What worlds should the SI in a Zerg Multicross pacify to satisfy ROB and eventually get home?

[Seylerius]

I've got an idea for a Zerg Multicross SI where the SI has been scooped by a ROB and ordered to entertainingly pacify and fix each 'verse he passes through as the price of getting back home. The SI wants to go home to his girlfriend back on Earth Prime. And maybe "pacify" Earth Prime while he's at it. Because if you were given the opportunity to fix everything you saw broken about society through the use of an enormous swarm of heavily optimized critters bound to your will, why the fuck wouldn't you?

Modifications from the game:

• The genetic database of the Zerg comes with me. Period. None of this "You need to build a Hydralisk Den to spawn Hydras" bullshit.
• No larva cap. This makes no sense except as game balance bullshit.
• No unit cap. Again, game balance bullshit. Overlords are useful as delegation nodes and relays. These roles make sense. Lifting a unit cap does not, unless the Overmind is meaningfully weaker than described. As one of the mental/emotional challenges the SI will face is coming to terms with dehumanizing levels of psionic power, unit caps are bullshit.
• I may choose to require the construction of a single building to embody the genetic database and make it locally acessible. This could be the hatchery or perhaps the spawning pool. I'm open to suggestions on what building this should be
• The spawning pool will be used for mining DNA out of critters.
• I will be adapting technology into organic forms to take advantage of all the shit I yoink from the settings I visit. I'm likely going to require experimentation to adapt these, and I'm open to suggestions as to the names and forms of the units/structures dedicated to !!SCIENCE!!.
• The difference between hatchery, lair, and hive will likely be a matter of resource cost, resource processing efficiency, and larva production efficiency. I'm open to additional suggestions.
• I'm going to attempt to make sense out of the generic requirements for "minerals" and "vespene gas". I'm probably going to add a "biomass" resource. I'm not sure if this was added in SC2 or not (haven't played that yet, need to after I finish my replaythrough of SC1), but I'm adding it here. "Minerals" will likely be involved in making durable skeletons and carapaces. And weapons. "Vespene gas" will be understood as the primary source of combustibles, corrosives, and more interesting chemistry. Petrochemicals will likely be identified as a half decent substitute. I'm open to suggestions on all of this.
• There won't be random crystal structures growing out of the ground, unless there's a damn good reason in-setting. "Minerals" will be elaborated upon and mined for.

Any additional suggestions you have will be examined and possibly assimilated. Thanks for the assist.

 

[Rossum]

Regarding minerals:

It's quite possible that the Zerg 'ecosystem' is optomised for consuming barren and lifeless planets or asteroids. When a planet is first formed, it's basically a giant ball of rock, sand, ice, and stuff that's left over after the initial ball of magma cooled down. So all it would have is things like minerals, carbon, and simple liquids like water or ammonia.

However, if said planet has life on it, then all the generations of plants, animals, fish, instects, etc would have been absorbing minerals, liquids, and carbon to fuel their own nutritional needs. Then those organisms would repirate, die, provide food for other things, etc.

Problem is, that even if the Zerg are the supreme masters of biology, there's no guarantee that a planet full of trees and animals would be immediatly edible to them. I mean, let's assume that zerglings require a specific set of protiens and minerals and stuff to make up their muscles and bones. To make them, the Zerg would have to gather material and then digest that to turn into creep or "biomass" or whatever to feed the little zergling larvas to make them grow up.

They could either dig up a bunch of minerals (which would largely be the same sorts of materials no matter what planet they are on) or they could digest the local biomass... which could be damm near anything. There could be an ecosystem that drinks sulphuric acid and grows trees with wood made of razor sharp glass. There could be fat cows that defend themselves from predators by sweating neurotoxin and farting nitroglycerine. There could be a planet where the local equivilent of grass is a frictonless plane of plastic-like goop and the animals reproduce by undergoing spontaneous combustion.


