The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3971

Chapter 3971: Pivotal Debate

The current topic provoked a lot of discussion among the Larkinsons in the conference room.

Everyone had an opinion on the important decision of where the Larkinson Clan should establish its first significant branch.

Ves heard a lot of familiar arguments as the proponents of different choices tried to sway the idea that the Larkinson Clan should place its first planetary compound in either the center or the periphery of Krakatoa!

While there was nothing preventing the Larkinson Clan from building its branches in both locations and more, the clansmen still had to choose carefully.

The current state of the clan only allowed for the construction of one major branch. This entailed building a complete manufacturing complex that was capable of producing thousands of mechs a day when operating at full capacity.

This was an essential step to developing the Living Mech Corporation on this side of the greater beyonder gate!

Due to the value and importance of such a massive industrial site, the Larkinson Clan had to make a major commitment and invest a lot of manpower and resources into the compound.

Abandoning a major outpost was not as costly as abandoning an entire colony, but it was still an outcome that the Larkinson Clan should prevent!

This meant that it was extremely important for the Larkinsons to get along with its neighbors and integrate in the local region.

Therefore, the choice of where to build their first outpost was of great significance and largely influenced the friends and rivals the clan would make in the future.

"Our clan is primarily engaged in the business of selling mechs." Minister Shederin Purnesse stated. "Building up relationships with different actors and stakeholders is an essential component to running a competitive business. We should not distance ourselves from the powers that control the markets that we depend upon to earn most of our revenue. Turning Davute into our focal point is the most effective decision we can make to expand our market reach. This port system not only possesses a large customer base, but is also a nexus of many shipping channels that help our mechs get sold in far-flung locations."

"We don't necessarily need to build a massive factory on an overcrowded and expensive planet." Commander Casella Ingvar retorted. "It is enough for us to build a branch office over there that can handle the sales, distribution and support functions of our mech company. Just like the LMC in the past, we can settle on a smaller planet where we can exert more control and deal with fewer rivalries."

"The fees and taxes in a rural star system are much lower as well."

"We won't actually save that much money because it is much more cumbersome to ship in raw materials while shipping out finished mechs. Just protecting the shipping convoys carrying trade goods worth thousands of MTA credits is a large and costly burden! If we center our production in Davute, we can skip all of these unnecessary steps and complete every shipment within hours instead of days or weeks."

Commander Melkor of the Avatars of Myth shook his head. "The price for all of that convenience will be higher than you think. I've visited enough unstable states to see where Krakatoa is going. All of these major colonies have already begun their struggle for regional hegemony. Once they have built up their settlements and infrastructure a bit more, it won't take long before they will start rubbing against each other. It will start with border skirmishes and it will end with total conflicts on the scale of the Komodo War back in our former home! It is much easier for us to pull out of this messy and dangerous power struggle if we are only sitting in the periphery of the zone."

As the Larkinsons continued to voice different arguments, Ves grew increasingly more conflicted. While he had made a preliminary decision, that did not mean he discounted the arguments in favor of the opposite choice.

Both sides raised valid points!

As Ves continued to weigh their options, an elbow struck his side.

He turned to face his angry-looking wife.

"Why aren't you settling for Davute yet?" Gloriana hissed. "It's clearly our best choice! Not only will it be easier for us to produce mechs and befriend other mech designers, we can stay in touch and enjoy all of the advantages of living on a developed planet! Think about what we talked about yesterday. Do you want our clansmen to get cut off from humanity, or do you want to make sure that we stay in touch with society?"

The dichotomy presented by Gloriana reminded Ves of the split between the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance.

Both of them adopted different approaches towards human society.

The MTA chose to establish more channels to it and maintained a more visible presence in the lives of ordinary humans. It was no surprise that the space peasants showed a lot more support to the mechers, but they also depended more heavily on them as well for many problems.

The CFA isolated itself from much of humanity and created their own parallel society. This allowed them to remain unaffected by much of the petty squabbles and other forms of dirty business that went on in human space. However, the downside to that was that fleeters received less support from indigenous humans, which meant that they had to solve all of their problems by themselves!

It was difficult to say whether the MTA or CFA had adopted the better strategy. Both of them were led by extremely smart, wise and competent leaders, so they definitely had their own considerations for what was best for their respective superorganizations.

The Larkinson Clan was nowhere comparable to the MTA or CFA, but if Ves had to make a choice, he would rather move closer to the former than the latter.

Still… if he did so, then that meant that he would be moving further away from his original ideal of keeping his clan out of the dirty power struggles that constantly took place in human space.

He sighed as he swept his gaze around the conference room.

There was no clear majority for either of the options. Support was split down the middle.

Ves noticed that many of the civilians were in favor of settling in Davute while the more militant Larkinsons chose to settle in a rural star system.

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