Just when everyone thought the briefing was over and prepared to take their orders and leave, Asuka suddenly spoke. Her lake-blue eyes carried a hint of confusion as she looked directly at Osiris: "Hey, Osiris, I have a question."
Osiris turned his gaze toward her, nodded slightly, and signaled her to continue.
"We obviously possess stronger forces, right? The EVAs, and the military of the Dead World base. Why must we go through all this trouble—training soldiers for the RDA on one hand, and having Rei and the others sneak around to contact the blue monkeys... the Na'vi, on the other?" Asuka's words were direct. "Wouldn't it be much simpler and faster to just use military force to beat them into submission, or clear them out like sweeping away obstacles? Is this planet even worth so much time and effort?"
Her question also represented the doubts harbored by some of the other team members; even Maine cast his gaze over, wanting to hear Osiris's deeper considerations.
Osiris did not answer immediately. He walked to the main screen, which was currently displaying a vibrant global image of Pandora, its interwoven fluorescent networks resembling the planet's blood vessels.
He gazed at the screen and spoke slowly, his voice steady and carrying an unquestionable pragmatism: "Deploying overwhelming military force for direct conquest may seem efficient, but in reality, it is short-sighted."
He turned around, his gaze sweeping over everyone before finally settling on Asuka. "First, the Na'vi are not a helpless, primitive tribe."
"They are individually powerful, familiar with their environment, and most importantly, they are tightly connected to the planet's ecological network."
"Forced conquest will trigger their most intense, planet-wide resistance in every corner."
"We would fall into an endless quagmire of counter-insurgency warfare, consuming far more resources and time than you can imagine."
He paused, then continued, his tone carrying a trace of coldness: "Second, wiping them all out is theoretically an option."
"But what are the consequences of a large-scale military conflict?"
"Out-of-control energy weapons could destroy precious superconducting veins; explosions and pollution would ruin unique biological specimens; the fires of war would incinerate an ecosystem we do not yet fully understand, which may hold immense value—such as the global consciousness known as 'Eywa'."
Osiris pointed to the image of Pandora on the screen, his eyes sharp: "What I want is a relatively intact ecological planet that can continuously provide us with unique resources and allow us to study its biological and consciousness secrets in depth."
"Not a ruined wasteland riddled with craters and suffering from ecological collapse. The latter might bring a temporary profit, but the former represents long-term, far greater value."
His explanation was clear and cold, stripping away the superficial convenience of military conquest to expose the underlying long-term risks and costs.
This was not out of simple mercy, but based on cold, far-sighted calculations of interest.
After listening, Asuka clicked her tongue, but the confusion in her eyes dissipated. She muttered quietly: "Fine... that does sound like a pretty bad deal."
She understood that this was not indecisiveness, but a smarter, more far-reaching strategy.
Shinji let out a quiet sigh of relief beside her. Deep down, he did not want to see the beautiful fluorescent forest turned to ash. Osiris's decision put him at ease and solidified his determination to follow.
Osiris looked at everyone and concluded: "Therefore, the current dual-track strategy—using the RDA at the front to draw fire and share the pressure, while we attempt to find a breakthrough from within and understand its core mysteries—is the best balance we can find among efficiency, risk control, and maximizing returns. Execute the orders."
After the command was given, the systems within the Pathfinder mobile base, which were already running efficiently, entered a state of nearly full-capacity operation.
The multi-functional manufacturing bay located at the rear of the vehicle became a temporary production center.
Accompanied by a low hum, large industrial-grade 3D printers and precision lathes were activated.
Rare metal powders and high-performance polymers from the Dead World base reserves, along with the first batch of local metal ingots and high-purity silicon materials provided by the RDA as a gesture of "good faith," were sorted and fed into the intakes.
Maine and Falco were responsible for coordinating with the RDA logistics department to ensure a steady stream of required materials arrived at the outpost.
At the same time, they brought back detailed specifications of the RDA's existing equipment to facilitate adaptive designs.
Pilar and Rebecca led the production phase.
Pilar's cybernetic eye flickered with blue light as he quickly calibrated the equipment parameters to ensure printing accuracy.
Although Rebecca was better at destruction, she was also full of interest in these machines that could "make good toys," taking charge of monitoring the molten state of the materials and the preliminary quality inspection of the finished products.
The first items to be produced were improved sensor cores.
Simplified from the technology on the exploration team's drones, these matchbox-sized modules possessed stronger signal penetration and anti-interference capabilities, allowing them to effectively filter out Pandora's complex bioelectric background noise and precisely capture the movements of large creatures or the Na'vi.
Next were long-range communication relays.
They were designed as add-on modules to be installed on the RDA's existing signal towers, which could vastly extend the stable communication distance between Hell's Gate and the outer patrol teams and outposts, compensating for the severe attenuation of radio signals caused by the forest environment.
The most important products, however, were fifty "optimized" plasma rifles and two hundred accompanying high-capacity energy batteries.
The design of these rifles was based on the simplified blueprints provided by Maine, but superior materials and processing techniques brought by the exploration team itself were used in key components.
The focus, range, and stability of their plasma beams were all superior to the samples replicated clumsily by the RDA's technical department.
More importantly, the battery life and charging efficiency of the energy batteries were improved by about thirty percent, and in accordance with Osiris's instructions, Maine left an inconspicuous backdoor in the firmware of the battery management system.
Once produced, these equipment pieces were swiftly handed over to the RDA logistics personnel who had been waiting for a long time.
Looking at those finely crafted, darkly gleaming weapons and strangely shaped sensor modules, the receiving RDA tech sergeant couldn't hide his amazement.
"My god... the efficiency of your mobile factory is higher than our base's main production line," he couldn't help but say to Maine, who accompanied him.
Maine only responded flatly: "Professional tools for professional work. Deploy these as soon as possible; we need to see results."
At the same time, at Osiris's behest, the mobile base also began preparing for its next actions.
Several small environmental monitors, camouflaged as local rocks or plants, were produced, ready to be deployed by Rei's team during their subsequent deep treks into the forest.
Furthermore, based on the preliminary analysis of the Na'vi neural queue connection signals, Pilar also began designing a prototype for a small-scale, non-lethal bioelectric signal jammer. Although it was still far from practical use, it marked the beginning of Osiris's "technological suppression" strategy.
The roar of the Pathfinder was not just the noise of industrial production, but also symbolized the deepening intervention of the exploration team into the situation on Pandora.
They were no longer mere observers; they were beginning to use their technological strength to alter the balance of power on this land.