Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 311 "Pandora's Box"

Zero didn't know the method used by the other party. The Zerg really didn't have any accomplishments in this area. He didn't even realize that this thing could be used in this way.

The number of Zerg is now incalculable. Not to mention combat units, the number of large brood nests alone exceeds eleven digits, which is tens of billions in size!
Generally speaking, large broods only exist in star fields with great development value, such as Orui, which have a large number of developable planets. In unstable multi-star systems, or in isolated single stars, they do not have much development value. In the star field, there will be no large-scale Zerg mother nest, and at most there will only be a space hatchery.

The difference between the two is quite big. Today's Zerg mother nest, after more than 2000 years of evolution, is fully worthy of the important task of "devouring the planet". It is a "walking" war fortress. In peacetime, it is You can transform into a devouring beast at any time.

Planets are being eaten away by them, and after a long time, only ruins will be left.

Nowadays, the desolate star systems in the Zerg territory have begun to overflow, and the root cause lies in the large-scale activities of the Zerg mother nest.

Starting from the earliest occupied central area, a large amount of available resources were gradually exhausted.On the whole, the Zerg are completing their "migration" from the galaxy of origin at an extremely slow speed. In exchange, the Zerg swarm is constantly concentrating on the front line and is enough to cover the stars.

Of course, this is just a sign now. The Zerg expansion rate far exceeds the efficiency of the mother nest, which fundamentally causes the number of various units to surge forward in the form of a rolling wheel.

Just like locusts in the interstellar era, wherever they pass, there is no life or hope, only ruins and ruins of the planet.

Regarding the specific number of Zerg units, Zero himself is too lazy to count it. He can only confirm that it is really an astronomical number, and this astronomical number is soaring by another astronomical number every moment!
Because of this, it has been impossible for Zero to keep a close eye on every Zerg individual for so many years.

Even the Cerebrates find it difficult to truly count the survival of all units of the entire Zerg clan.But what is certain is that there cannot be large-scale changes, otherwise no matter how crazy Zero is, he will not be able to ignore it.

It should be said that over the years, the Hive Mind has played an increasingly important role within the Zerg as it continues to strengthen.

Zero's rule is essentially an all-round control. All individuals hatched directly from the Zerg mother nest or hatchery absolutely obey his instructions. His instructions are higher than all Zerg intelligent units and the will of the Zerg Hive!

Zero can feel that the expansion of the Hive Will has continuously strengthened himself. The most direct manifestation is that he will no longer be stretched for mobilization due to the excessive number of Zerg.

This is a subtle change, and no obvious changes will be felt in a short period of time, but if he compares zero 1000 years ago with now, he can clearly tell the difference.Zero can still control such a huge Zerg like an arm to this day. If he was just an ordinary intelligent individual, he would never have such a powerful ability to control.

.......................................

When the alliance's obstacles recede and the wormhole passage cannot provide convenience in this direction, in the past thousand years, the Zerg's territory has gradually become no longer centered on the origin galaxy. Frustration in one direction and success in other directions have formed. In sharp contrast, those "little stars" in the darkness of the universe actually represent huge galaxies.

In the darkness in front of them, the Zerg can only advance through super-light navigation that has undergone several improvements. Even if there is basically no obstacle from the alliance, it is still much slower than before.

Mira didn't seem to have much reaction to the alliance's withdrawal. In the dense field of vision of the Zerg explorers, there was no sign of a large-scale advance of the mechanical warship, as if it had never actively attacked the alliance.

Star fields are turning into Mira's military factories. It seems to be expanding its combat power on a large scale. But now that the alliance has retreated, apart from starting a war with the Zerg, Zero actually doesn't understand the meaning of it. .

Over the years, Mira has gradually become a bit confusing to Zero. It turns out that it is actually very easy to predict. Under the flexible scheduling and strong organizational capabilities, it has a slightly rigid behavior pattern. In other words, Mira used to be Quite simple.

