Disclaimer: Naruto and all associated characters are a property of Masashi Kishimoto. Motoko Kusanagi and all associated elements and characters of Ghost in the Shell are properties of Masamune Shirow.
A/N: This story is the result of a challenge from a personal friend. I will warn any readers that do decide to give this story a shot, updates on this story will be slow unless I either finish my main story or have enough time write more for this story in particular. I have agreed to publish a minimum of one chapter per month for this story. If I have the time, I will try to update more often, but until The Battle for Ascendancy nears completion, my work schedule might not allow for more than once or twice a month.
As for the challenge specifics:
1. The story primarily focuses on Naruto and Team 7 with the technology and influence of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. If you aren't familiar with Ghost in the Shell, just expect there to be some sociological, philosophical, and existential examination, debate, and reflection by the various characters in addition to intrigue and action.
2. Guns and other ordnance (ie: nukes, bombs, missiles) are not allowed but think tanks, armored suits, and even vehicles are allowed. (Just to make it more difficult for me to tie these two worlds together)
3. Motoko Kusanagi has to be incorporated in some form. Some liberties may be taken to ensure smooth integration into the world but nothing too OOC. Other members of Section 9 are optional.
Any feedback or suggestions that will make the story deviate too far from the points listed above will be taken into consideration, however, the challenger will make the final decision. Any other feedback is always appreciated. If you have any questions, however, please sign in when you review or send them in a pm so I can respond to you directly as the challenger does not want review responses posted in the chapters.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the story.
Edit 7/26
Alpha v.1.0
They say that evolution is what drives the advancement of technology. If humanity hadn't developed a logical mind, we would have never correlated the importance of controlling fire or creating spears or tools to kill fresh prey or harvest edible plants instead of relying solely on scavenging like our ancestors did. Without such a mind, we would have never equated building a shelter, cultivating edible plants, or domesticating animals as necessary to guaranteeing the survival of our species. We would have never taken measures in stockpiling food to ensure we could eat heartily during the leaner months and increase our chances of surviving through winter.
With the primary goal of survival being assured, it was only natural that evolution demanded that we invest that surplus energy, previously used for gathering, into the medium that had ensured our survival.
Technology.
After all, evolution only serves to ensure that we adapt to our environment in order survive and propagate. With the success of technology removing the greatest threats to our survival, it was only natural that our ancestors decided to invest in that technology even further.
With an advancing mind, advancing technology followed. Developing the wheel to travel and aid in establishing agriculture. Developing complex social systems and customs in order to elevate ourselves from the more simple minded creatures that dwelt in the world.
To become the dominant species no matter what the cost.
Even with our inherent natures to fight with and dominate each other for more resources and better technology, humanity still banded together in order to ensure our dominance over every other species.
Sometimes I wonder if our advanced mind had also been the cause of all the dirtier aspects of humanity. Did our penchant for hoarding food to ensure our survival give birth to greed and envy? Were our violent natures due to a result of showing our dominance to predators who would try to compete for the same prey? Did civilization give rise to these behaviors since our primary instinct to survive had been fulfilled?
Looking through history, it would seem that theory is completely plausible. The advancement of technology throughout the ages had only focused on two areas. How to make things easier for us to live, and how to kill things that stood in our way.
Even the bones of our earliest ancestors reveal violent deaths from conflict against our fellow man. Throughout history, one constant that has been present in our world has been conflict. The number of dead from all the documented wars in the world was almost half the estimated population that has ever existed in the world since our species first appeared.
Considering the fact that healthcare and birth rates have only been increasing exponentially in the past century, that figure paints a pretty bleak picture.
In our last war against the country of Tsao Liu, an estimated 265,000 lost their lives with an additional 38,000 dying from the subsequent revolution attempts and usual unrest that occurs when one country was conquered by another. All that death to absorb a country whose religious beliefs are completely against the goal of the current ruling emperor of our illustrious country.
While my beliefs are similar to the goals of the Nehan empire that I was born in, I find it difficult to believe that forcing our beliefs onto people would help with what we are trying to accomplish. In order for someone to open their minds to our idealism, they need to be at ease and happy with their current situation. You can't reach enlightenment with anger, hatred, or envy dominating your thoughts.
It was foolish to rush people into a new way of thinking. Religion wasn't created overnight and had been a prevalent and shaping force for humanity for centuries on end. For good and ill, religion has had a dominant role in human behavior throughout history and leading up to the modern era.
