The Mech Touch

Chapter 6287  The Pantheon of Modern Gods

In a time where god pilots arose to spread and enforce the dominance of mechs in a post-Age of Conquest society, many people developed a deep desire or compulsion to worship them as literal gods!

Worship of the first god pilots known to the public had already begun at the start of the age. The practice gained a lot of momentum as god pilots frequently appeared at the border of human space and regularly utilized their vast and transcendent might to beat back incursions from hostile aliens that thought that human civilization had become vulnerable due to all of the destructive infighting!

While former rulers of the Milky Way Galaxy were not wrong that humans had lost a huge amount of strength, they misjudged their ability to take advantage of the situation.

God pilots were virtually invincible in battle!

Even at that early period where the development of mechs was at a much earlier stage, the crude god mechs that existed at the time could already crush the best ace mechs of the Hyper Generation.

That was how strong god pilots were at the time!

Humans, just like any other organic race, instinctively worshiped power. Those among them that became so strong that they appeared to be completely removed from weak and unexceptional humans easily began to regarded as genuine gods!

The deification only picked up steam as years went by. Not only did the god pilots become stronger as their mechs regularly received new tech, more of them also started to emerge from the mech community!

The confirmation that god pilots emerged from ordinary mortals did not depress the worshipers at all. Instead, they became more enthusiastic about their beliefs because it proved that humans could continually produce more and more powerful real and tangible deities over time!

The Pantheon of Modern Gods also became known as one of the most 'pro-human' churches.

In the beliefs of many other religions, the object of worship was not necessarily human. This caused the faiths to become politically undesirable because the notion of dedicating one's life and faith to alien gods could be regarded as treason!

The PMG did not have to worry about this problem at all, because every single god pilot could clearly be traced back to a human mech pilot. It was among the more politically acceptable churches that existed during the Age of Mechs.

Combined with its uncertain and mysterious relations with one or multiple god pilots, not even the Mech Trade Association dared to crack down on it too harshly.

In any case, the Pantheon of Modern Gods only became more powerful as more and more god pilots emerged.

With around a hundred god pilots at the peak, it had grown into a behemoth that could easily rival the old traditional faiths with much more extensive foundations!

For a church as powerful as the PMG to put its entire weight behind Ves made life a lot easier for him! He would definitely be able to act more confidently in an attempt to cow the other churches into obedience.

"Is it… routine for god pilots such as the Destroyer of Worlds to issue orders to your Pantheon?" Ves curiously asked. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

The templar-commander shook his head. "Our sacred protectors are too far removed from mortals. We would only become an unnecessary distraction to them if we bother them with our more mundane concerns. I am not privy to the full dealings of our extensive Pantheon, but as far as I am aware of, it is rare for any god pilot to communicate with us directly. Perhaps a god pilot may have done so in private in the past, but I am not aware of such cases. It is therefore a remarkable event that the Destroyer of Worlds, or at least her office, has given us a clear instruction and allowed the news to spread. Many followers of the Modern Gods have become aware of the will of the Destroyer of Worlds."

"I see. I am aware that your Pantheon is actually divided into many temples, each dedicated to a single god pilot. The Temple of the Destruction does not necessarily speak for the Temple of the First Flame or the Temple of the Hunt. I do not mean to question your words, but according to my admittedly shallow understanding of the PMG, I find it difficult to accept that your organization is truly prepared to support me in my attempt to form an unprecedented coalition."

The temple-commander who lived for over 3 centuries was not an idiot. He had to be extremely smart and competent in order to occupy his current position. He most definitely picked up Ves' underlying doubts and questions.

The one aspect about Oson Jackarie that Ves was uncertain about was whether the temple-commander was a true believer.

It might sound absurd to question the faith and piety of a man who had to be pretty high up in the hierarchy of one of the many temples, but Ves knew better than to assume that everyone in a rich and wealthy organization was truly committed to the cause they proclaimed to serve!

Seeing that Ves possessed a certain degree of political acumen, Temple-Commander Jackarie decided to be a little more forthcoming.

"As you may have guessed, I come with additional motivation to inform you of the stance of our Pantheon. We… are currently experiencing a schism within our ranks. We have contained it as best we can in order to preserve the faith and stability of our temples, but if we continue to argue among ourselves, the Pantheon that has bonded us together for so long may threaten to split."

Ves raised a curious eyebrow.

"That sounds… interesting, but what does that have to do with me? I mean, I am not a god pilot or a member of your Pantheon. It is not fitting or desirable for me to get involved in your internal affairs."

Temple-Commander Jackarie made a faint bow. "We disagree. Let me ask you a question. Are you aware of which temple I have been invested in as a commander?"

"Well, according to the galactic net, you are a high-ranking member of the Temple of Falsehood, the temple dedicated to Divine Oliver Rashidi, better-known as the False Speaker."

"A god pilot who sadly remained in the Milky Way Galaxy during the Great Severing. The Pantheon of Modern Gods in the old galaxy is fortunate to be graced with the continued presence of the False Speaker, but the same cannot be said for our Pantheon."

