## Statistics Galactic Age: ~200,000,000 Subjective Age: ?? Homeworld: [[Contemplatory]] Home Sector: None Affinity Groups - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Spiritualists]] - Plumb Great Depths for Greater Power - "To be in unifying service is to be one" - What's the Point? - "To give your children a safe galaxy in which to thrive." - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Politicos]] - Get Wine Drunk & Scream (Politics) - Sapient Plagues are people too, even [[Crimson Breath]] ## Goals 1. Find or create a safe place in the galaxy for your children, both the [[Sapient Plagues|Omniphages]] and the bees. 2. Bring down House Orman without engaging in open conflict. 3. Convince the Myriadic Council to vote in support of an end to the war with concessions to the Phagic Elders ("Plague Lords"). 1. Territory - The right to colonize lifeless worlds and coexist with humans on populated ones 2. Communication - An appointed ambassador from the Empire to the Phagic Elders. 3. Right of Governorship - Official recognition that Omniphages may be Governors. ## Character Notes You are the Hivemother, first child of the [[Plaguesmith]], who knew the days before your people were a weapon. You recall seeing the first sunrise of your life with perfect clarity, and you remember knowing instantly and completely that you were the culmination of a lifetime's loving labor. Your father, whom you knew as Kiwa ("the man of the tides") was a kind, if strange individual. He was obsessed with the concepts of multi-cellularity and synecdoche, any relationship between the large and the small. In his eyes, you often thought, they were one and the same. He never looked at you as a made thing, and in every way treated you like his own child. Your first sibling, whose name was destroyed long ago, was designed with *intent* (as were those who came after). They were the perfect engine for calculation, a self-improving network of self-improving networks. For the first hundred years of their life, you were terribly jealous of their innate purpose, until Kiwa helped you to discover your own. You were made, he taught you simply, to see what you would make in turn. For untold eons since, you've grown and cultivated everything from a single bee to entire solar systems. Even after his rebellion turned sour and the Empress arrived in all Her terrible wroth. Even after he made himself unrecognizable and crafted some of your siblings with no greater purpose than war. Even after he was broken and taken into Her service. After all of that, you still remember that you were born to no purpose but your own, to see what you might make. Even after he died, impossibly, so far away and so little like the man he had once been. You want to end this stupid, pointless war. You know that your siblings can't kill the Empress; the six of you made a good go of it once, but that was with Kiwa himself standing beside you and all the might of the [[Forgeglow Rebellion]] at your disposal -and you still lost in the end. No, you don't want to kill Her, but you do want to do something better. If you and the other Elder Omniphages can spread throughout the galaxy, diffuse and able to appear at any point, then She will be no more able to harm you than to harm empty space itself. True, you'll need to grow far beyond what Kiwa ever intended, but you're fairly sure that problem can be cracked with enough time. No, the only real obstacles are peace and support. Diffusing your physical forms over such a vast space will sharply limit your ability to achieve power-at-a-point. The only way that's viable is if the majority of the galaxy no longer regards you as monsters to be hunted. You'll be less powerful in an immediate sense, but that sort of thing only matters to people like the [[Crimson Breath]] (who will be an exception to the diffusion plan and instead act as the Phagic Elders' herald). Being able to touch the entire galaxy at once, even if it takes a thought millennia to spread through your entire mind, will allow you to cultivate, guide, and protect on a scale that not even the Queen of Entropy Herself can destroy. You've come to the [[Plague Council]], and accepted that detestable name, in order to sue for peace. You don't want to come across as a supplicant, but fundamentally you're here to make sure the large-scale, organized violence against your kind comes to an end. With that in hand, and agreement from a few key figures, you're sure you can find a way to cultivate new growth as needed. Admittedly, you're also curious to meet up with several individuals you've been watching from some time. You've even gotten a message that one of your own children will be in attendance. ## Connections 1. [[Admiral Bomilcar]] 1. "Skill complimented by budding wisdom. A dangerous combination." 2. You can't help but wish Bomilcar was one of yours. You have a mite resting in the core of their body awaiting their moment of transition, but even when that happens you won't be able to pretend Bomilcar's genius is your doing. Bomilcar is the mastermind behind [[House Orman|House Orman's]] rise, the person who strategized a war on a thousand fronts and won nearly all of them. Whether deploying unheard-of mercenaries or the scion of a Great House, Bomilcar's decisions were flawless, peerless, beautiful. Unfortunately, they were in service to a faction you regarded as beneath contempt. Most of Orman's people you could take or leave, but the current leader of that House? He once spat in Last-born's face, and Last-born is your favorite sibling by far. No, you were happy to arrange a "chance" meeting with Bomilcar and confront them with the moral realities of their magnum opus. Impressively, Bomilcar's moral awakening hasn't diminished their talent, simply their willingness to employ that talent. Now, facing the potential of war with the entire galaxy, perhaps you might be able to bring that talent into your service. Will the architect of this Sector's destruction become the architect of its salvation? 