The Mech Touch

Chapter 7000 The Day of Pestilence - CHECK CONTEST IN COMMENTS

If the secession of multiple first-rate colonial states and superstates had already caused a lot of controversy, the return of a very different version of Bridgehead One generated even more shock!

No one expected for the Polymath to exploit the properties of the greater spacetime bubble and turn it into a massive advantage for herself and the red humans trapped inside!

For a little over 53 subjective years, the Bridgehead One residents experienced two generations of peace, stability, growth and development.

They all gained one of the most valuable resources that the rest of red humanity lacked, and that was time!

The Red Three engaged in intensive forms of data analysis in order to verify whether the claims made by the Polymath — or the 'Cybernetic Empress' — were accurate.

The Polymath never spoke any falsehoods.

It was impossible for so much buildup and changes to take place in a matter of days, months or a handful of years.

It would have been helpful to regain contact with the people who were originally stuck in Bridgehead One from the very beginning, but the Cybernetic Empire maintained a travel blockade as well as a communications blockade.

In fact, many analysts doubted whether the galactic net still existed in Bridgehead One. The communications infrastructure would have been completely redundant during the 5-decade period of isolation.

Perhaps the sight of a much more developed version of Bridgehead One may have been a very elaborate illusion.

It was well within the power of the Polymath to weave a star system-wide deception.

However, there were too many indications that the sight was completely accurate.

After the Polymath had made her initial greeting, the mechers and the fleeters scrambled to form a unified response.

Bridgehead One was the original beachhead established by the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance.

The two superorganizations had invested enormous amounts of resources into turning it into an enormous stronghold.

They even went as far as using some of their most powerful means to transport additional stars and planets in an ever-expanding star system!

This not only opened up a lot more room for laboratories, factories and assembly facilities, but also attracted an enormous amount of highly skilled and knowledgeable scientists and engineers.

The Yernstall Central Star Node was much less impressive in comparison. It was like comparing a tiger to a house cat. The Sapphire of the Red Ocean most definitely happened to be the smaller cat!

In order to verify whether the residents of Bridgehead One had truly experienced so many years in total isolation from the rest of red humanity, the Red Three ultimately insisted on contacting their old officers and acquaintances directly.

Short of crossing into Bridgehead One and observe all of the changes up close, this was the next best solution to quickly verify the Polymath's shocking claims.

Many relatives, colleagues and business partners thus received permission to communicate with people that had all grown a half century older.

To many of these people, the differences had become incredibly stark.

"My son… you have grown older than me now. I never expected to see you again in this state."

"You know all of the secrets that I have shared with my best friend. You are either him, or a highly accurate clone or bot that has stolen his guise and memories."

"Lieutenant Stanton, I would like to remind you that you have not only made an oath to serve the Red Fleet. We have yet to discharge you from our service, nor given you permission to resign. We seriously urge you to reconsider your status and citizenship."

People also began to ask the Cybers about how Bridgehead One managed to become so densely populated.

"How come Bridgehead One has grown so large? How many children did you Cybers produce? Did the Polymath force every family to raise a dozen children per generation?"

"Ah, most of us are not natural born humans. They are actually batch humans. The Polymath has worked on the tech and has set up factories that are able to output a large amount of batch humans every quarter. We could have hosted more of them, but we do not have enough farms and other facilities to enable them to live with dignity. Now that we have finally reconnected to the main universe, we can finally rely on trade to expand our population!"

Through contacting the people that had completely forgotten their original allegiances and integrated into the Cybernetic Empire, the rest of red humanity learned that all of the claims turned out to be true.

The Polymath, who previously had been exiled to Bridgehead One due to the transgressions she had made during the First Conference of the Survivalist Faction, ultimately managed to secure a throne for herself.

Nobody could have taken over Bridgehead One and ruled the expanded star system with so little dissent.

The original loyalties of the stranded red humans did not matter. The Polymath had taken the soft approach, as she knew that people's resistance would definitely fade after a generation of continued isolation.

By that time, even the most stubborn of people ran out of patience!

No matter whether they were originally mechers, fleeters, Terrans, Rubarthans or citizens of other colonial states, they all became subjects of the Cybernetic Empire in the end.

The 'Cybers' as they had taken to calling themselves all showed the reason where their empire derived its name.

"Those cybernetic implants…"

"It is challenging to succeed in the Cybernetic Empire." A former mecher now turned Cyber told his friend in the Red Association. "Our entire population has embraced cybernetics as a valid means to improve our work performance. Many of the current lines were originally designed by the Polymath. They have undergone many iterations of improvements since then that have strengthened their ability to dispatch one type of foe much more effectively than the others."

"Why…?"

"We do not have access to the benefits of systematic cultivation." The Cyber shrugged his shoulders. "You see, when Bridgehead One entered the Time of Isolation, the barrier that kept us trapped and enabled us to gain additional years could not alter the amount of exotic radiation that passed through our star system."

