[Unknown_Enemy]

Xi-Chung’s Nest.
The thought band was still full of excited howling from the finding of the Parasite’s homeworld. Tigers of Eden had managed to break the strong defences of the Tirenda/Wisani warp point. Behind these lines lay the Xi-Chung nest, the source of their power. With more than 10 fortresses in orbit of their planet and a formidable planetary shield network, it would be a daunting task to storm the place. Nevertheless, it was a major step toward extinguishing their threat to the natural order. Major research efforts in shield depleting weapons and planetary bombs would be needed to cleanse the Nest, but victory was now within reach. Without their homeworld, the Xi-Chung power would be broken. However, the downfall of the parasites would be long in its coming, as two different supply bases would have to be build to allow a direct assault on their nest. Meanwhile, it was highly doubtful the aliens would stand idly while Eden’s children build up in force within strike range of their sacred homeworld. Indeed, the OverMind was considering unavoidable heavy losses with great sadness.
On the other side, this part of the campaign was proving the definite superiority of Void-Tigers in the field of warfare. Void-Hawks lacked the killer instinct for these duties. One by one, surviving veteran Hawks were coming back in orbit of Eden, to put themselves on hibernation, waiting for more peaceful times to awaken, but also allowing their battered hide to slowly regenerate.

Hungry KaneSS.
Somewhere in deep space near Urani warp point, a Hawk of Eden closed on a KaneSS population transport.
“Your attention please, I am One from Eden requesting immediate and direct communication with the captain of this civil transport. Waiting.”
A few minutes later, a hissing voice replied : “this is captain Trissi speaking, what do you want ?”
“I want 200 individuals of your species delivered in a container with enough supply to survive for 1 day. I also want speed in that transfer.”
“You are a warship, I see that. But you’re nothing compared to our military. I refute your threat, you won’t dare attack us. So begone or face KaneSS wrath.”
“You misunderstood captain. For 200 live adults, I’ll pay you 50 tons of top quality meat. You’ll also get a 10 tons bonus if the exchange is done in less than 24H. Any questions ?”
Ten hours later, the Hawk of Eden was flying at full thrust toward his Homeworld. In a sealed part of his stomach lay 200 KaneSS in cryogenic sleep. A few months later, all KaneSS specimens had been studied, their brains assimilated and their bodies dissected. After all, KaneSS life was cheap.

The OverMind found that once again, prudence had been the wisest choice. In fact, it all came down to the Project. To create a planetary mind, a bare minimum of 1 million individual was needed. Even so, such a newborn mind was barely able to merge with Eden’s OverMind, and Intelligence was not its strongest point. Time was needed for his parts to grow, as the OverMind was not a distinct specie, but a whole ecosystem gone sentient. Thus all constituent species had to reproduce at the same relative speed. Or, to put it mildly, if you wanted to accelerate the growth rate of colonies, all species had to be cloned simultaneously. Thus the Hive Mother Project. A new life form able to store thousands of genetic codes, a being whose gigantic body would be laying both on earth and underwater, a mother for thousands of different species, from animals to vegetal, from fishes to insects. Unfortunately, the Hive Mother needed a long list of rare nutriments to create its offspring. These had to be found on several planets. So far, the OverMind had not found a solar system able to support more than one Hive Mother at a time. The research work done on that project had been tremendous, and it also generated a myriad of smaller projects, like the KaneSS abduction. That Last one was used to understand more thoroughly their psychology, and prove a point : what the OverMind was seeing as “Accelerated Growth Project”, KaneSS would translate as “Unlimited Free Meat”. They would kill anyone or enslave anything to own such a food generator.

Unsurprisingly, the OverMind was very uneasy seeing itself from the Free Meat’s point of view.


REMINDER : we are using proportion mod, so homeworlds are the main source of power.

[ June 23, 2004, 13:14: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]