Hive

The Hive, formerly known as the Krill, are a macabre, incredibly ancient species of aliens that worship and serve the Darkness. Their entire culture is based around a principle known as the Sword Logic, which dictates that they must destroy other civilizations in order to accrue paracausal power and feed the Worms that live within their bodies. Along with the Darkness itself, they are led by a pantheon of dark gods, who derive power and sustenance from the destruction wrought by the Hive.
In Sol, they have a significant presence on the Moon, where they have built the Hellmouth and Scarlet Keep, as well as having a presence on certain regions of Earth, around Saturn, where the massive Dreadnaught orbits, the icy regions of Mars and on Titan, where they infest the ruined arcologies. They also have a strong presence in the Dreaming City and Tangled Shore.

## Overview

The Hive are an "impossibly ancient" race born from a pact with the Worm Gods. Hive structures delve deep into wherever they lay claim to, unheeding of the damage done in the process, crafting linked caverns and gothicesque columns; these underground spaces resemble a dungeon recently pulled up after an extended period underwater. They are able to manipulate the physical world in ways humanity can only begin to imagine, and have witnessed the Darkness consume countless worlds in the past.
The Hive are not an enemy military so much as a rising force. They base their entire existence around the extermination of other forms of life, especially those that follow the way of Light and the Traveler, and approach their task with religious fervor. To the Hive, killing and conquest are not merely acts of war, but of worship.
The hive burrowed deep into the Moon, staying there for centuries while growing stronger. The Guardian's Ghost states that he believed the Hive to be contained on the Moon for centuries, but the player first encounters them in Old Russia underneath the Skywatch, where the Fallen have attempted to seal them away. The Guardians eventually discover that this is just the beginning; the Hive have been building an army and intend to invade Earth en masse.

## History

### Origin

The Hive trace their origins to a gas giant named Fundament. Long ago, the Krill crashed their homeworld into Fundament, ostensibly to hide from something unknown. The shards of this homeworld became a number of continents that floated upon a sea called the Fundament Ocean within a layer of the gas giant's atmosphere, and the Krill eventually built a meager civilization upon them and forgot their old history. In addition to the Krill, Fundament was home to hundreds of other intelligent species, and Fundament's fifty-two moons were inhabited by a space-faring species called the Ammonites which were overseen by the Traveler.

Life was quick and harsh for the krill. Their natural lifespan rarely exceeded ten Fundament-years, though females who ate "mother jelly" became able to spawn and live longer. In terms of environmental hazards, Fundament was almost inhospitable. The Fundament Ocean was toxic, the skies were eternally stormy, the rain poisonous and sometimes corrosive, lightning had enough power to vaporize anyone it struck, "living clouds" called Stormjoys would prey on the populace, and the Krill frequently warred with each other.
The progenitors of the contemporary Hive were Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash, the three daughters of the Osmium King who ruled the continent called the Osmium Court. When the Osmium King was ten years old, he fell to madness, fearing an event called the Syzygy wherein Fundament's fifty-two moons would align and create a massive tidal wave, the God-Wave, that would destroy Fundament's civilizations. Taox, a sterile mother who served as the teacher to the King's daughters, feared the King's daughters were too weak to succeed the King and invited a rival kingdom, the Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, to invade the Osmium Court, kill the royal family, and allow Taox to rule the Osmium Court as their regent. The Helium Drinkers invaded and slew the Osmium King, but the three sisters, two years old at the time, escaped on a ship and vowed to take their revenge against the Helium King and Taox.
After a year of traveling the sea, the sisters salvaged an ancient, high-tech ship they called "The Needle" from the Shvubi Maelstrom. Xi Ro wanted to sell it at the Kaharn Atoll, a gathering place of Fundament's many species, in order to raise enough money to hire a mercenary army, but Aurash wanted to take command of the ship. Sathona sided with Aurash, goaded on by a worm that their father had kept; the worm had washed up on the Osmium Court's shores and was seemingly dead, but Sathona could hear it speak. Unbeknownst to Sathona, the voice she was hearing was in fact that of the The Witness, who sought to claim the Hive for the Darkness and turn them away from the Traveler; in truth, there was no imminent danger from a "god-wave" or the syzygy that would supposedly cause it.
The sisters spent the next two years reactivating the ship, until Aurash decided to use it to fulfill its intended purpose: she wanted to dive to Fundament's core in the hopes of learning a secret that would prevent the Syzygy.
As they descended, the sisters encountered a vast creature called the Leviathan, a disciple of the Traveler. The Leviathan warned the sisters against proceeding further, telling them that they faced a choice between the Sky and the Deep, the Light and the Darkness, the way of life and the way of death. The sisters rejected the Leviathan, unable to accept that allowing their people to suffer was the better way, and instead decided to follow the worm Sathona had saved, which urged them to continue diving.

### The Pact

Deep within the Fundament Ocean, the sisters encountered the Worms, who drew their power from the Darkness itself: Yul, the Honest Worm, Eir, the Keeper of Order, Xol, Will of the Thousands, Ur, the Ever-Hunger, and Akka, the Worm of Secrets. The Worm Gods claimed that they had lived and grown in Fundament's depths for millions of years, trapped by the Leviathan and the Traveler. They had called many species to Fundament, hoping one would be tenacious enough to find them. They offered Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash immortality if they would allow themselves to be hosts for the Worms' larvae, with the caveat that if the sisters ceased to obey their natures (Xi Ro's desire to test her strength, Sathona's cunning, Aurash's inquisitiveness), their Worms would consume them. Furthermore, the stronger the sisters became, the greater their Worms' appetites would be.
The sisters accepted the pact. Xi Ro took the knight morph and became Xivu Arath, the God of War; Sathona took the mother morph and became Savathûn, the Witch-Queen; and Aurash took the king morph and became Auryx, the King of the Hive. Over the following years, the siblings returned to their people and spread the Worms among them, creating the Hive and enabling them to liberate the Osmium Court, then drive Taox and the other species of Fundament to Kaharn Atoll, and finally to build spaceships and break free of Fundament.
Since then they have waged war upon the rest of the universe, having exterminated other races such as the Ammonites, the Ecumene, the Dakaua, the Harmony, the Qugu, and the Taishibethi.