Allegiance

The whole room went silent after Major Valen revealed the true purpose of the Alterra Project. Thinking about those words, everyone in the room exchanged looks until someone cracked and started to laugh hysterically.

"HA HA HAAA! You totally had us going! That sounds like such a video game story setup or even movie or anime setup that it's just too cheesy to believe!" said one of the other players while laughing.

"SHUT IT!" Major Valen yelled as he slammed his hand on the pulpit causing everyone to jump and stop laughing.

"In the past, we've lost countless men and women, GOOD men and women! On paper the war had been postponed for 70 years, but that's only on the surface. In truth we've still been fighting minor skirmishes along the border as we probe each other's strength. Those of you that have taken any missions involved with killing human NPCs, you've actually already killed a person."

The only other girl in the room aside from Stacia and Yurika turned pale for a second, then covered her mouth and tried to run out of the room to get to a bathroom to throw up. Unfortunately for her, the door was locked and she ended up puking in a small trash can that Major Valen had kicked in her direction. The other people not on Gray's team also started to look uncomfortable as they remembered they had taken the mission that involved destroying a pirate raiding camp. Killing the enemy mech wasn't what disturbed them, the woman clearly remembered stepping on one of the pirates with her mech and finding it hilarious that he made a sound similar to when you step on a cockroach. The realization that she stepped on a real person and not a generic "enemy" hit her very hard.

"Good, I see a few of you have already been christened, it will be easier, but you should never become numb to it. You are soldiers, not killers! Remember though, if you hesitate, you will die, do not assume your enemy will hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes!"

"S-sir, I just wanted to play a game, not become a soldier." Stacia said meekly

"This isn't a game, this is survival! While we can't force you to pilot a mech, know that you were preselected for your compatibility to be a pilot and raised in an ideal environment so that you do not lose your mind when you transfer your consciousness to the mech. Let me show you what happens when the average person tries to pilot a mech."

Major Valen tapped the side of the pulpit and a video started playing on the screen showing a man in a pilot's suit that was being hooked up to a machine with various probes and sensors on his head and a few trailing down his back. Everyone in the room watched as what appeared to be a scientist in a lab coat was counting down with his hands. When he reached 0 the mech in the background powered up, but did not move. The pilot hooked up to the lab equipment started to sweat and was making different facial expressions, but nothing happened aside from him giving them a slight look of constipation.

"Uhhh, not gonna lie, thought the guy was going to explode or something else tragic" Gray thought to himself.

After a few minutes the pilot in the video took of his helmet and walked away looking depressed and covered in sweat. "This was our early testing where we tried it with the pilot still awake which you could call normal virtual reality, as you can see, nothing happens. The mind was unable to leave the body while the body was still conscious. We switched to unconscious methods, which I am sure you are all familiar with as full dive virtual reality. We've tried several methods and all failed." Major Valen continued.

"First we tried using drugs to knock the pilot out, but as expected that did absolutely nothing" Major Valen tapped a button on the pulpit and a video of another pilot being connected to the same device as before showed up, except this time after the countdown the pilot's body went limp and still the mech didn't move. The video ended when some lab techs disconnected the pilot and dragged his body away.

"We tried hypnosis and still nothing." Major Valen tapped a button again and a video showed a pilot sitting still in the seat but once again no movement. The lab tech was able to use voice commands to get the pilot to move through his hypnotic state, but he couldn't move the mech. A lab tech even commanded the pilot to flip off the camera that was recording there session then had him moonwalk out of the lab.

"These are the people we trust our weapon's technology with?!?" Gray thought to himself "My kind of people!"

"Lastly, we even considered using blunt force to knock out the pilot or even asphyxiation, but that had too many risks. The last test pilot we used was hooked up, but we couldn't decide upon how to knock him out. This guy just happened to be extremely hungover from the night before and actually fell asleep in the pilot's chair naturally, so we fired up the mech just to see what would happen."

