The Mech Touch

Chapter 7067 Near-Full Body Augmentation

One of the assignments that Ves accepted was to pick up Saint Isobel Kotin.

The Larkinson ace pilot had lost her entire body during a misguided but ultimately successful attempt to break her limits.

Her entire body got burned, but her upgraded willpower exerted just enough control over the flames to keep them relatively light around her head.

Combined with the modest fortification provided by her willpower, her brain had received minimal damage.

Human technology allowed for people to replace nearly their entire body with artificial substitutes.

No matter whether they replaced their bodies with bioengineered or more mechanical components, so long as anyone could afford the expensive price tags, they could completely upgrade their bodies to superior variations.

During the Age of Conquest, the concept of a human came under repeated attack.

As greedy and ambitious people sought greater power and wealth for themselves, they tried to invest in their improvement in any way possible.

They funded the development of new and more extreme augmentations.

These ranged from splicing alien genes into the human genetic makeup to creating a supercomputer that was designed to accommodate a human consciousness.

Few of these experiments succeeded. Most of them outright failed, while a minority only produced partial or conditional successes.

Many clients did not care. They only paid attention to the results. They accepted the side effects without considering their full implications as they were too busy with climbing up the ranks and outcompeting their rivals and enemies.

Due to this insane demand, the augmentation sector continued to boom. Scientists and developers became flooded with cash and could procure all of the facilities and resources they wanted in order to invent even more extreme but high-performing products.

Back then, their supervision had been grossly inadequate. Many star empires and star nations all maintained different policies. The mad scientists who developed the most extreme but promising augmentations could always leave the places where the rule of law was strong and move to a state where they could kidnap children and experiment on them with near-impunity without getting into trouble with the authorities!

Due to these fractured and inconsistent enforcement patterns, the liberated scientists freely indulged in their fantasies and created many products that produced far more problems than they solved.

The Age of Conquest was a golden age for the augmentation sector. Many of the implants and genetic treatments used by humans to this day could trace their origins during this near-mythical time period.

Unfortunately for many transhumanists and cybernetic enthusiasts, the Age of Mechs kicked off with a complete reversal on all of the rampant augmentation development.

The MTA and the CFA had managed to rise up during an age that was previously dominated by monsters that wore human skins.

No matter whether they were qi cultivators or excessively augmented superhumans, both of them had completely lost all of their empathy, their common sense and their ability to identify with normal humans.

The Big Two sought to eradicate this trend that caused far too many people to lose their humanity in exchange for more power than they deserved to wield in their lifetimes.

Their efforts bore limited success. Their attempts to regulate the augmentation sector forced many scientists and developers to follow ethical rules that they previously treated as worthless.

Their output became heavily restricted as they needed to be much more rigorous in their testing while making sure they stayed away from one of the many taboos imposed by the new regime.

The mechers and the fleeters also initiated a profound cultural change in human society.

Although they were unable to remove the urge to upgrade oneself in order to attain greater intelligence and abilities, they were at least able to reassert the value of being human and make a lot of extreme and inhuman augmentations undesirable.

During the Age of Mechs, the combination of heavy-handed regulation and more subtle cultural influencing led to a sharp retreat of the augmentation sector.

Third-raters rarely managed to get in touch with them. Cheaper augmentations simply did not exist as the risks became unacceptably high when trying to produce augmentations on the cheap.

Second-raters were able to access them easier, but the selection of implants and gene mod templates were largely constrained by laws. Their capabilities were limited and did not generate too much concern.

First-raters and especially the wealthier ones had not been able to get rid of their dependence on augmentations. While the Big Two had managed to get rid of the worst practices and abuses, they were not able to fully restrain the human need to become better.

It was telling that even the mechers and the fleeters themselves relied heavily on augmentations in order to maintain their superiority over other humans.

Since that was the case, the Big Two could never fully eliminate the gigantic augmentation sector.

Even the Chosen Human who exerted an enormous influence on humanity's relationship with augmentations could not overcome the immense opposition against a near-total ban.

Fortunately, most first-raters still valued their humanity to varying degrees. They were unwilling to become inhuman just so that they could raise their performance to the next level.

Full-body replacements and other extreme transformations rarely took place.

They had become entirely phased out by designer babies. Parents hired biotech specialists who methodically planned out the augmentation journey of their next child.

By planning ahead, these experts could not only optimize the selection of augmentations to produce the greatest possible synergies, but also avoid hasty and ill-thought additions that could completely disrupt the mental balance of the designer baby.

The designer baby solution therefore presented the most ideal way for people to undergo augmentation.

While this did not provide an adequate solution to people who were born as baseline humans or those who had experienced a rapid rise or drop in wealth and status, it satisfied most first-raters.

Full-body replacements like the ones implemented on Isobel Kotin were therefore the exception rather than the rule.

As Ves boarded an armored shuttle that took him to an exclusive military hospital and biomedical research institute, he received a brief tour from one of the directors of the large and luxurious facility.

