Kawandi had a nervousness about him as their discussions turned to that dreaded prospect of genetic tampering and an engineered blight. “I believe that the origin is from here, in the Local Region and that, yes, there is a good possibility we’ve discovered some sort of … engineered crop disease. As for just who might be responsible, well, that is more in the field of my colleague here.”
With that, he gave a soft nod back over to Irina. Stepping forward, Irina unfolded her arms from behind her back, then took Kawandi’s place at the table. “I am Senior Warrant Officer Irina Osman, Security Detective of the Exogarden Stellar Police Force. I’m the operations officer of a task force, 515,” Irina introduced herself, using her hand to flick across the tablet and project a series of reports stamped with a lunar crescent and spyglass.
“I believe that Doctor Kawandi here and the Outer Veil research team have uncovered one part of a large terrorist network that has operated across the Local Region at large since the end of the Galactic War.”
Before her, the image of a man appeared, along with a scrolling list of incidents that seemed to stretch back years, decades even. “Several decades ago there was a radical transhumanist group known as the ‘New World’, that used Edenite emancipation to begin a terror campaign in the Garden - and perhaps closer to home for you all, here in the Local Region. Their militant wing is known as the ‘League’ - and we believe their top ranking commander of assets and networks here in the Local Region goes by the name ‘Faust’.”
While Irina prepared her own deposition, Stamatios seemed to narrow his eyes for a moment. He had been completely silent the entire time, but the mere mention of the League finally seemed to earn a rise from the marine. His fists clenched behind his back, jaw setting slightly as his eyes settled on the sparse image of the man.
Even more confusing for others in the room though, was that several different images of the man known as Faust were different faces, bodies entirely. Irina was quick to answer that possible question as it came up. “The person you see in these images is what is known as a ‘capsuleer’ - a downloaded and reuploaded sentience that can be placed into cloned or specially grown bodies. Many of these capsuleers in the New World believe that their gift of immortality makes them gods amongst mortals: Scatterran, Terran, Aschen or otherwise. They have manipulated elections, overthrown or puppeted governments, and instigated civil wars across the Garden.”
If the proposition that a crop disease had been bio-engineered by someone, somewhere in the Local Region was bad, the following explanation as to who might be behind it was even worse.
”Many of these capsuleers work secretly to establish a shadow state across the galaxy and rule their selected kingdoms as deities or supreme beings. They’ve used terror and manipulation to achieve their goals, sometimes with disastrous results. The League has capacities unlike any sort of previous non-state actor we’ve seen before: they infiltrate political parties and governments, distribute propaganda, infiltrate armed groups and can even bring entire countries to their knees, they smuggle everything from weapons, to contraband, drugs, and even people … I believe they’ve recently gotten into the agricultural business.”