Hundreds of new morphs are developed, swarming out and moving to harvesting, defense or even offense in the case of the Crotalids.
Terran military movements are predictable, they seem to be treating this as a very risky wildlife culling effort, killing off as many Crotalids as possible, targeting them with aggravating munitions beyond the rest of our creatures. Hoverwings are ignored, as are the odd spotting of a Drone here or there.
The revolts are intensifying up to the point where an entire neighbourhood rose up quite literally overnight, before promptly being coldly put down by crackling las-fire that lit said night up in blood and heat. Armoured vehicles of size and prowess were spotted, like Terran tanks but more… primitive in shape.
Zren leads the Crotalids in a migration, bringing them slowly through riverways and land to the very edge of our creep, where it is thin and barely present. The hunters follow, surrounding and attempting to kill off the Crotalids with tactical skill.
However, the feint has served its purpose, getting attention far away from our hive for now as observed by Hoverwings at great cost to our Crotalid population. Whilst this takes place, we reapproach the Terran livestock. Sequencer Zigzy innovated, rather than infect the creature, they look to the parasitic life within it.
Worm-like parasites are extracted and infested, exposed to heat and salinity to improve their resistance to human cooking methods before promptly being reintroduced to local Grox and then being ignored. The parasites infest meat and spread, silently and quietly lurking within the bodies of the animals.
Hoverwings mutate with the influence of Sequencer Zigzy, strands shifting in on themselves as possible solutions to the problem of vehicles are considered.
By forcefeeding the creature significant sums of metal until the digestive tract fails and then iterating another generation, over the course of three-thousand generations, the Hoverwing experiences a massive growth of mandibles as well as connected tissue, becoming capable of actually ripping into Terran plastic-metal.
The new generation of Hoverwing are hungrier, more vicious and able to digest metal, though they then just excrete the residue, unable to really use it for anything. Broad mandibles can take fist sized chunks out of armoured vehicles or even humans, making the Hoverwing a very usable swarming morph.
With this new form deployed, Warmind Zren moves to assail the Terrans, bringing down rotorcraft with precise bites to their systems and disabling weaponized vehicles via ripping apart their tires and engines. Hoverwings begin to be assailed as well, flame used to beat away our small packs, killing a dozen of them in total for a similar price in vehicles.
The enemy skirmishers pull back, likely having seen this chunk of forest as much too dangerous to continue operation in. Warmind Zren has the following to say on the matter.
"Terran's are not treating us like a threat. They do not remember the Swarm. Implication is worrying, implication states the Swarm has not been seen in longer than lifetimes, long enough that no record remains. This is being used to our advantage, the enemy assumes we are animals, separate in intellect, not a unified, coordinated mind-hive.
This mistake will be their last."
Third Mind Zren, "Ambush Stratagems."
Using Terran examples, Sequencer Zigzy attempts to expand neural architecture for the Swarm. Infested are taken and put in heavily psychologically taxing scenario's that result in neurological growth. The infested brains are pushed to the brink, the bodies becoming unable to carry their own heads as the weight of the cranium grows to gross proportions.
Whilst replicating this seems to have no real effect on our stability, that first creature is kept in a deep tunnel, fed by creep as it stabilizes our mental state somewhat. First Mind Zhakarov has this much to say on the matter.
"The Terran mind is mutable and multipurpose, it has led the Swarm in the past by sheer psychic will, but in this instance, it is no leader. An empty Terran mind is a crucial resource in one instance as it turns out, the pathways between neurons proving stable footing for our minds when expanded.
However, the lack of useful replicability suggests something odd, some form of limit to the spread of minds. Is this why the Overmind was a colossal single creature, rather than a dispersed intelligence as we were?"
First Mind Zhakarov, "Unity Studies"
Crotalids exposed to both environmental threats such as rotorcraft gun-runs and our own more specialist threats such as being shot by carefully manipulated rifles held up by Hoverwings. Their hide thickens, acquiring a minor mineral component from stones they devour freshly after being birthed, this proves sufficient to allow them to resist gunfire to a much greater respect and slink back to recover after the heavy calibre gun-runs or bursts of hot flame from the Terran vehicles.
Whilst this all happens, First Mind Zhakarov focuses on his memories. Scientific knowledge, complexities of mechanics and engineering long since lost to fog all returning as his mental focus turns to the Terrans. Their manipulators that remain are already usable, but must be separated from the Terran complexity.
The neurology is unneeded, the body is unneeded, all we require is the limbs. Taking a terran, we reduce the functionality of the rest of their body with careful maimings until all that is left is a bag of organs needed to function, basic neural structure and the musculature to function.
Sequencer Zigzy even took to the project, improving the Terran grasper structure, lengthening and thinning the manipulator digits whilst plating it in scale through constant stress on the skin, making it more resistant to the stresses of work.
The grasper structures are placed within a Creep mound on an extendible lattice based off Terran spinal columns, this.. Assembly Pit is a new construction for the Swarm, able to grasp and manipulate technology directly, though for what purpose First Mind Zhakarov desires it is unknown.
Finally, after all is said and done, Drones are able to scavenge battlefields, dragging back corpses for infestation, dozens upon dozens of them, all standing around. Some have minor psychic potential, but it is insufficient to survive the infestation process intact. This does, however, confirm the presence of Terran psychics, a useful trait. Otherwise, rotor-craft, plastic-metal body armour, energy rifles, high-calibre ballistics not using magnetic assistance and vehicles burning some form of fuel are all dragged back into tunnels and mounds.
The enemy merely surrounds an area we think may be the habitat of the Crotalids, rotor-craft watching whilst men dig in. Drones are already preparing to tunnel beneath them, hoping they do not have seismic sensors of some type, but will not do so unless ordered.
War Roll: Zren: "Vehicular Ambush"=3d6(3, 2, 6)
Evolution Roll: Zigzy: "Livestock Infiltration"=3d6 (3, 3, 1)
Evolution Roll: Zigzy: "Hoverwing Weaponization"=3d6 (1, 4, 3)
Evolution Roll: Zigzy: "Unity Studied"=3d6 (1, 1, 4)
Evolution Roll: Zigzy: "Crotalid Hide Adaptation"=3d6 (4, 4, 4)
Evolution Roll: Zigzy: "Reverse Engineering Limbs" =3d6(2, 3, 6)
Control Roll
Must Exceed 6
D8=8
The Triat Remains in Control
Despite the pressures of a rapidly degrading hivemind, the Triat remains for now, though, at this pace, it seems three minds in a position of sapience and command will overwhelm even the improved Unity rapidly, this solar cycle will be the last.