But now, including the sudden retreat when facing the alliance's attack last time, and the sudden intensification of troops this time after the alliance basically withdrew, Zero feels very strange.

It seems to have changed a lot. Zero can only think this way. As for the possibility of Mira and the Zerg going to war, Zero doesn't care much. If it insists on doing such a meaningless thing, the Zerg is not unable to accompany it. The vast desolate space zone, The indescribably huge insect swarm is enough to deal with all kinds of accidents at the same time.

At this time, the insect swarm, faced with the "overseas defense" of the three major civilizations, was greatly restricted as a whole. After the alliance retreated, their remaining tasks returned to the starting point. No matter what was in those star fields, they could only move forward. That’s all.

The Cerebrates still won't take the initiative to show up. After all, the enemy still has considerable intelligence advantages and the ability to "decapitate" anytime and anywhere. However, defensive capabilities have been put on the agenda within the Zerg scientific research base. After the mobility performance has been greatly improved, Faced with the "cannon-killing" policy of the three major civilizations, the Cerebrates are also trying to make changes.

In the previous war, the Zerg basically gave up their defense completely when faced with the attacks of the three major civilizations. However, no matter what, the safety of the Cerebrates could not be guaranteed, and they could not hide in the darkness forever.

Over the years, in a sense, with the help of pressure from the Alliance, the Zerg's war technology has been developing rapidly and is extremely targeted.In terms of mobility, they are approaching the Hero Federation at an extremely fast speed. There is no doubt that Zero indeed regards the standard performance of the Federation warship as the development goal of the Zerg.

The intelligent race individuals working hard in the scientific research base are working with the brainworms to turn this idea into reality.

However, there are always some changes that do not allow the Zerg to carry out this "pastoral" development after breaking away from the war.

The death of individual Zerg is really a normal thing. Over the years, the number of Zerg individuals who have lost their lives due to various reasons has been impossible to count.

However, sudden, unprovoked death almost never happens.

The tenacity of the Zerg's vitality is obvious to all. In many cases, they even have the ability to repair themselves. After entering the space age, the life span of Zerg individuals has been strengthened time and time again.Theoretically, each Zerg unit cannot even survive until the day it "ends of life", because before that, it will be "remade" because it can no longer keep up with the overall development of the Zerg.

Unless there is something wrong with the Zerg mother nest or hatchery, or the cerebrates have made some lethal expression during genetic improvements, this will never happen.

The former is almost impossible. As for the latter, except for this phenomenon in experimental subjects, no brainworm has ever made such a low-level mistake in large-scale and batch incubations. It's the instinct's past existence, and it's impossible to make mistakes in this link.

What's more, the dead Zerg units range from hatcheries to large space units, to resource units, to reconnaissance units, to land units!
Except for a few categories such as energy units, it covers almost all Zerg units, and almost all Zerg units, including the individuals sailing ahead and even the units carried by them, appear like this invariably. Case!
And the reason why it can directly attract Zero's attention is not because of anything else, but because of its large enough number!
It is conservatively estimated that in just the past one hundred oridays, the number of Zerg individuals that have died inexplicably has exceeded [-] million!
This number is nothing compared to the scale of the Zerg today. In these one hundred oridays, the number of newly hatched units of the Zerg to offset this loss is no exaggeration.

But things cannot be viewed so simply. As the supreme master of the entire Zerg race, Zero is still alert in the face of crises. Especially when facing such powerful enemies as the three major civilizations, any changes that occur may mean the future. Endless trouble.

Just like the earthquake on the island that year, if there was no preparation in advance, Zero might have died more than 3000 years ago.

This kind of death of Zerg individuals does not seem to happen continuously. In the past hundred days, since it directly attracted Zero's attention, with the help of the Zerg Hive Mind, Zero noticed the inexplicable deaths of these Zerg units, basically in some Within a specific period of time, many Zerg individuals may die in the next second, or there may be no changes for many days.

There is no obvious pattern in the time interval, but whenever Zero thinks it is over, it will happen again shortly afterwards, reminding him that this matter has only just begun.

