Homeworld: The Beast blog - AmDDRed

HOMEWORLD: THE BEAST

This article was created as an attempt to separate the info about the Beast from the description of my vision how the Beast fleet realization could look like.

Contents

1. The Sources
2. Change Log
3. Origins
   1. The Spin-Off
   2. In The Beginning Was The Word
   3. Tropes
   4. Natural Born Killers
   5. Human Factor
4. Infection
5. Evolution
6. Intelligence
7. Links

The Sources

• HW1 - Homeworld 1, manual, game
• HWC - Homeworld Cataclysm/Emergence, manual, game
• HWCO - Homeworld Cataclysm, outtakes
• HWWOS - HW1 and HWC ship descriptions, well of souls
• HW2 - Homeworld 2, manual, game
• HW2PR - Homeworld 2, Prima Official eGuide
• HWDOK - Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Expedition Guide, game
• HWR - Homeworld: Revelations RPG
• HWRS - Homeworld: Revelations RPG Story Seeds
• HWM - Homeworld: Mobile, homeworldsource.net
• HW3 - Homeworld 3
• HWDST - Homeworld Dust Wars drafts
• HWVR - Homeworld Vast Reaches press-release and stuff

Change Log

• 06.04.24 - added a quote about Karan nerves being patched directly in a ship

Origins

There is something wrong here. A presence. We sense its hunger. Not infant race. Not Unbound. Something other. Something older. Something from Outside!
(c) HWC, Mission 5

The history of HWC's Beast is pretty straight-forward: it was found on a million years old intergalactic ship "Naggarok", the crew managed to irreversibly destroy the engines, but the beacon pod with the virus was released. Somtaaw mining ship "Kuun-Lan" crew had found it and somewhat released it into the world with a half of the ship. After many fights, negotiations and betrayals, the Beast of Kuun-Lan and repaired Naggarok had been destroyed. However, who knows how many Beast remnants were left?.. At least, the Somtaaw themselves should have an example of it to work out the vaccine. As well, never say never: from my professional perspective, you can say for sure that there are bugs in app, but you can say only with a certain level of probability that there are no bugs.

For years to come, isolated pockets of the cancer would flare up to threaten the quadrant. But the new technologies born from Somtaaw's bitter campaign soon rendered Hiigaran ships immune to the infection. In time, the last remnants of the monster were crushed. The Beast never rose again.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 17

Origins: The Spin-Off

AK: …As we said, thought all the people were humans - mutated humans, humans that had evolved in part, but still humans. <…> We were a little disappointed with what they did with Homeworld: Cataclysm, because they went with the space meat. Considering all the things you could think about space - it could be pirates, plus tentacle beasts, plus energy cloud beasts - we thought, No, we have enough material with people and pirates. We care about the drama. We write good stories…
(c) The Art of Homeworld. Second Edition

Any thinking being from some other world that has been able to reach the Cosmos must be just as perfect and universal as the humans of our Earth, and hence just as beautiful. There can be no thinking monsters, no mushroom-men, no octopus-men! I cannot say what we shall meet in reality - some similarity of form or other aspect of beauty, but that it will be beauty, I have no doubt. <…>
No, I do not expect to find monsters with horns and tails in the space ship we shall meet. Only the lower forms of life differ greatly from one another; the higher the form the closer it is bound to be to us Earth-dwellers.
(c) Ivan Efremov, Heart of the Serpent, 1958

Well, HWC originally was Homeworld "DLC", that turned out to become stand-alone because of rigidness of original HW1 engine, and that influenced the choice of the antagonist.

Initially, the villain of the game should have been T-Mat: the cut-out species that were designed as Sea-Stars and natural enemies of Bentusi - and we had to fight with them in the 11th mission "Tannhauser Gates" instead of Taiidans. But the models were too complicated for the HW1 engine, so their design were changed to Lava Ships. And Lava Ships ended with being one (and the only shown) of the races of the Galactic Council appearing after the final battle - if you take the T-Mat/Lavashi Megaship concept-art you may read there that they even were intended to "help" by destroying Taiidani base instead of you - well, the info from the HW2 draft gives us an image of a chtonic arch-puppeteer like the Shadow of Babylon5. And as we've seen star-shaped ships in HW2, probably, this idea was not abandoned completely.

