The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3306

3306 /7079

Chapter 3306: Ship of Theseus

Though the work was rather tedious and time-consuming, Ves and the other Journeymen enjoyed restoring their expert mechs.

Not a lot of time had passed since the powerful machines had been built, so everyone involved in the repair and refit operation were still familiar with their designs.

This helped a lot with implementing targeted upgrades. Even so, the Journeymen made sure to limit the scope of their revisions to strengthening the internals. Any other changes demanded a lot more modeling and simulation testing in order to make sure that none of them detracted from the performance of the important expert mechs.

While Ketis spent most of her time on fixing up the First Sword, the rest allocated their time as evenly as possible.

The Riot was in a particularly poor shape, so Ves, Gloriana and Juliet spent a lot of hours slowly putting the expert mech back together.

They painstakingly designed a strengthened internal architecture that made express use of the high-quality exotics derived from salvaged dwarven expert mechs and slowly reconstructed Venerable Orfan's proud machine step by step.

Ves sometimes had the illusion that he was building an entirely new Riot. So much of the mech had to be reconstructed from scratch that it was hard to imagine that it was still the same expert mech that he had initially brought into this reality.

"Ever heard about the Ship of Theseus?" Gloriana asked as she petted Clixie while they took a break.

"Miaow~"

"No."

Lucky had been making himself scarce ever since he got caught eating portions of the Paravad, so Ves decided to push Blinky out of his mind and use his companion spirit as a petting object instead.

Mrow!

"Stay put, Blinky!"

Mrow mrow!

"The Ship of Theseus is a classic thought experiment." His wife explained when she predictably learned that Ves never heard of it. "Imagine a small frigate called the Theseus that has been in use for an extended period of time. Her captain is an adventurer explorer who often flies through hazardous regions. With each completed journey, the Theseus returns to civilization and undergoes repairs. Her hull plating, her propulsion system, her life support system, her FTL drive and every other ship part and system gets replaced over time. Let's say that one century after she initially went into service, not a single original component of the initial frigate is left. Every single part down to the keel has been replaced over the course of her service. Is she still the original Theseus?"

That was indeed an interesting thought experiment to Ves. He understood why it became a classic.

Still, unlike many other people, Ves had a clear answer in his mind. He just needed to look at the current state of the Riot to provide an answer that completely matched how he perceived his own work.

"I think the identity of something is more of an abstract notion than a material quality." He began. "Think about the Shield of Samar. It initially started off as the first production copy of our old Aurora Titan design. Over the course of its service with Venerable Jannzi, we upgraded it four times by my counting. You don't get to evolve a third-class mech into a second-class prime mech without replacing all of the cheap and weak parts that worked fine in the Bright Republic but are wholly insufficient to keep up with the battles we tend to fight these days."

Gloriana looked thoughtful as she lifted Clixie up in order to rub her furry belly.

"Is the Shield of Samar truly the same mech to you, or are you just claiming that to fool Venerable Jannzi?"

Ves shook his head. "I don't joke around when it comes to matters like that. I'm a professional. In my judgement, the Shield of Samar is the exact same mech as before because its living element has always remained the same. I have witnessed it grow from just a regular mech to a formidable prime mech that feels more alive than any other machine. Only the Quint can give it a run for its money, but in terms of age and time progression the Shield of Samar is the undisputed champion. It is the oldest continuous mech in service in our fleet."

His wife looked quite impressed with his statement. "If the Shield of Samar is already this impressive, what will happen to it when it becomes ten years older? A hundred years older?"

"Even I can't imagine how strong it will become." Ves carefully answered. "One of the core principles of my design philosophies is that my living mechs all have an opportunity to grow and evolve into something greater than their initial state. It's the same for humans like us. When we are born, we're so small and vulnerable. Give us a couple of decades, and we can become so powerful and capable that we can lead entire organizations!"

He smiled as he gazed at Gloriana's stomach. His first-born child was developing nicely and was growing spiritually stronger and firmer with each passing day. His future daughter's companion spirit was also developing vigorously.

"There has to be limits to growth." His wife countered. "Humans can't live forever. It's not a leap to assume that mechs can't last forever. Where there is growth, there is also decline."

"You're right. I don't deny the possibility that living mechs only have a limited amount of life potential before they reach their respective limits. None of my mechs are old enough to ever come close to that point, though. I think they can easily last for at least a century as long as they are constantly taken care of, not that this will happen often. It's a lot easier to replace older mechs with newer ones than to expend an exponentially greater effort to renew the same mech all of the time. Even I don't think it is realistic to give the same treatment that the Shield of Samar enjoys to every mech in the Larkinson Clan."

His wife looked surprised at that. "Don't you advocate for the use of sustainable mechs? You once told me that one of my ambitions is to change the way that owners and users treat their mechs. You wanted to move away from people replacing their old mechs and encourage them to stick with them year after year."

"I haven't changed my mind about that, but considering how mechs are used by many different people and organizations, this is not an economical choice for everyone. It costs a lot of money to constantly renew the same mech so that they can keep up with the pace of technological advancement. Every major leap in mech generation entails a thorough transformation in tech, materials and standards. It's a lot easier and cheaper for clients to just replace their lastgen stock with the latest models."

Ves never thought he could convince every single person to embrace his vision. This was also why he mainly set his sights on the premium segment of the mech market and up. Only those who were willing to invest in their mechs were the most suitable target audience for his products.