[@Dynamo Frokane] That's alright.  

So the Hylo Empire has a sort of religious connection to Mecha, yeah?  Maybe they have a different vernacular and actually call them Colossi, giving them a verbal quirk that's pretty easy to spot out.  

Do you have much fleshed out for their religious beliefs?  

I would suggest that they have an order of monks who maintain and repair their mecha(or Colossi, if you take my suggestion on that).  It may even be that a Hyloan(?) would refuse any other mechanic who wasn't a member of that order.  


EDIT: Maybe they believe that every advance in mecha technology brings the world one step closer to the return of their gods.  Maybe for that reason they are particularly aggressive toward any foreign culture that is hoarding technological knowledge or data.