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The Population Control Initiative — Description

From left to right. E1 "Eyes", James "Cowboy" Reyna, E2 "Cyclops", Mitchel "Hunk" Williams and Gen2

With most of Earth being reinhabited by the animals or occupied for larger ranches to meet the rising demand for meat offworld, natural predators were able to attack the ranchers and livestock thanks to low security.
The Population Control Initiative was proposed by the Hunter’s Guild to keep predators away from the ranches through force. Parties were originally composed of 3 humans armed with rifles and survival equipment, but expanded to 2 hunting drones in its final years. Humans were paid minimum wage and many were fired or arrested for fleeing or freeing animals marked for killing.
After drones proved their combat capability in the Siege on Miaimi’s Eden, JC Jensen began exploring the possibilities of a drone army. The new line, named hunter drones, were designed to have all aesthetics removed in favor of low maintenance components. For generation 1, the visor was removed in favor of a single lens camera and the mouth was removed for a waterproof speaker. With more money to spend with these changes, the budget was spent on developing a combat system that gives tactical data and records the actions of every operator.
The hunting parties became more efficient and encounters ended a lot faster. This made hunting parties go on longer commissions, some lasting up to a year rather than months. With the harsh conditions and long times from home, humans began forming relationships with the drones. Jensen became adamant that drones were incapable of emotion, claiming that a combination of long periods of harsh weather and fevers induced delirium that made the hunter believe the drone was a real person. Jensen began prototyping a new generation of combat focused drones, learning their lessons from the PCI to make the perfect killing machines.
10 years after the introduction of hunting drones, most predators learned to stay far from the ranches. The humans were sent back home while the hunter drones were sent to Copper 9 for analysis and recycling. The last team, Alpha, became Jensen’s guinea pigs for their prototype combat drone dubbed “Gen2”. Gen2 was incapable of compassion, basic understanding of emotions or social cues, and any hospitality that generation 1 possessed was removed. These emotions were removed in favor of weapons and faster reactions than ever before. They were sent to former Saigon to hunt down a species of reptile, but was in reality a test if Gen2 was capable of cooperation with inferior members.
Based on the only surviving image of this group and the sparse documentation of this incident, historians believe that Gen2 saw itself as god, and wanted to create a new world free of the weak. After Gen2’s 1st and final mission, Jensen ruled that future units would need an incentive to kill to improve the speed of attacks. This pattern of weaponizing and ignoring the implications would become a pattern for JC Jensen for years to come.