Mak'ti
The mak'ti are a large, highly organized species of megarthropods that inhabit the vast network of limestone caverns beneath Kemesh, as well as the jungle-covered surface. Though they are often misunderstood by other species, the mak'ti possess an advanced and alien form of civilization, driven by a collective consciousness that emerges through their hive mind. Ranging from two to eight feet in length, they follow a strict caste-based system, with different physical and cognitive capacities determined by their roles within the hive.
Morphology
Mak'ti are large arthropods with a tri-segmented body and six limbs, typically used for locomotion. However, they are capable of rotating their thorax vertically into a centaur-like formation, using their front limbs as manipulators for tasks such as farming, combat, and building. Each of these limbs is equipped with six jointed claws, allowing for a high level of dexterity. Mak'ti have two sets of mandibles. The outer mandibles are large, saw-toothed, and designed for cutting through tough plant material or combat, while the smaller inner mandibles are used for finer tasks such as grooming and manipulating smaller objects.
Senses
Although the mak'ti possess large compound eyes, they are nearsighted and rely heavily on their other senses to navigate and interact with their environment. They detect heat and locate heat sources through a specialized patch of pits on their faces. Four antennae extend from their heads, providing the mak'ti with acute senses of smell and taste, which they use to detect pheromones, food sources, and potential threats. Stiff hairs on their heads, backs, and limbs detect vibrations and air currents, giving the mak'ti an unparalleled ability to sense their environment, both underground and on the surface.
Communication
Mak'ti communicate directly with each other through phermones, touch and posture. But what sets them apart is their unmatched ability to communicate through patterns of vibration. The bottom of their four hind limbs have percussive digits that they tap against the surfaces, creating rhythmic bursts of sound and vibrations. These vibrations travel through the structure of their hives, allowing them to communicate with each other over vast distances. This network of vibrations forms the foundation of the mak'ti hive mind, a super-consciousness that directs their collective efforts.
Caste System
Mak'ti society is highly stratified, with different castes designed to fulfill specific roles within the colony. Each caste has its own specialized physiology and functions, contributing to the hive’s complex infrastructure, food production, and defense mechanisms.
Nursery Workers
Three feet in length, nursery workers are responsible for tending to the colony’s young. These workers also double as medical caregivers, treating injuries and infections, and they play a crucial role in grooming both young and adult mak'ti. Grooming is an important social function within the colony, helping to maintain hygiene and solidify bonds between individuals.
Farmers
Farmers, four feet in length, are responsible for cultivating and tending the fungal farms deep within the hive’s underground chambers. These fungi serve as the primary food source for the entire colony. Farmers also participate in expanding cavern space, using acidic secretions from glands near their mouths to dissolve limestone and other materials, allowing the hive to grow its underground territory. Farmers play a vital role in maintaining the hive's long-term sustainability, not only by growing food but also by regulating the climate and air circulation within the caverns.
Harvesters
Harvesters are six feet in length and serve as the primary gatherers of external resources. Their most important task is to harvest tree saplings from the surface, which are essential for maintaining the fungi farms. These trees are selectively cut with the harvester’s powerful mandibles, then processed and masticated by the farmer caste to create nutrient-rich compost for the fungi. Mak'ti harvesters are highly organized and strategic in their foraging activities. They rotate through different areas of the jungle, targeting younger, fast-growing tree species to ensure that the jungle has time to recover between harvests. This rotation system minimizes environmental damage and ensures a consistent supply of resources for the hive. In addition to forage, harvesters also consume large amounts of water, stored in their stomach to be brought back to the hive for its use.
Soldiers
Soldiers, the largest of the mak'ti, are eight to nine feet long. They serve as the protectors of the hive, both underground and during surface expeditions. Soldiers are equipped with massive mandibles that secrete formic acid and sharp front claws, which they use to saw through flesh and grab or pierce enemies. In addition to their formidable natural weapons, soldiers are fearless and relentless when defending the hive. Soldiers accompany harvesters on foraging expeditions to ensure their safety and defend against potential threats, including rival mak'ti hives or predatory species. When stationed within the hive, soldiers guard key chambers, such as the queen's chamber or the fungal farms, ensuring that the colony remains secure.
Builders
Builders are specialized workers tasked with the construction and maintenance of the hive’s underground structures. Their forelimbs powerful and their claws are reinforced with extremely hard, biomineralized chiton. They excavate new corridors and chambers by spraying formic acid from their mouths and then use their mandibles and claws to dig out the softened limestone. After excavation, builders secrete a unique mucus from glands on their abdomens, which hardens into a tough, water-resistant substance. This material reinforces the structural integrity of the hive, providing durability against cave-ins or external intrusions. The hardened mucus also acts as a vibration conductor, enhancing the hive’s communication network. Builders also play a critical role in surface expansion by maintaining the trails and pathways that the harvesters and soldiers use to travel to and from the jungle. These pathways are lined with hardened mucus and regularly maintained by builders who travel with surface expeditions.
Queens
The queens are the reproductive and intellectual core of the hive. Though individually, queens exhibit intelligence comparable to that of monkeys, they form the nexus of the hive's collective intelligence. Six queens reside together in a central chamber, fed and attended to by workers. There they receive vibration patterns from the various parts of the hive, communicate among themselves and relay command vibrations back through the hive. Each queen specializes in producing offspring for a specific caste, ensuring that the hive maintains a balanced population of workers, soldiers, builders, and harvesters.
