Faction Spotlight: The Hive

Sentient creatures that live and die in space, their ‘living ships’ are remarkable in how quickly they adapted to the aggression from the Genari invasion. While seemingly peaceful creatures that absorbed energy from nearby solar radiation, as well as absorbing organic matter from celestial bodies, they have reacted and adapted to their near extermination. Starting as ‘spores’, they gestate into protopods, which then develop and grow into larger forms. Learning to defend themselves from Genari warships, they are becoming ‘weaponized’, producing extensions that have become fearsome weapons still not understood by Sol or Genari scientists. The Hive reside in a very resource-rich region, and the Genari’s thirst for expansion has put them at ‘war’ with these creatures. The Sol Imperium is concerned that the continued conflict between the two may just make these creatures aggressive enough that they will start going on the offensive, even invading the adjacent Sol border. Some of the largest forms of the Hive Organics have become monstrosities the size of large cruisers, and they have discovered the ‘taste’… Human and Genari crews can be consumed as organic matter for their continued growth.

 

Actually the Genari and Sol will be playable in Beta, we still have some ways to go before Ma'Alaketh and Hive are available. You will be able to play against them vs AI at the borders however. The skillsets/rulesets and advancement for the Hive is radically different from the three other races, thus far more difficult to implement. They will be the last race added for Multi.

Since 'The Hive' didn't name themselves, it was a term used by Sol Imperial Worlds (humans) to label them. The Genari call them 'the Organics'

 

They have several different attributes unlike the three other races. Besides a 'plasma wave' and a focused energy beam, they have a 'proboscis' that 'absorbs' organic material. This organic material can be found from wrecked ship debris, or by actually penetrating the enemy ship with the 'proboscis'. Damn that sounds phallic.
Anyway the organic material it absorbs can be used to repair the hive ship. It does not have a force field; so it relies on this ability to 'auto heal'.

 

Missed this question until now -- The hive are so different from the 3 other races that their functionality and even GUI is radically different. They don't have 'headshots' because there are no individual captains or crew, so their avatars are still TBD. We've been thinking of some sort of neural structure image as the representation.

 

Actually Hive is extremely vulnerable to boarding. Essentially if marine pods end up attaching to the ship, the marines break into the carapace and fire away at the 'internal organs' of the creature until the marines succumb to the environmental pressures. So essentially marine attacks don't kill crew in this case, but do 'hull point' damage.

 

Another question I must have missed -- the 'Hive' has been termed that in the Novel's lore, by the Sol Imperial Worlds. The Hive themselves don't really call themselves anything. And the Genari don't call these creatures the 'Hive', but the 'Organics'.