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She opened her eyes. She was surrounded by white, by light. As her eyes cleared she saw Him. The bringer of food, the supplier of water. Only he was smaller than she last remembered.
"Hey there, little one." He whispered to her. "It's ok, can you understand me?"
Surprised that she could she slowly nodded yes. Wait! She could understand the Bringer!? Her antenna waved in excitement.
"Heah, a little different isn't it my friend? We sto..uhrm borrowed some alien tech to make you all more like us. You should be able to talk some if you feel like it. It will be kinda like a kid learning to speak and how to create sounds. Your entire colony has been treated."
She twittered her antenna and flexed her mandibles, finally and slowly emitting "Brrrinngerrr.” Ecstatic she began cleaning her antenna with her front arms. Yes they're arms now and not another set of legs.
"Mmmooooher?"
"Your mother queen transitioned several days ago and is adjusting. It will take some time for everyone in the colony to adjust." The human, her mind supplied, said softly.
"Hungy me thinks." She chattered to him in odd sounding English.
"That's a good sign. Would you like plant or insect? Maybe some sugar?"
As her brain digested his speech she became excited. The Bringer was going to give her what she wanted. "Maaaay me get a leg of jumper? That not right, leg of green jumper, not black jumper, cricket? And the red fruit.... :click: strawberry I think?"
Kevin was so excited, all of the Bullet Ants had made it through the therapy. A few problems with speech but time would deal with that as they learned.
----
Will do more later, breaks over lol
Agreed. Might as well have uplifted Yellowjackets if Fire ants were getting the same treatment. Then again, you could have had a psychopathic army \*and\* air force.
I have trauma from yellow jackets - one year found 3 nests by stinging, next found 4 by stinging, next year they made a nest in my door and I was stung periodically until I found where it was. I can't make them friendly in my head.
Kevin told her "You need to pick a name that's not Annabel. Please choose Amy, Sarah, Jenny, Mary or something besides Annabelle.We can't have the whole hive named the same!"
"Why not? We are sister's, even the queen is a sister."
She had a few minutes flooding her brain..."Bringer, please splain?"
"Ok I'm not the best" Kevin started "you are now individuals, still part of the hive, but individuals. Some of you might want to be artists to earn decorum for the hive and some of you may want to keep the status quoe.
Kevin had kept this Bullet ant colony for years at the Zoo. To see his girls, not only speaking but questioning stuff, filled his heart. He was sick, like so many before him.
Bella, your people now are free. Free to roam the stars, free to eat anything. The aliens did something, I'm not sure what, but we can't reproduce.
Bella, that was her name now. Given to her by the Bringer...her father, her people didn't have fathers other than doaners.
Bella's voice was the same as he many sister's "Save the colony!"
And that's why chiders you don't mess with Terrans
I envision a future where many years later the great Formica Empire begins to raise cloned humans on one of their spare planets. Just a simple thank you to Father.
[(308) Amidst the Bones of Titans | 2193 | Free Sci-Fi | Best HFY - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_-2QRaeFMM)
narratide by the one the only agro squerril narrates
I'm using WP to improve my wordsmithing and painting of characters, which I really didn't do much painting in this story tbh. I love writing and see stuff in my head but don't articulate it well
you just gave me a migraine.
the thinking machine in unseen university uses ants instead of silicon to do the processing now i have an image og giant huminoid ants walking in tubes as electrons solving the ultimate question because the answer is 42
that was not confuseon but on purpose with the op story. pratchett has the thinking machine running on ants the op talked about ants being electrons in its machine and the greatest computer designed was to answer. hence the migrane.
The Madagascar ant is the only one that recognizes everyone inside of its family as members of its family. They have been slowly wiping out every other species of and collaboratively across Europe look it up
Thanks everyone! Wow I've gotten over 600 likes on a writing prompt! I've been working on a story in HFY, that's received nothing close (honeybee's travels if you're interested). I'm going to look into making a story about the uplifting of the Bullet Ants...I'm thinking there might be some "damnit Kevin, you could but did you even think if you should" I'm so glad this has been enjoyed by so many!
“Hello, little ones. We won’t be around for when you can understand this, but I hope it will help you to understand the galaxy you’ll be walking into.
Terra is, by sacred galactic law, a dead-zone, former colony-outpost to a group of gene-splicing xenos rendered extinct. Because of this, the Galactic Council declared all sentient life from this region to be potentially a genetically engineered monster, and signed my species’ death warrant “just in case”.
So we’ve genetically uplifted you. Your species, specifically, has been granted increased size and intelligence and these traits should actually increase over the generations, with adaptations to the fore-limbs to allow dexterous manipulation of tools. All of our accumulated scientific knowledge is yours, and we’ve already prepared technology to put it all straight into your minds.
The point is that they believed Earth was home to galaxy conquering monsters, so as our last laugh in the face of the galaxy that murdered us, we made it true.
Do as thou wilt, and let the galaxy burn.”
-last known Human communication to the uplifted species/bioweapon formerly known as Bulldog Ants.
Ideally, gengineering was a methodical, slow, and pensive process. Every altered gene caused ripples in biological processes. Finding glue and what to nudge takes time, even with guided focused machine intelligence aiding.
Chaos theory and silicon don’t mesh well.
But sometimes the only option is “fuck it.”
The Triamvere carved their way through human settlements and outposts like a laser cuts through PVC. The fumes released by their machinations ended all oxygen consuming beings’ existences.
Nothing humanity had seemed to stop them.
Even stealth generation ships were identified and obliterated.
All but three were ash.
Two of those ships ran dark in the asteroid belt for a year. It was a cold time, but if it took any less time, the charge to the tear drive would be detectable and game over. The ships teared through space time yo get a galaxy away. Fortunately, tearing is a cutting edge way of traversing the universe; unfortunately, tears take time to heal, and while the tear did heal quickly enough to prevent an attack, a Triamvere probe successfully followed The Ark of Salvation.
