After Activation 1167 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1128 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 140-32M - 40k Universe
AD 1999 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
"So. Introductions. Yes. Let us introduce ourselves to each other and maybe we can possibly not stand here and look like idiots. Sound like a good idea?" Asked General Bradford looking just a little bit desperately at the men and women in front of him.
There were 8 NOD… Generals, 7 Coalition Generals and… that was it. The 8 of them standing inside a tent, all of them at rigid attention. Since it was his tent, Bradley had been charged with looking after them. Not officially of course, but it was his own damn tent, if there was going to be anyone entertaining them it was going to be him.
The whole point of this was some kind of… sick exercise where they would get to know each other better, a meeting of the generals of the offensive, a way for them to better coordinate, to… whatever the hell it was that those up the chain wanted to happen. Bradley didn't know, this felt far too much like those fucking Kumbaya exercises for his liking, where he would put the people in his company that hated each other the most in the same vehicle. Force them to at the very least develop the ability to speak to each other without swearing.
A way to make it so that the different personalities to at the very least mellow out slightly. The problem, of course, came when it was not two personalities clashing, but rather 2 personalities not even meeting each other at all. Quite literally in Bradford's case. The NOD generals hadn't even taken off their helmets while inside the room, what was more was that they didn't even have the epaulettes that told everyone what rank they were and in which branch. Each of them looking identical, the only difference being their body builds and heights.
Something that was again obscured by the amount of shit that each one of them wore, ammunition pouches galore, grenade bandoliers, equipment bags, their chests, stomachs, waists, thighs, all of it covered in equipment. They didn't look like officers, rather more like some kind of walking rearming station. He could have sworn one of them was lugging around what looked like a knee mortar on his right leg, the kind that his own grand-uncle had fought against with the Marines against the Japanese.
It was an ingenious little tool and he had wondered why they weren't using it for their own light infantry. Just a tube, a bandolier and that was the work of an entire light mortar team right there. No need to lug around a giant tube, a base, and a bipod everywhere they went. Then again he was the Armoured Cav commander, what did he know about infantry? His own mortars were mounted on his APCs.
As for the group… he tried. He really did. Trying to offer drinks to which a few of the coalition commanders had accepted the offer and the NOD commanders just stared at him in silence. Or what he assumed was silence, their helmets with the red lights didn't really tell you much about what the face of the person inside was like or even if they were speaking at all. Then came the eyes which were just the lights, if they were staring then he wouldn't know, only the fucking lights were just staring, not blinking, fucking ridiculous it was. If he could he would have forced them all to just not wear a helmet at all, that way he could see their faces at the very least and not pretend that talking to a fucking visor was engaging.
Dammit all, high command just loved to fuck with people, didn't they? Ignore the fact that he was high command, rather high-er command was doing the fucking with this time.
It was just the slightest bit irritating but he was a professional and he wasn't going to lash out at them for it. Never mind the fact that it looked like they had fucking Hannah here. The rumours around Hannah had made their way around and he would be well and truly fucked if he pissed her off. She sat in the corner of the room, just staring at the ceiling of his little tent, the very same one that his staff car lugged around all day. She didn't say anything and he so wished that she would, even if that was a threat against them to not fuck up or something.
Anything to break the silence, the tension.
They had seen the classified images of what Hannah had done, of course, had seen what it was that she had done to thousands of people in her time rampaging around the world. Each country's servicemen having some kind of myth that revolved around Hannah. That if you slacked off on sentry duty she would arrive to slit your throat was an oldie, but a goodie. The one that had her eating your soul if you screwed up was just another one.
It had even disseminated out into the wider population when soldiers coming home had refused to use the name Hannah for their children, just in case they offended the real Hannah. Once that became mainstream, the usage of the name Hannah for… anything had died away, a taboo that nobody was sure where it had emerged from. Well, they did of course, but not the wider public.
Bradley gave a brief sigh. Getting ready to get out on a limb and try to engage the NOD commanders in conversation… again.
"So what are you guys planning to do when it comes to tomorrow?" He asked. It was simple, it was operational and it involved no feelings… or so he hoped.
"Crush them." Was the unified answer. As in every single one of them answered at exactly the same time in exactly the same tone of voice. Something that was not creepy at fucking all. Bradley resisted the urge to sigh. That was a sign of weakness and Hannah pounced on those. Rumour had it she ate babies for this very reason. Because they were weak, and juicy, and small. It was very likely not true… but… you know… just in case.
