Hive Queen Quest 60

It is time.

Yes.
QD, can we have our ships raid OQ automatically?

You guys do realize the Black Queen is attacking the system with the planets Path and Talgo.

Finished Research

>Lithovore dissection
Astoundingly, these beasts seem to come in a number of shapes and sizes, living and consuming just as normal carbon based life, only with silicon as a base. Frustratingly, your thinkers have hit a wall unlike any previous research attempt. All methods of genetic decryption and analysis have met with failure, and all attempts to deconstruct the component materials into a properly researchable pseudo-protein compound has also met with failure. The closest thing to a genetic structure, something more similar to a series of interconnected chemical laden viruses and bacteria, offer no real hints to their internal code commanding them. Structurally, the chemical compounds react in a manner that results in a similar behavior as genetic code, but through a more complex process of relaying chemical compounds from one substance to another. A strain of virus-like cells transfer substances back and forth between a more complex chain of silicon bacterium which seems to perform cell division on behalf of the smaller cells. The process is convoluted and confusing, and you are still unsure of the reasoning behind their actions on a cellular level, or even if there is any. As it is, the dead beasts offer little clues, and their genetics, if you can call it that, is glaringly incompatible to your own.
If you are to study these beasts further, you fear you will need a live subject.

>Photonic armor
While weak and quick to decay, the photonic armor still offers a potent defensive capability in that it is capable of rapidly repairing itself and any damage it sustains, making it an invaluable tool for maneuvering over terrain with poor cover for short periods, or offering additional protection from attacks to nearby units.

My bad, copy and pasted them over from your orders but with so many sub-threads I must have missed one. Sorry.

>Hive-dusting
Alternative methods of hive creep spore dispersal is investigated, using a mixture of the semi-automated hive expansion methods already in use and altering the genetic composition to be more autonomous in nature, allowing spores to be deployed from non-stationary sources such as aerial dispersal from drones or spacecraft, as well as air-burst spore bombs launched from orbit, allowing for hive creep to be deployed in a more aggressive manner, effectively weaponizing the self-replicating infrastructure. The process is slower and more localized than the work of a Capillary Tower, however with no need for a tower to be present, the process can be undertaken more readily in the presence of hostile forces.

New Research Available

>Isolation fields
Very fast
A simple application of known technology, photonic armor projectors are installed in ships and hive facilities to permit the rapid deployment of fields to stop the progress of attackers and assist in damage control, isolating contagions, momentarily halting decompression, and stifling fires and other potential dangers just long enough for a more measured response to solve the issue. In theory, such a collection of simple stop-gap temporary solutions would drastically improve a ship's survivability in combat, allowing it to sustain far more damage than ever before and still continue to function.

Current Research

>Crystal neural jack implant
Fast
While you doubt it will uncover any new fundamental technology, a more detailed and in depth study of the remaining cerebral implants found within the possessed humans should at least grant you insight into its design, function, and hopefully, weaknesses.

>Smith disection
Medium
A cyborg of still largely unknown details and specifications, the "smith" as they are referred, are among the most potent black ops agents within the Union, using advanced robotics technology that is otherwise highly illegal for civilian use.

>Core Rejuvenation
Slow
The inverse of Core Mining, this process utilizing powerful planetary scale electromagnets drilled deep beneath the planet to artificially force the core to begin to spin. The process causes mild geological and ecological damage, but the resulting effects can be maintained for hundreds of years with negligible disruption to the planet's environment to maintain once the core is rotating. Once the planet's core is active, the planet gains a magnetosphere, allowing it to hold a denser atmosphere capable of supporting life, and the surface becomes geologically active. Allows the terraforming of barren planets.

>Psionic Spores
Slow
While normally the hive spores used to spread infrastructure are little more than genetically engineered nanomachines, replicating and performing their function alone until their built structure is complex enough to receive mental signals, your mixture of psionic research and advancements in spore related genetic programming has made the idea of a psionically sensitive spore seem not nearly as far fetched as it once did. With a mixture of distributed networking and complex cellular reconstruction methods, it could be possible to create a spore strain that would respond to mental signals.

THE QUEEN LIVES!

Also build a moth colony with fake queen moth and cute month talkers.

Yes or not?

>Yes

>research posts
muh dik

Which thread was that in?

>My bad, copy and pasted them over from your orders but with so many sub-threads I must have missed one. Sorry.
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/48446300/#p48450457
I assume the rest of its been overwritten by the new construction.

>No

Make me forget the dumb things I did in my life prior to now

It's been too long.

No

We really should start taking screen captures and just link those when we wsnt to reference something. To don’t make the poor Quest Drone rummage over old threads.