Religion had taught tolerance, understanding, peace, and goodwill while conversely teaching bigotry, arrogance, judgmentalism, and zealotry. Religion had taught to give to charity and take from infidels. Religion had spawned missions to deliver humanitarian aid and conquer peaceful countries. Religion had saved and murdered innocent lives.
And since the primitive aspect of our human minds calls on using domination or force to overcome another dominating force, even the empire had fallen victim to their own sense of zealotry. Espousing the need to enforce the Idai Setsuritsu (The Grand Establishment) on humanity in order to achieve our vision of peace through joining all of humanity through one consciousness so there could no longer be any misunderstandings or confusion.
Instead, it only drove the people we were trying to save and enlighten to fight and reject us even more.
I can't say that I blame them. If our situations were reversed, I might feel the same way, but it has always been difficult for me to associate with the rest of humanity.
Ever since I was a child I have been fully cybernetic. In truth, the only organic parts of my body are a handful of brain cells and, literally, two pounds of flesh needed to ensure that the nutrients needed to keep my remaining brain cells and bionic parts alive are absorbed properly.
Back then, cybernetic prosthesis were in the early stages of development and lacked a lot of the government required standard functionality that could be found in prosthetic bodies in this age. Sensory receptors to translate scents, to mimic taste or touch. Pain receptors to prevent you from causing severe damage to the delicate electronics required for motor control and the artificial skin that tries to conceal it all. Hell, there were even glitches in the control software and interference with specific technologies that could shut your body down or make you spasm out of control.
Being the age that I was when my body was replaced, I missed out on most of the defining moments that a person goes through as they grow and mature as a human being. Instead, I had to deal with anxiety, lack of concentration or focus, short-term memory loss, and sleeplessness until the doctors figured out that my brain had remained in a state of hyperactivity. All because it was trying to trigger non-existent glands necessary for the hormonal changes that occurred in the brain and body with the onset of puberty. Eventually, the doctors figured out to treat the symptoms by giving me hormone therapy while increasing the rate of my body swapping from every 4 years to every year.
I am still working on paying off my 13 and 16-year-old bodies to this day.
Restrictions on how much I could modify my new bodies had been put into place until I reached the age of maturity to ensure that I didn't have an identity crisis or a mental breakdown. If the changes to my body, face, and voice wouldn't have triggered such a breakdown, it seems foolish of them to think that my hair and eye color would have a stronger impact. It wasn't like I was requesting a male body all of the sudden.
Personally, I think I might have enjoyed my body a bit more had I been allowed to make some changes. To this day, I prefer my purple hair and red eyes over anything else. It makes my body uniquely mine. Well, besides the numerous top secret combat modifications of course. Still, if it wasn't for the custom hair/eye colors and the secret combat modifications, I would be no different than the other 700,000, give or take, women that have purchased the same chassis as me. Even with 25 different facial variants, the odds of finding someone with the same configuration as mine was still high.
Back in the early days of full cyberization, there were no psychologists who were capable of helping a person adjust. Not only was it an entirely new phenomenon, but only those who absolutely needed a new body to survive were allowed to undergo the process. Most of the people were still debating on having their minor cyberbrain implants installed since the emperor had not decreed them to be mandatory at that time. The only frame of reference the therapists had for treating psychological scars of this magnitude was for severe quadriplegics which was nothing like becoming a cyborg.
They just didn't understand the reality of being a full cyborg and what you lost because of it.
As I grew older I began noticing my detachment from everyone else. While I wasn't without friends growing up, it was difficult for me to associate with children my own age who had not gone through the same experiences that I had. They were either overly fascinated with my prosthetic body or constantly pointed out the limitations of my body. Whether these actions were intentional or not didn't really matter as it would still make things difficult for me to come to terms with.
I guess it was easier for them to ignore their own insecurities or flaws by pointing out my own.
Back then, there were very few children that had undergone the procedure at the same age as me, and cyberization and prosthetic bodies were still in the very early stages of development. Most parents were willing to shell out more money to get organ transplants or partial cybernetic enhancements to cure their children's injuries or ended their suffering because they couldn't afford to save them with either partial or full cybernetics. The number of parents willing to accept an experimental procedure was less than two dozen and the results of those procedures remained confidential unless the procedure was government sponsored.