Basically, when dealing with alien life, there's no telling what they are going to look like on the molecular level. The Zerg could eventually adapt to the local cuisine and be able to strip down the forests to digest them, but when they are first starting out then that initial hive would have no idea how to safely digest the local plants and animals. They could find a patch of tasty looking purple melons, drop them into the spawning pit to digest them, and discover far too late that these melons are full of pure sodium and react explosively with the pit's acids.

As such, the Zerg ecosystem said "screw that!" and instead just eats minerals directly. They eat dirt.

Think of it like the zerg organisms being like farmers, and the creep is like their crops. Like corn or something. They show up on a new planet and instead of trying to eat the local spotted mushrooms, the just dig up the earth, spread it around, grow some creep on it, and eat the creep. When they are gathering minerals, that's them digging up the earth to get some nice deposits of iron or carbon or whatever and then feeding it to their creep crops to have it turned into the zerg-safe protein molecules that they can use to grow larva and organisms and stuff.


The zerg don't eat people, they just kill them to get them out of their way and maybe analyze their DNA to get any useful traits from them. They also analyze DNA so that they can adapt their digestion pits or whatever to better convert the local biomass into useful resource. When they initially show up on a planet, the local plant life might as well be as nutritious as a pile of old tires. So, they avoid that and just 'eat' the dirt directly to grow their own food. Then, once their economy is set up and they have some research organisms set up, they can start analyzing the native creatures and figuring out how to properly digest them.


Really, the only reason the Zerg would have for constantly killing everything they see is because they want to analyze their DNA for useful stuff and they would prefer violence to going through the trouble of setting up diplomacy with other species. If they weren't being controlled by animal instincts, or the Overmind, or Sarah Kerrigan, or that one Big Bad who shares the same name as the leader of the Equalists from Legend of Korra. If it weren't for those guys, the Zerg could just as easily be like the Gorons from Legend of Zelda, or a weird race of space termites that eat rock and minerals instead of wood.



As for adapting technology into organic structures:

Maybe you get it by working with some of the native scientists? I mean, imagine you come across some spacefaring race like... the Ferengi from Star Trek. Let's say it's during the Dominion War or something. You show up on a planet, encounter a Ferengi trade ship and everyone's like:

Ferengi: Woah, what are you guys?
Zergling in a top hat: Hi there! I'm Zergy McZergleton the third! I'm a Zerg. We're a race of weird space termites who eat space rocks and find DNA to help us mutate into stuff. What's that crazy non-living metal can thing you're in?
Ferengi: It's a space ship. We made it out of titanium.
Zergy: Cool. We found some titanium in the ground while we were digging for sulfur. I don't suppose we could trade you some titanium for learning how to make ships like that?
Ferengi: Weeelll... it would require a lot of titanium...
Zergy: That's okay. We can just make more of ourselves to dig up as much titanium as we need.


And thusly, you make some zerg creatures that dig up metals and process them into chemically pure ingots. Then the Ferengi show you how to mass-produce certain components which you then make. Eventually, you basically teach your zerg how to make technology.

It would be like how elephants can learn how to paint, or how bees can make beehives out of wax. Once you have the schematics for building some sort of technology, it's just a matter of having a zerg organism on hand that's smart enough to build it and maybe has the built-in tools, appendages, or secretions to make all the components needed to build them. At the very least, you could have spider zerg who create strong spider silk and then weave them into cloth which can be used as armor for other units you don't have time to mutate into growing bigger shells.

 

[Seylerius]

Regarding minerals:

It's quite possible that the Zerg 'ecosystem' is optomised for consuming barren and lifeless planets or asteroids. When a planet is first formed, it's basically a giant ball of rock, sand, ice, and stuff that's left over after the initial ball of magma cooled down. So all it would have is things like minerals, carbon, and simple liquids like water or ammonia.

Click to shrink...

Lol, yeah. This makes a lot of sense. Mineral-eating Von Neumann critters seem pretty optimal for eating otherwise-useless planetoids.

However, if said planet has life on it, then all the generations of plants, animals, fish, instects, etc would have been absorbing minerals, liquids, and carbon to fuel their own nutritional needs. Then those organisms would repirate, die, provide food for other things, etc.