Wonder if we can make a more powerful version of photonic armor. If so, installing generators in sections of our ships could act as emergancy bulkheads vs the vacuum of space and help a ships survivability. Not to mention the uses vs boarders.

see Also twitter.com/HiveQueenQuest/status/762507471931871232

And on the next post. Heh.

>Complex organ splicing
Medium
While it is easy to pull a string of genetic data from most carbon based life and infuse it into the hive, making the inefficient genetic structure of other life accept the more efficient and deliberately programmed hive genetic data is far more challenging. In an ironic way, much of the solution seems to involve the utilization of controlled flaws, rendering the mutations deliberately inefficient in order to be more compatible with the host life so as to avoid dominating the host's genetic structure in the same way as the Hive hybrids and chimeras. Such subtle alterations could offer better, more difficult methods of infiltrating or manipulating non-hive life.

>Advanced Psionic Imprinting
Slow
With the application of psionic imprinting you are able to influence and alter the state of matter using only focused and precise mental signals. Your thinkers believe this can be taken further, using more accurate signals and more precise manipulation methods to imprint more complex thoughts and ideas more quickly and easily, and at a greater range.

>Psionic Telekinesis
Very Slow
With the development of psionic imprinting it is now clear to the hive that tachyons can effect real matter in a very real way. While normally so minuscule in nature the forces of tachyonic radiation offers no force whatsoever, a focused, maintained wave of psionics could, in theory, impart a real and measurable physical force. The success of Psionic Imprinting seems to offer prove of the concept in theory, and the only limiting factor now is how efficiently the imparted force from tachyonic particles scales up from the molecular level.

But we didn't vote for that, so it doesn't get in. You can't just throw up an order at the end of the thread after everyone has left and claim that we all agreed to start building it user.

Seems useful enough as it is. We could equip say, 1:10 of our warriors with it. Could help a lot in firefights or boarding actions.

>If you are to study these beasts further, you fear you will need a live subject.
Great.

Howdy QD and the fuck is that .webm? Is that a mantis?

Except there were plenty of votes for it.

True, although anyone stupid enough to board us is already dead and/or adopted. It'd still be really cool to create hard light bridges, containment, etc in addition to our armor, though. Nothing says "I'm way more advanced than you" like photonics structures.

>Psionic Cloaking
Medium
A complex practice naturally accomplished by the Phantoms under the care of the Barren Queen, you have been instructed in the basics, and now all that is left is practice and application. In theory it is simple, using carefully woven mental signals to broadcast a sense of non-existence. While this process is most effective against being sensitive to tachyonic radiation, it can be used against virtually any organic being. A psionic race may find entire patches of planet voided from their minds like a mass-induced psychosis, while less attuned or mentally blind species find details of the cloaked unit impossible to remember or describe, or may simply not notice the unit unless it is alone and obvious in appearance. Simply turning around or standing among a small crowd is enough to become virtually invisible. Unfortunately, this invisibility comes at a cost, as it is omni-directional, and any unit enveloped in such a shroud would be unable to mentally communicate with others, effectively cutting itself off from any hive network. This ability requires at least a moderate relay or implant to accomplish, although no drone would do so willingly and cut itself off from the Queen without a direct command to do so.

>Personal shielding
Slow
By further shrinking the emitters, your thinkers believe they may be able to eventually make them small enough to be equipped to the carapace of a drone, or to the surface of an armored suit. At this time it is mostly speculation and an eagerness to please mother beyond all reason, and you cannot be sure what the limitations may be, but the thinkers are sure they can do it.

Wasp pattern mantidfly. It cannot sting, the wasp colors are all bluff.

It's also more or less the same general shape of your typical small drones, although the drones are a bit bigger (a fly would fill up most of the hand.)

Yes but it was never confirmed by QD in an actual vote. There have been plenty of times multiple anons voted for something after QD left a thread, but he doesn't usually count that unless he confirms it at the time, typically immediately after the thread concludes.

Maybe we could finally give Unity and Heretic artificial gravity in exchange for something, since that's the only thing we agreed about that tech in the past thread?

He confirmed it was valid via twitter at least once. So... yeah.

>Shield dome
Slow
The opposite way of thinking as personal shielding, by scaling the shield emitters up further to a size that would be impossible to hold and power on a ship, your thinkers suspect they should be able to construct a defensive perimeter around a hive center protected by a powerful defensive shield. The thinkers that have proposed the idea seem to be certain in the failure of the other project, as they are of this one, and you have had to separate the quantum thinkers as they attempted to disprove each others’ theories more than develop their own.

>Advanced Psionic Reading
Slow
With your new abilities growing, you continue to hone and develop more advanced methods of using your psionic network. Your thinkers believe that with more practice they should be able to delve deeper into the minds of non-hive life, digging past surface thoughts and emotions and into more detailed pieces of information without resorting to invasive neural interfaces.