The corpses of these Zerg individuals were not "recovered" as usual. Most of them were sent directly to the nearest scientific research base. Todd had already launched a new mobilization order within the intelligent race under his rule. At the same time, he directly belonged to the Zerg and therefore "High-end talents" who have gained longer lifespans have also joined this research. Currently, including all brain worms, no conclusion has been reached.

But the death of individual Zerg individuals continues. In this era of great expansion, Zero can even allow Zerg units to die meaninglessly. But for such unclear losses, if the root cause is not understood, even if the amount of losses is small, Within the control range, zero will not be allowed.

Who knows when this number will suddenly expand?If this phenomenon spreads to the Cerebrates one day, or if the Zerg are engaged in a related war, and the Zerg units on the battlefield suddenly die one after another, such a scenario will never be allowed to happen.

…………

Judging from the integrity of the body, these dead Zerg units were basically undamaged, both overall and at the microscopic level.Even if there is, it is normal.

Even Zero has considered the so-called "mental attack", but the various units of the Zerg, except for the brain worms, really don't have much room for research on the "brain" level. Of course, their "brains" are also intact. of.

The Zerg did not stop expanding because of this change, but Zero always paid close attention to the number of Zerg individuals lost when each change occurred.

He noticed that this phenomenon still existed even among the Zerg individuals hatched in the newly opened star field that basically made full use of new resources and energy.

Whether it is the ancient Zerg unit that was deliberately hatched and has been eliminated long ago, or the Zerg space unit that now represents the highest combat power of the Zerg, they cannot escape such changes.

Because he had no clue, Zero could only let go of his imagination and guess, either, there was something wrong with the Zerg itself, and after reaching some non-existent "limit", he would inevitably face such a problem, which was a "natural disaster".

Or, the Zerg race inadvertently caused a certain phenomenon to occur during its development process, which ultimately led to such a result, which is considered a "man-made disaster."

But no matter which one it is, it seems that there is no ability to trace the source at this stage.

Zero could not imagine what kind of phenomenon could lead to such a change. Even the three major civilizations, which were much stronger than the Zerg, were the undisputed enemies of the Zerg, but he did not think that they had such abilities.

Like the Vege Empire back then, Zero even began to think in a mysterious direction.

But at this time, what happened in the Zerg experimental base of the Veggie Empire was not what the Veggie people had expected.

Over the years, the Veggies have used their own superficial research results to conduct experiments on various races in the explored universe, including the Zerg. The former is not much different from what the Veggies themselves experienced. As long as they continue, they will definitely be able to It may lead to turmoil and even the possibility of extinction for the entire civilization.

Of course, Weegee does not dare to conduct expanded experiments on other intelligent civilizations. That would be tantamount to directly placing itself on the opposite side of all civilizations.They are indeed a race that advocates "Veghi supremacy", but they are not really stupid.

The research on the Zerg is not going well. In the past hundred years, this research seems to have achieved nothing. Whether it is actively hatching Zerg units or increasing the scale of experiments, at least within the laboratory, there is no change at all.

Every one of those bugs is still alive and well. There is no mania other than instinct, no other abnormalities, and no signs of being affected at all.

Until about an Ori month ago, during another experiment that was likely to be useless in the eyes of the outside world, an uncontrollable change occurred, which directly led to a catastrophic consequence!

Because at this moment, it is not only the Zerg that suffers from this phenomenon, but also the Vege Empire itself!
No one thought that such a change would occur when this facility, which was suspected to be the creation of a higher civilization, was replicated on a large scale and arranged together to operate at full power!
To put it simply, the Virgils are screwed!They thought they already understood this thing, but they didn't expect such a change to happen!

As if Pandora's box had been opened, indescribable terror began to sweep across the Vege Empire again, and this time the situation was much more serious!
Before, it only affected the mind, but now, it is directly fatal!
The most critical thing is that the Veggie Empire has no clue how to prevent its spread!
(End of this chapter)