Ocean Deep

CLEA DATA FILE

Primary Role:

• Protection of underwater races in the location of their base of operations

Mission Types:

• Protection
• Monitor Glissen activity
• Reconnaissance

Team Identities:

• Prof. Paige Dayton
• Amber Knowlton
• Dr Mio Shimada
• Seth Abbott
• Dr Elias Hass
• Haruto Tokioka

CLEA Classification:

• Skilled Humans/Tech Enhanced (All)

Special Skills and/or Abilities:

• Underwater communication specialist – Paige has formed a created a unique form of sign language to communicate with various aquatic species.
• Underwater combat specialist- Seth and Haruto have all been trained in underwater combat tactics.
• Oceanographers – Both Paige and Elias are highly skilled marine biologists
• Xenobiologist/Doctor – Mio trained as a doctor before becoming a xenobiologist so is qualified to tend to injuries of both humans and marine hybrids.
• Weapons Expert – Amber is the teams specialist in regards to weapons design. Where possible she tries to come up with designs that are none lethal. Of the entire team she was the only one that had to learn how to dive

Tactical Weakness(s):

• They have no “superhuman” abilities which can make them more vulnerable to underwater threats that have such abilities. Makes them more reliant on tech

Notes/History

Ocean Deep started off originally as a private civilian enterprise before becoming so big in scope that CLEA decided to pick

Paige a brilliant oceanographer discovered the Meramin race aka the “fish people” whilst diving. The race had evaded human eyes for centuries and the only times they had been seen had given rise to the mermaid/merman legends. Technology though had allowed Paige to dive deeper into their hiding places and expose the secretive people. She published a paper on her findings but without hard evidence she was laughed out of the scientific community who believed she was a fraud. Disgraced, her work came to a halt when all her sponsors abandoned her.

Then, famed a retired oceanographer, Dr Elias Hass found her and offered to fund her work through his contacts he had amassed. He had not published any papers in years and simply vanished from the science community. When she asked why, he told her that he too had “seen” communities of underwater people but unlike her, never had the courage to expose his work to the world. He believed that she needed to continue her work.

In time Paige managed to befriend one of the Meramin groups she had encountered. It took her some time to earn their trust and though she was an outsider they seemed to give her great respect.In doing this she learned that the Meramin live in tribal colonies. As with humans some of these tribes would work together and act peacefully, others were highly territorial and preferred to live in a closed social group and not interact with anyone.

Luckily for Paige, she had befriended the former type, a tribe who called themselves the Nesselrel. Through them she made another remarkable discovery for it was they that introduced her to other aquatic race. Whilst she knew nobody would believe her, Paige believed she had made the discovery of a lifetime and kept Dr Hass appraised of her new discoveries.

She had many months of learning and believed that there was more than a lifetime ahead of her, and then her world came crashing to the ground. After a period away upon returning she went diving but could not find the Nesselrel which she thought was odd. For weeks she tried each of their known hunting grounds and then one day she found evidence of what had happened to them. They had attacked and the few survivors had fled.

In her short time with them she had learned that they were a non violent people to the extent that if the were challenged by another aquatic race they would prefer to take flight rather than defend themselves. Though an ocean predator could have killed them, she had seen her Nesselrel group deal with such threats. She was determined to find who had attacked and decimated them.

Eventually through the use of sign language and an encounter with another Meramin tribe she learned of “invaders from the sky”. At first she thought they were referring to humans but eventually came to understand that in the depths, an alien race, they called the Glissen had been removing native competition and claiming Earth’s oceans for themselves. Unlike the aquatic races which relied on naturally made tools and weapons the Glissen had brought technology that worked underwater. Even the strongest Meramin warrior had difficulties trying to defeat an enemy with access to advanced weapons.

On land a species like the Glissen would not have got away so easily with their activities for they would have found human equally aggressive and with technology to match but in the secret world of the ocean depths they were the masters.