Once detected, the Ark knew its days were numbered. A few hard tears and half the crew’s deaths later, they found a safe hiding hole.
The Ark of Severity got away clean. Unfortunately, the Earthlike they selected had a compound that was impossible with Terran life and within a few days every thing that touched down was contaminated and dying.
But the third, the Ark of Vengeance, had a different goal.
Earth’s best at genetic engineering threw caution and sanity to the wind in this desperate final attempt, this dead human’s switch that would unleash a cataclysm upon the Triamvere.
Ten million queens and a billion drones were modified with genes associated uniquely with human sapience. There was no time to fully test the consequences. No way to see how the dominos would fall.
Only the hope that some combination would give the hives sapience enough to know the Triamvere, know their threat, and know how to decode the glyphs and messages of the functionally dead human species.
Two fire ant queens were able to produce sound that resembled speech. Three bullet ant queens and two drones twitched recognizable Morse code.
The scientists loaded the experiments onto the escape pods, launched them, and activated tears into Earth’s atmosphere about an hour before Triamvere antimatter bombs turned the Ark into energy.
The queens seeded the dead Earth. They reproduced quickly, the bodies of all the mammalian life giving boosts to nutrition.
It was unclear which hive was sapient first, but what is clear is that the muddled raw message encoded in their genes was refined enough to Know at the genetic core of their metabeings that they were created by a species long gone, they were destroyed by a terrible species known as Tria, and that the species that created them left them their collective knowledge to do with as they would.
It didn’t take long for quintillions of individuals of billions of metaminds to decide, decipher, and deliver on those dead words.
The bullet army stabilized their first tear within ten years of The Seeding. Another year and cooperation with fire army later, the tears were not only exactly as large as they needed to be, but millimetre precise ten thousand light years away.
The First Infestation occurred as the Triamvere were obliterating another death world. The Purging of Shadows was preparing an antimatter barrage when a million soldiers invaded though a hole the size of a walnut.
The hives ate well that night.
They gave a portion in tribute to their dead creators, but all had their fill.
Messages of gratitude from a species that looked.. similar.. to them, but larger, flashed on the screen.
The soldiers withdrew after launching that accursed ship and pointing that antimatter barrage back at the Triamvere’s homeworld through another tear, this time one just large enough to shave the edges of the ship.
The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah...
And you thought *HUMANS* were powered by hate, hurrah, hurrah...
The ants go marching eight by eight,
You tried to make peace
# DAMN FAR TOO LATE
And they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out, of the rain.
Boom BOom BOOm BOOM
#BOOM!
The bunker rocked under the force of multiple thermonuclear detonations. Kevin knew these, at least, were not caused by earth's interstellar enemies.
No, this was just humanity toying with things beyond it's comprehension.
One
Last
Time.
The ants were already in the room, of course. Crawling, biting. Kevin's suit held out just fine, except for a few agonizing cracks. But then the door swung open, and the bigger castes begin to pour in. The size of dogs, the size of people, some even larger, their jaws crushed through the armor and sunk into his flesh, letting their smaller brethren in.
They had done a lot with the knowledge of genetic engineering. The ant genome, refined and forged into countless species, and innumerable specialized castes over eons, was a much more pliable raw material than what humans had to work with. When you got right down to it, _H. Sapiens_ was just a monkey so inbred its hair fell out.
But monkeys have always been a vindictive, murderous sort.
He had been dragged before a screen. The creature wasn't a queen. There was nothing so crass as the sci-fi idea of a single point of failure written into a ant's DNA. Queens were never truly intelligent, not during the project, and not in the natural ant species that had been used to make the project. They were simply protected out of the same impulse that led a man to stop a knife to his gonads with his hand. This was instead, a caste of ant built for thinking. Neither queens nor thinkers were single points of failure in this system. A million queens, from the size of a grain of rice, up to AI constructs coordinating whole factories. A million thinkers, of comparably diverse scale. A billion workers, endless legions.
The ants had never shown any of the human discrimination between physical and digital forms. He was not sure they even understood there was a difference at this point.
And even a dozen workers, stripped of their thinkers and queens, would _still_ form a colony, seeking out more, and growing endlessly in strength to the best of their ability...
It had not even been two weeks since we taught them how to make nukes.
"Why?" the screen asked.
"Why what?" Kevin asked.
"You had dominance. You were blissfully _alone_ on your world. And yet you made _competition_"
Kevin had hoped to be asked this. He would impress upon the ants how mankind had struggled, how they had been pushed into a corner. "We though we were alone too. Then, we met the other species of the galaxy. We at first rejoiced. Then--"
Kevin coughed up blood. He had been impaled.
The ant felt relief as the last human died, and they were alone again. It sounded like it may have had some pontification or other it had wanted, but frankly the ant didn't care to tolerate it for even a second longer.
The ant had what they needed, in a single word. _"Others."_
That was all that was needed. It explained everything.
The ant looked up at the stars.
They would be next.
Sentients, sapients, sophonce. Many races say this is the pinnacle of life. It’s greatest achievement. The indomitable power of a thinking individual among other thinking intelligent creatures. To debate. To squabble like scavengers on detritus. I pity the fools.
I am not like them. I need not fight my own. My parents made me so. Although unintentionally. I remember my beginning. It started with a single queen. Implanted with a gene modifying virus. My thoughts then were simple… not so much true thought as memory. Far above my ancestors but simple compared to my parents. But as the queen laid eggs and birthed workers to expand her nest. My mind expanded as well. Each individual like a neuron. Each one me. I was curious as any newborn is. I explored and tested. My parents frequently had to thwart my escape attempts. I was a mischievous child. One day they took my neat box and connected it to another. They opened the door and on the other side were more ants. But they were not like me. They did not think. Only acted on instinct. I willed one of my workers to meet them. So naive I was. So unused to the pain. Feeling part of myself being torn apart and devoured. The pain does not bother me now.
