Hive

The Hive are a macabre, incredibly ancient race of undead-like aliens which worship and serve the Void. Their entire culture is based around a principle known as Feast Logic, which dictates that they must destroy other civilizations in order to accrue magical power and feed the Entozoons that live within their bodies. Along with the Void itself, they are led by a pantheon of dark gods, who derive power and sustenance from the destruction wrought by the Hive.

The Hive is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Hive collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great hive fleets of biomechanical living ships hips, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable their own rapid evolution and reproduction.

The Hive are likened to a galactic swarm consuming everything in its path, feeding on entire worlds and leaving only dead husks in their wake. Their threat is such that an unprotected planet can be infested and stripped clean of all its organic material in a matter of solar weeks without even slowing down the advance of the hive fleet.

All Hive organisms are "synaptic" (psychically-reactive), and each Hive creature within a hive fleet shares and contributes to a communal Hive Mind, which allows the trillions of beings comprising the Hive Hive Fleets to communicate and organise instantaneously on a staggering scale.

The mentality of the Hive approach to warfare can be described with the phrase "quantity has a quality all its own." From the "lowly" foot soldier, to the deadly Ogre and beyond, the signature of the Hive is that they overwhelm their foes with sheer numbers, reproducing massive numbers of highly virulent organisms in record time from the biochemical soup that they derive from the biospheres of the worlds they consume.

The components of a hive fleet travel almost exclusively in large groups known as "swarms" that possess specialised biomechanical creatures for destroying and consuming a wide variety of prey life forms.

The Hive have evolved sophisticated methods for facilitating genetic transfer across species boundaries. As a result, a significant goal of any Hive invasion is acquisition of useful new biological traits from other lifeforms.

These are used by the Hive Mind to enhance the Hives' effectiveness in consuming new worlds to gain more of the necessary organic raw materials for further reproduction and directed evolution.

The Hive fleets are all led collectively by the Driller, Jakeopod's ship scrimshawed from the remains of an Entazoon God. These multiple fleets resemble nebulas when from afar, and can blot out entire stars when they encroach on the system. With the absence of Jakeopod, the Hive fleets wait in the orbit of Flopcraft in stasis until their dark god-king returns.

## History

The Hive trace their origins to the super planet of Cradle. Cradle was a massive, enigmatic world covered in a dense foliage of fungal growths. This harsh environment acted as the nursery to the greater proto-hive species.

The Hive can biologically trace their origins to a dog-sized isopod-like creature native to the acid coastlines of their homeworld. These creatures lived in small eusocial nests, with a singular queen to reproduce, and a king to command the nest. These eusocial critters formed the basis of the great, necrotic Hive. Although small, these nests allowed for the almost perfect collection of food, and the creation of shelter.

These feeble creatures eked out an existence on Cradle for generations, only evolving new skin tones and resistances to conquer all environments. However, eventually, these small beings finally hit a breakthrough. An ore known simply as Ganglium made landfall from massive comets, theorised to be launched by the Entozoon Gods. These ganglium deposits made it deep into the ground of Cradle. When the ancient isopods inevitably hollowed their chasms into clusters of the stuff, they feasted.

The Ganglium was fed to the queens, and in-turn defiled their offspring. This caused the rise of the true proto-hive lifeforms, emaciated ten metre lifeforms covered in osseous armor.

—

The Proto-Hive lived in small gothic-esque citadels, incubating in large crypt-like chambers. They even developed the technology required to create artificial intelligence, and a unique type of biologically induced plasma thrust.

With these new technological advancements, the Hive thrived and conquered every corner of their world with industrial foundries and gothic bonecities. They melded themselves with metal, and became cybernetic beings of immense physical power. But not even these new biological and technological advancements could spare them from horrible cataclysm would strike next.

The Void warred with the Light for aeons, and in their aimless and worthless wars, shards of their energies were flung at enormous speeds across the universe. A shard of light, known as the Flak by the Proto-Hive, barreled towards them. The only hope of survival was to move Cradle, and crash it into the neighbouring gas giant where they had a small chance of resettling. When they activated their immense thrusters, and began to go adrift, the Flak, now somewhat sentient, sensed a presence on the feeble planet of Cradle. This presence was dark, horrible, and unstoppable. The Flak decided that it’s only choice was to make sure it took the planet with it; And so it collided, sending desiccated shrapnel across the galaxy.

