The Mech Touch

After they were introduced to the puelmer race, the Ingvar siblings continued to learn about several other major alien races.

Each of them were remarkable, dangerous and fascinating in their own right.

Just the novelty of encountering real, sentient aliens was enough to enrich the lives of every visitor of the Chance Bay Museum of Natural History.

Most of humanity never had the chance to get close enough to intelligent organisms like these.

The Age of Mechs was a time of consolidation. It was different from the Age of Stars and the Age of Conquest. Back then, humans regularly made contact with new and different alien races.

Many of them had either been wiped out or driven away from the territories claimed by mankind. After centuries or millennia of human occupation, most if not all traces of the former alien occupants had been deleted from existence.

This has caused many generations of humans to grow up in an environment where they never even had to think about variables related to the presence of aliens.

This was good for most people. Humans in past ages dreamt of providing their descendants with an environment where they never had to live in fear of alien aggression. Countless human soldiers sacrificed themselves in order to create a pure human holy land in the galaxy.

Though these past heroes only completed their job half-way, it was more than enough to allow most humans to live their lives without ever having to do anything with aliens in their lifetimes.

The problem was that this had left too many people without the right mindset to resist alien threats. Human space in the Milky Way was so secure against external invasion that people felt at ease with treating each other as rivals and opponents. This would have never happened to such an extensive degree if there were threats that forced difficult human states and groups to band together in order to survive.

All in all, every pioneer and adventurer that entered the Red Ocean needed to take this additional factor into account.

Space in the Red Ocean contained significantly greater hazards than in the Milky Way. Not only was there a risk of encountering isolated alien warships, there were also entire alien armadas roaming through regions that humanity ordinarily considered safe!

After all, space was mostly a giant void. It was impossible to erect huge, physical walls across thousands of light-years. If the aliens truly wanted to enter dangerous territory, there were too many ways for them to slip past the Big Two's warfleets.

Of the remaining major alien races of the Red Ocean, one of them in particular stood out to the Ingvars.

The biome they visited was the largest and also the most different one in the museum wing. It was essentially a giant aquarium that was filled with water. Different kinds of alien aquatic organisms fluttered through this giant pool, but there was one giant life form that clearly dominated over the other fishes.

"Is that… a whale?" Imon asked.

"I think so. It looks the same."

[The species colloquially known as the phase whales are one of the rare aquatic sentient races that have grown to become a strong power in the Red Ocean. The phase whales physically resemble other whales, both sentient and non-sentient, due to evolving in similar aquatic environments.]

This was convergent evolution in action once again. Different alien species growing up on different planets sometimes came to resemble one another due to evolving under similar conditions.

Water planets tended to produce the highest incidences of convergent evolution as large organisms had to adapt the same set of solutions to increase their chances of survival in large oceans.

What distinguished phase whales from other whale-like exobeasts and astral beasts was that their fins were rather small and their mostly yellow coloration.

[Physically, phase whales are large aquatic organisms that range considerably in size. They are born the size of an aircar and can grow to become the size of a human destroyer. Phase whales never stop growing in size as they age, but it takes an exceptionally long time for them to grow to larger. The current known record of the largest and oldest phase whale ever encountered by humanity has reached an age of 8634 years. This extremely wise and powerful phase whale has reached a length of 1.3 kilometers.]

"Damn, that's as big as a capital ship!" Imon gasped.

Both of the Ingvars took a closer look at the phase whale held captive inside the giant aquarium. It was big in its own right, but it was far from rivaling smaller capital ships in size. It was probably a younger representative of this exotic race.

[Each phase whale possesses a large brain capacity and can grow to become exceptionally intelligent as they mature. They excel at learning and memorizing knowledge. Due to various reasons, phase whales reject conventional metallic technology and have centered their entire tech base around biotechnology. They are masters at bioengineering and apply most of their knowledge on self-augmentation.]

In other words, every phase whale became formidable biotech experts.

[Through developing their biotechnology, the phase whales have become adept at strengthening and evolving their large organic bodies. It is considered a rite of passage for young adolescent phase whales to research and develop their own biological augmentations that allows them to survive in space and traverse the stars.]

"Wow. That's impressive!"

"It takes decades for each phase whale to accomplish this, though."

[One of the most special traits about phase whales is their natural integration of phasewater in their organic bodies. They have originally evolved from an aquatic planet with large deposits of phasewater. By adapting to this exotic, this species is not only able to survive exposure to a substance that is deadly to the overwhelming majority of humans and other organisms, but can also harness its special properties to create substantial advantages.]

The AI tour guide ran footage of different phase whales performing inexplicable feats.

One clip featured a phase whale working on a giant biological machine. Despite their lack of limbs, they had no problem holding and manipulating over a hundred different tools and materials.

Apparently, this phase whale utilized telekinesis to perform his task!