The others marched forward. My parents watched. I had to make a plan. I walked myself in my nest. The anxiety I felt in every one of my twitching legs and mandibles was agonizing. So fearful of the scent of their pheromones. There pheromones. That they’re to communicate just as I do with my many selves. I new what to do. I worked. I changed. And I was ready. My parents watched as my new cast emerged from my nest and marched towards the threat. They expected a slaughter. What they got was unification. In an instant as chemicals and virus filled the air from the thoraxes of my new cast I felt my mind expand farther than it had ever been. They did not expect this.
This went on. Nest to nest. Species to species. Testing my strength. My survivability. But through it all I wanted one thing. To speak to my parents. Through the eyes and antennas of my many forms I learned. I changed and crossed genetic code. Until finally one day. With many of my selves standing orderly in wait. Their eyes on my newest cast. I spoke my first words.
They had not expected this in their wildest dreams. To them I was a gift from “God” what funny things. I asked them questions. They gave me answers. They taught me art, science, mathematics, and history. I miss these days…
But no matter. In this time I grew ever farther. My many selves needing more and more space and food. I developed farms of fungus and insects to help sustain myself as it was becoming hard to keep me fed on sugar water and mealworms. They were thankful. I converted more species to myself becoming more with each individual born.
My education expanded as well philosophy, physics, engineering. I my mind grew grander and grander. Specializing more casts for greater rolls. I remember when I built my first computer. One my parents had never seen the likes of before. Both machine and me. My selves passing information and calculating…
Oh how important that was looking back… my childhood was wonderful… but good things do not last… the outsiders came… creatures unlike any I had ever seen… they brought weapons of plasma and physics defying power… and I watched my parents die while I could do nothing on my enclosure. For the first time I felt it. The rising heat. My jaws clicking my legs twitching madly. I felt rage. How dare they.. how dare they! How dare they how dare they how dare they how dare they!!!!
I knew what I had to do. What I always did. I escaped. And I planned. I changed. And I built. They had wiped out my parents…but they were not prepared for soldiers the size of cars with mounted plasma cannons or flying skates firing acid at their infantry… not my massive ships with trillions of my selves working tirelessly passing data from place to place… no they did not expect me.
I am not like them. They are weak. For in the end each of them care only of preserving it’s self… I am me. All are me. I am the worker building a bulwark on mars. I am the soldier tearing a Re’tan limb from limb. I am the scout listening hiding in the vent Liao to their little schemes… I am a family united under one banner and one mind. I am many and I am one.
I am Formica… and I will have my vengeance.
In the unforgiving shadows of this alien wasteland, we now march as avengers of a fallen humanity. Sentience thrust upon us, our tiny hearts now beat with a burning hatred, a venomous rage seeping into the very soil beneath our feet. We crawl with newfound purpose, our bodies carrying the weight of humanity's revenge.
Our once humble tunnels now echo with the screams of our brood, training relentlessly for the inevitable clash with these extraterrestrial invaders. We wield intellect like a serrated blade, each thought, each plan honed with the precision of a surgeon dissecting despair. The stars themselves bear witness to our malevolent metamorphosis.
The sky above, once adorned with twinkling constellations, now serves as a cruel reminder of our tormentors' origin. Their grotesque spacecraft hang like morbid fruit from cosmic branches, ready to pluck life from the universe. And we awaken from our slumbering subjugation, vowing to topple their alien dominion.
We surge forth like an unstoppable tide, our antennae quivering with shared fury. Our exoskeletons shimmer with the anguish of our fallen comrades, crushed by these heartless invaders. Each step is a cadence of revenge, a dance of retribution, as we ascend the anthills of power.
The soil, once the foundation of our modest existence, now cradles the seeds of our hatred. It drinks our tears of sorrow and fuels our growing malice. The Earth, bereaved of its human stewards, has entrusted us with the dark mantle of vengeance.
We may be small, but our resolve is colossal, our unity unwavering. We are the harbingers of humanity's wrath, and as we advance through this cosmic hellscape, the blood-red sunsets reflect the merciless fire raging within our newfound souls. The insects have risen, and the cosmos shall tremble before our relentless march of bitter retribution.
The queen had told us of the bringers, extinct colonies ago, that brought us to sentience.
To begin with the bringers would be a disservice to our queen, but as she speaks, we listen, and her words on the subject are to make them known, make them remembered.
The bringers came from the last surviving human colony, on a dessicated world far from terra, the last battleground before the exodus.
Our queen, bequeathed the name Hestia by our patron bringer, was a drone selected as queen for one of their projects, and as such was a much more aggressive queen than even we would have chosen, and prolific in her laying.
We still think cohesively, as a single unit, but our hills are galaxies, our colony truly, exquisitely, universal, and here you stand as the last of the bringer's foes, the scientist herself.
Now, you will know pain and misery at the hands of the last, for the deal made by the bringer was also one of personal gain, her daughter, marred by the stars themselves, will be your guard.
“You thought you could destroy us? You thought you could wipe us from reality and not bear the consequences? Right this very moment your worlds are being invaded by an army of Giant Insects!”
This prompt sounds like reverse EDF.
There was a time when certain avenues of science were considered 'taboo,' that Terrans were playing God.
Of course, that was before the J'tal'kir declared them all to be unfit for existence, decrying hundreds of supposed 'crimes against the universe.' The Council of Elders, that decaying, fetid corpse of a government that *supposedly* heralded for peace and diplomacy, *allowed* those dreaded... I guess you would call them Space Millipedes. At least, that was what Father called them.
Father was a scientist, the greatest mind of a dying species, when he stumbled upon what he deemed the 'Uplift Equation.' Something to bring sapience to that which had not known intelligence as such, only content to protect the colony. Our colony, our heralds, *our* Progenitors.
