The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3918

Chapter 3918 The Transhumanist ldeal

Ves was deeply impressed by Master Dervidian's ambition!

Turning integrating phasewater in the human body was both an extreme and impressive goal!

He could not imagine what people were capable of once they replaced the normal blood in their bodies with an upgraded variety based on phasewater!

Of course, such changes should not be limited to blood alone. The rest of the human body had to undergo an extensive series of adaptation in order to survive with such dangerous material running through their bodies.

Perhaps at the end of it all, the transformed humans would have more in common with phase whales than baseline humans!

As Ves thought about all of the implications of this ambitious research project, he suddenly recalled that Master Dervidian had yet to supply him with a direct answer to his previous inquiry.

"Master, I am highly impressed with your research direction." He spoke up. "However, this still leaves me with the question of what this has to do with mechs. It sounds to me that you are more engaged in human augmentation than furthering the state of mechs."

This was a rather bold statement, but Ves really wanted to understand the greater context behind the MTA Master's work.

"My work is not as unrelated to mechs as you think it is, Mr. Larkinson. The work we do in miniaturizing many different technological functions to the scale of a human is a major challenge. Oftentimes, we can only scale down powerful tech so that they can be fitted onto mechs. This allows us to test our progress and study our products before we can shrink them down even further. Our work on minidrives is a good example of this. Even if our end goals are different from other mech designers, our contributions to the mech industry are just as great!"

Ves nodded. He accepted this argument.

It wasn't enough, though. He felt that there was more behind this story.

"You don't have to go through all of the trouble learning how to design mechs if you want to develop human-scaled implants. Why is it so important for people such as yourself to invest in mech design?"

The Master paused for a bit as he thought whether he should provide a more complete answer. Eventually, he decided to be more forthcoming.

"This relates to a profound philosophical stance. Let me summarize it as much as possible. As I have explained before, mechs mirror the human body for a reason. To Transhumanists like myself, the mech is not just an intermediate form between large and powerful technological platforms such as warships and the small and weak forms of humans such as you and I. The mech has a greater meaning, one that I think that may be far more relevant to your work than you think."

"Oh?" Ves grew curious. "In what way, Master?"

"I have learned that your design philosophy is working towards making mechs 'alive'. Up to this point, you have succeeded in creating mechs that fit certain definitions of this word. How much do they have in common with humans?"

Ves didn't expect that this deep topic would suddenly turn towards his own work, so he quickly had to gather his thoughts and offer a reply that would satisfy a Master Mech Designer.

"My living mechs… are far apart from humans. It was never my goal to make them more human. To me, the human race is unique and should stay that way. The living mechs that I have designed and nurtured have indeed taken after the humans that they interact with on a daily basis, but they ultimately make up their own separate species. If my living mechs aren't so intricately connected to humans, they would probably turn into completely different forms of life."

"Interesting." Master Dervidian said with obvious interest in Ves' answer. "Your answer is more sober than I anticipated. It is good for you to maintain a restrained and conservative perspective towards your own work. I am afraid that mech designers with more delusions and less self-control might gain a god complex due to their inflated thoughts about their achievements."

"I'm still a Journeyman. How can I have the capital to think that I have already succeeded at my stage?"

"Well said, Mr. Larkinson. Your living mechs are of considerable interest to certain groups within our Association. There are also other groups that feel threatened by them. The existence of living mechs raises questions that can evoke both fear and hope."

Ves grimaced. One of the reasons why he wanted to stay away from the MTA was because he didn't want to get caught up in this argument, but as he and his work became more prominent, it became harder to avoid this collision.

He wasn't too worried, though. If the MTA really had a problem with letting mechs gain self-awareness and even a bit of control over themselves, then the mechers would have stepped in a lot sooner.

Besides, Ves had met the Polymath in person and managed to win her over to an extent. With the backing of one of the top figures of the MTA, he doubted that the authorities would deliberately hinder his current research direction!

"How do Transhumanists such as yourself view living mechs?" Ves lightly asked.

"Your work is not yet widely known to our faction, but in my personal opinion I am pleasantly surprised by them." Master Dervidian smiled. "You see, their existence and their apparent traits already confirms a number of my hypotheses about transhumanism."

Ves wanted to scratch his head when he heard this answer. What did mechs have to do with transhumanism?

"I do not follow…"

"What are the differences between a mech and a human?"

"There are lots of differences between them. They are two completely separate existences." Ves replied.

"What are the differences between a living mech and a human?"

"Uhm… there is still a huge gap in between them, Master. It's just that living mechs are a bit closer to humans than before…"

Ves grew suspicious at this line of questioning. After a bit of thought, he suddenly came up with a radical suggestion!

"You… are you treating mechs as if they are human?!"​

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