The Resource Development Administration has never shied from using expert outside talent to solve problems and increase their profit margin, and the recent success of their Unobtanium mining operations on Yukon and Eureka has allowed Earth to keep its head above water, and RDA to remain fiscally solvent enough to indulge in ensuring that Pandora, the richest Unobtanium mining operation to date, succeeds.
Which is why rumors of a possible rebellion amongst the researchers and pilots of the Pandora Avatar Project has the Board...concerned.
The orders are simple: Expand output, ensure the native population does not cause significant losses in men, material and profits, and prepare the Alpha Centauri system for the coming expansion of Earth's colony programs.
This promises to be a troublesome working vacation.
Right, time to get the rust off my writing skills. Commentary, critique is appreciated etc, etc
When the Board of the Resource Development Administration typically assembled to meet in their plush, secure conference center in the inhospitable Himalayas, there was never any tension; the men and women seated at the table knew each other, they knew their habits, their strengths, resources, weaknesses, all the necessary information that would ensure that these men and women could regard each other as equals, knowing that none of them would make the first move to threaten anyone because of the chaos that would arise.
The tension in the conference room at that current moment was far more palpable considering the nine armoured soldiers idly holding large, fat-barreled cannons that were more suited to vehicles and gun emplacements while the man they were guarding calmly sipped from a mug of steaming tea, exhaling as he leaned back in his chair, "Not often that I get called in for a personal briefing. Last time I was here was, what? Five years ago?"
"Seven, Commander." One of the soldiers responded.
"Right, right, seven years. And how far the RDA has come. Affordable Fusion Powerplants operating, albeit by necessity, without the need for Unobtanium, the Creation Engine solving issues surrounding ongoing shortages of food, clothing, medicine, cheap housing, and helping to alleviate the strain on Earth's biosphere with the aid of our environmental repair programs. Seven years, ladies and gentlemen, and to think, five of your predecessors fought me tooth and nail to stop the proliferation." He smiled, a wide animal grin showing teeth lined with gold patterns, "Shame that they all died to...unfortunate misfire accidents involving our current Directed Energy Weapon System projects, set the entire thing back at least a good decade, could take a few decades more before they're safe to use."
The five youngest members of the Board nodded solemnly while the rest refrained from commenting. Seven years ago, the man at the end of the table had shown up in a multi-kilometer starship with a treasure trove of technologies he was willing to trade and a desire to help alleviate a great deal of Earth's suffering. Seven years ago, that same man had murdered five of the Board and had their replacements chosen from young idealogues outside the RDA corporate structure to 'shake things up', and to ensure that his technology wasn't just proliferated, but at a significant loss to RDA's profits that the corporation simply had to accept.
About the only silver lining was the slow increase in public support as the Creation Engines, devices which even to independent scientists seemed magical in function, spread across the globe and began to reduce cases of unapproved activism and insurgent activity. With the man at the table taking public credit for the proliferation, he was practically a hero to everyone on Earth, and to the senior members of the Board, they just had to grin and bear it.
"Under normal circumstances, there would be no real need for this sort of meeting," The spokesman for the assembled Board members started, "But we have been receiving numerous Superluminal Relay messages from our operation on Pandora that have become increasingly...concerning."
"Heh, this'll be good," The man replied, the soldiers around him shifting.
"Thanks to the increased profits from Yukon and Eureka, and the recent discovery of several potential colony sites that are within our current FTL limitations with large amounts of Trans-Newtonian Elements, we had been generous in allowing the Pandora site's Avatar Project a great deal of operational freedom in keeping native involvement in our mining operations to a minimum of interference and conflict." The spokeman continued, the lights in the windowless room dimming as holoprojectors sprang to life to display footage of soldiers in breathing gear firing into the jungle as arrows and spears hissed out from the undergrowth and canopy; some spearing into the soldiers but the rest peppering the sides of a convoy of massive dumper trucks lumbering along a packed dirt road.
"However, rather than dropping, incidents of native hostilities and even directed animal attacks by Pandora's global neural network haven't seen any appreciable decrease. If anything, the situation reports being sent by Colonel Miles Quaritch are indicating a dramatic spike in attacks against the primary mining site and all convoys and patrols." The images shifted to a still photograph, "And then there's this."
Two of the blue-skinned, feline-looking, lanky humanoids, in a rough mix of native and Earth garb, armed with rifles, attacking a patrol on the backs of several native animals, "We have confirmation that there is an increase in defections to the Na'Vi amongst the Avatar Program's 'drivers', and we have reason to believe that these defections are being done in order to hamstring, if not outright curtail, mine output."
"And if we are to reach our stated goals of establishing a permanent colonial presence in the Pleiades Cluster," One of the younger Board members spoke up, "We don't just need the mining output to increase, we need the constant inciting of the natives to be suppressed."
"What? Are you asking me to initiate cullings?" The man scoffed, "Or would you just prefer that I unearth and suppress this possible Avatar Project uprising?"
"We do not need needless conflict with the natives!" Another Board member responded hotly, "The biosphere of Pandora means that any permanent human settlement is not going to be particularly large and the population will be entirely focused on RDA's commercial ventures than any independent colonial activity. Being in constant warfare with the natives is not your directive, Commander." The outright sneer in his voice at the man's title caused barrels to tilt upwards before he raised a hand to halt them, the other Board members relaxing a hair but remaining tensed and ready to dive for cover, fully aware that the moment those weapons pointed at them, their lives would be considered expendable and new Board members would be chosen before the day was done.
"Ladies and gentlemen," The Commander sighed, "From what I've managed to read up on, the entire planet is spoiling for a fight against us, and in a hypocritical fashion is unwilling to throw the first punch. RDA and by extension Humanity, is being goaded into this fight, and with this apparent anti-RDA insurrection festering inside what was supposed to be an attempt at actual diplomacy instead of just simply gassing the natives out of their jungle, it is clear that more...forceful measures must be taken."
"You understand what is being required of you, Commander?" A Board member in a military uniform asked, "We are essentially asking you to be the Governor of the Alpha Centauri star system and advance it to a state where it is a functional member of RDA's interstellar economy."
"And increase Unobtanium output, survey for Trans-Newtonians, establish limited permanent human settlement to ensure sustainable populations for the long-term sustainable exploitation of Unobtanium sites across the moon, and have everyone around a bonfire singing Kumbaya." The Commander ticked off his fingers with a laugh, "You certainly don't ask for much when you put me on the job."
"There will be resistance." The military man spoke up, "But at the very least you should have the support of Colonel Quaritch unless that dipshit suit sent with the last cycle has got him thinking you're there to replace him."
"Do I have orders to bundle Quaritch into a Valkyrie and send him back?" The Commander asked, and at the silence he received, simply nodded, "There you go. I expect the majority of resistance will be from the Avatar Program."
"They've been covering their tracks." A woman in a dark suit stated darkly, "Somehow, they've found a way to upload the rogues' minds permanently into their Avatars in a manner similar to Project Phoenix. We have no clue how it's occurring." She turned to the Commander, "If you find out how they're doing it, shut it down."
'Oh boy, conflicting orders already.' The Commander considered as he nodded with a smile, 'I wonder if I can just drop a rock on the Tree Of Souls and pretend it's divine providence? Nah, I'm not that charismatic to pull that off, and everyone knows that the Dawn Breaking's MAC cannon can pull off a convincing 'asteroid strike' when used creatively. Ah well, guess I better put plans in place to force the insurrection early.'
"Commander, in your opinion, how crippling would the potential loss of Pandora be to RDA?" One of the Board members that had remained silent spoke the question on everyone's minds, but didn't dare ask out loud.
"It'd be like getting shot in the leg." The Commander shrugged, "Potentially fatal, but with a bit of luck, hard work, and a suitable amount of stubbornness, RDA and by extension Earth, can meet it's goals and avoid extinction. It will just be much slower, and far more risky and expensive. Pandora gives us the breathing room to build more advanced Antimatter reactors and drives, it gives us the leeway to develop larger and more effective ships, and it gives us the means to reach other resource sites. With intelligent leadership, the loss of Pandora simply means we lose out on centuries of increased resource income, but we can reach the Pleiades and have access to millennia of exploitable resources, and from there we can reach other sites and our income increases exponentially, and eventually Pandora will just be some backwater curiosity, a historical footnote."
"But it carries the risks of failure increasing, if we lose Pandora, doesn't it?" The woman in the dark suit pressed.
