The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4513

Ves was tempted to wring the Gemini Family and its supporters and ram his demands down their throats!

However, he resisted the impulse. He did not manage to get this far without recognizing the value of diplomacy.

As the unclean whale slowly lost more and more battle strength, the human pioneering groups that had temporarily united together under a single cause were already beginning to show their divisions.

Ves had read many stories in the regional publications about allies and coalition partners falling out due to disputes concerning safety and loot.

It just so happened that the current issue related to both of these issues.

To the people who respected and feared the phase whale race, the unclean whale that had emerged from the depths of the Palace of Shame was an extremely powerful threat.

Phase whales firmly occupied the top of the hierarchy in the Red Ocean. Even a delinquent member of this renowned and poorly understood race could still launch all manner of lethal attacks when it appeared to be in an infirm state.

Everything that Ves had learned during his stint in the System Space had given him a much greater understanding of the strengths of creatures whose bodies carried significant amounts of phasewater.

The locals considered them to be gods for more than just historical reasons!

Now that he had become a qualified exobiologist, he could think of too many possibilities for the unclean whale to hide a lot of surprises. It was impossible for the pioneering groups to control a massive beast that had so much phasewater and biomass at his disposal!

Ves wanted to complete the goal that he had been trying to realize for several months. He spent more time on trying to end the unclean whale as a threat that he could not accept an outcome where he left the job half-finished!

"Minister Shederin." He turned to the projection of his diplomatic leader. "Tell me why the Gemini Family along with the Santana Group and the Lehrer Foundation are so eager to keep this extremely dangerous alien powerhouse alive."

The older man did not need to look up any information to supply his answer. "It's quite simple, sir. None of the leaders who are in charge of the respective fleets are stupid. They understand the risks involved, but the payoff of keeping the phase whale alive long enough until the MTA takes over custody is extremely rich. You should already have an estimate of how many MTA merits we can earn for submitting a living phase whale to the mechers. The value of this particular specimen is even greater because it is a rare unclean whale variant."

This was not the first whale that Ves surrendered to the MTA. The Golden Skull Alliance already received a generous bag of MTA merits and others after the Purgatory Campaign.

Though Ves definitely did not object to the idea of earning millions of MTA merits, he had endured enough risks in one battle.

"What else is motivating those three pioneering groups to vote in favor of keeping this blasted whale alive?"

"The motives of the Santana Group and the Lehrer Foundation are simple enough. They are primarily interested in profit and research, respectively. The Santanas want to maximize their profit, and a living phase whale is many times more valuable than a dead creature. The risk that the Santanas lose all of their mech forces if they have made the wrong gamble is an acceptable risk in their eyes. The Lehrer Foundation is driven by the need to study such a rare and valuable specimen up close in order to understand their biology."

Ves deduced the underlying context of Shederin's words. "Ugh, so the Santanas and the Lehrers won't back off so easily?"

"Don't forget that the Santana Xenoarchaeology Division Fleet and the Lehrer Expeditionary Fleet are treated as the expendable arms of their respective organizations. It is their job to brave danger and incur risks in the hopes that their folks back at headquarters can reap all of the benefits. Their risk-benefit analysis is different from ours because their top executives aren't risking their own lives to secure a massive prize. That alone tends to skew every consideration towards greater risks. I think you should learn from their model."

In other words, if anything went wrong, the Santana Group and the Lehrer Foundation would only lose one of their many fleets!

"What of the Geminis?" Ves asked. "What drives these incestuous twins to take so many risks? They have been pushing us all to attack all this time."

"The Geminis are also interested in maximizing their yield, but not for the sake of money alone. The wealth gained from capturing a living phase whale and obtaining as much alien plunder as possible is likely reserved to fund the expansion of the colonies of the Gemini Family."

"Are you saying the Geminis aren't enough with the star system that they have colonized and wish to found their own state!? That's crazy! There aren't enough colonists who are willing to adopt their unique cultural practices!"

Minister Shederin was not as pessimistic about this ambition. "You would be surprised how many people are willing to abandon their principles and values in the face of a tempting reward. The greater the strength and prosperity of the Gemini Family, the greater the ability to build a regional powerbase. The Geminis have great ambition and think they can succeed as long as they can harvest enough rewards from this venture."

"What is your judgment? Do they have a chance to succeed?"

"They have." Shederin replied. "Their odds are greater than you think. Just look at the Hexers. The Red Ocean is big enough to accommodate all kinds of ideologies and beliefs. By the time the new frontier is filled with so many different human states that the only way to obtain territory is to take it from others, the state founded by the Gemini Family should already have a solid foundation. This is what the Geminis are banking on. The more they invest in their own private kingdom at an early stage, the greater their chance of establishing a successful state. Do you understand now why they are so desperate to secure greater rewards?"

"I do…"

Operation Lighthouse played an essential role in helping the Gemini Family become the rulers of a large and thriving colonial state. This had become such a driving obsession to the Gemini leaders that they were probably willing to take unreasonably risks to earn a big payout!

"The Boojays have yet to formulate an official answer to us, which is telling in itself. We can still make inferences. The Boojays have yet to colonize their own planets. They are currently nomads just like us. They have even concentrated most of their assets in a single fleet. This tells us that the Boojays should not be enthusiastic about keeping the whale alive." _{freewebnσvel.cѳm}

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify