For the Swarm! (Zerg - Multicross SI)

[Morphic Tide]

Except the Changeling's extreme mutability comes at the cost of durability. If you want it to grow Ultralisk-level armor, it's gonna take as long as a larva takes to morph into an ultralisk(longer, probably)

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No, the morphing time of Ultralisks comes from their size. And it would be the same stuff as Ultralisk armor, not the same thickness, ultimately reducing the morphing time to somewhere around the time for a Zergling, given the mutability of Changelings. The big thing is increasing the lifespan of the Changelings so that the cost of the utility/combat Changelings is worth the benefit. All things considered, the production accelerator Changeling is probably the better way of doing it. Halve the morphing times, double the Zerg Rush.

I also kinda wanna see Larvae altered into a combat unit. If their durability is anything like the game, only anti-tank weapons can kill them in large numbers. 10 armor is past the level of Ultralisks, after all. Sure, they have low health, but you have to get through the armor for that to matter. The other way of reworking the larva is to make them faster morphing, namely by having them convert their insides into pseudo-changelings, then have the pseudo-changelings do the morphing faster than the larva could alone, but more stably than a changeling.

And I'll just quote my text block for the Colonies and a buff to the Infestors.

The old Colony structures have a lot more room for alterations than the Crawlers, so the Spore colony could be turned into a Fungal Growth turret, killing massed air units and maybe massed ground units. The Spine Colony could be replaced with the Impaler Colony for prolonged sieges, or use a larger version of the Lurker attack for anti infantry. The Creep Colony could be made into a mini-Hachery to start with or made into a huge creep booster. Basically, Crawlers would be the light defenses and the Colonies would be made into heavy defenses for dealing with starting a base under heavy attack. The morphing method of the Colony units could be used to make a new Creep Crawler, acting as a mobile Creep Tumor that can give up creep generation to turn into the other Crawlers.

For Infestors, you could use the Advent troopers as the basis of a strain to be actually spawned by Infestors. This would streamline one of the bottlenecks of using Infestors.

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[Wobulator]

No, the morphing time of Ultralisks comes from their size. And it would be the same stuff as Ultralisk armor, not the same thickness, ultimately reducing the morphing time to somewhere around the time for a Zergling, given the mutability of Changelings. The big thing is increasing the lifespan of the Changelings so that the cost of the utility/combat Changelings is worth the benefit. All things considered, the production accelerator Changeling is probably the better way of doing it. Halve the morphing times, double the Zerg Rush.

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/facepalm
I get that you think that only you are SV-competent, but the Swarm has been doing this for a while. Somehow, I kinda doubt that they'd overlook an easy improvement like this.

Really, this is what I hate the most about almost all Zerg stories. Everyone just seems to assume that the best beings in the galaxy at genetic manipulation, for whom it's their method of battle, somehow suck at actual genetic manipulation. This story has avoided it, and I'm thankful for it, but you cannot assume that you're the only intelligent being in the galaxy.
/rant.

 

[MTB]

but you cannot assume that you're the only intelligent being in the galaxy.

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That'll be freedom of thought, which includes freedom to be wrong, wouldn't it?

 

[Morphic Tide]

/facepalm
I get that you think that only you are SV-competent, but the Swarm has been doing this for a while. Somehow, I kinda doubt that they'd overlook an easy improvement like this.

Really, this is what I hate the most about almost all Zerg stories. Everyone just seems to assume that the best beings in the galaxy at genetic manipulation, for whom it's their method of battle, somehow suck at actual genetic manipulation. This story has avoided it, and I'm thankful for it, but you cannot assume that you're the only intelligent being in the galaxy.
/rant.

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The swarm has some strange focuses, and the ones in charge of the swarm's evolution can make oversights. Abathur in particular may have simply overlooked the option of mixing Changeling and Larva genes or considered it to not give a big enough advantage, or have a disadvantage to large. For example, doing this may take more biomass, or result in weaker units or units that take time after hatching to finish growing. Or would make larvae take longer to make. Or, as mentioned, the ones in charge of the swarm may have just overlooked the option.

Also, the Swarm does suck at actual genetic manipulation, or at least applying it, as they have failed to do several things that would be simple to do with the capabilities they should have. By all means, there should be no issue recreating the Defiler strain from a corpse. Or keeping two versions of the same strain around to differentiate further so that the differences become more useful. Keep in mind, the Abberation is literally the only thing made from genetics of creatures from Earth in the swarm, and it is just a rush job made from a Infested variant that is little more than a discount Ultralisk.

 

[Wobulator]

The swarm has some strange focuses, and the ones in charge of the swarm's evolution can make oversights. Abathur in particular may have simply overlooked the option of mixing Changeling and Larva genes or considered it to not give a big enough advantage, or have a disadvantage to large. For example, doing this may take more biomass, or result in weaker units or units that take time after hatching to finish growing. Or would make larvae take longer to make. Or, as mentioned, the ones in charge of the swarm may have just overlooked the option.

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This is literally what he was designed to do. He's probably a whole lot better at it than anyone else except maybe the Overmind.

By all means, there should be no issue recreating the Defiler strain from a corpse

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Unless there's no DNA left(which really isn't that hard. DNA degrades pretty quickly, especially if a) it's in the hot desert sun and b) somebody probably set it on fire). In that case, all you have left is the bone structure, and nothing else. Good luck recreating your Defilers from that!

Or keeping two versions of the same strain around to differentiate further so that the differences become more useful.

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They did that. What do you think the Evolution missions in HotS were?

Keep in mind, the Abberation is literally the only thing made from genetics of creatures from Earth in the swarm, and it is just a rush job made from a Infested variant that is little more than a discount Ultralisk.

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Well, yes. It's a product of the hyper-evolutionary virus, designed for use against Terrans. There's a reason why the Swarm doesn't really deploy them outside of initial assaults, where they don't have to rely on shoddily-converted humans.

 

[Morphic Tide]

This is literally what he was designed to do. He's probably a whole lot better at it than anyone else except maybe the Overmind.

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I mentioned oversights, didn't I? It's possible that Abathur didn't think of mixing the Changeling traits with the Larva traits, or didn't consider the advantages worth the trouble.

Unless there's no DNA left(which really isn't that hard. DNA degrades pretty quickly, especially if a) it's in the hot desert sun and b) somebody probably set it on fire). In that case, all you have left is the bone structure, and nothing else. Good luck recreating your Defilers from that!

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DNA degrades quickly in geological terms, it's easy to piece together full genomes from mummified corpses from the Ice Age. And heat only matters at literally boiling hot, sun only affects the skin(unless some very nasty radiation is coming through), and death-by-fire only matters if the whole body is burnt to the point of denaturing proteins. Plus, marrow is more than enough and those corpses are less that 10 years old. Genetic degradation should be a non-issue.

They did that. What do you think the Evolution missions in HotS were?

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No, they made two variants and kept one, completely discarding the other. It should not be too hard to keep the traits that are different in an index of traits that aren't in use. Again, Abathur may not have thought of this option, it thinks in biological terms, so the concept of a spare parts bin is likely foreign to it. Abathur only mentioned that the strains were mutually exclusive, meaning that it should be possible to keep the traits that separate them.

Well, yes. It's a product of the hyper-evolutionary virus, designed for use against Terrans. There's a reason why the Swarm doesn't really deploy them outside of initial assaults, where they don't have to rely on shoddily-converted humans.

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The Aberration I'm talking about was actually integrated as a unit to morph from Larvae. It's a proper part of the Swarm, and isn't officially stated to be related to the Infested version, it's that the two look exactly the same.

 

[Virian]

Blood, tears, and angst.

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Well-



- Basically.

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Great.

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So just reading one of shadenight123's stories?

