Approved Species Swarm Energy Leech

[Akestos]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Intent: Swarm Energy Leech
Image Credit: Alien | Custom Text
Canon: Mynock | Plasma Leech
Links: [member="The Hive Mind"] | Akestos | [member="Kylraya"] | SpaceSurge | SwarmSurge | The Swarm

GENERAL INFORMATION

Name: Swarm Energy Leech
Designation: None-Sentient
Origins: The Hive Mind, also known as the Swarm Mind when speaking collectively.

Average Lifespan: 15
Estimated Population: Inter-Planetary
Description: Energy leeches are vile looking creatures with a flexible head. Able to direct themselves in space and propel themselves using this flexible jaw, means it is often flapping around until the creature latches onto a surface radiating energy, or shields blocking physical matter. Then the head not only often bites into the metal surface, but more importantly, the suction on the leech will clamp down on whatever it hits. Including forming a flexible head around shields that block physical matter in the same way. This creature is a pest, like most of its kind, and doesn't come loose or give up without some serious effort.

​

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

Breathes: Vacuum and Type IV Environments or Better

Average Height of Adults: 30 cm | 0.9 ft
Average Length of Adults: 1.5 meters | 4.9ft


Skin color: Grey, Black, Red, Orange
Hair color: None
Distinctions: Being a worm-like creature, as long as the head remains, it can often still stay attached and alive. Drawing energy out of shields, power systems, cables, weapons, and engines for example. Most are grey, but on land other variations are more common. The range it can drain from depends on how conductive the surface it attaches itself to is. Thirty meters is reasonable on a ship, but more or less is possible depending on the metal, or lack thereof. The size of the energy source is also important, a very large ship radiates a lot of energy, whereas a handheld device doesn't. Their stink matches their appearance, and nothing about them makes for a good day. If they can't reach the energy source, they tend to just chew into the hull until they can, that's the one thing they do well. Like all Hive animals, it is part of the collective will.

Races: Swarm Energy Leech
Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive

Strengths:

• Drains energy, shields and general system power.
• Spaceborne. Flyes and breathes a vacuum.
• Very hard to remove once attached.
• Can suffer grievous injuries as long as the head is intact.

Weaknesses:

• The jaws are sharp enough to pierce metal, but the creature is also slow on land, making it a sitting duck on a solid surface.
• Dumb. These worms are stupid. Without the hive having a strong connection to it, the animal will likely just sit where it is.
• Thin Skin. Not hard to pierce with any kind of weapon. Very rarely grows any armor from the infection.
• No ranged ability.
• Doesn't breed on its own.

CULTURE

Diet: Minerals, Space Dust, Organic Matter.
Communication: Sonar, Sonic waves, Touch. The Hive Mind and the Swarm's Will also links their communication.
Technology level: None Existant.
Religion/Beliefs: The Swarms Will, Exist. The Surge Impulse, Expand.
General behavior: These creatures are dumb. Apart from going somewhere to eat energy, they don't do much without the Swarm's own will telling them to. They might at a stretch go find something else to eat if it's nearby, but just as likely they will stop exactly where they are and do nothing. Their intelligence really is that of a worm with nothing to do. They do not breed on their own. They might be plotting galactic domination instead of drifting aimlessly but experts consider it unlikely.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Most of the time that the Hive came into contact with pests like these it squashed them. Assessing them like almost everyone else, as pests. That was until it encountered a large metal bulk firing at it. Several energy leeches and other creatures seemed to be living off the metal. It was a very old pirate ship, which preferred the creatures as a sort of living armor, and is also one of the ways the Hive Mind first found that to be a concept at all.

Now Instead of pests, the greater collective saw the use these creatures could be to the Hive. The dead metal bulk was less dangerous with creatures such as these attached, they seemed to slow the dead metal down. The Hive had to find this out several more times as usual. With a simple update the Hive's neural net upgraded and refined itself cementing this new information. Since then the leeches have been surrounding certain hive creatures and craft as they traverse the void between biospheres and planets. Bio-engineered to be somewhat docile and useful to the hive, their DNA has been studied in great depth.

Apparently, they make soothing signals to nearby wild creatures, but nobody has confirmed this strange observation.