Tristan Wesseling felt ambivalent towards the offer made by the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan.
As a Journeyman Mech Designer, he possessed his own pride.
He defected from the Friday Coalition because he became disillusioned by its division and dysfunction.
That did not mean he lost faith in all states in general.
He chose to become a citizen of the Colonial Federation of Davute by choice.
Although it was not the best colonial state in the Red Ocean, Tristan still agreed with the vision that the founders were trying to carve out in the new frontier.
He had done decently well since he started up his own mech company on Davute. Wesseling Design Services remained relatively modest until the Great Severing caused a lot of hyper materials to emerge.
Tristan dusted off his original specializations in materials science. He worked together with the state institutions of Davute to decipher the properties of hyper materials and develop effective alloys with them. His contributions were not particularly big or revolutionary, but he still derived a lot of satisfaction in developing new hyper alloys that the Davutans used in a few of their military mech designs.
He also made strides in progressing his design philosophy. His crystals became even more powerful after incorporating the effects of different hyper materials.
The development of positive and negative hyper gems presented a breakthrough in both his research and business success.
It was much easier to convince others that his tiny gems could boost the performance of an entire mech by using 'hyper materials' and 'hyper technology' as buzzwords.
Even though his pre-hyper gems also possessed the capacity to enhance the performance of mechs to a lesser degree, too many people found it far too esoteric to believe they worked.
It did not help that the gems only improved the performance of mechs by single digits in most cases. This was hardly a noticeable performance boost, though true connosseurs appreciated how it could give them an edge in the most critical of battles.
The Hyper Generation demystified a lot of phenomena that people previously regarded as magic or superstition.
Although Tristan felt disappointed by the fact that he had to borrow the label of hyper technology in order to finally convince the market to take his gems seriously, a sale was still a sale.
His hyper gems did not reach mass adoption, but the Journeyman never expected for that to happen. His products may be small, but they were expensive for the boost they provided. They could only ever be sold as luxury products that occupied a small niche in the broader mech market.
For several years, that had been his pattern. He continued to split his time between exploring the applications of specific hyper materials, designing new mechs and developing new hyper gems.
He was finally making slow but steady progress in developing his design philosophy.
The Great Severing turned out to be a boon for his life and career.
The Friday Coalition had become a relic of the past to Tristan. The second-rate state from the old galaxy could no longer exert any pressure.
Meanwhile, the Hex Federation completely suppressed the Friday Colonies that lingered in the Magair Middle Zone.
Tristan did not have to fear the Fridaymen making any attempt to bring him back to their fold!
This was why he entered the beginning of the Age of Dawn with optimism. This was an era that was already shaping up to present her with an endless amount of fruitful work.
Tristan became satisfied.
The Colonial Federation of Davute continued to develop its planetary settlements. Its prosperity became clear to everyone.
Even if his progress still was not as fast as that of Ves and other prodigies, Tristan saw hope of working towards a better future.
Each day, he made incremental progress towards advancement to Senior Mech Designer.
It may take a decade or two, but Tristan remained optimistic that he was moving forward at a slow but consistent pace. He already likened himself to a turtle as opposed to a hare. He did not really care too much about how many years it took to reach the next rank so long as his progress did not stall.
The Red War continued to be fought in the background.
While Tristan was much more aware of the risks and dangers than many other Davutans, he still retained enough confidence in red humanity's ability to hold back the native aliens.
So long as red humanity gained a bit more time to improve its technologies and develop upgraded mechs, he was confident that humans would ultimately prevail.
Tristan had admittedly grown complacent about the threat of war.
He should have known better.
He failed to anticipate the space refugees.
He failed to take into account the possibility that all 5 defensive bands would break.
He also utterly failed to foresee that the native aliens would overrun the Krakatoa Middle Zone and steamroll their way to Davute!
Tristan couldn't help but feel sour about losing so much assets on Davute. The headquarters and main facilities of Wesseling Design Services had cost a significant chunk of money. He had upgraded their security systems and main production equipment.
Now, all of it was likely about to turn into waste. If the native aliens succeeded in toppling the defenses of Davute, then there was nothing stopping them from bathing his facilities with cleansing and all-destructive flames!
The Red Tide Offensive did not register as a threat for more than half a year.
Then everything accelerated far beyond the public's imagination.
Perhaps the bigshots had an inkling of what was about to happen, but Tristan was not qualified to join their circle.
This meant that he and practically everyone else in Davute had been completely caught off-guard by the latest developments.
Now, the Colonial Federation of Davute was bleeding star systems and population. Many star systems that never had the opportunity to build up proper defenses had become cleansed of all human presence.
It was like the Sand War all over again, but this time the native aliens actually enjoyed the act of wiping out helpless human civilians!
The capital planet of the colonial state was next.
Valiant protectors such as the renowned 77th Warborn Mech Division under the lead of Saint General Ark Larkinson put up a mean resistance, but they were suffering so many losses in every serious engagement that they were steadily running out of mechs and mech pilots to deploy onto the battlefield.
Yet it remained questionable whether they could hold the relentless native aliens back from conquering and razing the heart of the colonial federation.
If Davute fell, the entire colonial state would break.
Tristan would lose everything, and so would many other mech designers that invested heavily into the planet and state.
His customer base, his network of contacts, his friendships and alliances, his favorable business agreements, his debts and much of his employee relationships threatened to go up into smoke.