Vol.1 Chapter 0.5 Information (1)

Mech pilots are people trained to pilot mechs. 

Neural Interfaces and aptitude Mechs are piloted using neural interfaces, allowing pilots to move them with their minds. This allows an exceptional level of control and reaction speed, as if the mech were the pilot's body, yet requires years of training.

In order to use neural interfaces, a pilot needs neural aptitude. Neural aptitudes are ranked from A to F, and they determine whether someone can fluidly use an interfaced mech, or if they will have coordination problems. Very low aptitudes can also lead to brain trauma if one pilots a mech. Regardless of aptitude, pilots attend piloting academies for over a decade before graduation, so mech piloting is a profession that takes time to learn.

Neural aptitude is an inborn trait that cannot be changed. Only about 10% of people have the aptitude to pilot 3rd class mechs, and it gets worse for 2nd and 1st class.

Each time a mech pilot interfaces with a mech, there is a non-zero chance that they will suffer adverse effects, which may or may not lead to permanent damage to the mech pilot's brain structure. Mech pilots gradually accumulate brain damage as they interface with their mechs. In most cases, this damage is irreversible. It can only be slowed, but never stopped. What actually takes place is that the brains of mech pilots begin to adjust to the enduring neural interfacing sessions they experience. This is a known phenomenon. The changes happen so gradually that Mech Pilot's brains can easily implement adaptations to retain most of their functionality. What the MTA and neural interface specialists don't mention is that sometimes the adjustments miss the mark. The most prevalent instance is when a mech incurs heavily damage. Neural interfaces are some of the most protected components of the cockpit of a mech, but if by some chance they are damaged, then the man-machine connection can quickly turn from something benign into something dangerous. Additionally, there is a tradeoff in the effectiveness of an interface and the cognitive damage it causes. This brain damage is also one of the hidden reasons why life-prolonging treatment is much more difficult to arrange for mech pilots. Without any biological augmentations or treatments, a mech pilot's peak gradually declines over time. Neural interfaces can also affect the psyche of the mech pilot. There are at least two sides of this discussion. One side advocates that changes to a mech pilot's psyche is beneficial while the other side considers it to be contamination.

The MTA hasn't chosen the safest option for standard neural interfaces, because they want to squeeze more performance out of mech pilots by allowing deeper and greater connections. Perhaps the single most important factor is, that unsafe interfaces are correlated with a higher emergence of expert candidates and expert pilots! The MTA also deliberately conceals the actual risks of neural interface technology. By propagandizing that neural interfaces were much more sophisticated than the dangerous, pre-Age of Mechs models, an enormous amount of mech designers and mech pilots readily embrace them. To research neural interfaces they secretly implemented divergent regional standards for neural interfaces across different star sectors. The MTA sometimes also wants to influence the amount of expert pilots that emerge from a specific region of space for their own agenda.

Differences between state levels: There are first, second and third class states. With enormous differences in money and technology. This leads to differently trained pilots.

3rd class state pilots generally specialize in piloting a single mech type. They have few cognitive enhancements, and the aptitude barrier is around D, since they use specialized basic mechs with few functions

2nd class state pilots require higher aptitude and enhancements, as their mechs are more complex

1st class state pilots have higher requirements and complexity.

Culture and wars. Mech pilots are celebrated, with higher level pilots ( expert pilots) treated as war heroes.

After the age of conquest, war is waged by using mechs, despite their inferiority to warships. Also, mechs have ejection systems, and shooting an ejected pilot is frowned upon. The MTA allows war between states this way, which happens to be the best way to promote the apparition of expert pilots Pilot levels are:

Mech pilot , Advance pilot, Expert candidate,

Expert pilot, Ace pilot, God pilot. An expert pilot can beat about 100 normal mech pilots.

To promote to expert candidate, a mech pilot needs inborn Spirituality. They also need a focused mind. If the requirements are satisfied, a mech pilot can become an expert candidate during a fight, presumably due to tension and willpower. Afterwards, the candidate will slowly build up their spirituality, and rank up. 

Unlike expert pilots who could emerge from any significant gathering of mech pilots, ace pilots were much scarcer. States with populations of trillions of people might have no more than just a handful of ace pilots in their service. 