An ancient race of technologically advanced nomads who travel about the galaxy completely stripping star systems of all usable matter, energy, and biomass to sustain their considerable consumptive needs. Though not overtly belligerent, the ruthlessness of T-Mat resource consumption, and their uncaring attitude towards the devastating effects of their practices, has resulted in their being feared throughout the galaxy. The appearance of a T-Mat mothership in ones space is rarely a good omen.
…Few civilizations actually possess the ability to fabricate warp cores and few of those know how they work (The Bentusi, and T-Mat).
(c) HOMEWORLD 2 SINGLE PLAYER GAME STORY OUTLINE DOCUMENT — 11/16/99

Interesting, that HW2 drafts were full of non-human aliens that later were cut with all the spaceoperish emperors and princesses due to technical limitations of upcoming HW2 engine, and the story went into the direction of a straight-forward megalomaniac men of Vaygr conquering everything simply "because", basically replacing Taiidan, and leaving even less factions in-game. It seems that "only humans universe" with a promise of researching post-interstellar mutated humanity - probably, concept similar to Guild Navigators of Frank Herbert's Dune or Ousters of Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos - were just later memories, that retconned initially more liberal approach to race diversity. And, I guess, HWC writers - actually the ones that participated in HW1 story writing - used somewhat of a Star Trek approach, building more dense universe with different relations between factions.

Interesting that if we think about the only human universe, then I believe Homeworld Universe would conceptually look like Star Trek.

Think about it: though the humanity ancestors were from Africa, they've spread across the globe, adapting to surrounding conditions. And now we have people looking differently because of it. And if we're talking about the different planet colonization, when it's not just a climate, but different air consistency, gravity, and as well, isolated DNA pool, then we might get humanity cousins, like tigers and lions, still possible to have common cubs, but already considered as different species. Though it's not always successful: donkeys and horse may have an offspring, but it will be sterile…

The only exit out of this situation is not to wait for humanity to be irreversibly physiologically separated and have a good interstellar logistics, for human DNA exchange, if you know what I mean. Large interstellar empire would do.

Thus we may count that Kushani branch is now a completely different people than they were on Hiigara, and same is Kadeshi branch. Of course, the question is - are 3000 years enough to make those people look so different to understand that they are from one place? But of course, these places were so specific that I believe they would really affected people - here on Earth we already have places where 6-finger people is a normal occasion… Then, adapting to spaceship space and diet would change Kadeshians:

The Kadeshi themselves have largely grown up in environments which make little use of gravity, artificial or otherwise. As such, they are generally taller than other humanoids, with slim bodies and longer limbs.
(c) HWR, p.247, The Kadeshi

And hot harsh conditions of lower gravity Kharak would make microevolutionary changes in Kushani as well, for example, something like anti-sand long eye lashes, anti-sun darker skin and heat resistant organism - so that the typical Kharakian would look like anthropological Jesus who had been depicted white Caucasian because of European medieval painters' bias… But you know, it looks like Rachel S'jet was a quite aristocratic white skin girl that didn't spend much time outside!..

Well, if the first Russian rapper - a poet with African roots, that died in a firefight (joke) - "the Sun of Russian literature", Alexander Pushkin, was naturally "white-faced" in a prevailing conditions, while his grand-grandfather was an afroboy that Russian emperor Peter the Great made a nobleman,

then I'd say that in 3000 years, that's around 100 generations, Kushans should have became "averaged" in look, especially, if their number was 360 millions max, which is double less than the current Europe population.

And if we look at the HWR and HWM illustrations we would see different-color Kushans there, while Taiidans are white, while it should have been vice-versa, as the Taiidan Empire is more vast for having different type of people communities… But if it's canonical it could mean that "color" Kushans were isolated in their own communities, maybe exiled by Siidim, escaping to Paktu lands… So, was there a racism on Kharak? And do the seeds of siidimism, that had been accepted for a pretty long time (HWDOK), are uprooted, and reignited by Homeworld War righteous revenge of the Chosen Ones, the People of Stars, the Unbound, and in Vaygr War to be religiously approved as the Sajuuk-Khar'id, the Progenitor legacy holders? Might this unconscious feeling of сhosenness be the reason for later political struggles in Asaam Kiith'sid, right after the Homeworld War, and then, Vaygr War, leading to Kushan spreading in and out of galaxy looking for their fate beyond Hiigara?..

