ADVENT: History

The Uruguay Incident

"This backfired spectacularly."

- Unidentified Argentinian Federal Intelligence Agent

The response of ADVENT to the tragic and unacceptable blunder in Uruguay is yet another reminder of the underlying problems within ADVENT itself, and highlights their skewed priorities when it comes to the idea of justice. ADVENT is unsurprisingly being praised for their actions following this, and this is the hard truth all critics of it must accept.

The praise is justified. The response from ADVENT was beyond what even supporters would likely expect.

ADVENT did the right thing here. But it certainly wasn't because of any guilt or actual sorrow for their actions. The problem with the response is that it is ultimately superficial, especially in that ADVENT is ultimately not changing how they conduct operations. And that is the heart of the problem. ADVENT did not learn from this. They punished the actors, not the protocols that even allowed this situation to take place.

If ADVENT were truly serious about fixing their mistake, they wouldn't just give the families money and official apologies. They would change their military protocols to not target civilians. They would forego first strike attacks. They would scale back their use of unrestrained and overwhelming force. They would act the way the undisputed power of the world should; restrained, considerate, and empathetic.

But that cuts into the core of what ADVENT is, which is brutal cold efficiency. The Human element is not a consideration for ADVENT. Human cost is only a number, one that cannot be simply waved away by money. This for ADVENT was an exercise in logistics and compensation. At the end of the day, mothers, fathers, children, and entire families are dead at the hands of a woman drunk on the power ADVENT provides.

ADVENT has promised that those like the former Marshal Luana Russo will not hold positions of power in ADVENT, but that could be interpreted as only a larger warning of what might come. The promise of power is what ADVENT offers, and more like Luana will be drawn to it, and some are already in positions of authority today, and they are worse than Luana's madness.

The lesson ADVENT learned from this, was that they need to just crack down on the troublemakers in ADVENT. The people are the problem, and that was made abundantly clear by the highly public aftermath of this incident. The idea that the world's largest superpower would proudly display the bleeding and sobbing wreck of a madwoman, and publically declared their intent to execute her would be unthinkable even mere months ago.

The documentation of the ADVENT policy of vengeance is public knowledge, and now we are simply used to it. Now they are even applauded for it. Such mistreatment was not warranted, regardless of her crimes, and ADVENT unwittingly exposed the sham of its justice system. The fate of the woman they called a traitor was decided well ahead of time. It is likely deserved, but with ADVENT proclaiming so publicaly their intentions, all that I can wonder is if there was something they are simply hiding.

But in the end, ADVENT knows how the cycle works. They control the narrative, they focus on what good they did, and make public and violent steps to assure people it won't happen again. Then the media will move onto the next story, the next tragedy caused by ADVENT. They made an attempt to fix their mistake, but they fixed the wrong thing.

And that is why their response is simply not good enough.

- Article: "ADVENT's Response Isn't Good Enough"; Washington Post; Author: Ralli Cazan

Operation Report 0PP9

Recipient: [REDACTED]

Agent: [REDACTED]

I am not sure exactly how Volk managed to hit so many targets at the same time, but he certainly did his job well. Perhaps too well given what happened. Hitting three Peacekeeper outposts and somehow managing to win is suspicious to me, but that is something to ask him about. We gave him a job, and he did it. He can't be faulted for that.

With that said, we need to take a hard look at what the results of this have been. Pushing Luana to invade Uruguay succeeded extraordinarily well, as did her decimation of the Uruguayan military. Brutal, but it at least woke everyone in South America up as to what ADVENT can do. The good news is that you got Chile to ally with us, the bad news is more complicated.

To sum it up, this has backfired significantly. If we had known that ADVENT was not only striking a private military deal with Uruguay, compensating the victims, and doing everything short of holding a public execution for Luana, it might have been best to leave them alone. Amazingly, I would not be shocked if ADVENT came out of this stronger than before.

We made the mistake of assuming ADVENT wouldn't take decisive action, or if they did, it would be the minimum needed. That is clearly not the case, and once again highlights that we're not dealing with greedy warmongers here, much as you like to tell the President otherwise, but a highly rational and ruthless organization that actually uses their brains.

To be completely blunt, much as you wish it were otherwise, ADVENT could have wiped Uruguay off the map and everyone would forget about it once the next alien attack hits. We wouldn't, but the world isn't really in a position to do anything about ADVENT, is it? The point is that ADVENT not only didn't have to do what they did, they didn't have to do anything.

But they did. Why? Because they understand that it looks a hell of a lot better to do the following:

1. Acknowledge the mistake publicly.

2. Compensate all the victims (Also publicly).

3. Punish the perpetrators (Very publicly. I'm surprised Stein didn't just shoot her in front of the cameras).

4. Give the government an almost blank check to pay for damages.

5. Give them access to their technology which no other country has.

So can you really call ADVENT the bad guys now? I doubt it.

