A two-meter tall battlesuit invented by a Greek named Nik Theodorotis, The Fuming Minotaur was designed to be a close combat battlesuit. As it’s name implied, the battlesuit resembles the famous Greek mythical creature. The body was wholly human, while the head of the battlesuit was shaped like a bull with its two horns serving as exhaust vents. Despite the mythical theme, The Minotaur was no joke. Theodorotis didn’t designed the battlesuit to be a curiosity, but to be a fully functioning battlesuit.

Almost the whole of the battlesuit was heavily armored and the strength of the operator was also enhanced by the battlesuit. Enclosed in the heavily armored Fuming Minotaur, the operator was supposed to charge at the opponent, ignoring the incoming fire to get into close combat range. Heavier armor equals less speed, so Theodorotis installed several boosters on the legs of the Minotaur to give the battlesuit a much-needed short burst of speed to get to the enemy quicker. The battlesuit also came equipped with a long battleaxe that could cut through almost anything if the operator can apply enough strength and force behind it.

The idea and design of The Fuming Minotaur was both simple and effective. The Fuming Minotaur can take a punch, and dish it out. In its day, The Minotaur was considered a premier battlesuit. Theodorotis just unknowingly made one big error.

The Minotaur runs on Fossil Fuel Technology.

A fossil fuel was a fuel formed by decomposition of buried dead organisms. These usually include petroleum, coal, and natural gas. When the technology was first discovered, Fossil Fuels Technology wasn’t considered to be anything great. Fuel could be burned to produce significant amounts of energy per unit mass, but coal wasn’t considered to be a much better source of energy than Steam or Clockwork, so the technology didn’t catch on. That changed after improvement of the technology based around the used of petroleum. The technology came to its own with the commercial exploitation of petroleum about a hundred and fifty years ago, and from there, it was a small step to natural gas and heavy crude oil.

However, before Fossil Fuel Technology could fully replace Clockwork Technology, the momentum of the technology came to a grinding halt when it was discovered that the burning of fossil fuel caused harm to the environment. A new type of science had come into being that studied the effects of the environment and these climate scientists provided proof that the use of fossil fuel was harming the earth.

For a time, this was controversial as no one had heard of things like climate change and ozone layer before, but you can’t argue with science. Soon everyone realized the harm Fossil Fuel Technology was doing to the environment and there was some talk of banning the technology altogether. However, defenders of the technology pointed out that Stream Technology also harm the environment, though at a lesser degree, so if you ban Fossil Fuel Technology, you need to ban Steam Technology too.

It was a stupid argument, but it worked. Fossil Fuel Technology was saved from a ban, and instead more money and resources were given to climate scientists to try and find a way to reverse the effects of climate change. Ironically, the companies most involved in the Fossil Fuel Industry, dismissively called Big Oil, were the biggest contributors as they seek to lift the cloud over their industry. Within twenty years, climate scientists managed to do that but by then, it was too late for Fossil Fuel Technology. Almost everyone had abandoned it to return to Clockwork.

Nowadays, Fossil Fuel Technology was used mainly as an example on the folly of science. Most people do not used it, and only anarchists and historians remember the promise it once held. Even among the latter, the technology has a reputation of being dirty, polluting, and destructive. In fact, Fossil Fuel Technology has such a bad reputation that it is more commonly known as ‘Dieselpunk’. A technology no upstanding citizens would consider using. The fact that Dieselpunk was closely associated with World War I, which started only a few years after the technology got popular, was another minus for the public.

This reputation was very undeserved.

The simple fact was that climate science has advanced to such a stage that any harm done by the technology could be easily undone by climate science. What is replacing the ozone layer when climate scientists were already thinking of ways to terraform Mars and Venus? Yes; the advance of climate science, the field of science that destroyed the promise of Fossil Fuel Technology, has made the technology safe to use once more. The irony was not lost on me as I purchased the battlesuit from the Dive.

Purchases in the Dive required Dive Points, which was the digital currency of the Dive platform. The price for The Fuming Minotaur was a little expensive for a Grade One battlesuit, but I was so flush with credits right now, the price didn’t really mean much to me. After purchasing the battlesuit, my next problem was how to make my variant of The Fuming Minotaur viable.

The System only said that I need to design six battlesuits within six months. It didn’t say anything about the quality of my work, or how many of the battlesuits must be sold, but I had my personal goals to meet. It may not matter to the System, but I want to release quality work, and I also want people to use my battlesuits. I have no wish to release designs that no one will look at, much less used. Releasing battlesuit designs just for the sake of releasing them was just wrong. I began to work.

The easiest way to make my variant viable was to change the battlesuit to another type of technology. As soon as the thought arose, I suppressed it immediately. The Fuming Minotaur is a battlesuit that was tied to Fossil Fuel Technology, and I had no wish to change that. Not only was there history to think of, changing the whole technology the battlesuit was being run on takes a lot of work. I was on a dateline.