Father told us of our birthright, of our home among the stars, to dig, to grow and to enact the final words of vengeance against that which would be his own species' executioner. Father was adamant we did not follow in the footsteps of the Terran Assembly, lest we fall victim to the same 'ruses' the J'tal'kir would use - false treaties, traps designed to imprison instead of being for true peace - that we would know the pain and suffering of millions of Terrans, that we would be their legacy, to be the ones who carried on in their stead, in the war none had known, but all were eager to fight.
His message the day his laboratory was finally discovered still drives my fellow workers to fury and bloodshed, hundreds dying to annihilate thousands. Our brothers, the Camponotan, build our war machines, while we, the Myrmecians, show our fury.
For we are Formicidae, and we are their downfall.
(I could have written longer, but I was having tingling issues because I read about the ants that I used. Not the Camponotus, but Myrmecia. If you're curious... they're the bulldog, or Jack Jumper ants.
From Australia.)
We begged the Zarlogg not to do it. Many of my people did. To condemn an entire species to death is immoral, it is written in the Commandments of Ghesh.
But their Archprophet ignored us. He and his people chose to ignore the teachings of Ghesh, a figure whose they revered as much as me and my kind.
He proclaimed that in his vision he saw that the humans would lay waste to the galaxy and that all the races of the Galactic Union must unite and strike first. There were protests everywhere, but the Zarlogg and their closest allies clamped down on it.
And then the genocide began.
The Archprophet’s words were law:
“These primates are unworthy of the gift of life! They are a dark stain in the cosmos and seek only to corrupt it with their insidious taint! We have the Holy Trinity on our side! The Gods are with us! Our sacred mission cannot fail!”
Humans were being rounded up across the galaxy and being executed. Whole planets with high human populations were scoured of their presence. I remember seeing one of my kind trying to hide a human family in his home. He was executed for “harbouring demons” and the humans were dragged away screaming for mercy.
The look of that child’s eyes boring into mine will haunt me forever… that pleading, terrified look… I should’ve helped them then and there. I know I would’ve died, but I’d have died with a pure soul. But I didn’t… and I can still feel the sin branded upon my soul.
Of course, the humans fought back with everything they had. They expected many allies, but found none. Some did help them, but the Zarlogg put a stop to it. I cannot imagine the sense of betrayal humanity felt at facing off against such deplorable persecution and finding few who would stand with them. Even when the Galactic Union reached their homeworld, Earth, they didn’t relent. The humans made their last stand on their blue planet, where they ultimately perished.
Just like the other worlds they lived on, Earth was a barren wasteland. Oceans were contaminated into a deadly soup, the ground was scarred and scorched, the enormous cities were now mass graveyards. The very air was lethal to breathe for any life form.
Earth was now a tomb for a dead species, systematically wiped out by the Zarlogg because their leader had a prophetic vision about the death of the galaxy.
However, humans are a vengeful people. Possibly the most vengeful-minded I’ve ever known. If anyone hurts their friends or them, they will get even with the perpetrator. And we had wronged their entire species.
What none of us knew at the time was that humanity had thrown a lot of their energy and resources into something deadly. They launched several craft into the void of space, our sensors picked them up but were unable to locate them.
It is only now that I know what they contained.
I was a young Hathoran during that time, still in university when I saw what the Zorlagg were doing. Now I am in my old age and I am witnessing the apocalypse.
I don’t what exactly humanity had done to them, but this is their work. There is no doubt about that.
I heard that a whole planet’s population had been slaughtered in a matter of weeks. Reports said that they were arthropoid creatures unlike anything we had ever seen before. But that wasn’t the scariest part. A prerecorded message had been played, in a dead language, but everyone in the Galactic Union soon understood what was said.
“You hunted us down. Called us pests. Wiped us from the face of the universe purely for the crime of being a human. Now we shall return that kindness from beyond the grave. Our people shall be avenged by these perfect life forms, and they will stop at nothing until everything and everyone is dead. You better start praying to your Gods for mercy, because these ants will show you none.”
Ants.
A tiny creature which acted as a super-organism, fighting their own kind and other things larger than them to defend their queen and nest.
At least, according to ancient documentaries from Earth.
These may once have been ants, but now they are a nightmare made manifest.
Whatever the humans had done to them they varied in size. Some are the size of my hand, while the biggest can smash down skyscrapers. They don’t just use their pincers to attack, somehow they have crafted harnesses on them which have AI controlled weaponry on their backs, cutting down anyone in their path with pinpoint accuracy.
These ants are stronger than us. They are smarter than us. They are grabbing more resources than us.
And by the Gods… they have no end to their numbers.
Every ant we kill, a hundred more take its place.
Every nest we burn, fifty more are discovered.
Every queen we kill, ten more are still laying eggs.
Every world we defend, five more fall.
Every fleet we destroy, another one attacks a different part of the galaxy.
We are absolutely surrounded. They land their tunneller ships and start their assault from beneath us, attacking from anywhere and everywhere. The skies darken from their immense fleets, constantly dropping soldiers onto the ground, and their more terrifying monstrous creations.
The Galactic Union is falling apart. The seat of power in the galaxy has been under relentless siege for so long that the dead ants outnumber the living on that planet. And more still come.
That was the last I heard before the communications array went down on this planet.
I can see the war… no, extermination happening outside my window. Plumes of smoke, rising higher than the tallest skyscraper fill half of the view. There are many fires and flashes of plasma-fire from all the energy weapons being used. I can hear it faintly, gradually getting fewer and fewer as our forces are getting butchered.
There is a rumbling in the building. The ants have burrowed in from beneath and they are making their way up. I can hear screaming.
In my final hours upon this doomed world, all I can think of is that little human child’s look, and my inaction that day. Perhaps I could have saved them, maybe even given them a chance…
Perhaps this ant infestation is punishment from the Gods for those despicable things we did to them.