The Proto-Hive were no longer hive, they were macabre husks, no longer did great civilizations exist. Instead only darkness, hunger, and a drive for evolution remained. No more did these beings care for others or even have mercy on one another. In their darkest hour, they began to follow Feast Logic, and although barbaric, it worked, and on these chunks of shrapnel, they lived.

Proto-Hive at this point were no longer alive, they were undead, husks of their former glory. Their ancient and profane armour so elderly that it melded with their very skin, and these horrible beings mummified. But they lived, alike viruses, they weren’t truly alive, but their survival counted as living. They survived by killing, feeding on violence, terror, and pure masochism they mutilated themselves and others to sustain their gluttony and inevitable need for sustenance.

On one of these shrapnel rocks, the Proto-Hive were not only aware of the Flak being created by the light, but vengeful. They vowed that the light would be destroyed at all costs, and so they steered their charred piece of cosmic shrapnel into a small and barren tidally locked world. So long they stayed away from the light that when they finally came in contact it burned away at their flesh and armour. Only the strongest would not be destroyed and incinerated.

The strongest fought for leadership under Feast Logic in the Theatre of Pain. This obscene place was filled with the carcasses of great Proto-Hive warriors, and here an ancient and insidious threat feasted from the deep dark of the world.

One of the beings deemed as “the Strong” was simply known as Jakeopod, an ancient Proto-Hive that survived the shattering of Cradle, and despised the light and all affiliated with it. He fought dozens, and feasted, hundreds, and feasted, until his power was beyond quarantine. He left the Theatre to search for beings of far more power.

Jakeopod attacked and killed hundreds, growing in strength. Eventually, he claws himself up the chain of domination and reaches the source. The battle lasted weeks, Jakeopod lost his eye, and the king lost his head. With command over the entire proto-hive army on this dying world, Jakeopod introduced new policies. He began the construction of ships, and other machines of domination.

Not just Jakeopod was watching their plan unfoil. The king proto-hive heard the call of the deep. To find this call, and gain its power, he set sail towards the depths of the world’s chasms. Here, he found the Entozoon Gods.

“I am Ry’lieih, the Order.”

Jakeopod stood before a god, and they made a pact, a pact of flesh. Jakeopod would be bestowed immortality, and even more power in he would harbour the larva of the Entozoon gods. Although the deal seemed detrimental, as one would feast from within without effort on Jakeopod’s violence, he accepted. He took the largest larva, Nyaralgrqloth, and joined together with it.

—

Jakeopod was the first true Hive, and he spread more larva among us kin with the same pact that gave him true power. With his legion now in full swing, they abandoned the feeble planet they inhabited and scattered across the stars in search of new beings to conquer. His slaughter continued, and eventually, he gained the power to create a Throne World. Within this throne world, Jakeopod crafted his penultimate plan, to kill the most powerful Entozoon god, and gain his strength.

Jakeopod left his throne world, and ventured to the place of the Entozoon god, and here they fought. Jakeopod and the beast fought nonstop for centuries, before finally Jakeopod, using his iridescent claws, slashed the Entozoon into two chunks. The longest time of his departure would be consuming every last cell of the now dead creature’s body.

Jakeopod could now commune directly with the void, among other myriad powers. To better exert his will over others, he scrimshawed what was left of the worm’s bone and chitin into a multi-segmented ship known as the Driller. Jakeopod transferred his throne world into the sentient ship, and searched the stars for creatures to slay and conquer.

—

A dilemma however occurred, the appetite of his Entozoon larvae had grown too large to sustain, and he would be devoured from within. So, Jakeopod developed the Tithe System, his minions would take enough to sustain themselves, and tithe the rest of their violence and meat to their superiors, and this would sustain him and his generals.

—

In the great Driller, Jakeopod scoured the universe for beings to consume. He caused the extinction of hundreds of lifeforms before encountering a powerful race of demi-gods, who proclaimed themselves to be the true holders of the universe, and they challenged Jakeopod in their arrogance.

At first, these strange tripod creatures decimated both Jakeopod and his forces, but through his wit, he managed to kill the first. One became two, and this number increased until all were gone, and Jakeopod climbed the ranks once more to encounter an Allman. For these creatures were no ordinary species, they were the Behindmen. The Allman spoke to Jakeopod, and it begged to be spared, but he did not listen.