>Atmospheric static generator
Medium (is done, but working on how it adjusts the Tower's cost in the new system)
By utilizing the natural friction of a sufficiently dense atmosphere against the surface of a capillary tower, the tower can be made to generate energy to feed itself and reduce its upkeep cost.

Damn, looks like we don't need the Commonwealth's planetary shield generators after all.

Still, might be nice to finally send some ships to assist them if they want to gift us their shielding tech and some of those scav drop suits.

>We need a live Lithovore.
Maybe we should make it a joint research with Theseus and the scarred queen.

To be fair, its not like we are exactly hurting for resources. In fact, we clearly can't spend our resources fast enough as is. So getting worked up over it is silly.

>Gravity thrusters
Slow
Similar in function to your Skid drive, the Gravity thrusters essentially surf along pre-existing gravity fields, increasing their performance when in close proximity to major sources of gravitational pull, be it a large celestial body, a star, a planet, an exceptionally large structure or group of structures, or the core of a gravity drive. While in deep space it becomes less effective, the law of universal gravitation means it never becomes totally useless, and when in close proximity to a powerful gravity source it should outperform most other thruster designs with ease.

Available research options

>Psionic Cannon prototype
Very slow/Very dangerous
Detailed accounts of several experiments show the slow progress of Project Godsplitter. The cannon itself is highly volatile, and even the smallest miscalculation often results in the destruction of the ship, as well as any nearby craft. It can only be equipped to a Hive ship's spinal mount, and requires a functional Void Shard as ammunition. At least a dozen testing sizes were atomized in testing the weapon, and in the end it appears The Gardener never quite perfected it.

>Add Isolation fields to research
>Add Psionic Cannon prototype
>Add both
>Add neither

>>Add Isolation fields to research

>add isolation fields
>get a few live lithovores
Doubt that this needs focus, it can be done off-screen

>Add Isolation fields to research.

>Add both

Also that Mantis is terrifying.

>Isolation field only

So, should we give Unity nanotech in exchange of something or a lot of somethings, or just save to give it to him later if it looks like the Void Gods got a freaking army of nowhere?

Because the Void Gods will eventually get something BIG and the only way they can percive unity and Heretic is second hand by piggibacking on us and their slaves.

Combine psionic cloaking and studying the social and heirachical structures of singular civilizations may lead to a plan for function in the event of a crystal attack. It'll be way less efficient, but having functional drones during such an event should not be underestimated.

>Add Isolation fields to research

>>Add Isolation fields to research

Yeah, get Theseus in on it-- and a live sample. We obviously can't understand it, so maybe he can help. Not sure what the scarred queen could do with it though.

>>Add Isolation fields to research only

>>Add Isolation fields to research
grab a few lithovores as well

>>Add Isolation fields to research

>Add Isolation fields to research
Expedition to grab some Lithovores please!

What is with the fetish for joint research. It's not like we don't have a high enough metaphorical Relationship Stat with those guys already, and we aren't hurting for Thinkers of our own anymore, since we don't even count them now.

It's not like when we needed the initial spore research done urgently back when it was still a threat to the fledgling hive.

>>Add Isolation fields to research

>Wanting to commit suicide
Seriously we can't risk research the Psionic Cannon yet.

I just want the scarred queen there because she said rocks aren't alive.

This.
Also we could use Unity help with thise things, what we can give him? Everyone seemed to agree it was okay for Unity to get artificial gravity before. And going for that to fully nanotech life form is not something even Unity could do easily.

>>Add Isolation fields
grab some lithovores

So uh, do we get a photonic armor module or something?

It's not a fetish. We can't understand the Lithovores, maybe Theseus can. We're practically allied now. Remember each race might get different tech options on each item.

Hah! I like you.

Coral is also full of silicon-based life, might as well send some hybrids to turn into a stealth hive there for dissection research.

Actually what I'm interested in Heretic's and Unity's computer tech since it seems like it would unlock a lot of tech for us.

Isn't heretic's and Unity's computer tech a racial tech?
I don't think we can research unity's computers more than what we already have.

Not really much point I think, we already have biological computers in thinkers. Though that reminds me, we parasitized that hacker in the anti-Lyle group didn't we? we should be able to get his specialization soon I think.

Would probably need to minimise it.
Could be a cool alternative to a hard shield thats currently a research option. Something that acts more like the halo spartan II's shielding.

>it can be done off-screen

Nowhere is in high alert and Tenabris doubly so, getting a stealth mission to do some poaching would be of non-zero challenge. Not that hard, as we can land anywhere on the planet this time, but not instant-success either, as they may be more paranoid about flashes in the nebula.

The only way to do that would to have an AI to do the work on the computer... and that's more or less what we have with Unity.

