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Offical Fact Sheet Edit
Earliest concept developed during the Second World War. Founded in October 12, 1995 in accordance to the United Nations Global Defense Act.
ClassificationEdit
1995: International peacekeeping division of the United Nations Security Council.
2030: De-facto political and military superpower, incorporating the governmental functions of member countries.
2047: Provisional world government and military superpower.
2077: Supra-national state in alliance with the Brotherhood of Nod.
1995: To ensure the safety of the world and combat global terrorism.
2030-2062: Eradicate the global effects of Tiberium and protect humanity from harm.
2062-2077: Eradicate the spread of Tiberium with Nod's cooperation and protect the people.
Base of OperationsEdit
1995: UN Security Council (location classified).
2030-2031: GDSS Philadelphia, Hammerfest, Southern Cross.
2047: GDSS Philadephia (until March), Pentagon (Washington DC), Reykjavik.
2062: Manchester, UK.
2077: New Adana, GST Tzadik.
Political StrengthEdit
1995: Political support of the United Nations, G7 and other member countries (typically Western nations).
2030-2031: Forced to incorporate political power after the UN and
member states ceased to exist. GDI is left as the sole political power
remaining fighting for freedom.
2031-2052: Provisonal world government in control of the remaining Blue zones on the planet. GDI has provided occasional relief to the yellow zone
populations to gather political support of the populations within the
Blue Zones. GDI officially controls the yellow zones on paper though
mainly sees them as staging grounds.
2062: Forced to look after the yellow zone populations after all remaining Blue zones have been overrun by Tiberium.
2077: Global government in alliance with Nod. Able to appease the yellow zone populations to some extent.
Economic StrengthEdit
1995: GDI has the financial backing of the G7 member nations and the UN, with multiple Tiberium harvesting operations.
2030: Multiple Tiberium operations although the Brotherhood of Nod still controls the majority of the world's Tiberium supply.
2047: Multiple Tiberium mining operations around the world provide them
with needed funding. Also engaged in negotiations to secure funding from
owners of Tiberium spikes and civilian silos.
2077: Combined economic strength with Nod, due to the alliance.
Military StrengthEdit
GDI has the combined military strength of individual member nations around the world, though most of its assets come from the United States military during the First Tiberium War. GDI military doctrine centers on superior firepower and armor (more information below). GDI developed and expanded the ion cannon
network as a better alternative to nuclear missiles to ensure dominance
on space and developed the ORCA family of aircraft. The faction has
also introduced mechanized walkers and railguns to their arsenal.
AffiliationsEdit
1995: United Nations, G7, member countries.
2000s-2030: Secretly installed Nod general Hassan as the puppet leader of Nod to ensure control over the splintered faction.
2030: Mutual alliance with the Forgotten during the Second Tiberium War. Entered into a brief alliance with Nod against CABAL during the Firestorm Crisis.
2047: Sub-factions include the Steel Talons division and Zone Operations Command. Brief alliance with Nod in Sydney during the Scrin Invasion of Earth.
2062-2077: Alliance of convenience with Nod to counter Tiberium.
The Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, was originally a covert multinational special forces group operating under the designation of Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9
before 1996. The organization was formed by the United Nations Security
Council in the aftermath of the World Wars, and was designed to be a
covert, specialized peace enforcing unit with a mandate to operate
worldwide, outside of regular UN forces. The unit was equipped with both
the military and political means to deal with anything from local
ethnic unrest to regionalized armed conflicts across the globe, and was
given as its primary directive the ensuring that no fledgling conflict
would ever escalate into a continental or worldwide emergency again.
The roots of GDI could be found back during the Great World War II, following the devastation of Greece. Reacting to Soviet brutality, the United Nations approved a unique initiative. The purpose of the proposal was to provide military funding to help increase the Allied Forces' support. More importantly, the initiative called for the creation of an agency for global defense.
Over the following years, as O. G. E.:B. O.9 repeatedly
became deployed throughout the world, rumours about their existence
began to slowly seep into the mainstream public consciousness.
Eventually, the overseeing Security Council came to the decision that
transparency and limited disclosure were the best response to the
international media speculations on the nature and purpose of this
secret unit. The final proverbial straw for this would come when an
operation in which the attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein,
in a covert effort to prevent the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War,
failed miserably and resulted in the death of a large number of agents.
