The Mech Touch

Many historians and other experts predicted that the Carmine Revolution may be the crisis that may put an end to the Age of Mechs in the Milky Way.

The Big Two would definitely be the first ones to refute this theory!

The Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance may have been caught off-guard by a crisis nobody saw coming, but they managed to stabilize the situation in the galaxy and prevent their reach and authority from crumbling even further.

When people looked at a map of the Milky Way Galaxy, they would see that the Big Two had lost a huge amount of territory.

If the galaxy was shaped like a pizza, then human space encompassed half of it. Of that half, the crust and much of the outer ring had been cut away from the direct control of the MTA and CFA!

At most, miniscule pieces of sauce and toppings had been left behind that somewhat proved that the Big Two still maintained a light and mostly nominal presence in the star sectors that they had left behind.

However, the wealth and resources of the Milky Way Galaxy was not evenly distributed like a proper pizza.

Much of the delicious toppings were sprinkled at and around the center of the pizza. Cutting away the outer ring might look like the Big Two lost a huge amount of territories, but they all happened to be largely devoid of toppings anyway, so it was not as if the MTA and CFA lost a lot of wealth and power!

In fact, there were those among the mechers and fleeters that actually preferred the new status quo. They always thought of the galactic rim and the more remote parts of the galactic heartland to be a burden.

They were not entirely wrong, as it usually cost significantly more funding and resources to keep the vast and sparse regions of the outer half of the galaxy under control.

Now that the Big Two had gotten rid of this useless burden, they not only shed the obligation to patrol and pacify all of those low-value regions of space, but they could also concentrate their armed forces!

Logistics became a lot simpler for them and they were able to significantly increase the security levels in the territory they still held under their grip.

The Big Two were already taking advantage of their tactical withdrawal from the outer half of the Milky Way Galaxy and relied on the concentration of force to pacify several Risk Zones at a time!

The Carmine Revolutionaries were steadily losing ground that they did not have time to properly secure.

While they had managed to earn a huge initial victory by making the MTA and CFA look weak and forcing them to give up a huge chunk of territory, that did not necessarily translate into a big strategic advantage.

The Big Two possessed immense forces at its disposal. The MTA's mighty god pilots and most of the CFA's uncountable battleships had not yet even mobilized to put down the Carmine Revolution!

The mechers and fleeters still cared for their reputation. It would not look or sound good if they used their most powerful military assets that were meant to crush alien opposition to terrorize human citizens instead!

If not for that, the MTA and CFA would have been able to speed up their reconquest of the Risk Zones and ultimately the Free Zones several times faster!

Perhaps it was not bad for the mechers and fleeters to take their time. Too much had changed in a short amount of time. Many of its leaders were still stuck in the past. Their insistence on returning everything to pre-Carmine Revolution conditions was causing a lot of arguments within their ranks. They needed to clarify their new direction and unite most of their members before they were ready to launch a full counterattack.

In the meantime, the 'Carmine Revolutionaries' were gearing up to defend their gains and make sure the Big Two did not regain what they lost.

This was easier said than done because most of the so-called revolutionaries consisted of disorganized rabble and opportunistic troublemakers!

All sorts of messy people had taken up the mantle of a revolutionary for a variety of ulterior motives.

While there were definitely a lot of strong believers in Carmine mechs among them, it could not be denied that plenty of other folk had sought to take advantage of their momentum!

Already, the galactic net was rife with rumors and sightings of unwelcome visitors from the Cosmopolitan Movement and other known terrorist organizations.

Plenty of other threatening people and groups had mixed in as well! They were just a lot better at hiding their nefarious origins.

The empowerment of gangs, criminals, anarchists, would-be warlords and other unsavory groups led to a deterioration of prosperity and happiness throughout the outer galaxy.

The Free Zones weren't wealthy in the first place. Now that a lot of groups felt unconstrained enough to act on their darker impulses, the lives of many common citizens took a turn for the worse!

Those who lived in weaker states suffered a lot more from this than those who lived in stronger states.

Fortunately, the common folk were not as defenseless as before. So long as they could acquire Auto Heretic mechs, they were quickly able to organize basic militias and defense forces that allowed them to fight against many adversaries that sought to exploit the population of a city or a planet!

Naturally, all of this fighting inevitably led to a lot of collateral damage. The words of the Big Two appeared prescient as the dramatic uptick in mech-scaled violence led to a lot more killing than had ever taken place in recent times!

The Komodo Star Sector was no exception to this rule.

As the star sector where the Father of Carmine Mechs originated, it was home to the strongest Carmine mech fanatics in the Milky Way.

No matter how much the Fridaymen tried to suppress the proliferation of Auto Heretic mechs, the third-raters secretly produced them in great numbers and distributed them everywhere they could.

The Auto Heretic Version C was originally designed with the use of materials that were commonly available in the Yeina Star Cluster, so production of this dirt-cheap model had begun several weeks sooner than in other parts of the Milky Way.

