The Hive

The Hive is a vast locust-like 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 Hive forced peace between the Galactic Alliance and the Veskarium in order to stave off mutual destruction. Though it was repelled, the Hive 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 Hive'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 Hive 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 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 from where this ability came from, whether through natural evolution, genetic manipulation or demonic intervention. Nonetheless, this proto-Hive quickly overwhelmed the other hives and inherited new abilities from its prey to optimize its own members. In short order, the proto-Hive 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.
During the Gap, a mutation caused an entire sub colony to learn to think for themselves and break from the Hive's hive mind, with each of its members gaining a sense of self. Addicted to the new drug of individualism, these renegades rejected the Hive's mindless consumption, forming a new race called shirrens. After the Gap ended, the shirrens took advantage of the Hive's confusion to escape.
When Lesu revealed the Drift to the universe, the proto-Hive engineered some of its members as symbiotic Drift engines that could be incorporated into their starships. During this time, the name 'Hive' was coined by those who ran afoul of them.
In 291 AG, the Hive launched simultaneous attacks on both the Galactic Alliance and the Veskarium, who had been at war for more than 200 years. In order to survive, the two governments agree to end their hostilities, working together to successfully chase out the Hive from their territory, marking the Hive's only defeat in recorded history. The Hive learnt of the shirrens' presence in the alliance, remembered their ancient connection to Hylax, and started to feel resentment at her abandonment. In 318 AR, the Hive consumed the shirren colony of Ilemchuuva, in the process learning of the path taken by the shirrens after their exodus.

Ecology

The Hive moves from planet to planet in living ships, reducing each so-called feeder world to a barren, lifeless husk. Once it has consumed everything of use on a planet, the Hive moves on, not bothering to hold territory. Nothing useful or animate is left behind.
The Hive has the ability to isolate its prey's DNA and integrate their aspects into the its genome. When a Hive component subsumes DNA from prey and brings it to the hive, programmers access and isolate the DNA's aspects, learn to activate or deactivate sections as needed, then edit larvae's genomes so they would mature into forms with useful characteristics, leading to the variety of Hive components. The Hive also maintains genetic records to allow recombination into new forms if needed.
Hive components reproduce through various ways, including parthenogenesis, cloning and sexual reproduction. Some can change sex to fertilize their own eggs. In any case, most components exhibit no sex. Once a Hive larva's genome is edited, it then becomes a pupa and liquefies inside its cocoon, reorganizing into its mature form and emerging after 60 hours. Sometimes, larvae lose their individuality and turn into parts of a living device upon maturation. Those whose genomes are unedited grow into programmers.
The Hive has a spoken language, but components rarely use it, preferring pheromones (for simple concepts), body language (for complex ones) or telepathy (for multifaceted communication). Through the hive mind, thousands of components can operate in perfect synchronicity.
While individual components of the Hive have some form of intelligence, their decisions are more akin to complex programmed reflexes than true thought, constantly overridden by the directives of the overarching Hive consciousness. While capable of operating independently when sent out on scouting missions, entire sub colonies are subsumed into the gestalt when they return within telepathic range of the hive. The Hive is capable of nigh-unimaginable data processing and leaps of induction, which it uses to inform its needs in upcoming conflicts.
Hive components never communicate with other creatures, as they see every alien entity as either a food source or a threat that must be destroyed. Only massive force can deter the Hive from descending on a world and stripping it of biological material before moving on. While individual components might tactically retreat, fear is utterly unknown to the Hive. Components feel neither affinity with each other nor hatred or anger toward enemies. Those few whose goals align closely with the Hive's might see cooperation, but can reliably expect betrayal as soon as they are no longer needed. The Hive only does what is best for it, with no morality or concern for anyone or anything else.

Type

Exotic, Gestalt Consciousness