The Mech Touch

Chapter 6726 Arboreal Project

The collaborative project that they already decided to call the Arboreal Project was not as ambitious as Ves expected.

That was a good choice as the Devos Ancient Clan set aside its typical Terran extravagance.

Master Laila Rebecca Devos and her extensive team had all become affected by the dark clouds generated by the escalating Red War. As the bleak reality settled in their minds, the Devosans did not foolishly attempt to waste their limited resources on unnecessary weapon systems and other luxuries.

Designing a hero mech was a good decision because they could readily use the Everchanger, the Ebony Everchanger as well as the much more powerful Ouroboros as references for the Arboreal Project.

The Woodsap mech was not supposed to be a pale imitation of any of them. The new Elemental Carmine mech had to acquire its own identity and strengths.

However, it was not necessarily problematic to borrow existing homework as long as there was enough of a justification. The mech designers could save a significant amount of time by recycling existing solutions.

After Ves, Lucky and Master Laila moved to an empty design lab, the two mech designers began to hash out their vision for the first proper Woodspa mech design. "The overall theme of the Arboreal Project should center around persistence" Master Laila Rebecca Devos explained her ideas to Ves. "Having watched the archival footage of your clan's operation against the Emperor Tree, we have found that the Ebony Everchanger and other wooden mechs were able to pose significant difficulties to several expert mechs piloted by high-tier expert pilots. The wooden constructs did so despite lacking true resonance, skilled piloting and many other advantages enjoyed by their metallic counterparts. The reason why they were able to do all of this was because they could not be effectively killed by your machines at the time. It took seconds for every damage they sustained to disappear as they regenerated back to their peak conditions."

She was right. The absurd regeneration properties of the ebony wooden mechs and to a lesser extent the purple wooden mechs had given the mech strike force a lot of grief at the time.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that the Ebony Everchanger and so on could put up so much a fight by themselves.

"You have a point, but the conditions to enable this absurd degree of regeneration are harsh." Ves responded as he leaned back on his chair and stroked Lucky's back. "My expert mechs were not fighting the Ebony mechs alone. They were fighting remote extensions of the massive Emperor Tree. The Ebony Everchanger fought more like a spur made of ebony wood. As soon as the Emperor Tree got burned by Saint Isobel Kotin, all of the wooden mechs lost their strong regenerative properties, which proved that this had never been their inherent trait."

Master Laila Devos smiled. "This is why we have started a parallel research project. We believe we can vastly promote the endurance and the staying power of Woodsap mechs if we enable them to fight in proximity to a construct that resembles the Emperor Tree. After consulting with our own resident cultivation scientists, we have developed a promising proposal that will complement the Arboreal Project."

She activated a projection that displayed a tree.

Yes, a tree.

Ves waited for a few seconds. "Is this... supposed to be anything special?"

"Ahem, the projection does not do our proposal justice. This... is a highly inadequate representation of a Gaia Tree."

Ves sat up straighter when he heard that. "A Gaia Tree?! Wait, are you trying to develop trees that are blessed by Gaia?!"

"That is correct." Master Laila smiled. "We have already conducted experiments on the Ebony Everchanger where we exposed the mech to Gaia's glow. The interaction between the two produced positive results, so much so that we have already concluded that their compatibility with each other is extremely high. This has led us to begin the development of what currently only exists in theory. The general premise is to develop a new sort of tree that is inherently connected to Gaia. This will allow us to rapidly grow these Gaia Trees on a large scale. Once the special trees have reached maturity, we will transplant them into their own heavily armored and climate controlled containers and drag them onto the battlefield. Their primary purpose is to serve a similar purpose to the Emperor Tree back when it was alive."

This... this proposal had a lot of promise. Even though it sounded crazy to drag trees out onto the battlefield just to serve as additional support for Woodsap mechs, it could truly work as long as the Gaia Trees could truly substitute for the Emperor Tree! Ves looked at the projection of the seemingly plain-looking tree with much greater interest.

"I see. Are the Gaia Trees made out of TE Woo?"

Master Laila Devos nodded. "That is the plan. It will be resource intensive to grow enough trees to support the operations of our Woodsap mechs for multiple years, but this is the sacrifice that we need to make if we want to raise a large force of biomechs that can outlast nearly any enemy force. The Woodsap mechs will become nearly unkillable under the most favorable conditions, allowing them to win the battles of attrition that the native aliens favor so much"

That was an excellent argument. Ves actually looked forward to turning the tables against the enemy.

As far as he could surmise, the Gaia Trees should be able to support the Woodsap mechs by feeding both wood energy as well as TE Wood to damaged biomech for as

ong

their resources lasted!

If the battle became too intensive, then there was a real risk that the Gaia Trees would exhaust themselves even if they were blessed by a True God.

There was only so much TE Wood available, and Ves did not believe that Gaia could convert enough energy to produce large amounts of this highly valuable organic

material on the spot.

