Eywa.
That was the Na'vi's reverent name for their "deity." Eywa was also the collective biological consciousness of Pandora Planet—or perhaps its representative—because she could connect to the neural units of every living thing.
Not every creature on Pandora Planet had a "link interface," but more than 99 percent did, like the tips of the Na'vi's and Avatars' braids.
When the Na'vi heroine led the hero to tame a Banshee, a giant flying mount, he linked with it through the tip of his braid and succeeded in taming it.
Even when a creature was about to die, it could upload its consciousness to Eywa, the "server" that held them all, through a Tree of Souls—a tree-like plant that was effectively a kind of terminal.
That meant Eywa received an unimaginable volume of information and data every moment. Supported by all that data, she had naturally developed consciousness.
Before crossing over, Sui Yang had found the implications chilling when he learned that Eywa possessed self-awareness and the ability to make judgments.
Judging by the story, Eywa could also subtly influence every creature that had ever linked with her, instilling one purpose—
Protect Pandora and protect Eywa.
A deleted scene from the first film even showed scientists inciting a riot at the RDA base. Every human who had piloted an Avatar took part, which explained the gun-wielding Avatars who appeared at the end of the film.
The hero, whom Eywa had influenced most, used the Tree of Souls to transfer his consciousness into his Avatar completely. He abandoned his human body and his place among humanity.
Leaving aside the demands of the plot, RDA's military contractors had been arrogant and had underestimated their enemy. They dismissed Eywa as nonsense and refused to believe in anything supernatural. Add the human-traitor hero's knowledge of every weakness in their weapons and equipment, plus an assault by the entire planet's wildlife, and their crushing defeat was no surprise.
In the second film, Eywa even used the Avatar body of a deceased female scientist to bring a special hybrid named Kiri into the world. Kiri could communicate directly with Pandora's animals and plants.
Both the first and second films ended in RDA's defeat, but that did not mean humanity had lost.
Regular armed forces never appeared in either film. The Na'vi had fought only a company's security force and the armed crew of a whaling ship.
What truly chilled Sui Yang was a media report claiming that humanity's military would formally enter the conflict in the third film, yet Pandora's forces would reach Earth in the fourth and fifth.
And to restore Earth's dying environment, Eywa would "seed" herself there...
This was plainly a war between humanity and Pandora Planet.
Before crossing over, Sui Yang had never felt comfortable watching the Avatar films. They had groundbreaking visuals, a well-developed setting, and striking human weapon designs, but something about them always felt off.
In particular, Sui Yang did not consider the hero's slaughter of his own people an act of "righteousness."
The hero was disabled and disillusioned with life, but humanity in the films—or in Universe 02—already possessed highly advanced bioengineering. The RDA colonel cast as a "villain" had even submitted a request to restore the hero's ability to walk.
Yet after spending three months with the Na'vi, the hero willingly renounced his humanity and began killing his own people without a shred of guilt. That, too, showed how profoundly Eywa could influence intelligent beings.
"..."
With that thought, Sui Yang raised both hands and worked the holographic screen. He officially named the world beyond the Space Gate Universe 02, designated the planet being surveyed by the Advance Team as Pandora, and issued fresh orders to the command center:
"Bring in more engineering teams to help build a forward base near the Space Gate. Then notify ARS's Second, Fourth, and Fifth Companies. Apart from the personnel needed to hold their current positions, all three companies are to relocate to Kenya Base immediately.
"A movement on that scale is bound to attract attention. Have the Public Relations Department contact the U.S. military stationed in Kenya and arrange a six-week joint patrol with ARS along the borders of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Let them come up with the patrol's objective. There are plenty of pirates, warlords, and rebels in the area.
"The budget is fifteen million at most. If Colonel Johnson makes outrageous demands, have the Pentagon replace the officer in charge of U.S. forces in Kenya. The company has money to spare, but we're not running a charity.
"Once the joint patrol is underway, move the elite troops from those three companies to Relic Base in secret. Pandora Planet is full of dangers. We need enough armed personnel to handle emergencies."
"Yes, boss."
The staff who received his instructions immediately passed the orders to the company's various departments.
Sui Yang turned his attention back to the holographic screen and the 3D panoramic terrain map gradually taking shape.
Those orders involved more than 1,600 ARS personnel and nearly a hundred armored vehicles.
For a military movement of that size—especially one involving a private armed force—the best way to keep it out of the media was to tie it to the U.S. military.
The U.S. military had deployed around 300,000 soldiers outside the United States and maintained more than 140 bases. Their chief purposes were to project power, preserve America's international standing, and extract natural resources on a massive scale under a veneer of legitimacy.
One of the rare U.S. military operations that could be called "just" had been its participation in United Nations humanitarian relief in Somalia in 1993, along with efforts to capture warlords.
Atlas had taken part in that operation too, sending the Armored Company from Kenya Base to transport U.S. troops and escort prisoners.
So to outsiders, Atlas patrolling alongside U.S. forces stationed in Kenya was nothing out of the ordinary.
Within Atlas, though, Sui Yang included, they viewed the U.S. military more as a "pass."
In the first film, RDA had roughly a reinforced battalion. After excluding the soldiers left to guard the base and the ground crews and logistics personnel, just over five hundred Mercenaries had taken part in the final battle.
If Atlas wanted to explore and develop Pandora, it could only field more armed personnel, not fewer.
That also revived Sui Yang's thoughts of another large-scale recruitment drive and the development of Bio Organic Weapons, or B.O.W.s.
Since Alexia could extract and cultivate viruses resembling the Progenitor Virus and Veronica Virus from Resident Evil using God's Flower, B.O.W. development needed to become a regular priority as well.
Before that, however, he needed to recruit top researchers in biology and chemistry to ease the burden on Alexia and her team.
Sui Yang also needed to pin down the exact point in Universe 02's timeline so Atlas could begin its infiltration.
End of chapter.
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