The Mech Touch novel Chapter 6427

Chapter 6427 Growing Influence

The day of the founding ceremony had arrived.

Scheduled to begin at noon standard time which was still synchronized to the clocks on Old Earth, Ves and every other human knew that history would change forever.

There was no way to stop the rise of the Red Collective anymore. Even if the native aliens or radical terrorists found a way to disrupt the ceremony, the stakeholders would just hold a quieter and much more private inauguration event elsewhere.

Too many people put their hopes and ambitions on the founding of a future rival to the Red Association and the Red Fleet.

While it was extremely unlikely for 'collies', as they had begun to be called, to rival the mechers and fleeters anytime soon, there was always hope for the future.

An extremely important component to speeding up the development and total combat power of the collies was whether the Hunting Association agreed to register itself as a sect at the Red Collective.

Doing so was an explicit act of submission that told the public that the Hunting Association agreed to abide by the regime of the Red Collective.

This was a politically high-stakes game and one that had far–reaching consequences to the future development trajectory of red humanity.

Ves was hardly the only stakeholder of the RC to make an attempt to pull the Hunting Association over to his side.

Other councilors and future high officials had made their own appeals. Ves hoped that they had done a good enough job to finally win the Hunters over when combined with his own risky gambit.

Of course, nobody knew whether the Huntsman or the people he entrusted to lead the Hunting Association agreed to play along.

Ves realized quite well that he had employed a dirty move in his attempt to bring the HA into submission. The rank-and-file Hunters had continued to talk and fawn over his 'leaked' proposal to design a set of 'Mergewater biomechs' that perfectly complemented their hunting habits.

Far too little time had passed for the hype surrounding Carmine mechs to pass. The idea that the Hunters would gain the exclusive privilege to pilot specially-designed Carmine biomechs that could continually grow alongside them in a physically imposing manner.

The imagination of Hunters and other people began to run wild as they imagined all sorts of amazing possibilities. They drew inspiration from old fantasy action dramas where the protagonists piloted similar monster machines that devoured their defeated prey in order to acquire the strength of their former enemies.

The popularity of those old shows not only gave the Hunters ready-made examples to help them imagine their own possible futures when piloting these Mergewater mechs, but also countered skeptics that argued that such biomachines had no value.

In any case, popular opinion among the Hunters decisively backed up the adoption of Mergewater mechs, even if it meant that the Hunting Association would have to bow its head to a greater authority.

Ordinary Hunters did not really have that strong of an attachment to the Hunting Association's independence. They were way too far removed from high-level politics to care about such nonsense. All they cared about was their immediate circumstances.

If integrating the HA into the sect structure of the RC meant they get to pilot the coolest and most awesome Carmine mechs ever, then they would gladly support this proposal!

As such, Ves' move had created a severe misalignment between the interests of the Hunters at the bottom and the leaders at the top. Their diverging visions and interests created the Hunting Association's first real crisis since it had been founded.

If the Huntsman or the other leaders failed to solve this contradiction, then the HA would continue to remain afflicted by dysfunction and a crisis of faith in the leadership of the organization!

The culprit behind this vile and underhanded scheme felt no remorse for what he unleashed.

As far as he was concerned, the Hunting Association failed to adequately address the relationship between Hunters and mechs. This was the organization's own fault, but not really, because how could its leaders ever anticipate that Ves would single-handedly tear down the genetic aptitude tyranny that had plagued humankind for such a long time?

The Hunting Association was far from the first group to grapple with the problems and the ripple effects resulting from the release of Carmine mechs.

Ves had become the great disruptor, whose amazing technologies invalidated everyone's carefully laid plans for the future.

If not for the fact that his inventions strengthened red humanity and help it survive in the long run, a lot more people would have tried to make him dead at the moment!

Shortly after Ves woke up, he continued to browse the news while he went through an elaborate cleaning and grooming cycle.

An entire army of stylists and fashion experts carefully optimized his appearance and dressed him up in ceremonial red robes that caused him to look like a priest of a new and rapidly rising religion.

He even got fitted with a high hat that enhanced his stature and caused people to look at him as a representative of the Red Collective rather than Ves Larkinson the mech designer.

Jovy and Vector briefly visited Ves while a team of experts selected the right jewelry and accessories to complement his stately appearance.

The Coalition of Faiths that he managed to cobble together was not a happy family, but the religious organizations all knew that supporting Ves was the only viable means to expand their own presence in a society that still rejected them to an extent.

The support he gained from people who felt grateful to him for releasing Carmine mechs had already formed another pillar of support.

Although the hype surrounding Carmine mechs would eventually fade once people got used to them in their daily lives, most of them would still hold Ves in high regard.

His recent gambit with the Hunting Association already proved to Ves that he could use his status as the Father of Carmine Mechs to rile up public sentiment against a target!

The Hunting Association was merely his first victim. Ves hoped that this example would successfully prove that he was not a harmless mech designer who possessed limited influence.

So long as other players knew what was best, they should no longer try to provoke him or attract his ire!

"Gavin, have we received any indications that the Hunting Association is ready to give us the formal reply that we have demanded?" Ves asked his personal assistant.

The man shook his head. "Unfortunately, not. We have gathered plenty of clues that Vice Director Talas Redmond and other senior leaders have convened at their regional headquarters throughout the entire night. They are taking the political storm that you have unleashed upon them very seriously. I do not think they appreciate the headaches that you have caused for them. One way they can express their displeasure towards your stunt is to withhold their answer until the last minute. You have set a pretty clear deadline, and so long as they give you an answer a few seconds before the start of the founding ceremony, they will still be able to comply with your demands."

Ves frowned. That was true. He should have set a shorter deadline if he wanted to avoid this annoying circumstance.

This indicated that even if he was able to subjugate the Hunting Association, its leaders would still have no good feelings for him. That was rather bad and would definitely affect his working relationship with them in the future.

He couldn't care about that at the moment. He knew what was important. Compared to pissing off a bunch of high-ranking Hunters, he would rather bring the Hunting Association into the fold of the RC!

At best, he could try to placate the hurt feelings of the leaders in the future by designing custom Carmine mechs for them or something.

Once he secured his seat at the Upper Council, there were lots of ways for him to leverage his newly gained power and authority to satisfy the interests of other groups.

He just had to take into account that he was meant to serve the interests of the Red Collective as well.

And his own interests, of course.