Bradley wasn't a coward, he would fight the first man that said he was one. But he wasn't stupid either and when it was Hannah right in front of you, you did not do anything to provoke her. Therein lay the path to damnation.
"What are your rules of engagement?" Asked Cutting, good but that man was. Always ready with the support just when you needed it the most.
"Kill them all."
"Do you mean kill all the soldiers? What about the civilians? Prisoners?" Cutting pressed, made sense really, the man did like his boys and to hear that NOD would be killing all that they came across was disconcerting. What if it had been his men on the other side?
"The Imposters shall die. The Imposter's allies have been given 1 chance for surrender. Then they shall die. All still in the zone are enemies of NOD." They said again, sounding perfectly serious.
This was going to be problematic, to say the least. If NOD was unwilling to take prisoners, or if their whole doctrine revolved around killing everything that stood against them, it was going to cause issues with his own troops.They who had been raised on the idea of being able to take prisoners after you were fighting, a way to get back home alive against an overwhelming enemy would not be reacting to the way NOD was planning on dealing with their prisoners.
Why? Because if NOD didn't take prisoners, what about those of the enemy? What was the chance that they would take prisoners if they found out that NOD wasn't? It was going to undermine their entire strategy at this rate and there were going to be coming out of every single possible avenue. If no surrender was possible then he would only be getting the complete annihilation of his units, the conflict in turn, would escalate in brutality and dammit, he had to stop it.
"You can't just kill them all, you need to take prisoners!" Bradley said, leaning forward a little.
"They are the Imposters, they do not deserve the right to surrender." Said the one on the right, vaguely female in her voice. Not that he could tell since they were all fucking identical.
"If you kill all the prisoners then they won't be taking any prisoners themselves. There won't be any survivors for our troops either!" He said, trying his best to avoid raising his voice, not very successfully but at least he tried.
"We are prepared to die." She said.
Of fucking course they were. Of course, they were ready to die, yes, because that's how everything fucking worked with NOD wasn't it? If you couldn't complete a mission you would just kill yourself and try to take as many of them with you as possible. Because of course, that's how it all fucking worked.
Ridiculous.
He was trying very hard not to smack his head on a load-bearing pole that was holding up the tent. He was very much afraid that if he did so the entire thing might come falling down. Dammit all.
"What the good general means is that if we kill them all, how are we going to educate them as to why they are wrong?" Came the voice, like that of a seductress, but when it came from someone like Hannah… well, it was several times more goosebumps inducing. Not in an aroused state, but in an "I don't want to look but there is a tiger right next to me isn't there?" kind of way. At least that was how it was for Bradley, he could see the Russian general, the one that was wearing a gas mask and looked like he was auditioning for NOD breathing harder.
Because of course he fucking was.
Bradley massaged his head, this was not how he had wanted this conversation to go, but he would take it. So long as they started taking prisoners again and he didn't have to worry about his men being wiped out if they ever got surrounded. Worse if he surrounded an enemy battalion and they refused to surrender, he would have to dedicate forces to wiping them out which was terrible for morale.
So many fucking things he had to worry about, why the hell weren't the Soviets doing anything? Oh right, they probably were thinking along the same lines. Dammit. Was he the only one that ever thought about the future?
It was as if he and Cutting were the only ones that gave a damn about what was going to happen to their men. Well, they and that one Soviet one that had his paratroopers beg off saying he needed to do a last minute inspection of his men. Smart bastard that one.
"Understood. We shall take those that surrender for conditioning and education." Said the… one on the left? It was damned hard to tell where the sounds were coming from in this tent.
At least… ah... fuck it. Their education was probably even worse than what he thought it was. Probably something to do with systematic torture, maybe even a few exploding body parts, a few dead people. Who cared. He was exhausted and it wasn't even halfway through the damned night.
Bradley heaved out a sigh. He was going to drink. He was going to drink and damn it all he was going to try to get something out of this night.
"So… that was rather intense was it not?" Asked Cutting after the others had left. It was only Bradley and the good Brit left, two good men who could enjoy his second best bottle of scotch. He was leaving the best for when they came back on the victory tour.
He was going to pop it open and enjoy that sucker if it was the last thing he did. He had been saving it up for when his son had been born, only he had fallen asleep the labour was so long, he had been saving it up for his daughter, but his father-in-law had brought the cigars, and it was like the universe itself conspired to keep him from drinking it.
Come hell or high water he was drinking that damned bottle.
