Recombinant

A Recombinant, or Recom, is a fully sentient human/Na'vi hybrid soldier embedded with the recorded memories and personality traits of an individual human,https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/stephen-lang-quaritch-bigger-bluer-pissed-off-avatar-2-exclusive-image/ and thus does not need to be remotely driven from a link unit like an avatar.
The 1st Recom Unit are the RDA's Sec-Ops primary "muscle" and special operations forces group, taking orders directly from the highest ranks of the RDA and assisting in any extraordinary circumstances.Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary Miles Quaritch acted as the leader of the squad alongside Wainfleet as second in command. They were tasked by the organization to hunt down and eliminate Jake Sully, the leader of the Resistance. During their mission, several of the Recoms in the unit were killed but they managed to track down Jake and his family after the latter had fled to the Metkayina Clan. However, the squad was ultimately defeated, leaving only Quaritch and Wainfleet alive.
==History==
=== Creation ===
The Recom Program, known as "Project Phoenix",Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary page 67 was launched immediately after the RDA's defeat and expulsion from Pandora in 2154, in preparation for a second invasion to re-establish the resource mining/colonizing operations on the exo-moon. The first operational cohort of Recombinants are those implanted with the backup memories of SecOps private military contractors who were killed in action during the Assault on the Tree of Souls. Most of them were battle-hardened marine veterans on Earth who signed up to be contractors due to economic hardships.
Colonel Miles Quaritch, the Recom commander, was formerly the chief of security at the RDA mining base Hell's Gate, who had his memories backed up at the insistence of Parker Selfridge merely hours before his human body was killed during the brutal fight with Jake Sully and Neytiri. After waking for his second life as a Recom, he had gladly accepted the mission to hunt down the Sully family and devoted himself to vengeance against Jake and Neytiri. Corporal Lyle Wainfleet serves as the Recom team leader under Quaritch,https://www.avatar.com/pandorapedia/corporal-lyle-wainfleet and was formerly a SecOps AMP team leader who was killed by a hammerhead titanothere stampede during the ground assault on the Tree of Souls.
=== Pandoran War (2169 - 2170) ===
One year after the RDA's return to Pandora and the construction of Bridgehead, Quaritch, Wainfleet, and several other Recombinants arrived on Pandora where they were tasked by Frances Ardmore to help battle an insurgency waged by the Omatikaya clan, which hindered the efforts for the RDA's colonization of Pandora. As the Recombinants were better for infiltration, Ardmore tasked them with killing Jake Sully.
The Recom Squad eventually reached the battlefield, where Quaritch discovered the remains of his human body after his fight with Jake and the circumstances of his death by Neytiri. The squad also found and subdued the Sully children and Miles Socorro, an orphaned human boy who happened to be Quaritch's biological son. By nightfall, the Sully children were saved by Jake and Neytiri, who managed to kill several Recombinants, although Spider was taken to Bridgehead by Quaritch and the remaining Recombinants for interrogation.
Later, due to fighting against the Sully family, and against the Metkayina clan in the Skirmish at the Three Brothers, most of the squad died, except for Quaritch and Wainfleet and, possibly, Mansk.
==Description==
Recombinants are roughly identical to regular avatars, possessing both Na'vi- and human-like physical traits. The key differences is that Recoms are not psionically driven by a human, but instead have backup memories and identities of human candidates directly uploaded into their consciousness through the use of a special link device known as a Soul Drive.https://www.avatar.com/pandorapedia/colonel-miles-quaritch This makes them fully autonomous beings and essentially genetically modified clones of their former human selves, inheriting the memories (up to the time of the backup), skills and personalities developed during that human's prior lifetime.Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary page 68
Recom soldiers are known as "Recombinant warriors" or simply "Recom warriors".Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary page 67, 68. Thanks to their Na'vi physiology, Recom warriors are able to move about Pandora largely without being detected as a foreign threat to Eywa, and can avoid triggering its "immune response" in which Eywa sends her wildlife after them. They also possess queues, which allows them to access the moon's neural network and even tame Pandoran animals (such as banshees and direhorses) via Tsaheylu, thus eliminating the need for vehicular deployment and making them even better infiltrators.
Like the Na'vi and avatars, Recoms are able to operate within human-air facilities; however, due to the lower carbon dioxide levels compared to that of the Pandoran atmosphere, Recoms must take "sips" of supplementary carbon dioxide every minute or two from the AAS-RO2 Atmos Adaptation System.