I haven't failed to notice that we're tactfully not commenting after they've done this, and ADVENT has shut the EU up as well. And China is complementing their 'Strong and decisive action', the suck-up bastards. And that is because ADVENT knows how to shut down criticism. No one is going to dare raise the point that the response might have been disproportionate, and maybe that means their military is scarily unrestrained.

And as a result, Uruguay has now become the most advanced non-ADVENT nation in South America, with ADVENT protection.

I don't have to ask to know that's not what you wanted.

Nonetheless, allying with Chile was our main objective, and most leaders know this was just ADVENT using brilliant PR moves to obscure their issues. But publically, this is not going to be easy to combat. Even some of the estimated numbers of the amount of money ADVENT just gave out are staggering, and you can't say they did this halfway. And they're not going to let the media forget just how much they care about justice. I fully expect Luana's sham of a tri…no, let's just call it a sentencing and be done with it.

They're going to proudly advertise that they put down the so-called 'traitor'. Honestly, I say good for them, but that doesn't change we're not in a good position. This does make me wonder why they didn't do something similar when they annexed Canada or the Middle East. Maybe they didn't care?

If ADVENT is deciding to change their focus to appeal to people more, we need to be ready for a whole slew of ADVENT propaganda. And we need to get Volk to explain just what the hell he did.

Operation: Generous Response

Division: Reconnaissance and Observation

Report Author: Zar'harrin'intha

Authorization: Zar'Chon

While I am aware I am not privy to details concerning other operations on Earth, I will make the assumption that the Humans that attacked ADVENT were supported by some of our own, likely with the intent to disrupt or destabilize the region. The instability of former Marshal Luana Russo is well documented, and her actions were rather predictable.

In the light of such an attack, the idea that she would be enraged enough to invade another country was more sound than many ideas, and a fairly riskless proposition. Either she takes the bait, or she doesn't, with both outcomes being positive. The problem with this model was that we, for some reason, completely miscalculated ADVENT's response.

At most we expected a condemnation, or an attempt by ADVENT Intelligence to cover it up. First I need to document the extent of what former Marshal Luana actually did during the invasion.

First, ADVENT hit nearly all of Uruguay's military bases, complete with Lancer support, which as you can expect, decimated them so completely that they almost surrendered the moment they saw the ADVENT soldiers. Thankfully the ones who surrendered weren't killed, but in the end, the majority of the Uruguayan military was killed off in the first strikes.

She also targeted every major city, ordering the soldiers to shoot all who opposed them. On some of the cities with a large police force, they used artillery force, which naturally caused civilian casualties. Then they took the entirety of the government into custody, and it was about that time that ADVENT finally stepped in and Commander Christiaens ordered all ADVENT forces to stand down and return to Brazil.

Despite the situation, I do have to admit the speed with which ADVENT responded was highly impressive.

The backlash was immediate, and everyone felt rightly justified in calling ADVENT out on their legitimately terrible mistake, and for a brief time the world was (in words) united against ADVENT. That was until ADVENT acted in several very noticeable ways.

The first was Chancellor Vyandar giving a public speech condemning the incident, and promising a swift response. Swift indeed as the Peacekeepers deployed in force to Brazil, while the diplomats of ADVENT, which consisted of the Chancellor, her PR Director, the Chief of the Oversight Division, and Commander Christiaens herself went to speak with the surviving Uruguayan government.

While we don't have exact details on what was discussed, ADVENT not only compensated the families by exorbitant amounts, but also gave their own weapons, armor, and other technology to their surviving military, along with the promise of protection from outside threats. And a full apology of course.

At roughly the same time, ADVENT not only arrested the former Marshal, but her entire command staff who were smart enough to surrender before things became violent. Although from the state of Luana as she was being dragged out, I'm not sure she came peacefully. Chief Stein, as is expected now, made a very big point about how this was how ADVENT dealt with traitors and that she would be executed as one.

Subtle.

Ultimately ADVENT turned this from a disaster into something that actually improved their image, and at the same time increased their hold on South America. They would not just give weapons away without some kind of guarantee that they would be kept secure. I would consider Uruguay an ADVENT nation in all but name, since they have their technology, they aren't going against them, and I wouldn't be surprised if they ironically ended up joining in the future.

Regardless, this has at least given us an idea of what ADVENT will do when faced with making a mistake. The Oversight Division right now is interrogating all of Luana's senior staff, and anyone who remotely screwed up is likely going to be arrested, demoted, or just gone. We have to be somewhat careful when trying to predict responses from unstable Humans.

A successful mission just might work against us.