"Yes. Failure to husband our current resource income should we lose Pandora will mean a slow, violent death of the species," The Commander shrugged, "Another victim of The Great Filter."
He clapped his hands, "But that's a problem for the future, and only if we cannot solve this problem facing us. What do we know about this apparent insurrection that has Quaritch concerned?"
The military man took over, displaying images of multiple personnel, "Thanks to your Creation Engine technology, alongside with the establishment of the Yukon and Eureka mining sites with your help, we expanded the Avatar program to create basically a fully-staffed independent wing of the Hell's Gate complex and while there was originally no problems, Colonel Quaritch noticed unusual movements and activity, deviations from mission orders, and a raft of excuses. Nothing that could be officially considered potential treason and we believe that the Colonel has chosen to build a case file and monitor the higher ranks of the program, in particular the project leader Grace Augustine."
An image of a woman who looked like a more world-worn version of Sigourney Weaver came up on the holoprojector, and The Commander nodded, motioning for the military man to continue.
"Things came to a head with the involvement of a former Marine by the name of Abel Ryder; their actions resulted in a sudden depression of Avatar Program staff and personnel whom we believe have established themselves in a hidden camp for their link beds and may be cooperating with local tribes to impede operations. Quaritch hasn't yet confirmed it, but I suspect that when you arrive at Pandora, Commander, that you will be dealing with a full-scale insurgency."
The images switched again, "You are correct in your assessment that losing Pandora will be costly, but survivable, but RDA is not in the business of survival, the company is in the business of profiting from any venture," The image of Pandora hanging in the orbit of its parent gas giant, already being used to extract vital Hydrogen and Sorium fuels, loomed in the conference room, "Commander, do you accept the assignment to Pandora?"
Commander Gideon leaned forward; his wide, friendly smile ghoulish and cruel in the light of the holoprojector, "Esteemed members of the board, I accept the assignment."
Parker Selfridge was not usually given to stress-coping activities like smoking, or any of the myriad of 'exotic' methods that his contemporaries adopted, but right now, he could use a fucking smoke as he looked at the message from Corporate, pacing in the confines of his office, "Fuck, fuckfuckfuck, this just had to happen."
"About damn time, I'd say." Leaning against the wall, looking at the same message punched up onto a large display in Parker's office, Colonel Miles Quaritch smiled grimly, "Corporate's finally paying attention, and what a way to say that they heard us."
"By sending him?!" Parker snapped, "Colonel, I don't know if you remember, but that man is a fucking snake! He's going to come in here, shitcan every single one of us, tell Corporate it's business as usual, and they'll fucking pin a medal on him for it!" He pointed out the window of his office towards the suffocating jungle beyond the defensive walls, "He's not coming here to solve...this! He's coming here to fuck us all over!"
"Seems you and I have different mental images of Commander Gideon," Quaritch chuckled, "I happened to have had the honor of working alongside him during counter-terror ops in Nigeria. He's not going to do anything but what Corporate wants, and Corporate doesn't want turnover to spike. Hell, I doubt he'll even look at you Selfridge, he'll be too busy solving the actual problems around here."
"Like what, Colonel?" Parker needled, "Our impending rebellion that Dr. Augustine seems content on constantly explaining away as just 'on the job stress' or perhaps that her personnel are going on more and more 'deep scouting expeditions'? Fuck's sake, it's a wonder the bitch can even keep a straight face!"
"She knows how the game is played, but that's only part of it." Quaritch turned to look out at the jungle, wishing he could be out there instead of having to listen to this corpo drone lose his goddamn mind over the fact that the Board had sent their personal Troubleshooter, emphasis on the shooter part, to unfuck this increasingly fucked-up situation.
Of course, the Board was at fault for basically rubber-stamping every single one of Augustine's requests and allowing her to have free reign in who to hire as Avatar drivers thanks to the new Creation Engine tech they received basically making the Avatars cheaper by a good three-quarters of the original price, which meant more Avatars and more Drivers, people who Quaritch knew in his gut would be soft in regards to treating the natives. Miles Quaritch wasn't stupid; Grace Augustine was fully caught-up in the 'noble savage' image the Na'vi presented, or rather was entirely caught up in the noble. The difference in who was the barbarian in a person's eyes is often in who is the one seeing the barbarian, and anyone could tell that the Avatar Project considered themselves surrounded by RDA 'barbarians', and would rather live in Pandora's deadly 'paradise'.
And RDA wanted to expand Pandora's exploitation to a permanent colonial presence, Quaritch could almost imagine how little time it would take before some idiot tourist took their rebreather off and dropped dead. With any luck, Gideon wasn't thinking about tourism, Pandora was a world suited for industrial resources, not looking at the pretty flowers or watching six-limbed animals.
'Then again, my fucking fault for thinking that Sully would be loyal.' Quaritch mused bitterly. He thought the kid was the right kind of driver, someone who would do what the program was intended to do and convince the natives to migrate to new territory. And knowing Parker, the suit would be ordering him to launch an attack on that damn tree to get at the biggest deposit in the entire region, one that the analysts were saying would basically making Hell's Gate the most profitable site for the next century or more.
Quaritch wasn't about to lose sleep over blowing up a damn tree, but the message to halt all military operations until Commander Gideon arrived to survey the situation himself gave him some relief. Parker couldn't push for an attack without risking pissing off RDA's golden boy, and people who pissed him off tended to be in the firing line of a 'misfire' during 'weapon tests'.
Funny how that sort of thing happened.
A knock at the door caught both men's attention, and a secretary opened it after hearing Parker's stressed bark to enter, "Mister Selfridge, Colonel Quaritch? Commander Gideon's ship has entered the system and is just arriving in orbit. Commander Gideon has ordered both of you to the landing pad."
The reactions were profoundly different; Parker Selfridge swearing and paling while Miles Quaritch laughed. The secretary simply left, not wanting to get involved in whatever was going on between the two men.
The difference in attitude continued to be displayed as the two men exited the ConMod to walk towards the landing zone assigned for the arriving shuttle, and as they broke through the clouds, Miles Quaritch smiled at seeing the stub-winged, wide-bodied transport craft approach at high speed before all three swiveled their wings up and came to a screaming halt above the landing pads marked out for them, ramps lowering at the back to drop off three platoons of infantry in fully-sealed, armoured suits, before a man in a suit and rebreather disembarked, the soldiers fanning around him as he walked towards the pair, stopping in front of them as the soldiers arrayed themselves around the trio.
"Administrator Parker Selfridge? Sec-Ops Commander Colonel Miles Quaritch?" The man's voice was casual, relaxed, as if meeting a pair of potential friends as well as coworkers.
"That correct, Commander." Quaritch held out his hand, and shook. A good, firm grip, and the bare-hand contact with the other man not wearing gloves, let Quaritch feel the calluses that came from extensive weapons usage, "Welcome to Pandora."
"Good to be here," Commander Gideon nodded at the ConMod, "Let's get inside and see just how bad things are. Is Grace Augustine on base? I need all senior RDA personnel present for this meeting."
"I'll send someone to collect her. She should still be on base since I've put a hold on all flights until you arrived." Quaritch decided to throw the suit a bone, "Administrator Selfridge had a great deal of concern for her conduct as of late." Selfridge, upon hearing that, started nodding frantically.
"It's getting to a stage where I think the Avatar project is becoming unsalvageable, Commander Paleson."
Gideon held up a hand, "Gideon, please, Parker, we'll all friends here. No need for formality. I'm just here to make sure that Corporate new demands don't bury us under a mountain of excess work. So long as we approach these problems calmly, and cooperate with each other, we will not only dramatically boost Pandora's revenue potential in a manner that will be sustainable for centuries, but we will be at the forefront of gaining access to further material wealth that will sustain human civilisation for millennia. All while normalising our relations with the natives to...well, perhaps not friendly, but we'll have a mutual understanding to stay out of each other's way."
"And if conflict is unavoidable, sir?" Quaritch asked as they continued to make their way casually towards ConMod.
"Colonel, Administrator, I am here for the long haul," Gideon soothed, "There are a few things to make me pack up and leave, and a bunch of blue tribal bastards with spears, bows and stolen guns aren't one of the things that is going to shift me. Rest assured, gentlemen."
He laughed, as if at some private joke, as the three men entered the facility buildings and into a breathable atmosphere, "No matter what happens, The Conquistador and his ship The Dawn Breaking, is here to stay."