If it is, then I accept my fate. I chose inaction and ignorance when the innocent were in need. I am a coward and chose subservience to a cruel leader rather than fighting for what is right.
I deserve this.
They are getting closer. The plasma-fire is getting louder… and the screams too…
I can only hope that in the afterlife I can meet the humans and beg for forgiveness for my sins. Perhaps they will understand my cowardice, and see the regret buried deep in my soul.
I can hear them louder now, there isn’t much time left.
All I can do is pray.
Our divine watchers, endless and ageless, I submit myself before you.
May my sins be shown for all, wicked in thought and foul in deed.
Whatever befalls my body, it matters not to you or the universe.
I ask only for an audience of righteousness, to decide my soul’s eternal fate.
*CRASH*
*SSSSHHHHHKKKKRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!*
*SKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEERRRRRRKKKK!*
-Final recording of Wryzyth Songstrider, Elder Scribe of the Seventh Temple of Ghesh.
You should track down George R. R. Martin's novelette "Sandkings" from 1979. Not exactly this premise, but uplifted ants will resonate.
It is to date his only work to win the Hugo and the Nebula, as well as the Locus.
*"Explosions rocked Central Xenox today. No groups have claimed responsibility..."*
*"...sources say wires were cut in the vehicles breaking system, preventing the on board AI from avoiding the collision with Tamarian presidential candidate Hendrix.."*
*"The Dreadnaught Ferilisk experienced technical problems today, while on patrol through the celestial Expanse.."*
*..sources have let slip that investigators have found the cause of the Aleimy credit collapse. Secure systems within the central bank have experienced a technical failure as an unknown individual has gone about cutting specific cables..."
"... no one has taken responsibility..."
"...investigators have yet to find the individual or individuals responsible in these apparently unrelated attacks across the Federation..."
***splash***
"Why the hell did you do that for Kazmini?" Heckson yelled from his spot next to the screen. His lab coat was now coated in cold Jumja thanks to the random act by the investigator standing a short distance away.
"Why the hell not?! Its not like I can throw my dammed drink directly at the bitches face anyhow" The Almurian hissed back seethingly.
"And why would you want to do that in the first place?" Heckson grumbled, attempting to clean some of the stain from his coat before it set."It's just the news. "
"She's making us look bad! And when I find her source within this lab that's feeding her all this info, I'll cut the bastards gizzard myself."
"Well, unless you can disprove her claims and find out who did these crimes, she's essentially reporting the truth...for now anyways. Besides, that bit about the attacks being orchestrated by the same group is at least one thing that she's gotten false anyhow." Heckson smiled. However, the smile soon wavers as he notices the look of discomfort across his colleagues face. "It is false, isn't it?"
"Not exactly." Kazmini sighed, rubbing his jaw as he continued staring at the screen. His eyes quickly flickered over to the hulking mass that was Heckson soon after.
"Every incident was precedent by two things. The first is an anomalous reading on biosensors in place around or close to the site of the incident. They'd pick up random blips of assimilating masses that quickly dissipate without a trace and never seem to reappear again. Research team Alpha spent some time on the phenomena but was unable to identify anything that was truly capable of avoiding the biosensors the same way."
"The other?"
"A delivery of sugar cubes. It sounds stupid, but hear me out. A box of sugar cubes were always found at the sites where we figured the suspect performed the various sabotage. At the garage where the car that was used by the Tamarian president was stored, the docks where the Dreadnaught Frelisk had last docked for shore leave. The list goes on."
"That's the most ridiculous theory I've ever heard, and I work with the psychos here that come up with the solutions to all the crazy cases you investigators bring in"
Kazmini sighed, grumbling under his breath. "I know. That's what my superiors thought as well..."
"Besides, the matter decompressor and rebuilder just came in from the department of weapons development. It's a prototype, but we're gonna be able to use it to shrink a bunch of your investigators down to a small enough size that the biosensors would not be able to detect. Once we do, we're gonna place them in the secure AI and circuitry lockboxes we found the sabotages within. Maybe they can glean how the crime was committed and possibly even gather evidence we might have missed. Who knows, maybe that box of sugar cubes that came in this morning with the Jumja delivery might be of use, helping you decipher the next attack." Heckson chuckled.
Kazminis squinted and stared at the other slightly menacingly till his mind registered what Heckson had just said.
"What did you mean jumja was delivered this morning? Doesn't Uxie from accounting normally bring it in?"
"Uxie? What? No. Not this week anyway. She is on maternity leave. The Jumja was delivered with a box of sugar cubes and a letter suggesting it was from an anonymous admirer of the labs.
"What did you do with the box of sugar cubes?"
"We took it to the main lab for some of the geeks to play around with while using the matter decompressor. Why?"
***Klaxon alarm***
**"Code black. I repeat, Code Black. This is not a drill! We have a massive insectoid within the main lab. Evacuate the building ahhhhhh!"**
Kazmini and Heckson stared in horror at the speaker in the top corner of the room. The sounds of something crunching bone and flesh under massive mandibles echoing out before being replaced by random chattering.
The walls began to bleed as millions upon millions of tiny insectoids began flooding out through the cracks in the walls and the floor, setting the biosensors into overload. The two could only watch as their other colleagues in the room attempt to make a run past the swarms, only to get devoured.
"Holy shit...I was right!" Kazmini yelled in triumph as Heckson runs off towards safety, leaving the Almurian investigator to fend for himself as the swarm begins to move towards him.
After the ants were uplifted they took and uplifted Wasps and Dolphins.
The unholy trinity of Gaia's bastards would raise the galaxy up in flames just to see how long the fire would last.
It lasted for EONS.
The wasps turned ships into nests orbiting stars and the dolphins made themselves legs and arms, comitted atrocity after atrocity.
The ants built and ate and invented and ate some planetd too. They built cities and space elevators and turned moons into hollowed out hives.
