#vyvacyte

@lullabyes22-blog @the-blue-quetzalcoatl I feel like a cat dragging in some dead thing and leaving it at your feet, but look! look! Weird robot stuff. This is what I had in mind when I started writing the Mechanical Hearts AU and it has gotten completely out of control and turned into it's own thing.

:D *slaps top of head* This bad boy can fit so much lore inside of it… *cue unskippable cutscene*

Before we can talk about the robots we have a short overview about where they come from…

Vycelium 

It is unclear if Vycelium was bioengineered or natrually evolved into existence. However with the convoluted history of selective breeding done by other species, experiments performed on various strands, and Vycelium’s natural tendency to absorb and incorporate DNA from other organisms, finding “true” Vycelium to trace back origins is next to impossible.

A single mature Vycelium is relatively small in comparison to the collective hive (known as a vycelite collective) it is a part of. While the collective can stretch for several hundred miles in all directions, a single Vycelium is only about one hundred feet in diameter.

Vycelium acts a lot like coral. What is often perceived as a single creature is a collective of individual organisms living and working together. What one Vycelium has it shares with its collective, this helps keep up the health of all vycelium involved. If one part of the collective is struggling to collect food, then another section still funnels nutrients to keep it from starving. This is not an entirely selfless act. As once the vycelium are joined it is very difficult to cut them off from a shared system. If one section dies it will negatively affect the entire collective.

Individual vycelium is also thought to have a certain level of intelligence, while not sapient, vycelium are thought to be sentient and capable of thought, though they are not able to express this intelligence in any meaningful way. Collectives work under a shared consciousness, funneling information back and forth similar to neurons of a brain.

Vycelium has several ways of reproducing. They can either asexually or sexually reproduce and create a secondary organism called Vycotens. 

Vycotens 

Okay so these are the little robot guys that I will scream about from the rooftops until my vocal cords are raw and bleeding.

Vycotens are a secondary biomechanism which are derived from the Vycelium. They can range from a little smaller than five feet in height to a little over eight feet in height, the tallest on record being about eight feet and six inches tall. They are heavily armored and difficult to dispatch for a couple of reasons. 

Vycotans lack a brain and without a central processing system they are not prone to vulnerabilities of it getting damaged. Instead, like the vycelium that produced them and their ancestors; they have a network of synapses of neurons which are all over the body connecting through wires strung through their bodies.

There is an organ called the nucleus, a ball of pure flesh which rests at the very center of their bodies. If this is damaged it can lead to death of the vycotan. However it is behind a heavily fortified chassis and is very difficult to reach.

Life Cycle: Stage 1 → Polyps & Vyts

They begin as polyps or growths from stems which greatly resemble berry clusters. While all of the polyps are connected to one stem, they all share different genetic make up which makes them unique.

When they get large enough these polyps will fall off and sit for a few days. This first stage of their life cycle is referred to as vyts. At this stage they are open to being picked off and eaten by other animals (ones who can break through the hard exterior). 

They will remain as a tightly compact ball of metal and flesh until a week lapses then they will unfurl or “hatch”. 

Life Cycle: Stage 2 → Vyling

In the first few days of a Vycotan’s life the outer armor is soft and flexible leaving them vulnerable to harm. However after this period has lapsed they are much more difficult for a sculking opportunist to kill and eat. However this does not mean they are out of the danger zone. Larger predators would still be able to harm them.

Life Cycle: Stage 3 → Vylet

Think post toddlerhood pre-teenager years for Vycotans. At this stage they are considered lethal to their environment and anything that is not directly a Vycotan. Vylets being practically feral when the right stimuli hits is also a reason that other species tend to view Vycotans as a threat to their safety. It’s not the adults you want to worry about, it’s the children. 

This is where Vycotan youth begin to hone some of their natural instincts, stalking, hunting, pursuit, and pack hunting in the form of play with their peers and with adults. Often this behavior is encouraged by adults which can sometimes lead to unpleasant interactions with other forms of life as previously mentioned. 

Life Cycle: Stage 4 → Vynth

At this point in their lives vynths have calmed down, they start to gain control over their instincts and are starting to take their first wobbling steps towards adulthood. It is as messy and hormonal as any teenagerhood.

There’s not much to say here, at this point they are starting to sexually mature and begin to grow more flourishing bits of armor. Up until this point their armor is mundane and mostly sits on their body without any extra patterns, spikes or crests. However during the vynth stage they begin to grow these structures on their bodies. 

Life Cycle: Stage 5 → Vycotan 

This is when the vycotan—vycot (singular), vycota (plural)—have reached adulthood and is the longest stage of their life cycle. While the previous stages in total last about twenty years, Vycotans can live for hundreds of years, sometimes verging into the thousands, they are after all part machine and routine maintenance can keep them running virtually indefinitely. 

However left to their own devices vycotans will still live to hundreds of years of age.

