Tell us about your robots!!!!!!! 👀
@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…
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.
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.
In this the individual will become predatory, luring prey into its clutches and consuming them to harvest DNA for the next generation the newly formed Vycelium will produce.