Let us all hope it doesn't descend either side of the slope into HWTF!? then.
I'm assuming this is a 'fast forward a few jumps' for the Gate/CnC Cross-over self-Insert? If so, I do hope you have kept anything tiberium related far away from the local universe's natives. Because the local variant of humanity are all too happy to be... human. Which when combined with tiberium, leads to... problems. Mostly focusing around the fact that whilst Kane and his Brotherhood of Nod may have been the ones to accelerate and get the 'first developer' advantage for tiberium refinement, they are far from the only, or even necessarily majority, people to blame for how far and wide tiberium was spread in it's native setting.
Well, up until a certain infamous ion cannon strike. That was just a mess all around. But anything else on that's for a different thread. In the mean time, are you willing to mention the other settings the SI has travelled through before arriving in the local one if it's indeed a 'fast forward' as I believe. Or will we have to wait and see to find out?
SI is not there to make friends with the Na'vi, but he also isn't there to fill a valley with the piled up skeletons of entire tribes. Pandora will be exploited because it is a resource, and the locals cannot do anything to truly hurt a technologically-superior occupier.
I'm assuming this is a 'fast forward a few jumps' for the Gate/CnC Cross-over self-Insert? If so, I do hope you have kept anything tiberium related far away from the local universe's natives. Because the local variant of humanity are all too happy to be... human. Which when combined with tiberium, leads to... problems. Mostly focusing around the fact that whilst Kane and his Brotherhood of Nod may have been the ones to accelerate and get the 'first developer' advantage for tiberium refinement, they are far from the only, or even necessarily majority, people to blame for how far and wide tiberium was spread in it's native setting.
Complete spin-off. Different starting techbase, different experiences, different companions in Gideon Paleson's inner circle.
In the mean time, are you willing to mention the other settings the SI has travelled through before arriving in the local one if it's indeed a 'fast forward' as I believe. Or will we have to wait and see to find out?
UNSC from Halo has already been stated, and Creation Engines are from a certain tactical action game. The third is a secret for now and the fourth will be very obvious once I get the next chapter up.
Be interesting to see how you do this. Beucase I've seen several different slants on why the Na'vi are unrelentingly hostile to humanity's efforts on Pandora.
Be interesting to see how you do this. Because I've seen several different slants on why the Na'vi are unrelentingly hostile to humanity's efforts on Pandora.
Let's see, their primary window into human actions/why they're here being Augustine and like-thinking people; the neural network that has a toe-hold in the minds of every advanced organism on the planet likely wanting the 'infection' gone; I'm sure there are others.
Probably gonna try for a weekly release schedule of at least one chapter.
Thirty years. Grace Augustine had been on Pandora for thirty years and during that time she had seen all of her hard work simply be crushed under the weight of an all-consuming corporate machine that simply wanted to tear this paradise apart to fatten bank accounts. And for thirty years, she had simply accepted it, unable to affect anything with her small team reliant on that same corporate engine to continue trying to understand and commune with the all-encompassing beauty of Pandora. And then Hell's Gate and her Avatar Program received a miracle; advanced nanoconstruction engines that made it possible to create Avatars for a fraction of the original cost, news of Earth undertaking massive biosphere repair and reclamation projects, it was as if Eywa had somehow reached out and woke up people that they could save Earth and not have to ruin Pandora.
And then she found out who was responsible for it; Commander Gideon Paleson, responsible for scores of brutal suppression actions on the orders of the RDA, a man who had killed millions and was somehow regarded as a hero simply because he made it possible for people to get food, clean water and other necessities that all came with an RDA brand stamped on them. And the company built that legend around him when Grace knew that at any other time they would be letting the UN haul him up for war crimes, and they still should have done that when he revealed himself to have his own private army and starship! But RDA had something that was better than their army of mercenaries and ex-military, they had their own pet warlord on call, and he was now here to finish the job RDA started.
Grace shuddered at the images fluttering through her imagination; mines being torn open without any regard for the native tribes, who would be gunned down en-masse if any survived the bombing campaigns. The plans to get RDA off Pandora and just leave the Alpha Centauri System were in jeopardy; the Creation Engines that RDA had given her Avatar Project were hardwired and programmed to reject any attempts to create any weapons, the AIs were sophisticated enough to reject even components, seemingly able to predict every single possible weapon and weaponised tool that could need any one component.
At most, they could make knives, small blades made for utility purposes and barely useful even as a defense against Viperwolves. Without a way to get those Creation Engines to make weapons, the small but growing rebel group supporting the local clans against RDA had to rely on stealing equipment that was sized for humans and making workaround fixes for the size issue.
But if there was a possibility of getting access to a new Creation Engine under the justification of security against animal attacks, then Grace would just have to turn up the charm and convince her new mass-murderer boss that she had a pressing need to arm her people, and then she heard the laughter as the door to the main operations room opened.
"And then, I shit you not, the pie goes flying! Thirty-centimeter diameter's worth of custard, cream and pastry is on a ballistic course for the Princess' face, and just as we're all bracing for impact, herself included, the fucking dog just launches itself into the air and WHAP!" A man in a set of dark casual clothes punches his palm for emphasis, "Pup's face hits the pie like a sledgehammer and there are pieces of it flying all over the place! The King actually ordered that the dog be given a medal for protecting his daughter from an inbound ballistic threat, everyone was just killing themselves laughing while the dog's eating the pieces off the floor, happily confused about why everyone's hugging and petting him and giving him food." The three men standing around the holoprojector showing the state of RDA operations on Pandora continued to converse about some fancy party that Grace had never been to and wouldn't have shown up on principle even if she had been invited.
It was Selfridge who spotted her first, "Grace! We were just about to send a search party for you!" The slimy scumbag smiled as he walked over, clapped a hand on her shoulder and whispered harshly to her, "Don't fuck this up, Doctor. Because it's not the unemployment lines we'll be heading to if he thinks we're trying to fuck with him." He turned to the man in the dark clothes, which Grace could now see were a set of dark, jagged lines on his shirt and cargo pants. Dark eyes behind thin-framed glasses were framed with short-cropped hair and neatly-trimmed beard and moustach, and everything about him screamed not of a military man, but of a professional hunter, studying her as if she was a prey animal.
"Here she is, our very own Pandora expert!"
The man nodded, straightening from where he was leaning against the holoprojector to hold out a hand, which she shook weakly before he pressed several keys and the holoprojection shifted to a flat map of the region around Hell's Gate.
"Doctor Grace Augustine, good to meet you." The man patted his chest lightly, "My name is Commander Gideon Paleson, and I am here on the orders of the RDA Board to address the issues preventing Pandora from reaching it's full productive potential, to synergise it's myriad personnel, multiple missions and conflicting personalities to create a sustainable, profitable venture here in Alpha Centauri that will meet the company's current expectations, and ensure that our presence here is of...minimal impact to the locals."
"Minimal impact," Grace's expression was obviously skeptical, "You have a map of updated mining sites, a number of them under sites of significant social and religious significance, and you're talking about minimal impact."
"While some of these sites may be despoiled, true," Gideon nodded, "Not everywhere is some sacred ground. It's impossible for every Unobtanium site to be somewhere sacred, and even if they were, we are long, long past trying to be respectful and friendly with the natives, Doctor Augustine." He flicked a hand and several locations flashed, "Irrespective of the short-sighted dismissal of the Avatar Project's purpose as a diplomatic engine to keep Human-Na'vi relations on a by and large neutral position, our existance here is an affront to the planetary neural network, an ever-present religious sacrilege to the natives, and in general we are an alien invasion, here for inscrutable goals that fly in the face of their morality."
"Then you realise that the best thing we can do is just leave." Grace decided to push that point of conflict between her and Selfridge, just to see how this man would react.
"Nope." Gideon replied blandly.
Grace Augustine blinked, stunned at the instant dismissal of her words as Gideon turned to regard the map.
"Based on the briefing materials, our offensiveness and the resultant planetary hostility is based on the following immutable factors. First off, disregarding the fantasist talk of the planetary neural network as anything more intelligent than the animal life that inhabits it, the neural network regards us as an invasive species and is likely subtly increasing the aggression of the wildlife towards humanity while decreasing it towards the Na'vi if humans are in close proximity." He pulled up lists of injury reports, "We are being regarded in the same way a particularly-stubborn tick or other parasite is being treated, and it will only continue until we finally exhaust the Unobtanium on Pandora."