The number of those body replacements conducted by the government was less than a handful, myself included.
The only reason that I had undergone the procedure was due to the fact that I had no family or next of kin to decide otherwise. All that I was told was that my family had died in the same accident that left me crippled and in a coma for almost a year.
A family I couldn't even remember.
When the doctor and scientists came to offer me a chance at a new life, to be free of my damaged body and once again walk in the sun, it was an easy choice. All it would cost me was to serve my country in return for the costs of the procedure and my new body. A concept far too complex for a 6-year-old girl to truly understand, but I find myself looking back on these past 12 years with few regrets.
To this day, I have never recovered memories of my past. Sometimes I would have vague dreams of unfamiliar locations or flashes of nostalgia that are fleeting. Sometimes the look of an item, how it feels, or how certain food tastes and smells is enough to invoke some indiscernible feelings in me but even those flashbacks are few due to my sensory organs being entirely digital.
Only recently has technology reached a level to where sense receptors in skin and taste receptors in your tongue were sophisticated enough to pick up the subtle nuances that an organic body could. Even then it still took time for manufacturers to develop accurate representations of products that cyborgs had longed for once their senses had gone digital. Particularly in the realm of cyborg food.
With my lack of memories, nostalgia was rare for me and I had often debated if this was the reason why I had lacked the more typical aspects of humanity. Emotions rarely guide my actions and situations that would leave most people irrational, I can view with a calculating eye, applying logic or reason based on my observations alone. I can swap my body as needed regardless of age or gender and have no problems with adapting, and I have little to no need for external memory devices beyond the few that soothe my ghost. The only thing that stays with me constantly and why I am such a firm believer in the doctrine of Idai Setsuritsu (The Great Establishment).
My ghost.
Establishing peace through understanding of each other by the creation of a global consciousness. Allowing humanity to connect to each other on a deeper level through cyberization and a connection to cyberspace. It is just like any other idealistic dream of any visionary who seeks to elevate humanity for some gain.
In my own personal belief, humanity actually needs to take the idea one step further, but there are far too many people who are still tied to the call of their organic bodies or the memories of a time when they did have one to push that idea. Unless they have had the same experiences as most cyborgs, they wouldn't be capable of grasping the concept completely and suspicion and superstition would only drive them away from the first step toward humanity's enlightenment.
I truly believe that only by freeing our ghosts will humanity reach the enlightenment needed to establish true peace.
It is rare that you will find anyone that isn't fully cyberized who is in tune with their ghost completely. The closest thing you will find is someone who follows their emotions, but they never fully seem to connect with their ghost entirely. The pressures of society, their friends, or the inherent instincts of their natural bodies interfere with that truly deep connection that comes from being free of any constraints. Preventing them from freeing their ghosts from all the inherent flaws of mortality and becoming something more.
Greed, Hatred, Jealousy, Envy, Lust and any other negative emotions that lead to conflict and war are simply eliminated. With no mortal shell to bind you to such emotions, there is no illogical response to hormonal influences. Instead, such urges could be simply settled with your imagination and some data in cyberspace. Even if a person had these characteristics before entering cyberspace, they would have everything they need to settle these emotions completely until they eventually just faded away.
Even all the positive aspects of a natural body are easily accomplished in a digital format. Happiness, Euphoria, Contentment even Love are all easily accomplished in cyberspace.
Love is the one "emotion" that naturalists often argue can't be synthesized. In truth, I believe it is easier to create a bond of true depth and strength without the restrictions of a body to distract you. If there was no body for you to lust over, how could you determine what makes you compatible with your chosen partner? There is no shallow need for specific body type, race, sex, or physical attributes blinding you from the true personality or characteristics that make up a person.
By linking together in cyberspace and sharing your memories and minds, you gain an in-depth knowledge beyond anything that can be established through verbal communication or physical contact. You gain an intricate understanding of that person through connecting with the ghost that defines their very being.
None of this would have been possible without the advent of technology and in some strange way evolution had swapped places in importance with technology. The idea of freeing our ghosts and establishing something as sophisticated as cyberspace to create a massive consciousness wouldn't have been possible without the advancements we had made in science and medicine.
People who couldn't have children now had several different options for creating new life. Insemination, Surrogacy, or Modified Cloning were all now viable options within the Nehan empire for those who no longer had the means to create a child naturally.