"I think I understand. Time may have sped up inside the spacetime bubble, but the amount of E energy radiation passing through your star system remains constant. What actually happens is that your local exposure to exotic radiation has shrunk until it is barely noticeable. The only way you Cybers could keep up is by resorting to implants."

This had a very large impact on the development of Bridgehead One!

It explained why a lot of long-ranged sensor readings detected buildup of advanced but recognizable human tech!

Much of it carried the style and personal touches of the Polymath. If she did not include any significant amounts of hyper technology to their designs, then that was because she was not effectively able to make it useful, and not because she did not like its working principles!

The rest of red humanity quickly figured out why the Polymath had been unable to invent revolutionary applications of hyper materials.

They lost almost all of their E energy needs while residing in Bridgehead One!

How effective was all of this new and advanced tech?

Nobody could say for certain. They could perform a lot of analyses from afar, but without seeing the new high-tech mechs and starships in action, everything remained theoretical.

At least the Cybers missed remained deficient in terms of hyper technology, E-technology and most importantly superdimensional technology.

The interviews also revealed that the Cybers did not produce any new high-ranking mech pilots.

During the entire Time of Isolation, not a single Cyber mech pilot had advanced to the rank of expert pilot, ace pilot or god pilot!

This gave the Red Association and the Red Fleet just enough assurances in their ability to defend against any megalomaniacal takeover attempts by the so-called Cybernetic Empire.

However, it was clear that the Cybernetic Empress did not intend to surrender Bridgehead One to its rightful owners, nor remain neutral in the disputes between different human powers.

The Polymath and her incredibly militarized one system empire had become incredibly powerful wild cards!

The Red Association and the Survivalist Faction urgently sought to bring the rogue Star Designer back into the fold, but none of their communication requests got through.

By remaining silent and unresponsive, the Cybernetic Empress sent a very clear message.

Everyone understood that the Polymath sought to establish herself as an independent power.

With a massive army, the Dominion of Man and possibly a god pilot at her disposal, she definitely possessed the strength to defend her small but incredibly developed domain!

In fact, the Polymath could even take advantage of everyone else's preoccupation with the Red War to annex the neighboring territories!

Not that many ordinary people cared about the threat posed by the returnees.

No matter how much the Polymath and the tens of billions of Cybers under her command tried to establish their independence, they still clung to their human identities.

So long as that was the case, they could never be at peace with the native aliens!

People began to look at the bright side of this development.

Would the Cybernetic Empress dispatch millions of mechs and thousands of warships to the faltering frontlines?

Would she send one of her impressive 'war planets' that evidently possessed the ability to engage in interstellar travel with the help of enormous warp drives?

Or would she be willing to share a modest but incredibly valuable knowledge repository that contained 53 years worth of constant technological progress and evolution?

Any of these actions could not only introduce a lot of hope to red humanity, but also earn the Star Designer-turned-empress a lot of goodwill among the common folk!

The fact that the Polymath already recognized the sovereignty of the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact served as a telling portend of what was to come.

Just as red humanity continued to become more and more engrossed by the secession and the appearance of the Cybernetic Empire, a third explosive piece of news spread across the galactic net on the very same day!

Unlike the previous two occurrences, this one was unambiguously negative!

"A total of 14 star systems located in the territories of the Rubarthan Pact have fallen in record time! 21 more star systems have detected the arrival of enormous swarms of hostile organic life forms, each of which are hostile towards the local red humans! The alien pests are not so much attacking our worlds as they are devouring it like interstellar locusts!"

"Are those… voribugs?! There… there are so many of them! Their variations have also grown more numerous. There are far more than the basic three forms of juvenile, adult and elder voribugs visible in the footage. There is a high likelihood that the voribug race has become subjected to external stimulation that has caused these previously wild and feral aliens to undergo rapid development!"

"Our intelligence gathering operations in alien space indicate that we are far from the only victims of the voribugs. These aliens are hardly paying any attention to us. They have commenced an assault on over a thousand star systems occupied by the native aliens! Each of them are woefully unprepared to repel a surprise attack of this scale and intensity. Without the protection of enough phasefighters and warships, the evolved voribugs are expected to conquer entire alien territories and provinces by the end of this week!"

"This… this is a disaster!"

"No! This is an opportunity! Even if these voribugs are not intelligent enough to understand the concept of diplomacy, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We must do everything in our power to direct the attention of these insects away from human-occupied space. The more we are able to divert them to alien space, the more the Red Cabal is forced to pull back fleets from the Red War and dispatch them to the frontlines of the new war against the voribugs!"

"Everything… is about to change! I cannot keep track of the variables anymore! Too many events are happening on the same day. This is driving me crazy!"

In the end, with the confluence of three massive events, the 102th day of the 4th year of the Age of Mechs came to be known by three different names.

The Day of Insurrection.

The Day of Return.

The Day of Pestilence.