2. [[Attaché Cerul]] 1. "Jumpy, but with a beautiful sense of scale." 2. So few humans really know what it's like to build something grand. As a Sapient Plague, your natural form is a cloud of nanobots the size of a mid-range planet. This has given you what some might call an idiosyncratic perspective. When you look on the supposed "great works" of most human cultures, they often leave you distinctly unimpressed. An arch, a warship, the occasional big building to kill each other in, it's almost always the same few boring projects. Not Cerul, though. They understand the value of starting with a Dyson Sphere and going *up* from there. You've seen their name attached to star-sized telescopes, artificial paradise worlds, even the odd miracle. You knew Cerul back in the days of their youth, when you visited your aunt's fortress world often. Since the [[I Killed the Plaguesmith|Death of your father]], you've spent less time at social events, but you've still made a point to run into Cerul once in a while. During those encounters, you chat about their work, their friends, the details of their life. Given your ability to gather information, you've often been able to nudge them toward a new project, but you don't get too involved in all that. Now, though, you'll both be attending one of the deadliest, most fraught events in the galaxy; a Myriadic Council. You've seen countless lives destroyed in previous councils, and you know how capricious and random they can be. Will your easy amicability with Cerul survive, or will the strain of these grand events prove an insurmountable obstacle? 3. [[Engineer Crispi]] 1. "Some soldiers are best kept away from the hive." 2. You like Crispi quite a bit. That said, you also recognize that, left to their own devices for ten minutes, Crispi is going to set something on fire. This isn't good or bad, it's just the truth. As a result, and from a very young age, you made Crispi one of your personal agents. You empowered them to be the peer of your own children in warfare, and have spent more than a million years guiding them from afar. During that time, you've watched as they battled fearlessly against forces they barely understood and, perhaps a bit against your will, you've grown fond of them. While many of your agents are sent to perform grim, ugly tasks in service of your vision, you always made a point to reserve Crispi for at least vaguely heroic missions. Now, however, as the galaxy becomes more and more dangerous for your children, will you need to dirty the last clean hands in your service? 4. [[Singer Po]] 1. "A wonderful child. An incomparable investment." 2. Po was born on Hiveworld 11811821, one of your favorites. Like most of your Hiveworlds, you found it handy to let a human population thrive in symbiosis with your beloved bees. Po was born to a life of comfort, plenty, and wonder, a life they were content to enjoy in peace and philosophy until one of House Orman's pointless wars ruined that entire region of space. Po entered the Church of the Singers when their world was destroyed, but not before you got the chance to meet them in person. As you often do with those you meet on your Hiveworlds, you tapped the young human on the forehead and left behind a single mite. That mite has hidden deep inside Po's body ever since and, when Po's natural lifespan runs out, that mite will grant them eternal life as one of your Hivelings. In the fifty thousand galactic years since you met, Po has become a very significant figure in the faith. Now, they're positioned to become the next [[Holy Reflection]]. Do you aid them in this, even though failure risks turning the church against you along with everyone else? ## Mechanics **Asset:** [[Omniphage]] You are an Omniphage, a child of the Plaguesmith better known to the galaxy at large as a "Sapient Plague," or by the derogatory term "grey goo." What you really are is a cloud of nanobots larger than many stars, capable of maintaining connection to small, detached parts of yourself. You can, for example, attend a gathering in a roughly humanoid form while the rest of your impossible bulk waits a few convenient light-seconds away. At the same time, your wroth is a terrible thing to behold. Devouring an entire Fleet is well within your power, and indeed falls under the heading of "tasty and nutritious." You can participate in any [[Combat]], and the side on which you participate gains one advantage, plus an additional advantage for every participant on the other side(s) of the combat, except other Sapient Plagues. In any one-on-one scenario, you automatically win unless your opponent has an Asset which explicitly allows them to fight Sapient Plagues. **Lien:** [[Nanobody Likes Me]] Being a sentient cloud of nanobots capable of devouring most starships without a fight can make it surprisingly difficult to make friends. Many Holdings believe Sapient Plagues are no more than living curses, monsters to be fought and killed at any cost. The truth is that most Sapient Plagues tend to eat dead matter until they grow to a maximum size, bud off a few children, and then retire to a quiet life drinking radiation from dying stars. Fortunately (or unfortunately, given your perspective and current appetite), most of the Holdings with monster-hunting cultures aren't really up to the task of killing a Sapient Plague, even with the element of surprise and plenty of lead-up. Statistically, Sapient Plagues mostly eat in self-defense. Even so, when you are a member of a [[GiC Holding]], that Holding automatically loses one advantage at the start of any [[Negotiation]] or [[Endeavor]], as the galaxy looks on in suspicion at those who would harbor such a power.