The hospital and related grounds hosted tens of thousands of patients, each of whom were locked in various stages of their recovery journey.

"The Red War is a conflict marked by high death rates." The director explained to Ves as they toured the serene grounds. "You should understand more than I once a mech or warship's defenses are shattered by the transphasic weapons wielded by the native aliens, total annihilation is quick to follow. Those who manage to escape by ejecting the cockpits or escape pods are usually unharmed."

"Usually does not mean always." Ves spoke. "The native aliens have never abided by any formal or informal agreements that prohibit the deliberate targeting of escape vessels. They target our escape pods while we do the same to theirs. We rarely take prisoners because it is too much of a hassle to keep captives that we have no use of. Our hatred against each other is so great that we refuse to entertain any prisoner swaps."

The director grimly nodded. "That is true. This is why there are not many hospitals and recovery facilities that are dedicated to treating injured soldiers. There are many more hospitals that are dedicated to treating wounded but surviving civilians that received a first-hand taste of alien brutality. However, you shall not be seeing any of them here. Wounds suffered by civilians are different from those suffered by soldiers, and mech pilots present an especially difficult challenge to treatment centers."

Ves gazed around the grounds and noted dozens of patients that were healthy enough to spend their time outdoors.

Many of them bore visible signs of wounds and marks of treatment that had yet to be cosmetically hidden.

One soldier had lost a part of his skull and bore a refined but unambiguously artificial metal enclosure in its place.

Another wounded trooper had lost both of his legs, but was currently regrowing them as could be seen from the transparent tanks wrapped around and below the knees. The devices stimulated the regrowth of leg tissue, enabling the soldier to regain legs that would perfectly align to his original physique.

This was a benefit that alternative treatments such as grafting cloned legs or fully cybernetic limbs could not match.

There was even a group of humans that had accepted full cybernetic body replacement treatment.

These people clearly stood out among all of the patients. They all radiated a sense of undeniable strength due to the power of their cybernetic limbs and other parts.

No human hearts beat inside their chests anymore.

The only blood that still flowed through their brains was the small amount that was still needed to keep their original organic brains healthy and functional.

For the rest of the body, small-scale power reactors supplied energy to all of the electronic components that ensured that their artificial bodies remained strong and in working condition.

"Does the current situation of Isobel Kotin resemble these patients?" Ves asked.

"Every patient's circumstance and treatment is unique. We do not believe in standardized treatments." The director responded. "Near-full body replacements for mech pilots has always presented a serious challenge to our staff. The brains of the patients must be retained as much as possible as there is no means of piloting a classical mech with cloned or electronic replacements."

"Is that still the case these days?" Ves asked. "Carmine mechs are available nowadays. I see no reason why those who have undergone more extreme brain treatments cannot bond with a Carmine mech. As long as they still consider themselves human, they should be able to get back into action."

"Our researchers have not conducted the relevant experiments themselves, but we have access to the results of other institutions that have performed the relevant studies. We havec found that it is theoretically possible for patients who have received these brain conversions to still be able to pilot Carmine mechs. In practice, many patients reject this option even if their original brains are in worse condition. Far too many of them value their ability to pilot mechs by relying on their genetic aptitudes."

Ves did not blame these skeptical pilots for clinging to such a notion. Everything was still new. Glitches and failures could happen at any time. It was not wise to gamble your entire career on experimental treatments.

"Saint Isobel Kotin still retains her original brain, right?"

"Oh, yes. You do not need to feel concerned about her. As an ace pilot, she possesses several advantages and disadvantages that make it easier to complete certain steps but also hinders the completion of other steps of her treatment plan. Her original brain is strongly affected by her willpower to the point where it actively resists most artificial modifications and additions. It has been an uphill battle for our researchers to install a cranial implant piece by piece. By stretching out this installation process over several months, we are able to trick the patient's unconscious behavior into believing that little has changed. By taking the incremental approach, we have completed a vital process while giving her fragile brain plenty of time to heal and adapt to the trickle of upgrades."

He liked the sound of that. While it was a time-consuming process to install the implant components piece by piece, the results should definitely be worth all of the effort.

"So does Isobel currently have a powerful cranial implant at her disposal?"

"Yes." The director smiled with pride. "We have partnered with one of our implant development companies to customize a cranial implant for an ace pilot. This is a formidable challenge, as the brain and physique of every ace pilot mutates in different directions due to the unique properties of their willpower and domain fields."

"So every ace pilot requires a custom job."

"Just so, Professor Larkinson. It has been extra challenging to devise a cranial implant for Saint Isobel Kotin as her E energy attribute alignment is strongly biased towards the fire element. The researchers and developers had to experiment with many samples of fire-attributed hyper materials before they found the ones that worked well with the rest of the implant. The inclusion of these hypers also strengthen the patient's ability to sense and channel fire-attributed E energy."