Despite my previous assertion, I was tired enough that I did end up falling asleep, but not before loading up one of my Overlords with roughly five Drones and having the thing hoof it off planet. Despite its speed determining that it wouldn't even reach the moon within a month let alone anywhere else during that time, I'm not about to continue on as I have been without some kind of fall back in mind. Not with the possibility of HIM being around.
That's right, HIM. I don't dare call him by his real name since I've heard that if you say his name three times aloud, it summons him, and I don't want to take that chance that even saying his name once might count towards saying his name three times. Reminds me of Beetlejuice actually, but at least he was just chaotic and kind of fun. There'd be nothing fun with me having to face HIM when I can't even handle one measly Zombie. I won't even chance thinking his name in my thoughts just in case.
Of course, it might not even matter since HE is obviously aware of my existence now. Then again, he didn't actually show up in his own form, so maybe he's stuck where he is until I actually do something that can summon him. I don't know. Whatever the reason, he isn't here, but I have to assume that he'll show up at some point, so I've got to prepare myself and the Swarm for that eventuality, and step up my game to an extreme degree. Dealing with spawning monsters is a far cry from dealing with what amounts to an evil Demi-Diety. I'd say Demigod, but God is a title I feel is already reserved and applies to no one, or nothing, else. Not even as a descriptive for a powerful being.
With the sun risen up, and my Bio-Energy having taken a jump from the Hatcheries absorbing the excess energy from the Creep not needed for general Swarm living, I set about increasing the Swarm, an Overmind with a purpose.
First order of business after breakfast, is this new information available from my Overmind side, letting me know that the Swarm is ready to evolve now that a Spawning Pool is available. Oddly enough though, the only thing needed to advance the Swarm to the next level is to just morph a Hatchery into a Lair. Nothing else. No mass hibernation for the entire Swarm, no massive mutations in store. Just a normal morphing of a Hatchery into a Lair to unlock the next tier of Zerg bio-tech. I almost feel disappointed, but at the same time I'm not surprised. More and more I'm getting the feeling that the Swarm is exactly what it was depicted as in the first game. Nothing more, nothing less, unless I change it.
I can't do much of anything, change wise, without an Evolution Chamber, and even then, I won't be able to truly access the full potential that is evolving the Swarm without a Cerebrate fully dedicated to said Evolution. I'm going to have to be careful on that one though since I don't want any Sentient Zerg getting the bright idea that the Swarm should be returned to its former status as the Blight on the Universe, consuming and destroying all. Not while I'm Overmind, thank you very much.
As soon as the Overlords complete their task in finishing the defensive ring of Creep Colonies, and the funds become available, I sink the Bio-Energy to morph both Hatcheries into Lairs at once, as well as start up morphing in an Evolution Chamber. Forty minutes, and I have a brand spanking new Evolution Chamber, and unfortunately there's no more room within the ring of Creep Colonies without severely congesting the Hive. Besides, I have plans already of sitting two more Hatcheries within the last space available. Call it habit, but whenever I played Zerg at home, I always ended up creating four Hives in a square formation to pump out the most units possible, since twelve larvae automatically created a Squad capable of being hotlinked. Old habits die hard I guess, even if I'd gotten out of that habit while playing Starcraft 2.
The most ironic thing though, is that I don't even really play Zerg all that often, if at all. I've always been a Protoss fan, so suddenly finding myself as the Overmind in charge of the Swarm has thrown me for a serious loop, since I'd always thought of them as evil insect creatures, but being the Overmind has given me a new perspective on the Swarm as a whole. The Swarm itself, in the end, boils down to simply reflect the will of the Overmind. The previous Overmind had been a shackled and perfection driven slave, raised as a Zerg and thus would have no concept of free will and equality among sentients.
I on the other hand, am practically the anti thesis of the original Overmind. Free will, choice, and equality are core parts of my very being, and the Zerg Swarm will grow to reflect that. I know that perfection is the ultimate unattainable goal, always out of reach, but something that should always be strived towards. I'm not shackled down in my own head like the original Overmind was. These facts, along with my new perspective as the Overmind, open before my sight the vast potential that the Swarm has, even more so than the original Swarm did, both for good and bad. It can only be of the good that being good is also core to my being as well.
While these thoughts whirled around in my head, an hour passed and my Lairs are now completed, along with the information that my Swarm is now at level two, though the number doesn't really mean much at all at the moment. To my chagrine, I noticed that I'd never taken the time to upgrade the Swarm at all, so the burrow ability is still sitting in the Lair's command list along with the three new Overlord upgrades. I immediately cued one Lair to upgrade Overlord speed while I had the other research the Burrow ability. Heaven knows being able to shoot into the ground in the blink of an eye would be extremely useful for escaping enemies. I wonder if I'll be able to use the ability myself, since it'll be a Swarm wide upgrade?
Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no for now, judging from the information my Overmind side is providing me. Evidently I'm still, for all intents and purposes, human, but with the mental capacity and presence of the Zerg Overmind. I guess Psionic ability isn't completely bound to the physical plane, otherwise my brain would probably be the size of two football stadiums right now. Lucky me!
With the upgrades from the Lairs in queue, I contemplated ordering up another upgrade from the Evolution Chamber as well, but decided to hold off on that until I'd explored the options available to me that having an Evolution Chamber offers.
The building itself looks like a giant log shaped turd laying on its side, with a tumor like protrusion jutting out of its middle and to the side. From this center protrusion is an opening where numerous black tentacles jut out from and are piercing into the Creep, resulting in a back and forth flow of nutrients and information, which is the mechanism that allows the Evolution Chamber to morph the Swarm since all Zerg feed off the Creep. That makes me wonder if the speed upgrade for the Overlord leaving the atmosphere at the moment will even take.
According to the Overmind side of me, it can and will. Evidently, upgrades for the Zerg are two fold, physical changes caused through consumption of the Creep, and any creature who doesn't get the upgrade that way, if it's within a certain range of the Zerg building initiating the upgrade, the building sends out a psionic pulse that forces the change on any Zerg creature within range of said building, usually planet wide, depending on the building.
Interestingly, this also explains why each time you started a new mission in game, you always had to research everything from scratch with new Zerg, since all the old Zerg would've been left behind to reinforce that particular Hive from the previous mission. I figured it was just a game mechanic to keep things interesting, but more and more, stuff from the game seems to be the real deal for the Swarm. How that works for the Terran and Protoss, I can only speculate on. I can only hope that I'll be able to improve on that so I won't have to worry about re-researching everything every time I start a new Hive on a new planet. That just seems extremely inefficient, even if it does make things more interesting.
Going back to the Evolution Chamber, I have to admit the thing has got to be one of the ugliest things I've ever seen, and it doesn't help that the opening where all the tentacles are coming out of doubles as the entrance to the building, AND looks like the opening of a sphincter. My only consolation is that I can feel the presence of the building itself in the back of my mind, and it's soothing. If I close my eyes, I'd describe the presence as that of a rather cute, if mutated, little puppy dog. How can you hate something that cute even if it does look ugly? Honestly, that's how most of the Zerg feel to me, though some seem more like cats, kittens, and other pets. I'm not kidding myself though, unless I'm going to somehow equate kitties with overwhelming ferocity and scythe like blades that can rip a man to pieces so fast he'll be nothing but a splatter all over the walls and floor.
Shuddering slightly, and bracing myself, I walk into the Evolution Chamber. Surprisingly, it's somewhat similar to the interior of the Hatchery, albeit slightly smaller, and consisting of two more chambers on each side of the central room. The center room is host to a miniature Spawning Pool, or what I'm assuming is a Spawning Pool since it looks exactly like the one outside.
To my left is a number of oblong flesh sacs that my Overmind side informs me holds a physical representation of the DNA strands of the Zerg Swarm. This is where a dedicated Cerebrate would go to work on manipulating the Swarm itself. Since I have no Cerebrate however, the room is nothing more than an interesting side note to me, even if I really wish that I could just go to work myself on it, but unless I wanted to dedicate all of my focus and attention on the evolution of the Swarm every single second, then I'd best not touch anything in there. Aggravating, but then I'm starting to get the feeling that the previous Overmind just didn't bother changing things that already worked, even if there were more efficient ways of going about them beforehand. Another mark of his apparent insanity and self imprisonment.
The other room to my right can hardly be called a room since you can't actually walk inside it. The chamber is filled with what looks like, to all intents and purposes, like a giant formless brain. This is the lesser Zerg being that is currently dedicated to the DNA strains of the Zerg. Unfortunately, it's capacity for doing anything outside of the pre-existing upgrades available is negligible. Just another reason I really need a dedicated Cerebrate for this. Unfortunately, I can't make any Cerebrates just yet. The requirement to make them is a whopping 1000 be, takes an entire month to morph, and is created by having 100 larvae morph together into one being all at once. And, that's just the Cerebrates as they were before, as giant formless slug things.
