Ch 16

Come morning, I woke up to my stomach growling. Unfortunately I can't seem to do away with needing to eat or use the bathroom. I envy the Protoss in that. They can survive by eating light. Actually in a round about way so do my Zerg, since the creep absorbs light… but I know that's not actually true. I know if I want to get technical about it, light only feeds my mana stores. Creep itself is actually composed of nutrients necessary for a Zerg body to function, or any body really. Maybe if I'm really lucky, I might run across the Protoss AND they'll be nice enough to let me have their dead, or maybe a volunteer… or maybe pigs will learn to fly. I can't believe I actually thought for a second that the Protoss would actually consider giving their fallen or a volunteer to the Zerg. Yeah right!

No, I'll just have to get my future geneticist to create the ability to subsist of light from scratch. Shouldn't be too hard. Plants… do…it… Eyes widening, I tore out of the Lair, leaving a bunch of very confused and surprised Queens in my wake. I run to the nearest tree that isn't producing apples, and I uproot the entire thing. Thank goodness for my 1 ton strength! Dragging the tree to the evolution chamber myself, much to the bemusement of my following Queens, I drop the tree into the analysis pool and have the ZGA analyze it. A few minutes later it's done, and I query the system for the abilities of the tree. The answer had me shouting for joy. I can now add photosynthesis as a physical ability to the Swarm! Brilliant! The Zerg can now survive off of light! Heck, once I get a cerebrate available, I can alter the buildings themselves so they can survive off of light alone, completely negating the need for the Creep!

Coming to a halt at that thought, I realized that wouldn't work. I'd need the creep at least for mana collection purposes, but at least with my buildings surviving off light, I won't have to worry about them starving or something if they're not connected to creep anymore. Just another step towards realizing the possibility of flying Zerg buildings. Better yet though, this renders the need for food for our units obsolete. Now I truly can eat only for pleasure, unless I'm in a dark room for long, and since the mana pool in my Lair provides light, that's highly unlikely.

On a sidenote, I could also pull the ability to breathe carbon dioxide from the tree. Rather useless since the Zerg don't need to breathe at all, but still interesting. I bet if I got a Cerebrate to work on it, the Zerg would be able to reproduce by shedding seeds too. Actually, that might be a far better idea than being limited to three larvae per lair. If the Lairs could fly above planet and shower seeds from orbit, one could theoretically overrun a planet without even setting foot on the ground. With that idea in mind, I stuck the idea of reproducing through seeds instead of larvae in the long term evolution list.

While I'd been letting my mind wander I collecting up a piece of the creep and ate it. Doing a quick, almost habitual check over the swarm, I noted that everything seems to be coming along nicely. The Evolution Chamber is done in the Nether, so I put standing orders for the Hydralisks to drag anything they kill into the analysis chamber, then with a thought, I queried the ZGA to see if it could automatically analyze anything thrown into the analysis pool instead of needing my constant ordering of it to do so. It could, so I gave it standing orders to analyze everything thrown in to the pool not already of the Swarm.

That done, I went back to my check of the Swarm, noting that nothing new had really happened. The villages are doing fine. The only thing of any interest left is that some of the octopus had started to swarm the Lairs. I don't know what that's about. I always though the Octopus in Minecraft were weird. They were always beaching themselves or pressing themselves up against anything solid, including the ocean floor and sea cliffs. It was kind of ridiculous to watch them at it. While thinking about the underwater lairs, I thought about when they would be done. Would the entrances lie open? Wouldn't that allow a flood of water in though? But then it'd mix into the Mana pool… and get sucked in, leaving the Ocean bone dry. Oh that couldn't be good. I gave a standing order to my Queens that once the Lairs underwater had finished spawning, they were to be ordered to seal up, not letting anything in or out of them, and why this had to be. In the mean time I added another goal to my long term evolution goals, find a method of blocking water from passing an opening but not blocking anything else. The only thing I can think of like that off the top of my head were the Gungan's shield bubbles. I honestly have no idea how those could have possibly worked though. They certainly weren't kinetic shields since those only stop something from entering if it breaks a certain speed or pressure limit… ok, so maybe they are kinetic shields. Being underwater can provide quite a few pounds of pressure from all the gallons of water sitting on top of those shields. Still, I don't see how I'm going to invent kinetic shields without understanding how they work. It's more likely I'll have to create a specific underwater lair that has double doors that work like airlocks, or a gummy fluid that you can press through that closes up behind you as you go through it.