He switched the injury reports to images of the Na'vi, and Grace recognised a number of them in the pictures, "The second factor is socio-religious, the research done by the Avatar Project indicates that the natives are beholden to three ironclad commandments; they cannot build with stone, they cannot make use of the Wheel and the resulting technological developments that follow from it, and they cannot dig up anything from the earth that is not food." Gideon turned to the other two men, "Sec-Ops and mining equipment has been attacked by weapons that are primarily wood and bone, correct?"
"That's correct, sir," Quaritch replied, shifting the images to ones of tribal weapons, perfectly lethal and capable of penetrating any armour on the RDA's infantry and light vehicles, "The native's greater upper body strength allows them to make use of comparatively-primitive equipment to lethal effect. Even if a man survived being hit by these spears or arrows which are usually carved to cause grievous internal injuries to local wildlife for hunting and defense, you could get pinned to a tree or rock with very little effort and be vulnerable to animals attacking alongside the natives." He scoffed, "Fucking monkeys love using Viperwolves as attack dogs these days, some of the 'rogue' elements," Grace rolled her eyes at the way the Colonel made the word sound, "are former military animal handlers. With the native's ability to neural-link to just about anything and control or tame them, it's practically a given that they're taming the Viperwolves."
Gideon indicated photos of native weapons alongside human examples, "Fact remains, we use everything, and I do mean everything, that the Na'vi are religiously bound to never touch or acquire. We build structures out of stone, our weapons are made of metal and carbon-fiber mined from the ground, we transport Unobtanium upon wheels, and we take our stolen wealth into the sky where we came from, leading to our third factor." He brought up an image and Grace Augustine couldn't conceal the gasp.
A massive starship, so unlike the RDA's various ISVs used to supply the various mining operations and take back refined Unobtanium to Earth, hung above Pandora. A blocky hulk of a ship that held no soft lines or curves, but instead precision-engineered angles and jaggedness. The nearby ISV Venture Star was tiny in comparison and she could see that it was a live feed from the PandoraNet satellite network, as large shapes exited the behemoth and entered the atmosphere, heading to other places across Pandora as Gideon continued, "We are an alien invasion. We can spout off as much racist rhetoric about the naive blue space tribals all that we want, but the fact remains is that for all that our people are mortal, what we do might as well be fucking magic to them. Our goals, beyond Pandora, are unknowable and inscrutable, and we place value on things seemingly antithetical to everything they hold dear."
He shrugged, "Friendship is not an option, our ways and goals are too different to ever get things to a state beyond wary neutrality. Our expansion, is not going to be stopped, and they will have to accept that, one way or another." He flicked his fingers and the map returned, expanding into a global map displaying numerous potential mining sites, points for logistics hubs that Grace saw would be responsible for refining Unobtanium and Transnewtonian Elements that would also be mined, their extraction points scattered across the planet in regions ranging from places she knew would be inhabited by Na'vi to isolated regions that one would think would be devoid of habitation but Grace knew that the Na'vi were highly adaptable, if they could find a niche to live in harmony with nature and Eywa, they would be present even if it was only a scattering of small families.
"So what are you here for then, Commander?" She heard herself ask, "If what you're saying is correct, then a war is inevitable and you've already confirmed that we don't belong here, that humanity has no place on Pandora."
"True. But that is irrelevant. Our inscrutable but predictable corporate masters have laid down the law; we have new orders that I am here to ensure are fulfilled." Gideon smiled grimly, "And because of those orders, we need to cooperate in handling the natives in an intelligent manner, we need to stop what is clearly a misguided rebellion against the corporation because of unchecked, unrealistic idealism thoroughly stained with the kind of logic that once made the tropes of the White Savior and Ruler From Outside stories so prevalent in the days of colonialism."
"But what we are doing is Colonialism!" Grace snapped back, Selfridge and Quaritch watching her carefully while pretending to go over various datapoints, "We are here to establish ourselves in land that isn't ours and belongs to its rightful people! Commander, I don't care what your orders from Corporate are; they need to understand that absolutely nothing is worth the kind of pain and devastation we are inflicting on the Na'vi with every hour we remain here."
"And what would you suggest?" Gideon replied, lips crinkling in gentle amusement, "That twenty-billion people simply return to the old ways of the hunter-gatherer? That they once again put themselves at the mercy of short, painful lives that will be cut short by disease, conflict, and predation? That twenty-billion people throw away millennia of the dreams and efforts of those who came before them seeing transcendence?" He scoffed, still smiling gently, "That's all well and good when the population is barely in the tens of thousands like here, but be serious Doctor Augustine. Unless you're advocating for mass cullings to reduce the population, you can't have what the Na'vi have with billions."
There was nothing to say in response to that, so Gideon ignored the woman's glare and motioned to the holoprojector, "Besides, if you're pissed off about all this now, you're not going to like Corporate's new requirements."
"And what exactly are the requirements?" Selfridge quickly spoke up to cut off Grace's next scathing remark, "I'm sure you understand that even if we didn't have issues regarding hostile natives being supported by hostile rogue Avatar drivers, we do have a bottleneck here at Hell's Gate."
"Which is a problem that will be solved by the prefabricated facilities aboard The Dawn Breaking," Gideon nodded in acknowledgement, before meeting the eyes of everyone around the holoprojector.
"Corporate has ordered that the current rate of refined Unobtanium output is to be increased by one-hundred-percent to three point oh-six million metric tonnes, by the end of the month, and from there, that output is to be increased by a further two-hundred percent to fifteen point three million metric tonnes by the end of the year, and then sustainably maintained at that level of output for the foreseeable future."
Selfridge and Quaritch started going over the map with him as Grace remained silent, discussing how to meet the new output demands by identifying sites that would have minimal Na'vi presence, veins and deposits in the various floating mountain ranges, the possibility of establishing underwater mining sites operated by drones, all of it connected by road, mag-lev and air convoys. But Grace Augustine wasn't hearing any of the details, the conversation melting into a white noise at hearing the numbers and the requirements for the entire moon to be exploited, for operations to not be contracted but instead to expand, and massively.
She felt sick, suffocating in the presence of a smiling man who happily outlined new rules of engagements for Quaritch's killers, explaining to Selfridge how Pandora would be maintained by specialist systems that would ensure that the biosphere and the natural resources in the jungles would not be over-exploited or enter into violent competition with the Na'vi. And through it all, talking about how there would additional and larger colonies to use as refining and shipping points for resources that would be used to further colonize and develop the rest of the system, Grace watched the man speak with an easy assurance as if all of the current problems would just vanish.
"...and really, this is all just a drop in the bucket in the long term, lady and gentlemen." Gideon flicked up an image of a distant star cluster, "The Pleiades Cluster. Sixteen habitable, Earth-like, worlds with a couple of exceptions, and numerous potential industrial and commercial exploitation sizes on the more numerous and inhospitable ones. We colonize the Pleiades, and the couple of centuries we can sustainably work Pandora for will be outstripped by the tens of millennia we can exploit this star cluster for."
He looked directly at Grace who still was hearing things through the sound of blood rushing in her ears and her heartbeat, "And that, Doctor Augustine, is why we need to get your Avatar Project under control." He motioned to the map, "It is no longer feasible to allow you the freedom you have been original operating under. From now on, the Avatar Project is to operate as RDA native-facing diplomatic effort, in order to make the local tribes and clans understand that the...'Sky People' are not leaving, that they are not interested in a fight, and that they are here to stay and will ignore the Na'vi, as long as they do not make themselves a threat."
He stretched, "And part of that diplomacy, is getting the Na'vi to reject these rebels inciting them to violence. If we are to focus on the creation of wealth for us, then the company cannot be traipsing across the jungle re-enacting Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, the fucking Seattle campaign. My troops are here as QRF, Quick Reaction Forces, and to act as a hammer to anything attacking Quaritch's Sec-Ops who should be more concerned with defending against animal attacks, not against hostile natives." Pacing slightly, Gideon waved out at the jungle, "The resulting conflict out there is the result of short-sighted decisions and poor planning. We need to take responsibility and get this to a state where we leave each other alone, and RDA cannot do that, if RDA-contracted personnel are planning on using the native clans as a fucking catspaw to fight a misguided war."
"I can get my people to act defensively, but if push comes to shove Commander, I would prefer to send a message." Quaritch stated, receiving a nod.