This meant that the Fridaymen were already behind the curve once they noticed the Carmine mechs popping up here and there!

The rapid spread of Auto Heretic Version C's had done what the Hexadric Hegemony could never accomplish.

The attraction of the Carmine mechs had caused much of the third-class population of the Komodo Star Sector to turn against the Friday Coalition!

While it was still too soon for any major uprisings to occur, a lot of people purposefully ignored the Friday Coalition's prohibition against living mechs and the Auto Heretic mechs in particular.

So many third-raters had become Carmine mech pilots in a short amount of time that they were already beginning to harbor greater ambitions!

One region of space where the common folk were gearing up for a fight as the Bright Republic.

The third-rate state would have been forgotten by nearly everyone if not for the fact that it was the birthplace of Professor Ves Larkinson!

It had received vastly greater attention with many Carmine mech pilots and other assorted fans choosing to go on a pilgrimage to the humble planet of Cloudy Curtain.

Cloudy Curtain had already changed beyond recognition. The Sand War that had devastated many third-rate states more than a decade ago had culminated in the scouring of Bentheim.

Once the Bright Republic had been savaged by the sandmen to the point where it lost its main economic engine, the Friday Coalition had reduced it to a client state under the joint management of the Ylvaine Protectorate and the Vesia Kingdom.

This essentially meant that the Bright Republic had become a puppet state to the two third-class lackeys of the Fridaymen!

While the state still existed on paper, everyone knew that the Ylvainans and the Vesians were slowly gobbling up more and more star systems that should have belonged to the Bright Republic.

It was a slow-motion conquest that none of the Brighters believed could be stopped.

After all, the Fridaymen were negatively disposed towards the Bright Republic due to all of the losses caused by Ves Larkinson and the Larkinson Clan.

The Brighters were not willing to lose the state that they and their predecessors had fought to defend for many generations.

However, the losses they suffered during the Sand War and the lack of recovery due to the deliberate manipulations by the Ylvainans and the Vesians had left them with little recourse.

The diaspora of Brighters that had moved to other states were doing their best to make a comeback, but there was only so much they could do with the limited number of people that were forced to uproot their lives and move elsewhere. They lacked the capital and manpower to build up a powerful mech force that could take back their state.

Besides, even if they did succeed in their unlikely rebellion, the Friday Coalition had many ways to sabotage the effort to restore the independence of the Bright Republic!

The Carmine Revolution changed everything.

The Friday Coalition had become distracted and overwhelmed by the uncontrolled proliferation of Auto Heretic mechs.

The Bright Republic had become famous throughout the Milky Way!

Every fan of the newly introduced concept of Carmine mechs had taken the time to learn where Ves came from, thereby causing the state to attract a lot of attention.

When people learned of the effort to restore the Bright Republic, a small proportion of them grew sympathetic enough to lend their aid.

The Bright Liberation Movement, which used to be known as the Bentheim Liberation Movement, suddenly received a lot of donations and other forms of support from all kinds of random third parties across the galaxy!

With the help of the Galactic Gate Network, these benefactors were not only able to donate hard cash which the BLM could use to fund the acquisition of more conventional mechs as well as Auto Heretics, but they were also able to supply serious hardware!

This included surplus starships, heavy industrial equipment and a huge amount of supplies, enough to fight 10 wars!

This not only allowed the BLM to rapidly expand its expatriate mech forces by adding in a large amount of Auto Heretics, but the rebel organization also welcomed the arrival of a lot of sympathetic foreigners!

While the influx of cash, war materiel and 'tourists' also caused the Bright Liberation Movement to become a lot more disorganized, the huge increase in strength and other forms of support had given the rebels a lot of confidence!

"We need to strike while the iron is hot!" A former senior military officer of the Mech Corps argued. "Just say the word, and my men and I will return to the Bright Republic with raised flags. If we can blitz the Protectors of the Faith and the Mech Legion, they will be forced to give up a huge amount of ground, thereby allowing us to gain an immediate foothold into our state. Just say the word, senator, and we can commence our operation right away!"

Former senator Camden Tovar shook his head in disapproval. "Patience. It is not time yet. Time is on our side. Our people have waited years for liberation. They can wait a couple of months longer. The longer we wait, the more support we receive."

Senator Tovar had come a long way since the last time the Tovar Family and the other founding families held the reins of power in the Bright Republic.

After the Ylvaine Protectorate and the Vesia Kingdom took over, the founding families suffered greatly as the foreign occupants sought to dismantle the old power structures!

Senator for Life Camden Tovar found himself stripped of his position and was forced to flee lest he got arrested for trumped up charges.

Not everyone from the Tovar Family managed to get away before they got swept up. This had always been one of the senator's regrets. This was part of the reason why he agreed to become one of the leaders of the BLM and work towards liberating the Bright Republic from its current state of occupation!