The Collective had been in existence for an unknown, possibly unknowable period of time. It rarely questioned it’s own genesis, concerned primarily as it was with the consumption of mass to convert into more of itself. It’s existence had one simple, defined purpose: Go forth, and multiply.
Of course the words weren’t etched into it anywhere, in any specific language. Rather it was a complex series of impulses, every decision weighing in innumerable factors, always tilting decisions towards the outcome of further existence, further growth and a furthering of the Collective. While dissonant perspectives or the occasional stray subgroup with (very slightly) different goals were tolerated, the hive mind was single minded and unwavering in it’s objectives and decisions.
At this particular point in time, the Collective was experiencing something akin to irritation. The current sector of space, while rich in mineral-bearing worlds and rare complex hydrocarbons, was also highly prone to resistance. Small, quadrupedal creatures were fighting back with advanced weaponry and had established some form of dominion over the nearby stars and their rich planets. Their space presence was significantly less threatening, and far less numerous than the near-uncountable, constantly shifting members of the Collective fleet, and full advantage was taken of this by the tactical projection ships positioned in the heart of the swarm. Nevertheless, it was an inconvenience to destroy the surfaces of the occupied planets, wasteful of resources, and occasionally even a cleansed planet would leave behind some last pockets that smashed the drones and tried to reverse engineer them. Something had to be done, and for once a different point of view was considered.
LV2-CHP-30548282-EDFC (or LV for brevity’s sake) was a somewhat unusual design, allowed to think in it’s own right, with it’s purpose being to come up with creative ideas for the Collective to consider - and discard in the vast majority of cases. LV had a particular fondness for examining biological structures for ways to improve manufacturing and design processes. In this case, it examined and dissected the corpses of the creatures that fought back so fiercely on the ground, and came up with an idea.
These creatures were quite strong - able to bend iron pipes with comparative ease, and able to withstand blows from mining and extraction drones that were normally sufficient to disable organic creatures entirely. Instead of re-designing the drones or creating new models to satisfy a temporary need, creatures retrieved from the wreckage of ships after battle had their primitive neurons clamped and were sent in as combat thralls, encased in hard shelled drop pods and falling in red hot plumes to smash apart buildings and wreak havoc in the densely populated areas.
It was soon found that the new tools were effective yet too limited in supply to be at all meaningful as a weapon. Unless a means of mass production could be found, it would be pointless to go to the effort. LV, perhaps in some attempt to save it’s own skin, had a second stroke of brilliance and integrated the thrall creation process into the victims themselves - a nanobot based solution relying on “growing” the necessary components using materials stolen from the host body, or which it was directed to consume. Tests were promising and LV2-CHP-30548282-EDFC was permitted to continue existing as a quasi-independent entity, a perspective of demonstrated worth to the Collective.
Soon the quadrupeds had been conquered, caught by surprise and unable to resist the conversion process, they fell. Their worlds consumed over centuries until nothing remained. The new drones, their purpose served, were recycled in massive vats of acid and enzymes that would break them down into more elemental forms.
The Collective knew satiation, for a time. But as efficient as it was, it required more mass to maintain itself and to grow yet further. The silvery mass of needle ships, the spiderwebs of the communication arrays aboard the tactical ships, all turned towards new stars, new worlds. Optical sensors, telescope arrays kilometers in diameter, absorbed the faint photons of far stars and built a picture of rocky worlds, red and yellow and blue striped marbles of mineral wealth. As well as worlds of glittering ice, life-rich water and metal rich furnace worlds. Few signs of intelligent life, that could fight back, were apparent and something like joy ran through quadrillions of entities, each effectively a neuron in a massively distributed brain. Life was good.
Turning it’s attention to the journey towards a new cluster, resources were expended once more on innovation. LV had come up with the idea to use biological drones, designed from the ground up with simple nervous systems and DNA based programming. While signal pathing would be slower than standard drones, and durability lower, it would cost significantly less in terms of materials, make recycling easier, and would be easy to produce in large batches to offset a higher individual manufacturing time. An approval was flagged and trillions of the biodrones were put into gestation, nightmarish things with six long limbs and a low slung body. Grown with appendages specific to the task, such as mandibles for cutting through trees and rock, or powerful, flexible drill tongues that pistoned back and forth tens of times per second to punch through rock and metal. Testing of the units went quite well, with performance being subpar compared to mechanical units but offering a much better value prospect to the Collective. Organics were easy to manufacture, often requiring little more than a nutrient bath and the first few cells to start the process. It was the initial design that took time and computational power, both of which could be recouped quickly with other savings.
