Zirkriz Colonies

The Zirkiz Colonies are a space fearing hive mind of arthropods, originating from the planet Vanav in the Larcral system.

## History

### Pre-History

The Zirkriz developed from colony building arthropods on a lush world, made of grass lands and savannas. But a sudden changed occured and as their planet changed into a desert because of unknown reasons. To not die under these harsh conditions, the Zirkriz adapted and their colonies moved underground.

Over the ages, they evolved more and more, developing higher cognitive capabilities and establishing a true hive mind, connecting all members of a colony. With a true unified hivemind, the development of tools, taming of fire and due to their adaptability, the Zirkriz were able to fully colonize all corners of their planet.

### Pre Space-Age

The history of their species had many parrallels to other non hive mind species. Individual nests played the role of cities and then nation states, competing against each other for resources and territory. Wars were waged, nests were enslaved, absorbed or destroyed.

But this would change.

Some now forgotten day, two nests managed to connect each others minds to create a single united mind, enhancing their abilities to cooperate and take on other nests. Slowly but surely, over decades, all other nests were either integrated or absorbed, creating a planetwide hive network, a single mind, created by many different voices.

Now truly united, the nests of the Zirkriz had time to poner the problems of the limited food supply and resources their planet had to offer.

With their united minds focused on the problem of resource aquisition, the minds of the Zirkriz turned their billions of eyes towards the sky and the stars. They analyzed what they saw, objects in the sky, some far far away, some not so much. Planetary objects like the world their nests inhabited, many of them possbly full of valuable resources and some of them perhabs places for new nests.

All nests of the great mind began to pool their resources together, changing they way of their cooperation, specializing in production, construction and resource gathering. Already established technologies were adapted, changed and evolved as well as their species as a whole. A giant organism was redefining and rebuilding itself, blooming and further expanding with each technological breakthrough.

### Space-Age

#### First Steps

Finaly the day came and the first Zirkriz left their planet and stepped into the void. Then more, and more. The first workers on their moons, then on the nearest planet. Then moonbases, asteroid bases, colonies on other planets, each a nest on its own, a new mind inhabiting inhospitable places in their solar system.

But this was not what the hive mind was looking for. It needed habitable worlds to secure its suvival. Great telescopes and sensor arrays were build to scan the void for a habitable world. And they were successfull. A selection of planets was spotted and within short time multiple probes were send out. Even with their laserpowered solarsails it would take them decades to reach their targets, but the Zirkriz could wait. Conflict between the nests was nearly nonexistent and population growth regulated.

#### Colonial Age

And they were successfull. Two planet candidates were found, analyzed and deemed to be colonizable. In a great collective effort, the nests build two arch ships, prepping them with all available resources, eggs and queens. The future hearts of new nests would go to hibernation, sleeping through the years while their fusionpowered vessels would cross the long, cold darkness of the void.

Over the next century the hive was able to colonize 3 worlds and their solar systems. With the hive mind reaching over the light years of void interstellar communication was not a big issue and due to hibernation sleeperships automated transport vessels and giant generationships were used for spacetravel.

But the good peaceful days were not destined to be forever.

#### The Gran-Wars

The first contact with an other species was a terrible one.

The hive send a hibernation ship towards a planet with the aim to colonize it. But unknown to the minds, an other species already set their gaze onto this world and colonized it shortly after the departure of the Zirkriz colonists.

Upon arrival in the system, the sleepership was detected by the alien species htat called itself the "Gran". Their Navy boarded the sleepership and after getting attacked by just woken and disoriented warriors, following their natural instincts to defend their nest, the Gran killed all on board, including the 3 Queens.

Their last moments and deaths reverberated throughout the hive consciousness, sending the collective mind into a rage. Someone attacked them. Someone destroyed a whole nest, a whole new generation. Action had to be taken. All nest sprung into action. Sensor data was analyzed and new technologies created, technologies the great mind had no use for until this point. Ships and weapons of war.

What followed was a more than two centuries long war, fought over interstellar ranges with sub-light warships. Both nations send their forces on decade long journeys, arriving in far off starsystems to engage an unknown enemy with high energy beam weapons and long range missiles. Skirmishes and small scale wars were fought over barren worlds and strategic troop and naval movements were planned in a timescale of years and decades.