For fully cybernetic couples, modified cloning was the only option that allowed the merging of two genetic samples into one new being based on the dominant and passive traits each partner had. Since everyone who had swapped into a fully prosthetic body had their original organs and DNA preserved, it was a simple matter of obtaining the original genetic material of each parent to form a zygote that could be hosted in a surrogate or a fertilization facility.
Even if the entirety of humanity did decide to go cyborg completely, we have the technology to ensure our races survival for the foreseeable future. That is not including the fact that we would eliminate all the other threats to humanity such as disease, pollution, and even overpopulation if the right measures were taken. Not everyone would accept abandoning their body completely but there would be enough to have an impact on the population overall.
Looking at the number of people who suffer from closed shell syndrome, you can correlate those numbers with people who are willing to leave their bodies behind and that would be at least a few million people who no longer require food for sustenance or space to reside in. Eventually, more people would see the benefits of a life in cyberspace and, with time, fewer people would remain behind leaving AI to keep things running smoothly with occasional oversight by people downloading their ghosts into android bodies or even operating bodies remotely.
At any rate, the only way for humanity to advance now is through radical change. The same thing that had influenced evolution, to begin with. Things that were unable to adapt to such changes would inevitably die. For humanity, the only way to solve our problems in the future is to evolve once more, but this time instead of evolution spurring the advancement of technology, it will be technology that will guide our final evolution and bring us peace.
February 15th, 2229
2nd Expeditionary Carrier Group – Valhalla Flagship – Southern Ocean
In the center of the Aegis Carrier a darkened room is filled with two dozen men and women who were holding quiet conversations with each other. A small group of uniformed men enter the room revealing the Captain of the ship, a Yeoman, and the Admiral of the Carrier group. After pressing a few buttons on his datapad, a projector lights up showing a holographic display appearing behind the officers.
"Settle down, please, so we may start this briefing and lay down the ground rules for establishing contact with the locals." The Captain said before waiting for a few minutes for everyone to settle down. With the room silent once more, the Captain introduced the Admiral and stepped aside.
"I am sure you have all heard some of the rumors flying around the ship so I am here to confirm what we have learned so far." The Admiral said before pressing a button on the holographic display to change the image being projected behind him.
The image displayed a faded world map that was dated with the year of 2024.
"As you all know, a great deal of knowledge about our world was lost during what historians believe was the First Nuclear World War. A war which saw the first usage of EMP bombs alongside old nuclear warheads and hydrogen bombs that were popular for the militaries of the world at that time. It was believed that almost all major population centers across the world were struck with a combination of those three weapons of mass destruction greatly reducing the population of the planet and changing the very layout of the world. It was during that period that we lost most of our knowledge of chakra and experienced a major setback in technological advancement across the world. Technologies we are still trying to recover over 200 years later." The Admiral said before turning his focus to the map behind him and pressing another map to bring up a more modern map to compare the old against.
"As you can see the only time the continental layout changed dramatically was directly after the First war due to the excessive use of high payload nuclear and hydrogen bombs. Even with the onset of the Second and Third Nuclear Wars and Non-Nuclear Fourth World War, however, the amount of damage done to the world and the faces of the continents involved with them were not dramatically altered due to the restraint we had learned from observing the damage caused by the suspected first war." The Admiral said before taking a small drink of water to wet his throat.
"What does this history lesson have to do with this mysterious continent and why we are here?" A man called out, gaining the murmuring approval of a few other impatient people in the room.
"I will get to that shortly." The Admiral snapped. "It may not seem pertinent but this information is important for you to understand the situation with the people living on the continent we discovered. So pay attention or I will have you and your company struck off the list of those approved to establish themselves on this new continent." The Admiral said firmly before studying everyone in the room with a glare. When everyone remained silent, the Admiral continued.
"If you paid attention to the map we have shown you, it becomes apparent that the continent previously known as Antarctica had seemingly disappeared at some point between the First war and the Second war. With the amount of chaos and confusion following the post-war years and the onset of the second war, no one bothered to learn when or why that continent disappeared." The Admiral said while pointing to that section of the world. "After the effects of the nuclear winter of the first war our ancestors triggered an accelerated form of global warming to restore the world to a more favorable climate to prevent a mass extinction event. As the climate stabilized and humanity began to resettle the abandoned continents once again, a war was triggered and the Second Nuclear War began. Back then the popular theory amongst the scientists was that the lack of ice floes in the southern seas were simply a casualty of the warming process since the continent was believed to be primarily made of ice sheets. With the Artic and Greenland glaciers remaining marginally intact after the accelerated warming, it was simply believed that the rising oceans were a result of the loss of Antarctica instead and with the start of the second war, any research trips to explore the southern pole were canceled." The Admiral pressed another button to reveal satellite images taken of the new continent from space.