Life Cycle: Stage 6: → Vycelium 

When a vycotan dies, their body breaks down into vycelium completing the life cycle and starting it over again. When they are close to death they will seek a place among established vycelium and allow themselves to pass. When they break down they are re-incorporated into hive mind and their knowledge and experiences are shared with the collective consciousness. 

An alternative to this is that they can start a new hive of their own. They can find a patch of unmarked land and allow themselves to pass there. This is a little more risky and can lead to total death if implantation fails and resources are scarce. However some are willing to risk complete annihilation to start a legacy of their own.

Collectively known as the term Vyvacytes—this word encompasses both organisms known as Vycota and Vycelium—their methods of reproduction are both plentiful and complex. 

Vycotans and Vycelium are polyploids meaning that they have several complete sets of chromosomes. In particular Vyvacytes have six replica sets of twenty seven diploid chromosomes. Meaning in total they have 162. The purpose of having six replicas is the advantage of genetic redundancy.

There are in total five different methods of reproduction. 

Genetic Integration 

Budding 

Sexual Reproduction

Artificial Asexual Reproduction

Manufacturing  

Vycelium Reproduction

Vycelium reproducing somewhat differently compared to Vycotans. It is far more plant-like compared to Vycotan reproduction which more resembles animal reproduction. 

Genetic Integration 

When Vycelium encounters foreign DNA it begins the process of Meiosis, however instead of swapping genetics with a replicated pair, it instead swaps genes with the foreign DNA, incorporating this new genetic code into its own. Then the now Diploid sell will fold on itself and swap chromosomes as well to generate more integration. Often in these cases there are only bits and pieces of DNA that are being incorporated. So the Vycelium compensated by filling in missing spaces with other genetic code from another meal or a neighbor. 

Budding 

Vycelium producing vycotans is known as budding. Budding occurs in cycles which happen four times a year. A collective will try to sync these cycles together, when this happens millions of polyps are made at the same time, but only a few hundred will truly make it to the next stage. 

In a similar method of cycada reproduction the vycelium originally relied on safety in numbers. The hope was that predators would be too full consuming freshly fallen polyps from the early cycle to consume the later developed ones.

Sexual Reproduction

Sometimes vycelium will sexually reproduce if it encounters another collective. Often different collectives will not compete but instead decide to mate with one another, while following strict boundaries. (yes there have been “wars” fought between different collectives that don’t follow the rules). In doing this they will reach across their agreed border and connect a specialized stalk meant for passing haploids back and forth, then these limbs die and rot away when the job is complete. 

Should there be a war there is still a method when occurs where the losing vycelium will—instead of civilly passing back and forth gametes—are consumed, broken down and integrated into the new vycelium collective. DNA is contained but the consciousness in these consumed limps is not. In a way someone who has existed for thousands of years within a Vycelium collective will cease to exist. This is also a second death. For this reason different collective attempts to avoid conflict. 

Shoots

This is a form of sexual reproduction. In environments or seasons where resources are plentiful the vycelium nucleus will sometimes clone itself and create a second nucleus which will begin to grow tendrils of its own.

Vycotan Reproduction

Where Vycelium reproduction is plant like, Vycotan reproduction—as stated before—is far more animal like, it’s messy and in some cases there is a generous swapping of fluids.

Sexual Reproduction

The most common form of Vycotan reproduction is sexual reproduction. It can be done in several ways. Vycotan’s are a unisex species meaning they have the ability to produce sperm and egg gametes. 

While vycotans look nothing like their vycelium brethren their genitals are a reminder of where they came from taking the form of tendrils. Lots and lots of tendrils. Hidden behind a panel that retracts when aroused, or if the individual commands. 

The penis is made of five separate tendrils that can for penetrative purposes often loop together to create one shaft. These tendrils have an elastic quality to them. They are able to stretch and bunch. In their resting form they will curl together and rest coiled above the female genitals.

The female genitalia share a tendril, the fifth tendrils is located a little lower on the body and has a more flat broad appearance. The back side is smooth however when unfolded the underside is covered in several tinier tendrils. These tendrils interact with the female genitalia, gliding along one another. This fifth tendril also serves a secondary purpose of acting like a flap which covers the opening.

Behind the fifth tendril there are two lips which open up when aroused. These are also covered in tiny tendrils, as well as the inside of the canal. These tendrils allow for a surface level interaction with each other’s nervous systems.

Artificial Asexual Reproduction

A nucleus can be created artificially by cutting off a small portion of a vycelium growth and introducing it to a hormone that turns it into a polyp. These polyps are then placed in incubation tanks and allowed to mature into vyts.

Manufacturing  

The mechanical parts of a vycotan body can also be replicated within a factory setting. Then an artificial nucleus is placed inside and given growth hormone. It will fill the body it has been placed into. This is a fast and relatively cheap way to produce labor forces. However one of the ethical downsides is that while they are in an adult body the subsequent being has the mental capacity of an infant.