Ch 27

It didn't take me long, before I decided there's no way I could handle this on my own and teleported over to my Leviathan, calling the girls to me, so that way we could talk about this. As soon as we were all aboard, we took a seat, which amusingly meant that my queens waited till I sat down then promptly snuggled in around me, Cuddles in particular wrapping herself around my back.

After we were all settled and relaxed I told them the situation in total for this planet, describing the movie, Avatar, to the best of my ability and everything that happened in it. I told them about my contact with Eywa and all I'd learned about it. They were all horrified to learn of the death's of the conciousness' due to the removal of the unobtainium. Asura at this point asked, "What exactly is 'Unobtainium', that it would result in these deaths?"

I answered, "Unobtainium is an almost ridiculously powerful super conductor. You all saw those floating mountains, the ones the humans here call Hallelujah?" At their nods, I continued, "All of that is being done by sheer electromagnetism. That should be impossible, considering just how powerful of a magnet would be required to heft thousands of tons of mountain to free float in the sky like that. And yet Unobtainium pulls it off. I'll be darned if I can figure out how though. Super conductors should naturally repel magnetic fields, not attract them."

Taking a deep breath, I continued, "The real problem is that Unobtainium is the key component that allowed Eywa to grow into the biological computer it is today. After so many years, it's expanded to use every bit of Unobtainium within the planet in order to power its own processes. For every piece removed, that's less power for Eywa to run on, resulting in whatever that Unobtainium was helping to power dying."

The others nodded in comprehension while Snow commented, "Sounds useful, this Unobtainium. The Swarm could greatly benefit from its incorporation, and unlike these humans, we only need to analyze a piece and then we can manufacture our own."

Rose countered, "But any piece we take would result in the deaths of more stored sentients! We couldn't just take a piece and end up killing off so many for our own gain!" Joy agreed, and Snow nodded, frowning. Cuddles piped in then saying, "What if we provided a way for Eywa to support all those sentients without requiring the use of Unobtainium?"

Asura nodded thoughtfully, "That could work… if we took care of Eywa's dependence on Unobtainium, then taking a piece wouldn't harm them after that. And it would be possible, considering we Zerg can sustain an unlimited amount of Zerg conciousness' within the Overmind's Psionic presence. It would require Eywa becoming similar to the Zerg, and forming a single entity capable of generating a psionic presence similar to that of our Matthew. It'd be difficult… but it'd be possible…"

Cuddles nodded, then shrugged, "Or we could just incorporate them into the Swarm. That'd solve the issue immediately, and I'm getting some interesting ideas for how we could incorporate their 'memory banks' aka 'trees' into our Creep…"

A collective shiver ran up our spines upon her proclamation of this, and I said, "Cuddles, I love you, but you can be a bit scary sometimes." Cuddles merely blinked innocently while I kept getting flashes of mad scientist experiments in the future. I shivered again, and cuddles simply hugged me tighter.

Shaking my head, I answered, "So it seems we have two options available to give Eywa then. We don't necessarily need to take any Unobtainium from 'her' though. There is another option. According to Eywa and the sheer amount of information she provided me, most of which I'm still sifting through and discarding, it turns out that giant satellite the human's have sitting in orbit? It's actually a ship, and they use Unobtainium for its propulsion. I'm certain we can reason with the Pandoran Humans, but if it comes down to destroying them to protect Eywa, we could get our source of Unobtainium there. I'd prefer not to have it come to that though."

Everyone agreed to that, while we all lapsed into silence thinking about the problem. After a while, Joy timidly raised her hand, "I have an idea…"

It wasn't even half an hour later as night fell on the human base, Hell's Gate, and we started implementing Joy's idea. Teleporting into the bedroom of Parker Selfridge, the director overseeing the running of Pandoran Mining Operations, I maintained my invisibility and projected myself into his dream. Truthfully, I could've done this back on the Leviathan, but there's something to be said about actually being at the location to see the results of your actions.

