The Hive Mind
Character
Intent: The basis for Organic Craft to be built around. Not a craft in and of itself.
Image Credit: Leviathan Short Film | Colin Thomas | Custom Text
Canon: Purrgil
Links: [member="The Hive Mind"] | Akestos | [member="Kylraya"] | SpaceSurge | SwarmSurge
GENERAL INFORMATION
Name: Terminus-Purrgil
Designation: None-Sentient
Origins: The Hive Mind, also known as the Swarm Mind when speaking collectively.
Average Lifespan: 250
Estimated Population: Scattered
Description: Purrgil are naturally whale-like creatures that live in deep space. Terminus Purrgil are still large whale creatures that act more as sharks consuming a large number of minerals as part of their diet. It's not known how big regular Purrgil grow to with no artificial limits like gravity, only that they are massive and a danger to ships. Terminus Purrgil has known size and encouragement to grow that makes them very large. Their thick skin is often grey or orange, but sometimes a shade of black and red. Like many infected creatures, they can grow terminus armor and other types around themselves from the infection, but it tends to be down to the individual creature whether this happens or not, sometimes encouraged by the [member="The Hive Mind"] in one of its space maturation chambers.
Breathes: Clouzon-36 and Nothing.
Lesser:
Average Height of Adults: 100 meters | 328 ft
Average Length of Adults: 500 meters | 1640 ft
Greater:
Average Height of Adults: 250 meters | 820 ft
Average Length of Adults: 1000 meters | 3280 ft
Skin color: Grey, Black, Red, Orange
Hair color: None
Distinctions: Large space whales. Not needing to fight gravity, other predators, or expend much energy to move, they don't require as much food as your mind might initially think. They still need plenty but not as much as for example as a Surge Worm might. Their orange or grey variations tend to be the most common, and the swarms they travel in are often colored the same as each other. As they get older they tend to grow more and more tentacles from their body so that near the end of their life they are like a seabed floor might look like. These small tentacles allow them to gather food as they go about their business, as well as their large mouth. In space their mouth isn't used for a great many things, maybe nesting, rarely defending themselves, making a home but not much else. It is these tentacles that send their sonic signals and passively pick up food for them on their travels. As with many hive species, their skin is on the dry side. Unassisted the females tend to breed new whales at a rate of one every five years, taking at least 20-25 years for it to reach adulthood, assisted however by a hive structure this can vary dramatically.
Races: Lesser Terminus-Purrgil and Greater Terminus-Purrgil
Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive
Strengths:
- Massive
- Spaceborne. Flyes and breathes a vacuum.
- Purrgil are hyperspace capable.
- Powerful Jaw and Bite
- Big Targets.
- Have a tendency to wander into hyperspace lanes and traffic if left to their own devices.
- Breed slowly without assistance.
- Require Clouzon-36 for hyperpsace jumps.
- The creature is not infectious.
Diet: Minerals, Space Dust, Light Organic Matter.
Communication: Sonar, Sonic waves, Sight. The Hive Mind and the Swarm's Will also links their communication.
Technology level: None Existant.
Religion/Beliefs: The Hive's Focus, Travel, The Swarms Will, Exist, The Surge Impulse, Expand.
General behavior: Purrgil were swarm creatures that traveled in one long before the SwarmSurge found them. It was a natural fit like a glove, because they fly in large swarms around the galaxy naturally. Terminus-Purrgil are much the same and go about their business in the same way, only often given directions about where to do it by the Hive Mind or greater Swarm's Will so they don't run into other hive creatures. They feed, breed, and are fairly social creatures on their own, with a sense of social order even within the Hive Structure. The Terminus versions do act more as sharks than whales, given the Hive's nature for growth and expansion, but otherwise little needed to be changed about them.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
How does the Hive send information planet to planet? Well, it has Hive Nodes, Intelligent Convergences of different powers and ranges. This isn't always reliable enough to have a large stable neural network however, more was needed. Many things were tried, asteroid infestations, moons, very large hive structures. Nothing proved as reliable as creatures. Creatures it could control, direct and in the same way be directed by, through their eyes and ears as a collective will.
Space whales have been around for a very long time. Rumored to be the myth that started hyperspace travel. Whether you believe that or not, someone's always got a story about a friend of a friend almost hitting one. One fateful day, a Hive creature hit one, running straight into it to dramatic effect. Which meant the Hive Mind did and passed that information on to all its many members. It took a while to capture one, planning and many attempts, as usual, to integrate it into the hive. Eventually, through a few dozen failed attempts the hive managed it.
Since that day, the Hive has been finding these whales, as well as breeding new creatures, both to extend its reach when carrying node structures, but also for other uses soon to follow...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-45NTlgp-o