Within a few years of arriving in the next sector, the new drones had proven their worth. Their minimal cost to manufacture made recovery and repair of faulty units unnecessary, allowing them to be reclaimed as any other biomass. Only slight tweaks to the base design proved to be necessary for each new environment, as opposed to the overengineered nature of the regular drones. For ice worlds, the circulatory system was redesigned to function in a solid state, oxygen being converted directly to electricity which signalled biological muscles. For worlds without oxygen bearing air, they were covered in photosynthetic cells that would convert local sunlight into heat, sugars, and fats - which would serve as fuel during long night cycles and under the ground.
LV was central to many of these projects, offering the Collective a unique insight that it hadn’t considered itself capable of having. LV almost seemed like it really was a separate being, but the hive mind could directly discern the unit’s every thought as if it were it’s own - because they were. It intrigued the entity to realise one’s thinking could be as alien as any unknown species at times.
Over time, the sense of unease LV caused grew, and minor dissent to it’s continued existence rose close to the unified mind’s thoughts. Nevertheless it remained a useful perspective and there seemed no logical reason to destroy it. LV, aware of this dissent, once again took it’s own route and seemed to sink fully back into the hive consciousness, allowing what individuality it had to fade away even as the unit itself remained fully operational. For a time it functioned, but soon the metal husk was recycled, as it no longer generated new and useful choices or ideas. The Collective, unable to recreate what it had never quite understood, instead flagged all records of LV2-CHP-30548282-EDFC for permanent storage, a memory that would never be erased and which would be periodically refreshed and backed up to maintain full integrity.
Routine proceeded, the biodrones continued to be used and their design was enhanced and tweaked according to changing needs. Slowly, they were given a little more intelligence, enough to return to a recycling pool autonomously should something separate it from the collective. As well as a basic scavenging instinct to acquire fuel. By this point, until the time came to start deep core extraction on a given world, the biodrones had replaced the traditional mechanical drones for all planet based operations. The hive itself had no desire to integrate more biological parts into it’s spaceborne elements, but was pleased with their efficacy in mining uninhabited worlds.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
As the current sector was consumed, the massive observation apparatus of the Collective turned once more outwards. Seeking, seeking ever more to consume and to use. It seemed the most plentiful sectors nearby all had some form of intelligence infestation, and thought was turned towards optimising the drones for overcoming resistance. Several new models were designed, grown with similar nanobot injectors to the quadruped conversion drones. Upon arriving at the first occupied world of the new sector, they were deployed en masse.
The results were interesting. The world was a blue-green marble, covered in organic life of all kinds. The problem lifeforms were of two main kinds: an intelligent species, two legged and rather fragile,with computers advanced enough to interfere with the mechanical drones, and weapons powerful enough to harm the biodrones.
The fight seemed uneven at first, with the drones falling in droves to the scything sweeps of energy and explosive rounds. But soon the Collective had acquired samples, and adjusted the control module software - and the drones created from the bipeds were also able to use their weaponry effectively, not to mention having no sense of self preservation to get in the way of the efficient completion of a task. With their own tools as well as people turning against them - every casualty rising to fight again - the war soon turned in favour of the collective, and it began to focus on the other problem species: swarms of centimetre long insects which attacked and drained the drones dry. Too small to re-purpose, it was decided the simplest solution would be a skin secreted neurotoxin, and the insects were soon no longer a problem - with the added benefit of the toxin also affecting other local creatures. Soon the world was cleared of resistance, and the new drones were deemed a success. The perspective that had come up with the idea, MV2-CHP-30548283-VBHH, was granted the same quasi-independent advisor state as it’s predecessor.
A mechanical body for MV2 was designed and manufactured, and the hive substrates representing it were transferred into the unit. It was directly connected to the hive at all times but was otherwise allowed free movement around the coreship. MV2 often came up with ideas even more prone to causing dissent in the Collective, but also steadfastly refused to allow such dissent to sway it’s behaviour. The unified mind was unsure of what to make of this, and the unit was quickly scrapped as too unstable and too dangerous to allow as a long term influence on hive perspective. MV2’s records were stored permanently but only approved for access in particularly unusual circumstances.