This incident, coupled with the rapid global spread of a mysterious and
toxic extraterrestrial substance known as Tiberium, as well as the ever increasing influence of the globalized Brotherhood of Nod society, prompted the Security Council to begin to greatly expand and revise the mandate as well as the purpose of O. G. E.:B. O.9.
The organization was restructured and was brought out of the shadows in
order to make it capable of tackling the threats of the modern ages
effectively as well as directly. In accordance with the United Nations
Global Defense Act (UNGDA), the UNGDI or fully the United Nations Global Defense Initiative was founded at the date of October 12, 1995.
The UN proposal stated the following:
"The Global Defense Initiative was founded to enforce the
United Nations Global Defense Act and uphold the ideals as outlined in
the United Nations Charter."
Their first supreme commander became the American Brigadier General Mark Jamison Sheppard, United Nations Military Command.
The First Tiberium WarEdit
During the First Tiberium War GDI fought Nod forces on a multitude of fronts. Eventually, Nod propaganda efforts painted GDI as being responsible for atrocities such as the slaughter of the entire population of Bialystok, through a series of false news broadcastss recorded by Greg Burdette,
which forced GDI to pull back from many territories which were then
quickly taken over by Nod supporters. This culminated in the UN becoming
forced to discontinue its public funding of GDI due to the fear of
public backlash. Nod began assaulting GDI strongholds everywhere,
believing that the organization had been severely weakened by these
manipulative efforts.
As it turned out, the UN had faked their financial withdrawal in an attempt to outwit Nod's leader Kane,
a brilliant and charismatic man. The plan was successful, and Nod
forces were greatly surprised to find the bases they were attacking were
heavily fortified. Most attacks were complete victories for GDI. Two
more years of fighting continued, however, until GDI operatives finally
located Nod's main global headquarters, the so-called "Temple of Nod",
just outside of Sarajevo.
A three day battle began between GDI and Nod's most elite troops. GDI
could not break through the Black Hand and had to use their most
advanced weapon - the orbital Ion Cannon
- was activated. The Temple was destroyed, Kane was pronounced dead,
and Nod was crippled, effectively ending the First Tiberium War.
The Second Tiberium WarEdit
With the destruction of the Brotherhood's Sarajevo Temple a period of peace dawned, allowing time for GDI to renew its efforts into researching Tiberium and to study the Brotherhood of Nod's enigmatic and radically advanced Tiberium-based technology. However, GDI forces never recovered Kane's
body which was considered by many to be the biggest oversight of the
entire war. During these years tabloid headlines and rumors of the
continued underground existence of the Brotherhood were commonplace,
prompting GDI to conduct investigations into these sightings
before eventually sealing each case with few questions answered. The
world remained largely at peace until September 2, 2030, when GDI bases around the world found themselves under heavy fire from Nod units. Aboard the "Philadelphia", GDI's
top brass could make little sense of it; the Brotherhood as an
organized and globalized militant force was supposed to have been almost
eliminated and left divided into small and harmless splinter groups
after Kane's death. And then the unthinkable happened.
GDIs communication equipment was hacked, and in a broadcast to
the "Philadelphia", Kane revealed himself to be alive, thereby declaring
his return to the global political and military scene. Alarmed with
this development, general James Solomon assigned field commander Michael McNeil the task of leading the efforts of countering the Nod assaults and taking the battle to them, thus initiating the Second Tiberium War.
 GDI and Nod forces clash during the Second Tiberium War
During the course of the war GDI became affiliated with the
Tiberium-mutated Forgotten in their battles against Nod. GDI took out
Nod's Divination project facility as they rescued the Forgotten leader
Tratos and, with their help, destroyed Nod's chemical missile plant and
Banshee prototype facility. GDI also had to reinforce their bases after
Nod overran Hammerfest base in Norway, which prompted GDI to retrieve
sonic disruption crystals from the Nod forces.
The final battle this time took place in Cairo, with GDI
forces striking once again at the heart of Nod, Kane's pyramid and
rebuilt Temple. McNeil and Kane went one-on-one and in the end Kane was
impaled with a steel beam. GDI subsequently secured the mysterious Tacitus device, which could potentially provide the organization with the means to end the Tiberium infestation on the planet.