Problem is, that even if the Zerg are the supreme masters of biology, there's no guarantee that a planet full of trees and animals would be immediatly edible to them. I mean, let's assume that zerglings require a specific set of protiens and minerals and stuff to make up their muscles and bones. To make them, the Zerg would have to gather material and then digest that to turn into creep or "biomass" or whatever to feed the little zergling larvas to make them grow up.

They could either dig up a bunch of minerals (which would largely be the same sorts of materials no matter what planet they are on) or they could digest the local biomass... which could be damm near anything. There could be an ecosystem that drinks sulphuric acid and grows trees with wood made of razor sharp glass. There could be fat cows that defend themselves from predators by sweating neurotoxin and farting nitroglycerine. There could be a planet where the local equivilent of grass is a frictonless plane of plastic-like goop and the animals reproduce by undergoing spontaneous combustion.

Basically, when dealing with alien life, there's no telling what they are going to look like on the molecular level. The Zerg could eventually adapt to the local cuisine and be able to strip down the forests to digest them, but when they are first starting out then that initial hive would have no idea how to safely digest the local plants and animals. They could find a patch of tasty looking purple melons, drop them into the spawning pit to digest them, and discover far too late that these melons are full of pure sodium and react explosively with the pit's acids.

As such, the Zerg ecosystem said "screw that!" and instead just eats minerals directly. They eat dirt.

Think of it like the zerg organisms being like farmers, and the creep is like their crops. Like corn or something. They show up on a new planet and instead of trying to eat the local spotted mushrooms, the just dig up the earth, spread it around, grow some creep on it, and eat the creep. When they are gathering minerals, that's them digging up the earth to get some nice deposits of iron or carbon or whatever and then feeding it to their creep crops to have it turned into the zerg-safe protein molecules that they can use to grow larva and organisms and stuff.


The zerg don't eat people, they just kill them to get them out of their way and maybe analyze their DNA to get any useful traits from them. They also analyze DNA so that they can adapt their digestion pits or whatever to better convert the local biomass into useful resource. When they initially show up on a planet, the local plant life might as well be as nutritious as a pile of old tires. So, they avoid that and just 'eat' the dirt directly to grow their own food. Then, once their economy is set up and they have some research organisms set up, they can start analyzing the native creatures and figuring out how to properly digest them.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, you've got a point here. There's decent odds that something like an Akrid or those oxygen-phobic things from the first world @Faith visited on her PA multicross could be hard to eat. Might need to evolve specialized digestion facilities to eat them, after analyzing what they're made of.

Really, the only reason the Zerg would have for constantly killing everything they see is because they want to analyze their DNA for useful stuff and they would prefer violence to going through the trouble of setting up diplomacy with other species. If they weren't being controlled by animal instincts, or the Overmind, or Sarah Kerrigan, or that one Big Bad who shares the same name as the leader of the Equalists from Legend of Korra. If it weren't for those guys, the Zerg could just as easily be like the Gorons from Legend of Zelda, or a weird race of space termites that eat rock and minerals instead of wood.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I'm still thinking the SI will eat anything sufficiently non-sapient or evil. Other than that, though, I'll generally be avoiding killing unless there's a good reason (like trying to kill the SI, trying to kill "innocents", being suspiciously tasty...).

As for adapting technology into organic structures:

Maybe you get it by working with some of the native scientists? I mean, imagine you come across some spacefaring race like... the Ferengi from Star Trek. Let's say it's during the Dominion War or something. You show up on a planet, encounter a Ferengi trade ship and everyone's like:

Ferengi: Woah, what are you guys?
Zergling in a top hat: Hi there! I'm Zergy McZergleton the third! I'm a Zerg. We're a race of weird space termites who eat space rocks and find DNA to help us mutate into stuff. What's that crazy non-living metal can thing you're in?
Ferengi: It's a space ship. We made it out of titanium.
Zergy: Cool. We found some titanium in the ground while we were digging for sulfur. I don't suppose we could trade you some titanium for learning how to make ships like that?
Ferengi: Weeelll... it would require a lot of titanium...
Zergy: That's okay. We can just make more of ourselves to dig up as much titanium as we need.