 

[Wobulator]

DNA degrades quickly in geological terms, it's easy to piece together full genomes from mummified corpses from the Ice Age. And heat only matters at literally boiling hot, sun only affects the skin(unless some very nasty radiation is coming through), and death-by-fire only matters if the whole body is burnt to the point of denaturing proteins. Plus, marrow is more than enough and those corpses are less that 10 years old. Genetic degradation should be a non-issue.

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Yes, if you have perfect conditions, you can preserve DNA for a really long time. You also don't get those conditions very often. Especially not on Char. In case you were wondering, extreme heat also breaks down DNA(along with everything else) and Char "has an atmosphere hot enough to burn a man alive", according to Raynor.

No, they made two variants and kept one, completely discarding the other. It should not be too hard to keep the traits that are different in an index of traits that aren't in use. Again, Abathur may not have thought of this option, it thinks in biological terms, so the concept of a spare parts bin is likely foreign to it. Even if it's impossible to make an index, the Defiler was made almost entirely from scratch, taking useful traits and synthesizing most of the genome. Doing something similar could make a strain to act as an index and little else, having it completely ignore normal practicality to exist solely as a thing to store traits that may be useful later.

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Because they were occupying the same gene? It's like if you wanted someone to have blond and black hair- it plain doesn't happen.

The Aberration I'm talking about was actually integrated as a unit to morph from Larvae. It's a proper part of the Swarm, and isn't officially stated to be related to the Infested version, it's that the two look exactly the same.

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Either gameplay concessions(because it'd be a pain to have a separate building just for Abominations) or it uses Terran biomass in the area.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

.... All these arguments about how you know better then the zerg relies on starcraft 2 you know were the Overmind is no longer a thing... All the problems you mention are easily explained by the simple Idea that starcraft 2 zerg suck compared to their earlier forms because they took a hit to there competence when the Overmind died. Which is not a problem now.

 

[Wobulator]

.... All these arguments about how you know better then the zerg relies on starcraft 2 you know were the Overmind is no longer a thing... All the problems you mention are easily explained by the simple Idea that starcraft 2 zerg suck compared to their earlier forms because they took a hit to there competence when the Overmind died. Which is not a problem now.

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Um. Source on this, please?

 

[SpeckofStardust]

Um. Source on this, please?

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... umm on what part?

 

[Morphic Tide]

Yes, if you have perfect conditions, you can preserve DNA for a really long time. You also don't get those conditions very often. Especially not on Char. In case you were wondering, extreme heat also breaks down DNA(along with everything else) and Char "has an atmosphere hot enough to burn a man alive", according to Raynor.

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These corpses were not only on Char. And 10 years is such a short time that only conditions hostile enough for the Zerg to have problems with them can break genes enough to not be salvageable by cross referencing cells.

Because they were occupying the same gene? It's like if you wanted someone to have blond and black hair- it plain doesn't happen.

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Note the bit about having an index creature. Just because the traits lead to mutually exclusive versions of the same creature, doesn't mean those traits can't be kept in a different creature. Like a lump of biomass in Leviathans.

Either gameplay concessions(because it'd be a pain to have a separate building just for Abominations) or it uses Terran biomass in the area.

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No Terran biomass needed, this was in Zerg dominated caverns on Char, in Tal'Darim bases, anywhere. These Aberrations are part of the swarm in the same way Zerglings are.

 

[Generic_Generica]

... umm on what part?

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Zerg taking a hit to their competence would probably be what @Wobulator is talking about.

I mean the Swarm actually did get into a 'little' civil war after the Overmind's death because you know, Kerrigan tried to take control of the Swarm but Daggoth and the other Cerebrates took exception to that.

Which was all part of the clusterfuck that was Starcraft Brood War.

Which ended poorly for everyone who wasn't Kerrigan. Or Amon or Duran.

I don't think they suffered from a lack of competence though considering Kerrigan still mulched something like three armies at once. She could've taken over the whole sector if she wanted to except she decided not to.