NV2 had a similar genesis, born of an encounter with another, organically based, hive mind. Born as a servant species, the fresh hive had eliminated it’s former masters as harmful, and began expanding into nearby space. While it was concerned with mostly consolidation, the Collective still deemed this other hive a threat and began seeking ways to eliminate it.
Attempts to send in various forms of biological and mechanical drones had failed thus far. Subversion attempts also failed or were countered, and at this point the Collective was beginning to evaluate whether a withdrawal would be worthwhile for the moment. MV2’s memory was recalled and a successor was designed, intended to be more stable. The first idea it came up with seemed to deny any such stability, as it suggested creating a third hive mind, subservient to the Collective, to distract or even overcome the opposing force. There was immediate objection to this, it wouldn’t be possible to control, but NV2 overrode them with the suggestion of a killswitch in the new vassal mind for when it was no longer required
Grudgingly, the collective agreed. As the liaison between the Collective and it’s child's mind, NV2 was granted a biological form with an oversized organic brain, further overclocked with neural lace and memory modules. The new hive itself was non-mechanical in nature, as the Collective would only grant itself the supreme elegance of mechanical intelligence. Created from a single seed egg which grew a queen entity - a massive biological spaceship that could traverse the deep darkness of space while spawning and sheltering countless thousands of hungry, swarming creatures.
Unleashed upon the opposing collective, success was surprisingly quick - the enemy worlds went dark, one by one as the new collective swooped in and converted them into a soupy biomass, siphoning it off into the queen’s massive digestive sacs, leaving the rock and metal embedded in the crust ready for the Collective to claim at leisure. Splinters were detached to claim the mass. But something was wrong.
Despite NV2 reporting success, the splinter fleets were disappearing one by one. Instead of claiming mass the Collective was losing it at an alarming rate, and a recall was issued. Soon the reasons became apparent, as returning hive units with only lightspeed communications reported in and uploaded their telemetry.
The NV2 hive had turned against it’s master and merged with the opposing mind. NV2, apparently, had been allowed full independence and an advisor state. Every report had been false, and the mechanical mind was left to ponder how long that had been the plan. Had their own tool been subverted, or had it been ambitious from the start, eager and able to manipulate the hive mind grown dependent on independent thought?
Sending the kill signal proved monumentally ineffective, only killing the Queen - which was the sole being still loyal to the Collective. This was the last straw, and it was decided that a new sector would need to be sought, apparatus turning outwards to greener pastures - only for their vision to go dark as a surprise attack surrounded the Collective, attacking on all fronts, attacking all fleets, attacking the very core of the distributed mind. the combined might of two organic hives vastly outmassing even an entity as vast and ancient as itself.
Soon, things were beginning to lose cohesion. The great consciousness, decentralised for so long, felt itself dying in bits and pieces as the mechanical swarm at it’s heart got torn into again and again. It grew desperate, ignoring the risk and spawning out multiple new perspectives at once to try and find a way out of the dilemma, but only one perspective offered a chance for some kind of salvation. Entire genomes were written, long complex chains containing massive amounts of apparent junk data on top of otherwise useful traits and abilities. Simple, individual beings would live holding the encrypted data of the entire hive in their forms, and would unknowingly strive towards recreating it as primitive societies grew and blossomed. Eventually, the Collective would come into being again - perhaps a little different, and certainly not the same entity, but as close as could be expected. For redundancy this was built into a wide variety of reproduction patterns, to counter inevitable drift of the information in the DNA, but the data which would recompose the Collective was core to the genetic structure of all the new species, and written redundantly besides.
Firing out several such seeds into the cosmos, the Collective took the opportunity to reward the creative perspective for it’s efforts. GW2-CHP-30548943-EDEN was provided with a body in the form of one of the new species, a bipedal creature, and it’s memory was wiped to allow it the chance to attain a full identity of it’s own. A partner was also created and placed with the former GW2, it’s mind also a blank slate. Placed into a safe, idyllic environment, the Collective would be able to provide guidance to them as long as it survived against it’s foes - after which they would be on their own.
Turning it’s attention once more to the battle for existence, the Collective knew something approaching satisfaction. Even in the failure of it’s current iteration, it had ensured some form of itself continued down the line. Hopefully a form that would destroy the traitorous NV2 as a clear threat to itself.
Until then, the Collective would do as it always had and fight until there was nothing left to consume - or nothing left to fight with.