Well, it's an interesting situation when in small societies less diversity means more inclusiveness due to faster processes. And vice-versa for the large ones due to slower processes.

And btw, why there is no other alien sapient life? Did the Progenitor wiped out all the alien forms but humans? Or was it like The Beast did it but then the Progenitor Automatons removed The Beast?..

In the end, instead of a "new" T-MAT race, The Beast was a budget compromise for a "Stand-Alone DLC" using already existing assets, but still it was a better mirror into human HW Universe, than Vaygrs and Progenitor AI's of pretty sterile HW2. As well, HWC had brought a lot of elements that were used in later games - story-wise in HW2 (finding mega-gun and repair of it by Bentusi, Bentusi suicide…) and gameplay-wise in HWDoK, and it feels quite unfair that this member of HW family is kept being unrecognized.

- Good work with that Kaalel frigate, workers 5 and 7. I'm sure they'll forget to thank us later!
- You got that right!
(c) HWC, Cutscene 01-02

Origins: In The Beginning Was The Word

With Naggarok's name being straight-forward link to Cataclysm of Ragnarok, and continuing the Bible theme from HW1, the name of this apocalyptic enemy of the righteous and religious kiith Somtaaw with Kuun-Lan vessel, from the Lungma Jiin mountain, that did not bow before the kiith Nabaal expansion (China-Tibet reference?), most probably is the reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse:

¹ And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
² And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
³ And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
⁴ And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
⁵ And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
⁶ And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
⁷ And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
(c) Revelation 13

As well, as The Beast of Bible is associated with The Red Dragon, then we can add kiith Somtaaw to the Dragonslayers club.

"But as Siegfried earned, he must then taste the dragon blood, in order to take to himself something of that dragon power. When Siegfried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature. He has transcended his humanity and re-associated himself with the powers of nature, which are powers of our life, and from which our minds remove us.<…> Psychologically, the dragon is one's own binding of oneself to one's own ego."
(c) Joseph Campbell

Origins: Tropes

"Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes - viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile - slaves of suggestion, builders of cities - more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great God! What madness made even those blasphemous Old Ones willing to use and carve such things?"
(c) H.P. Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness"

The Beast concept comes from such classical movies as "The Thing" and "Alien" - the latter brings a lot of scenario and artistic input into the game. Well, the similar concept is the basis for the alien of "Life" (2017), the Protomolecule of "Expanse", the Necromorphs of "Dead Space", The Many of "System Shock 2", Zergs of StarCraft and Tyranids of W40K. Probably, the same concept is in all this movies about some alien organism controlling society, while some individuals disobey hive mind - I believe this comes from the Cold War fears of communism. Star Trek's Borgs are in the same list. And finally Zombie-movies, with the social context of consumerism. As well, "Resident Evil" game series with all the zombies and T/G-viruses… Maybe, we can add "Mimic" and "Virus" movies to the list. If you have some more examples, ping me.

Anyway, as we see, The Beast concept might be trashy from the first point of view, but it's pretty classic and might bring lot of interesting context if served well. And that's not just a "space meat", as Aaron Kambeitz has named it in HW Artbook interviews. Though it might be disgusting for a tech guy to see such a chaos onboard :)

Origins: Natural Born Killers

Well, in real life, sophisticated relations beyond simple death happens only in case of quite long co-evolution: too weak viruses are destroyed, too strong viruses are dead with their victims; others are adapting to carriers, and vice versa, so that a virus has more carriers and they are producing more units of a virus. The current pandemic situation is a nice example of it: after Nth wave there will be whether a virus modification that is mediocre enough to coexist with the humanity, or only those humans will survive that can coexist with a strong virus, and their children will have this trait. And the mass vaccination can make a shortcut in this circuit, but the evolution never ends. As well, we know that there are parasites that co-evolute into symbiotes, and later become one - that's how our body cells had been created in billions of years.

