The Mech Touch

Chapter 7441 The Green Belt

Many people genuinely felt impressed by how quickly and easily the Woodsap mechs could reverse their damage in the field.

While the mech industry had developed many comparable solutions in the past, many of them came with their own set of complications.

Self-repair systems for conventional mechs not only took up a large amount of capacity, but also possessed an inability to repair particularly sophisticated pieces of high technology. They also expended their reserves of specialized materials rather quickly.

Biomechs fared a little better in this aspect, but their main bottleneck was energy. The organic machines often possessed superior recovery capabilities, but ran out of juice a lot faster in general.

The prototype Woodsap mechs did not magically solve all of these problems, but effectively addressed many of the associated pain points.

Master Laila Rebecca Devos specifically mentioned the word efficiency for good reasons.

On their own, the Woodsap mechs showcased their ability to recover from serious damage while draining half their energy reserves.

The cutting-edge biomechs relied on the latest advancements on hyper technology and E-technology to raise the consumption of E energy as much as possible.

Why?

Because ambient E energy radiation was 'free'!

The more the Woodsap mechs relied on exotic radiation to fuel their regeneration, the less they drained their more conventional electrical energy reserves. This allowed them to fight for a longer period of time.

"Out of all of the first-class hyper mechs and biomechs released in the Terran Alliance, I can state with certainty that none of them can match or exceed the E energy utilization rate of our new Woodsap mechs." Master Laila Rebecca Devos proudly boasted. "The biomechs you see before you should not be treated as simple products that happen to incorporate hyper materials in their construction. They are living organic constructs that not only possess their own souls, but are intricately connected to their pilots, our god as well as the blessed environment around us. Our Woodsap mechs are designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the possibilities granted by the Age of Dawn."

This did not sound too remarkable. Many mech designers adopted similar goals shortly after the Great Severing occurred.

Yet their results only achieved tentative results so far. Their familiarity with E energy was not high. They had too little time to build up their understanding of hyper technology and E-technology from scratch.

While Ves had no doubt that these clever mech designers could eventually build up their accumulation to the point of being able to design hyper mechs that could match the performance of the first generation of Woodsap mechs in this aspect, that would take too much time.

Compared to these ordinary mech designers, Ves not only possessed an extensive head-start in this field, but also enjoyed other advantages, many of which happened to be rare or unique!

Aside from that, the Terrans were no slouches in this field either. The Terran Alliance had truly put a serious effort into recruiting their best and most relevant experts to contribute to the Arboreal Project.

Perhaps this came at the cost of stalling the development of smaller and more private design projects, but that was a price that the Terran Alliance were readily willing to pay!

No project was more worthy to receive their best efforts than the first advanced Carmine mech exclusive to the Terrans themselves!

"The results attained by the Arboreal Project cannot be reproduced so easily." The Master Mech Designer of the Devos Ancient Clan emphasized. "Our Woodsap mechs are not only the recipients of our cutting-edge R&D, but also possess a direct channel to the divine. No matter what you surmise of Gaia, her powers as a deity are not false, and she readily grants her protection to our unique brand of biomechs. Other comparable products cannot compare."

The benefits of Gaia's blessings encompassed many aspects. It would take too long for Master Laila to explain them all, so she did not even attempt to do so. It was enough to mention it and allow her audience to fill in the gaps themselves.

"What is important to remember is that our Woodsap mechs require no special methods or preparation to utilize her blessings. It is helpful if every Woodsap mech pilot is a worshiper of Gaia, but we do not insist on it. The machine is more than enough to do all of the heavy work. This is the strength of living mechs."

This preempted a very serious problem, which was the question whether the Terrans should embrace religion.

Even the Terrans never formed a consensus on this contentious subject matter. Although a majority of them held the opinion that they had advanced their civilization beyond the point where they still had to depend on 'superstition', the Terrans still maintained large communities of believers in the old faiths.

The Coalition of Faiths actually maintained a strong presence in the Terran Alliance.

The Diocese of New Rome, the Brothers and Sisters of the Cross, the Seekers of the Promised Land and the Neo-Crescent Faith and many other religious organizations that could trace their roots back before the Age of Stars actually established their headquarters in Terran Space.

This should not be a surprise. The Terran people and culture most revered old traditions, and none could boast traditions that were older than the churches

of the human race!

The Coalition of Faiths experienced greater difficulties in expanding their reach in the other territories of the new frontier.

The Rubarthan people possessed a much more individualistic and materialistic culture. They often considered themselves to be more modern and forward-looking than the stodgy Terrans, and therefore favored secularist

values a lot more.

Besides, the Rubarthan Imperial Household often regarded organized religion

as a challenge to its authority.

Its state organs often employed both overt and covert measures to weaken the influence of faith as much as reasonably possible.

As for the Red Ocean Union, it went without saying that the mechers and the fleeters considered faith and superstition as poison. The rise of the Red Collective may have softened strident secularist leanings, but their suspicion towards anything that vaguely resembled the Five Scrolls Compact never disappeared.

