The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7244

The emergence of 6 increasingly more distinct hives was bad news for red humanity. It showed that the mutated voribugs were advancing as a civilization. Perhaps ordinary people might view it as a sign of weakness on the part of the mysterious Devourer Queen, but the Dark Apostle and others knew better. The introduction of a deeper and more organized hierarchy would allow for better management of the mutated voribugs. By tasking the 'princesses' of these hives to pursue different strategies, the mutated voribugs could try out multiple approaches to warfare. This would allow them to rapidly learn what worked and what did not work for their particular race.

The more successful princesses might receive great favor and become the designated successors of the queen. The less successful ones would either be replaced or be allowed to make a comeback in order to provide more competition for their more successful peers. Their introduction added a powerful social dynamic in their racial group. It brought a new layer of socialization, governance, culture and more. This would ultimately make the mutated voribugs more resilient and difficult to eradicate. Many people would much prefer it if they remained stupid and brainless space insects that only knew how to swarm their prey.

The Dark Apostle's chief of staff proceeded to give a short presentation of the 6 hives that have made an appearance up to this point. "The 3 hives that are assaulting red humanity from the Rubarthan front have been designated as the Goliath Hive, the Superswarm Hive and the Solari Hive." The human spoke as stood in front of her seat. "In a single week, they have already begun to try out new strategies across dozens of star systems. The speed in which they are adapting their forces has taken many defenders by surprise. In certain cases, this has led to unexpected defeats." The projections showed clips of very recent battle footage. If the distinction between hives was not clear enough, the voribugs had even begun to add color to their otherwise plain and boring exoskeletons!

"Who came up with those names?"

"A Star Designer, a god pilot or a think tank comprised of exobiologists." Eliza dismissively shrugged. "The names are not important. They are labels that we use to remind other humans what to expect from the hives. In no way have the voribugs communicated with us. For all we know, their conception of language is completely different from ours."

The Dark Apostle leaned forward as he studied the projected battle footage. He could clearly see that the voribugs had made an effort to diversify their strategies and set the hives apart from each other. It was as if the queen at the top grew jealous of its enemies and became a lot more adamant about building up a civilization.

The chief of staff pointed at one of the projections, causing it to magnify in size. The enlarged projection displayed instances of yellow voribugs swarming human defensive positions. That did not sound special per se, but what truly caught the Dark Apostle's attention was the presence of larger and much more powerful voribugs. Their frequency was low. Millions if not billions of cannon fodder accompanied each voribug that could easily become as large as a mech or even a lesser phase lord!

"The yellow voribugs have been designated as the Goliath Hive. The princess of this hive is attempting to imitate both humans and the native aliens by developing the voribug equivalent of champion units. In this case, the hive develops a much more sophisticated strain of voribug subspecies and invests a large amount of phasewater as well as mid to high-grade exotics and hypers. The results consist of small amounts of very powerful 'Goliath' subspecies that can actually hold their own against expert mechs and lesser phase lords. We have already identified 15 subspecies and more will emerge with every passing week."

These goliaths towered over their mundane insect brothers and wielded powers that may have been based on exobeasts. Their yellow exoskeletons were extraordinarily thick and could withstand concentrated bombardment from human warships for a moderate amount of time. The goliaths were not entirely unique. There were hundreds of them already, but each of them fit into at least 15 distinct templates. It reminded the Dark Apostle how human high-ranking mechs often fit into a finite number of recognizable mech archetypes.

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"It really feels as if the Goliath Hive is trying to copy our champions down to developing different 'archetypes'. Do these Goliaths all remain the same within their subspecies, or will they grow and become more unique over time?"

"Not enough time has passed to make that determination, sir, but our analysis predicts that the Goliaths will likely maintain uniformity between themselves. If the individual Goliaths are permitted to grow, then they will likely remain uniform within their subspecies. Each of them are rough diamonds. The princess of the hive is likely monitoring their performance closely. Each imperfection will be removed from every member of a Goliath strain. Each helpful addition will spread to all of the Goliaths of a single strain because it makes sense for them to adhere to best practices."

That was different to how the native aliens and red humanity treated their champions. It was a good choice. What the Goliath Hive lacked in individualism, it made up for it in quantity. There was no need for the Goliath Hive to spend an excessive amount of thought, effort and resources to develop millions of Goliath strains. It was better to stick to a manageable number of champion subspecies that were diverse enough to address the vast majority of challenges on the battlefield.

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