Chapter 7409 The Potency of Woodsap
Chapter 7409 The Potency of Woodsap
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The Arboreal Project already promised to become a line of groundbreaking products due to the combination of the Woodsap System and the Hibiscus System.
The former eliminated the need for a compatible genetic aptitude.
The latter removed the need to learn a large amount of specialized piloting skills.
This effectively turned the Arboreal Project into the right solution at the right time.
As long as the Terran Alliance could afford to produce enough Woodsap mechs, they could easily mobilize hundreds of thousands if not millions of biomechs whose performance came quite close to matching that of regular first-class mechs!
Although early testing already revealed that norms that lacked formal mech piloting training could never match the rigor and precision of real mech pilots, the gap between the two was not as big as everyone feared.
Even if Woodsap mech pilots could only be half as effective as proper academy-graduated first-class mech pilots, that was still a positive outcome from the perspective of a large star empire!
Let alone converting elite infantry soldiers into Woodsap mech pilots, the Terran Alliance also thought about turning low-aptitude mech pilots into the same!
Though few people liked to talk about it in the open, the truth was that many potentates actually possessed disappointing genetic aptitudes.
Once they learned that they lacked the talent to flourish on the battlefield, most young potentates painfully gave up on attending a mech academy and chose to pursue more mundane careers.
However, there was always a small but stubborn group of stubborn mules that persisted in becoming mech pilots.
Even if they had no choice but to attend inferior mech academies, their willpower and determination often attracted admiration.
Not that it made much of a difference in the end.
Their theoretical scores may be high, but so long as their practical scores hit a low ceiling, no one felt eager enough to entrust them with responsibility in a real engagement.
Such mech pilots rarely got hired as a consequence.
While many of them tried their best to make themselves useful by specializing in mech command or choosing to pilot industrial mechs, it was very difficult for them to gain a chance to fulfill their dreams of becoming proper fighters.
Carmine mechs and the upcoming Woodsap mechs offered a brand new opportunity to them. For the first time in their lives, they gained the ability to pilot real combat mechs without getting held back by their disappointing genetic aptitudes!
This not only meant that they could make proper use of their decade-long academy training, but also put their superior willpower and discipline to good use!
Pilots forged from adversity always had a higher chance of breaking through!
While many members of the mech community understood this simple truth, few people wanted to invest in low-aptitude mech pilots.
Their superior mentality made them desirable, but if they could never unleash more than 20 percent of their potential due to being held back by their inability to smoothly control their own mechs, then what was the point?
Many parties had experimented with trying to promote the breakthroughs of low-aptitude mech pilots over the centuries.
The effort never paid off.
In practically each and every case, the low performance of these low-aptitude mech pilots served as an enormous drag for any mech unit.
There were rare cases when these low-aptitude mech pilots successfully broke through and overcame the limitation of their low genetic aptitudes by transcending their mortality.
Yet the probability of this happening was so low that the payoff could never make up for the investment. The math simply did not make sense.
This time was different.
It did not escape the notice of the Terrans that Carmine mechs and more importantly Woodsap mechs had the potential to effectively negate the single most important factor that held them back!
For this reason, the Terrans had already approached a batch of mech pilots with C, D and in a few cases E-grade genetic aptitudes and convinced them to take part in this great experiment!
So long as the outcome was successful, these once-demoralized mech pilots could finally unlock their potential and compete fairly against the peers they once envied!
However, no matter whether it was norms or low-aptitude potentates, both of them still faced a harsh requirement.
Physical augmentation.
Both baseline and regular augmented humans could never pilot a Woodsap mech under normal conditions.
The special tree sap that flowed through the veins of the Woodsap System was pure poison to most humanoid physiques!
The only way for a human body to tolerate this toxic substance was to accept radical biological modifications.
Last Ves checked, the test pilots who had volunteered for the experimental processes had successfully gained compatibility with the Woodsap System, but tragically lost parts of their humanity in the process.
He grew curious about whether the Terrans had made any progress in mitigating this serious issue.
The projection of Master Rebecca Laila Devos maintained a neutral expression. "We fully realize the importance of solving this problem. We have allocated more top researchers to this subproject and tripled their funding. It is too much to expect them to produce an acceptable solution in so little time, but our investment has not been in vain. They have already developed numerous improvements to the process that have yielded significantly more positive results."
She transmitted a video file that displayed the state of the latest batch of test subjects.
Compared to the earlier batches, the new crop of Woodsap mech pilots did not display as many tree-like aspects.
They looked a lot more like normal humans, though their hair still contained branches and green leaves.
When the test pilots moved around, Ves paid close attention to their nimbleness and reaction speed.
"They no longer behave as literal half-plants anymore." He said. "That is already an enormous improvement in my opinion. While it is clear that they are still affected by their extensive changes, I don't think that this level of debilitation is unacceptable. They move like aged pensioners."
"Which is still unacceptable." Master Rebecca Devos sternly responded. "Woodsap mech pilots are meant to represent the might and prestige of the Terran Alliance. We do not demand total perfection, but we insist that they meet a high standard regardless. Every test pilot has been carefully selected based on fitness and other criteria. They are all supposed to be at the peak of their physicality within their current age brackets. The operations are not meant to impair their health by any means. These biological shortcomings must be solved as much as possible before the day we debut the Arboreal Project."
Good luck on that. Ves might not possess a deep understanding of the science behind human augmentation, but he still believed that humans must always pay a price to gain compatibility with Woodsap.
The white, milky substance was simply too harmful and alien!
Woodsap contained a strong concentration of life and wood energies. It also contained hundreds of strange and exotic molecules, many of which possessed specialized functions that could not be removed without impairing the effectiveness of the original substance.
As a life liquid derived from the Emperor Tree, Woodsap was a higher order substance that was much more powerful than ordinary human blood.
This was the source of a Woodsap mech's strength as well as the catalyst that enabled Woodsap mech pilots to exert power far beyond regular Carmine mech pilots.
Ves looked forward to observing and studying the differences between the two groups in person.
The early tests already showed massive differences, but he knew that there was more to Woodsap mech pilots than what the Terrans could measure with their high-tech instruments.
"Perhaps it is not my place to judge, but I do not think that most people will mind that the first-generation Woodsap mech pilots behave a little oddly in comparison to normal Terran citizens." Ves ultimately said. "I doubt that your researchers can produce any further optimizations quickly after they have addressed all of the low-hanging fruit. I think it will require a much more dedicated effort to truly retain all of the humanity of our Woodsap mech pilots. I think it may be better to postpone this goal for the second generation of Woodsap mechs. We should not aim too high."
Master Devos clearly looked like she disagreed, but she did not contradict him openly. "We will consider it after we have observed the situation for a couple more weeks. The top researchers should not be underestimated. Our biotech sector is much greater and more formidable than that of other human powers. In fact, we have yet to employ our most effective measures. There are still leaders among us who foolishly believe that maintaining confidentiality is more important than utilizing our best tools at this stage of the war."
Ves could understand the sentiment. The Terran Alliance was being hard-pressed by the native aliens, but the situation had not deteriorated in the worst-case scenario.
Not yet at least.