The False Speaker was definitely one of the weirder and more controversial god pilots to ascend from the ranks.

What would happen if a compulsive liar transcended to godhood?

The result was the False Speaker. Nobody even knew where he came from. He spread multiple different retellings of his origins.

In one story, he claimed to be the product of a scandalous affair between the Light of Sol, a Terran god pilot, and the Swift Hand, a Rubarthan Star Designer.

He even claimed to be a third-class farmboy during an interview in his saint days!

One of Ves' personal favorites was the time when the False Speaker claimed to be a child between the Polymath and a mysterious donor.

This was clearly absurd because the Polymath was younger than the False Speaker!

Although no one could pin down the god pilot's exact age, many analysts and other fellow god pilots had made a reasonable estimate that he was about 40 years older than the Polymath.

How could the Polymath possibly give birth to the False Speaker when in reality she was young enough to be his daughter? Even an idiot could recognize the impossibility of this scenario!

Whatever the case, people quickly caught on that the False Speaker could not be trusted!

The way he shamelessly lied about where he came from and other subjects caused him to become very controversial in human civilization.

Yet despite how the mech community ostracized him due to his extreme lack of reliability, the False Speaker stuck to his lying ways and continued to grow at a fast pace.

People's attitude towards the False Speaker eventually took a drastic turn when he somehow survived his passage through the road of no return when much more honorable and deserving peak ace pilots had fallen!

No matter what sort of mischief he committed during his mortal days, everything was forgiven now that he had become a powerful god pilot.

Many groups that previously found the False Speaker detestable suddenly developed a newfound tolerance for his lies, which had only grown bolder and more outrageous after his ultimate breakthrough.

According to the information that Ves currently had at his disposal, the False Speaker eventually teamed up with the Unbound Humanity Faction of the Mech Trade Association. It seemed fitting that two troublemakers would choose to get together.

Perhaps the only truthful parts about the False Speaker was that he was a god pilot and that his title was accurate.

The False Speaker's words were so scary that he even managed to weaponize them! His most iconic ability was to spread a lie into the ears of an alien.

If the god pilot said that the alien was twice as tall, then his body would truly morph to match that height!

What was worse was that if the alien spread the lie to others that matched the criteria set by the False Speaker, the lie would somehow become true and cause the height of the bodies of those other aliens to double as well!

Those aliens in turn could spread the lie even further, leading to an exponential spread that could eventually infect entire population groups unless hindered or if the god pilot was no longer able to sustain the expansion anymore.

In other words, the False Speaker's greatest weapon had become his ability to spread memetic hazards!

Ves did not know why a fellow like Oson Jackarie wanted to dedicate himself to a temple that deified such a freaky god pilot.

If Ves was being honest, he actually felt pleased that the Temple of Falsehood in the Red Ocean got screwed by the Great Severing. No good could come out of a house of worship that literally revered the biggest liar of the human race!

While Ves privately celebrated the temple's misfortune, he suddenly realized a very important consequence to the Pantheon of Modern Gods.

"Oh wait. The False Speaker is one of the many god pilots that have remained behind in the old galaxy. It is probably difficult for your temple to justify its continued existence and worship of a god pilot that has become a lot less tangible and approachable than before."

The baring of this truth appeared to affect the temple-commander a lot. Whether he was putting on a show or whether he truly felt hurt by the tragedy that had befallen his temple, Oson Jackarie truly appeared sad that his temple had effectively 'lost' its object of worship!

The temple-commander's expression grew pensive. "That has become our new reality. The Age of Dawn has only just begun, so our temple has mostly been able to maintain its hold over the believers in the new frontier. However, the less… steadfast among our believers have already begun to defect to the so-called 'new temples'. The rate of defections will only rise once more and more people conclude that our 'fallen temples', though we prefer to be called 'old temples', are unable to reach out to the god pilots that we hold dear."

"And that is a problem because…?"

"Our old temples vastly outnumber the new temples, but the latter has gained the upper hand for obvious reasons. If we do not stop them, then the new temples will abuse their power to forcibly dissolve the 'fallen temples' so that they can claim anything valuable for themselves. The Pantheon will become much smaller and less diverse as a consequence."

"...I see." Ves briefly paused. "As I have said before, your troubles sound fascinating, but I do not feel any inkling of desire to get involved in your schism. Why bring this up to me at all? What do you want me to do with your ongoing problem?"

"The Temple of Falsehood would like to request a service from you. We have learned through your channels that you can essentially… create gods, though you call them spirits. We would like to commission you to create a new 'spirit' modeled after the False Speaker in order to make our faith tangible and falsifiable again."

So that was what this temple-commander was after. The old man was so scared of losing his comfortable place in the hierarchy that he wanted Ves to create a facsimile of a god pilot to revive his faith!

The audacity of this crazy request was so enormous that Ves couldn't offer an immediate response.

Just the thought of creating a spiritual product in the image of a god pilot sounded heretical from the onset!

Yet… a part of Ves also grew curious. What would happen if… he actually did it? Would the resulting spiritual entity gain any connection to the true god pilot 50 million light-years away?