In short, out of all of human-occupied space, the Terrans and their subordinate people provided the most fertile ground for Gaia's church.

Although many Terrans still remained skeptical towards this upstart 'god' that seemingly came out of nowhere, once the Woodsap mechs began to showcase their might on the battlefield, Ves expected that many people would come to appreciate her existence!

He himself had very mixed feelings about this future development. He did not begrudge Gaia for acting proactively to spread her worship among the Terran people. He just felt uneasy about exchanging their belief in the strength of humanity for belief in the strength of their god and the 'blessed' elven race. Nonetheless, Ves reminded himself that this was not his business. What the Terrans did with Gaia was their own business.

"There is greater depth behind the regenerative capabilities of our Woodsap mechs." Master Laila Rebecca Devos spoke. "Our new biomechs are not designed to work in isolation. Instead, they function as part of a greater combat

system."

To emphasize her words, the giant tree-shaped space station began to shift one of its massive 'branches"!

A large leaf that simultaneously served as a platform rotated around until it stopped a short distance away from the Woodsap mechs.

The atmosphere-contained surface of the leaf was covered with soil, foliage and exotrees of various different species. None of them appeared to be Gaia Trees, yet radiate life of their own.

The Woodsap mechs briefly attacked each other again in order to purposefully

damage their frames.

They then proceeded to descend and approach the nearby flora.

What happened next was astonishing!

The Woodsap mechs actively absorbed the life out of the surrounding plants

and trees!

All of the vitality locked within the seemingly ordinary plants got sucked away. Leaves grew brown while tree trunks became brittle.

As the foliage started to fall from the branches, all of the wood energy and other energies surged into the biomechs as if they were sponges!

In fact, the hungry Woodsap mechs absorbed more than pure energy. They

also extracted bits and pieces of biomass to patch up the holes in their mech

frames! Though the unconventionally repaired parts clearly looked off, they still improved the conditions of the damaged biomechs in the absence of better

solutions!

"What you have witnessed is one of the most important defining traits of Woodsap mechs." Master Devos spoke with pride and satisfaction. "Our Arboreal Project combines both biotechnology and E-technology to produce a compound mechanism that effectively enables our works to draw upon any source of nature to replenish themselves. They can recharge their energy reserves by draining it from the forests of any nearby life-bearing planet or space garden. They can partially repair the physical damage that they have incurred, though there are limits to this capability. The Woodsap mechs designed for elves are especially good at this. Their conversion rate is higher and can slowly regenerate TE Wood out of inferior materials."

This had massive implications. Many mech officers quickly figured out how they could exploit this advantage, assuming that Master Laila Devos told the

truth. The Master Mech Designer smiled wider. "These traits provide our Woodsap mechs with added strategic value that is unmatched by other mechs. In

defensive battles, we can center our lines around planets that are filled with an abundance of life. No matter whether their ecosystems are native or terraformed, every forest is able to serve as an enormous and easily

replenishable energy reserve and supply depot. Almost every organic component of our Woodsap mechs can be autonomously repaired by the biomechs themselves. They can sustain themselves in the field with minimal logistics and support structure if necessary, thereby freeing a large amount of manpower and assets that are better spent elsewhere."

Though it sounded a bit extreme, this could truly turn into a viable approach! Normally, mechs could never truly operate by themselves.

Most of them could not even travel to other star systems unless they had been

mounted with minidrives, which most groups considered an extravagance for standard mechs.

Essential services such as maintenance, repairs, resupply, storage and piloting services all required the support of dedicated personnel and facilities. When stretched across a lengthy front, these necessities imposed a huge burden even at the level of the entire Terran Alliance. Developing a new biomech that did not demand all of those services could

make a major difference in the ongoing wars.

Even

if the Woodsap mechs operated at a reduced level of effectiveness if they

were operating by themselves, the new possibilities still opened up a lot of flexibility!

A star map of the Terran Alliance projected in front of Master Laila Devos.

The woman dramatically raised her arm and swiped her hand through the contested border regions!

Her gesture left behind a glittering green trail that illuminated the front under pressure!

"In order to transform our frontlines into an impregnable wall that can repulse alien aggression for many years, we have decided to construct a 'Green Belt' along our current front! At least one life-bearing planet within strategically placed star systems will be turned into natural strongholds and mech bases for

our growing number of Woodsap mechs. If no life exists within those locations, then we will rapidly terraform a globe to complete our Green Belt. Soon, millions of Woodsap mechs will garrison those sites and serve as the backstop

that the aliens can never pass by. Even if we must extract the last drops of vitality from our planets, the Terran Alliance shall stand!" Many Terrans cheered at this declaration!

The Green Belt sounded exactly what the Terrans needed in these difficult

times! They needed to hear that their leaders enacted proactive measures to strengthen their frontlines and repel the aliens.

Given what they had just witnessed, many of them already built up a lot of expectations towards the Woodsap mechs!

So long as the Terrans managed to produce them in enough quantities, the Green Belt could easily turn into reality!