The Mech Touch

Chapter 7244: Goliath Hive

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.

The Dark Apostle already began to gain a certain understanding of the intelligence of the princess of the Goliath Hive. This was an intelligent adversary who likely understood its enemies the most! After all, the Goliaths were likely based on existing human and alien champions. There was no need for the voribugs to trouble themselves with coming up with original ideas when their enemies already presented them with ready-made templates.

"The Goliath Hive is straining the defenses of numerous star systems because the Goliaths can easily overrun ordinary units by relying on their excessive power and resilience." The Farseer explained to the Dark Apostle. "The weapons and units needed to defeat large swarms are not that effective against champion units. The Goliaths can only be confronted and repelled by disproportionate firepower or high-ranking mech pilots that have the ability to penetrate thick exoskeleton armor."

"Are the Goliaths making use of energy-based defenses?"

"No, sir. We do not know whether the voribugs are still working on them or have simply decided that it is not worth the trouble. For now, their primary means of defense are their thick exoskeletons. Certain Goliath strains also excel in speed and are good at evasion. Since these Goliaths are often accompanied by swarms of mutated voribugs, they can also rely on the ordnance fodder around them to block incoming attacks, inconvenience adversary champions and exert pressure elsewhere. The Goliaths never truly fight alone. Their teamwork with other voribugs is surprisingly good."

That was a massive advantage! Normal champions ordinarily did not allow for regular units to assist them in combat because their attacks and movements could easily endanger large amounts of friendlies. Few people could forgive an ace pilot that accidentally opened fire on hundreds of friendly mechs! This behavior crossed a line that high-ranking mech pilots had rarely if ever crossed during the entirety of the Age of Mechs. The native aliens may be more tolerant towards sacrifice, but even the most callous of alien phase leaders did not dare to taint the sanctity of their own godhoods by butchering their mortal flock. In contrast, the voribugs had nothing to worry about. The value of individual voribugs was worth almost nothing. They all died by the trillions as they threw themselves onto the defenses of their enemies, yet none of the bugs had any desire to complain because they were completely subservient to their queen and possibly their princesses!

What this effectively meant was that the Goliaths could easily surround themselves with millions of annoying bugs over the course of a battle. The lives of these cannon fodder bugs did not matter. No matter whether they died to human or insect attacks was irrelevant as they could easily be replaced. This was the advantage of the mutated voribugs!

The Dark Apostle grimaced and pressed his giant fingers against his giant face. "Since the Goliath Hive is so eager to imitate us, then their Goliaths are likely worth fighting against. I do not look forward to getting swarmed by their cannon fodder during a confrontation, though. It is probably too much to expect the uncivilized insects to respect the sanctity of a duel."

At least the native aliens somewhat shared this in common with the humans. They were both civilizations that revered their own champions and believed that they had an intrinsic right to duel each other without excessive intervention from other units. Of course, not everyone accepted a duel when requested. Neither the humans or the aliens were stupid. If one side had an overwhelming advantage, then it was correct for it to overpower the weaker side by relying on numbers.

"So far, the Goliaths have only demonstrated hints of individualism." Eliza Mo Ragadan explained. "We are not yet clear whether their princess is willing to make them smarter and delegate command of the nearby swarms to them, or prefers to remain in direct control over them. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, but so far we expect the Goliath Princess to maintain direct control."

This had a lot of implications if it was true. The Dark Apostle frowned. "If this is the case, then every Goliath strain will fight in the same way. That will make them more predictable, but it also means that the princess will rapidly gain experience when 'piloting' them. The more time passes by, the more she can strengthen the design of her Goliath strains while simultaneously becoming more skilled in controlling them in battle."

A heavy silence followed after he spoke these words.

The Divine Harpoon finally opened his mouth for the first time since he attended this meeting. "The Goliath Princess — if she even exists — may be taking inspiration from mech pilots by adopting this method of command and control. This will make her exceptionally dangerous over time. She will never cease learning how to defeat and counter us in the most effective manner. While she will likely neglect the development of her cannon fodder, that is not important so long as they can still do their current jobs. I believe her ultimate goal is to develop Goliaths that are so strong and successful that they can even pose a threat against our god pilots."

God pilots were the ultimate trump cards of red humanity. One of the reasons why people did not surrender to complete despair was because the mutated voribugs had yet to present anything that could defeat god pilots in direct combat. While it may be theoretically possible for the mutated voribugs to exhaust the combat power of god pilots or distract them by spreading out their important infrastructure across many territories, it was unthinkable for the voribugs to defeat these human deities outright. Yet what if that was no longer the case? What if the Goliath Hive spent enough time on learning what made high-ranking mechs strong and became increasingly more proficient at defeating them on the battlefield?

Expert mechs were not easy to defeat, but it should already be possible for the early generations of Goliaths to achieve victory. They were clearly not ready to defeat ace mechs at this time, but maybe the Goliaths could still make the impossible happen by relying on their numbers advantage. So long as they built upon these successes and continually improved their Goliath strains, they may one day force a god mech to retreat from the battlefield!