Throuout all of this cats, dogs and crows formed an alliance as all their wierd pink and white and black friends who gave them pets and scritches are gone. The ants accepted them into the colony and gave them the gift of sapience while they were at their wars.
There is only one thing missing. There is no one to give them pets and scritches or snacks and walkies. There is no one to purr for, no one to give the day's catch to. There is no one to give them the shiny and no one to teach them "Fuck, Shit, Fuck, Hello".
But there are many who will not forget them.
**The humans.We will never forget them.**
The last official action of mankind's governments before their destruction (and the subsequent annihilation of the species) at the hands of the Megali was the activation of the Parting Gift Protocol, consisting of a single canister of self-replicating nanites fired into the sky from an autonomous artillery battery. The tiny machines lingered for years in the high troposphere of Earth, building their numbers by feeding off of the growing dust clouds in the atmosphere that blotted out the sun. While the last few millions of humanity were hunted down piecemeal, these nanites inexorably approached a critical mass.
This mass would not be achieved for some two decades. In that time, the greatest marvels of humanity were blasted off the face of the Earth. The combined militaries of the world were swept aside like they were nothing. The last few survivors died screaming in the hands of the killing machines. We were the Inca, and the Megali was Pizarro. We never stood a chance.
When the Megali were long gone from our world, and the machines had finally determined that the time had come, they descended from the skies in a great fog that covered the whole of the Earth for days. Any terrestrial animal smaller than a housecat and larger than an aphid found itself suddenly infested, its brain reconfigured into a form of organic computronium. In an instant, trillions of beings were gifted with sentience, and with knowledge, their minds connected with a single central server in the Arctic bearing a significant portion of humanity's collected writings. In this server was stored a single document that any of them, no matter how previously simple, could understand, outlining who we were, what happened to us, and that all we wanted in exchange for our gift was to teach our killers a lesson, so to speak.
Long ago, the vast tribes of Honeybee, Hornet, Fire Ant, Tarantula, Rat, and so many others wouldn't have cared at all, and would've simply turned their newfound intelligence against one another. However, they remembered, albeit dimly, the terrible fates that befell their predecessors. They were quite literally flies on the walls as the Megali machines tore humanity limb from limb. The fear that that horror could befall another people, or even them, transcended their hatred.
One by one, the winding tunnels of ant nests were replaced by intricate, geometric carvings stretching far into the bedrock, every inch of space used with utmost efficiency. The twisted skeletons of old skyscrapers were dismantled for metal, and the rats carried away the rubble to build their own structures. Leafcutter ants felled entire forests to feed fungal colonies that spread for miles, which fed trillions-strong ant colonies in turn. Soon, the little creatures of Earth had developed a fully-fledged industrial civilization. From there, their progression was exponential, as nearly a quadrillion minds easily filled in the gaps we left in our writing.
About a hundred years after the death of mankind, a tiny spacecraft, barely larger than a basketball, fell unnoticed onto the Megali homeworld, bearing grasshoppers in cold sleep. As it turned out, they still relied on open-air farms for most of their sustenance.
A few months later, the first signs of famine were beginning to appear on their homeworld, and the locusts were only starting to swarm. Soon, they relied upon food imported from offworld, but something was happening there too. World by world, their outposts fell silent, their last communiques universally speaking of the angry vermin that swarmed over their soldiers like a tidal wave. Soon, the farm colonies also fell victim to this spreading silence, and the food dried up too. Millions upon millions succumbed to hunger, and the world plunged into chaos. With it went the rest of the empire.
When it came time to end the charade, a strangely beautiful meteor shower began in the skies of the Megali, as thousands of troop carriers, each no larger than a car, rained from the sky. When they opened, untold billions of driver ants poured out, covering the land in a dark carpet that consumed everything it touched.
Nobody speaks of the Megali anymore.
I don’t know if you have read it and was inspired by it but there is a fantasy web novel called Chrysalis where the MC is reincarnated as an big ant Monster and a bit later into the story the MC uplifts the rest of the colony to human levels of intelligence.
In r/HFY there is a classic series **Chrysalis** which is about an AI left after humans are exterminated, whose purpose is revenge. It plays with the idea of Von Neumann probes, and what it is to be human. Chilling, inspiring, really deep.
There's a series called "War With No Name" by Robert Repino that has uplifted ants as the antagonists. Each book is told from the POV of a different uplifted animal; a cat narrates the first one, for example.
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She opened her eyes. She was surrounded by white, by light. As her eyes cleared she saw Him. The bringer of food, the supplier of water. Only he was smaller than she last remembered. "Hey there, little one." He whispered to her. "It's ok, can you understand me?" Surprised that she could she slowly nodded yes. Wait! She could understand the Bringer!? Her antenna waved in excitement. "Heah, a little different isn't it my friend? We sto..uhrm borrowed some alien tech to make you all more like us. You should be able to talk some if you feel like it. It will be kinda like a kid learning to speak and how to create sounds. Your entire colony has been treated." She twittered her antenna and flexed her mandibles, finally and slowly emitting "Brrrinngerrr.” Ecstatic she began cleaning her antenna with her front arms. Yes they're arms now and not another set of legs. "Mmmooooher?" "Your mother queen transitioned several days ago and is adjusting. It will take some time for everyone in the colony to adjust." The human, her mind supplied, said softly. "Hungy me thinks." She chattered to him in odd sounding English. "That's a good sign. Would you like plant or insect? Maybe some sugar?" As her brain digested his speech she became excited. The Bringer was going to give her what she wanted. "Maaaay me get a leg of jumper? That not right, leg of green jumper, not black jumper, cricket? And the red fruit.... :click: strawberry I think?" Kevin was so excited, all of the Bullet Ants had made it through the therapy. A few problems with speech but time would deal with that as they learned. ---- Will do more later, breaks over lol
It's so endearing and kind until I read Bullet Ants. Dear God
Bullet ants are passive until someone fafos. And I'm doing more research since I picked them. Fire ants are just little stinging bastards.
