Cyber-Bees
For most human-adjacent species, the concept of a hive of honeybees as a sentient entity is almost never considered. While Evermornan would otherwise feel the same - regardless of their society's quite expansive definition of 'sentience' worth protecting with the force of law - this philosophical calculus changes when one considers augmented animals. A nest of 'cyber-bees' represents the crossing of the threshhold into legal sentience for Evermornans.
Cyber-bees are unique in that they have been altered through the inclusing of synthetic genes inspired by the unique Vbyifabid ability to sense microwave and radio frequencies. Each member of the nest is linked to one another across distances by not only by the usual ability of bees to communicate by dances and pheremones, but by faint electromagnetic signals as well - signals which, alongside specialized amplifiers and encoders found in artificially-constructed hive clusters, may allow for limited communication between the hivemind as a whole and its humanoid handlers.
Basic Information
Anatomy
A nest of cyber-bees is, from the exterior, almost indistinguishable from their natural-born counterparts.
Additional Information
Domestication
A hive of cyber-bees has a myriad of uses in an interterranean arcology or spacecraft large enough to support them. The most obvious use of a hive is that of a hyper-efficient apiary - both in the production of honey and in the pollination of crops. A hive can be employed in the course of surveying as well, utilizing the augmented intelligence of the hive and ability to communicate the fine details of geography.
One niche use of a hive of cyber-bees among the Cobalt Knights is, in combination with a limited artificial intelligence or computer interface implant, as a defensive area-denial weapon; no sane person will willfully cross a cloud of angry, quasi-sentient bees that make increasingly threatening buzzing noises as one approaches a restricted are. Cyber-bees can also be used to flush entrenched opponents out of their positions, as the bees are smart enough to go for only a designated target while leaving bystander (e.g. hostages) unscathed. Specially resealable hives with self-contained life support systems sometimes accompany Knight-Espatiers on raids into enemy spacecraft for this purpose.
Average Intelligence
A nest of cyber-bees' collective intelligence rises as the natural log of its population; within limits, the more bees there are, the smarter the hive becomes. Most of a hive's intelligence lies in spatial reasoning and chemosensory processing, making hives useful in monitoring the health of closed life support systems which employ a degree of traditional crop growth. This faculty makes them most common aboard large colony ships, such as the ESCI Revelation, or among the asteroid colonies of the Evermorn System. An average-sized confluence of cybernetically-enhanced bees, however, isn't all that smart in comparison to an augmented bird, dog, or cat.
It should be noted that, like most augmented animals and in keeping with the Protectorate's enshrined rights to autonomy among sentient beings, the will of a hive is not entirely subverted by its modificaitons. As such, it is important for handlers to develop a positive rapport with any hives they regularly employ - though, as eusocial insects, cyber-bees are significantly more amenable to suggestions from the 'big queen' than, say, a flock of augmented magpies would be.
Civilization and Culture
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Cyber-bees are notably sparse speakers when their signals are interpreted as natural language, as their 'native tongue' is one of scents and bodily motion. When interfacing with hives via cybernetic implants, handlers often express that cyber-bees 'speak' in sense-impressions and imagery more than anything else, relying only on limited verbalizations when simply showing the handler something won't do. Handlers who also have multi-tasking modifications installed and are accusomed to working with large swarms of individual units, such as Knight-Airman Enzo Salt, are often awe-struck with the micro-level beauty of nature that cyber-bees can express; the 'resolution' of such an experience is much less coarse than that provided by a swarm of space mining drones, for example, as there are so many more of the bees networked into a hive.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Related Ethnicities
Comments