Apotheosis - In general terms, a mech pilot can advance to expert candidate with little assistance as not much changes at first. It is the transition to expert pilot as well as ace pilot where the Kingdom of Mechsplays a major role in enabling and guiding the transformation process. When a mech pilot undergoes apotheosis, a part of themselves establishes a direct connection to a powerful mechanism of the kingdom. Once 'apotheosis' begins, the Kingdom of Mechs immediately takes charge and controls the highly dangerous promotion process so that an individual can smoothly become an expert pilot or ace pilot. If mech pilots try to advance by relying on themselves, their success rate drops to 15 percent. They may lose all of their willpower and psionic power and die on the spot. The second possibility is that they have botched their transformation and end up corrupted. 

It not only aids in breakthroughs, but also filters mech pilots to ensure that only positive additions to human society will gain the opportunity to evolve. We do not wish to empower criminals, anarchists and traitors. The damage that they can do to our civilization is incalculable. 

Spirituality and force of will: Pilots ranked expert and above have significant spirituality power. This makes their presence more imposing. Mech pilots develop a force of will that allows them to exert mental pressure externally. Expert pilots always influenced their surroundings with their expanding spiritual manifestations[1]. This strong force of will also allows them to resonate with compatible resonating materials incorporated into their expert mechs to perform supernatural feats. Force of will is an external expression of spirituality. A force of will is a fancy description for a collection of spiritual energy that underwent a qualitative transformation. The critical aspect that defines the force of will is, that it gains a lot of strength by fusing them with the strong willpower of an expert pilot. As such, a force of will never acts in isolation! It's essentially a process of weaponizing spiritual energy in its misty form! The use of spirituality and force of will differs from mech designers: mech pilots are predominantly focused outwards, while mech designers are mostly focused inwards. Although as Ves has shown, the force of will can be emulated by mech designers, but is much weaker. Ves has also created a pseudo force of will, the spiritual presence Vescas, but it lacked in purity[2].

The source of their strength is also their greatest weakness. Every expert pilot develops an obsession or pursues an ideal to the extreme. The force of will of an expert pilot reflects their values and beliefs. When any expert pilot dedicates the essence of his will towards a cause, they form a lifelong obsession around it. Their spirituality, their personality, their thoughts and their emotions had all gathered together to birth this force of will, and in turn the incredible might of an empowered will feed back to its originators and warp them further into its image! In essence, when expert candidates and expert pilots formed their empowered wills, the latter essentially began to hypnotize the former! When a force of will further contaminates the rest of the mind of an expert pilot, their mentality becomes more and more compatible with the force of will. This was a mutually-reinforcing cycle and one of the ways for expert pilots to advance and grow in strength. As long as an expert pilot dedicated himself further towards the pursuit he had chosen, he would be rewarded by increasing the foundation of his strength. 

Mech pilots reach a higher rank by achieving a breakthrough in the development of their force of will. There are also theories, that the higher ranks may require adulation from the masses to break through. This may be similar to design spirits strengthening their spirituality from mech pilots piloting their mechs or lifeless objects collecting spirituality from being worshipped.

Resonance and the lavere scaleSince force of will was an external expression of spirituality, the MTA eventually managed to find a way to detect its presence. In fact, the MTA continually refined their sensors to the point where it could be measured along the lavere scale. Let alone expert pilots, expert candidates should never be able to escape detection! This also made them exceptionally poor at stealth operations. It was far too difficult for them to sneak around, unless their force of will revolved around hiding their presence[3]. Resonance creates radiation that can be perceived with specialized equipment. Resonance strength is measured in laveres. The lavere scale goes from 1 to 10.000, and it is not linear. Expert pilots are only capable of growing stronger when they are piloting actual expert mechs or break through. Additionally, Ves` Prime mechs and their use of Prime resonance also share this capability.

There was no single uniform standard that defined the tiers of expert pilots. Different organizations maintained slightly different thresholds based on different combinations of factors such as resonance strength, actual combat strength, expert mech performance and actual battle records. However, most people used certain measures of resonance strength as a shorthand indication of the overall tier of an expert pilot. A demigod with a resonance strength that was approaching the upper limit was unlikely to be lacking in combat experience.[4]

A new expert pilot would measure about 1 lavere. A low-tier expert pilot's resonance strength ranged between 1 to 20 laveres. A mid-tier expert pilot's resonance strength ranged between 20 to 40 laveres. A high-tier expert pilot's resonance strength ranged between 40 to 60 laveres. A peak-tier expert pilot's resonance strength ranged between 60 to 67 laveres. A new ace pilot would exert at least 67 laveres of resonance. God pilots start out with Chapter 1545 [5]