"What we have discovered recently, however, was that the continent had been concealed from the world through some form of lost chakra manipulation technique or advanced barrier that somehow managed to essentially conceal the entire continent in a pocket dimension of some sort for over 200 years. The only reason we have rediscovered the continent at this time was because of a malfunctioning weather satellite that drifted from its geostationary orbit." The Admiral explained before changing the projected image once more.
This time, there were several photos displayed side by side that garnered the interest of the room and small conversations began to break out between them. The images showed a handful of villages with an odd mix of early and late 20th-century architecture and technology being used by the people. The way most of the people dressed and behaved were also like a melting pot of modern and traditional customs from the old Nehan empire back when the country was known as Nihon or Japan.
The Admiral changed the image once more to show a video of combat between the natives of the country and the group was in disbelief at what they saw. The looping video displayed a battle between various men and women fighting with feudal era weaponry while wielding chakra in ways that even the most advanced chakra powered androids weren't capable of using. The way that these fully natural warriors were capable of using chakra to enhance their strength, speed, and even climb walls and walk on water while launching elemental attacks at each other was nothing short of amazing.
"As you can see from the footage one of our recon scouts had managed to capture, the natives of this continent have managed to advance their knowledge of chakra manipulation to levels we have previously considered impossible without the usage of sophisticated AI to control it. From our brief observations these warriors are more than capable of standing up to our cybernetic and mechanized forces just by using chakra alone, especially since our emperor has decided to honor the Nuclear and Ordinance Disarmament Treaty and has eliminated everything but small arms from our military in favor of chakra weaponry and traditional weapons." The Admiral changed the image once more to several still images of the battle and began to point out to each one as he continued with the briefing.
"Not only do these people have advanced control over chakra but their base reflexes, coordination, and even basic muscle structure have seemingly evolved to much higher levels because of their frequent use of chakra. On top of that, the chakra itself is much different than what we are familiar with in our homeland and other areas of the world. This excess chakra has seemed to alter the evolution of these people in numerous different ways." The Admiral said as the images showed people with strange mutations in their bodies, eyes, and even skin and hair colors that were abnormal but obviously natural. "While these results are all preliminary and still require in-depth study, it is imperative that you understand just how different the natives are when compared with others. They may look exactly like us but their evolution has essentially been driven down a separate path than ours. Please keep this in mind when you are developing and creating cybernetics, implants, or any other items and consumables that you design on this continent and how the differences in materials and chakra levels may affect consumers of your products back home." The Admiral looked around the room and saw no one had any objections or questions so he continued.
"The information our recon teams have been able to gather covertly has been slim at best. The abilities of these people to detect and find intruders are top notch. Not even the most advanced thermal optical camouflage has been able to escape the detection of their warriors who seem to be capable of using tracking methods that lock on to foreign scents, sounds, and even chakra from what our spies have determined." The Admiral said.
There were several exclamations of surprise around the room with that information.
"Fortunately, our recon scouts have managed to evade capture and full exposure so far, but there have been several close calls with each recon group so all scouting and infiltration missions have been frozen per the emperor's orders and the diplomatic corps has been working on establishing a dialogue with the different population centers that have been established. For now, those involved in the Inception corps will be restricted to establishing a dialogue with the village leaders and encouraging the acceptance of technology and cyberization with an end goal of guiding the people into accepting Idai Setsuritsu." The Admiral said before motioning to a Yeoman who was standing by with an armful of datapads in various colors. "The Yeoman here has all the information we have gathered from our early recon teams and the rules of conduct we have found to ensure the most success for establishing a dialogue with the natives."
After the Yeoman passed out the datapad and left the room, the Admiral changed the image on the projection screen which broke down the various nations of the continent and images of the leaders for each nation.