"And if the local clan is goaded into engaging in a full scale war against us, Colonel, I will personally green light you into forcing them out by burning that damn tree down." Gideon replied, "But our main focus is to be the rebels and any native sympathisers that have been duped into fighting alongside them; we need to find them, suppress them, and bring them into custody. Doctor Augustine is correct in every sense of the word that this is Colonialism, but if we do not nip this impending war in the bud and get these rebels to end this peacefully, the entire moon is going to become a warzone and I sincerely doubt the Na'vi have any idea of the scale of the destruction that will occur if I am forced to go into a war footing."
"So what's the plan for that?" Selfridge asked, "We have about...five Drivers left who haven't gone native, and the Colonel can tell you himself that Sec-Ops has recovered Link Beds...with brain-dead Drivers inside them."
Gideon glanced at Quaritch, who nodded solemnly, drawing a huff that would have given Grace a smile if she wasn't hyperaware that anything that would give away her true loyalties would result in a death sentence, "Detain the drivers, Colonel. I want them questioned, and their loyalties examined. We have another batch of Drivers expected in five years with the next resupply ship, that can't be changed without sparking massive investigations on Earth that will cause any sympathisers there to go to ground, so once they arrive they'll need to be questioned."
"Looks like I'll have to cancel my retirement party," Grace watched Quaritch joke as Gideon shrugged.
"I have access to experimental rejuvenation treatments, so for now, expect to have your retirement date massively delayed." Grace knew she had to make an excuse to leave, any longer with these two monsters and that scumbag in a cheap suit and she might actually try to go for violence.
Gideon glanced at her, "Doctor Augustine, until further notice and you have been cleared from suspicion, you are confined to base. Your communications will be monitored and you will conduct your work under guard with my soldiers conducting your surveillance. You've done good work, and I'd rather you went back to Earth to receive Nobel Prizes, and not come back in chains guilty for sparking an insurrection that would have ruined an incredible natural landscape and put mankind's chances of achieving interstellar diaspora at risk."
He clapped his hands together, "Right, there's a lot that needs to be done and not much time to do it. Colonel, I want all patrols to be double-strength from now on, and all Sec-Ops contractors to be ready to call in air support on a hair trigger. Administrator, I want you on the comms to Earth and to institute a hiring freeze on future Avatar Drivers until I give the word. Doctor," Grace suppressed a flinch, "I want you and the remaining five Drivers to restart diplomatic efforts. The local clan must be convinced to ignore RDA operations, in exchange for a cessation of hostility on RDA's side. We cannot be friends, but we must coexist. It is imperative, that this happen, Grace."
Grace nodded slowly, "I can't promise they'll agree to speak to me, or the other drivers, but I can at least try and open a dialogue via exchanging messages. It will be slow, however."
"You have time." Gideon replied, "We're not going anywhere, after all."
'No...' Grace mused bitterly, 'No we certainly aren't.'
It'll be interesting to see if/how Grace tries and fails to act against Gideon. Because given her overall behavior and thoughts; I don't she's going to just stop her previous actions.
On the other hand, she might just realize that Gideon is not playing around and will retaliate in ways her little blue friends cannot defend against if they keep stirring **** up.
With all that said, you seriously need to pacify the local, given they lack the understanding of "stay in your lane" kind of things. I hope that our Commander does bring new combat vehicles, preferably some from StarCraft and CnC to deal with the natives. Mobile Napalm Dispersion Platform and Neural Degradation Agent will be needed if they intend to roll a native uprising.
Quite a few works have a lot of trouble really digging into the mindset of a villain. A lot of works that deal with works of colonialism tend to focus on the perspectives of the native peoples in the area, and views into the villain's side of the camp often forget to delve into the framework that they use to justify their own actions to themselves.
But here we're getting to see all the justifications that the people coming to exploit a land for their own gains at the cost of a native peoples' way of life might tell themselves to try and make themselves seem like they're taking necessary action, despite the absolutely awful nature of their activities and the way they're attempting to frame the situation to make themselves seem justified for preparing to kill anyone who tries to stop them. Neat!
And getting to see from Grace's perspective briefly is cool; there were dozens of easy rebuttals she could have offered to Gideon's ridiculous attempt at framing their colonialism as an action necessary to prevent twenty billion people from literally reverting to a hunter-gatherer way of life like that makes any sense, but thankfully she realized that it would be pointless to offer anything at the time because the other people in the scene have pre-emptively convinced themselves that coming into foreign territory and taking its resources for themselves is justified and they have no interest in considering the ethical or moral ramifications of their actions.
It'll be interesting to see how things evolve; hopefully we get to see some of the heroic perspective from some of the Na'vi soon, because I imagine it could get pretty grating seeing people trying to justify their colonialism all the time. Still, we'll see how it all goes!
To be fair, Gideon isn't really interested in wiping out the Na'vi or exterminating their way of life. Honestly, he seems perfectly content to leave the Na'vi along so long as they stop trying to kill his people/destroy the mining operations. Nothing they can do about the animal attacks.
As for the tone of the justifications, we've seen that sort of thing a ton of times IRL both historically and present day for far hazier reasoning so nothing really out there.
Doctor Harper stared out at the landscape of Pandora, and his mind desperately grasped for something to say, anything, as he stared at the madness that had been taking place over the last two days.
"is this real?"
Doctor Harper wished he could answer the person who had asked, but he couldn't find it within himself to get his voice to work as he watched...everything happening in front of him in the distance from the trees as the flares of numerous rockets firing, massive landing pods smashing into the jungle while in the distance, he could see trees collapsing as crews and machinery slashed their way to the landing zones. And in the air, passing through the clouds, formations of aircraft rumbled above like angels of death; Harper had been keeping up to date on the situation on Earth much like his contemporary and nominal superior Dr. Augustine, and hearing that Gideon Paleson had been placed in charge of Pandora had almost caused him to demand that the fifty or so Avatars that had seen the truth and joined the cause, launch an attack on Hell's Gate to force humanity off Pandora immediately.
Only Ryder's firm refusal to start anything before they were ready prevented what was likely to be a disaster. But it still stung, seeing the landings that would be the start of newer, heavily-fortified mining complexes, complexes that Grace had reported would be linked by road, mag-lev rail, and aerial convoys. Alongside the mines, bases for Paleson's personal army, a force that had crushed any opposition on Earth, but Harper knew that the physical capabilities of their Avatar bodies, and that of the Na'vi who believed in their cause enough to join them, would even the odds against their advanced weaponry.
"It's real." Ryder's voice brought Harper out of his musings. Since killing Commander Falco and stopping RDA from using the Well Of Souls to try and cripple Pandora's neural network, to try and cripple Eywa itself, Ryder had all but become the defacto leader of what was becoming a full-blown rebellion against the megacorporation, and for the past five years, it had been effective. RDA's output had dramatically lowered, and Jake Sully's charming of the notoriously-reclusive Omaticaya Clan had been a godsend for their efforts, allowing for the rebellion to have a chance at gaining more allies beyond the Tipani Clan, which could potentially snowball to include Clans further into the forests and on the plains and coasts. Even the mountain clans would be affected by the increased RDA activity, and Harper knew that all this construction and mining would awaken a giant that the corporation wouldn't be able to defend against.
"Gideon Paleson is one sick bastard," Harper turned to listen to Ryder as the veteran rebel sharpened an arrowhead, "Before I was sent here, he appeared out of nowhere. Had his own ship, an army that seemed right out of a science-fiction novel, and it seemed like he was going to just kill everyone, but then he signed up with RDA, started pushing for building homegrown fusion that didn't use Unobtanium so we could focus on finding more, distributing those Creation Engines. I found out later, before I discovered what that sick lunatic Falco was planning, that in the time I had spent in cryo, he had killed close to a million people in suppressing rebellions and protests, dropping bombs on people who tried to steal the Creation Engines, blowing up his own Fusion Reactors if people didn't toe the line that RDA set."
He snorted in disgust, "Was spouting speeches that even if RDA sought to dominate the markets, they were making human survival possible, and that everyone needed to fall in line to make the dream a reality."
"It's not even like Pandora's value has gone up either," Another rebel spoke up, "RDA has the Yukon and Eureka mining sites on barren exo-worlds that they can tear up all they want, Pandora should be getting less attention, not more. Why is he here? Doesn't he understand that this place isn't Earth? No-one here is just going to sit back and let him tear up Pandora, everything is going to fight back! The animals, the Na'vi, us, he's landing himself into a war he can't win!"