Major Valen tapped the button again to a video of a pilot with bloodshot eyes sitting in the pilot's seat. No countdown was happening but discussions over how to knock him out could be heard off camera. The pilot's head started bobbing and he actually fell asleep on his own. The scientist's became quiet suddenly and a few giggles could be heard, then as if on a whim they fired up the mech. Much to their surprise, the mech actually moved, but it didn't move in any human way possible, still, they finally got the consciousness to transfer Major Valen explained.

"A few years later, we discovered another problem, the neural paths we had mapped were never the same for everyone. Mapping a new set for each pilot would take months unless we could discover some sort of commonality upon how they developed."

Major Valen clicked another button again and the picture of a beautiful woman with blonde hair tied up in a bun, white lab coat, long dark pants, and a low cut v neck shirt with plenty of curvature was shown on screen. All the males of course started to pay more attention to this.

"This is Doctor Sara Watts, she may look extremely young, but her real age is unknown. She developed the basic theory of how neural paths formed and even successfully replicated them which created our basis for true artificial intelligence. Of course, only 2 completely sentient AI exist that we're aware of. Sara is one of them after she used herself to test the artificial neural network to transfer consciousness. Sadly she became… stuck… so that picture is of her last physical appearance over 50 years ago."

"So… we're all going to become one with our machine and transfer our consciousness to them and become human brain with a robot body?!?" said Geoff

"What? Heck no… if we transfer you to a machine, only you could use it and we'd have to wipe out your existence to have someone else use it. Instead we used the technology to develop AIs, that's why they are so lifelike."

Gray felt like some important piece of information was missing from this but chose not to think about it or question it at this time as he was still trying to figure out where this all was going.

"Ok, so where are you going with all of this?" Gray asked.

"People are smart, but only individually, we want you all to become our test group and also help control the other players. As for why you, you've been living in a virtual environment for most of your lives so your consciousness can easily adapt to being placed in a machine." Major Valen tapped a button on the pulpit again and a video came up showing a pilot placed in a mech through a window in what appeared to be a control room.

"This is what happens when your mind is unable to adapt to being linked or placed in a machine" Major Valen commented.

In the video was a man dressed in military garb watching the pilot and mech behind the glass in the control room as he said "Begin transfer." The man looked hesitantly at the robot again. The robot appeared to spasm slightly as the transfer began showing that the subject began to link with the robot and could control the artificial musculature. The man looked up hopeful, but then turn to disappointment as several alarms started blaring.

"Sara! Report!" yelled the man in the video.

"Sir, vitals are going erratic, the subject is unable to control the robot as his mind destabilizes, recommend immediate shutdown"

A loud garbled noise is emitted from the robot, one could only describe it as a robot screaming in pain.

"Shut it down…" said the man as the video went black.

"What… what was that?" asked Gray hesitantly.

"Dr. Sara Watts and head researcher Edward Teach, we attempted to force the consciousness to connect to the machine through the neural link and the pilot's mind eroded quickly. Fortunately, Edward had a brilliant idea. Think of it as getting into a freezing pool of water, if you just jump in the shock could hurt you, but if you take your time and do it inch by inch you can make it in without getting that shock." Said Major Valen

"So basically you've eased our minds into being comfortable with the machines and being linked so we don't receive a neural shock, so to speak?" said Caleb.

"That's the gist of it, we've spent as much as 25 years grooming your minds in the virtual world to be able to handle the transfer by being transferred for most of your lives."

__________

Gray and the others were still uncomfortable being essentially drafted into the military, they felt they had no connection to the Alterran Alliance nor any hatred of the Terran Hegemony.

"Sir, why should we fight for a country we have no allegiance with?" asked Gray.

"As harsh as it sounds, you have no choice. You have no identity, no currency, and no value in this world except to the military… Plus you need your incubation pod for gene therapy at least once a month or your body will start to decay at a very rapid pace."

An alarm resounded through the base, it was now 11:30am, 30 minutes before launch of the "game".

"Everyone, you are the guides of the future pilots, do not let us down! Work with your fellow pilots and let us work towards ending the war permanently!"