"As many of you have observed from the previous images, Feudalism is the primary source of social customs and government on the continent. The Daimyō controls the laws and a vast army of samurai to govern and protect the nation as a whole with a series of nobleman and advisers to guide him. Directly below the Daimyō are the Generals who lead his Samurai army and the leader of the local shinobi village who is identified as a Kage." The Admiral left the image up for a few more minutes before switching to the image of a village that had the image of a young man with spiky blonde hair and large sidebangs.
The village itself looked quite quaint to those who were used to the large cities of Nehan and other countries around the world. Set against a large rocky plateau with four faces carved into the stone, the village was the same odd mix of traditional wooden buildings with electrical lines running between them. There were giant walls several stories in height surrounding the village that was set into a thick and verdant forest.
"This village is known by the locals as Konohagakure no Sato or "Konoha" for short. The image you see here is the current leader or "Hokage" named Minato Namikaze. For the purposes of diplomacy please ensure that you refer to him as Hokage or Yondaime at all times. Remember this guy is a dictator in all but name so he commands the entire shinobi force in the village. It wouldn't be wise to piss this guy off and set our goals back by offending him. From what our sources have learned, he is more than able to back himself up if needed." The Admiral said sternly.
"What about approaching the other villages or the Daimyō themselves?" A woman from Kyokutō corporation asked.
"At this time, the Emperor has restricted all corporate operations to the shinobi villages on approval only. Currently, the imperial diplomats have only successfully opened a dialogue with the Fire Daimyō and have gained his permission to approach the Hokage and attempt to establish ourselves in Konoha only. This is likely his way of ensuring that our motives are genuine without taking any risks." The Admiral gave the group a serious look. "What better way to keep an eye on our operations than to make us set up shop in a village full of assassins and spies."
There was some more hushed conversation in the room as the different corporate groups discussed this revelation with each other. While the Nehan empire's goals espoused integrating other countries into the Idai Setsuritsu through diplomacy and economic enticement, the overall goal was to ensure that a nation was integrated into the Grand Establishment. Government oversight on the corporations wasn't tightly controlled and they were allowed a great amount of leeway in their operations as long as they didn't do anything to damage the image of the empire or emperor himself. When you include the fact that lucrative rewards were offered for each person that embraced cyberization and eventually integrated into the Grand Establishment, then it was only natural that some corporations were more than willing to take risks on trying to corner the market on implants and prosthesis in a new territory. Not only would this ensure their profit margins remained satisfactory, but they could also gain political and economic clout in both the new continent and in the empire as well.
The conversation was halted once more when the Admiral spoke up again. "Remember, any actions that garner the animosity of the natives will be punished harshly and we will most likely hand you over to the natives for suitable punishment and disavow all persons implicated. If the crime is deemed severe enough to impact the reputation of the empire itself than we may also cancel corporate operations within the village or continent entirely. It should go without saying that the natives still make use of capital punishment for many of the grave offenses and the conditions of their prisons do not follow conventions laid out by the United Nations, given the fact that this continent has been in complete isolation for hundreds of years at least."
"How do we approach the subject of their isolation? Is there an official position we are taking on this or shall we consider the subject as taboo?" One of the corporate officers asked.
"From what our diplomats have discovered, they have no recollection of the world at large in their history. Time has seemed to affect them at a different rate while the barrier was active. We are still trying to correlate the events with our world to their own independent timeline but we can't be entirely certain when their barrier actually failed." The Admiral said before pulling out a smaller datapad and pressing a few buttons. "From the oldest legends in their history, one man of immense power blessed their lands with the gift of chakra and taught them how to use it to manipulate the elements to make their lives better over 1000 years ago. Ironically the man's goal was almost identical to our own, to establish peace by linking everyone through the use of chakra instead of technology. At some point when that man passed on and left his legacy to his children, instead of working together to continue the peace the two brothers gathered their followers into two factions and started a war over different ideologies on how to establish the peace their father desired. The war waged across the continent and caused massive casualties before both brothers died and the war ended. With the main leaders dead, the two factions eventually broke apart and the people scattered into various different clans or family groups that warred against each other for some time. Eventually, various clans with similar ideologies decided to band together to form the current system we see now. The feudalistic system has only been in place for a few hundred years and during that time, they have experienced three great wars with the last one only recently ending a few years ago." The Admiral put the datapad away before he continued with his answer. "For now, there are no restrictions when it comes to sharing knowledge of the world to them, besides any classified information of course. Keep in mind that we want to encourage the natives to accept integration with the world at large. The current peace that the continent is enjoying is tentative at best and there is a great deal of suspicion and mistrust of outsiders by the people so expect cold shoulders from most of the populace."
