#supercolony

[at-liberty-news]

Major Order Victory: Day 19

Greetings, viewers. Michael Adams here. Today marks a momentous but solemn victory as the Helldivers have succeeded in deploying enough dark fluid onto Meridia in order to transform it and the supercolony of Terminids upon it into a deadly singularity.

While originally the Meridian hive consisted of ten times the number of bugs on a planet such as Erata Prime, SEAF forces and microbubble pockets of dark fluid accretion have cut down their numbers multiple times throughout the operation. As the final hours dragged on since our last update, when the Terminids were at only 24% strength, they fell yet again to 16%, then 9%. In the planet's final moments, resistance dropped to 0% as it succumbed to the overwhelming gravity of the accumulated dark fluid.

All nearby Super Destroyers were forced to make emergency jumps to Super Earth in order to avoid being consumed. Medals and congratulations have been awarded to all involved, including the Moradesh scientists who have received the Super Citizenship Medal of Freedom. Super Earth has decomissioned the Moradesh facility and claims all dark fluid reserves are exhausted. In our opinion, they've likely simply moved efforts and stores to another, more discrete location.

Even as we celebrate the destruction of one of humanity's biggest threats, we must also mourn the loss of Meridia, a home many citizens can never return to again. Where untold billions of years of natural history and thousands of unique species have been wiped from existence in a singular moment, we'll always wonder...was it truly necessary?

With Operation "Enduring Peace" complete, napalm reserves for Eagle-1 strikes have been exhausted to regular levels and Helldivers are now standing by for their next major order. Stay tuned for more.

[gaybichon]

sorry how did i go my entire life without knowing about the ant wars

[etherealspacejelly]

Thoughts on ants’ super colonies? And the way they wage war?

hi yes thank you for asking my thoughts are as follows:

AAAAAAANDBSJSJHDHDHDHDHHSHDHDH OMGGGGGG 💖💖💞💞💖💕💖💕💖💞💖💞💖💞💖💞💖💞💖💞💖💞💖💞💞💖💞

hope that helps :)

[judes-dump]

Im really liking the new helldiver- OBJECTIVE CRITICAL STRATAGEM AVAILABLE -s mission

They made a whole new ma- OBJECTIVE CRITICAL STRATAGEM UNAVAILABLE -p

And it you get a free eagle and jump pac- OBJECTIVE CRITICAL STRATAGEM AVAILABLE -k

Might turn the volume down next time though

OBJECTIVE CRITICAL STRATAGEM UNAVAILABLE

[helldivers-2]

VICTORY.

Helldivers, thanks to your valiant efforts the Terminid Supercolony on Meridia has been eradicated.

All it took was courage, determination, and the total collapse of the planet into a black hole. A brave sacrifice that has not seen any unforeseeable consequences.

[triphantoms]

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

oH No I accidentally released a supercolony of ants 😃

TITANOMACHIA!!!

- Ren 🃏

[ntls-24722]

Homo Mousike updated species refs + redesigns!

The Debu didn't get a redesign, more like an updated reference picture but nonetheless, the current Debu lore:

Debu are the most technologically behind out of all 3 sophonts in the homo mousike planet, they are in their stone age and still live in caves. They have recently begun to be sedentary to practice agriculture, and while they don't have metals, they have invented cement, where they will dig/carve out molds to pour it in and create whatever structure they need. They are an immensely successful species that have been sapient for significantly longer than the two Zebrapeople, yet have not moved meaningfully past their stone age, but this technological lag isn't due to a intellectual damper, but a lack of need.

Debu are enourmous, strong, but because their skin is bare and sensitive, if they they can't beat the daylights out of their attackers, they can just scale cliffsides as dubiously as a mountain goat and create massive caves for themselves for shelter. They are HEINOUSLY well adapted and the only reason they got sapient was because tool use got Debu insane amounts of hoes.

Debu used to be solitary, and they would call to one another like birds and at some point down the line, 1 proto-Debu was getting insane play because he was knocking on shit rhythmically while singing. This led to 2 species-wide realizations: Girls like cool sounds, so if you can make cooler sounds (by making instruments) you get more girls, and If MULTIPLE guys play together in a little band, they collectively get way more girls. These 2 combined brought the species to be communal through "concerts" and sapience through the tool use.

Zebrapeople are the most technologically advanced, in terms of humans, they're kind of at their ancient Sumerian point in history - meaning technically their world history just started but that's still miles ahead of the Debu.

