The Swarm

The Swarm is a vast locust swarm that is driven by an innate need to consume all things and absorb their best qualities into itself. Piloting living starships and capable of slowly twisting their own biology into formidable weapons, the threat of the Swarm forced peace between the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium in order to stave off mutual destruction. Though it was repelled, the Swarm yet exists and will remain a threat until the day it is purged from the universe.

Appearance

Because of its constant genetic upgrading and experimentation, the Swarm's members boast a wide variety of shapes, sizes and capabilities, depending on each individual component's role in the hive. Most have chitinous exoskeletons, segmented bodies and jointed digitigrade limbs.

History

The Swarm began its existence as the kucharns, a species of low-tech insects native to the fourth and only inhabited planet in a nameless solar system in The Vast. The ancient kucharns followed a goddess named Hylax, believed to be the first of their species, a kucharn queen who ascended to godhood to watch over her progeny for eternity, before evolving into a series of hive minds whose drones had no agency of their own. Kucharn hives, each with its own consciousness, culture and hierarchy, competed constantly with each other, but no hive managed to exterminate another.

When their growing population neared the limit that their homeworld could sustain, one kucharn hive learned the trick of subsuming another colony's intelligence into its own. It is unknown where this ability came from, whether through natural evolution, genetic manipulation or demonic intervention. Nonetheless, this proto-Swarm quickly overwhelmed the other hives and inherited new abilities from its prey to optimize its own members. In short order, the proto-Swarm had exterminated all rival hives and stripped bare its homeworld with its hunger, causing Hylax to turn away from them out of disappointment. With a unified focus, it quickly mastered biotechnology, learnt the principles of space travel, and began consuming other planets in its home system, but had difficulty spreading to the rest of the galaxy. When Triune revealed The Drift to the universe, the proto-Swarm engineered some of its members as symbiotic Drift engines that could be incorporated into their starships. During this time, the name 'Swarm' was coined by those who ran afoul of them.

Birth of the Shirren

During The Gap, a mutation caused an entire subcolony to learn to think for themselves and break from the Swarm's hive mind, with each of its members gaining a sense of self. Addicted to the new drug of individualism, these renegades rejected the Swarm's mindless consumption, forming a identity, calling themselves Shirren. After the Gap ended, the shirrens took advantage of the Swarm's confusion to escape.

Attack on Near Space

In 291 AG, the Swarm launched simultaneous attacks on both the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium, who had been at war with each other for more than 200 years. In order to survive, the two governments agreed to end their hostilities and worked together to expel the Swarm invasion, the only time the Swarm had ever been defeated. During the war, the Swarm learned of the shirrens' presence in the Pact Worlds, remembered their ancient connection to Hylax, and started to resent having been abandoned. In 318 AR, the Swarm consumed the shirren colony of Ilemchuuva, in the process learning of the path taken by the shirrens after their exodus.

Current Happenings

The Swarm is currently not at war with the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium, instead focusing its aggression on the magical republic called the Szandite Collective.