I dunno. I'll figure all that out later. Going back to my Queens, I climbed back into the pile of limbs and made myself another mental note to add a room to the Lair with a bed. Nice as this is, it'd be nice to have a bed again. Although I could probably make one if I got some wood and found myself some sheep… a bed of wool sounds kinda itchy though… with that thought, I fell back asleep dreaming of a nice soft king sized extra long bed with silk sheets, or maybe even a custom bed that can fit all seven of us comfortably even if we're not all piled together…

I again woke to my stomach growling. It's late evening and I went out again to eat some creep. Nothing much happening. My underwater Lairs have finished, bringing my total supply up to 253,220. The villagers seem to be very happy judging from the consumption of creep and drinking and laughing going on. I guess they're celebrating the monsters being gone, and I'm glad they'd figured out that even though the creep is glowing, it'd still be edible like I said I'd work out how to do. I have to wonder if Thomas thought the villagers might end up glowing though. Grinning, I remembered I had thought something similar when I first came across the problem. Nothing else is really going on though. The other 10,000 drones are still just sitting and waiting for the chance to become Lairs themselves. A lot of the Overlords had gone further out exploring and discovered new lands beyond the Ocean, though still mostly islands like this one. Even that land to the southwest we'd first discovered happened to be an island, and a smaller one to the one we're on right now for that matter.

I really wish there was a way to just map out where everything is. It'd make finding new place to spread the creep much easier, even though that's not much of a problem anymore being able to spread out in the Ocean now. Still… then an interesting idea popped in my head that might solve the problem. If I send an Overlord into orbit over the main hive, I can use that one's view as a way to see where all the other land masses are! I'm also curious to find out if the world I'm on is going to be more like the game, and just a flat square of land floating in space, or if it'll be realistic and be a round planet? Though if this is just a flat square floating in space, then the Void just might be space itself. I hope it's not though. Trying to understand how that's even possible will most likely make my brain explode. Of course, that's just an exaggeration. I'm not like most people who can't accept something just because it can't be readily explained. I do like knowing why things work though, but I'm not going to freak over it if I can't. Sometimes some things can't be readily explained and won't be until you accept that they exist first.

Nodding to myself, I once more make my way back into the Lair whilst ordering an Overlord to go up into orbit over the Hive. With that taken care of, I slipped back in among the pile of Queens once more and fell asleep, counting my blessings again for having such a lovely group by my side.

When next I woke, I found my Queens shaking me up.

"What, what is it?" I reflexively checked the entire swarm for danger while I waited for the answer.

Joy answered excitedly, "We just thought you'd want to be awake. It's going to happen any second now."

Confused I asked, "Wha-"

Zerg Mana – 182,751,540

Ah, so that's why they woke me, even as I gaped at the number that had popped up in my head. Ok, so the number didn't quadruple, so the layer of glowdust underneath the creep had no effect on my income, but still, jumping from 80 mil to 180 mil is extremely impressive.

I turned to my Queens nodding, and said, "I'm impressed. Keep up the good work." Smiling happily, my Queens set to work ordering new Drones and Lairs. I'm glad that they're doing better after the upset earlier. Now once they're done, it's time to upgrade the swarm again. I wonder if I can give my buildings the ability to warp as well? That would just be plain nuts though, that's for sure. That ability alone would give me a tactical advantage even above the Protoss, especially combined with the idea of growing the Zerg from seeds. Add that to being invulnerable to any physical damage, and I'd be hard pressed to come up with any force out there that could stop us, that I know of. Space is a big place though, I'm sure there's something out there that could cause us trouble, so I have to make sure to keep pressing on in order to keep my new family safe.

Watching my Queens work, they first started off unburrowing the 9,664 drones from yesterday and morphing them into Lairs. On a side note, I wonder if there's a way to speed up production of my Zerg? I'll have to see about that when I get a Cerebrate. With 9,664 Lairs on the way, that drops my mana by 483,200, leaving me with 182,268,340 mana.

