M052
New
lost star
Connoisseur.
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- Feb 19, 2013
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You'd think they'd be less busy now. They weren't. They were in fact becoming more busy. It was just a contained sort of thing if that made any sense. Their current goal was a party. Which, well sounded strange to say out loud. It was a political party that all the Wrench Rats and Lilly would hate. It had to be done. Officially it was a celebration of their marriage and Lilly's ascension. Unofficially, it was going to be a sort of bow to the other nations. They'd invite a few of the more important people, and political shit was going to happen.
Before then, Bolt wanted to get Dowry situated. If he could make her a mostly expert mech, everyone would have a lot less leverage. This wasn't a feasible task on the face of it. Getting education in how to build an expert mech took study. It took specialized courses that weren't publicly available. It was in essence something that only well educated and connected people could learn.
It was possible for him to learn anyway though. He'd learn it the same way he learned how to make mechs. He'd learn from their trash. He'd take two of their mechs apart and learn from their failures. His hope was that would give him enough to work off. He'd still need a senior, but only for resonant materials, not for the general upgrade. There was a distinct difference between the design of an expert mech and the specialized parts that gave them what amounted to magic powers. (Yes that term was incorrect, Bolt was still going to call it magic because he was feeling petty at the moment.)
The two expert mechs his father had found were on the older side but still very relevant. About a decade old, they'd been buried underneath several tons of rocks and abandoned. Their location and circumstances were an old mech secret. Another mech would have been crushed so badly they'd be unrecoverable. These were still pretty bad, but they were something one could theoretically rebuild. It'd just be pointless, because expert mechs were explicitly made for their experts.
Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that if he wanted to, he could use one to repair the other and have Lilly pilot it. The tests they'd done had shown that she resonated with a lot of materials. She tested negative for a lot as well, but these two were made of types she could use. At least theoretically. He wasn't an expert and was just going off what the tests said.
His first observation was that even ten years old, these things were still advanced beyond anything else he'd worked with. One was a pure swordsman. The other was what looked to be a striker. Discounting the exotic components, they'd still be able to absolutely trash any mechs on the field just based on performance.
Each mech was laced with exotics. They had state of the art components that were still advanced compared to today. The material cost alone was ten times what a normal mech would have. All of this was synched and aligned with what Bolt assumed to be the dead pilot. These were custom pieces worth fortunes alone, and a prize even ruined.
It was an investment that they couldn't match yet. They were making money at the moment. They were not making that much money. It'd take about a year to afford to make an expert mech from scratch, assuming they kept up sales. If Bolt dipped into his and Lilly's savings, they could probably afford the plans and components right now. It would bring their savings to near zero though. It was a suboptimal action that would have to be a last resort, and one that he hoped to avoid.
Bolt hoisted the dead mechs up on the bay. Sitting there, they looked defeated. A far cry from what they had been. These were failures in one sense of the word. Dead bodies. All of the tech in the world, and now their worth only laid in the materials they held and the lessons he could wring from them. It was hard to be optimistic in front of such grim reminders, but Bolt was. Surprisingly so. This reminded of him when he was a kid actually.
Armor first, as always. Carefully prying it apart was harder than it sounded. The metal had warped from the weight that the mechs had been placed under. Dirt and small stones were still lodged in some areas. Some of the welds and screws required power tools to pry loose. It was all advanced stuff and custom alloys as well. Deliberately design choices to maximize what the designer had felt would best compliment the pilot. It was non-standard and very difficult to pull off without causing further damage.
The striker's most carefully made part was its weapon. Bent and broke, this had been someone's specialty. There were a few lessons in it even as ruined as it was. Bolt could see the dedication and lines in the shotgun's form. It had been someone's baby in design, but not in creation. The assembler had been methodic in a professional way.
That pattern continued for the mech. It was Vesia, he could tell this without looking at the history. None of the telltale missiles, but there were certain patterns common in their designs. They used specific screws at certain internal joins and threaded cables in a rather distinct pattern. Alloy choices were another tell, though not a certain one. There was a strange mix of attention to detail and clinical manufacturing in the creation of this mech. One of the designers had explicitly focused on how the little details added up into something big that the manufacturers hadn't followed as precisely as the design required. It was an intriguing flaw that he wasn't even sure the main designer knew of.
Amusingly the shotgun had fared better. Looking it over in comparison, the vision had come through with more clarity. While they'd both been made by the same hands, the shotguns vision had just required appropriate power and throughput. The shotgun was obviously done by the junior designer. It'd been done properly by the manufacturers. Three hands had handled the mech and it had made a mess that was only apparent in the end.
Maudlin thoughts aside, ripping it all apart showed him what an expert mech really meant. It wasn't just cost. It was optimization using money and exotic resources. No expense was spared and everything was aligned to the pilot. The weapon went above and beyond. The armor was exquisite. This was a weapon of war made double.
Bolt added a few mental changes to that design he carried in his head still. He still wanted a proper expert mech for Lilly, and he'd use this to fuel that plan further. She'd likely want to keep Dowry, but that mech was limited and would become more so as time would progress. She needed a proper one.
Left with parts and destroyed dreams, Bolt looked over the destroyed expert mech and then wrote down his notes and observations. He'd learned some, but not enough. He moved onto the other one. The swordsman. This would tell him more.
The swordsman mech was an Empties mech. You could tell that just based off the crosses in a few areas. It had been with holy fervor. The construction was close to perfect, with only a few flaws here and there because their enthusiasm had overcome their technical skill. The user had used a two handed sword that could be set aflame. The sword hadn't survived intact, and the entire length was ruined. Bolt could see the concept, and the power. It was very likely that was what it had led to the mech's doom.
He could trace the damage between the two and see the battle as he stripped the armor and the parts. The striker had gone first. He'd unloaded every weapon into the Swordsman, and it'd done nothing. Then he'd activated something, and they'd moved. Steady chipping and damaging to his opponent, and then they'd entered the cave. The Swordsman had caught up then. He'd struck once, twice, and the Striker had brought down the entire cave on them. Perhaps he assumed he'd be able to leave before the end? Bolt couldn't say an expert would cause such an amateur mistake as to kill himself accidentally in a cave-in.
The design itself was interesting as a contrast. They both used money to get the best performance. The design ethos was different. The sword had been everything for that mech. Every, single, part of it had been focused on making the weapon swing better. There was no subtly to that sort of design. There was no loss in focus. The only concession was a single weapon in the head of all things. That laser was meant to hinder mechs that kept at a range, that was it. There were four designers involved in it, but one real lead. The rest were just there to optimize the sword.
Now, the question came, how did Bolt apply this? Could he upgrade Dowry? Should he? These were good questions that he had to answer. He had to figure out what would be optimal. No one else in this mountain could decide. He could just replace the mechs parts again. They had experience in it by this point. It'd be almost as costly as building a new mech though.
Yet a wild idea came to him as he thought it over. Didn't Dowry just adjust herself internally? The nanomachine core that he'd put in was highly versatile after all. He'd been sort of lowballing the system in the initial creation to keep cost down. The system itself was meant to be a dynamic nanomachine factory. The recent self adjustment the mech had done made him think that he could push that system more. The only reason it'd been so restricted was the lack of exotics to fuel it. He had those materials available in the form of the disassembled mechs right in front of him... Recycling things was an old hat. He'd really just need to process these mechs and adjust the programming some wouldn't he? A lot of the theoretical work was already proven.
Putting thought into practice was easy. Having Dowry brought in was just a matter of getting a few techs to bring the mech over. Placing a few parts in the processor and adjusting the programming was also relatively simple. Bolt wasn't trying to change the process. He was trying to have the mech upgrade itself. Most of the changes were already there. Lilly could resonate with these materials. He just needed to get them laced into Dowry's systems using the nanomachines.
Concept wise it was easy. Implementation wise it was extremely difficult. This was slow, painstaking work. Bolt had to program each change, feed a minute portion of the exotics into the processor, watch the change, and then adjust as needed. In a way it was getting back to the mech's roots. Dowry had started off as different parts as Ghoul. They'd unified her design, but her original design had always been a bit of a mishmash. Now he was adding more things. The blackbox programs helped here and there. Bolt was able to pick them apart and refine them as he worked and watched them in action. There were still one or two left once he was done, but he was happy to say most of it was leashed now. (This was a very good thing. Machine learning had a tendency to go into suboptimal or dead end solutions if it wasn't directed.)
Dowry still wasn't a complete expert mech, but she was pretty close when he was finished. He still needed to select a resonant material to give her that extra oomph for when she needed it. Lilly could use the mech without breaking her now though, and Bolt was fairly sure that she could eat expert mechs to repair and upgrade herself further. Which would probably make things a bit weird when it happened.
For now he kept that under wraps and wouldn't put it in the documentation. So far as the outside world was concerned, Bolt had just upgraded her with salvaged parts. He'd tell Lilly, but he wouldn't write it down anywhere. Some things needed to be kept secret. Let people think he'd half assed the upgrade. No one needed to know the truth.
Before then, Bolt wanted to get Dowry situated. If he could make her a mostly expert mech, everyone would have a lot less leverage. This wasn't a feasible task on the face of it. Getting education in how to build an expert mech took study. It took specialized courses that weren't publicly available. It was in essence something that only well educated and connected people could learn.
It was possible for him to learn anyway though. He'd learn it the same way he learned how to make mechs. He'd learn from their trash. He'd take two of their mechs apart and learn from their failures. His hope was that would give him enough to work off. He'd still need a senior, but only for resonant materials, not for the general upgrade. There was a distinct difference between the design of an expert mech and the specialized parts that gave them what amounted to magic powers. (Yes that term was incorrect, Bolt was still going to call it magic because he was feeling petty at the moment.)
The two expert mechs his father had found were on the older side but still very relevant. About a decade old, they'd been buried underneath several tons of rocks and abandoned. Their location and circumstances were an old mech secret. Another mech would have been crushed so badly they'd be unrecoverable. These were still pretty bad, but they were something one could theoretically rebuild. It'd just be pointless, because expert mechs were explicitly made for their experts.
Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that if he wanted to, he could use one to repair the other and have Lilly pilot it. The tests they'd done had shown that she resonated with a lot of materials. She tested negative for a lot as well, but these two were made of types she could use. At least theoretically. He wasn't an expert and was just going off what the tests said.
His first observation was that even ten years old, these things were still advanced beyond anything else he'd worked with. One was a pure swordsman. The other was what looked to be a striker. Discounting the exotic components, they'd still be able to absolutely trash any mechs on the field just based on performance.
Each mech was laced with exotics. They had state of the art components that were still advanced compared to today. The material cost alone was ten times what a normal mech would have. All of this was synched and aligned with what Bolt assumed to be the dead pilot. These were custom pieces worth fortunes alone, and a prize even ruined.
It was an investment that they couldn't match yet. They were making money at the moment. They were not making that much money. It'd take about a year to afford to make an expert mech from scratch, assuming they kept up sales. If Bolt dipped into his and Lilly's savings, they could probably afford the plans and components right now. It would bring their savings to near zero though. It was a suboptimal action that would have to be a last resort, and one that he hoped to avoid.
Bolt hoisted the dead mechs up on the bay. Sitting there, they looked defeated. A far cry from what they had been. These were failures in one sense of the word. Dead bodies. All of the tech in the world, and now their worth only laid in the materials they held and the lessons he could wring from them. It was hard to be optimistic in front of such grim reminders, but Bolt was. Surprisingly so. This reminded of him when he was a kid actually.
Armor first, as always. Carefully prying it apart was harder than it sounded. The metal had warped from the weight that the mechs had been placed under. Dirt and small stones were still lodged in some areas. Some of the welds and screws required power tools to pry loose. It was all advanced stuff and custom alloys as well. Deliberately design choices to maximize what the designer had felt would best compliment the pilot. It was non-standard and very difficult to pull off without causing further damage.
The striker's most carefully made part was its weapon. Bent and broke, this had been someone's specialty. There were a few lessons in it even as ruined as it was. Bolt could see the dedication and lines in the shotgun's form. It had been someone's baby in design, but not in creation. The assembler had been methodic in a professional way.
That pattern continued for the mech. It was Vesia, he could tell this without looking at the history. None of the telltale missiles, but there were certain patterns common in their designs. They used specific screws at certain internal joins and threaded cables in a rather distinct pattern. Alloy choices were another tell, though not a certain one. There was a strange mix of attention to detail and clinical manufacturing in the creation of this mech. One of the designers had explicitly focused on how the little details added up into something big that the manufacturers hadn't followed as precisely as the design required. It was an intriguing flaw that he wasn't even sure the main designer knew of.
Amusingly the shotgun had fared better. Looking it over in comparison, the vision had come through with more clarity. While they'd both been made by the same hands, the shotguns vision had just required appropriate power and throughput. The shotgun was obviously done by the junior designer. It'd been done properly by the manufacturers. Three hands had handled the mech and it had made a mess that was only apparent in the end.
Maudlin thoughts aside, ripping it all apart showed him what an expert mech really meant. It wasn't just cost. It was optimization using money and exotic resources. No expense was spared and everything was aligned to the pilot. The weapon went above and beyond. The armor was exquisite. This was a weapon of war made double.
Bolt added a few mental changes to that design he carried in his head still. He still wanted a proper expert mech for Lilly, and he'd use this to fuel that plan further. She'd likely want to keep Dowry, but that mech was limited and would become more so as time would progress. She needed a proper one.
Left with parts and destroyed dreams, Bolt looked over the destroyed expert mech and then wrote down his notes and observations. He'd learned some, but not enough. He moved onto the other one. The swordsman. This would tell him more.
The swordsman mech was an Empties mech. You could tell that just based off the crosses in a few areas. It had been with holy fervor. The construction was close to perfect, with only a few flaws here and there because their enthusiasm had overcome their technical skill. The user had used a two handed sword that could be set aflame. The sword hadn't survived intact, and the entire length was ruined. Bolt could see the concept, and the power. It was very likely that was what it had led to the mech's doom.
He could trace the damage between the two and see the battle as he stripped the armor and the parts. The striker had gone first. He'd unloaded every weapon into the Swordsman, and it'd done nothing. Then he'd activated something, and they'd moved. Steady chipping and damaging to his opponent, and then they'd entered the cave. The Swordsman had caught up then. He'd struck once, twice, and the Striker had brought down the entire cave on them. Perhaps he assumed he'd be able to leave before the end? Bolt couldn't say an expert would cause such an amateur mistake as to kill himself accidentally in a cave-in.
The design itself was interesting as a contrast. They both used money to get the best performance. The design ethos was different. The sword had been everything for that mech. Every, single, part of it had been focused on making the weapon swing better. There was no subtly to that sort of design. There was no loss in focus. The only concession was a single weapon in the head of all things. That laser was meant to hinder mechs that kept at a range, that was it. There were four designers involved in it, but one real lead. The rest were just there to optimize the sword.
Now, the question came, how did Bolt apply this? Could he upgrade Dowry? Should he? These were good questions that he had to answer. He had to figure out what would be optimal. No one else in this mountain could decide. He could just replace the mechs parts again. They had experience in it by this point. It'd be almost as costly as building a new mech though.
Yet a wild idea came to him as he thought it over. Didn't Dowry just adjust herself internally? The nanomachine core that he'd put in was highly versatile after all. He'd been sort of lowballing the system in the initial creation to keep cost down. The system itself was meant to be a dynamic nanomachine factory. The recent self adjustment the mech had done made him think that he could push that system more. The only reason it'd been so restricted was the lack of exotics to fuel it. He had those materials available in the form of the disassembled mechs right in front of him... Recycling things was an old hat. He'd really just need to process these mechs and adjust the programming some wouldn't he? A lot of the theoretical work was already proven.
Putting thought into practice was easy. Having Dowry brought in was just a matter of getting a few techs to bring the mech over. Placing a few parts in the processor and adjusting the programming was also relatively simple. Bolt wasn't trying to change the process. He was trying to have the mech upgrade itself. Most of the changes were already there. Lilly could resonate with these materials. He just needed to get them laced into Dowry's systems using the nanomachines.
Concept wise it was easy. Implementation wise it was extremely difficult. This was slow, painstaking work. Bolt had to program each change, feed a minute portion of the exotics into the processor, watch the change, and then adjust as needed. In a way it was getting back to the mech's roots. Dowry had started off as different parts as Ghoul. They'd unified her design, but her original design had always been a bit of a mishmash. Now he was adding more things. The blackbox programs helped here and there. Bolt was able to pick them apart and refine them as he worked and watched them in action. There were still one or two left once he was done, but he was happy to say most of it was leashed now. (This was a very good thing. Machine learning had a tendency to go into suboptimal or dead end solutions if it wasn't directed.)
Dowry still wasn't a complete expert mech, but she was pretty close when he was finished. He still needed to select a resonant material to give her that extra oomph for when she needed it. Lilly could use the mech without breaking her now though, and Bolt was fairly sure that she could eat expert mechs to repair and upgrade herself further. Which would probably make things a bit weird when it happened.
For now he kept that under wraps and wouldn't put it in the documentation. So far as the outside world was concerned, Bolt had just upgraded her with salvaged parts. He'd tell Lilly, but he wouldn't write it down anywhere. Some things needed to be kept secret. Let people think he'd half assed the upgrade. No one needed to know the truth.