This was why the Terrans needed to grow these Gaia Trees in advance.

Their tree trunks directly equated to their energy and material reserves.

The smaller the trunk, the less resources they had left to support the regeneration of damaged Woodsap mechs!

There were very obvious problems related to dragging trees onto the battlefield, but Ves was sure that the Terrans could easily solve them in multiple different ways.

They could deploy stealth fields that could hide the trees and their large containers from enemy detection.

They could also escort the Gaia Trees with defensive mechs that could deploy large azure energy shields around the critical assets.

A more elegant solution would be to design a large biomech that also doubled as a

'Gaia Tree"!

It would be best if it reached the size of a juggernaut!

Whatever the case, the Terrans should be able to figure out how to develop Gaia Trees and how to deploy them safely on the battlefield by themselves. There was no need for

Ves to intervene.

He focused his attention back to the Arboreal Project.

"If our Woodsap mechs can truly fight in the presence of these Gaia Trees, then that will vastly increase their combat power, Being able to drastically decrease their casualty rate means that as long as there is enough wood energy and TE wood to spare, the biomech units will always remain at full strength. They will not steadily become less and less effective as they lose numbers over the course of a battle. The longer a fight drags on, the greater the disparity in numbers between our Woodsap mechs and the enemy units."

This could make a huge difference under the right circumstances!

The biggest threat to Woodsap mechs was getting targeted by weapons that were

nowerful enough to blow them un at once

This could range from getting struck by the primary and secondary gun batteries of larger warships, transphasic missiles, or direct attacks from phase lords. The presence of Gaia Trees would not magically make the Arboreal Project invincible, but it would vastly increase the survival rate of the Woodsap mechs! This would especially become important once the Red War took a bad turn. If the mech forces of the Terran Alliance fought so many battles that they had lost too many machines, they may not be able to replenish their numbers in a short amount of time.

This could embolden the native aliens and encourage them to intensify their offensive, thereby giving the Terrans less time to recover!

Fielding Woodsap mechs that had a much better chance to survive a battle regardless of whether it ended in victory or defeat could mitigate this problem!

The only resources that would get expended after every battle were Gaia Trees, but

they should be much easier to mass produce and replenish as they had little to no technical content.

Ves and Master Laia Devos continued their discussion on the vision and direction of the Arboreal Project in light of the development of these so-called Gaia Trees. The choice of hero mechs made better sense as the Woodsap mechs did not necessarily need to pile up on thicker armor.

Additional defenses were certainly welcome, but they weren't entirely necessary as a first-class biomech of this caliber was already capable of withstanding a lot of powerful attacks.

As long as there was enough protection for the cockpit, the Woodsap mech should be

able to restore to its original condition fairly quickly in the presence of a Gaia Tree!

"This is a completely different approach to mech warfare." Ves remarked. "I have heard about mech doctrines where mech forces brought support units along that constructed temporary fortifications and supply depots on the battlefield and such. The creation of a dependency relationship between the Arboreal Project and these Gaia Trees is practically the biotech implementation of this concept." "That is a good comparison. We are trying to tip the scales in our favor by manipulating the environment to our advantage. If we were fighting the native aliens a decade or half a decade ago, then it wouldn't have been necessary for us to resort to such tedious strategies. Now that we are being driven back by increasingly more focused and technologically advanced alien fleets, we have no choice but to resort to measures that we previously thought were beneath us. This is the mindset that humans during the Age of Stars and the early years of the Age of Conquest adopted. It is what we must return to if we wish to survive the Red War."

The Arboreal Project held great significance to the Devos Ancient Clan and potentially the Terran Alliance as a whole.

It was hardly the only project the Terrans relied upon to find their 'holy grail', They were desperate for a killer solution that could reverse the losing trend and allow the Terrans to push back the native aliens.

Ves did not forget that the Terran Alliance fared worse than the Rubarthan Pact so far. The former was only protected by a single god pilot while the latter enjoyed the

protection of two god pilots.

This had massive consequences for the Terrans as their colonial superstate had clearly been identified as a potential breakthrough channel by the Red Cabal! While the Red Fleet had taken the initiative to support the Terran frontlines by dispatching several dreadnoughts, their threat level was undoubtedly lower than that

of god mechs.

Dreadnoughts were slower, less damaging and more easy to track and circumvent. Their deterrence was considerably more limited, especially since none of the ones deployed in the frontlines had been converted into Carmine dreadnoughts.

The Terrans disliked the fact that they had to rely on the charity of the RF to prop up

their borders.

It was no secret that the Terrans were hoping to take advantage of the rapidly

changing geopolitical landscape to fight for independence.

However, if they wanted to prove to themselves and others that they were ready to

form an independent and sovereign star nation once again, then the Terrans needed to prove they were strong enough to defend their own territories!

The Arboreal Project may be able to facilitate their ambitions!