But really we have to many thinkers and Q thinkers alredy that we are our own supercomputer. What would Quantom Crystal Thinker do anyway? Call our daughter mommy?

GAS THE SQUIDS
NUKE THE WHALES
STAB THE MONKEYS
TRUST NOTHING
THE VOID IS WATCHING

Oh I almost forgot. Artificial Gravity might reveal tachyons since it would imply certain particles exist which cannot exist without tachyons.

Hence why we agreed only Unity and Heretic could have it. Since the Void Gods cannot watch them directly.

We're still infinitely more capable of understanding the function of life, no matter the form, than Theseus. His knowledge of biological manipulation is basically limited to spraying plants and animals with different compounds and seeing what happens, we should just get a live specimen and do it ourselves.

Unity already knows about tachyons when he met heretic.
We should ask him how's he doing with that knowledge.

He's been talking to Heretic
Multi layered shields

I dunno, he usually has a tool/weapon/module post after that kind of stuff.

Nothing this time

At this point we should probably just gift all the computery-tech to Theseus and ally with him.

I mean, he did give us the recipe for black hole guns.

But that takes the fun out of bartering and trading.

QD said we're already allies.

I'd rather faff about and shoot the shit with theseus than go on some backwards ass planet to capture some pets.

Again, we would probably need to minimise it, which means research.

Just cause the QM aint thought of it dont mean we cant suggest it. Pretty much how we got the idea for multilayer shielding through.

You do realize that the old hives had research project to combine Skyl light-based computers with psionic tech right? And Theseus's AI research could just be applied to our clones.

If we decode the lithovores, we might be able to work with thesus to create a silicon based lifeform suitable for his computer intellect to inhabit.

Shit woud get weird fast. And interesting.

The way he said that it was already usable in some form.

I dunno man

Then we should just give him the nanotech first.

That alone will make him go happy with all the posible options.

THAT IS GENIUS.

>add isolation fields

In a lab somewhere on Gemini's twin, Gilliam runs over various papers and reports as armed guards pillage his laboratory. He shouts at the frantic activity around him, yelling over the rushing panic of lab technicians running from place to place as military police rummage through desks and shovel through paperwork. The sounds of beakers breaking and instruments shattering against the floor is simply too much when a technician grabs his arm.

"There is a call for you, sir, it's urgent." He says, and Gilliam rushes to his office where his desk beeps methodically. He seals his office from the rest of the chaos outside , reducing the sounds of the barbaric book burning to a low rumble.

"What?" He says abruptly as Winsor's face appears on the screen.

"You're being transferred. As of this moment your lab division is being shut down, permanently. I'd like to thank you for your work up until now, but we've all decided that it would be in the best interest of everyone to adjust our research focus." He says. "A shuttle will be leaving within the hour. You're needed on Darwin, and it's urgent."

"You mean like all of this was urgent?" Gilliam asks indignantly.

"No." Jack replies. "Worse." He clicks a button on his console and an image of a blurry hive corvette appears on his desk. Weapons fire lances out and rips at its hull as the image blinks to darkness, flickering from the nearby ship to a distant long range sensor that watches the ship be torn apart by several others.

"Are those..."

"We've confirmed they have the same silhouette as the hive fleet in orbit of Gemini at this moment. They are the same."

"But they're fighting."

"I'd say it looks too one-sided to be called fighting," Jack says, "but yes, that does seem to be the gist of it. The victors spent the next hour or so blasting the wreck into dust, and then collected most of the dust and left. Still-"

"You want me to study the dust."

"Good man." Jack says.
cont.

Why? We can do it all organic anyway. And artificial pyschic boosters are a bad idea with the void watching anyway.

We should do a few crystal Quantom Thinkers for our daughter instead.

Come to think of it silicon-based lifeforms either look like rocks or crystals and we have a planet in our system that looks like a crystal forest which we assumed were just crystals. Shouldn't we go check and make sure they are just crystals?

I hope we didn't leave anything of worth, even if it was just metaphorically styrofoam ships.

Damn good thing we vaporized all we could before we left.

We have crystal tech already. Why haven't we made a few crystal Quantom thinkers already to see how they react to our daughter?

Hah. Glorious. Give Gilliam a nice warm HQ hug.

Yeah. IIRC was a pretty average roll though. Not like humans could work up any bio-heresy though.

Wait, is this footage of the fight on virgo or bedrock.

Might as well lay some and prod them a bit.

Damn good thing hive biotech is nigh on uncrackable.

Most theyll realise is that for looking simular, the DNA looks utterly different, showing another strain of the species.

They can still try to clone from the DNA... hope not even that was left.

Daughter
Daughter
Daughter
Is that all you can talk about?