Chapter 934: There are no Stupid Ideas

The very next proposal was one that bordered on pure stupidity. It was actually shockingly bad coming from a Huntress, who had clearly gained practical experience in the field and had earned many combat accolades.

When Max first read the proposal that stated their position should be to attempt to intimidate attacking forces with loud noises and flashing lights, he wondered if the Huntress thought that the Myceloids were like some common species of nuisance birds that could be chased away with noise makers.

The thought was completely illogical. They shouted war chants and banged their weapons together as they ran. If anything, they would welcome the additional noise so they knew they were going in the right direction while stuck in the middle of an attacking horde.

The next few were decent ideas, simple and solid, with basic base defence and various priorities for attacks. Nothing wrong with them, but all six out of ten generic ideas.

Khan's idea was a less extreme version of Nico's idea. To send out a champion to challenge the nearby villages' leaders and either take them in as vassals or wipe them out as weaklings and cowards, depending on their response.

It would keep the area clear of major threats, and they would be able to secure the Anomaly in relative peace.

Other ideas suggested that the change in the Myceloids' behaviour represented a chance for diplomacy. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with that plan, but the challenges were Myceloid diplomacy. Only the strong had the right to speak, and since they weren't of the same species, you would have to prove yourself first.

That meant that the proposals for negotiations were basically the same as the ones to issue challenges. The only difference was how they were worded.

"It looks like we're all close to being on the same page," Nico commented after the sixth straight suggestion that was some version of challenging the leaders to make them do what they want.

Even Max couldn't say for sure that it wouldn't work, but he suspected that the chances of it were pretty low. The Myceloids might recognize you as the strongest, but you still weren't one of them, and they wouldn't have outsiders take over their villages.

Then came another of the questionable ideas. The proposal was to disguise all of their hunter suits as Myceloids and pretend to be just another Myceloid village with really big leaders. They only challenged the ones they thought that they could beat, as far as the intelligence showed, so if they had Hunter Suits twice the size of any leader, then the Myceloids should see them and back off.

Ignoring the fact that the Myceloids already knew where the Hunters were, since there was a chance that with the rearranged continent, they might have lost their bearings, there was some small chance that they would fall for the deception. But there was also the chance that they would either want to repeatedly challenge for a position in this mighty camp or would expect them to take up a leadership role.

That would be impossible as they didn't understand enough about the culture, rules or even the language to effectively lead the Myceloids, who might have fallen for their disguise.

Worse, the others would begin to wonder why this camp was hostile and didn't interact with them, and that could provoke even more large-scale attacks.

Then, they got to Max's suggestion. It wasn't all that different from some of the others but with a slightly different tactic. Instead of reacting to the presence of the Myceloids, he suggested that they send out roaming teams with a Champion.

The Drone Bombers would keep the region clear, and whenever something came within their perimeter, the patrols would greet them first and challenge their leader to determine if he was worthy of setting foot in their territory. It would keep them from doing a mass assault, as the Challenges would send the smaller groups away after they lost, and it would give them a much larger established territory.

Every time a group moved out, they could expand the perimeter and pick fights with anyone who tried to replace them.

The big difference was that Max didn't intend to keep everyone in the camp. He wanted to have the roaming patrols take over the Myceloid camps that were abandoned and then fill them with Android Pilots so that the patrol could move on again and the location could be secured with both terrestrial and aerial forces.

The most aggressive tactic definitely went to Nico, but Max's was well up the ranks, and the Hunters seemed to be quite agreeable to his take-and-hold style of combat.

"This one's not bad. Even if we don't challenge them, we take their built camps when they move on and make them part of our territory. I think that might make them also form larger clans, though." One of the Huntresses suggested.

That was a possibility, but it was also part of the reason that Max wanted the smaller villages. Spreading out their troops would encourage multiple smaller attacks to take individual locations. But it would also disguise their total numbers while they built up an entire Regiment of Android-piloted Mecha.

Nico looked over the plan and frowned. "I only see one problem. I'm not sure that we have enough champions. At first, it will be fine, but we will need a real champion and not just androids at every location, and that means we are going to need more Hunters eventually.

I'm not sure how many we have that are capable of fighting and winning in a solo battle against the stronger Myceloid champions."

That could be an issue. Their troops could retreat if another force took their leader out, but that still meant casualties. The suggestion didn't sit well with the Huntresses, though. They had a lot of pride, so the idea that they couldn't win against a Myceloid camp leader had a lot of them riled up, and the fights hadn't even started.