== Equipment ==
Like human soldiers or marines, Recoms are equipped with military-grade gear to enhance their survival in the hostile Pandoran environment. Many Recoms, particularly those from the 1st Recom Squad, prefer to wear polarized sunglasses in keeping with habits from their previous human life as army commandos and reconnaissance marines. Compared to the average Na'vi warriors, Recoms benefit from their communication, detection and weapon technologies, as well as better training and expertise in special operations tactics inherited from their backup memories.
Most of the infantry weapons used by Recoms are shareable with Skel Suits, which are designed to the similar sizes and have movement speeds matching those of avatars and the Na'vi. These weapons, many of which have gunship-grade firepower, are far more effective in achieving fire superiority against the common Na'vi battle arrows.
=== Non-lethal ===
*Electro Prod
*Recom Tranquilizer Gun
=== Lethal ===
*Recom Knife
*Recom Pistol
*Recom M69-AR
*Y70 Bullpup Rifle
*Recom Hydra Machine Gun
*Recom Flamethrower
*TOXOM-81 MANPADS Missile Launcher 
== Gallery ==
MilesQuaritch.png|link=Miles Quaritch|Miles Quaritch
Wainfleet Renden.png|link=Lyle Wainfleet|Lyle Wainfleet 
Lopez.png|link=Brown|Brown † (killed by Jake) 
AvatarRecomJa.jpg|link=Ja|Ja † (crushed by Payakan) 
Alexander shirtless.png|link=Lopez|Lopez † (killed by Neytiri) 
Prager.png|link=Prager|Prager † (killed by Jake) 
Fike Recom.png|link=Sean Fike|Sean Fike † (killed by Neytiri) 
Walker.png|link=Walker|Walker † (killed by Neytiri) 
Warren.png|link=Warren|Warren † (killed by Jake) 
Zdinarsk.png|link=Zdinarsik|Zdinarsik † (killed by Neytiri) 
Zhang.png|link=Zhang|Zhang † (killed by Neteyam)
Mansk.png|link=Mansk|Mansk (Unknown)
== Deaths ==
=== Avatar: The Way of Water ===
File:Warren's death.png|Warren
File:Fike's death.png|Fike
File:Walker dies.png|Walker
File:Brown's death.png|Brown
File:Zhang's death.png|Zhang
File:Lopez hit by neytiris arrow.jpg|Lopez
File:Ja's corpse.png|Ja
File:Prager speared.gif|Prager
File:Zdinarsk dies.png|Zdinarsik
File:Mansk fate.gif|Mansk
==Trivia==
*Costume designer Deborah L. Scott stated about the Recoms that they were inspired by real-world military: "They're like the Special Forces."The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water page 231 They are also reminiscent of the MACV-SOG (whose logo features a human skull as well), which conducted the same kind of unconventional operations during the Vietnam War.
*"Project Phoenix" might be a reference to the Phoenix Program, a heavily criticized effort by the CIA to identify and destroy the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, which included infiltration, capture, interrogation, torture and assassination.
*The human skull on the 1st Recom logo features three scars across its head, reminiscent of the ones Miles Quaritch's human body gained during his first day on Pandora.
*Following the events of The Way of Water and in the Recom unit page of Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary book, all the Recoms in the 1st Squad are now deceased except Quaritch and Wainfleet and possibly Mansk.
*Currently, Recoms are based off of and made to resemble forest dwelling Na'vi like the Omatikaya. It is unknown if there will be Recoms for other types of Na'vi such as the ocean dwelling Metkayina.
*They originally wore boots during the first half of the film, but upon getting used to Pandora's surface along with the taming of banshees, they mostly went barefoot during the second half of the film.
*Recombinants can be considered as a form of transhumanism. 
==Gallery==
Recoms Visual Dictionary.jpg|The Recom unit
RecomTeamConceptArt.jpg|Concept art
File:Bridgehead concept art Empire.png|Concept art
Recom squad Total Film.jpg|Fike, Zdinarsik, Ja (front), Brown (back) and Lopez
Recombinants arrive at Pandora.jpg|Arriving on Pandora
File:Avatar The Way of Water 02.png|Quaritch leading the Recom squad
Spider with recoms Empire.png|Spider with a group of Recoms
File:SLang wearing Recom patch.jpg|Stephen Lang wearing a Recom patch on set
RecomUnitPatch.jpg
File:Recom Walker Concept art.jpg|Recom Walker
File:Recom Wainfleet Concept art.jpg|Recom Wainfleet
File:Z-DogConceptArt.jpg|Z-Dog
File:2022-12-18-19-18-48-01.jpg|Recom Mansk
Amnio Vault.jpg
Recombinant Concept.jpg
==References==
pl:Rekombinant
es:Recom
ru:Реком
Category:Species
Category:Avatar: The Way of Water
Category:RDA