Subqueens
Emanating from the main queen chamber are smaller chambers that house subqueens. These mak'ti do not reproduce unless necessary. Should a queen become incapacitated, a subqueen undergoes hormonal changes that allow her to assume the reproductive duties of the lost queen. This redundancy ensures the continued survival of the hive in the event of an unexpected loss of leadership. Three subqueens reside in chambers, forming subnexuses, receiving information from different sectors of the hive, processing it among themselves and providing commands, only sending forward information to the queens that involve matters beyond their sectors.
Overseers
Overseers are the administrators of the hive, responsible for managing the various functions within their specific chambers. Although they do not reproduce under normal conditions, overseers can become fertile in extreme circumstances, to help maintain the reproductive integrity of the colony, producing only queens in that eventuality. Overseers coordinate activities such as allocation of resouces, the care and position of young, and directing workers in new tasks.
The Hive Spirit
The true strength of the mak'ti lies in their collective intelligence, which emerges from the continuous flow of communication between individuals. This super-consciousness, known as the hive spirit, directs the hive’s activities with post-human levels of reasoning and information processing. The colony spirit is capable of managing complex tasks like defense, resource management, and strategic expansion with a singular focus on survival and growth. Despite its vast intelligence, the colony spirit’s goals are relatively simple and revolve around the core needs of the hive:
- Raising offspring: Ensuring the survival of the next generation is the colony's primary directive.
- Growing food: Maintaining and expanding the fungal farms that nourish the hive.
- Territorial expansion: Continuously expanding the hive’s tunnels and securing more surface resources.
- Defense: Protecting the hive from predators, rival hives, and other threats.
Influence of Proximity and Concentration
The intelligence of individual mak'ti increases based on their proximity to the hive and the number of other mak'ti present. For example, mak'ti who are far from the colony—such as a lone harvester stranded on the surface—have only the intelligence of a clever animal. In contrast, mak'ti within the heart of the hive may exhibit more sophisticated behaviors, if the hive spirit's attention is focused on them.
Above-Ground Territory
While the majority of mak'ti activity takes place underground, they are not confined to the caverns. The harvesters and soldiers regularly emerge onto the surface at night to gather resources, particularly tree saplings, which are essential for the fungi farms. The mak'ti rotate their harvest areas and selectively target young, fast-growing tree species, allowing the jungle to recover in between harvests. This practice reflects the colony spirit’s understanding of sustainable resource management. By rotating harvest areas, the mak'ti ensure that they do not over-exploit any one part of the jungle, allowing the ecosystem to regenerate. Moreover, the mak'ti take their waste and refuse from the hive and spread it over areas that have been recently denuded by harvesting. This waste acts as a natural fertilizer, speeding up the recovery of these areas and ensuring the long-term viability of their resource base.
Interaction with outsiders
Mak'ti colonies are generally non-aggressive toward other species unless provoked. They are known to ignore non-threatening intruders within their hive, merely pushing them aside if they obstruct the colony’s work. However, they are highly aggressive toward any intruders from rival mak'ti hives, which are immediately detected by scent and swiftly attacked. The varhani, one of the few species to regularly encounter the mak'ti, maintain a cautious but respectful relationship with the colonies. Conflicts arise only when mak'ti harvesters begin encroaching too close to varhani territory, though both species prefer to avoid direct confrontation whenever possible.
Internal Conflict: Split Personalities and Civil War
Despite the cohesion of the colony spirit, internal conflict can occasionally arise, leading to the development of split personalities. This phenomenon occurs when conflicting ideations—often related to resource management or defense strategies—begin to form within the hive’s collective intelligence.
Peaceful Resolution
In most cases, these conflicts are resolved peacefully. The weaker of the two personalities will compress itself into an embryonic hive, consisting of a small group of queens, soldiers, and workers, and depart to form a new colony. This process is often initiated by the colony spirit as a way of preserving harmony within the hive, allowing both personalities to continue independently.
Civil War
However, when two personalities are too evenly matched in strength, the result can be a devastating civil war. The hive may divide into factions, with the minds controlling as many mak'ti and queens as they are able. These internal conflicts can be extremely destructive, often resulting in the extermination of one personality or the forced submission and departure of the weaker faction. Such civil wars are rare but tend to occur near the time of natural hive replication, when the colony is already preparing to split. In these cases, the defeated personality may be allowed to leave and form a new colony rather than being destroyed.
Replication and Expansion
Mak'ti hives maintain a total volume of around 1 cubic mile, extending roughly a cone shape extending 4 square miles on the surface and three fourths of a mile into the earth. They seek to maintain homeostasis, breeding only as many mak'ti as necessary to maintain a healthy hive. Colony spirits themselves reproduce only infrequently. Mak'ti hives only replicate once every few centuries, with the daughter hive consisting of three queens, 12 soldiers, and 48 to 60 builders, foragers, farmers and nurses. Daughter hives generally settle anywhere from ten to fifty miles from their origin. Once they find a suitable location, builders immediately dig down and create a temporary chamber for the queens and nurses. They continue to dig deeper, beginning the corridors and chambers of the colony. The foragers begin clearing the immediate surface of forage to be used by the farmers for the first fungus farms once the builders have constructed a farm chamber.
Surface and Underground Migration
When faced with environmental threats—such as resource depletion, drought, or pestilence—the hive may choose to migrate. For slower-moving threats, the colony spirit will direct the hive to excavate new tunnels in a favorable direction, abandoning the old territory as it expands underground. However, for more immediate dangers, such as natural disasters or large-scale predation, the hive may undergo a surface migration. During surface migrations, the queens are carried and protected by soldiers, while harvesters and builders search for new regions to establish the colony. These migrations are extremely dangerous, as the mak'ti prefer to remain underground to maintain the strength of their collective intelligence. However, when the situation demands it, they are capable of coordinated, rapid surface movement.
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