The AftermathEdit
Shortly after Kane's second "death," it was revealed that the vaccine which The Forgotten leader Tratos had developed and had administered to his kin Umagon proved to be ineffective in curing, or even halting, Tiberium
mutations within a human being, instead grossly accelerating mutations.
Time began running out quickly as the Tiberium infestation
increasingly continued to threaten the future and the very survival of
humanity on Earth. GDI thus began to focus the majority of its
resources and efforts into unlocking the secrets of the Tacitus while defending themselves against the remainder of the Brotherhood. Tratos, however, was assassinated by forces led by a Nod commander.
This left GDI with no alternative other than to attempt to capture the Brotherhood's artificial intelligence unit named CABAL,
which was rumored to be able to decode all the information contained
within the Tacitus device by means similar to those of Tratos. Anton Slavik, leading that what was left of Nod's core, organized armed forces after the conclusion of the Second Tiberium War,
was also working on reactivating CABAL in order to regain their
logistical and tactical advantages, and more importantly to prevent the
Brotherhood of Nod from fracturing into splinter groups again as it had
done so after the conclusion of the First Tiberium War.
When GDI recovered the final piece of the Tacitus, however, CABAL
suddenly turned on both GDI and Nod in a move that would reveal itself
to be part of an independent and premeditated plan of the AI itself.
CABAL's increasing threat eventually led to an uneasy alliance between
GDI and Nod, with both armies destroying two fronts of CABAL's cyborg
production and resource gathering facilities. Their missions were a
success, with GDI and Nod mounting a final assault on the renegade
artificial intelligence's system core.
Upon CABAL's termination, GDI apparently managed to develop a
'cure' for the Tiberium infestation on Earth based on the information
they recovered from the Tacitus device, but whether or not they fully
succeeded in utilizing this data is unknown. It was later revealed in
the Third Tiberium War that Sonic Disrupters could break down Tiberium, and that humans should be prepared for a foreshadowed Scrin invasion.
InterbellumEdit
Between the Firestorm Crisis and the Third Tiberium War
GDI closed many of its bases, focusing on the elimination of the
CABAL's remnants and the eradication of Tiberium. During this time GDI
didn't see Nod as a threat, continuing it's activities and organization
with secrecy, except for the Rio Insurrection and the destruction of
Nod's stealth research lab under GDI command in Australia.
Along with placing emphasis on ecological recovery and securing the Blue Zones, GDI decided to close several of its military bases, as Nod
seemed to be too fractured to provide any resistance to GDI forces. By
2043, they had closed down over 60% of their military bases worldwide.
The closure of these bases freed much-needed resources for the newly
prioritized task of ecological clean-up, with the flagship project of New Eden carried out by its public works division, Idris Corporation.[1]
Before the onset of the Third Tiberium War, GDI controlled all of the uncontaminated Blue Zones and many of the contaminated, but habitable, Yellow Zones
across the planet. With the Blue Zones consisting of a mere 20% of the
Earth's surface, the majority of the world's population lived in Yellow
Zones, in which the Brotherhood was still able to operate and maintained
major influence in some of them. Neither side controlled the Red Zones,
areas where the surface had been so badly scarred by Tiberium mutation
that it was unrecognizable as Earth and completely inhospitable, at
least to non-mutated carbon-based life-forms.
GDI had consolidated its power, becoming a de facto world
government, being in charge of the Blue Zones and most of the Yellow
Zones. While there technically still were member countries, the
divisions were of no importance. By this time administrative authority
for GDI passed from the United Nations to GDI's own Council of Directors. Ironically, GDI becoming a superstate, replacing national governments is exactly what Kane said would happen.
The diversification of purpose led to GDI's military forces becoming a branch of the organization, in the form of the GDI United Peacekeepers (GDIUP). As the years of peace following the Second Tiberium War
continued, GDI became somewhat complacent, controversially phasing out
some of its more experimental combat technologies (perhaps most
infamously the majority of its mechanized walkers, including the Titan and Mammoth Mk. II).