But there are some bigger parasites that use someone, like insects, as zombies to get into other species, like mammals. There are examples of such coexistence. Will it work if the carrier is changed? I guess, no.

It may be some advanced slime but most probably, like in "The Last of Us", the most appropriate the Beast reference is Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis which is an insect-pathogenic fungus that injects in a ant's nervous system but leaves the brain untouched. It leads the ant out of the anthill, where the carrier finally dies, but fungi lives in a more appropriate place. So, is the Beast a bio-mechanical Fungi shooting spores? :) There were already fungus-based aliens, for example, Lovecraft's Mi-go.

Origins: Human Factor

In the meantime, we continue with our surface studies. Samples taken from the beacon's hull indicate an age of roughly a million Hiigaran years.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 03-04

Engineers report 7.2
We have finnaly been able to translate the data we downloaded from the alien pod. It was launched from some kind of alien exploration vessel called the NAGGAROK. Telemetry data indicates the NAGGAROK came from outside the galaxy nearly a million years ago. It was using an experimental hyperspace drive of immense power.
We're not clear on this next section, but the visual data seems to be showing that the alien ship picked up some sort life-form in Hyperspace. The organism we know as The Beast.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 06-07

Little is also known about hyperspace. It is theorized that hyperspace does not exist independently of normal space but is instead created when the hyperdrive is engaged. There are other theories that suggest hyperspace is its own independent space, with the possibility of lifeforms existing within it, but this is yet to be proved.
(c) Homeworld Revelations, p.136, "HyperDrive Technology and Hyperspace"

Well, it's not really clear what does it means - "life-form in Hyperspace", especially when there is no solid theory of what is hyperspace: is it some kind of 4D-space, Immaterium of WH40K, Hell of "Event Horizon", The Void Which Binds of Hyperion Cantos, Outside of Enderverse, Wormhole/Slipgates, quantum oscillations phase shifting, teleportation or else. If we use it as a Universe building block, then it turns out to create a horror picture of everyone endangered going through Hyperspace… Who knows what kind of ecosystem is in there? But definitely that's not how the Homeworld's hyperspace travels were imagined. Though there is a Star Trek "Discovery" idea of interstellar shroom net as another way of travelling…

But if we look at it from another angle? With all the ideas about the post-interstellar humanity evolution, why there is no ideas that galactically lonely humanity would eager to create another kind, like it was done in David Brin's "Uplift Saga", be it AI, genetically modified human, some smart mammal or completely new creature? Even on Kharak there were plenty of non-human life, so where's the alien sentient one in a vast cosmic space?

Hundreds of thousands of species used to inhabit Kharak...
(c) HWDOK, Kharak, Kharakid Biology

By the way, we've seen some examples of limited AI's - Ghost Ship, Junkyard Dawg, Progenitor Guards… Even Bentusi can be considered some sort of cyborg! So, where is the Skynet?.. If there is no Sajuuk everything is permitted (c) Dostoyevsky. Like, le Dieu est mort, vive le dieu!

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(с) Ozymandias (Shelley)

I think, it would be even better to rebrand The Beast from hyperspace originated to something that was done by humans themselves. Who knows, what these researchers of Naggarok were experimenting with? What if Naggarok had its own "Philadelphia Experiment"? It could be unsuccessful attempt of prolonging crew life with the help of experimental technologies. Or maybe it was a result of striving to become immortal by improving themselves by vaccinating some virus-nano-machines, - biomechanical (c) Giger - whatever. But that would describe why The Beast was salvaging humanoid ships so easily. Thus we would see not the another race, but the consequences of immoral human activity, what may be if the bioweapon is unleashed…

Of course, it was told that Naggarok is a million years old spaceship, but I don't think that any ship could survive for such a long time due to the law of Conservation of Energy and Entropy - be it the Ghost ship from HW1 that allowed to have such phenomena in HW Universe; or the Naggarok that had been an homage to 1mln year old ship of LV-426... I don't know, maybe, it could be explained by some radiation effects, or the mistakes of non-specialized miner equipment, or else. Bentusi memories could be explained by the fact that they had some hidden Progenitor memory banks, and The Beast was really created by the hands of Sajuuk - well, some of the ancient Progenitor people… Or could the original TMat be the creator of the Beast?..