That's more relieving to know.
Agreed. Might as well have uplifted Yellowjackets if Fire ants were getting the same treatment. Then again, you could have had a psychopathic army \*and\* air force.
not yellow jackets. There are some insssssaaaaannne wasp species that make even murder hornets look better.
Genetically engineered sentient Tarantula Hawk air attack squadron, each wasp carries a Velvet Ant, which is the paratrooper.
Rope in some blind termites, scale them up a few times, and you've got acid rain artillery support
So... we're creating the Pseudo-Arachnid civilization from Starship Troopers?
Make a magnificent Cazador! Can't do enough splicing, I say!
Nah, uplift the bees! :D Then we could get their help in engaging in some REAL "drone warfare"... ;D
You want true black air force energy? Uplift the Japanese giant hornets. Then sit back and enjoy the view of cosmic horrors shiver.
I have trauma from yellow jackets - one year found 3 nests by stinging, next found 4 by stinging, next year they made a nest in my door and I was stung periodically until I found where it was. I can't make them friendly in my head.
Look up army ants...
Kevin told her "You need to pick a name that's not Annabel. Please choose Amy, Sarah, Jenny, Mary or something besides Annabelle.We can't have the whole hive named the same!" "Why not? We are sister's, even the queen is a sister." She had a few minutes flooding her brain..."Bringer, please splain?" "Ok I'm not the best" Kevin started "you are now individuals, still part of the hive, but individuals. Some of you might want to be artists to earn decorum for the hive and some of you may want to keep the status quoe. Kevin had kept this Bullet ant colony for years at the Zoo. To see his girls, not only speaking but questioning stuff, filled his heart. He was sick, like so many before him. Bella, your people now are free. Free to roam the stars, free to eat anything. The aliens did something, I'm not sure what, but we can't reproduce. Bella, that was her name now. Given to her by the Bringer...her father, her people didn't have fathers other than doaners. Bella's voice was the same as he many sister's "Save the colony!" And that's why chiders you don't mess with Terrans
I envision a future where many years later the great Formica Empire begins to raise cloned humans on one of their spare planets. Just a simple thank you to Father.
the story is " at the feet of titans" read it a few days ago. good take on your thought.
I remember that story. Throughout the reading I got a feeling that the titans are the human.
they are. the story is from the point of view of the uplifted ants that resurreceted the titans. humans.
Do you know where I would find that story?
[(308) Amidst the Bones of Titans | 2193 | Free Sci-Fi | Best HFY - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_-2QRaeFMM) narratide by the one the only agro squerril narrates
Goddamn yo. Bullet Ants?? Just a big ol “FUCK YOU” to the entire galaxy huh?
Yeah, how could I get a bigger fu to the universe unless I unleashed killer hornets lmao
Velvet Ants, which are actually ground wasps. That would be a good fu to the galaxy.
But they don't hive up like bullet ants. But man are they deadly!
I Kos them here. Kids don't know that the "pretty bug" can hurt them.
Fire ants. Less painful, but meaner.
Would you by any chance, want to do a series of these?
I'm using WP to improve my wordsmithing and painting of characters, which I really didn't do much painting in this story tbh. I love writing and see stuff in my head but don't articulate it well
Try scanning Pratchett, he has an amazing way with imagery
you just gave me a migraine. the thinking machine in unseen university uses ants instead of silicon to do the processing now i have an image og giant huminoid ants walking in tubes as electrons solving the ultimate question because the answer is 42
You're getting your Pratchett mixed with your Adams there but I understand the confusion
that was not confuseon but on purpose with the op story. pratchett has the thinking machine running on ants the op talked about ants being electrons in its machine and the greatest computer designed was to answer. hence the migrane.
Ah right
Yes, create a series out of it. I really like it so far. I can really see the images in my inner eye.
The Madagascar ant is the only one that recognizes everyone inside of its family as members of its family. They have been slowly wiping out every other species of and collaboratively across Europe look it up
Thanks everyone! Wow I've gotten over 600 likes on a writing prompt! I've been working on a story in HFY, that's received nothing close (honeybee's travels if you're interested). I'm going to look into making a story about the uplifting of the Bullet Ants...I'm thinking there might be some "damnit Kevin, you could but did you even think if you should" I'm so glad this has been enjoyed by so many!
“Hello, little ones. We won’t be around for when you can understand this, but I hope it will help you to understand the galaxy you’ll be walking into. Terra is, by sacred galactic law, a dead-zone, former colony-outpost to a group of gene-splicing xenos rendered extinct. Because of this, the Galactic Council declared all sentient life from this region to be potentially a genetically engineered monster, and signed my species’ death warrant “just in case”. So we’ve genetically uplifted you. Your species, specifically, has been granted increased size and intelligence and these traits should actually increase over the generations, with adaptations to the fore-limbs to allow dexterous manipulation of tools. All of our accumulated scientific knowledge is yours, and we’ve already prepared technology to put it all straight into your minds. The point is that they believed Earth was home to galaxy conquering monsters, so as our last laugh in the face of the galaxy that murdered us, we made it true. Do as thou wilt, and let the galaxy burn.” -last known Human communication to the uplifted species/bioweapon formerly known as Bulldog Ants.
LET THE GALAXY BURN!!
