Hyvalisk Colony

[Captain Larraq]

Intent: To create an easy to understand shield-analog for 'Vong organic ships.
Development Thread: None
Manufacturer: Horde Shapers
Model: Hyvalisk Colony
Affiliation: The Horde
Modularity: None
Production: Mass Produced
Material: Organic Construct,
Classification: Organic Shield System
Size: Starship Component

Description:

Hyvalisk Colony (Orbalisk)
Hyvalisks are tiny insects shaped by the Vong from captured Orbalisks. These tiny insects build hives in the upper layers of coral or in the outer skin of biological creatures. These insects can survive and move about in the absolute vacuum of space. These tiny creatures form thin clouds as they swarm over the surface of the ship they infect. This layer of insects deflects and absorbs the energy of incoming energy weapons fire in much the same way as a layer of ray shielding would. The cloud of insects is so dense that even projectile weaponry are slowed and deflected off course, allowing the insect swarm to perform a similar function as a deflector shield when withstanding all forms of weaponry.
These insects feed on the host ship/creature and breed rapidly. While millions of these insects could die during a few seconds of starship combat, these millions are quickly replaced and grow to maturity in time to replace those lost during the last barrage of damage the bio-ship withstood. For all intents and purposes, Hyvalisk Colonies, as a starship component, function identically to deflector shielding of an appropriate size for the ship in question.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

I respect the intent, but there's some technical challenges that, on examination, are inescapable.

Millions of insects in a matter of minutes or seconds? I took a look at the world's most extreme insect breeding rates. This leaves them all in the dust. At that speed, within hours there could be trillions of them. You've basically made insect gray goo, and there is nothing more easily abused than gray goo.

With apologies, denied on the superweapon principle, and the common-sense extrapolation that if the Vong could make eat-everything bugs reproduce that quickly, they'd have tweaked them to eat worlds by now.