The Mech Touch

The entire design team looked dazed.

When Ves first revealed to them that he intended to design a marksman mech, they reacted with skepticism.

The current doctrine against the sandman basically amounted to deploying lots of mechs and starfighters to bombard the sandmen with as many rounds as possible!

Every defensive force relied on massed firepower and deploying lots of cannon fodder to resist the tide of sandman incursions.

Recently, the defensive forces added Dawnbreakers, Duskbreakers and Novabreakers to their mech rosters. The Dawnbreaker and Novabreaker were especially effective because they could endure a lot of hits while dishing out significant damage with their Sandbreaker rifles.

So far, no one managed to think of a more effective way to beat the sandmen. The Bright Republic and the other third-rate states being hammered by the sandmen were constrained by many limitations.

However, what was impossible for other mech designers was not necessarily impossible to Ves. he just needed to think outside the box and exploit his unique advantages.

While he already managed to convince Gloriana of the viability of his mech concept, that was only because his girlfriend had faith in his abilities.

Trying to convince his design team was much more difficult.

Though he could just skip his explanations and leave them ignorant, that would not do his project any good.

To ensure that the X-Factor of his mech remained as coherent as possible,every person involved had to share the same vision!

If each mech designer working on the project had a different idea on what the mech was supposed to be, then the spiritual foundation of the mech risked becoming too heterogeneous.

While Ves could resolve most issues resulting from a lack of direction and agreement, he would have to expend too much effort to straighten the spiritual foundation of his mech design.

It was much better to make his entire design team understand and adhere to his vision from the start!

Right now, everyone expressed confusion at the answer that Ves had given. Against the increasingly more prevalent swarm configuration, it was far too difficult to wipe them out without suffering massive casualties.

Since a sandman admiral played a critical commanding role to their fleets, a lot of people poured a lot of research into coming up with a way to identify their presence within a fleet!

As long as a sandman admiral became exposed, every mech and starfighter could flood its direction with a torrent of ballistic rounds!

The brightest minds and the most brilliant specialists of many states poured a lot of time and effort in this research, but so far they failed to achieve any results.

Ves was very well aware of the difficulties the researchers faced. While a sandman admiral typically possessed a body that consisted of higher-quality exotic, the problem was that their size ranged from a grain of sand to a small finger-sized pebble!

Even Sigrund's true body wasn't very big to begin with! The lesser sandman admirals that led the charge into human space had only recently come into existence, which meant that they were predominantly just as small as any other sandman!

The lower castes of sandmen weren't entirely uniform either. Their bodies consisted of all kinds of inorganic substances. A sandman fleet typically incorporated countless varieties of simple sand, various metals and low-grade exotics!

Each person that pointed a sensor at a sandman amalgamation only got a confusing mass of data in return!

It was practically impossible for humans or AIs to figure out which specific particle among trillions of particles led an entire fleet!

So how did Ves decide to solve this problem that confounded so many scientists and sensor specialists?

"Intuition." He repeated while tapping the side of his head. "We humans are special. Unlike machines and bots, we are creatures of both logic, emotion and instinct. Against a problem where conventional solutions aren't available, it's worth a try to resort to a more unconventional solution."

"I understand, but.. what is intuition?" Miles asked.

"Intuition is instinctive understanding." Ves patiently replied. "Think of it as a way to come up with the right answer or decision without relying on conscious thought or clear logic."

"Doesn't that make intuition no better than unfounded guesswork?"

"Essentially, yes."

The design team looked even more skeptical.

"So.. the premise of your next mech is to rely on luck and gut feeling to score a lucky hit on a sandman admiral?"

"Essentially, yes."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Larkinson, but I don't see how such a mech will succeed. There is no scientific basis for this mech!"

"That's just your limited understanding of reality talking." Ves responded with a grin. "The science you've learned at school only partially sheds a light on the mechanisms that govern the reality we live in. Take the glows of my mechs for example. Have any of you managed to come up with a grounded, scientific explanation of how they work?"

Everyone fell silent.

"From what I've seen, many mech designers haven't necessarily failed because they are dull and stupid. They can be quite the bookworms. The real issue is that they adhere so rigidly to their knowledge that they aren't willing to consider ideas that fall outside their current understanding! The boldest mech designers aren't afraid of going out on a limb. While they fail most of the time, they only have to succeed once to win big!"

"So you're basically gambling."

"You're partially correct." Ves admitted.

Miles Tovar really couldn't accept such a vague basis for a mech concept! "Have you gone mad?! How is it possible for a smart and brilliant mech designer such as you to rely on something as nebulous as intuition of all things to base your new mech design upon?"

Neither Ves nor Gloriana took any offense of his skepticism. Both of them smiled as if nothing was wrong!

"We have faith that our mech design will work." Ves replied.

Every Tovar looked dazed. Even Ketis reacted with doubt and confusion.

Most Brighters were secularists, and the Tovars were no different! They disdained superstition and didn't really believe in the concept of intuition!

The way they looked at Ves suggested that they weren't sure whether Ves was still a Brighter!

"So we're just going to waste two months worth of time and effort on designing a mech that we aren't sure will succeed in the role it is supposed to fulfill?"

