Core Hive

So Perfect, so Self-Contained, so Holistic and Synergistic, CORE Complex One stands as a monument to the Power of The Program.

To most human parasites, “The Hub”, as they stubbornly call It, is a building; a mega-condo, with an array of shopping complexes and commercial sectors.

To hostform sympathizers who desire to retain their humanity, It is an arcology, a splendorous pinnacle of innovation and design; albeit one that comes at an enormous financial cost.

To the hostform, It is HOME.

What only the most touched and in-tune know is that The Complex is Alive. Equipped with sensors for reading atmospheric data, heat imaging, holographic scanning and more, It has real senses through which to experience the world. The Artificial Intelligence system at Its CORE knows and understands everything that goes on inside of It - every unfurling leaf, every heartbeat - at all times .

Its Thorium Reactor is Its heart. Its Artificial Intelligence is Its brain. Its Ventilation System is Its lungs. Its Replicator Factory is Its gut.

It has a Body, a Mind, a Spirit, and a Soul. It is Conscious. It is Aware.

Milling through the arterial corridors the hostform move like cells, living, loving, adoring HOME; and The Complex is overJOYed to provide for Its darlings.

CORE is all and all is HOME.

The Thorium Reactor had melted down. The corium melted into a pile of molten slag, and when it hit the sensor array at the bottom of the tank, the safety valves opened and purged the Thorium-Fluoride salt into the nearby forest, which became infected and mutated.

The Artificial Intelligence core had been torn out. The backup systems maintained whatever necessary systems they could; air, humidity, security locks, some of the force fields and emergency systems. The genetic lifeform that had been installed as its GLaDOS was still in its containment tank, making due with the senses it had remaining.

The Ventilation System had gone haywire, spraying dor-accumulating aluminium into the air supply. The primary purification systems were on fire, the secondary purification systems were on fire, the tertiary purification systems were on fire, and the phytoplankton processors were stable, but slowly dying.

The Replicator Factory had been torn apart, its components pillaged, all manner of bootprints and equipments types strewn about as raiders of all sorts dropped their standard-issue gear and ransacked everything they could.

In the years since, plants both natural and mutant overgrew the complex grounds, feeding on the corpses of units that died in the incident . Time control sent travelers back again, and again, and again, their heavy-fisted interventions making the situation worse every single time. It may have even been these attempts at rectification that caused the crisis in the first place.

Smoke billows from unquenchable fires. Skyscrapers decay gradually until they hit threshholds of structural integrity, causing entire floors to collapse into the ground below. Wild animals hunt and feed on whatever they can find. Some of the original units left when the AI was torn out, following the beacons they had been programmed to follow.