A story: Apathy, Commanders, Hitchhikers (PA Multicross)
After Activation 1167 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1128 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 140-32M - 40k Universe
AD 1999 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
The first attack was over and now it was time for the counter-attack. The NTU's armies had prepared themselves, had set themselves up, and were not heading out to fight in the name of whatever it was they were fighting for (stopping the invasion of the crazy people) but Fiona Bradley didn't care.
She was her father's daughter and had joined the Marines… well not really her father's daughter then since he was in the Army, but it was close enough. The two of them were carrying on the family tradition and Fiona planned on at least reaching general like her father. Slightly more difficult given that there were less generals for the Marines, but it was something to work toward.
As for the counter-attack she was working with the rest of the squad, all 9 of them. They had dug themselves in around a refinery of sorts. Or rather what was left of a refinery after NOD had arrived, did whatever it was they had done to it (explosions) and then left. However, since it was the only real structure for dozens of kilometers, they were forced to garrison the damned thing, after the cleanup crews had come and vacuumed up all the Tiberium. That stuff was dangerous, if it got into the bloodstream the individual was quite certainly dead. Or at the very least turned into a gibbering mutant that wished it was dead.
As for Fiona, she was keeping as far away from the damned stuff as possible. Her body set up on the desert sands next to the road leading into the refinery… on the opposite side of the facility from the main building. It being naturally underfilled with rock and gravel making it adequate cover against the heavier weapons, not including artillery and airstrikes of course. The enemy had large numbers of missile batteries which meant that they were at least marginally safe, the US had developed many of their own anti-missile systems to counter the constant attacks from the USSR and South America. A simple system that worked just as intended really, taking down missiles from afar, destroying them in droves.
The problem came from the fact that it had limited ammunition and if they had ammunition for more than 1 salvo… well, the Marines were going to be learning first hand just how well they had dug their foxholes and trenches. It was what one might call a practical test, one that came with grave consequences if they failed or made mistakes. Consequences that would see them come out the other side missing arms and legs at the best, not at all at worst.
Fiona set her M16A10 on the little berm that she had constructed from loose rocks, gravel and sand. Enough for the bipod of her rifle to point all the way down range. If they were attacking they would be doing it from that direction, and the chances of them attacking were far higher than not. The refinery was the highest point in several kilometers after all, the perfect way for them to sight any movements, call in artillery and who knew what else. It as a strategic asset and they were going to be bleeding over it. The squad was being intentionally understaffed they knew, a way to draw in the attack before the counterattack by the Cavalry slammed into their flanks and tore them apart from the rear.
It would be glorious… for them. For the Marines, it was going to be a very special kind of hell Fiona knew that much at least.
They had at least been given so many munitions that it would service an entire battalion. Claymores, landmines, booby-traps, trip-flares, death, death, death. More death by proxy than there were proxies. The entire 200 meter trek to the refinery from all angles being mined and trapped to the point where trying to get through in anything less than battle tank would see them blown to so many little pieces she would need a scientific calculator to work it out.
As for the tanks, a recoilless rifle had been installed in the ruined refinery's top floor, a constant team manning it. They also had several Javelin A013s, with enough missiles to take on an entire division of tanks. Her father had heard about her deployment and made sure that a few supplies got "lost" into the hands of her squad. Nepotism she could get behind.
And now… now it was all a matter of waiting. The plan was not something she was privy to being nothing more than a corporal, but she wasn't stupid. It clearly hinged around NOD doing something to their satellites so they were blind, and the massive number of tanks that were waiting under the cover of camo netting.
Fiona sighed and settled in for the night. It was going to be a long one and she wanted to be as comfortable as possible. She would kill the idiots when they came, shoot them dead, etc etc, but she was going to be as comfortable as possible before she did anything.
The screams. She could hear the screams.
Fiona lay curled up in a little ball at the bottom of her foxhole, earlier confidence gone.
The anti-missile defences had worked wonders, destroying the first salvo of missiles with ease. It was what came after that had them all diving and begging for mercy. A constant stream of missiles from the sky, missiles from every single angle, each one screaming with a loud whistle that announced that they were here and they were ready to make life hell on earth.
The explosions rocked the ground underneath her, the vibrations sending rocks and dirt cascading all over her inert form. Fiona didn't care, she just wanted this to end, to have this nightmare go away. It was not what she wanted dammit, it was not what any of them wanted. Why didn't they send in their tanks, why were they doing this? What the fuck?
Fiona lay there as the bombardment continued, every single explosion shaking her further, every single scream causing her to tense up further. If this went any further she would explode like a little spring.
And then silence. Blessed silence. It was over.
They were safe. So very safe.