Ves laughed. "I'm not that gullible, guys! I did some research before I came up with this mech concept. Perhaps this explanation is good enough for my girlfriend, but I don't take every assumption at face value. Let me show you something."

He began to manipulate an interface. Soon, the projector lit up and displayed some statistics.

"It was a bit difficult to obtain these figures, but I managed to find a way to obtain some data from the Bright Republic and the Ylvaine Protectorate."

"What are we supposed to look at, Mr. Larkinson?"

The tables displayed a lot of battle-related data. Ves pointed his finger at a specific row.

"Look at the average time that has passed before a combatant manages to kill a sandman admiral."

Ketis and the Tovars each leaned forward.

"According to the graph, the Ylvainans are a bit luckier. They're 16 seconds faster on average."

"Correct!" Ves grinned. "Don't underestimate this 16 second difference! This is empirical proof that the Ylvainans are a bit more capable of intuitively predicting the hiding spots of sandman admirals within their fleets!"

Miles frowned deeper. "16 seconds doesn't sound like a statistically-significant difference. A battle typically lasts for at least half an hour. The Ylvainans also field different mechs and adopt slightly different tactics and strategies against the sandmen. Ylvainan and Brighter mech pilots are also different in their training. There are many possible reasons behind this tiny discrepancy."

"This is also only a single comparison." Vela Tovar added. "Maybe if we have the Vesians or the Reinaldans are even faster in killing the sandman admirals. We just don't know because we don't have access to their data."

"Everything you've mentioned is plausible." Ves charitably replied. "However, I'm still convinced that the difference is a sign that intuition makes a real difference!"

"What makes the Ylvainans better, then?"

"It's because they rely on their faith."

"..."

None of the people present were Ylvainans. Only Gloriana was religious, leaving the rest just as skeptical as before. Nothing Ves had said managed to resolve their doubts on his mech concept!

Ves knew that his idea would be a very hard sell to a bunch of secularists.

"Look, the Holy Soldier is a variant I've designed that specifically inspires faith in Ylvainans. I think that this has stimulated the judgement and intuition of their mech pilots to such a degree that they have become measurably more successful in pinpointing the sandman admirals."

Though Ves kept explaining his views, he failed to convince his design team that he was right.

He was helpless in this regard.

Unlike his subordinates, Ves knew what he was talking about. He did not entirely rely on the paltry empirical evidence he managed to gather to make up his mind about the viability of his mech concept.

Right now, a problem existed where humans were unable to discover the coordinates of the sandman admiral.

Even with his new mech design, Ves wasn't entirely confident that intuition would lead to immediate success.

Therefore, Ves wanted to design a marksman mech that possessed enough capacity to fire a bunch of shots in any direction the mech pilot intuitively felt good about.

Ordinarily, the chance of scoring a lucky hit on a sandman admiral was miniscule! It wasn't worth it for most forces to deploy a bunch of marksman mechs to kill a sandman admiral through relying on pure trial and error.

However, Ves believed that he had a means to increase the chances of killing a sandman admiral without relying on technological solutions!

The key here lay in the Ylvainans.

Only Ves knew that he infused the Holy Soldier design with a mote of spirituality taken from Ylvaine's spiritual fragment.

His original intention was to grant the Holy Soldier a small but noticeable sacred component in its glow.

Ves succeeded in that. The Holy Soldier became an extremely popular mech model in the Ylvaine Protectorate. Almost every Kronon mech pilot expressed deep satisfaction and devotion to the Holy Soldiers because they believed it brought them closer to their faith!

However, Ves had not forgotten about the prophet's ability to predict the future.

Though Ves had long doubted whether the prophet really possessed this ability, he had to admit that the mech pilots of the Holy Soldier but especially the Transcendent Messenger appeared to be remarkably canny in their performance!

The previous Ylvainan raids on the military star systems of the Star Faith Collective showcased the weird ability for the Transcendent Messengers to dodge enemy fire!

The performance of Taon Melin was especially noticeable! His Zeal did not get hit once! Even when the hero mech confronted enemy expert mechs, Taon Melin managed to predict and dodge their shots with ease!

Either Taon Melin had advanced to expert pilot, which was definitely not true, or he somehow gained the ability to anticipate the future!

Though Ves found it hard to accept the latter, he could not rule out the idea that Prophet Ylvaine was extraordinary in this aspect.

By extension, his spiritual fragment should have inherited the same ability!

"The central basis of the Ylvainan Faith is their faith in the predictions of the future. The Ylvainans place prophets in high regard. I believe that centering my marksman mech design around intuition and predicting the future is the best way to assassinate sandman admirals before they do too much damage!"

Miles Tovar looked dismayed. "Doesn't that make this mech design exclusive to Ylvainan mech pilots?"

"Essentially, yes." Ves confirmed. "This mech won't work as well if the mech pilot is not a believer of the Ylvainan Faith!"

This was because Ves planned to make Ylvaine's spiritual fragment as the principal design spirit of his marksman mech!

Ves essentially bet that Ylvaine's spiritual fragment would guide the aim of the mech pilot!