Throughout the 2140s, the RDA had a program known as The Ambassador Program (TAP) which was meant to create Na'vi diplomats and negotiators for the organization. This would help build peaceful relations and allow for easier access to Pandora's resources from the Na'vi without the financial expense of a prolonged conflict. TAP was created by John Mercer and Alma Cortez. Cortez believed the program could be used for good, while Mercer aimed to use it to win the admiration of the organization by any means necessary
however, children had been abducted and imprisoned for the program from the nomadic Sarentu clan. Mercer had executed the clan with the aid of Sec-Ops soldiers led by Angela Harding, and took the children by force. The truth of how the children were obtained was hidden from the RDA through fabricated reports and a corrosive acid was used to destroy the corpses of the clan while also inadvertently creating a poisonous mist which prevented anyone from investigating.
The children taken from the clan were kept and raised at TAP's residential school. During their time there, they were pressured lose their Na'vi identities, customs, and belongings. They were further subjected to various forms of abuse at the hands of Mercer and Harding, while Cortez did what she could to protect them
