Red Team Defense announces Season 2 scenarios
“This project is not a gimmick. Our aim is to be surprised and challenged. We hope that the authors will invent societies that we would not have thought of, military models that surprise us and weapons that do not yet exist.” Emmanuel Chiva, Director of the Defense Innovation Agency
Halfway between the imaginary and the possible, at the intersection of geopolitical, demographic, technological and environmental concerns, Red Team Defense has been tasked with imagining the conflicts of tomorrow and anticipating the technological and military challenges facing the French army. The season 2 scripts have been created around two themes, energy and the living world.
In worlds with redrawn geopolitics, Red Team Defense introduces new threats and constraints: in the first, energy use is limited for an operation. In the second, nature itself becomes the enemy, after the massive incursion of biological threats into the military sphere.
Season 2 scripts, synopses
- Script 1: After the carbon night. Emergency in the jungle. A team of scientists are attacked by rebels and must be removed quickly. The exfiltration operation is taking place in a context of international tensions, which have provoked drastic regulation of energy consumption. The armed forces must intervene quickly, using technologies that consume very little energy. Faced with repeated rebel attacks and the progressive destruction of their equipment, will the soldiers have enough energy to free the scientists before the monsoon sets in?
- Script 2: An ecosystem war. Nature fights back. Biogenetic interventions for specific purposes have had disastrous, uncontrollable effects. Nature has been transformed into deadly green zones, now extending across the entire field of operations. The armed forces’ work has been turned upside down. As well as intervening in now-dangerous zones, they must now manage the effects of a green Chernobyl, growing more threatening every day.
These scripts (in French) are available on the Red Team Défense website, as are those from season 1, "Chronicle of a Cultural Death Foretold" and "The Sublime Porte Reopens," and season 0, P-Nation and Barbary Pirates 3.0.
Created in 2019 on the initiative of France’s Ministry of the Armed Forces, Red Team Defense is made up of science fiction authors, illustrators and designers. It is supported by scientists and military experts to develop the scripts. Part of the work is strictly confidential. It is conducted under the aegis of France’s Defense Innovation Agency (AID) in cooperation with the country’s armed forces Chief of Staff (EMA), Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) and Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS). The Ministry of the Armed Forces has commissioned Université PSL (Paris Science & Lettres) to recruit for and coordinate the Red Team Defense project, involving many researchers from its cutting-edge multidisciplinary laboratories.
For the President of Université PSL, Alain Fuchs, “combining science and imagination to create futuristic scripts represents one of the most stimulating intellectual challenges. I am very pleased to be involved in this partnership with the Ministry of Armed Forces, which attests to Université PSL’s desire to serve the innovation efforts of public bodies”.