Collective

The Collective

 * "God, they just eat and eat and kill and kill . . . It's all they do . . . God . . ."


 * -Anonymous Stellar Mobile Action Corps Trooper, deceased

The Collective are a hive-minded, sociopathic species of aliens, evolved on an unnamed, freezing world with light gravity and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. They are the founding and dominant race of the Expansionist Empire, with brainwashed, hyper-intelligent, genetically engineered spies maintaining their power over the conglomerate. They are masters of genetic science and have re-written history to credit themselves with the invention of extra-dimensional communication. They are most prominent in the Empire's brutally efficient military, with vat-grown clones making up the bulk of the infantry. Humans consider them the "poster boy" of the Expansionists and the I.P.D.G.'s Propaganda Corps has utilized their monstruous behaviour as the basis of multiple xenopohobic, paranoid campaigns.

Biology
Castes


 * The average Collective Drones has a giant, tear-drop-shaped skull with a smooth sonar palette sitting on its front that sits 4 feet above the ground on a broad-shouldered, fur-covered body with two stubby legs with hand-like, clawed feet and four large arms tapering of into many fingers for digging. Drones dig tunnels and process resources for a short time, often directed by Workers, until they reach maturity and then fertilize the Queen's eggs before dying and being consumed by the Queen or Workers. It should be noted that, as with all Collective, Drones have a series of tubular tongues that extend out of their mouths to facilitate eating.


 * Collective Workers are far more intelligent than Drones but are fairly similar in appearence for the first phase of their life, with the only difference being the presence of infrared eyes along with the sonar palette and longer limbs. However, if the hive is threatened or should the climate turn warmer, a select group of the Workers (Roughly ten percent), typically the youngest and most intelligent, will begin a metamorphisis that lengthens their legs and adds an additional two arms and legs, with the new arms heavily jointed and tipped with blades formed from collected, refined metal. The "Second-phase Workers" will be delibrately synchronize their deaths with the end of whatever has necessitated their metamorphosis, as their larger forms weigh heavily on the hive's stocks of food.


 * Collective Queens look little like their offspring, instead resembling whales, as they sit in heated pools at the center of hives, with permeable skin absorbing all food brought to it, converting it into a yellow, jelly-like material that it secretes, to be fed on by Workers and Drones. Its womb and brain form the bulk of its body, with the brain devoted to intercepting and translating sonar into images, while the womb is a multi-orificed sack that curls around, or in some cases hangs over, the two large, multi-fingered hands to better facilitate the "slicing and dicing" of the Drones that die after fertilizing the Queen's eggs. It should be noted that the Queens are the most intelligent caste of the species and command the hive with sonar pings carried by the tunnels.

Evolution

The Collective evolved, as did many of the other species on their homeworld, on the equatorial region of their world but hostile animal life forced mass migrations over centuries to the far-reaching polar regions. The

Reproduction