Another clip showed one of the earliest contacts between humanity and this aquatic species. Due to applying extensive bioaugmentations on itself, the mature phase whale looked a lot different from a natural specimen.

Not only did the phase whale cover his body in bioplating, it also attached several strong segmented limbs and organic weapon systems along his body that practically turned it into an organic warship!

The phase whale fought against the opposing human warships by employing a variety of exotics means. Launching penetrating bone spikes was merely the simplest way for a phase whale to inflict damage.

The phase whale's real methods all involved leveraging their phasewater-derived powers in some way!

In a single instant, the phase whale blinked from one position to another one that was right next to a CFA frigate!

Once the whale had jumped closer without warning, it extended its segmented limbs straight through the energy shield and armor plating of the ambushed CFA warship without getting stopped.

It was as if the warship's defenses simply didn't exist!

Soon enough, the poor CFA frigate lost power and went offline as the phase whale's segmented tentacles managed to destroy many vulnerable internal ship systems in a short amount of time.

Imon almost jumped when he saw the phase whale reaching into a CFA warship without encountering any hindrance.

"Hey, this looks familiar!"

"Shhh! Don't talk about it here." Casella placed her palm against his mouth.

The phase whale managed to resist most retaliatory fire by phasing through all of the energy beams and projectiles thrown in its direction. It was as if the creature could choose to exist in a different phase whenever it was convenient!

However, the CFA wasn't that easy to defeat. The remaining warships kept cycling through different attack and evasion methods.

The fleeters eventually found a solution that worked. The warships surrounded the elusive phase whale and deployed strong gravitic anchors and dimensional smoothers, both of which are designed to stop enemy starships from entering FTL travel.

Apparently, the phasing powers of phase whales worked along similar principles to become affected as well. Even though the phase whale in the footage showed some signs of overpowering the anti-phasing tech, the warships quickly took advantage of its solid state by pounding the whale with all manner of heavy firepower!

"So they can be beaten." Imon sighed. "That's a relief. I don't want us all to get wiped out by killer phase whales."

Casella whacked her brother's arm. "I wouldn't relax too soon if I were you. The combat footage only proves that the Big Two is able to defeat a single adult phase whale. Do you think we can deploy all of those fancy gravitic anchors and dimensional smoothers? That's first-class tech! If we ever encounter a phase whale in the wild, we better hope the alien isn't too grumpy."

Imon still looked confident, though. "Heh, we might not possess all of that fancy tech, but we still have our trump cards. We're much better off than other second-class fleets."

That remained to be seen.

The AI tour guide continued to explain the most important points about this aquatic alien species.

[Phase whales are considered one of the oldest continuing races in the Red Ocean. They are individually intelligent and powerful, but they are unable to dominate this dwarf galaxy due to several reasons. Most phase whales are non-aggressive and prefer isolation. They rarely congregate together in groups larger than family units. Many phase whale adults can be found alone.]

That was good news. If these smart and powerful aliens grouped in larger numbers like the nunsers or the puelmers, then they would have become much more formidable!

[Although phase whales are known to become hyper-aggressive when attacked or when they witness other phase whales being attacked, most violent incidents can be avoided by giving them space. Despite their lack of hostility against other alien races, it is nearly impossible to achieve mutual understanding with them. The thinking patterns of phase whales are too different, which stop even the nunsers from developing friendships with them. Phase whales are extremely self-centered and cannot understand other organisms, particularly those of smaller statures.]

Every other alien was pretty much an insect to the phase whales. Just like how humans ignored the plight of ants beneath their feet, the large and powerful phase whales exhibited the same behavior!

"How prevalent are the phase whales in the Red Ocean?" Casella asked.

[This is unknown, but the Mech Trade Association estimates that they are fairly prevalent in all regions of the Red Ocean. Although phase whales exhibit a slow and limited reproduction rate due to the time it takes to raise a juvenile and the dependence on phasewater to create new offspring, this species has lived through many eras. This has caused them to grow their numbers to a formidable range. However, the chance of encountering any of them is low due to one main reason.]

"And what is that?"

[Phase whales prefer to live in anomalous, space-warped regions where they can live in isolation from other alien races. The older and more capable phase whales that have integrated a large amount of phasewater can capture a planet, a star system or even a larger area by utilizing their formidable power to warp it into an enclosed region. The Mech Trade Association assumes that at least 80 percent of the phase whale population is hidden in these secret and normally-inaccessible regions. It is also believed that large deposits of phasewater can be found in the same places, as there is little incentive for the phase whales to expend a large amount of effort and resources to isolate an unattractive location.]

This was important information to anyone that wished to harvest a large amount of phasewater!

Although phasewater was relatively prevalent in the Red Ocean, large deposits were still relatively rare. If anyone could track down a space-warped region and enter this protected area, they could steal away a lot of phasewater in a short amount of time!

Of course, anyone who dared to intrude into a hidden phase whale sanctuary probably had to fend off the residents first, which shouldn't be easy!