Even though there’s like a hundred different businesses squeezed into this one section of this one wing of the convention center, there is a central display in the middle of the room that’s quite impressive. There’s a reason all the crowds of people are gravitating this way.

And that reason is mechas.

I completely understand why people are gawking at this thing. I’m gawking at this thing. Just look at it.

Thirty feet tall. Sleek white and blue, curved metal design. A head that looks like a regal prince, but actually serves as body armor. Those hands could hold a laser sword if they actually existed. The fact that ray shields do exist means that this thing could charge straight into a firefight, absorb a bunch of blows, and then swipe away all its enemies before it fires even a single bullet.

Yes, the oft-promised super robotic machines, first prototyped over three decades ago, first shown off as early as 1988... are finally nearly ready for public consumption. By public, I mean mostly law enforcement and heavy physical labor corporations. We aren’t going to see people flying to work in their human-shaped rocket suits (yet). But for anyone as obsessed with the movie Robot Jox as I was as a kid, this news is phenomenal.

Mechadyne Systems has been working on various mecha prototypes since the Battle Dome days when the U.S. and Soviet Union did their Cold War fake-friendly tournaments. They were super unwieldy then, but now, all these decades later, they’re almost workable. Almost in our hands. Wow.

Mechas are almost real.

We’re almost living in the future.

No, this development is too pure to be related to the Ascendants stuff. I rule Mechadyne Systems as safe.