Fiona took a second to breathe in the air that was not being contaminated by constant streams of dirt and dust. She was going to… just… take it in. Just… not think about the world for a second.
"We've got infantry moving in at the 2 O'Clock!" Came the shout over her earbud, the one embedded in her ear and had somehow survived the bombardment. Wasn't that funny?
"Got it. Engaging." Came another voice, Jackson. The squad's machine gunner, loaded and ready with the 7.62mm spewing death machine. The amount of firepower that he put out would be able to keep their heads down, at least while she was climbing out of her foxhole.
Fiona took a deep breath and stood up, picking up her rifle from where it had fallen in the time she had spent cowering away from the barrage. That was not something she was going to tell her grandchildren, that was for damn sure.
Setting the bipod back on the little berm she had constructed, Fiona aimed down the sights of her rifle and to the background noise of the various rifles engaging the enemy she too lent the might of her 5.56 rifle. The M16 had barely any kick at all, firing it on automatic was quite easy actually if she just pointed it in the right direction and pulled the trigger, all the bullets would roughly impact the right area.
Roughly.
Aiming down the sight, she sighted the shimmering shadows that were coming in under the night sky, illuminated by the flares that had been shot from the light mortar, or from the Sergeant's underbarrel, she wasn't too sure. It didn't really matter anyway, she knew where the bastards were and they were going to suffer, or at least die.
Guesstimating the range to be approximately 200 meters, Fiona pulled the trigger. Once, twice, thrice. The three shot burst scything towards the enemy. Where hopefully it would hit them, or at the least force them to duck down to avoid being shot in turn.
Still, there were enormous numbers of them, far too damn many of them for a squad to hold off, even one as well equipped as theirs. A single company her ass, this was more like a battalion strength force. Head shaking slightly, she pulled the trigger again, one two and three times. Another trio, then one more bullet left in the magazine.
Reloading.
Firing. They weren't assaulting her position… yet.
Fiona kept it up, pulling the trigger, changing the magazine when it was dry, pulling the trigger, changing the magazine. And. Fuck.
"2 mags left." She called out over the squad network.
"Acknowledged, fall back to the second line." Came the reply.
Fiona nodded, pushing herself out of the foxhole and sprinting across the open space to the second line of defence, one where she would be able to restock on ammunition. Hopefully. If someone hadn't gotten there before she did at any rate.
The 50 meter dash was the most intense experience she had ever had, the occasional crack that indicated a bullet just missed her, the turbulence in the air as the bullets passed near her. A feeling that was quite invigorating. The kind of invigorating that made her run faster that is, weighed down as she was by her equipment, Fiona was damned sure that she had broken at least 15 land-speed records getting out of there.
Sliding the last meter or so Fiona made her way inside, crawling the final stretch. Safe. So very safe.
Taking a moment to even out her breathing, Fiona felt around inside the foxhole and found what she was looking for. More ammunition. Thank god.
Restocking she loaded a new one into her rifle and began to fire again, the bullets heading out and… oh.
"Enemy infantry 10 O'Clock!" She called out over the radio. It looked like they were trying to push towards her old position, something that made her so very glad that she had abandoned that particular foxhole before she had been killed. She had even left them a little present in there, a bonafide B98 grenade on a pressure sensitive switch.
And of them get in and touch that bad boy, and they were going to find out what it was like to be missing a few legs.
As for the rest of them, she aimed down the sight and pulled the trigger again, this time they were close enough that she knew the bullets would be hitting them considering she was a damned good shot. She had won the annual shooting challenge for the battalion after all.
Suddenly they broke off. What? Oh no. Fuck.
"They're breaking off. Arty inbound." She called out on the radio.
The loud swearing and insults to various mothers and fathers told Fiona that the squad had heard her warning. As she dived to the bottom of her new foxhole, this one being nowhere near as deep as she would have liked, she closed her eyes and prepared for the worst. If one hit, hopefully, it killed her quickly enough that she wouldn't feel it.
Then the explosions.
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Ah... fuck.
The explosions were sudden and terrifying. Each and every single one of them being felt by the entire squad. This wasn't some puny rocket artillery, this was the 155mm cannons. This was the proper stuff, this was the stuff that had shockwaves that could kill you if it was close enough.
This was the stuff that brought on nightmares and the PTSD.
She groaned slightly, this was it she supposed. Probably. Oh god.
Then it was over. She stood up and she groaned, another attack. Another round.