And then in Starcraft 2 she almost did take over the entire sector and there wasn't jack diddly anyone could do about it. It took a magical mcguffin and throwing half the Dominion's fleet into the meatgrinder in order to temporarily put her down.

 

[Wobulator]

... umm on what part?

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How the SC2 zerg suck compared to the SC1 zerg.

Because given how everyone else advanced, I'm having a lot of trouble imagining the Swarm getting weaker.

These corpses were not only on Char. And 10 years is such a short time that only conditions hostile enough for the Zerg to have problems with them can break genes enough to not be salvageable by cross referencing cells.

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Given that if you're missing even a hundredth of the DNA, it's almost useless? I kinda doubt it. Especially given the fact that it's fucking Char. Don't forget the acid rain there, too! Oh, and the extremely high radiation levels. And the wildly different seasons.

Seriously, Char is what I would come up with if someone asked me to design a place designed to break down DNA as fast as possible.

Note the bit about having an index creature. Just because the traits lead to mutually exclusive versions of the same creature, doesn't mean those traits can't be kept in a different creature. Like a lump of biomass in Leviathans.

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And they might, but what's the point? The zerg use directed evolution. Sure, they might keep a few of an alternate strain around, but they aren't gonna be doing anything useful, so why bother?

No Terran biomass needed, this was in Zerg dominated caverns on Char, in Tal'Darim bases, anywhere. These Aberrations are part of the swarm in the same way Zerglings are.

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Gameplay concession. And Blizz wanting to play up the zombie trope on that one mission(the one where you blow up the nydus networks)

 

[Morphic Tide]

Given that if you're missing even a hundredth of the DNA, it's almost useless? I kinda doubt it. Especially given the fact that it's fucking Char. Don't forget the acid rain there, too! Oh, and the extremely high radiation levels. And the wildly different seasons.

Seriously, Char is what I would come up with if someone asked me to design a place designed to break down DNA as fast as possible.

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Not relevant, some of those corpses were not on Char

And they might, but what's the point? The zerg use directed evolution. Sure, they might keep a few of an alternate strain around, but they aren't gonna be doing anything useful, so why bother?

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Those alternate strains may have an advantage in some environments, so having a way to switch between them is a big advantage.

Gameplay concession. And Blizz wanting to play up the zombie trope on that one mission(the one where you blow up the nydus networks)

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You get the HotS Aberrations upon defeating enemy Zerg that are using and producing them, and Blizzard are quite good at not needing gameplay concessions for the Zerg. They would not have let you make Aberrations if there was not a lore explanation for why, and it just so happens that the Zerg canonically use infestation as stage one of making new strains, Defilers being an exemption. Official background information actually gives the names of the creatures Zerg strains are made from.

 

[Wobulator]

Not relevant, some of those corpses were not on Char

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In HotS, the only defiler corpses you find are on Char.

Those alternate strains may have an advantage in some environments, so having a way to switch between them is a big advantage.

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Except then you need to have specialized drones to morph into specialized hatcheries to generate these new larvae. That's a lot of investment for marginal gain.

You get the HotS Aberrations upon defeating enemy Zerg that are using and producing them, and Blizzard are quite good at not needing gameplay concessions for the Zerg. They would not have let you make Aberrations if there was not a lore explanation for why, and it just so happens that the Zerg canonically use infestation as stage one of making new strains, Defilers being an exemption. Official background information actually gives the names of the creatures Zerg strains are made from. Heck, there's a strain called Roverlisks that are infested dogs used as heavier Zerglings explicitly developed from ONE infested dog. They weren't considered worth keeping.

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*cough* anti-gravity cancer *cough*
Frankly, this whole discussion about Abominations is stupid because we don't know nearly enough about them.

 

[Morphic Tide]

In HotS, the only defiler corpses you find are on Char.

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In Wings of Liberty, you can find a skeleton on an arid planet that isn't Char. And there are likely mostly-intact corpses on frozen worlds.

Except then you need to have specialized drones to morph into specialized hatcheries to generate these new larvae. That's a lot of investment for marginal gain.