"I don't think he cares." Ryder noted, "He always seemed unconcerned about losing troops unless it was in significant numbers, which means we can bleed him if we can hold on long enough, but the real key to this is going to be the Creation Engines that he'll be shipping down. If we can get our hands on one of them, we can make weapons we're familiar with, sized for our new bodies, for the use of anyone who feel they need the firepower." He looked up from inspecting his arrows, "And we may need it. We may even have to train some of our allied warriors if they're willing, because this is a war that isn't going to respect tradition, Pandora, or Eywa."
"We're going to have to hope Sully can get the Omaticaya to help us then," Harper spoke up, turning to look back at the destruction, "But first, we need to prepare. This isn't just happening near Hell's Gate, if those are coming down from orbit, then we're looking at facilities being established across Pandora. We'll need to get into contact with other clans, spread the word about RDA and what they plan on doing, and how we're fighting to stop them. If we can-"
"Holy shit!" At the sound of the horrified awe in the woman's voice, everyone turned to see what had garnered that sort of attention, when they saw it. Smoke, thick clouds of it, was rising from an inferno surrounding one of the newly-landed bases. Flashes of gunfire were visible in the jungle moments before a bomber screamed overhead, missiles streaking out from its bays to hammer the jungle with fresh infernos.
"They need help!" The woman who had cried out in alarm declared, grabbing her machinegun as she spoke, "We need to stop those bastards from setting the whole jungle on fire!"
"Harvey, Takemura, Steiner, go with Ling!" Ryder ordered, the three Avatars snapping off quick salutes before they called for their Ikran to come pick them up as Ling mounted hers and flew off. Turning to the rest of the rebels, Ryder knew what needed to be done, "We're packing up. Everyone is to scatter to safezones and get in contact with as many clans as you can. We need to warn them about RDA's increasing activity, and see if any of them are willing to stand by us and resist this!" As the various rebels grabbed their equipment and summoned mounts, Ryder turned to Harper, "Head back to the Tipani, I'm going to get a better look at this situation, find out what the hell just set the jungle on fire."
Nodding, Harper quickly jogged over to where a pa'li was milling about, agitated by the rush of activity but still waiting patiently for a rider, and in a swift motion honed through years of practice, slung his body across the bare back of the animal, easily linking his queue to the animal, the pa'li rearing as it received his stress and fear, before it took off according to Harper's mental guidance, the scientist turned rebel leader pulling out a carefully-modified phone designed for use with the PandoraNet communication satellites that would, hopefully, not be detected thanks to the modifications made to its connection protocols. Dialling a number from memory, Harper took a steadying breath as his steed navigated the jungle as the call connected.
"Hello?"
"Spellman? It's Harper." The pa'li sharply turned around a tree as he continued speaking, "Have you noticed any unusual RDA activity where you are?"
"Unusual? We've been watching goddamn buildings getting dropped out of the sky all across the mountain range! What the hell is going on?"
"Did Grace or Max send a message to you in the last few hours?" Another sharp turn, and Harper could hear and feel the distant detonations of excavation charges, and he didn't have to look far to see trees collapsing; RDA Bulldozer drones dropped off by more of those aircraft, likely under heavy guard, and he jerked the pa'li in a different direction as an off-road vehicle, carrying a trio of soldiers in jungle camo with one manning a grim-looking gatling gun on the back, roared past them on a clear scouting mission, with only luck preventing Harper from being spotted.
"Max sent word that Grace was being shanghai'd into being a diplomat for some new RDA boss. Are we going to need to move?"
"You'd better do it." Harper confirmed, "We just found out that RDA sent Gideon Paleson to run things on Pandora. If he's planning anything like the atrocities he's committed on Earth, then this is only the beginning. He's landing mining sites and bases not just in the region around Hell's reach, but apparently across Pandora."
"Jesus Christ...Okay, we're getting everyone out of here, and we'll contact you by the usual way. Where are you heading?"
"Back to the Tipani village, they have to be told about just what has come to Pandora," Harper stated, "Be careful, he's dropping in troops in force and they aren't Sec-Ops, they're his own personal troops so there's no telling what sort of tactics they might employ."
"Got it. Stay alive out there." As the call ended, Harper saw the familiar signs that he was getting close to a Tipani camp, and a relieved smile came to his face as he came to a halt in front of the guards, and he could see that the two young men were clearly spooked by the constant rain of literal buildings and worse dropping out of the sky, another thundering cascade of excavation charges going off in the distance serving to enhance the point.
"Harper, what is going on?" The braver of the two spoke up, looking at the sky, "What are the Sky-People doing?"
Harper carefully dismounted from the pa'li, and urged it to one of the warriors, "We need to send work to the tsahik immediately. The Sky-People have sent for their fiercest and most dangerous warlord, even more dangerous than Colonel Quaritch." He waved at the sky as another bomber screamed overhead, "The warlord has been given orders by RDA, and those orders mean that all of Pandora is now in danger! We must get the word out to every clan we can reach!"
More detonations shook the ground, far more distant, but the distance didn't matter to the potency. Harper turned back to see smoke twisting through a gap in the trees.
"We are all in danger of being consumed by him."
"No casualties?" Gideon asked the commanding officer of the initial landing assaults as he looked out at the jungle, at the curling pillars of smoke rising in the distance, "I have reports that several Avatars interfered with the base establishment."
"It was an opportunistic attack, not organised, and the Avatars were likely drawn here by the flames. Not entirely as planned, but we bagged one of them." The officer reported, her voice pleased at having scored the first official Rogue Avatar kill.
"I saw." Gideon replied, bringing up an image of one of RDA's originally most expensive, and ultimately most costly, projects. The body had not fared well when the Avatar had fallen to the guns of his troops; already scorched from the napalm of the Hellbringer flamethrowers, the body was further torn apart by the gunfire, each point of impact looking like a miniature grenade had gone off just underneath the skin to reveal brutalised meat and shattered bone. There had been no attempt to capture the Avatar, with any proper holding facilties established at Hell's Gate and with the risk that the rebels might launch a damaging rescue mission, termination was the only safe option that could be enacted.
Still, one Avatar and six Na'vi was now the start of the official kill count. If the Avatar's driver wasn't somehow uploaded fully into the Avatar then a powerful force multiplier had been denied while still allowing a way to capture a terrorist for trial. If the mind had been uploaded, then removing a rebel was at least a victory even if possibly-vital intelligence was lost, "There's been no further incidents, Lieutenant Colonel? No animal attacks, no further native assaults or sniping?"
"None sir," The Lieutenant-Colonel replied, "The initial shock of the landings seems to have paralysed native activity at all levels. I don't think anything was expecting the speed of the assault. I'm ordering my Battlegroup to lift off to other potential hotspots to begin clearing killzones and sweep for potential hiding spots."
"You'll have Condors on call for air support, so make use of them." Gideon ordered, "Remember, drive them out, don't kill them unless they fire back, but they should run in the face of overwhelming opposition anyway."
'And anyone who doesn't run from a Flamehog burning down the jungle around them deserves everything they get.' He noted sardonically in his head.
"Not a problem sir." There was a slight pause, "Is there any additional support planned apart from the Condors?"
"ODST support is available if the situation warrants it," Gideon replied with a warning tone, "But they'll be handling priority missions such as locating and bringing in rebel leaders, so air support will be your go-to unless it is a real emergency."
"Understood sir," The Lieutenant-Colonel nodded, "We'll start conducting our sweeps now. Shouldn't take too much to scare 'em."
"Let's hope so, Lieutenant-Colonel Kinsano." Gideon paused, "Lieutenant-Colonel, in light of the possibility of the natives returning with renewed strength, I am going to release NOBLE-Six to your command. I'm certain you'll make full use of them."
"Yes sir! Kinsano, signing off." And with that, the call ended, leaving Gideon to sigh as he look out at the burning patch of jungle.
"And in the next few seconds..." He muttered, silently counting down from ten.
He reached 'three' before his door slammed open, and a furious Grace Augustine stormed into his office, a new addition thanks to Hell's Gate's Creation Engine being fully unlocked to help with the expansion works currently underway.
"What the hell are you doing out there?!"
"My job." Gideon replied calmly, "Twenty natives supported by four heavily-armed Avatars assaulted one of the landing sites. Thankfully, Battlegroup Firestorm had arrived to begin first-wave security sweeps and engaged the hostiles. Six natives and one Avatar dead, and Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan Kinsano will be handling the initial ground work to reinforce Colonel Quaritch's forces alongside the Air Corp." He turned to regard her coldly, "No mercy, no excuses. If they attack, we kill them, Doctor Augustine, so I would suggest you take this tragic incident and work to make sure that there won't be more."
