The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1954

Chapter 1954 Condescending Mech Design

Mechs didn't possess genders.

Hardly anyone even thought about it. Regardless of whether a mech pilot was male or female, they piloted a machine whether its dimensions resembled a male or female form.

Most mech designers defaulted to a male form when they designed a humanoid mech because that was the optimal standard in most cases.

Of course, some mechs designed to be slim occasionally looked feminine, but that was ordinarily not a major issue to male mech pilots.

These users cared a lot more about the condition and performance of their mechs rather than their gender.

Masculine mechs were generally beefier and tougher while feminine mechs were often slammer and faster.

This was not a hard rule, though. Plenty of mech designers developed female knight mechs and a lot of light mechs strictly adhered to the masculine form.

In short, hardly anyone in the mech industry cared about the gender of a mech.

Only a society obsessed with gender differences made this arbitrary distinction!

Ves knew that the Hexers didn't forbid their males from piloting mechs. That was simply too stupid considering how they would instantly half their manpower pool!

Otherwise, Venerable Brutus Wodin wouldn't be allowed to pilot the Star Dancer in the first place!

With a rival as formidable as the Friday Coalition, the Hexers would be fools to cripple their own fighting strength!

However, even if the Hexers allowed males to pilot mechs and serve in the Hex Army, they predominantly comprise of the lower ranks!

There was not a single 'boy' in the senior ranks of the Hex Army. It was impossible for boys to be promoted to the rank of mech captain or mech lieutenant. Both male and female Hexers agreed that putting any boy in a leadership position should never be allowed!

Therefore, males predominantly comprised the lower ranks of every mech force.

The discrimination didn't end there.

Aside from blocking the promotion opportunities of the lesser gender, the female Hexers also hogged all of the better mechs to themselves!

Gloriana tapped the terminal and projected two different mechs.

"Here are two typical mechs of the Hex Army." She began. "One is reserved for boys and the other is reserved for women."

There was no question which belonged to which. The mech for boys consisted of a large but fairly low-quality knight mech.

Even though it was sizable and incorporated a lot of advanced technology, it was hardly the best representation of the strength of the Hex Army.

It was basically a budget model in second-class terms. The knight mech was still a lot more formidable than any third-class equivalent, but it was very much a mech designed to be cheap and economic!

What grated Ves the most about this mech design was how it implicitly denigrated its intended users.

"This male mech is probably designed by a female Hexer." Ves remarked.

There was no doubt in his tone.

Gloriana sighed. "That's true. In the Hegemony, regardless if a mech is meant to be piloted by boys or women, a female mech designer should always be in charge of the design project! In the history of the Hegemony, I'm not sure if the Hegemony approved of any mechs designed by a boy! You have to know that even Brutus will never pilot an expert mech designed by a fellow male! It's simply unthinkable!"

That shouldn't necessarily be an issue. Plenty of female mech designers were able to design excellent mechs for males.

However, with the mindset the Hexer females adopted, their condescension and disregard for boys was subtly evident in the design choices they made.

The knight mech design that Gloriana used as an example was designed to act as cannon fodder. It combined mediocre exotics and materials into an economically-efficient package that was meant to offer as much protection as possible.

This wasn't necessarily bad, but the defensive mech was significantly poorer in preserving the life of the mech pilot!

First, its armor layout and its internal architecture was meant to make the mech as durable as possible.

The degree of compartmentalization was very high.

Even if an enemy finally breached its armor and felled the mech, enough of the wreck should be able to survive to make it possible to restore it back to functionality after performing restoration work.

However, the degree of redundancy was rather low, and Ves noticed a distinct priority in protecting the power reactor and mech engine over the cockpit!

The meaning of this mech was very clear to Ves. Its designer valued the internal components of the mech design over its intended mech pilots!

This was a very unusual design priority!

In other mech markets, preserving the life of the mech pilot was one of the top three priorities of a mech.

No one wanted to pilot a death trap! Any mech that didn't prioritize the lives of its mech pilots would never be liked by its intended customers!

The Crystal Lord was not only fast, but also resilient. This allowed its mech pilot to deploy it closer to the enemy and enable it to duel opponents with the confidence that its armor would always hold up against opposing ranged mechs! _{freёwebnovel.com}

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