Click to shrink...

This, but about more interesting tech than titanium.

And thusly, you make some zerg creatures that dig up metals and process them into chemically pure ingots. Then the Ferengi show you how to mass-produce certain components which you then make. Eventually, you basically teach your zerg how to make technology.

Click to shrink...

The ingot-production unit/structure could be very useful: zerg are uncommonly efficient at refining minerals, and transferring them through the creep. The ability to excrete pure metal and form it into ingots would be useful for trade as well as interplanetary transport.

It would be like how elephants can learn how to paint, or how bees can make beehives out of wax. Once you have the schematics for building some sort of technology, it's just a matter of having a zerg organism on hand that's smart enough to build it and maybe has the built-in tools, appendages, or secretions to make all the components needed to build them. At the very least, you could have spider zerg who create strong spider silk and then weave them into cloth which can be used as armor for other units you don't have time to mutate into growing bigger shells.

Click to shrink...

Zerg making tech is an interesting idea, but I think that something like titanium would be integrated fairly simply: test its properties, experiment to find uses for it, grow it. It's as usable as the other metals already being used to make zerg shells and skeletons.

What's more interesting is buying in-depth understanding of the way something like eezo works. Evolving (over a longish period of time) something capable of producing electricity, then zapping chunks of eezo with said bio-electricity to examine the strength of the effects. Or using sensing units to examine the transition of a ship into and out of slipspace, in order to understand how to effect such transport.

You've got some really fascinating ideas here, and I appreciate contributions. I'll be using a lot of this. Thanks!

 

[Seylerius]

Also, hat tip to @Generic_Generica for the badass inspiration.

 

[Seylerius]

I wonder if I should brush up on W40K and try to eat the Tyranids...

Marine 1: So, one batch of disgusting xeno bugs was trying to kill you, when another showed up?
Marine 2: Yeah, and they started killing the first ones.
Marine 1: So they could eat you instead, right?
Marine 2: That's the thing... When they killed the first ones, they looked over at me and got out of the way of the door. And then they started gesturing when I just stood there pointing my gun at them.
Marine 1: Gesturing at you?
Marine 2 shudders: Trust me, you don't want to see giant alien bugs gesturing between you and the door with blood dripping from their blades.

 

[Generic_Generica]

...

Uh basically any verse'd do. Things that make the Zerg more Zergy'd be super great but really most any world is going to have some usable Essence somewhere.

Personally I'm not planning on going the tech route with my story because I don't have the patience to write about technobabble and biobabble and because I honestly'd be too lazy to try to get another form of industry running if I already had a system that works perfectly well in the first place.mmore power to you for choosing that route I suppose.

Also... Inspiration? Really? Huh.

 

[Seylerius]

Uh basically any verse'd do. Things that make the Zerg more Zergy'd be super great but really most any world is going to have some usable Essence somewhere.

Click to shrink...

I guess I'll have too choose for what would be the most fun for me and the ROB to have the SI pacify, then. Anyone have suggestions on that count?

I don't have the patience to write about technobabble and biobabble

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I get a kick out of that stuff. I'm weird.

Also... Inspiration? Really? Huh.

Click to shrink...

Don't sell yourself short. Totally feeling inspired right here.

 

[Rossum]

One other idea:

Suppose instead of being turned into an overmind or something, you become a zerg-human hybrid like whatever Kerrigan turned into. Then you find yourself in control of a hive and a bunch of drones and other zerg units. Considering the kind of bullshit powers Kerrigan has in Heart of the Swarm, you'd basically be like a superhero or something... shooting lightning bolts or using crushing telekinetic powers to destroy your enemies. After that, you could go around gathering specific biological/psionic powers to upgrade yourself with. Like, you'd have a limited number of 'slots' you could fill with upgrades for your physical body in addition to all the upgrades you can place on your minions.

