NOVEL NEXT Chapter 41: 41
Following Natasha's departure I decided to recall M'Shen and her acolytes even if they weren't fully indoctrinated. I had no choice I assumed that only Hydra would be bold enough to infiltrate Shield. Unfortunately this wasn't a comic book the world was alive so various groups were making moves of their own. There was no series arc where they would only appear to fill in the void that the previous group left.
M'Shen: You have called my lord?
"How is the training going for your apprentices?"
M'Shen: They are making substantial progress compared to ordinary humans and some abhuman breeds but they don't compare with assassins of the Imperium. That said they aren't hopeless and can now easily infiltrate most installations of this world. They can be deployed for planetary missions with a low chance of failure. Off world would be too difficult for them now but with further training they have potential to assassinate key figures sabotage. Retrieval of key information and items should still be possible but falls outside the acceptable failure range.
"Is there anything else?"
M'Shen: I would like your permission to exterminate the mutants
"They aren't truly mutants as you or I know them but mislabeled Abhumans so you can't exterminate them. Any other requests?"
M'Shen: I want to begin recruiting to expand our reach to keep Terra safe
"Fine let me know who you decide to recruit I have unique knowledge of this universe that might reveal something about the individual"
M'Shen: Understood
"Right now I need you and your apprentices to look into Shield for me and identify who is a traitor and report back to me depending on who they are they might be of use"
M'Shen disappeared like she wasn't even there to begin with shortly after our discussion. Life was coming at me fast with it's pants down and I needed to be ready. I could ask Thoris and Luka to whip up some defense measures but I couldn't to delay the terraforming technology project. Each day that is lost could result in the project being shutdown.
Even though I explained my reasoning behind my desire to pursue this idea to basically the most influential groups and had them agree I still might receive push back. Although everyone would agree that it is a good idea world powers are all about control. Allowing this project to move forward would infringe on their ability to control the masses. It would become infinitely harder for world powers to enforce their rules if you don't live on earth. This could lead to new nations forming as the only reason humanity stopped building new countries was because we ran out of space on earth.
The real problem that could affect the project were the capes. Villains would try to commandeer the project for their own goals. This would allow governments to use this as a pretext to siez it. If a hero gets involved they might decide that they know best and decide that humanity isn't ready and either destroy it or straight up steal it. Honestly I would rather hand it over to villains than give it to heroes who believe that they know best for everyone. If a villain uses it especially on another planet it force the rest of the world to begin competition to colonize other worlds. Heroes have a history of locking up anything deemed to powerful that could help humanity in fear of how it could be misused.
To be absolutely honest I think that it more likely that these supposed heroes are afraid to lose their pedestals. If such power was available to everyone then how were they special? They like to act as mighty paragons of justice but refuse to truly be the equal of the masses. Batman was a perfect example of this privilege even though he wasn't super powerful he used his generational wealth to acquire his abilities and gadgets to fight crime. He does a lot of charity work but honestly it is mostly keep up appearances as he does not directly involve himself in it. He is a literal billionaire who started beating up criminals to deal with the death of his parents.
He doesn't care about someone's back story and how you became a criminal. All he is concerned about is whether someone's breaking the law. Batman is someone who assumes that he knows better than anyone else. His own need to be control is why he developed countermeasures against his own teammates in case they do something he doesn't agree with. Like I said I needed to finish the terraforming technology before others can justify the need to shut it down.