In the dream, I showed Parker the events of the movie, both from his own, and the audience's perspective. I showed it to him in such a way that it would seem to him as if he was actually there and wasn't even asleep. That done, I recreated this very room in his mind so it would seem he'd woken up from the dream only to confront me.

Parker, waking up in the dream, started upon seeing 'me', and asked, "Who are you?" a little edgy. I guess seeing what would happen if I hadn't shown up has put him off a little bit. There's no doubt in his mind that's what would happen. Considering I took the opportunity to implement the idea from Inception, and implant the idea that what he's seeing is true, which in this case, it is.

I answered, "My name is Matthew, and I'm your only chance to keep what you saw from happening." Parker looked me up and down, judging me by appearance, and asked scornfully, "No offense kid, but how could you stop what I saw? Not that it matters, because I could stop it myself. The science expedition aspect of this operation was always just a side venture, a hope that negotiations between us and the natives of this planet might be successful. Now that I know it won't, I can just shut them down, and cart Sully and the rest of the science team back to Earth. Problem solved."

I internally winced, not having considered that possibility. I'd have to be a bit more careful with what a person could do with the information I give them in the future. Luckily there's an easy fix for this. I cocked my head to the side and said, "You won't though." Parker snorted, seemingly amused and didn't even deign to answer. I smirked a little and said, "No really, you won't. You know why?" Parker decided to bite and asked, "Why?" I answered simply, "Because I'm also the only thing standing between you and this."

With that, I materialized a Hydralisk off to the side and behind me, snarling and looking for all intents and purposes as though it'd like nothing more than to rip into Parker right then and there. To the man's credit, he didn't soil himself or cower in fear. Instead he yelped in shock and his hand dove under his pillow to draw a handgun out to bear it down on the Hydralisk. I made the gun poof out existence with a wave of my hand.

Parker looked between his hand, me, and the Hydralisk, back to me, and asked, horrified, "What ARE you?" I gave a small bow and answered, "I am the Overmind of the Zerg Swarm, and I command forces similar to this," I jerked my thumb at the Hydralisk, "that are too many to count, and most of which are far, far worse."

With a wave of my hand I made the 'Hydralisk', which was really just an illusion but he didn't know that, disappear like I did with the gun. I had Parker's full attention now, that's for sure. As if I hadn't just scared the crap out of the Director, I continued nonchalantly, "You see, when I first arrived at Pandora yesterday, I got in contact with Eywa. To simplify it for you so it makes more sense, Eywa is like a giant biological computer. The trees are her memory, the creatures and natives are her programs, and Unobtainium is her power source. I can see you already understand that from what you saw of future events. Good. What you don't know from seeing those events, though it's implied, is that each time one of those creatures dies, it's consciousness really does get stored in Eywa, into the trees. It's memory."

"What you also don't know is that Eywa has had a long time to grow and develop into what it is today. It's expanded to the point that every single piece of Unobtainium on this planet is used as power to keep each of the conciousness' stored in those trees, alive. That means for every single piece of Unobtainium you remove from this planet, you're killing hundreds if not thousands of beings. Every. Single. Day. Every time you destroy a tree, it's not much better. The only difference is that the sentients stored there in memory form at least have a chance to escape, though most perish anyway."

Parker looked appropriately horrified, proving he's not too far gone, and asked, "So that means, in those future events… when that giant tree the Omaticayan's use as their home is destroyed…" I nodded and answered, "Half a million souls died." For a moment, neither of us spoke, barely comprehending the horror of the moment.

Finally, I cleared my throat and said, "These deaths are unacceptable. When Eywa contacted me, 'she' informed me of this in the hopes I would do what I can to aid her. I've since accepted 'her' as under the protection of the Zerg. My protection. It was suggested to me that I try and talk to you first to reach an agreement, but barring that, I will take steps to remove humanity from Pandora by force if necessary. I really hope it doesn't come to that though. I dislike having to destroy anything if it can be avoided."