The distant sounds of explosions and screams told her the booby-traps were doing their job. Just how effective they were going to be was another issue entirely. One she wasn't sure she was ready to face if they weren't… dying was a concern to be sure.
She gave a brief sigh before turning back to the problem of killing people. She wasn't sure that any of them she had shot were dead, but who knew.
Maybe?
After Activation 1168 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1129 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 141-32M - 40k Universe
AD 2000 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
The campaign in the middle east had gone well, or rather, it had gone ridiculously well. The NTU forces both NOD and Coalition marching their way out, pushing NOD out of Africa, pushing into Europe, into the old USSR and Asia. Essentially controlling half the world while those who tried to resist were either crushed or sent fleeing into the Continental Americas and Australia.
The forces of the two factions were simply too much for the nascent GDI and NOD to effectively counter, to actually defend against without themselves sacrificing what felt like dozens for every single one that they actually killed.
It was depressing and it was not helping morale at all, the soldiers, the officers, the chiefs of staff, all of them displaying the kind of apathy that came from an army that was on the verge of total defeat without even being able to account for themselves.
Anger? They were past anger. They were past petty emotions like that, they would only get them killed. How many of their own had died because they had broken, had decided that charging at the enemy had been a good idea? That perhaps their courage would keep them alive, that they were heroes or something?
It had failed, everything they had tried had failed.
Now. Now it was a matter of simply holding what they had and trying to advance their technology and their men to where they could compete.
Thankfully for some obscure reason, the NTU forces had decided to not push further, content to wait with what they had, content to police the territories that they now owned. Territories that were across an ocean from them, territories that were now denied to them in terms of distance, in terms of economics, in terms of society, and everything else.
It was a small thanks, one that ignored the effect of the invasion on every aspect of their lives. The exports from the Asia region, Europe and more had been stopped. Now? Now they had nothing that they did not themselves produce, an issue when the US had shipped most of its equipment overseas in the first place to take advantage of "globalisation." And now? Now they were worthless, the enemy had them.
The entire continent was going to need to work together or there would be nothing they could do but wash their necks and wait for the inevitable.
The economy of the USA had collapsed, their export markets gone, the financial markets gone, all of it gone. Luckily they had enough food, but that was all they had. There would need to be a radical rebuilding of technology, of their industries, of their mining operations and more. Thankfully the fact that they were the high tech producers of the world meant that the construction of the tools necessary was possible. Without that, they would have truly been screwed.
As for South America, it was faring slightly better but the future looked bleak indeed. The technology that was needed to modernize their industries was now halted, Germany and France now gone. Their future potential almost 0 without those much needed imports. While the people would not starve, they would quite definitely not advance either. A partnership with the US was necessary but for an entire subcontinent still divided over the most petty of issues, it was a concern.
A subcontinent that was still in the grips of enormous levels of corruption and fear, of ineffectual bureaucracies and failure.
What it was that they could do was limited, their future prospects similarly suffering.
And so they were forced to turtle up, hiding themselves, hoping desperately that the forces of the NTU did not come knocking.
As for the NTU, they were facing problems of their own. It turned out that conquering half the world, or rather a majority of the world depending on what metric you looked at it, was not a simple task. Rather it was one that demanded far more effort than what one would think would be necessary.
The fact that it was all inefficient to the point that it beggared belief, the very systems that one usually needed to survive being absent in so many of their governments and basic systems. That the world would be so interconnected, that taking a single piece out of it could doom entire countries baffled those of the NTU.
And so it was that they changed their mind, perhaps conquering the entire world was a bad idea if all of it was in this state.
No, it would be better to just stick with what they had and improve it, the portal had been noted as stable and so it was that they could send their armies through it. Armies that were expecting war, had gotten used to war and were now itching for more war. Occupation of a conquered territory certainly counted and so the optimal solution had been found. The armies would send their young, their war hungry, their soldiers, and the people of the Tiberium Universe would get the policing that they deserve for being so… inefficient.
The people were to be policed, the system would be made to work and in the end, maybe everything would work out.
Maybe.
It would need to be done with the carrot and the stick that much was for certain. To punish them for their actions, to destroy them for their insurrections, reward those that obeyed and submitted, ensuring that there would be incentives to stop delaying the inevitable, and to join with the NTU in mind and spirit.
It would be a difficult job no doubt, but one that the NTU was up for, the alternative being that they allow their armies accustomed to war without an enemy to fight, an army that would get very restless very fast. A restless army was one that might think a coup was a good idea and that had to be warded off as hard as possible. And so the Americas had been left untouched, a way that the military could skirmish in Australia and their vast tracts of empty land while having the supply lines that kept the conflict going long enough to satisfy the soldiers.