For example, we can take Naggarok experimental drive and say that it creates a time-fastening field effecting only the hull: like, from the insider view it moves very slow and carefully, really doing those years, but the outsider sees it moving very fast. This can give us 2 hints:
1) The Beast on hull fastened evolution;
2) The Ghostship could be of the same kind, and the Bentusi could receive upmentioned memories after HW1 Mission 9 event.

At least, it would be an interesting move to reintegrate the pure homage thing into the very tissue of HW Universe. And this memory banks thing could be a way how the Bentusi share their knowledge: they upload info and just know it without differentiating if it their memory or not. And that's why they are like one person even if these are different ships, and that's why in case of emergency data backup ship is launched.

Btw, it's interesting how Bentusi appeared just in a moment of time when the Ghostship was disabled. Maybe, their knowledge of hyper-tech is so great, that they know how to lay low in a hyperspace, like bentos on the ocean floor, listening there to Hyperspace songs, just rarely emerging to normal space surface?.. Somewhat of a hyperspace submarine :)

Anyway, I believe all this non-essential details can be retconned just fine, same it was done to HW1 by HW:DoK "our planet is dying" wars and HW2 "Trinity" cores. Especially, as HWC artists had clearly drawn Naggarok crew as humans. Very old race, indeed.

Infection

The Devourer does not kill us when it tries to take our ships. It leaves us in place, but corrupts our being. We die, but we are not dead. We would be trapped, slaves within our own bodies eternally.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 15-16

Ship's Engineer's Report 1.2 - With the CLEE-SAN and their science team lost, my engineers are now analyzing the subversion entity we have codenamed The Beast.
The Beast seems to infect vessels with a kind of particle beam that layers the target with techno-organic robots.
Once these entities make contact with a compatible surface they begin to absorb material and infiltrate the target structure. When they make contact with organic matter, they use the mass to form a neural control network that then takes control of the ship.
Each beast cell functions like a bio-mechanical virus. It's capable of using and subverting living cells in much the same way that it subverts and uses non-organic technology. More studies need to be done... but we are engineers, not biologists.
Analysis of the infection attack indicates that the Beast particles ride the charged plasma beam and then coat the target. The charged nature of the beam allows it to jump from target to target. Infection per shot seems based on the mass of the target ships. Again, more qualified analysis is desperately needed if we are to find a counter to this beam.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 04-05

- KUUN-LAN! Come in! You would not believe what the inside of the CLEE-SAN looks like! The surviving bio-circuitry alone could revolutionize our ship tech!
- Try to remember, that bio-circuitry was your own Kiith brothers and sisters, not so long ago.
(c) HWC, Mission 16

The price was heavy. Kiith Somtaaw burned out the heart and mind of the Beast, but the bodies of their loved ones could never be recovered. All that remained of them was a glittering infinity of wire, mysteries and microcircuits.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 17

And, while the price in Hiigarian life is always high, instant death in a blast of high-energy plasma is preferable to the twisted immortality of becoming part of the Beast.
(c) HWC, Ships, p.91, “Deacon” Class Destroyer

Kuun-Lan parts… We want beacon brain. Give us data, or we take data with your parts.
(c) HWC, Mission 10

So, how does it work?

It's essential for the Beast matter to get to the human pilots of ships. Uncontrolled Beast matter, for example, injected by the infection beam, would just consume every non-organic matter on its way, converting it into the Selves. This happens until it meets the organic matter, when it starts to replicate living beings, weaving their nerves into the common bio-circuits thus 'understanding life' and learning by the reaction of consumed - well, like the Machines of AniMatrix did. And that's makes The Beast interested in human brains, like a typical zombie! Just for another reason - not to eat, but to consume.

But that means that remotely piloted ships - the Somtaaw Way - or AI-controlled ship would be just destroyed by a savage consummation of The Beast raw matter. And the gameplay mechanics, as well as the fleet structure, give a hint that this explanation might be true. At least, need to check if the infection beam does less damage than microship health. :) Anyway it does not look like the AI-controlled ships can be salvaged otherwise than with an advanced salvage ship, raised inside the Beast mothership, sharing the gathered knowledge, and infecting the ship with sophisticated version of the Beast matter, that would know the key knots of a ship. But it's too much effort and no food. At least, for no-pilot vessel it's a lot easier to self-destruct - if humans have invented Naar Directive of sacrificing the part to save whole, then AI would know no hesitation.

