#zhat

that’ll be ah, a project for tomorrow

for now, i’m thinking, drabbles

send me a word or a phrase, and I’ll write something rt related

recently @dahlialittlejames challenged me to build on Zipzag’s canon and finally establish who their current crew members are.  The thing is, though, that I don’t create alien races lightly.  I have, I guess, a lot of preferences?  I really prefer starfish aliens and that like- that is to say, aliens with weird biology who look weird.  Humanoids and space-elves are just not enough for me.  

I based two of these three races on earth animals, because I guess I just know Earth animals best.  

Anyway, I was thinking about cordyceps and how they’ve become this horror trope in media, and I wanted to create a ‘parasitic’ fungus/insect pair that was gentle and sweet and misunderstood.

Vrnz(singular and plural) evolved in the tropical forests of an oxygen rich planet.  Like them, their ancestors resemble insects, but much larger and with only four legs.  Alongside them evolved parasitic fungi.  Their ancestors have a sordid history with the fungi.  Simply invading the bugs’ bodies lead then to taking control of certain functions.  But evolution is a strange mistress, and the bugs began to benefit from sharing their carapaces with these hostile invaders.

And for vrnz themselves, the bugs literally cannot survive larvaehood without the fungal parasites.  Vrnz kind of have an issue with development, in that part of their brains and a lot of their nerves are missing in their adult forms.  Luckily, the fungus is there to fill that role- that is, if it makes it in.

Larval vrnz hatch under a tree-shaped mushroom that drops spores on the brood before it crumbles under it’s own weight and dies.  Vrnz larvalhood is short and unremarkable- they eat a lot and their surviving mothers hope that the spores take hold.  They know that they have when the fungus itself encases larvae- often with the little wrigglers fighting it all the way.  

But, it’s the sad truth that, with every brood, there is one or two larva for who the infection does not take hold.  It’s heartbreaking for the surviving parents to watch the little grubs shudder and quake as they die from an underdeveloped brain.  The mothers discretely eat the lost young before returning to their developing brood.

Adul’ vrnz are of two minds, so to speak.  The vrnz’s own organic brain is the part that’s conscious, but the fungus itself is in charge of all her motor functions.  The fungus has a sort of consciousness of it’s own.  Not exactly a brain, but it has wants and can force those upon the vrnz.  Usually it doesn’t, though, gladly taking suggestions from it’s host.  

Vrnz, though, report to never being lonely.  They claim to be constantly in a conversation with their own fungus.  Vrnz usually have remarkable relationships with their own bodymates.  In fact, it’s hard to tell really, who you’re speaking to from moment to another- the vrnz or it’s fungus.  Vrnz themselves hardly differentiate between the two.  They don’t have plural pronouns.  To say I am vrnz is the same way to say we are vrnz.

So, it’s really unfair to speak of these creatures as infected bugs.  Words like ‘chimera’ and ‘hybrid’ also ring untrue.  They are whole creatures- singular and plural.  

Being singular and plural give the vrnz other advantages, too.  Sticky, fungal tendrils emerge from the bottom of their feet.  Vrnz can control the stickiness and use this to manipulate objects.  Vrnz have mouthes and tongues.  Their mouths are spongelike appendages that that release acid then suck up liquefied food.   A vrnz ‘tongue’ is actually a root that can, when needed, plunge into the earth and pull up minerals.  Maybe we should call it a fungue?

But the most remarkable thing this duality does for the organism is plug it into the hivemind.  Though, hivemind is a little heavy of a word.  It’s more like, personal wifi, only you can only connect to other vrnz.  You can also opt out at any time.  But individuals don’t that often.  The hivemind is a warm, welcoming place, where everyone loves you and encourages you to do their best.  

It can be overwhelming, though.  Not only are words shared, but scents and memories and experiences.  It’s an empathic ride.  This is, perhaps, why people tend to be so kind on the hivemind- bc when you’ve personally experienced people’s harshest memories, you want to be as soft and welcoming as possible.  

The hivemind is where history is taught.  Vrnz populations have gone to war with each other exactly once, and never again, thanks to ability to store and experience memories firsthand.  It’s also where skills are taught.  The hivemind allows a person to actually take over the motor functions of another willing person, while keeping them conscious.  As such, body memory can be taught for complex tasks. 

Innovation is also streamlined in the hivemind, where not a single invention is lost to the ages and ideas are collaborated on almost instantly.  With this tool, the vrnz achieved space travel long earlier than anyone expected- making first contact with the angm quite unexpectedly.  Their dealings with the angm are a twisted, unpleasant road, and we’ll go down it another time.

There’s been debate on whether vrnz have one or two genders(for sexual purposes, anyway), with some scholars saying that they have but one, and with others saying that they change gender over time.  The vrnz themselves will tell you that they have one, and that’s the end of it.  Which makes sense.  They only have one third-person pronoun, which translates most closely to “she”.  They use she for everyone.  To call someone not she is to say they are not a person, and this isn’t acceptable.

Just before her final molt, a vrnz will find a protected place.  These used to be self dug burrows, but now they’re more like sterilized hospital space with soil beds.  She’ll send a message out on the hivemind to her closest friends.  When they come to visit, they come to stay.  First they all get very intimate together, not just fertilizing her but also the fungal parts of her.  Then she rests as the for a while, and the friends leave.  Her fungus takes root in the soil, and breaks through her carapace, killing the organism that was once there.