Parker gaped at me, then seemed to fall into himself, considering all I'd said. After half a minute or so, he looked back up and said, "It's obvious enough that you want the mining operation stopped, but I don't see how I can do that. My hands are tied by my stockholders, and the fact that without Unobtainium, humanity would destroy itself due to the energy crisis we're facing. This is the only planet we've come across that has Unobtainium, and it's the only resource we've found that even remotely has the potential to solve our energy crisis. Without it… humanity is dying. We tried strip mining whole planets, but it turns out you can only find fossil fuels on planets that actually have, or had, life on them. This is the first planet we've come across to support life, and we used the last of our resources to get here, only to find Unobtainium. I'm all for stopping the mining and not destroying another race just to save ours, but you'll find that view point to be a little unique among our people. It won't convince them.

I glanced up in the general direction of their ship, the Venture Star, or where it would be if this weren't a dream, and asked, "How can you be facing such a crisis when you have a ship that runs off solar energy?" Parker responded, "Clean energy sources were never enough to be seen as a viable source of power to replace fossil fuels. If it weren't for that though, we wouldn't have any energy at all, considering our planet is mostly dead. Practically no plant life, animals, or oceans exist anymore, once it'd all been harvested in an attempt to convert it into fuel, or simply destroyed as we expanded. Not all of it at once, but remove one, and the rest were soon to follow. I'm certain if they could have, humanity would have tried to burn the atmosphere if it would help solve our energy problems." Parker said that last bit with a touch of scorn. In response, I reevaluated my opinion of him.

Parker, to my surprise, is in the unique position of heading a corporation spear heading an attempt to mine this planet, not for profit, but to save his race. No wonder he still has a conscious and is a good guy in the end! He's a hero masquerading as a cut throat business man. I can't help but feel a little impressed.

Clearing my throat, I said, "What if I were to tell you, that after obtaining a single piece of any object, my race has the ability to create said object from scratch?" Parker's eyes furrowed for a moment, then went impossibly wide and responded, "Then I'd have to say that you're sitting on a gold mine, and literally have the ability to save humanity in the palm of your hands."

I grinned and said, "I trust not a single piece of Unobtainium will be removed from Pandora ever again, no stone turned, and no tree harmed, you give me a single piece of Unobtainium from the stores of your ship, and in return, I'll cram your ship so full of Unobtainium you'll have the stuff oozing out your ears."

Parker nodded, then his eyes narrowed in thought. I waited until he pulled his thoughts together, then he asked, "What's the catch?"

I was taken aback by that. Someone like Parker wouldn't ask that unless he felt he was getting more than he asked for on his side of the deal. What is… oh. I smirked and said, "You seem to be under the impression that the Zerg get nothing out of this deal. Don't forget that while we'd be supplying humanity with Unobtainium, it would also be available for our own use as well. Other than that, well…" I shrugged and continued, "It's my hope that friendly relations can be established between our races. For instance, we could probably keep the military base here, but instead convert it into an embassy for all three of our races. Don't forget I'm representing Eywa in this conversation too."

Parker nodded at that, seemingly satisfied. "I'll recall all personnel to the base, and personally take you up to our ship to retrieve a piece of the Unobtainium we already moved off world then."

I nodded, "That works. I'll appear on base at the tarmac at 1200 hours. And trust me Selfridge. If you double cross me, I'll know." Parker shook his head, "If you can do all you said you can, I wouldn't dream of it." I nodded satisfied, "See you this afternoon then." At that point, I promptly left the dream, seamlessly waking Parker up. I let him catch a glimpse of me before I teleported back to my Leviathan so he'd know it wasn't just a dream.

Granted, I could have just done all that after waking him up for real, but I didn't really want to take the chance if negotiations failed, and if they did, I could have just had him wake up and forget the dream, like most humans do in the first place. That way if he rose a fuss and alerted the base, it wouldn't have really happened, leaving the base in the palm of our hands, still unawares. I made a mental note to never piss off my Queens. It seems even Joy can be scary when she wants to.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind mana – 2500/2500

Real Estate:

7 Planets

14 Moons

0 Satellites

Zerg Sentients:

1 Overmind

6 Queens

Races Met:

Testificates – Vassal/Friendly

Eywa – Vassal/Friendly

Humans (Avatar) – Neutral/Neutral