The Third Tiberium WarEdit
 By 2043 GDI closed over 60% of their bases worldwide
However, this period of peace was short lived, as Nod's breakup was a
mere illusion. The Brotherhood of Nod struck quickly, infiltrating the
Goddard Space Center and disabling GDI 's A-SAT (Anti-Satellite) defense
systems, responsible for defending GDI's space operations from hostile
attacks. Nod then launched a nuclear missile at the Philadelphia
while GDI 's leadership was in council on-board, critically disrupting
GDI's command structure and causing widespread chaos. Meanwhile Nod
forces launched a co-ordinated strike against Blue Zones worldwide. GDI
repelled Nod from the Blue Zones after several days of intense fighting,
and launched a counter-attack upon what was thought to be a Nod
chemical weapons facility in Egypt. It was quickly revealed that this
facility was researching and developing a Liquid Tiberium Bomb. GDI
crippled Nod's nuclear capabilities in Cairo before proceeding to
Sarajevo and using an Ion Cannon on the Brotherhood's Temple Prime by order of acting GDI director Redmond Boyle, and against the wishes of GDI General Jack Granger.
The Ion Cannon hit a liquid Tiberium deposit beneath Temple
Prime, vaporizing it and causing a large chain reaction wiping out what
remained of Sarajevo and the surrounding regions, while at the same time
spreading deadly Tiberium fallout all over Eastern European Yellow
Zones. The resulting death toll was in the millions.
 Public relations advertisement.
Just as GDI thought it had won the war, alien invaders known as the Scrin,
apparently attracted by the liquid Tiberium explosion, arrived and
wrought havoc upon GDI and Nod alike. GDI deep space scans picked the
Scrin up even before they arrived, and in a state of panic Redmond Boyle
rashly ordered the entire southern hemisphere's network of Ion Cannons
to be activated and unleashed on the aliens. This only served to send 39
Drone Ships crashing into Red Zones throughout the world.
Upon landing, the aliens quickly began striking at blue zones all
over the globe with deadly precision. GDI forces scrambled to put up an
effective resistance after its battles with Nod had thinly spread GDI.
After repelling the invaders from several of their blue zones, GDI
discovered the invaders' seemingly random attacks were just a
distraction from the massive, monolithic towers that were being
constructed for an unknown purpose and systematically destroyed them.
Unbeknownst to GDI, Kane resurfaced once more to end an inner power
struggle with one of his generals and sought to control one of the Scrin Towers
in an effort to learn more about Tiberium and the alien's technology.
As the war ended, only one tower survived the conflict, having been
protected from attack until it was completed and became invulnerable to
GDI attacks.
 Another propaganda example
GDI stopped the invasion and plans to keep the remaining Tower, which
ended under Nod control, supposedly inactive and harmless. A number of
Scrin invaders were forced to flee for the time being. It is unknown
whether or not the first Scrin incursion was a full invasion or
something else.
Post-TWIII Edit
GDI emerged as the apparent victor in the Third Tiberium War, having
once again driven Nod underground and neutralized the Scrin harvesting
forces on Earth. The GDI, and therefore Earth, was reigned with silence
and peace which lasted several years.
However, much to their surprise, that silence was broken when in
2052, Nod forces, under the command of the experimental combat AI of the
Marked of Kane, known only as LEGION, raided the Cheyenne Mountain Complex
and reclaimed the Tacitus for its creator, who is none other than Kane
himself, who has in fact been hiding underground. Despite heavy
resistance from ZOCOM, the Steel Talons and the baseline GDI forces stationed there, including the formidable Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle, they were unprepared for the assault of LEGION's cybernetic army.
2062: A dire situationEdit
GDI's Tiberium abatement efforts failed after the Third Tiberium War.