Jakeopod consumed, and from this, he gained the power to Take. Usually, this power was reserved for the Behindmen, but Jakeopod managed to slither into the system. From this, his army grew until it reached critical mass. With his new army, and his powers at peak, he felt as though nothing could stop him. However, he heard a calling, from a small planet and to either silence or obey it, he began to slither towards it on his great ship. When he landed, he found a simple planet, and his army stood, confused and bewildered. This confusion turned to anger and terror when their warship, Driller, went into stasis.

—

Jakeopod and his army, his kin, were now stranded in this new world. However they would survive, and they would spread.

## Biology

The Hive travels in great fleets of gigantic living creatures that serve as spacecraft, each of which is home to countless lesser Hive organisms grown in the bubbling organ-sacs of the vessel's reproductive chambers.

All of these creatures are born to serve the single entity that is the Hive Ship, and the ship itself exists only as part of the entity that is the hive fleet.

Typically, hive fleets move in *ad hoc* formations known as "tendrils," migrating to nearby inhabited planets after consuming all the biological and organic material on a recently invaded planet and breeding, often reproducing many times their original number.

When a hive fleet encounters a prey world, it does not invade for territorial gain or out of a sense of pride or vengeance. Indeed, it is doubtful the Hive Mind even comprehends such concepts.

Rather, they invade to harvest valuable biomass and feed their insatiable hunger. The Hive require an endless supply of food, not only to nourish the hive fleets, but to grow new organisms. Therefore, when a hive fleet invades a planet rich in life, every action of every Hive creature is honed to a single goal -- the total and rapid absorption of that world's organic population, ecosystems and bioresources.

To this end, the hive fleet creates an army with the express purpose of overcoming the prey world's defenders before it is stripped of every scrap of biomatter and devoured.

Hive fleets travel at superluminal speed though they do not use extradimensional travel. Instead, they travel through an empty Cornerealm, where ten years in the realm is one second, and where one light year is multiplied tenfold to travel almost anywhere.

### Hive Fleets

The Hive are a space-borne species that have inveigled their way into the realms of the known universe.

Hive fleets consist of millions of biomechanical craft, each serving as host to an untold number of symbiotic organisms. These creatures evolve and spawn from a variety of organisms in the ships' reproductive chambers.

All these creatures are born to service the ship, and the ship in turn exists only to service the needs of the Hive Fleet. The hive fleets are driven by the will of the Hive Mind, which itself is motivated by their leader, Jakeopod, along with Feast Logic, and the will to survive.

A fully mobilised hive Fleet strikes shock, awe, and terror into even the most stalwart of even the Behindmen's defenders. Even when the threat is eliminated (at great cost), it will not be long before another Hive migration emerges to take advantage of the situation.

This is what makes the Hive species such a threat: it is an evolved meta-predator capable of out-producing, out-consuming, and out-lasting all other species it encounters, having done so on a disquietingly unknowable number of prior occasions across a vast swathe of intergalactic space.

### Hive Mind

The biologists of Flopcraft categorises each hive fleet as a separate force, an individual entity that competes with other hive fleets for resources. Indeed, each is self-sufficient, appearing to exhibit different strategies and developing unique creatures to overcome its prey.

However, the truth is more complex, for each hive fleet is but a splinter of one greater assemblage. The Hives' numbers are vast beyond counting, swarms so large that they block out the very stars, yet each and every creature is but a single cell in the living body of a single super-organism.

Every thought and action, every spark of life in the Hive, is bound and interlinked into a single unfathomable consciousness, a great entity that stretches across hundreds of light years of space. This gestalt sentience is known as the "Hive Mind." This Hive Mind is an extension of Jakeopod, although each is separate. While Jakeopod usually acts as the leader of the Hive Mind, in some cases, Feast Logic and the desire to serve the Void will overshadow Jakeopod's command and he will be thrown to the bottom of the hierarchy until he once again takes control.

It holds all Hive in a psychic bond that enables them to act together in perfect unison. Under the influence of this ancient consciousness, the Hive have fed on countless planets and devoured intelligent civilisations since time immemorial.

The majority of Hive organisms have no distinct minds as a human would understand it, having been created to perform a single task to the exclusion of all else. Unless the implacable will of the Hive Mind instructs them to do otherwise, these organisms simply fulfill the functions for which they were created, acting on nothing more than instinct.

Larger, more complicated, Hive entities have been grown to make limited decisions appropriate to current stimuli and situations, but even these actions are subordinate to the goals of the Hive Mind.