That's not even considering any specialized Cerebrates or any possible changes I might do in the future. Unfortunately, a Cerebrate dedicated to Zerg evolution IS a specialized Cerebrate, and while that requires the original Cerebrate slug thing as a base, after that, any evolutions to become a specialized Cerebrate are entirely up to the Cerebrate itself, so I have no idea how long it could take, or what is required or anything! Talk about aggravating!
Sighing, I step back out of the Evolution Chamber, ordering it to start up on the Level One Carapace Armor Upgrade. I'd been kinda hoping to at least apply some kind of bioluminescence to the Swarm to minimize the monsters capability to spawn in, but it looks like any plans for evolution outside of what the Zerg is already capable of has to be put on hiatus for the moment.
As of now, the only thing I really can do is expand the size of the Hive itself. Only way to do that is to create more Creep Colonies. After thinking on it for a moment, I decide on a plan and order the Overlords to see to the creation of concentric rings of Creep colonies surrounding the Hive, with every ring consisting of Sunken Colonies with alternating Spore Colonies. I figure five rings ought to do it when it comes to having enough space for the rest of the buildings required to upgrade the Swarm, and it'll allow the spreading of the Creep without sacrificing the much needed defensive Creep Wall. I also ordered the Overlords to use their judgement when it comes to where to place new Hive Clusters on the planet, which will consist of four Hatcheries per cluster.
Speaking of which, the first thing I had my Overlords do even before that, is to create two more Hatcheries to complete this Hive Cluster before they move on to the colony rings. In the end, I'm picturing in my mind a group of Hive clusters, even consisting of four Hives in the Center with a Spawning Pool and Evolution Chamber, and Second ring around that holding the rest of the Zerg buildings, and three rings around that, all evenly spaced with enough room to allow an Ultralisk to easily maneuver through, but each ring is also placed so that you can't get Line of Sight to the Hives in the Center, sort of like interlocked gears of bricks stacked on top of each other, only if you stare straight past one ring, you'll only see the colonies of the next ring in, and maybe glimpses of the ring after that.
Of course, this is all moot point in the face of aerial and space combat, but it'll do wonders against ground forces. That makes me wonder if I'll ever end up meeting the Protoss or Terrans. In the end, I'd like to be able to figure out a way back home to my family at least, but I have no idea whatsoever where Earth might be from here. For all I know, my Earth might not even be in this dimension, or worse, even in this reality or parallel. Who really knows? For now, all I can do is focus on surviving this world, and praying I don't somehow summon HIM anytime soon, preferably not at all.
-Chapter End Review-
OVERMIND
Health-50/50
Psi-Energy-20/100
Psi-Replenish-10pc
Control-10ucp
Abilities
Spawn Hatchery-100psi-2hours-1ucp
ZERG SWARM LVL 2
Bio-Energy-85
Bio-Replenish-600pc
Control used/provided-59/61
Strains Available
Larvae-0be-0:0:1-3 per Hatchery-25hp-10armor
Drone-50be-0:20:0-1ucr-40hp-5ga
Overlord-100be-0:40:0-8ucp
Zergling-50be for 2-0:30:0-1ucr for 2-35hp-5ga
Buildings Available
Hatchery-300be-2:0:0-1ucp-1250hp-800 m creep gen
Extractor-50be-0:40:0-750hp
Creep Colony-75be-0:20:0-500hp-500 m creep gen
Evolution Chamber-75be-0:40:0-750hp
Spore Colony-50be-0:20:0-400hp-15aa-700mr
Spawning Pool-200be-1:20:0-750hp
Sunken Colony-50be-0:20:0-300hp-40ga-700mr
Hydralisk Den-200be-0:40:0-850hp
Lair-350be-1:40:0-1ucp-1800hp-900 m creep gen
Spire-500be-2:0:0-600hp
Queens Nest-300be-1:0:0-850hp
SWARM COMPOSITION
Sentients-1
Overmind
Underlings-91
4 Lairs
1 Spawning Pool
1 Evolution Chamber
20 Sunken Colonies
6 Overlords
59 Drones
Vassals-0
Allies-0
REQUIREMENTS TO EVOLVE
Queen's Nest
A/N – Well there you have it, two chapters in one. Originally these past two chapters were chapter four alone, but like I said last chapter, I realized I'd left a lot of potential writing alone, so I fleshed out this chapter a lot! I hope you enjoy it, because I sure enjoyed writing it! Now I just have to wonder what exactly the Overmind should be doing while the Overlords take care of expanding the Swarm itself… I've got a few ideas, but I always welcome suggestions! I've already incorporated a few into the story in later chapters actually. After all, mods are a part of Minecraft too. *grins*