As for the Naggarok beacon - probably, like Ripley of Alien, somebody has tried to escape within it, but the tiny portion of The Beast has compromised this persons attempt to die alone in space… It could have been a great short cinematic, for example, for Neill Blomkamp!

As for living beings, their touch with The Beast would result in some "Color out of space" body mixtures, Cronenberg body horror with half-sane leftovers of people, half-grown into floors and walls and slowly dissolving as the time passes - like in "The Thing", "Aliens" or "Event Horizon" movies. Well, it feels like another definition of being one with your ship, "Unbound", just in a perverted way. Not the Bentusi Way, but close.

In order to serve as a living command core to the Mothership, one of our people would have to volunteer to be surgically altered so that most of the nerve trunks serving limbs and senses would be patched into ship systems instead.
(c) HW1, Historical Brief, [A9] Karan Sjet Solution

Probably it would look like the scenes of "Nightmare on the Elm Street 5" or "Tetsuo The Iron Man" - well, nothing pleasant there.

"Over ninety percent of this one's genotype is pure human. Its nervous system has been tuned to transmit constant pain, something roughly on a level, I understand, with being burned alive except that the pain never overloads the organism's brain and senses and never dulls. Its brain is fully functional, and according to its papers it was link-educated so that it could, ah, fully appreciate its predicament. That adds so much to the work's meaning, you know. It is not simply a live sculpture, something pretty to look at, but a thinking, knowing soul trapped in a living hell."
(c) William Keith, Warstrider III

But if we believe Warhammer(40K), some people like Chaos influence, having no understanding what their existence might be. Here is the potential of a new cult, considered a heresy by Somtaaw, and its Inquisition zealots, acolytes and martyrs would crave for an extermination of a non-human form of life.

But on the other hand, The Beast victims become one with the Ship, the Beast Hunger now becomes victim's hunger, thus, and like in a real cult, their existence might be even happy! Disjoint and dissolving bodies would lose their physiological and emotional ties, except for basic The Beast needs, but being joint in one neuron net means that the Beast won't harm itself, thus there will be no pain, except for the one the Non-selves would bring. Join the Matrix.

Evolution

Situation Report 10.5 - The Siege Cannon failed to harm the Beast. Analysis of combat recordings show that the Beast cells were able to re-grow almost instantly after exposure to the beam.
…
It is the opinion of the Ship's Engineer that the Beast's cells have mutated and adapted since our samples were taken. He believes a sample of the original structure of the Beast could be used to adjust the cannon to do maximum damage.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 10-11

Analysis of combat behavior seems to indicate that the Beast Mothership behaves like a living thing, concentrating its strength in certain areas for a limited time before “exhausting” itself. So, like an athlete pushing himself hard, the Beast Mothership seems capable of shunting power to its maneuver drives and other systems: it can build ships faster, research faster, or even fire faster, for a limited period of time. During this time the hull appears to degrade slowly, as if the Beast is weakening somehow from the strain of shunting power to these subsystems.
(c) HWC, Ships, The Beast Mothership

Once a ship is subverted, it is not known exactly what changes are made in performance and firepower, but initial analysis indicates that while the transformed ships are slightly slower than their un-infected counterparts, they have an added layer of organic armor. Unsubstantiated reports claim that this armor layer can regenerate over time, if damaged; this may also be true of intricate systems and drives aboard a Beast vessel. If the Beast is capable of healing itself, Allied Commanders are warned to engage and destroy any Beast vessel as quickly as possible; any cripples should be finished off before they can heal.
(c) HWC, Ships, The Beast

The Beast cells high regeneration rate would make subverted ships tougher, self-repairable, but slower as well, as it requires a lot of energy, and that's why the reactors won't be able to feed engine at full capacity. As well, with the possibility to change themselves to connect to the living creatures neural system, it gives The Beast one more feature: to reproduce Selve-ships The Beast would need to recreate the human node inside of it.

