Neural interface technology possessed a lot of depth and layers.
Ever since it became the bridge between potentates and mechs, neural interface technology gained a huge amount of importance.
The MTA decisively staked its claim onto this core tech, preventing others from recklessly experimenting with it any further.
Though selfish, the mechers mostly had good intentions in mind. By maintaining a strict monopoly on the development of neural interface technology, they prevented other scientists and engineers from making mistakes and endangering unwitting customers.
However, Ves could not ignore the fact that the MTA had also stifled the development of neural interface technology in the process.
As an innovator himself, he knew that experimentation often resulted in failure.
Without any special advantages, many inventors had to explore blindly, never knowing whether their next idea could lead to fortune or catastrophe.
Normal innovation was relatively harmless. Although the creators involved may end up wasting a lot of time and resources, they at least understood how reality worked a little better than before.
Even failure produced valuable data, if only to inform the parties involved what did not work.
Many innovations sprung from failure.
It could be through a simple process of elimination. Perhaps an inventor tried out 99 different ideas, each of which failed through different means. Yet the data and calculations also illuminated 1 idea that actually turned out to be viable.
Other innovations could emerge from sudden inspiration. Ves was most accustomed to this means of inventing new stuff. He might work on a mundane piece of tech, but suddenly became inspired to try out a new variation or direction that might end up yielding greater rewards.
Both instances did not happen often across the mech industry, but given its size still happened frequently enough to guarantee the steady growth and evolution of mechs.
One of the few exceptions to this rule was neural interface technology.
Accidents related to mundane components such as armor systems or sensor systems would simply cause the mech to malfunction or perform worse than normal. The mech pilot was not at risk unless the fault was particularly severe.
Not so for neural interfaces. Due to its direct connection to the brains of mech pilots, even a minor fault could induce permanent damage, potentially causing loss of piloting ability or even death!
Such accidents happened particularly frequently during the first and most chaotic years of the Age of Mechs.
Naturally, the MTA moved quickly to nip this problem in the bud.
If Ves charted the advancement of neural interface technology to other mech-related techs, then it would appear as a very gentle slope compared to the much steeper inclines of energy shields, armor systems, flight systems and more.
It couldn't be helped!
Whereas the MTA permitted mech designers and other researchers to explore many different facets of conventional technologies related to mechs, the powerful superorganisation ruthlessly stamped out any unauthorized or overly adventurous explorations in the field of neural interface technology!
Most of the 'innovations' in neural interfaces ended up being incremental in nature. They took the form of small optimizations and reluctant incorporation of adjacent technologies.
It was as if neural interface specialists were too afraid to take a single further.
Making the wrong move could easily cause them to lose their precious certifications!
This had led to a suboptimal circumstance where both interest and human resources heavily lagged behind other mech-related fields!
Many mech designers did not even think about improving neural interfaces.
This was strange as they normally thought about squeezing every bit of performance in other mech components!
The MTA clearly engineered this circumstance just to minimize the amount of accidents related to neural interface experimentation.
Yet it also prevented the rise of many neural interface specialists whose reckless but valuable experimentation might have led to massive improvements.
Ves found it ridiculous that the mech industry never qualitatively improved the ability for low-aptitude mech pilots to control their mechs more effectively!
He did not think it was an impossible task. Technology could always find a way. In his opinion, the main reason why such innovations never came to pass was because the mechers erred far too much on the side of caution and heavily restricted development in this sector.
The mechers actually went a step further. They not only shrunk this sector and arrested its advancement, but also restricted access to old and historic research on neural interface technology!
Back then, the Big Two had not yet emerged. Humanity had conquered half the galaxy but became increasingly more divided into bitter rivals.
With the Five Scrolls Compact secretly stoking conflict behind the scenes, many humans did not care too much about restricting dangerous forms of R&D.
They were too greedy about the gains to care about the occasional accidents!
The neural interface sector during this volatile but high-flying age looked completely unrecognizable to a child of the subsequent ages!
It was not necessarily larger, since neural interfaces had yet to produce a killer application that achieved widespread popularity.
However, neural interfaces have already found use in a number of valuable applications.
This niche technology therefore attracted plenty of researchers who faced few restrictions when it came to tinkering with new devices.
They just needed to be powerful enough to withstand the consequences or find a patron that could provide them with sufficient protection.
So long as their unstable products did not produce too many fatalities, they could easily continue with their dangerous projects!
This was a wild period of time. Neural interface specialists recklessly incorporated both unsubstantiated ideas as well as dubious alien tech into their implementations, thereby producing wild and unpredictable outcomes!
Though the vast majority of experimental products either stalled or outright crashed, there were instances where at least a few of them managed to produce substantial improvements.
Ves did not know this for certain, but he could pretty much guess that the most modern implementation of neural interfaces was built on the bones of all of this reckless experimentation!
He found it to be a shame that the MTA worked so hard to confiscate and restrict access to all of this wild and exotic research.
Their suppression had been so effective that not even the Terrans and the Rubarthans dared to hide away too much of their own experimental research on neural interfaces.
This was yet another reason why the neural interface sector produced such anemic innovation over the centuries.
How could the neural interface researchers of the Age of Mechs make substantial progress when they lacked access to so much historical accumulation?
It was like trying to run a marathon with a crippled leg!
While Ves had hoped that the Red Association became infected by the openness of the Age of Dawn and reverse this policy, the mechers of the new frontier hardly budged on this stance.