The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3204

Chapter 3204: Ancient Pantheons

Ves navigated the bright and roomy interior of the expansive palace until he reached the double doors that led into Shederin's office.

After passing a routine security check, he entered an office that was much more impressive than his own. Minister Shederin hadn't taken much time to decorate the interior with grand furniture, artful statues, tasteful displays of different territories and the obligatory symbols that stood for different elements of the Larkinson Clan.

Lucky split off from Ves and began to sniff and inspect each and every display piece. He already detected a couple of bugs that he recognized from his time at the Black Cats. As a dutiful friend of Calabast, he declined from snatching them like he did with every other bug.

"Patriarch Larkinson. Welcome to the Golden Palace. I hope it is to your liking."

"It's a bit more extravagant than what I am comfortable with, but I suppose a clan of our size and strength needs to be a bit more ostentatious."

"Just so. Architecture is one of the many levers that we can use to shape the culture and opinions of both clansmen and foreigners. A shabby or functional palace will have a different impact than one that is designed to impress from the start. I imagine we will host many foreign dignitaries on this ship in the future. You wouldn't want them to step aboard the Spirit of Bentheim which contains many of your trade secrets, correct?"

Ves nodded. "You have a good point. While I have taken great efforts to lock up everything sensitive, it is best not to risk it in the first place. Now that we have a place like Dawn City and the Golden Palace, there shouldn't be any reason for us to host foreigners aboard our factory ship. She is first and foremost an industrial ship after all. She was never meant to serve as our functional seat of power."

The inclusion of the latest batch of capital ships provided a lot of utility to the clan. The Discentibus and the Vivacious Wal were already showing why it was worth to expend capital ship quotas on them. While they would doubtlessly become a burden in battle, for now they added a lot of value to the Larkinsons. _{freewebnσvel.cøm}

The only ship that hadn't shown her value was the Andrenidae, but her time would come later. The clan was already taking its time to staff the mining ship and prepare sufficient low-aptitude mech pilots to crew her expansive swarm of mining mechs.

After chatting a bit on how they were doing, Ves soon decided to address the mean reason why he visited.

"Let's talk about the Vulcan Empire. I'm sure that you have gained a thorough understanding of its current state."

"I do. Let us start with a basic rundown." Minister Shederin replied as he sat up from his desk and began to pace around his enormous office.

He reached an active projection that already displayed a map of the Fermi Star Cluster. He tapped it a few times in order to zoom in on the area around the Amswick Star System.

The port system that belonged to the Empire of the Lost was relatively close to the border between the Bertrand Obsidian Star Sector and the Smiling Samuel Star Sector.

"For reasons that I am certain that you are aware of, Smiling Samuel is a closed and isolated star sector. The Vulcan Empire that dominates this star sector does not adhere to a rational diplomatic strategy. Instead, the Vulcanite policy makers prioritize courting other dwarves and dwarven organizations over befriending their closer human neighbors at home. As a result, every other state and star sector in the vicinity either hates or fears this dwarf polity."

"Do the dwarves have any friends at all in the neighborhood? Why do they still maintain a hostile posture?"

"There are no other dwarven states in the region. The Vulcan Empire is all alone and what 'friends' they might have are thousands of light-years away. Every dwarf that could have been persuaded to join or support the dwarven state has already emigrated to it. In my opinion, the Vulcan Empire should have pivoted towards engaging with its neighbors instead, but it is still playing into the hatreds and prejudices of its people."

"If this is the case, why haven't the neighboring states done anything about the dwarves, then?" Ves gestured towards the map.

"There are many theories why. In order to find out the answer, I contacted several notable active and retired diplomats throughout the Fermi Star Cluster. Not many of them were as forthcoming as I wished, but I received enough information to be certain that the Mech Trade Association is secretly guaranteeing the continued existence of the Vulcan Empire."

Ves suspected as much. It was way too suspicious for a band of dwarven rebels to grow to the point where they were able to rally dwarves everywhere and conquer an entire star sector out of nothing. It was even more suspicious that the surrounding human states did not do anything and pretended that it was fine for a huge amount of humans to get slaughtered while many more still lived on in captivity as the dwarves turned the tables on their former slave drivers.

"So all of the rumors on the galactic net are true?"

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify