After Cynthia received the data chip with the ch designs and the ch templates of the Rule Breaker Project, she asked one more question before she dismissed the ch designers.
"What is the final na of this line of chs?"
Veronica did not answer imdiately. She first took a look at the projected ch templates. The default appearances of the modular ch platforms did not look like 'rule breakers' from the outside.
Instead, they looked like typical modular chs at the budget level. Their appearances did not contain a lot of flair. There was not much Veronica could do to spice them up given their extensive modularity and low design budgets.
Nothing about their outward appearances indicated the presence of the Carmine System. That was not difficult considering that Veronica had tried to shrink the footprint of its organic components as much as possible.
The only feature that could possibly betray the fact that these chs could be piloted by any human was the third eyes on their foreheads.
Veronica could not resist the temptation to add her signature look to the base versions of the ch line.
Third party ch designers could choose to remove this visual brand, but the Cyborg Cat had a feeling that few would make this choice.
First, it was considered poor form for third party ch designers to remove the signature looks of another professional's work.
Second, Veronica predicted that the presence of the third eye would beco an iconic brand that would co to represent Carmine chs throughout the old galaxy!
The performance of the base versions of the ch line was incredibly poor by today's standards.
Yet it was exactly due to their relatively simple designs and amazing modularity that they had the potential to birth infinity possibilities.
This remained true even if the chs would only have a chance to operate in a low-energy environnt like the Milky Way Galaxy.
After a bit more thinking, Veronica eventually decided to voice her original proposal for a final na.
"If it is okay with you, mother, I would like to call this line of chs the Auto Heretic." Auto Heretic.
That was an unusual combination of words.
It certainly made a drastically different impression than the 'Rule Breaker', that was for
certain.
The Oblivion Empress frowned. While she maintained her human deanor, her disapproval showed by the way her voice suddenly sounded a bit more ethereal and superhuman.
"Veronica... this ch line will change the course of history in this galaxy forever. Choosing a good na s paramount for your reputation as well as mine. For what reason do you insist on calling your Carmine chs the 'Auto Heretic"?"
The Cyborg Cat grew intimidated by her mother's altered posture, but she tried her best to stand her ground and offer a asured response.
"You are right about how important nas can be. I thought about sticking to the na of Rule Breakers. My new Carmine chs certainly have enough reasons to be called this way. It breaks several long-standing traditions in the ch industry. These range from enabling norms to pilot chs, designing and publishing the ch without requesting certification from the MTA, making the Carmine chs highly autonomous to help total beginners attain a degree of combat effectiveness in the short term, connecting the chs to the Red Kingdom as opposed to the Kingdom of chs and most importantly harvesting the souls of everyone who died, including the ones belonging to the living ch and ch pilot themselves."
Though Veronica left out a few important design features, this sumd up the unique and distinctive combination of traits of his Auto Heretic.
"I wanted to bestow my Carmine chs a na that reflects their open and transparent contradiction against the stifling rules and customs of the current day ch industry of the Milky Way. She continued to explain her reasoning. "This is why I wanted to call it the Heretic line at first. You should be familiar with the aning of this word. The very existence of this ch directly opposes many of the MTA's prevailing rules and principles. Just like how the MTA and CFA managed to rebel against the hegemonic Five Scrolls Compact in the past by defying everything it stood for, now I am giving the Big Two a taste of their own dicine by releasing the Auto Heretic line of Carmine chs." Her feline lips curled in a cruel and eager grin. "I don't think we should hide the fact that the very existence of my Carmine chs flagrantly violates the strictures of the MTA. We should make it obvious from the beginning. Sure, it may provoke the chers into banning it even faster, but that will only turn them into greater enemies of the human population. No matter what, they cannot avoid the Auto Heretic and the deviations against common ch orthodoxy. Even if I do not necessarily oppose many of the rules that the MTA has set in an attempt to keep the ch industry and ch market healthy. I still want my work to shake up the status quo and force people to question the assumptions that they have always taken for granted."
If people wanted to, they did not have to use the na that Veronica designated for his Carmine chs.
Third party manufacturers that adapted his Auto Heretics could easily choose to apply a
visual makeover in an attempt to sidestep the stigma surrounding this dangerous combination of words.
These groups could try their best to disassociate their own 'clean' ch models from their base models as long as they looked different enough.
However, no matter how two siblings looked different from each other, their original genes and family history could never be changed!
Every Carmine ch derived from the original Auto Heretic designs would never be able to shake off all of the traits that made his works so subversive and taboo-breaking!
Cynthia Larkinson began to understand what Veronica had in mind.
"I see. You seek to accelerate the contradictions between the MTA and the general population. You are also encouraging the people who pilot your Auto Heretics or otherwise admire them to recognize how extensively the chers have failed to satisfy their true needs."
For too many years, the ch Trade Association had sought to fulfill the interests of an increasingly smaller group of people.
At first, the MTA served the public well by imposing stability and rewriting the rules of human warfare. Peace and stability returned in a galaxy that had previously beco engulfed in genocidal wars and destruction on a mass scale.
However, as the MTA increasingly began to concentrate and hold onto its imnse power over human civilization, the superorganization began to beco increasingly more focused on amassing wealth and defending its dominant position over humanity alongside the CFA.
Serving the people had beco an increasingly more distant priority to the chers. In fact, Veronica could even argue that it had never really been a top priority in the first
place.
This showed how far too many chers looked down on the people of second-rate and third-rate states as space peasants.
Perhaps Veronica was being a bit too unfair towards the chers. The MTA had not sought to reduce the inequality between first-raters and space peasants, but it did not. have an obligation to do so in the first place.
It was unrealistic to wipe out the differences in wealth and prosperity between states that were rooted in very different environnts.
The Big Two at least implented nurous rules and customs designed to protect the space peasants from the threat posed by first-raters.
However, that only increased the isolation between first-raters and space peasants. The less they interacted with each other, the less opportunities for the latter to join the
forr.
As a forr third-rater herself, a part of Veronica always felt resentful for the Big Two
and all of the first-rate states to guard their wealth and privileges so extensively, Perhaps one of the driving reasons why Veronica worked so hard to design the Auto Heretics was to take revenge on a distorted galactic society that had long sought to limit. the upward mobility of third-raters as much as possible!
"Why add the word 'auto' to the na, then?"
"That is because I wanted to emphasize the most significant deviation from other chs." The cat answered. "Calling my Carmine chs the Auto Heretics will create a very easily understandable impression that my products are not static machines. They are alive, they can think for themselves, they can evolve over ti and most importantly they can take complete control over their own chanical bodies. By adding the word 'auto', I will make it clear to both ch pilots and those who own them that my machines should never be treated in the sa way as ordinary chs. Our society must treat them differently in order to make the best possible use out of them. Those who
ignore my ssage will do so at their own peril. The Auto Heretics can potentially turn hostile towards their own pilots and owners if they are mistreated. I deliberately did not set too many limits on that in order to force all of my future custors to treat them
seriously."
The Auto Heretic line challenged the very definition of the word ch.
To many original humans who grew up in the current age, the word ch represented a
giant human or beast-shaped machine that could be controlled by a human through the use of a neural interface.
This was not the most accurate definition, but it was definitely one that many people
could agree with! In their minds, chs were always regarded as a giant form of
'equipnt' akin to a suit of combat armor.
The pilots were in control. Their ability to command these amazing war machines could
result in drastically different outcos.
Two pilots controlling the sa chs could easily defeat 10 tis their number or get
beaten in the first fight depending on the differences in skill and other human-derived
factors.
Veronica wanted to change this way of looking at chs.
She wanted the people of this galaxy to treat her Auto Heretics as life forms in the truest
sense.
They were truly alive in that they possessed thoughts and emotions just like other sentient beings. This was especially the case if they were able to grow into third order living chs.
She knew that the MTA would not like it at all. They would definitely treat the Auto
Heretics as an existential threat towards ch pilots and the ch industry as a whole. This was because it was always possible for the Auto Heretics to fight by themselves!
By reducing the importance of the human ch pilot, the ch line threatened to remove them from the picture entirely!
Veronica admittedly did not implent enough safeguards to prevent her Auto Heretics from rebelling against humans en masse and forming their own race and civilization in
the Milky Way.
However, she believed that this would only happen if the Auto Heretics were forced to do so by an ungrateful human society.
So long as most people treated their Auto Heretics fairly and with respect, such events
should not take place.
"One of my goals for these works is to force original humanity to recognize my living
chs as equal or near-equal sentient life forms who deserve a place in our society." Veronica said in a asured tone. "I do not have as much confidence in original humanity's ability to do as red humanity, so I am willing to resort to more forceful and coercive ans. In any case, anyone who wants to make use of my Auto Heretics will have no choice in accepting my viewpoints. There is no other way for them to beco a glorious Carmine ch pilot if they refuse the very notion that their machines are alive."
Was this how a ch designer should act towards his custors?
No!
Did Veronica like the prospect of forcing a confrontation against the establishnt in
charge of the stuffy MTA?
Yes!
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