Next step for them I knew would be getting as many drones and Lairs as possible without breaking the 1KK buffer I set for our mana. Doing the math, that would come to 362,536 Lairs, not including the drones. That many drones would cost 18,126,800 mana though. Shaking my head, I can only be glad that I can do such figures in my head, otherwise spreading out the drones would've been an even bigger pain than it already is. I'm not too fond of math to be honest. Sucks the fun out of things. Thank goodness I have my Queens for that now!

Somehow, before I even knew it, the Queens had done the math in their head and pumped out 329,578 Drones and created that many Lairs leaving me with 1,000,440 Mana. I goggled at that, especially with how they circumvented the supply limit by building half the drones, then half the Lairs, then repeating.

"How did you get that number so quickly!? Even I couldn't have gotten that so fast!"

Asura answered simply, "We just divided the total of the mana we had to use by 550, the total cost of one drone and Lair combined. That gave us how many we could get of each."

I had to facepalm myself at that answer. And here I was calculating the cost of the Lairs and Drones separately trying to find a common denominator or something. This is why I hate math! I always overcomplicate it somehow. Now I'm really glad I handed over the Drone and Lair creation to my Queens!

With that underway, I had to wonder what the difference between my Queens and the Cerebrates are if both can control the Swarm in my stead like this. Unable to come up with an answer, I asked my Queens, and they gave me a simple answer.

"We can only do what you order us. If you gave us control of a brood, we wouldn't be able to do anything with it unless you gave us a direct order to do so. You've ordered us to spread the Creep, and gave us control of building Drones and Lairs to do so. That's the extent of what we can do, and only with your orders can we do that. If you gave control of a brood to a Cerebrate, they can and would do anything and everything to maximize the efficiency of that Brood within the Swarm without you having to give it specific orders to do so. In shortened terms, for us to control a Brood you have to micromanage our orders every time you want us to manage something within the Brood. For a Cerebrate to control a Brood, just give it general goals and it'll do that and more, macro managing at its finest."

I nodded, then asked, "Why can't you manage a brood without my direct intervention though? I gave you free will, couldn't you exercise that in the control of a Brood?"

Asura shook her head and said, "We aren't bred to do so. It's not that we don't have the means to control a Brood. With free will, we could figure that out eventually. But we aren't physically or psionically capable of giving orders to the Swarm without your direct command. We just aren't as advanced as a Cerebrate to be able to do that. The Zerg would ignore us if we even tried."

I nodded, thinking out loud, "So until we reach Level five, you six are more like… Cerebrates in training than actual Cerebrates then." Asura nodded, while the rest just looked at each other wide eyed. I'd already talked with Asura about my Queens being replacements for the Cerebrates, but this is the first the rest of my Queens had heard about it. I noticed their looks and turned back to Asura, motioning that she should explain to the rest of them what my plan is in regards to them being my literal Queens, not just Zerg Queens.

In the meantime, I queried the ZGA to find out if teleportation could be applied to the Swarm. To my surprise and delight, it seems that the teleportation ability can be applied not only to my units, but also to the buildings themselves. With my deciding to add the ability for my buildings to be built off the Creep and generate their own creep as well, by the end of this evolution, my buildings will be able to transport themselves anywhere and establish themselves there. I'd hate to imagine what would happen to one of my buildings if they couldn't be built off creep and I had one warp off creep. It'd probably collapse in on itself or something.

With that information squared away, I contemplated morphing all my Overlords into Overseers, but in the end I decided not to, just in case there is some kind of limit to the teleportation.

"Are we ready to evolve?" I asked my Queens. They all answered in the affirmative. Ready as we'll ever be, I ordered the ZGA to apply teleportation to the swarm, creep generation to all my buildings, and the ability to be built off creep for all buildings. 500,000 mana later, and the Swarm fell into a state of unconsciousness as the evolution is applied.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind mana – 500/500

Zerg Mana – 500,440/1,000,000,000

Zerg Supply – 1298/276,060 (1,696,210 pending)

Units:

1 Overmind

1079 Overlords

101 Drones

11 Speedlings

6 Queens

100 Hydralisks

Structures:

55,210 Lairs (339,242 pending)

1 Spawning Pool

2 Evolution Chambers

1 Hydralisk Den

1 Roach Warren

1 Baneling Nest