Theoretically, The Beast could learn how to regenerate human body or maybe even replicate it with its own cells, but that would happen when The Beast becomes body-positive enough for a long enough time to accumulate enough knowledge to produce the sophisticated enough matter, in case if it's possible to produce something other than itself. So, having a lot of human remains inside of it, used as a meta-nodes for its neural network, The Beast can transform into something of a meta-human. Imagine 'Anti-Karan', the Hive Queen! The question is, will she be a puppet, or as integrated entity will influence or even control the instincts of the Beast. You know, even human brains might be considered as a parasite to a body, consuming too much energy for some off-topic activities…

…and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns (c) Revelation 17-3

The only problem that it's probably a bit hard to control all these united minds and voices, like the new organ appears and you're the child not knowing yet how to control it at full, like Billy Miligan with all of his personalities. Well, even the Naggarok had its problems of Self-control when the Taiidani Imperials had abandoned "Beast-Imperial Pact". Some explain it with The Beast using old radio-messages, somewhat of a maniac letters, I'd explain it with new organs of grown mouths to speak - something that was optimized and turned into ship bio-circuitry million years ago…

Intelligence

The fact it sent a fleet to infect the most powerful ship in the sector means that it is not a simple viral creature. It understands our data banks and technology.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 05-06

The Imperial scientists were working on a way to take control of the Beast and turn it into a living weapon system. Their experiments to control the Beast by partially grafting it onto living subjects were unsuccessful. The native intelligence of the Beast fragment ultimately defeats any control system.
(c) HWC, Cutscene 09-10

It's gaining intelligence as it absorbs new data.
(c) HWC, Mission 10

For a million year we have been trapped in this ship, listening to the electromagnetic chatter of your tiny self/worlds. We know you better than you know yourselves. Your enemies came to use us and instead we shall use each other. In return for their help, the ones known as Imperials will be given half the galaxy. An ample return for repairing this ship's systems and leading my children back to me.
(c) HWC, Mission 14

When the Beast takes over a new kind of vessel, encountering technology It has never seen before, It brings the ship in to dock and basically absorbs it, seemingly to learn the new design or technology. From that point on, It can incorporate those technologies into new designs—or even order Its ships in the field to grow the new parts themselves.
(c) HWC, Ships, p.123, Beast Mothership

As such, the Beast fleet is composed of literally whatever Taiidan, Turanic or Hiigaran vessels have been unlucky enough to cross paths with it. Only two ships seem to be fabricated from primarily Beast technology, these being the command vessel known as the Beast Mothership, and a small kamikaze corvette known as the Cruise Missile.
(c) HWC, Ships, p.123, The Beast

And here comes the question of how intelligent is The Beast.

I see it as a neural network that solves tasks through multiple attempts, and while it's really not an issue, as human brains are basically the same neural net of billions connections and re-connections, creating quality from the quantity, it might be a problem of understanding each other. Feeding and breeding are the basis for every life in a universe, so these we call instincts. The problem is in between of instincts and sanity: the product of billion years long evolution, your body generates hormones and other stuff, so you feel emotions and you can read it from other people if your EQ is high enough, and by these mediators you can foretell what you might expect from the other person. And sometimes there are false predictions when some animals are humanized in the eye of the beholder, which leads to incidents, as the beast remains a beast. Same, other culture representatives behavior might be confusing, especially if there are already some stereotypes and biases that would lead to incorrect conclusions based on a somewhat survivorship bias. Most probably, our computer-learned children would have difficulties in communication...

In case of alien evolution organisms, or AI, they simply don't have your inner organs to feel the same. And while they can mimic you - interesting, will be there some "The Uncanny Valley" effect in this case? - you would not be sure if their intentions are really as claimed, if you really understand each other like in a case of talking with a philosophical zombie that only behaves like you in every aspect while being something different. While it seems to be OK on a political level, it might be disturbing on a personal level, as it would feel like a dialog with a sociopath. Convergent thinking tasks, that have a few solutions, like engineering, cannot approve that the divergent thinking tasks of with a lot of solutions, like diplomacy, would be solved in the same manner, therefore it's hardly predictable when the infinite game, best played in cooperation, becomes zero-sum finite game of war. In other words, technological level does not define the system of values. And it would affect political level even more, leading to somewhat "Dark Forest" situation on an interstellar/inter-species level, when the civilizations stop looking for each other being afraid of becoming a victim of an alien mind… On the other hand, an old foe is almost like a friend, but that's the privilege of the strongest.

