

On the surface, his job was to design mechs.

Thinking a little deeper, his greater priority was to serve mech pilots.

Only now did he realize that mech designers existed to save the human race.

As long as mech designers did a good job, they would inevitably contribute to the strengthening of their fellow people, arming them with the weapons they could rely upon to beat back their foes!

Ves knew for certain that red humanity had changed significantly now that he had unleashed the Carmine Revolution.

Relying on just 3.5 percent of the population or less to bear the greatest burden of resisting the native aliens was never a sound idea. Now that the rest of the human population could contribute to the war effort by piloting mechs as opposed to helping in other ways, norms finally obtained a level of agency that was previously monopolized by potentates!

The dramatic battles raging in the 4th and 5th defensive bands no longer appeared as dire and hopeless as before.

At the very least, the most direct consequence to making Carmine mechs to red humanity was that the pool of eligible mech pilots had drastically exploded.

Relying on just 3.5 percent of the population or less to bear the greatest burden of resisting the native aliens was never a sound idea. Now that the rest of the human population could contribute to the war effort by piloting mechs as opposed to helping in other ways, norms finally obtained a level of agency that was previously monopolized by potentates!

The Carmine Revolution gave everyone a chance to pilot a mech!

Even if norms had not yet reached parity with potentates, at least the introduction of the Carmine System had successfully closed the gap by an enormous extent!

After the outbreak of the Carmine Revolution, Ves expected that his work would gradually lead to a new status quo where norms were merely 'a little behind' compared to potentates.

Both of them enjoyed many of the same opportunities, but actual potentates happened to enjoy less restrictions and greater advantages when piloting mechs.

It was difficult to completely close the remaining gap. Ves personally had no confidence he could accomplish this job. His Carmine System could only produce so many miracles, after all. Even his elemental Carmine System concept did not attempt to make any gains in this aspect.

Ves was happy to hand the torch to the rest of the mech industry. He may have started this revolution, but he did not necessarily have to lead it any further. A true revolution was supposed by a wide variety of people and interest groups. They should have plenty of motivation to develop their own solutions.

As Ves confirmed that the Carmine Revolution had given his fellow red humans a future they could look forward to seeing, he calmed himself down and resumed his product reveal.

"What you see behind me are 3 of the 6 mechs of the Swarm Project. They are the Carmine mechs that you have all been waiting to see and hear about. There are 3 more mechs attached to the Swarm Project that can play a useful if optional role in managing these Carmine mechs, but I shall introduce them later."

The spotlights highlighting the contours and sleekness of the Yellow Jackets brightened up a little.

"Let us detail these machines first." Ves continued. "My team has worked on all three mech designs on a concurrent basis with the support of the Red Association's helpful R&D departments. As such, they may belong to different classes, but they are similar in terms of design concept, general requirements, piloting approach, combat roles, piloting requirements and difficulty of operation. The underlying tech and materials may be differ, but there is a degree of commonality between them that makes it easier to treat them the same, more or less."

That was obvious to both mech designers and laymen. It was not difficult to distinguish the overall tech level of the Yellow Jackets, but they all shared so many traits that it looked as if their parts were interchangeable!

This was not a coincidence.

"The advantage of adopting this approach to all three mech models is to make it easier to upgrade the base models of these Carmine mechs." Ves smiled. "If you have started off with the Yellow Jacket Mark I Version C, you can upgrade it into a Yellow Jacket Mark I Version B by replacing weaker parts with stronger parts for the most part. There are steps to the conversion process that are more complicated to complete, but any decently equipped mech workshop should be able to pull it off by using the right tools and following the right instructions. Of course, you can also downgrade your Yellow Jacket to a variant of a lower tech level if you wish."

This was actually quite difficult to accomplish! The three mech designs had to meet so many requirements that the design team couldn't have done it without relying on heavy technical support from the mechers!

The design choices that Ves and his collaborators had to make were also many. They had to give up a lot of optimal design choices in order to increase the interchangeability of parts.

However, it was worth it as far as they were concerned!

The base models of the Yellow Jackets were never designed with optimal performance in mind.