The war came finaly to an end when the Zirkriz managed to locate and attack the Gran homeworld. After fierce space combat the forces of the hive were able to land and establish nests on the planets surface. Over two decades the Gran held out against the hive forces, but with their high breeding rate the Zirkriz were able to throw wave after wave of warrior workers against the defenders. Over time attrition took it's course, until the Gran resistance collapsed on one front after the other and their whole civilization was overrun, their cities destroyed and the survivors joined into the hive. Now Gran is only an other of several worlds and nests of the great consciousness.

But the Gran-War showed to the hive that there is alien life out there and that it is not nescessary friendly. So it was decided to create and support a constant fleet of warships on each world, ready to defend the nests from damage.

### Galactic-Age

#### The Arlon Incident

Around 50 years after the Gran-Wars the great mind would be again confronted with an alien species, but this time it would change things forever.

Blinded and damaged by a gammaray-burst a great fleet of D'Arlon'Dur colonists crashlanded on a world inhabited by the Zirkriz. Prepared to sit out the exact same supernova that nearly destroyed the colonyfleet, the nests were not able to detect the incoming fleet until it was landed.

During their search for food and water the stranded found one of the hive nests. In a panic reaction the D'Arlon'Dur attacked the workers and fled back to the fleet. A further try by the hive to contact the crashed flotilla also ended in hostilities. Remembering the last hostile contact with an alien species and recognizing the advanced technology of the aliens, the nearest nest, a military production facility, decided to go the route of complete pacification of this possible threat. Waves of warriors were unleashed against the intruders and after a short and fierce battle the fleet was overwhelmed. The survivors were forcefully joined into the nest and the bodies of their fallen comrades reprocessed into biomatter to grow food.

This short, and for the D'Arlon'Dur very unfortunate, encounter delivered a very big price to the Zirkriz doorstep.

Faster than light communication and spacetravel.

Thanks to the joined D'Arlon'Dur scientists and their experience and memories, the great mind was able to crack the secrets of these technologies, opening the galactic stage and contact to so many other species for the Zirkriz.

#### First steps

After some minor skirmish with forces from the Darexi Republic looking for the lost Arlone Home-Fleet, the hostilities with alien civilizations ceased. Thanks to the new communication systems, language information assimilated from the D'Arlon'Dur and a universal translation device delivered by the Xycan Combine, the hive entered in open discourse with the nations and species of the galaxy.

Even with extreme cultural differences to overcome, the first exchanges were made with the Xycan Combine for genetic samples for studies and a trade agreement with the Re'iran Travelling Guilds.

## Government and Culture

The Zirkriz are a species of individual specialized creatures all interconnected by a common hivemind.

All inhabitants of a nest are connected with each other and share one mind. The mind is processed by specialized members of the species, the Princesses and Queens. Every nest is by itself a single individual organism with its own personality.

A nest consists of several kinds of specialized and always adapting Zirkriz: Workers, Warriors, Drones, Princesses and Queens, with Workers and Warriors bred into a wide range of specialized subtypes. (For further information see the Zirkriz species page)

All nests are interconnected via their queens and create a network of hives, a great species spanning conciousness.

The individual nests have autonomy in their daily dealings and will fulfill their designated role until their reports send to the great mind produce a reaction that orders them to do otherwise. Each nest has a specialized role that is required to keep the species and the great union running the best way possible.

If a situation comes up that is identified to be a more serious problem, the great mind of all nests will come to a consensus on how to deal with it. All nests will then fully commit to their role to overcome the identified problem, to a degree of absolute self sacrifice if nescessary.

## Military

#### Naval Forces

The Zirkriz Navy consists of mainly corvettes and carrier based strikecraft, supported by specialized destroyers and cruisers, with missiles and directed energy weapons. This composition is based on the Zirkriz natural tendency for overwhelming mass and swarm attacks.

#### Ground Forces

Their tendency to use their high birthrate as weapon is mirrored in how the Zirkriz do ground warfare. They prefer to overwhelm their enemies with continous waves of mass attacks, using multiple variants of melee warriors and lightly armed warriors with ranged weapons. These mass assaults are supported by heavily armored and armed shocktroops and artillery. The standart tactic is to simply overwhelm the enemy or use attrition to overcome any resistance.

Should these methods fail, a nest or the hive can change the breeding programs to create other specialized warrior types, based on the memories and experiences of the great mind, to deploy a new army composition that is better adapted to a certain situation.