The task force assembly began the morning following the council's decision, Rodriguez authorizing full institutional resources toward what everyone involved understood represented the most consequential operation Coalition had yet undertaken — genuinely novel in scope, genuinely uncertain in outcome, requiring coordination across five distinct civilizations simultaneously toward a single, unified operational objective.
"I want structure that reflects the genuine complexity we're facing," Nakamura said, addressing the assembled planning team during their first coordination session. "Not simplified protocol that ignores what makes this genuinely different from every previous operation we've executed. Five civilizations, five distinct institutional traditions, one shared, extraordinarily delicate objective."