In that case, you would basically be a hero unit. If you found yourself dropped into a superhero setting like Marvel or DC or any other setting, you would at first look like any other superpowered alien character or mutated human. Then, being able to grow your drones and infrastructure would require at least a little bit of personal attention and make it easier for you to establish contact with humans or humanoid civilizations.

Say, you end up in a zombie apocalypse setting, or a setting with a bunch of monsters or whatever. Your first actions upon landing on a world could just be walking around to find a spot to set up base, have your drones and zerg start building, and you establish contact with humans or fight any nearby threats. Everything after that would be a case of you either improving yourself, upgrading or expanding your power base, and eventually find a way off the planet... like gather enough minerals. biomatter, and infrastructure to spawn a leviathan or other zerg organism capable of flying into space.

So, instead of being a giant robot or a giant brain, you would (narratively speaking) be more like a regular human who got superpowers and now has the biotechnology and ability to spawn and control a bunch of zerg minions. Also, since you would retain a mostly humanoid shape and be able to improve yourself, you could do something like get DNA samples of some of the local mad scientists or geniuses and upgrade your own brain to the point that you could build hi-tech stuff yourself. Your zerg swarm allows you to spawn a self-replicating workforce of monsters and gather resources while your newly acquired mad scientist intelligence could let you build some nifty technological toys for yourself.

 

[Seylerius]

One other idea:

Suppose instead of being turned into an overmind or something, you become a zerg-human hybrid like whatever Kerrigan turned into. Then you find yourself in control of a hive and a bunch of drones and other zerg units. Considering the kind of bullshit powers Kerrigan has in Heart of the Swarm, you'd basically be like a superhero or something... shooting lightning bolts or using crushing telekinetic powers to destroy your enemies. After that, you could go around gathering specific biological/psionic powers to upgrade yourself with. Like, you'd have a limited number of 'slots' you could fill with upgrades for your physical body in addition to all the upgrades you can place on your minions.

In that case, you would basically be a hero unit. If you found yourself dropped into a superhero setting like Marvel or DC or any other setting, you would at first look like any other superpowered alien character or mutated human. Then, being able to grow your drones and infrastructure would require at least a little bit of personal attention and make it easier for you to establish contact with humans or humanoid civilizations.

Say, you end up in a zombie apocalypse setting, or a setting with a bunch of monsters or whatever. Your first actions upon landing on a world could just be walking around to find a spot to set up base, have your drones and zerg start building, and you establish contact with humans or fight any nearby threats. Everything after that would be a case of you either improving yourself, upgrading or expanding your power base, and eventually find a way off the planet... like gather enough minerals. biomatter, and infrastructure to spawn a leviathan or other zerg organism capable of flying into space.

So, instead of being a giant robot or a giant brain, you would (narratively speaking) be more like a regular human who got superpowers and now has the biotechnology and ability to spawn and control a bunch of zerg minions. Also, since you would retain a mostly humanoid shape and be able to improve yourself, you could do something like get DNA samples of some of the local mad scientists or geniuses and upgrade your own brain to the point that you could build hi-tech stuff yourself. Your zerg swarm allows you to spawn a self-replicating workforce of monsters and gather resources while your newly acquired mad scientist intelligence could let you build some nifty technological toys for yourself.

Click to shrink...

Funny you should mention that, because that touches on a mechanic I had in mind: the SI does start as an overmind, but isn't thrilled with this. He remembers being human, having a human girlfriend. He rather expects his girlfriend to prefer him to be at least humanoid. And so he makes a point to gather DNA and evolve up a humanoid body for himself. This takes a couple jumps, though, as he needs human DNA, psionic humanoid DNA, and human DNA that looks like his original body.

As far as the "upgrade slots" mechanic, I can see maybe running into physical space limitations on how much weaponry, armor, etc. he can fit into that body, but I'll be making a point to ground any limitations in reality, because I'm trying to avoid anything that feels like a game balance restriction. Only thing I intend to have preventing him from being too OP in any given setting will be the political challenges, and enemies that are even more bullshit than he is.

