The Guard Swarm

Here is an interesting relayed report from a feeding swarm. It encountered a light swarm that has for the first time carried a tall animal from that world. It has taken the animal to one of the small border sections but requests guidance on what to do next. The animal was given by another tall animal like it and the swarm fears it was removed because of desync.

We believe there is no danger. Desync doesn't move from part to part, and a desynced animal won't interfere with the workings of a swarm. We suggest the swarm observe the animal, and we eagerly await future reports.

The human woman, a refugee, took the desperate chance of trusting a stranger who promised the chok could keep her and her daughter hidden. The swarm carried her untraceably underwater to an atoll unknown to her pursuers, where she felt safe for the first time in more than a year. In exploring the other objects stashed on the island, she came across some bottles of paint and a barrel about the size of one of the chok. As an artist, she couldn't resist.

The light swarm has delivered another report about the tall animals. What it has observed:

• It is not one animal, but two. There is a smaller one that sometimes sticks to the big one, and the swarm didn't see it because it didn't detach until after it was placed on the border section.


• The animal moves too smoothly to be in the process of desyncing. The smaller one is less coordinated, but the swarm believes it is an immature form.


• They are both able to mimic the sounds made by scraping dead rock Animal shells together.


• The bigger animal displayed the unique behavior of consuming something without degrading it. It found the shells full of slime among the other goods, and put the slime on a rolling holder in a way that gave it the appearance of a part.

The swarm concludes that tall animals may be a kind of part themselves, as the voices are of the Singer. If it's not desynced, then it must be lost from a swarm. To keep them from dying, our swarm will take the animals to the nearest place where we know other tall animals live.

She didn't expect it would last, since she had been given to the chok as barter goods. After a few months the swarm traded them away. The people who "owned" her were a species she'd never seen before--bipedal, digitigrade, tailed, tall-eared, and every adult at least a head taller than she was. She belonged to their chief, who kept her daughter as a pet for his children. It wasn't the best situation, but at least she was still in a place she wouldn't be found.
But the chief's children grew up faster than her daughter did. When it no longer interested them to play with the human child, the chief traded both humans back to the chok.

New report: these animals are also removing the big and small animals, which still appear to be synced. The big one has learned the sounds for "fear" and "danger" and uses them frequently. We can't be sure it understands the meaning of the sounds, but it's concerning that they were unable to integrate into a swarm of their own kind. Our swarm believes it was because the other animals were too big and caused the animal's fear. It's carrying the two animals now and will take them to a swarm of smaller animals, and this time continue observing them.

We're very interested in these animals and approve our swarm's change of priority. There are enough other light swarms investigating the features of the light world to spare one for other purposes. If these animals are members of another entity, we should do what we can to keep them alive until we learn who they are.

Time Frame: recent