Zebraelves came from something that kind of filled the niche of monkeys, crawling along land-coral branches like chameleons but became semi-hexapodal when their ancestor adopted their eusocial nature, in order to carry food across the branches to the rest of their colony. Speaking of, they have a eusocial social structure where most of the population are nonreproductive worker females, nomadic drones that group into a fraternity and migrate circularly around subcolonies to lay pipe to the reproductive female Queens that are thrice their size (around the size of humans)

Their biggest strength, as you might expect, lies in their eusocial nature - much like Argentine ants, the entire species is a part of one massive supercolony, meaning the entire species, fascinatingly, does not have wars with one another. Subcolonies do have tensions and general beef, of course, they're not a hivemind, but they're just extremely passive aggressive about things. Their tool use was actually what facilitated this - the Zebraelves were smart before this, and were not just workers in a colony, having much time to play. Any neighboring colonies would fight tooth and nail against eachother, the only truces being over liquor and their dances, where two colonies would temporarily relieve tensions to play and mess around. The intraspecies violence was actually insane to the point that inventing instruments to make larger dances and merge colonies actually became essential to their survival.

Wars with other species is on the table, as hypocritical as that is. Interestingly, they like to siege war on their "cousins" the most.

The Zebramen evolved from Zebraelves on an island close to the mainland, their eusociality and treedwelling status fading away as they got bigger and bigger. Eventually, like us, they became fully hexapodal to run across flat ground rather than across land coral branches. Interestingly, their civilization didn't start when they stopped being nomads, their civilization started when they got up and began to keep moving across the savannah. Inventing instruments for music helped them communicate as they herded the cattle that their entire livelihoods relied on, without wasting so much precious breath.

Interestingly, even though they're their closest extant relative, zebraelves are kind of hardwired to hate zebramen the most - to most zebraelves, zebramen are recognized as a seperate supercolony and there is some instinctual tension. But peace and union between the two species is not rare nor unheard of, cultural exchange is abundant and the two species are so closely related that hybridization occurs, creating the variably fertile, back problem-prone and human-sized zebragnomes.

Zebramen have 2 main ethnicities at this time, the black-and-white mainland zebramen, and the hot-pink insular zebramen, located exactly as their names suggest. They are big fans of the razzle dazzle, as when they were without queens and fraternity nomads, their evolution began to skew towards sexual selection, leading to an enjoyment of overly detailed, fancy decor and the bright-pink stripes on the insular Zebramen to this day.

[busyfish]

20, 31

Also love you much friendo, miss talking with ya!

20. What's a totally random and useless fact that you know?

for a while, argentinian army ants were actually becoming the most populous invasive species in the world because of global trade bringing them over basically everywhere and they began forming supercolonies.

31.Describe yourself with 3 singers.

omg ok this one is so hard lol

i'm going to go with Mitski, Natasha from bats for lashes, and Stephin Merritt

ty <3 hope oyu're doing well

[terry-the-insane]

Animal of the Day for November 25: Argentine Ant (Species Linepithema humile)

The Argentine Ant is a relatively small ant with workers around 2.5mm long, but they make up for this with a fast reproduction rate compared to other ants. Argentine Ants are a widespread invasive species, with supercolonies that spread across nations.

Due to their sheer numbers, they easily wipe out native ants and other insects. However their conquest is challenged in some places by the (also invasive) Fire Ant, which is a natural enemy of Argentine Ants, is much stronger, and happens to also form supercolonies.

[bracketsoffear]

Gog-Agog (Kill Six Billion Demons) "Oh worm? Her true nature is a massive, worlds-spanning colony of worms united under a single mind and identity, who frequently fractures and develops its own micro-identities within the whole; she’s more of a multiversal infection than an individual. She offers people happiness through her media empire (read: political and capitalist propaganda) and eating her worms to become more of her: “People always wanna feel good. Satisfied. Pretty. Happy! […] Eat this worm! If you eat it, you’ll become me! And being me is reaaaally fun!” Her ability to infect and assimilate others has given her a massive cult that worships the Worm-Queen as a god, imitating her current style and aspiring towards being eventually assimilated by her; this is reminiscent of Mag 153 with the Divine Chain Cult and Agape. At one point she forms countless bodies into a hollow moon made of faces and attacks w/ tentacles made of heads vomiting out other heads."

Eveline (Resident Evil) "Eveline is a bio-weapon in the form of a 10 year old girl, created from a human embryo infected with Mold. Eveline has the ability to both spread colonies of Mold by vomiting excessive quantities of it as well as to create and control Molded, basically Mold People, by spreading the infection to other humans by touch. Molded are eventually replaced entirely by the Mold, cell by cell, and gain both regenerative properties and the ability to control bugs. This in most cases culminates in total mutation into "creatures" basically made of Mold, which can be controlled by Eveline. Eveline herself founds a supercolony in Louisiana, infecting and taking control of the Baker family and using them to try and create a "family" of her own by kidnapping, infecting, and subsequently Molding hundreds of people. Without her supplemental medications she rapidly ages into a (moldy) decrepit old woman, and by the end of the game mutates into a massive twisted Mold creature that Ethan, the player character who has also been replaced by Mold though he doesn't know it yet, must fight.

My friends and I say that the entire Mold plots of RE7 and Village is "The Mold Thinks It's People", so do with that what you will. But I think it's very Corruption of it, is all. And while Eveline isn't the original source, as she was created by another character who is also deeply involved with the Mold, she is the most Avatar-suited of the bunch."

