Mind Spider

What have been dubbed the "Mind Spiders" started life as GEO-A-12, large arachnids designed specifically to produce silk.

Despite their terrifying appearance, GEO-A-12 are entirely harmless to humans, not only not recognising humans as a food source, but having actually been designed to untangle humans from their webs if they end up ensnared within it.

Their silk, the strength of which is comparable to that of high-grade alloy steel at only a fraction of the weight, has a wide variety of applications within the Western Federation, from spinning bulletproof armour, to reinforcing ropes and cables.

The widespread applications of this silk only made the subsequent escaping of the spiders from captivity all the more devastating.

The spiders, which were farmed within massive tunnels and domes deep underground, escaped to the surface following the 2091 San Antonio Earthquake in Texas, swiftly covering the area in webbing. Spreading fast, by the early 22nd century, the Mind Spiders territory ranges all the way from Monterry in Mexico to Fort Worth and Odessa in Texas.

## Alleged Telepathy

Stemming wholly from the misplaced fear of the car-sized arachnids, many incorrectly believe that the spiders are telepathic, hence the name. In reality, the spiders, whose vision is so poor that it virtually serves only to register light, perceive the world through scent. Their sense of smell is so pronounced that those who have encountered humans before can essentially read their entire complex emotional profile simply through their scent. This has led to the belief that the spiders can read the minds of those that they encounter, owing to those who enter the web fields with the intention of harming the spiders frequently being attacked first, with the spiders leaving those that simply live nearby, peacefully, unharmed.

Additionally, the spiders typically communicate with one another with sounds too high pitched for humans to hear, and merely give the impression of telepathy by acting as a single colony.

Numerous false rumours regarding the spiders have surfaced, such as the fact that they can telepathically influence humans to get caught in their webs, that they eat humans as food, and that they have enthralled Western Federation president Thomas Cooper to serve "the spider agenda".

## Relations with Humans

In regions especially plagued by Mind Spiders, but not wholly overrun, a unique profession has manifested. While the spiders are mostly harmless towards humans, they spread rapidly, converting the regions that they live in into into web-shrouded wastelands unsuitable for human life. In order to ward off this fate, Spider Hunters, or Exterminators, have appeared.

Typically dressed in light, study clothing, (often ironically made, at least in part, from spider silk itself) Exterminators frequently carry assault rifles with armour piercing ammunition, and are often accompanied by dogs, frequently boxers or mastiffs, which can detect the supersonic chattering of the spiders.

However, not all interactions between the spiders and the humans are hostile. Some towns located either near, or within, spider occupied land actively encourage the spiders to live nearby. As the spiders do not harm humans, and in fact remove human beings unharmed from their webs, there is no risk of harm to the humans, and in fact the opposite is true - many diseases carried by both birds and insects that are ravaging the continental United States have been proven to be drastically less common in regions with sizeable Mind Spider populations.