Whaling is a dying industry for the most part. Oh, several countries keep at it while offering paper thin denials or excuses. A few remote groups still engage in it as a traditional rite. Still, most human threats to cetaceans in the modern era are side effects rather than deliberate.

So when a pod of whales seemed to self-organize and batter a billionaire's yacht to pulp near the Azores no one really noticed. He had insurance and the thing was a gauche raft, good riddance.

When they started attacking any ship that entered a seventy nautical mile radius people grew slightly less sanguine. Then the original pod was joined by dolphins. At this point everyone is sailing wide around the spot, even armored navy ships take a battering when they tried to push through.

The nature raising its fist to man narrative has gone viral. America's first sabbatical lined up with the formation of an international research effort. It's a bit outside her niche but there's going to be dozens of papers about these events, assuming it doesn't turn into another 'wizard did it'.

So she ranks a spot on the smallest of the seven research vessels a nautical mile outside the guarded zone. There's a hundred and two researchers of different stripes spread across the small fleet. Everyone is ready to make their careers, except every one of them has at least on PhD and thus there are three hundred and eight opinions on how to proceed. No clear chain of command or proper planning has left them loudly getting nothing done for two days now.