Tiberium unexpectedly underwent yet another evolution, now growing at
such an aggressive rate that it spread across the entire planet
unchecked by all conventional means. By 2062, Tiberium infestation was
so great that it was predicted that the human race would be completely
wiped out within a matter of years (just as the Scrin had earlier expected). Kane resurfaced once more and, given the dire situation, travelled to GDI Global Headquarters in Manchester to form an uneasy alliance.[2]
While the alliance with Nod
has proven to be tremendously beneficial towards GDI and the human race
in general, having entered a new Golden Age after finally pushing back
the spread of Tiberium and reclaiming much of the planet, it has also
had the unexpected side-effect of splintering GDI. Much of GDI's
military forces and civilian population resent working with Nod, whom
they still consider to be a band of fanatics and terrorists, and the old
wounds left over from the previous Tiberium Wars have yet to fully heal
in the minds of the populace. This is particularly true amongst
segments of the military, who consider Kane to be a soulless murderer
and see the alliance as a betrayal of GDI's principles and the millions
lost to Nod violence, foreshadowing a possibility of a potential civil
war within GDI itself.
The Incursion WarEdit
GDI was not the only organisation to be divided by the new alliance.
Many Nod followers also believed this to be a direct contradiction to
the goals that were laid down by Kane himself. As a result, they split
from the Nod Loyalists and started a separated but highly destructive guerilla war against both Kane, GDI and the construction of the Tiberium Control Network. The Nod Separatists rallied around Gideon, an outspoken critic of Kane, as their leader and staged heavy attacks on the Blue and Yellow Zones. At one stage, Nod separatists banded together and attacked Paris, signifying the start of the Incursion War, as well as hijacked the GST Methuselah to crash it down on Chicago. The latter was saved by a heroic GDI commander - at the cost of losing his eyesight in the process. He would later on play an important role in the Ascension Conflict.
Despite GDI advancements in Zone Armor and the development of the Hunter Tanks in combating Nod Separatist Flame Tanks, it could not protect the TCN and pursue the Separatists at the same time, leaving the GDI military in disarray. However, with the expansion of the GDI airforce and the development of the Crawler in 2073, the GDI military was reorganised into three branches: Offense, Defense and Support
classes. A year after the introduction of the Crawlers, GDI and Nod
Loyalists were able to protect the TCN constructions and crushed the
Separatists as a military force, driving Gideon and the other Separatist
leaders into hiding.
It was during this period when TCN construction was partially
completed did GDI gain renewed funds from the new method of harvesting Tiberium. The renewed funding enabled the GDI military to reintroduce the mechanised walkers such as the Titan and the Mammoth Mk. II that were gradually shelved after the Firestorm Crisis, much to the delight of the veterans of the Second Tiberium War. The GDI Council
would also direct the funds to rebuild the areas that were previously
scarred by Tiberium, most notably the city that would become the capital
city of the GDI government: New Adana.
With the TCN nearing completion the alliance between GDI and Nod
still held, although the 15 years of tension between them still
existed. Despite the coming of a new Golden Age, GDI's political
situation was on shaky ground because of the alliance, which was not
helped by Gideon's raids. Indeed, at the TCN opening ceremony in New Adana, Gideon attempted to assassinate Kane, sparking the Fourth Tiberium War twelve hours later on 1 May 2077. The GDI-Nod alliance still held as they initially battled against the Nod separatists, which included the protection of both Kane and GDI General Secretary Evelyn Rios. GDI extremists led by Colonel Louise James followed their orders and worked alongside the Nod loyalists despite their suspicions of Kane's motives.
But when New Adana
was attacked by Gideon, and Kane was forced to fight through Colonel
James' forces to reach the New Adana TCN Hub, James decided to act on
her suspicions and started investigating Kane's actions. Collecting
evidence of Kane's attempts to supposedly bring back the Scrin via the TCN and the Scrin tower, and having avoided assassination by Kane's own forces, James confronted Rios and General Riggs
with the information. However both dismissed her, and thus she declared
martial law on New Adana, effectively turning a 15-year internal strife
within GDI into a full-fledged civil war
over the course of the organization and their relations with Nod.
Although New Adana had fallen to the rogue GDI forces, James and her
crew onboard the GST Tzadik were arrested and imprisoned by Riggs' GDI
marines.
However, the crew escaped and pursued Kane and his Nod followers
to Threshold 19, with both rogue and loyal GDI forces fighting Nod for
control of the TCN, implying the GDI-Nod alliance had been terminated.
GDI managed to secure the tower but Kane and all Nod followers managed
to sync the tower with the help of Commander Parker through his optical implants
and Ascended. With Colonel James being unaccounted for, GDI is reunited
once again under Rios, ending the brief but costly Fourth Tiberium War.