Reporting her findings to Dr Hass she expressed her desire to help people like the Meramin but a single person and an entire planet meant for an impossible task. Dr Hass believed he might be able to assist but he needed to gather as much data as possible in order to formulate a plan. First of all he asked if she could get some of the Meramin tribes to accept the help of “Land Dwellers”. He implied that some might be too proud to accept the help of an outsider or they might fear humans as much as the Glissen. If that was true then it was pointless trying to do anything.

Paige returned to the oceans and found that as Dr Hass suggested, many of the tribes and some of the other aquatic races did not trust humans, having been persecuted in the past. Though human and Meramin encounters had been rare across the centuries the Meramin had long memories when they had been regarded as “sea monsters”. About the most accepting, which was surprising was the shy deep dwelling race of Nestral, who instead of fish resembled Seahorses.

Over time as she tried to establish diologues between the aquatic races and humans she encountered survivors of Glissen attacks, mainly the young who were either quick enough to escape or not considered a threat. Often they would be loners or pairs, and very rarely small groups but never more than a handful in number. Without a tribe to support them, the ones Paige saw were barely able to survive and were certainly scared and they seemed more open to help.

When Dr Hass learned of this development he asked Paige to find out if these “survivors” would be prepared to tolerate being with members of different tribes or other aquatic races. He figured out that as with humans, some groups of people might not get along, even if they had a common enemy, the Glissen. Though some expressed doubt, mainly the larger groups, the pairs and loners felt they had nothing to lose.

After hearing this Dr Hass’s next move was to have Paige try to get the survivors that would work with her to go to Blair Bank, an atoll in the Indian Ocean although he did not reveal why he wanted her to do it. It took her weeks to located and assemble the survivors starting with the furtherest away from the atoll and head towards it, gathering others along the way. and get them to follow her. Progress was slow and it took three months to finally arrive at the atoll. By this time she had collected around seventy individuals.

She had also by then witnessed first hand the Glissen, for her group had come under attack on more than one occasion. Paige guessed that the Glissen did not want the underwater tribes to ally themselves with surface dwellers who could match them for aggression and violence. By trying to break up her shoal of survivors it was clear to Paige that the Glissen were trying to kill the message rather than the actual group.

Once near the atoll, Paige finally met Dr Elias Hass for the first time when arrived via helicopter. Now she had brought the survivors there she wanted to know what they were supposed to do with them. Elias asked her how far she would go to help the people. Paige said she would do the anything, so he asked her if she would work for CLEA to fulfil her goal.

The question was something of a surprise to her and the thought had never crossed her mind. Though her career as an oceanographer was in shreds she could not see how she could be useful to an agency that captured criminals. Elias explained that CLEA did a great deal more than simply catch criminals, and they could help her protect the aquatic people she had assembled but they could not help her as a “civilian”. He even had the papers for her to sign. Whilst she had never expected to end the day joining CLEA she decided that if putting her name on a piece of paper was going to help the victims of the Glissen then she would do it and so took the papers and signed them.

Once done Elias seemed pleased. He admitted had she not signed he would have no choice but to send her away and continue her work without her participation and that was something he desperately wanted to avoid. Now that she was with CLEA, Elias explained about what he had been doing since he had asked her to gather all the survivors.

He gestured her into the helicopter and the pilot took off. Elias explained that the Blair Bank was an ideal natural fortification to protect the survivors from the Glissen. With only a single underwater entrance it was easy area to defend than an area of open ocean. Elias now that he revealed he had been working part time for CLEA for nearly ten years.

Following his sightings of strange underwater beings he had informed CLEA of what he had seen rather than putting his faith in the scientific community. Though the people he had encountered had been friendly Elias had reckoned that at some time one of them might become a threat.

To prepare for this possible outcome he had spent years working on contingency plans and one of the outcome of these was the creation of the Barracuda one man attack submarine. After Paige had told him of the hostile Glissen he had presented the evidence to CLEA with the intention that they help.

