A WarStrike Faction Census: Part II: The Turids

Aluminum-Cast Ant Nest, Walter R. Tschinkel

Sorry for disappearing again. I had to deal with a LOT of Parental financial issues that I'd been putting off. Like spending 30 hours meticulously re-filing 5+ years of paperwork in a way that makes searching through their records for tax and insurance purposes saner. Plus dozens of tedious phone calls, and a few visits to various banks and insurance agencies. Ugh!

So I'm going on strike taking a break today from all of that to try and catch up a bit on my posting.  First I want to finish up on the "Census" by showing you the Turid and Gruin numbers that I've put together.

Our map, for reference.

The Turid Numbers

As you can see, the vast majority of the known Turid hives are in the Sol & Eastern clusters, which are closest (about 5000 light-years) to the Adesus Wastes that the Republic's Turids are believed to have originated from. The Northern Break keeps that region separated from the Nova Colseram, and in any case the Genii scouts sent there report no almost life left at all. Just the evidence of ancient hives everywhere crumbling with age.

So apparently, the Adesus Wastes were fully consumed by the Turids long ago, and the ones in the Republic were launched as spores from the Wastes. Traveling at about 3% of light speed across the void between the arm and the spur, this means that the first spores were launched towards what is now the Republic some 169 thousand years ago. Before even the creation of Humanity by the Demiurge.

The Far Stars and the other "infected" territories are too far from the Adesus Wastes to have received spores yet. Rather, these have been seeded by Turid-Worshipers (need a name for them), both Human and Colseran that see the bugs as the only truly perfect (and therefore deserving) life-form in the galaxy. Since presumably these are (harking back to the Republic's creation myths) a product of Gaia (this universe) herself, and not Chironic half-breeds born of the meddlings of the Demiurge and the Lord of Chaos.

Which of course puts these groups at direct odds with the Church, much less the rest of thinking humanity. They're a tiny minority compared to the Republic population at large, but even tiny minorities in an empire this big can wield impressive numbers, and it only takes a few thousand crazies to steal and transport a queen egg to an uninfected human world.

From the movie "Mimic".

Their efforts are consistent and regular enough that the Turids have even adapted to the worshippers by creating the Mimic-bug forms. These look human, make cute baby-like gurgling noises that the worshipers are sure must mean something profound, and carry multiple eggs within their bodies.

The worshipers then take these "wanderers" in, feed them (usually human-sacrificed) food, throw cloaks over them, and try to "help" them spread their perfection by bypassing the Church and Imperial agents that are attempting to hunt them down and stop the Turids' spread.

Thoughts?