Ease of use and versatility had always been the highest priorities. This was the best way to ensure that the widest possible audience would be able to make use of these Yellow Jackets.

"No matter the version or tech level, all base models of the Yellow Jacket are positioned as introductory mechs." Ves explained. "They are frontline mechs in essence as they are more affordable and easy to pilot than many other products on the market. Given the current state of the Red War, only these traits can ensure that our civilization can mobilize large quantities of irregular but combat capable mechs in the span of one or two years. Compared to the five or more years of training required to train and field a more comprehensive mech pilot, it should take much less time and money to train and field an equivalent Carmine mech pilot."

This sounded rather good to the ordinary folk who did not have too many high expectations and just wanted to have a chance of piloting one of these Yellow Jackets.

However, the wealthier people who occupied the upper half of the totem pole began to frown. There were many norms among them that were willing to do a lot to fulfill their almost-forgotten dreams of piloting a mech, but they did not want to do so by forming a Blood Pact with budget options that were clearly beneath their stations.

Perhaps their time had not yet come.

At this time, projections appeared above the individual Carmine mechs that denoted their exact model names as well as their basic properties.

"As you can see or read, all three Yellow Jackets are modern hyper mechs. They are all Carmine mechs. They are all what I call classical living mechs of the sixth generation. I shall explain later what that entails. Those familiar with my previous living mechs know that I also attach entities called 'design spirits' to my works. The Yellow Jackets are all connected to a design spirit that I refer to as Titania."

That last part confused a lot of people, especially the ones who had never studied or worked with a living mech before.

Ves smiled when he perceived the public's confusion. "Titania plays an important supporting role in the operation of the Yellow Jacket as an individual Carmine mech and in combination with other machines of the same kind. Titania is a swarm mother that is based on an astral beast that my clan has once encountered and defeated in combat. This has inspired me to create a design spirit that replicates the astral beast's penchant for deploying a large amount of disposable biological drones as her primary means of attack."

In order to illustrate what the astral beast used to be like, Ves chose to project a few edited clips of footage of the expeditionary fleet's encounter against the monstrously large astral beast.

"Just like how the Titania is able to coordinate the actions of her biological drones, I hope that the design spirit can help to encourage and improve the teamwork between many different Carmine mech pilots who lack training but share the same goals and enthusiasm. The base versions Yellow Jackets are not individually strong in combat, so only by joining forces and improving coordination can large amounts of Carmine mechs punch above their weight and defeat opponents that are supposed to be superior on paper."

That sounded rather promising, but Ves remained too vague to convince most of his audience.

That was fine. Actual results as well as other features might be able to make this claim more convincing.

"It is difficult to describe the full benefits of having Titania's guidance in these Yellow Jackets, so I will not speak much of it." Ves admitted. "It is better to put the Yellow Jackets in action and see for yourself. Remember, the more Yellow Jackets to deploy at a time, the better. These are mechs that are best employed as coordinated swarms rather than individual machines. Only in large groups will they be able to exert combat power far in excess of their limited physical capabilities. This is one of the defining characteristics of the mechs of the Swarm Project."

He really wanted to emphasize this aspect. The Yellow Jackets were weak at every tech level, but that did not mean they should solely be used as cannon fodder.

Ves had high hopes that they could enable poorly trained Carmine mech pilots to produce amazing results on an actual battlefield!

The support of their living mechs as well as their design spirits should be enough to instill them with a greater sense of coordination.

Add the supervision and leadership from the Jacket Commander models that Ves had yet to introduce, and the swarms of Yellow Jackets may become powerful enough to fell entire phase whales one day!

Ves began to take a few steps back.

"Now, in order to introduce and explain the key systems of the Yellow Jacket designs to you all, I shall relinquish words to my fellow collaborators. Their expertise on the parts and systems that they have worked upon is much greater than my own. Please give them all your attention."

The spotlight on Ves darkened while the ones shining on Lady Romanda Devos and Professor Vector Loban brightened.

The two Senior Mech Designers stepped forward and faced the entire expectations of a massive audience for the first time!

To their credit, neither mech designers buckled under the massive pressure.