"And landing all of these facilities is your idea of doing things peacefully?" Grace slammed her hands on the surface of Gideon's desk, causing a picture frame to shake slightly, "You tell me to start work on reaching out to the Na'vi peacefully, and the first thing I find out after working to make contact with the one of the local clans is that you're basically going full speed ahead!"
"Which part of increasing output by one-hundred percent by the end of the month, failed to register, Doctor?" Gideon replied, "If I do not accomplish my first objective set down by the Board, they will force me to move ahead with exploiting sites on sacred grounds that I am still in the processes of putting low-impact solutions into place for. Without those low-impact solutions, I would be ordering the destruction of the Omatikaya Clan and there would be a lot more jungle on fire." He sighed, "I really hope your next words aren't about to accuse me of slash and burn deforestation when I am working on creating efficient routes through the jungle back to Hell's Gate."
"Fine, I won't." Grace snarked, "But this environment you spoke so earnestly of protecting is currently looking like it is about to be leveled by your construction crews, and you'll be carving kilometer-wide craters across the moon."
"Research reports indicated that the sheer number of neural connections on Pandora were over two-hundred-percent more than any equivalent human brain," Gideon cut in smoothly, "Much of all heavy freight will be moved by Mag-Lev, while roads are short-distance hauls to the stations that will at first deliver product to Hells Gate, and then eventually in the future, to other colony sites. Neural tissue lost will recollect and condense in other regions, the animal attacks will spike but eventually calm down, especially as the incoming specialist systems for repair and maintenance will dramatically improve the ecology's ability to adapt and recover from the initial trauma of full-scale automated mining operations."
"Automated?" Grace's head perked at that detail, 'That might make it easier to sabotage sites if there's minimal human presence at them. Even if they're guarded.'
"Yes, automated. We can't exactly ship in more workers, so the new facilities will be entirely AI-directed while we train up the works already on-planet to act as supervisors for the processes. My troops will fill out the numbers and defend more distant facilities while Sec-Ops handles security in the immediate region. But that is all irrelevant to your job, Doctor." Grace flinched at the frigid tone as Gideon fixed her with a glare, "Step up your efforts, I want the Omatikaya neutral and pacified before I start equipping Sec-Ops with military-grade Creation Engines."
Grace carefully noted that detail. If Sec-Ops were getting Creation Engines able to manufacture weaponry, then that would have to be a priority target to acquire before security around the current facilities got too tight. It would be impossible to hit the new facilities so long as this 'Battle Group Firestorm' was conducting patrols and sweeps, and Gideon's troops were noted to be incredibly difficult to defeat back on Earth, with incredibly-sophisticated weaponry.
'I doubt that whatever they have will be able to face up to Eywa's Wrath,' Grace mused internally before she focused on the facts at hand.
"I have made some progress, before your landings for the last two days disrupted that. I have no doubt you've sparked panic and anger in just about every clan across Pandora with these landings, you'll be seeing attacks rising very shortly."
"That is what the other Drivers are there for." Gideon waved off the implicit accusation in Grace's tone, "Get the Omatikaya to play ball, then we can focus on dealing with the Tipani. They're the largest Clan that sympathizes with these rebels and if they cannot be made to denounce them, then they must be humbled and shown that they are being dragged into an impossible fight."
"Everyone thought David was an impossible fight, but he won against Goliath," Grace pointed out, "You'll find that the Na'vi are more than capable of pulling off the same kind of underdog win."
Gideon huffed, "It wasn't never David in that fight. People always look at the underdog win presented, when the entire tale is about the future king's faith in God triumphing over Goliath's pagan idols." He turned to face Grace fully, "This fight is not about a smaller power and it's supposed eventual victory over a greater foe, it is the conflict between two gods. The god of this world, and the god we represent."
"Oh, spare me," Grace hissed derisively, "Are you actually suggesting that what we're doing here is holy? That we're on a mission from God?"
"Who are you to say that we aren't?" Gideon snapped back forcefully, causing Grace to blink, "Thirty years you've lived here, Doctor Grace Augustine. Thirty years amongst them, you even started a goddamn school here like a good little missionary colonialist, to get them to learn our ways, to talk our language, to see us as we are." His lip curled back in a sneer, "Did they ever ask you? What RDA was?"
Grace remained silent, staring back defiantly as Gideon huffed out a laugh.
"Of course you didn't. How could you poison those young, pure minds, with talk about the corporation that sent the Sky-People to Pandora." He waved at the air, as if presenting something, "I'm guessing you gave them some pap about how RDA was too difficult to explain, that there are no words in the language of The People to properly convey just what RDA is to someone like you, what it is to the Sky-People." He laughed again, "The survivors probably realized, as did the Omatikaya at large, that RDA was greater than just a mere name you spoke of with disdain."
He opened a drawer, and pulled out a bible, placing it on the desk, "You keep thinking of, and seeing, RDA as the source of all evil, another greedy corporation at the throne of a court of greedy corporations. You don't see what the Na'vi see when they try to understand what RDA is, why it drives us to do all this, you aren't capable of looking in from the outside, at putting into their words why we live and act in open defiance of the Three Laws of Eywa."
He tapped the bible, drawing Grace's eyes to it, and her eyes slowly widened as Gideon nodded, "Do you get it now? They don't see RDA as a Corporation or a Business. They literally have no words for those concepts, and have no way to perceive those concepts. They see RDA in their framework, through their experience. RDA is not a corporation, RDA is the Sky-God of the Sky-People, a hungry god that builds houses of stone, that makes roads for wheels, and digs feverishly under the soil to eat and gnaw at the very bones of Eywa."
He straightened, stretching lightly, before he put the bible away, "They don't see this as a war between a native people and a corporation. They see this as a conflict between Eywa and RDA, between two gods, and we factions both are the tools for these gods to fight. They think that they have to fight, that they must fight, because what other path could there be?"
He held up a hand, "And please Doctor, something other than a trite statement about leaving. We have no choice but to be here and remain, and yet somehow you think that we have a moral obligation to just pack up and leave, and everything will be all right." He sniffed, "Five to fifteen billion."
Grace blinked, "Excuse me?"
"Five to Fifteen Billion." Gideon repeated, "That's how many it will take to fulfil the moral high ground requirements you desire."
"Dollars?"
Gideon's expression was one of disappointed mockery, "You're a smart woman, you'll figure it out." He turned away, "Now unless you want to engage in more pointless sophistry and philosophical diatrabes, get back to work."
He didn't move until he heard his office door slam shut. After that, he remained motionless for several more minutes, until he finally sighed, "Goddamn moral crusader."
"Psychological assessment indicates that she is fully given over to supporting the natives in their ill-advised and ill-equipped resistance against us." An electronic voice opined from empty air next to him, "I have finished mapping their communications network. They are using modified terminals and communications equipment to remain undetected on the local satellite network. The native ancilla are sophisticated, but not enough to perceive the deception. I will send maps to Ghost Team and Reclaimer Kinsano so that they will be able to use their communications to intercept and remove the rebelling element."
"Send a copy of any text communications to my terminal, along with any video or voice communications as per normal procedures."
"Of course." The air shimmered slightly, "I have a request from Sylens to explore the landscape."
"He has been informed about the necessary precautions?" Gideon turned his head slightly.
"Yes, and he has already arranged for the correct equipment and supplies, along with an emergency beacon should he require extraction."
"No point stopping him. Tell Sylens that he'll be dropped away from current areas of conflict, so that he might explore this world in its more peaceful state."
"At once." Another shimmer, "Phoenix and a squad of ODSTs are currently inbound on a war camp being organised by a rebel Avatar, a target of opportunity. Phoenix is requesting any updates to her mission."
"Capture the Avatar alive." Gideon ordered, "Physical injury is acceptable but lethal harm is to be avoided."
"Updating orders. Completed. Will there be anything else Reclaimer?"
"That will be all, Journeyman."
"I shall resume my studies and return in six hours unless summoned. Farewell." Another shimmer in the air, and Gideon was now truly alone in his office. After a moment's thought, Gideon walked back to his desk and switched on his workstation, taking a seat as his hand gripped the mouse and started pulling up message logs.
"Let's see just how badly you're damning yourself, Augustine."