Regarding the science, kinda what I see happening is something like this. Say the swarm is trying to integrate eezo. First experiments would involve making sure they can produce electricity in units (which would lead to new units being evolved with electrical weaponry), then start applying different currents and voltages to different amounts of eezo, then have zerglings running around with chunks of eezo in a pouch to make sure it doesn't hurt them (and to evolve a resistance if it does), then stick some in a few mutas to experiment with the speed benefits in atmo, then leviathans to optimize for space travel.

After that, it's a matter of acquiring eezo and growing units that contain eezo utilizing organs of whatever form seems optimal after experimenting.

 

[Seylerius]

... Zerg with a Tiberium Control Module...

You want pretty crystals for your drones to collect? Tiberium will collect all the the minerals into pretty green crystals. They also collect your face (that's why you need a TCM).

 

[firelordzx5]

I once had similar idea.

Zerg SI, first I started with Primal Zerg but the idea ended with QoB-type of SI in Star Wars verse.

Let me tell you, I had similar ideas, extended control of the swarm without limitation of unit cap, infesting technology, dependence of SC-only resources gone replaced by acquiring biomass or similar resources.

The only difference is that I thought in getting hybrids instead of broodmothers as intelligent commanding force.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

A good universe to toss the Zerg SI would be starterk.
goal?
Kill off 4 major powers in that galaxy like say Borg, or Federation

 

[Seylerius]

A good universe to toss the Zerg SI would be starterk.
goal?
Kill off 4 major powers in that galaxy like say Borg, or Federation

Click to shrink...

Interesting idea. @Gideon020's already visited them in his PA multicross, but I might consider adding them... They do have a wide variety of aliens, and some of them might even have genetic traits worth absorbing. Plus, the Borg need to go.

I suppose I can't rule out visiting settings others have used. Gideon did C&C, after Drich did C&C, and I'm even considering going to C&C. Might as well look at ST.

Any suggestions on timeline?

 

[SpeckofStardust]

hmm dominion war?
or maybe the Romulan Federation war?
or the 8472 Borg conflict.

 

[Gideon020]

Who the hell poked me?

 

[Seylerius]

Who the hell poked me?

Click to shrink...

That was me. I was specifically discussing your reuse of settings that others has used, and considered that getting your opinion wouldn't hurt. I'm considering taking a cruise through Star Trek on my Zerg SI multicross.

Also, if you have an opinion on the mechanism by which Tiberium is programmed, I'd appreciate the thoughts.

 

[Krazyfan1]

how hard would it be to make all of the units all terrain?
like, you try to escape the zerg by going into the ocean, and they can easily follow you there?
or, if you are the zerg and need to escape, you go to the bottom of the ocean where nobody can follow...

 

[Seylerius]

how hard would it be to make all of the units all terrain?
like, you try to escape the zerg by going into the ocean, and they can easily follow you there?
or, if you are the zerg and need to escape, you go to the bottom of the ocean where nobody can follow...

Click to shrink...

This would actually be an excellent example of running into physical space limitations. Gills take up space, so the hydras and whatnot might have to be bigger, or some other tradeoff. Hmmm... What else could be a tradeoff for squeezing gills into zerglings and hydras...

 

[firelordzx5]

how hard would it be to make all of the units all terrain?
like, you try to escape the zerg by going into the ocean, and they can easily follow you there?
or, if you are the zerg and need to escape, you go to the bottom of the ocean where nobody can follow...

Click to shrink...

Not exactly.

I not well verse when coming with Zerg Evolution but that's actually Primal Zerg way of thinking there.

With the Primal Zerg, each one is unique organism with different kind of essences, when a Zerg devours another zerg or unique orgasim that contain an unique essence or ability they found useful at least for the time being, their bodies act to assimilate said trait and their bodies morph and evolve to the point that they are able to use it in their adventage.

The Zerg Swarm isn't like that. With the Swarm, they aren't as unique as the Primal odviously, in fact, the evolution is more selective and organized compared to the primals, each Zerg unit come from a selective trait or species that was assimilated by the swarm during it's search for the protoss. Each unit is good in what they're designed by either the Overmind or Abathur who was made by the Overmind as Evolution Master.