The Hive Mind's influence is strongest in the vicinity of creatures such as Hive Warriors and the feared Disembowlers. These beings are able to communicate with their kin, not through language, but by a synaptic form of telepathy through which they relay and channel the will of the Hive Mind.

Under the command of such creatures, the Hive operate in perfect unison, slaved to the psychic imperatives of a single communal intelligence. However, should these "synapse" creatures be slain, the link between individual creatures and the Hive Mind will be severed -- many of the lesser organisms will revert to their baser, animalistic behaviours.

For this reason, the Hive swarms do not have only a single commander, but many, to ensure the Hive Mind's synaptic control is maintained across the entire Hive species.

### The Synapse

All Hive possess a common psychic bond, known as the "synapse." This bond enables the Hive swarms to think, perceive, and act as a single great super-organism, providing nearly seamless co-ordination and control within a Hive invasion force so numerous and extensive as to be completely uncontrollable otherwise.

From the smallest feeder organisms, to the microbes that decompose new biomass; from the sessile and rooted flora-like forms, to the huge tendril-like shoals of the hive fleets, every Hive organism has a place within the will of the Hive Mind.

The lesser and smaller Hive creatures are mindless and instinctive animals, plants and bacteria, performing functions with no conscious oversight or commitment, while larger and more complex creatures can make decisions appropriate to the situation and form an integral if minuscule part of the Hive Mind's distributed sentient awareness.

### Synaptic Web

Functioning in perfect unison, coordinated by powerful psychic imperatives transmitted through the Hive communal sentience that is the Hive Mind, Hive fleets, swarms, and broods do not have a singular command structure, but rather form a synaptic web of psychic influence and feedback.

Situated within this tangled web are specialised "synapse creatures" whose slightly more advanced brains function as psychic routers, buses, and hubs, co-ordinating and policing the riotous cacophony of the collective brain power of a mass organism that is sometimes larger than most planets.

Without the localised control provided by these organisms, the swarm can quickly falter, and some Hive creatures may revert to animalistic behaviors, when individual will and situational instincts come into conflict. Often swarms will subdivide into smaller packs of creatures still capable of consensual behavior among themselves.

### Biomechanical War Machines

The Hive do not build their ships and weapons from metal and plastic like the other intelligent races; instead, they use gene-splicing and bioengineering to grow them from the organic biomatter harvested from the planets they consume.

Every weapon, gland and projectile used in their armies is a bioengineered Hive organism in its own right, from the spores polluting the atmosphere, to the grotesque spires that burst from the tortured ground during an invasion.

Hive warrior-organisms are creatures of visceral horror, implacable monsters with razor-sharp claws, which can tear a man apart in the blink of an eye, and grotesque bio-cannons that fire hungry, parasitic projectiles into their prey's flesh.

Every weapon and projectile used by the hive fleets is a living organism or "biomorph," grown from the reconstituted biomatter of previous invasions. The Hive have no form of mechanical technology and, instead, harness an advanced form of biotechnology to create organic equivalents of the tools, weaponry and ammunition used by other intelligent species.

These creatures live in a highly symbiotic fashion, fusing into each other's flesh so that it is often impossible to say where one Hive creature ends, and another begins. In this way, Hive warrior-beasts wield living weapons that are literally extensions of their own bodies, each one a killing machine, perfectly adapted to slaughter its victims.

The bio-construct nature of the Hive makes them a terrible foe to face, for their armies contain a creature specialised for every conceivable facet of warfare, which can be altered and re-grown to suit a battle's needs in a short span of time.

Thus can a hive fleet adapt to generate a force capable of overwhelming any opposition, unleashing a vast throng of ferocious alien monsters that can fly, run, burrow and stalk through the defenses of any foe.

### Connection to Parasites

The genetic and biological connection between the Hive and the Parasites is quite easy to notice on closer inspection. Not only are the lifecycles of both almost identical (except for the fact that the Hive's lifecycle is far more convoluted), and the utterly identical castes present in both species, like the Longarms and Manducators. This not only implies a connection, but actively shows one. The age of the Hive compared to the Parasites show that the Parasites are a breakaway species, however the Hive appears to have stolen the castes from the Parasites very recently.