The lack of control is causing aggression and conflicts: if you cannot foresee and plan what’s coming out of your “collocutor”, you feel endangered. The other edge is that you may foresee the danger coming with a great probability. To avoid this, both sides should understand their antagonists are not rabid dogs and there can be a negotiation process so that rules and fore/planning/seeing could be achieved, and they won’t be broken.

This is a problem even for social type animals like humans, though our fragility has required us to cooperate at least in a circle of our kin in a course of evolution, and willingly stop our natural impulses in favor of future incomes or to other paradoxical to surviving ideas, making us adapt to our conditions not in hard way - by changing our body, but in a soft way - by changing our minds.

Piaget eventually came to believe that intelligence is a form of adaptation, wherein knowledge is constructed by each individual through the two complementary processes of assimilation and accommodation.

Is there a chance that it can be applicable to the Beast having no socialization skills and thus only a hard but effective way of adapting, that limited it in the very end? Can it be the problem of all lonely Solaris-like alien intelligences? Is there even an intelligence at all without the mind-mirrors of communication, without the opponent to understand, without the self-consciousness?..

In the end, in HWC we haven't seen The Beast big enough to be more than a hungry beast, a vile child hardly controlling itself: even in case of Naggarok, its crystallized intelligence might have been huge after listening to the Galaxy for over 9000 years, still, its fluid intelligence was not high enough, though it had shown some fore-planning skills, but still it was playing zero-sum game in a long term, and cooperation game in a short term, while it should have been doing vice versa. I believe, that such a long term of waiting defines that this Hunger is not so much about feeding, to live, but about breeding, to reproduce itself, which brings some maniacal sexual obsession brushstrokes into the "psychological" picture of The Beast, with all those ejaculation beams…

Interesting, what would happen if, for example, Turanic Raiders Planetoid would be infected? Could it gain enough of mass to become something more sophisticated, for example, like it happened with protomolecule of Expanse? Could it gain more control over the instincts?

We can imagine the entire Solaris-like planet, though it might be not so safe for visitors, like the colony of Enderverse's Lusitania that had an alien-created terraforming "super-intelligent" Descolada virus, destroying everything not fitting the established Eco-system. HWC didn't show us The Beast infected planets - was this just the budget thing, or this was a hint of The Beast not being interested in consuming biomes, but human beings? Was it their artificial nature approval, their strive for concentrated intelligence or shadow, like-unconscious, will of consumed human crews?.. As well, will more human brain meta-nodes make The Beast smarter if it uses some kind of average output of all of them thus making its intelligence limited?.. What if The Beast can think only through the others, replacing the needs of intelligent creatures by the needs of Selves, and leaving the intelligence to solve this Tantalean problem with the Sisyphean perseverance?

The tragedy was that, with their inside-out worldview, they could never conceive of another intelligence, outside of their own. As far as they were concerned, they were simply utilizing the resources of their universe. Adapting. Surviving. They could never even approach their full potential with the baggage of their old, organic philosophy.
But by the same token, they never had the . . . intuition that would let them overcome that philosophy. They couldn't innovate, only react. Maybe, in the end, they were more like machines than organic life after all.
(c) William Keith, "Warstrider"

And it's interesting, that the Beast Selves are initially the mixture of machine, some human controlling part and a glue of the virus. Human brain is somewhat of a "monkey on a crocodile" thing, and in case of The Beast created vessels, most likely that the spaceship would replace the lizard brain, the beast cells would replace limbic system, leaving neocortex to be a replacement of an AI modules, thus creating a living machine, a bio-mechanical creature…

For sure, we can tell that at least The Beast could have the concept of self-identification, almost quoting "Cogito, ergo sum": "We think, therefore… We live". Minds of Many alloying in a new parasitic neuronet Identity.

Links

• Shipyards
• Homeworld.wikia

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