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Not actually an issue, given that the differences can be fit into battle prep time. Pick a load out of strains at the start of the battle, then it can't be changed mid battle without reinforcements. It's that you can send in the drone with the traits for the load out that's best for the situation after using your best guess to set up the first base.

*cough* anti-gravity cancer *cough*
Frankly, this whole discussion about Abominations is stupid because we don't know nearly enough about them.

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1. Wings of Liberty Aberrations are an Infested Terran variant
2. Heart of the Swarm Aberrations are made from larvae with no mention of infested Terran
3. Zerg usually make new strains from Infested creatures.

These three facts make it likely that the HotS Aberrations are assimilated Terrans.

Also, it's not anti-gravity cancer. It's psionic gravity manipulation generated by genetically stable nerve tissue surrounding genetically unstable tissue made to erupt into cancerous growth when it leaves the internal chemical environment of a Corrupter. The anti-gravity and cancer are separate.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

And then in Starcraft 2 she almost did take over the entire sector and there wasn't jack diddly anyone could do about it. It took a magical mcguffin and throwing half the Dominion's fleet into the meatgrinder in order to temporarily put her down.

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you see it took only half of the Dominion fleet, tell me what did it take to kill the Overmind, human rebels, and basically everything that the protoss could throw at it, end result? Protoss home-world lost.
The UED only took the Overmind because the psi distributor fucked up the zerg command signals, and a large part of the zerg swarm wasnt even there to try to stop them. End result the UED did have only kerrigan and the protoss to take out, and really would have won if Kerrigan hadn't got her last'allies' working together.
Honestly the fact that it was so goddam easy with so little consequence to take out kerrigan in wings of liberty is all the prof I need after all the only reason she wasn't killed was bloody plot, and a shitty love story. I mean she fucked up three fleets in brood war that would of most likely were still greater then 'half of the Dominion's Fleet'. and she had 4 F***ing years and she didn't do jack shit in terms of making progress. new units mean shit if they are not really any better then the ones they replace.

 

[Generic_Generica]

you see it took only half of the Dominion fleet, tell me what did it take to kill the Overmind, human rebels, and basically everything that the protoss could throw at it, end result? Protoss home-world lost.
The UED only took the Overmind because the psi distributor fucked up the zerg command signals, and a large part of the zerg swarm wasnt even there to try to stop them. End result the UED did have only kerrigan and the protoss to take out, and really would have won if Kerrigan hadn't got her last'allies' working together.
Honestly the fact that it was so goddam easy with so little consequence to take out kerrigan in wings of liberty is all the prof I need after all the only reason she wasn't killed was bloody plot, and a shitty love story. I mean she fucked up three fleets in brood war that would of most likely were still greater then 'half of the Dominion's Fleet'. and she had 4 F***ing years and she didn't do jack shit in terms of making progress. new units mean shit if they are not really any better then the ones they replace.

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Yes and the only reason the Dominion were able to get away with that horrifinally suicidal plan was because they had two things:

A bullshit Macguffin ( And yes the artifact was fucking made of plotonium) and extra plot armor in the form of one Jim Raynor.

Without either the invasion would have been doomed to failure and it was almost doomed to failure regardless. Raynor saved the initial disastrous landing which is where the invasion should have ended and managed to somehow cripple one of the Zerg's force extenders which gave the defenders a chance to hole up in one place and hope to god the bullshit artifact they dug up actially did something.

I'll concede the four fucking years part because that was just- what the fuck Kerrigan but honestly the invasion of char isn't at all exemplary of the Zerg's capability because it was bullshit in more than one way. Should not have brought it up.

 

[Wobulator]

In Wings of Liberty, you can find a skeleton on an arid planet that isn't Char. And there are likely mostly-intact corpses on frozen worlds.

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Yes, but given that you never actually find them, I don't know where you're getting the idea that you find them.