The activation of the Tower proved to be the final piece in the TCN's
completion, as Tiberium growth is slowly receded around the nodes. With
all remaining Nod followers having disappeared, GDI remains as the sole
planetary superpower on Earth.
Yet, GDI itself was wary of a new Golden Age, for the Scrin were
still out there, and some were indeed skeptical of whether Kane had
permanently disappeared from public eye.
GDI military doctrineEdit
 A mammoth tank, circa 2046.
The GDI relies on a combination of powerful, rugged, and versatile
technology. Standard GDI doctrine calls for combined arms "shock and
awe" warfare, unleashing devastating and comprehensive assaults with
mixed air, land, sea, and space-based weapons. Outside observers have
been recorded as noting that GDI's offensive operations are a
"slow-moving juggernaut" that crushes through all opposition with a
force of extremely well-armored and supported assault units. Man-for-man
and vehicle-for-vehicle, GDI weapons systems are often superior to
their opponents in terms of raw firepower and durability. As for base
defense it differs little from their offensive doctrine. They use a
number of heavy fire power defense platforms, each suited to a different
type of enemy - 20mm rapid-fire automatic railguns for infantry hordes,
and powerful Sonic Emitters
or railgun equipped turrets in some cases to wipe out an advancing
armour division. They will use sheer brute force to not just stop but to
completely obliterate a hostile force. A failed attack on a GDI base
will often leave few or no survivors. This philosophy is summed up in
GDI's iconic Mammoth series of super heavy tanks, from the original X-66 Mammoth Tank, to the devastating Mammoth Mk. II and the awe inspiring Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle, both nearly unstoppable juggernauts of power in their day.
Preferring overwhelming firepower to subtlety, GDI forces have
few stealth units. Rapid attack capabilities are generally supplied by
light assault vehicles, such as the iconic Orca VTOL aircraft, and orbitally-deployed Drop Troops or Zone Troopers. Their weapons systems range from conventional firearms, smoothbore cannons, and guided missiles to high velocity railguns, highly destructive Sonic weaponry, and state of the art orbital Ion cannons.
Within GDI, certain military units exist with exclusive access to
top-of-the-line technologies. For instance, in the span of time between
the Second and Third Tiberium Wars, the Steel Talons
armored division was founded to provide a testing bed for GDI's more
experimental technologies, focusing on mechanised units. Many of the
units first fielded by the Talons became standard for all of GDI by the Third Tiberium War. Operating as of the Third Tiberium War, Zone Operations Command
is a high tech military special operations group specializing in
Tiberium reclamation and operations in hazardous environments, such as Red Zones.
While it lacks access to certain heavy firepower technologies, such as
railguns, ZOCOM has access to extremely advanced harmonic resonance
technology.
In addition, to win the support of the local populace, GDI organizes humanitarian aid in the form of refugee aid air drops and occasional excursions to Yellow Zones to provide medical aid.
One of GDI's largest and most powerful vehicles, the Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle (MARV),
is the one of these final means of dealing both with Tiberium with its
onboard refinery and Nod heretics, hostile mutants and Scrin invaders
through its unparalleled firepower. Unfortunately, 3 MARVs met their
volatile end at the hands of the experimental Nod AI LEGION, and as it
was found out in 2062, they did little to stop the Tiberium contagion
from spreading like out-of-control wildfire.
During the Ascension Conflict, the Mammoth Tank is no longer the
strongest tank on the battlefield, as its walker brother, the Mastodon,
takes that role, but Mammoths are still quite deadly in spite of being
heavily armed meat shields, and are regardless iconic of GDI in the
Conflict. The Firehawks, Orcas and the whole GDI arsenal was upgraded
and then, during the Incursion War, GDI deployed the very first Crawler
to support their huge armies, granting them previously unknown
manuverability in the battlefield. They also reclassified their forces
into Offense, Defense, and Support classes, each of
which had their own Crawler design to ensure success. Despite the huge
overhaul in their military, GDI raw firepower still remains unmatched
compared to their Nod counterparts.
Technology LevelEdit
GDI technological development has been brought about by the financial support of the G8 nations, the wealthiest economies of the world during the First Tiberium War.