[at-liberty-news]

Galactic War Status: Day 18

Michael Adams here, and we're back with another update on the war's progress in the past day. Let's get right into it!

As the fight for Meridia rages on, Terminid numbers continue to drop. Over the course of the day, Terminid resistance has decreased first to four point five times that of Erata Prime, then three point eight, and now two point four. This means the supercolony is now retaking ground less efficiently than the colonies on Hellmire and Phact Bay.

On the matter of other colonies, two new ones have been established by the insects on Turing in the Umlaut sector and Acamar IV in the Xin Ji sector. While Turing was initially important as a staging ground for the attack on Meridia, High Command has ordered the Helldivers to ignore these planets in order to secure what might be their only chance of destroying the supercolony.

At current rates, tomorrow we'll all be treated to seeing a planet-turned-singularity. We wait alongside all of you in anxious anticipation. That's all for now. Give 'em Hell, Divers!

[nek-ros]

nott arm timeline/lore:

nott gets deployed to fenrir III to set up the terminid control system but doesn't make it back

nott is later rescued by a group of fenrir's colonists after the TCS becomes fully up. at this point he still has both his arms but he's very sick and injured

things go back to normal for nott's job but his self still feels kind of weird from setting up the TCS/termicide inhalation

nott starts behaving erratically and causes friendly fire incidents here and there

nott is deployed to fenrir and the surrounding planets again after the TCS fails and makes the bugs fuck faster, them he notices his right arm gets Very fucked up. slowly covered in chitinous growths and distorting the flesh around his shoulder and right upper torso

after several back and forth runs to the meridia supercolony, nott is deployed with a squad on fenrir. shortly before the end of the mission, his arm undergoes some kind of metamorphosis, then one of the super destroyer cannon operators shoots his arm off with the railgun, severing it at the shoulder

nott's arm is replaced with an advanced prosthetic but costs a lot and requires regular maintenance. hugh tries to maintain his arm to get close to him

notts flesh arm is still on fenrir lol

[o-craven-canto]

Largest prokaryote: Thiomargarita magnifica, which can grow up to 1 cm (!!) in length, though tbh it's basically a micrometer-thick veneer of bacterium spread over a bag of inert water.

Largest unicellular organism with a single cell nucleus: the mushroom-shaped alga Acetabularia, which grows several cm tall.

Largest unicellular organism with multiple cell nuclei: the green alga Caulerpa taxifolia and the slime mold Physarum polycephalum can grow up to 30 cm, though in practice they function as multicellular organisms that lack membranes between a nucleus and another.

Largest animal: by linear size, the tendrils of the lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) can reach 36 m long, and a specimen the ribbon worm Lineus longissimus was dubiously described as 55 m long. They are pretty thin, though. By mass, the highest non-controversial estimate for the largest non-fragmentary sauropod dinosaurs is around 80 tons (Argentinosaurus huinculensis), though there are dubious estimates from fragmentary remains pushing above 100 or even 200 tons. The known record for thee heaviest measured blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is 190 tons.

Largest non-colonial organism: the giant redwood General Sherman (Sequoiadendron giganteum) has been estimated to weigh almost 2000 tons, though the vast majority of that mass is probably dead wood tissue. The Lindsey Creek tree (Sequoia sempervirens) was estimated to weigh 3300 tons when it was felled by a storm in 1905. The tallest redwoods grow to 110-120 m tall, which is probably the physical limit for tree height on Earth.

Largest colonial organism: clonal colonies of trees and fungi can grow quite large indeed. The Pando aspen colony in Utah counts over 40,000 individual trees with ininterconnected roots, for an estimated total of over 6000 tons. A colony of the mushroom Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon covers 9 square km and may weigh over 30,000 tons. A colony of the seagrass Posidonia australis (an aquatic flowering plant, not an alga!) in Australia reportedly covers 200 square km, though I see no estimate of its mass. Apparently there is a supercolony of the ant Linepithema humile stretching between Spain, California, and Japan with "billions" of individual workers (assuming 0.5 mg per ant, that would still mean only a few tons of total mass).

[unicronnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom]

( HOW DO PLANET-BORN MORTALS MISS THE ABSOLUTELY COMMON LIVING ASTRAL BODIES IN THIS EXISTENCE )

( DAMN MOONS ARE ALWAYS ALIVE. OR DEAD-ALIVE. THAT'S MORE ANNOYING, IF YOU ASK ME; IDIOTS CAN'T EVEN ADHERE TO THE DEATH OF THEIR CORE COMPONENTS AND MAKE IT THEIR ENTIRE PERSONALITY )

( WE GET IT. YOU'RE A SUPERCOLONY OF REANIMATED CORPSES. YOU'RE SO VERY SPECIAL. )

[supersolidstatedrive]

okay but what if we don't implode the Meridian Supercolony...

[helldivers-2]

The Terminid Supercolony could not have been destroyed without the brave sacrifice of many, many Helldivers.

In their honor, this personalized memorandum has been issued to their designated next-of-kin.

We will always remember [Helldiver Name].