CLEA surprised him by revealing they knew of the Glissen via the Lir, an individual from the  Menagerie team. They were in charge of alien incursions and though the oceans were vast and the team could not be everywhere they thought it unwise to create another team to deal with the Glissen since they already had Hammerhead as well. Elias explained that he did not particularly want CLEA to go after the Glissen but he did want them to protect their victims. He had already figured out how to protect them by using an atoll and building a couple of complexes and hiring a team. Money was no problem as he had been funding Paige but his biggest hurdle was that he needed the general public to be kept away from the area. The problem for Elias was he knew that he did not have enough political clout to ensure that, but believed that CLEA did.

Elia’s plan actually looked quite sound but the CLEA top brass felt they could not sanction a civilian operation since governments would never accept a “private enterprise” even if it was on CLEA’s behalf. Since his proposal did not directly interfere with the work of the Menagerie or Hammerhead they made him a counter offer of having him work full time for them. If CLEA had operational control then they could get the permission he needed to make the area a no-go zone.

Though a compromise Elias accepted their counterproposal and CLEA named the project operation “Ocean Deep”. Once the neighbouring governments agreed on a CLEA operation the area was sealed off under the “official explanation” as a “conservation zone”. With the area closed off to outsiders Elias had started work on building two complexes, one in the centre of the Blair Bank lagoon and another deep water site outside.

He explained all this whilst they were flying towards the lagoon and as they flew low over the outside edge of Blair Bank, Paige saw the first of these complexes. Elias announced it as “welcome to you new home”. It still needed a few finishing touches but essentially it was operational. Whereas Elias stated the outside development needed to be defended from the Glissen and would be built by CLEA, the lagoon complex was more of a monitoring station for the “refugees” and an accommodation centre for the team. To speed up work he had chosen to privately fund it.

Once landed on the helipad, Elias decided to give Paige a tour, and introduced her to the other members of the team. Though he had mentioned a team earlier she had expected one to have been brought together before everything was finished. CLEA though had felt it important to assemble a team and get them into training as soon as they gave the go ahead for Ocean Deep. This was particularly true for Amber Knowlton who had no diving experience but CLEA top brass had been selected due to her weapon design and technical expertise.

As well as Amber there was Dr Mio Shimada who was a doctor before retraining as a xenobiologist for CLEA. She was chosen as it was felt that her dual roles would be a good addition to the team even though, like Amber she had limited diving experience. The same was not true for Haruto Tokioka and Seth Abbott who had both been qualified frogmen for military agencies before joining CLEA. As CLEA expected trouble from the Glissen they felt it wise to have at least one or more combat experienced personnel on the team.

Having met everyone Paige was surprised she had been given the role of Lagoon operations. She felt that since Elias had arranged everything he would be in charge but he explained that she “knew” the people so it was logical for her to be in control of the “civilian” population. Similarly Haruto was placed in charge of “outside operations” which involved monitoring and dealing with an Glissen threats.

It would take another six months before the Outside complex was completed. This was of modular design and funded and built by CLEA. By that time each member of the team had become expert divers. To further bolster the defences CLEA decided to give Ocean Deep Barracuda attack subs although Amber had to modify the weapons to specifically deal with the Glissen.

The team would eventually learn of another alien threat possibly greater than the Glissen. These were the Merlanteenan. After arriving this technologically advanced race has tried to steal Earths resources which has been thwarted by the team known as the Taniwha. Though the Merlateenan is not a direct threat to their area, Ocean Deep have a common interest with the Taniwha in protecting people and the ocean, and this eventually led to both groups helping each other out at times.

For the Taniwha to gain access to Barracuda submarines they eventually joined CLEA after being sponsored by Ocean Deep. Having already formed an alliance built out of respect and friendship the link with CLEA has allowed both operations to become more fluidic. This on occasion has allowed team members of both groups to swap places in order to learn new skills. The Taniwha also bring an important resource in dealing with the Glissen for they are linked to the Leviathans.