The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2810

Chapter 2810 - Imparting Thought

One of the most important ways to distinguish sentient life from non-sentient life was the ability to resist instinctual behavior.

The main reason why humans were able to dominate Old Earth and rule over every other form of life on their origin planet was because of their capability of higher thought!

Since Ves constantly worked with different forms of spirituality, he began to develop his own thoughts on sentience.

According to his personal understanding, sentience was a higher quality of thinking that Humans were able to defy their instincts.

What did this mean?

It meant that sentient lifeforms were able to resist their biological impulses! This allowed them to pursue greater purposes that instinctual creatures would never be able to perform!

For example, Clixie did not automatically hunt down and eat every pet bird or mouse whenever she was hungry.

Qilanxo was able to get over the fact that the Flagrant Swordmaidens killed her mate, upended her entire life and basically initiated the events that led to the end of Aeon Corona VII’s entire ecosystem.

Ves was able to hold on to his principles and remain honest even when he was presented by tempting offers.

All of these examples and more signified how sentient beings were able to use their higher functioning to override the programming of their own species!

Of course, that didn’t mean that sentient thinking was able to override instinctual impulses entirely. Instead, the two usually maintained a balance. This was a very complicated discussion that was best left to exobiologists and other experts.

What Ves cared about was stopping the saboteur beetles from wrecking the Transcendent Punisher.

As long as the beetles no longer threatened his mech, the ultralight beetle mech lost its strongest offensive weapon!

Ves keenly recognized that this small backup biomech did not possess a lot of solutions. It was more of a glorified mech c.o.c.kpit that was able to fight when the main mech was no longer able to fight.

"Let’s see how I can do this."

If Ves wanted to impart sentience in creatures that were explicitly designed to act as drones, then he had to add something that they didn’t originally possess.

He had to inject them with spiritual energy.

He considered various ideas and decided to try out the simplest solution first.

His Spirituality reached out and tried to affect the beetles. Ves exerted himself a bit more in order to impart spiritual energy into their heads.

Ves had a feeling that most of his spiritual energy strayed away. Hardly any of it ’caught’ on to the beetles, which meant that this was an incredibly wasteful and inefficient process.

However, Ves didn’t care too much. As long as at least a portion of his spiritual energy managed to sink into the nearly non-existent minds of the beetles, then he was able to proceed.

Interestingly enough, his spiritual energy encountered remarkably little rejection. Even non-sentient creatures should have possessed the ability to resist foreign influences, but perhaps there was something about his own Life domain or his affinity with other lifeforms that caused the beetles to lower their resistance.

It could also be that they were designed to obey specific instructions and that Ves inadvertently took advantage of a loophole.

Whatever the case, Ves flooded the minds of the beetles with his spiritual energy.

The moment any of his energy entered their minds, they immediately went to work. Perhaps other forms of spiritual energy would wreak havoc to the mental capacities of the organic products, but this was different!

Ves dedicated his entire career towards fostering synergy. He possessed a gentler domain than other mech designers and he was able to achieve an unprecedented degree of cooperation with many forms of life, whether it was mechs or exobeasts.

The saboteur beetles weren’t all that different from the lifeforms that Ves had cooperated with before.

As his mind touched these simple creatures, he felt a rigid purpose in each of them. Their entire lives revolved around performing their narrow mission.

"How sad."

There was hardly anything in their minds except how to best destroy mechs and other complicated machinery from within!

The only other functions they possessed were all related to their primary mission in some way.

They were able to procreate, but that was only because this made it easier to maintain a healthy stock of saboteur beetles.

The beetles were able to fight against hostile organic creatures or bots if any of them hindered their mission.

The disposable insects didn’t live to old age. Instead, they died exactly 262 days after they were born, because that was the point where their organic functions began to deteriorate. Rather than waste precious space and resources, the older beetles might as well die off and make room for fresher replacements!

Other than that, there was very little about them that signified that there was anything present! Even their eating times and bathroom breaks were regularized according to their biological clocks!

The more Ves learned about the beetles through exploring the essence of their lives, the more he became disgusted at what he saw.

This was not life!

This was a perversion of life!

Even if they were humble beetles, these creatures of life were slaves to their own bioprogramming. Heartless beast designers discarded everything in their genes that conformed to nature and inserted artificial instructions that left no room for free will or independent expression!

While Ves understood the reasoning behind this approach, his heart was very conflicted!

Not everything had to be sentient. Bots were tools that people used to perform specific jobs. There was no reason to impart them with any higher function.

The organic products should be no different, but Ves felt they should be treated differently than bots! _{ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com}

It was a very odd feeling. As a classical mech designer who grew up in a relatively mundane state, he always grew up with the idea that machines should be lifeless. Living critters deserved to be treated with more respect, although no one minded if someone swatted a fly or crushed a bug.

Ves deviated from this orthodoxy by expanding his definition of life to include mechs. In the right circ.u.mstances, machines could become sentient as well, and that had the potential to make them a lot more useful than other products!

Since mechanical machines could become alive, why not organic machines?

It was an argument that Ves hesitated to accept. He did not implicitly reject the notion, but he feared the consequences of embracing it. Continuing with this train of thought would lead to a slippery slope where Ves might eventually consider every object to be alive!

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