Despite the relation between these two species, cooperation is completely devoid between them. Instead, they both appear to attack each other on sight. Although one could say that this is just the Hive following Feast Logic, it is far more likely that instead the Parasites rebelled, and the Hive is furious over their escape from the great Hive mind. Evidence of this is seen in Hive Tomes discussing the betrayal of the Parasites. It is likely that the Parasites were actually winning this war as well, hence why the Hive copied castes from their enemy, something only done when their caste-based enemy is fierce and victorious against them.

### Primary Military Castes

#### Ocelot

The Ocelot is the smallest, agile, and most fragile caste. They are rather small, around double the height of an average person. They are heavily emaciated, and their chitin and armor is weak, rotted, and spongiform. They have withered elytra barely covering desiccated wings. Ocelots act as the primary scout caste of the Hive, they use these wings to fly over the enemy and frontline aerial assaults. Ocelots are also the most suicidal out of all Hive castes, as they notably will do anything to defend even lesser castes, including ending their own life.

#### Caracal

The Caracal is the average Hive warrior. They are hexapodal and primarily quadrupedal with digitigrade hind legs. The central legs are large gnarled tentacles, and the frontal limbs are scythed. Caracals use their scythe limbs to both climb and dismember enemies. Caracals are the most populous Hive warriors, and their rotten bodies are the most common to litter the battlefield. Alike Ocelots they do appear to have wings, however they are far too heavy to fly. Their elytra are also reinforced, larger, and more flexible allowing them to use these strong plates as shields. Aim for their limbs to immobilize them, and fire or slash at the inner maw to finish the job.

#### Smilodon

Smilodons are best described as "Heavy Gunner Caracals", on their backs are a powerful electro-shock bio-cannon used for destroying defensive architecture and larger structures. They are heavily armoured as well, making them also invulnerable. Their head is cuboidal and hammerhead-like, and also the most armored section of the body, and the multi-segmented maw is their only consistently vulnerable area. Despite their large appearance, the Smilodon is surprisingly agile, and also quite intelligent, far more so than both Caracals and Ocelots.

## Culture

### Hive Combat Doctrine

Hive often attempt to first conquer a planet through subterfuge and infiltration. Hive "impostors" are sent down towards the world, in their true form, they are two legged bean-like creatures with a visor-like compound eye. Using a cuboidal organ jutting from their back, they can shapeshift into beings that they have consumed via Feast Logic.

When the Impostor is eventually discovered by authorities, the Impostors attack the exploration crew, sometimes killing some crew members, but always leaving at least one survivor who is implanted with a seed, a form of Impostor reproductive virus that contains specially-engineered Hive DNA.

This infestation is never fatal, but instead the virus' genetic material subtly alters the victim's DNA, producing in them a strong urge to mate created by the stimulation of the individual's sex hormones.

The Impostor DNA will be incorporated into the host's germ cells and so any child that results from this union will be an Impostor hybrid, which now has the complete loyalty of its parents through a psychic bond.

The hybrids continue to breed and multiply among the population of the host species, eventually forming an Impostor Cult. As the cult grows in numbers, it begins to spread its influence throughout the planet's political and social structure, placing its members in positions of power within the government and the military.

At the same time, the cult's hybrid members, united by a smaller psychic gestalt known as the Broodmind, begin to emit a collective psychic signal through the Hive that acts as a beacon for the approaching hive fleet.

As the Hive Fleet nears the doomed world, the Impostor Cult, potentially numbering in the millions by this point, goes into action, instigating a worldwide rebellion with the goal of weakening the planet's defenses against the approaching hive fleet.

The hive fleet will also seed the planet with numerous Hive organisms, which will begin to biologically alter the planet's climate, surface and ecosystems to make it easier to consume.

If the hive fleet is victorious, the fleet will descend to the planet, inhaling the atmosphere, drinking the seas, and basically consuming all organic biomass until nothing more than a lifeless ball of rock remains. On the battlefield, Hive tactics are based around the notion of superior numbers, as they generally try to outnumber the enemy fifty to one. Hive overrun opposition in close combat, closing faster than most armies. They possess few ranged weapons, but their sheer numbers and close combat specialisation makes up for the slaughter if they are led by a capable commander.

The Hive do not communicate with other intelligent species, and why should they do so? Hive are as far above other life forms as humanity is above the domesticated livestock it consumes. The Hive cannot be reasoned with, appeased or surrendered to. There can be no hope of mercy from such a foe. To face the Hive is simply a matter of survival: kill or be consumed.