As for the cities, the towns, the villages and the people who were now under NTU's authority? Well, they were about to experience exactly what it was that made the NTU so powerful.
All civil liberties were being thrown out the window, a regimented, efficient and working society would be implemented in its place. Work hard and you would be rewarded with ample amounts of stimulation in the form of badly made television dramas, films, video games, web series and more. Satisfy the conditions that the state placed upon you and you would be given all you could want in terms of mind-numbing entertainment.
It was a very effective means of control the governments of the NTU had found. By having the people work, it satisfied their need to be part of a society, of having work, or being productive, of people. Meanwhile by having media available to them, it allowed for them to de-stress the mind, to convince themselves that it was in their best interests to obey, for if they did not… they would lose their media privileges.
A truly evil and diabolical plan that had worked wonders in the NTU and was going to work equally well in the Tiberium Universe they were sure. It just needed a little tweaking, the media already available was trash emphasising freedom and anger at the state, no it needed to be rectified.
At the same time, the infrastructure was as if it had been last updated in the 1960s, literally in some cases. All of it would need to be overhauled and thankfully with the Tiberium deposits available to them, it was a simple enough matter. No more mining for everything, the Tiberium would handle it for them, bringing all of it to a single, easily accessible point.
This world's resources were going to be considered separately from that of their own universe. Nobody relished the idea of a Tiberium outbreak on their own world, that would be terrible in all the ways that having Tiberium breaking out all over the world would be terrible. One simply did not bring an invasive species through customs after all, and Tiberium was the most invasive thing that was around. No, there would be none of that shit.
The threat was still there, a threat that very much buried itself into the minds of the those of both the NTU and the Tiberium Universe, a threat that was threatening to devour the world in a few years if left unchecked. They would need to find a way to at least slow down the spread of Tiberium as it devoured more of the world, or at the most optimal point, control it perfectly.
From the interrogations of the T-NOD operatives, Kane had some kind of means which he used to control the Tiberium, some kind of means and a knowledge of Tiberium that far outstripped what should be possible given the short amount of time it had been around.
The possibility was high therefore that he had an unlocker of some kind, a way for him to decipher the secrets of Tiberium without needing to worry himself over such things as trial and error.
Efforts were made, therefore, into assembling a team that would first, find Kane, second secure Kane, third find the source of his knowledge. With those, the fear of having Tiberium in the NTU was reduced, being able to force it to grow the way they wanted it to, or to not grow at all was necessary if they wanted to preserve the world from that of the Tiberium itself.
If some managed to get through the portal, there was nothing they could do in response and things would likely escalate far beyond what they were capable of stopping.
Even without Kane, the research teams were working around the clock to stop the Tiberium growths, the only way to get out of this hell in which they had sentenced themselves, or rather NOD had sentenced them.
As to what NOD was doing inside this universe? Well, they were working with the Coalition in making sure that the world developed properly, their mandate having expanded to including all humans, not just those of their own universe.
There would be no gifts of technology as of yet, they were not "worthy" apparently, but socially the NOD operatives were working to ensure the population would be compliant and ready to assimilate as was expected of them. The people would not be allowed to stray, they were starting off on the path to ascension on rocky footing as it was.
The NOD secret police were making themselves known to the world as it was, finding and rooting out plots, purging those that threatened the ascension of mankind, killing and destroying any attempts by the insurgents to bring back what they considered to be the proper way of the world.
As for the insurgents themselves, they existed and were very much a threat to the NTU forces. There were high levels of GDI and NOD equipment that had been left behind by the fleeing armies, equipment that was arming a very fanatical and dangerous insurgency.
One that had to be put down and fast, or else the entire ascension plan would be ruined by a peoples that were unable to comprehend the greatness before them and strayed off the path. It could not be allowed to happen and the forces of NOD were seeding themselves throughout the entirety of society, the vast majority of NOD's resources being dedicated this project. The initial prospects looked promising but who knew just how true this would be in the long term.
They had been authorized to do whatever it was necessary to claim victory, even if that meant entire towns and cities had to vanish off the map, then so be it. If they were so unwilling to accept the inevitable then it would be better if they ceased to exist at all.
The ascension was for the worthy and if they kept insisting on being unworthy then they did not deserve a second chance. Even if it ran against the wishes or even the sensibilities of the Coalition, NOD would do whatever it took to ensure the salvation of the human race, even if that salvation was at the cost of a few million humans.