Developments in recent years include sonic weaponry and quickly
specialized hovercraft. GDI has countered Nod's increasing arsenal of lasers with railguns, fielded by everything from Mammoth Tanks to Commandos, and has also researched into powered armour technologies. The pinnacle of GDI military technology, the Ion cannon,
is a space-based energy weapon of mass destruction is capable of
obliterating just about anything with pinpoint accuracy. GDI also
pioneered the use of mechanized walkers and developed the ORCA aircraft series of VTOL aircraft, a unique design which incorporates VTOL technology into helicopters.
Following the First Tiberium War, military research and
development rapidly increased, with the development of a wide number of
technologies. Space exploration, mechanized walkers, and HoverTech
were some of the technological achievements of GDI by the Second
Tiberium War. However, due to cuts in budget and new GDI policies after
2036, GDI has phased out its more expensive and exotic technologies,
such as most of its Mechanized walkers and HoverTech,
replacing them with cheaper, more reliable technologies. GDI hasn't
forgone all of its more exotic technologies. GDI still has some walkers,
though they are mainly used by the Steel Talons experimental division. The Juggernaut is the only mainstream walker left in use while the Steel Talons used the Titan Mk. II, Wolverine Mk. II, and Behemoth in their forces. GDI also hasn't comepletely abandoned hover technology either. In the interbellum between the Firestorm Crisis and the Third Tiberium War, GDI developed a dedicated anti-aircraft vehicle, the Slingshot. GDI also retooled the Shatterer,
another hovercraft which was originally developed for civilian use, but
GDI realised their potential and confiscated them for military use in
the opening stages of the Third Tiberim War.
GDI lags behind Nod in other areas, however. While GDI has a
greater presence in outer space, and can afford larger, more expensive
tanks, Nod has outpaced them in terms of optic camouflage and laser technology. Nod's disregard towards ethical guidelines means that Nod is the world's leader in Cybernetics and the military applications of Tiberium, two areas where GDI is reluctant to begin research.
However, GDI is unrivalled in terms of Tiberium reclamation technology and second only to the Scrin in terms of space technology. Their global headquarters was the space station GDSS Philadelphia
until it was destroyed, and they also have orbital facilities to house,
store and maintain military forces in preparation for a rapid
deployment anywhere on Earth via dropships and drop pods. Of particular importance is their network of orbital Ion cannons
which acts as a tactial superweapon. All were used to their maximum
potential throughout the wars. They apparently maintained their
dominance of space even during the Scrin invasion.
Their efforts to reverse the environmentally catastrophic effects
of Tiberium has led to the development of several technologies against
Tiberium infestation, a technological area in which Nod and the Scrin
have traditionally shown little interest in. Most of these center
around the breakthrough discovery of Tiberium's harmonic resonance
frequency which, at least for a period of time, allowed GDI to contain
and even push back Tiberium growth. Examples include the Sonic Emitters, which was also deployed as extremely effective base defence, the Sonic Repulsor Field and the Shatterer. Prior to the Third Tiberium War their efforts have had some success in converting some areas into Blue zones, such as New Eden.
However, in the years following the next evolution of Tiberium rendered
GDI's Harmonic Resonance technology became useless and all of GDI's
reclamation efforts were quickly negated.
GDI research is carried out in a variety of specialized institutions worldwide. Futuretech Labs is a prominent example, and the research staff was located in New Eden,
until the initial Scrin invasion forced them to evacuate. Australia
hosted a prominent Tiberium research facility before the research site
was destroyed by the Black Hand. Rumors abound that the site was researching Liquid Tiberium
and that a major detonation of Liquid Tiberium at the facility was the
cause of its destruction and also accelerated the growth of Tiberium
throughout Australia, speeding up its transformation into a Red Zone.
Using the lessons learned in the Third Tiberium War against the Scrin, and gaining the extra funds needed, GDI developed many technologies in that timeline including the introduction of the Crawler and the revived the Mastodon walkers by the time of the Final War
to combat future alien incursions. Not wanting to allow any faction
take over air superiority again, GDI also invested in capital ships
including the Kodiak class and the Global Stratospheric Transports to expand their air force that are capable of bombarding any static bases from the skies.
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