Robert Tenor looked out at the warcamp being prepared for the upcoming raid that would be taking place tonight. According to what Ryder and other scouts had reported, the new RDA positions were still in flux, and this new force being led by a maniac in a custom AMP Suit was also dealing with patrolling the area, largely as an airmobile force, but some ground units were sweeping through the terrain, likely to try and catch unwary warriors by surprise but they surprisingly didn't give chase if they scared off hunters, foragers or fishers. In most cases, the new butchers sent by RDA were unusually placid, but Robert knew that the situation wouldn't last forever, these new troops would soon be gunning down Na'vi in the hundred soon enough.
Which was why he was organizing this raid, going to take the fight one of the new mining sites that had been blasted open, new machinery literally forming out of thin air as Creation Engines fitted to the chassis of RDA Bulldozer drones without the dozer blade rolled around the site. If they could disable one of those and then remove the Creation Engine, they could potentially gain access to the means to create weaponry without needing to steal from RDA, thus granting this movement true self-sufficiency.
The warriors gathered around the fire as Robert laid out his plan, "This plan sounds simple but as you all know, simple often turned complicated in a heartbeat." Nods came in reply as Robert pointed out areas on the rough map he had sketched on the ground, "The machinery setting up the new site are all moving in a fixed rotating pattern. Our best bet is to hit one of them here," He indicated a point on the map, "Near the cranes and loading area. We can disable it there, and use the tools in the nearby machine shop here," He indicated another point, "to remove the Creation Engine. After that, if we can damage anything else, do so, but we have to leave quickly before RDA troops arrive to try and track us."
As the warriors nodded their agreement, Robert smiled, "Good, then let's get some rest and-" He paused, and the warriors all paused as they cocked their heads, hearing a faint sound that was now becoming increasingly-louder, until one of the warriors pointed up.
"Look! More of the Sky is falling!" Six burning objects were screaming down and from the looks of it, they would crash nearby.
Robert immediately made a decision, "Arm up, it might be something we can use to help us tonight." The warriors nodded and grabbed bows, crossbows, and spears alongside clubs, axes and blades of various makes and sizes as the six objects screamed down into the distance and landed with distant, fiery crashes and Robert nodded, hefting his assault rifle, "Let's go."
With whooping calls, the warriors took off, maneuvering through the undergrowth like phantoms towards the crash site, and Robert trailing behind as he considered what the mysterious objects could be. They certainly weren't anything brought in by the hulking transports coming down from space, so perhaps it could be a PandoraNet satellite knocked out of orbit and into pieces?
Not exactly convincing considering how uniform the impacts were, but Robert couldn't think of-
A sudden blinding flash filled Robert's vision and as he recoiled, he heard the warriors who had followed him screaming challenges and war cries as distorted popping sounds and bright, firefly-quick flashes of purple spat out of the underbrush to strike a warrior, and Robert's eyes widened as each spot hit by the fireflies burst open in showers of gore and smoke before the body collapsed into a ruined heap.
And then, there was silence, the warriors looking around the jungle cautiously as brush shifted and occasionally a branch or twig snapped, the group forming a defensive circle and Robert joined them, assault rifle raised and at the ready, everyone keeping their breathing quiet and still, listening for anything unusual in the now-silent forest.
thump
Robert flinched, before realising that it wasn't his heartbeat he was sensing, it was a set of deep, heavy footsteps coming through through the underbrush, and the warriors tensed, bodies like coiled springs as the thumping steadily drew closer, and closer, until it seemed like the footsteps were right on top them as it stepped through the brush, heavy boots sinking slightly in the soft, damp soil of Pandora.
It was a suit of fully-sealed armour, a gleaming black visor set into the helmet regarding them with cold malice, and Robert felt a shiver roll down his spine despite being taller in his new Avatar body. Still, he had enough sense of mind to study the strange suit, and see how it was armed.
There were two devices on its waist, one with a clear radiation trifoil on it, while the other seemed to be a targeting system of some kind. A pair of large missile launchers sat on the shoulders, while two more weapons were fixed to the forearms; one was a short-barreled grenade launcher of some description, the other some manner of long-barreled cannon.
Then it raised the cannon-arm, it's right arm, and pointed directly at Robert, speaking in a distorted, but identifiably-female voice, "Surrender. Lay down your weapon, and your warriors will not be harmed any further. Resistance is...unwise."
Robert grit his teeth, snarling defiantly, "I will not surrender to you! RDA has no place on Pandora! You should be surrendering to the mercy of Eywa, because we are the ones in the right here!"
"I am not interested in your garbage." The armoured woman responded shortly, pointing at the mangled corpse on the ground, already starting to be consumed by insects, "One of your number has already died. There does not need to be any more death. Surrender and they will be spared."
Robert, snarled, about to say something, when a familiar howl caught his attention and he smiled as several large packs of snarling Viperwolves stalked out of the underbrush, prompting him to smile, "Looks like you might need to surrender instead. Perhaps if you turned off your-"
"Fire." In an instant, the distorted pops sounded from all sides as the suit turned, aimed its left arm at the nearest pack, and fired, a softball-sized projectile sailing into the middle of the pack, where it detonated in a blinding fireball that engulfed the pack in an instant, scattering burning material into the air, and then the right arm came up, the cannon pointed straight at a charging Alpha, and with a sound that Robert could only describe as a mechanical shriek, the cannon fired and teh Viperwolf Alpha burst like a blood and offal-filled balloon, spraying viscera in every direction as the rest of the packs were steadily gunned down.
As the cannon took aim at another charging Viperwolf, Robert saw his chance, "Attack!" The remaining thirteen warriors charged forwards as the suit turned, one of the shoulder launcher exhaling smoke as a missile streaked across the clearing towards them and Robert dived out of the way, "Scatter!"
The missile zipped by a warrior's head as they all leaped out of the way, and then there was another, even more blinding flash of light and Robert felt himself be tossed away by the force of the explosion, hitting the ground and rolling roughly as he felt something snap in his shoulder and screamed in pain, a scream joined by others as Robert blinked spots out of his eyes.
And as the spots cleared, he bore witness to a slaughter.
The armored suit was now joined by dark-armoured soldiers, each one wielding what looked like submachines that made the distinctive purple firefly projectiles as they gunned down the last of the Viperwolves, while the suit simply lifted, aimed, and fired it's arm cannon, each shot striking a warrior who hadn't been reduced to smoking debris by the missile, and blowing them into ragged, blood-spraying pieces in clouds of smoke and...steam?
'Energy weapons?' Robert's mind struggled to regain equilibrium as the last survivors were messily blown apart by the shrieking shots of that arm cannon, and rough hands grabbed his arms, uncaring for his pained scream as they cuffed his arms behind his back, and then shackled his legs.
"Target of opportunity acquired Phoenix."
'Phoenix', the suit of armour, made a short nod with the suit's helmet, "Call for a Pelican."
"Roger, calling it in now." Another soldier came close to inspect him.
"He's in bad shape, might not survive interrogation."
"Sedate him, we can patch him up back at Hell's Gate."
"Understood." An injector was pressed to his neck and with a hiss, Robert found his consciousness slipping away as the soldiers started talking about cataloguing the dead.
And as his vision darkened, his last sight being the scattered pieces and smoking remains of his war party, a tiny part of his mind broke past the condemnation of these RDA butchers, and made it to the front of his mind as darkness finally took him.
He tapped the bible, drawing Grace's eyes to it, and her eyes slowly widened as Gideon nodded, "Do you get it now? They don't see RDA as a Corporation or a Business. They literally have no words for those concepts, and have no way to perceive those concepts. They see RDA in their framework, through their experience. RDA is not a corporation, RDA is the Sky-God of the Sky-People, a hungry god that builds houses of stone, that makes roads for wheels, and digs feverishly under the soil to eat and gnaw at the very bones of Eywa."
Have to admit, this isn't a method I've seen before for Avatar fics but it makes so much sense. We understand what the RDA is (a corporation) but the Na'vi would see everything the 'Sky People' do through the lens of their own understanding of the universe.
You mentioned that this was a spin-off of the Tiberium/gate crossover series and one of the grunts grace overheard talking about seems to be an event from their time on the gate world.
Just kinda curious how much of a crossover it will be I mean do they still have the GDI stuff but don't use it because of a lack of tiberium and will he mention the scrin from the tiberium verse that infected the gate world in your other story or since he's mostly using halo stuff and people will the flood or covenant appear or be mentioned or maybe even just seen in memory flashes of eywa does her thing.