Not actually an issue, given that the differences can be fit into battle prep time. Pick a load out of strains at the start of the battle, then it can't be changed mid battle without reinforcements. It's that you can send in the drone with the traits for the load out that's best for the situation after using your best guess to set up the first base.

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Except then you need to design exponentionally large numbers of drones for all of these combinations. That'd be a metric fuckton of work for -again- very marginal gain.

Also, it's not anti-gravity cancer. It's psionic gravity manipulation generated by genetically stable nerve tissue surrounding genetically unstable tissue made to erupt into cancerous growth when it leaves the internal chemical environment of a Corrupter. The anti-gravity and cancer are separate.

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Um. What? Where are you even getting this?

The Corruptor's tentacles consist of elongated muscle fibers laden with cancerous growths. As said growths increase in size, consuming the surrounding tissues in the process, they generate a powerful electromagnetic field that warps gravity around the creature, granting it flight. If the Corruptor does not regulate the growths, they are more than capable of completely consuming its tentacles.

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Nowhere here does it say anything about what you said.

 

[Morphic Tide]

Nowhere here does it say anything about what you said.

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Well, that explanation is scientifically impossible. The fundamental forces cannot mess with each other without very strange setups that physicist don't understand well. Unless you're talking about gravity bending light. At the field strengths involved, you have EMPs that render plasma shields invalid in a large area and utterly ruin any radar that dares look in that general direction.

 

[Wobulator]

Well, that explanation is scientifically impossible. The fundamental forces cannot mess with each other without very strange setups that physicist don't understand well. Unless you're talking about gravity bending light. At the field strengths involved, you have EMPs that render plasma shields invalid in a large area and utterly ruin any radar that dares look in that general direction.

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Um. Starcraft is not the right setting to be applying hard science to.
I mean, with the exploding acid, Protoss's magitech everything, Medics/Medivacs somehow healing people with green rays, Queens healing stuff with orange goop, the Zerg clearly breaking conservation of mass, Marauders breaking conservation of mass, and a whole lot more, it's really not a setting that works well with hard science.

 

[Morphic Tide]

Um. Starcraft is not the right setting to be applying hard science to.
I mean, with the exploding acid, Protoss's magitech everything, Medics/Medivacs somehow healing people with green rays, Queens healing stuff with orange goop, the Zerg clearly breaking conservation of mass, Marauders breaking conservation of mass, and a whole lot more, it's really not a setting that works well with hard science.

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Edited the post you quoted from. And a setting not running on hard science hasn't stopped Mass Effect from getting hate for failing to really solve the problem of FTL travel. And using eldritch horrors in something that's supposed to be sci-fi.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

Yes and the only reason the Dominion were able to get away with that horrifinally suicidal plan was because they had two things:

A bullshit Macguffin ( And yes the artifact was fucking made of plotonium) and extra plot armor in the form of one Jim Raynor.

Without either the invasion would have been doomed to failure and it was almost doomed to failure regardless. Raynor saved the initial disastrous landing which is where the invasion should have ended and managed to somehow cripple one of the Zerg's force extenders which gave the defenders a chance to hole up in one place and hope to god the bullshit artifact they dug up actially did something.

I'll concede the four fucking years part because that was just- what the fuck Kerrigan but honestly the invasion of char isn't at all exemplary of the Zerg's capability because it was bullshit in more than one way.

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As i said for some reason (Probably Amon influence) Starcraft 2 zerg took a hit to their competence, I mean I can give good reasoning for every move the Overmind made in starcraft 1 and every move that the zerg made in broodwar, starcraft 2 however makes the zerg into nothing but some sort of orcs in space attitude which has me doing this to most of the things that happened. Not to mention that story elements with a Terran emperor has me going .

 

[Wobulator]

Edited the post you quoted from. And a setting not running on hard science hasn't stopped Mass Effect from getting hate for failing to really solve the problem of FTL travel. And using eldritch horrors in something that's supposed to be sci-fi.

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Yes, there are settings that run on even less science. Doesn't stop it from being a fool's errand to apply science to Starcraft.