"Admiral, you mentioned a difference in how time elapsed on this continent in comparison to the world at large. Does this time difference still exist and will it cause problems when we try to synchronize with the global network?" Another woman asked.
"All tests that our science teams have conducted have concluded that there is no longer any difference in how time elapses between our world and their continent ever since whatever concealed their world disappeared." The Admiral answered with ease. "The only thing that seems to remain constant is the climate even though the continent sits in a location that should make it practically inhabitable. Whatever was used to conceal the continent in the past is still maintaining the climate that existed while the continent was hidden. We are still studying how they have managed to establish such a sophisticated method of climate control but since chakra is inherent in all of our bodies the scientists are confident that these methods present no health risks to us even after prolonged exposure."
"You mentioned earlier that their weapons were all traditional. Are there any restrictions on the types of weaponry we are allowed to bring for our own security forces?" A bulkier man asked.
"For now all Guns, Think Tanks, Armored Suits, Non-humanoid Androids, and electronic surveillance equipment is not allowed until the natives are more comfortable with our technology. Items like stun gloves, tasers, bladed or blunt weapons of any type are allowed as long as the items you bring don't violate any village rules." The Admiral listed off before adding. "Remember that these people are only beginning to utilize electricity in the form of appliances and artificial lighting but a great deal of the village still uses more primitive methods of communication when chakra isn't capable of fulfilling those needs. In fact, the primary method of communication between villages is to use messenger hawks or sentient creatures that they call summons. These animals are tied to some form of blood contract to specific people and are given the same rights as most people so be careful about how you treat animals, insects, or other creatures that you might run into during your time in the village."
"Is there any way for us to identify these creatures in comparison to any normal animals?" A man asked.
"That we aren't entirely sure of, honestly. Our diplomats and recon teams have not encountered any of these summoning creatures but from the information that was given to us by some of the Guardian Shinobi of the Daimyō, the animals may or may not be wearing clothes or other identifying markings, and they are all capable of speech to some degree. The only other thing we were warned about was their unusual size, one of the shinobi was adamant that there were summoning animals that exceeded heights of 50 meters or more." The Admiral answered.
There were some sounds of disbelief amongst the group as they digested that information. It seemed that the isolation of this continent had caused some strange evolutionary changes to occur and wondered just how different things were on the continent.
"If there are no more questions, then I will conclude this briefing. Any information that the recon, science, and diplomacy corps have recovered have been included in the datapads that have been handed out. For now, we will maintain the same channels for communication until the new satellites have been launched and enter orbit above the continent. After that, all military channels that have been on loan will become restricted to military personnel once again." The Admiral said before he turned and left the room with the Captain following behind him.
Not long afterward, the different corporate groups split up and began making plans and deals on how to make their approach and establish a corporate office on the new continent. It was definitely going to be challenging trying to entice an isolated continent into embracing the benefits of advanced technology but these teams were comprised of the best and brightest minds in the private sector.
Not only were they interested in creating a whole new market to operate in but the potential for advancing their own technologies with the advanced methods of chakra manipulation being displayed by the natives offered all kinds of possibilities. The weapons manufacturers, in particular, were interested in developing stronger chakra based weapons since heavy weapons and explosives had all been banned by the international community. Many weapons manufacturers were on the verge of bankruptcy since the Nuclear and Ordinance Treaty was ratified by the empire and many of them were desperate to find a new product to manufacture to keep their companies alive.
It had been hard enough to retrofit their tanks and armored suits to fit the new requirements but utilizing chakra as a power source for weaponry and cybernetics was still in the early stages of development. While there are some android and AI driven tanks that were capable of causing significant damage, the accuracy and power were inconsistent and nowhere on the scale of what they witnessed the shinobi using, and the shinobi were not even using cybernetics in any form.
Humans using chakra in such a manner had only been considered myths from ancient times. Stories and legends from before the first war that were inconsistent and questionable at best. Now it was clear that the people of this continent had somehow isolated themselves at some point during or after the First Nuclear War and had taken an evolutionary path completely different from the rest of the world. They would be among the first to study and document these changes and hopefully use them to advance the rest of the world while earning a nice profit in the process.