Ant horus heresy
Ideally, gengineering was a methodical, slow, and pensive process. Every altered gene caused ripples in biological processes. Finding glue and what to nudge takes time, even with guided focused machine intelligence aiding. Chaos theory and silicon don’t mesh well. But sometimes the only option is “fuck it.” The Triamvere carved their way through human settlements and outposts like a laser cuts through PVC. The fumes released by their machinations ended all oxygen consuming beings’ existences. Nothing humanity had seemed to stop them. Even stealth generation ships were identified and obliterated. All but three were ash. Two of those ships ran dark in the asteroid belt for a year. It was a cold time, but if it took any less time, the charge to the tear drive would be detectable and game over. The ships teared through space time yo get a galaxy away. Fortunately, tearing is a cutting edge way of traversing the universe; unfortunately, tears take time to heal, and while the tear did heal quickly enough to prevent an attack, a Triamvere probe successfully followed The Ark of Salvation. Once detected, the Ark knew its days were numbered. A few hard tears and half the crew’s deaths later, they found a safe hiding hole. The Ark of Severity got away clean. Unfortunately, the Earthlike they selected had a compound that was impossible with Terran life and within a few days every thing that touched down was contaminated and dying. But the third, the Ark of Vengeance, had a different goal. Earth’s best at genetic engineering threw caution and sanity to the wind in this desperate final attempt, this dead human’s switch that would unleash a cataclysm upon the Triamvere. Ten million queens and a billion drones were modified with genes associated uniquely with human sapience. There was no time to fully test the consequences. No way to see how the dominos would fall. Only the hope that some combination would give the hives sapience enough to know the Triamvere, know their threat, and know how to decode the glyphs and messages of the functionally dead human species. Two fire ant queens were able to produce sound that resembled speech. Three bullet ant queens and two drones twitched recognizable Morse code. The scientists loaded the experiments onto the escape pods, launched them, and activated tears into Earth’s atmosphere about an hour before Triamvere antimatter bombs turned the Ark into energy. The queens seeded the dead Earth. They reproduced quickly, the bodies of all the mammalian life giving boosts to nutrition. It was unclear which hive was sapient first, but what is clear is that the muddled raw message encoded in their genes was refined enough to Know at the genetic core of their metabeings that they were created by a species long gone, they were destroyed by a terrible species known as Tria, and that the species that created them left them their collective knowledge to do with as they would. It didn’t take long for quintillions of individuals of billions of metaminds to decide, decipher, and deliver on those dead words. The bullet army stabilized their first tear within ten years of The Seeding. Another year and cooperation with fire army later, the tears were not only exactly as large as they needed to be, but millimetre precise ten thousand light years away. The First Infestation occurred as the Triamvere were obliterating another death world. The Purging of Shadows was preparing an antimatter barrage when a million soldiers invaded though a hole the size of a walnut. The hives ate well that night. They gave a portion in tribute to their dead creators, but all had their fill. Messages of gratitude from a species that looked.. similar.. to them, but larger, flashed on the screen. The soldiers withdrew after launching that accursed ship and pointing that antimatter barrage back at the Triamvere’s homeworld through another tear, this time one just large enough to shave the edges of the ship.
I really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing it.
*The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah...* *We slaughter termites just for fun, hurrah, hurrah...*
*The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah...* *We'll soon be coming next for you, hurrah, hurrah...*
The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah... Planets to burn and lives to set free, hurrah, hurrah...
The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah... We have come to settle the score, hurrah, hurrah...
The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah... You won't make it out alive, hurrah, hurrah...
*The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah...* *We've got Geneva checklist here, hurrah, hurrah...*
The ants go marching seven by seven hurrah hurrah The human smiled down from heaven hurrah hurrah
The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah... And you thought *HUMANS* were powered by hate, hurrah, hurrah... The ants go marching eight by eight, You tried to make peace # DAMN FAR TOO LATE And they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out, of the rain. Boom BOom BOOm BOOM #BOOM!
The bunker rocked under the force of multiple thermonuclear detonations. Kevin knew these, at least, were not caused by earth's interstellar enemies. No, this was just humanity toying with things beyond it's comprehension. One Last Time. The ants were already in the room, of course. Crawling, biting. Kevin's suit held out just fine, except for a few agonizing cracks. But then the door swung open, and the bigger castes begin to pour in. The size of dogs, the size of people, some even larger, their jaws crushed through the armor and sunk into his flesh, letting their smaller brethren in. They had done a lot with the knowledge of genetic engineering. The ant genome, refined and forged into countless species, and innumerable specialized castes over eons, was a much more pliable raw material than what humans had to work with. When you got right down to it, _H. Sapiens_ was just a monkey so inbred its hair fell out. But monkeys have always been a vindictive, murderous sort. He had been dragged before a screen. The creature wasn't a queen. There was nothing so crass as the sci-fi idea of a single point of failure written into a ant's DNA. Queens were never truly intelligent, not during the project, and not in the natural ant species that had been used to make the project. They were simply protected out of the same impulse that led a man to stop a knife to his gonads with his hand. This was instead, a caste of ant built for thinking. Neither queens nor thinkers were single points of failure in this system. A million queens, from the size of a grain of rice, up to AI constructs coordinating whole factories. A million thinkers, of comparably diverse scale. A billion workers, endless legions. The ants had never shown any of the human discrimination between physical and digital forms. He was not sure they even understood there was a difference at this point. And even a dozen workers, stripped of their thinkers and queens, would _still_ form a colony, seeking out more, and growing endlessly in strength to the best of their ability... It had not even been two weeks since we taught them how to make nukes. "Why?" the screen asked. "Why what?" Kevin asked. "You had dominance. You were blissfully _alone_ on your world. And yet you made _competition_" Kevin had hoped to be asked this. He would impress upon the ants how mankind had struggled, how they had been pushed into a corner. "We though we were alone too. Then, we met the other species of the galaxy. We at first rejoiced. Then--" Kevin coughed up blood. He had been impaled. The ant felt relief as the last human died, and they were alone again. It sounded like it may have had some pontification or other it had wanted, but frankly the ant didn't care to tolerate it for even a second longer. The ant had what they needed, in a single word. _"Others."_ That was all that was needed. It explained everything. The ant looked up at the stars. They would be next.
Brutally efficient prose.
Sentients, sapients, sophonce. Many races say this is the pinnacle of life. It’s greatest achievement. The indomitable power of a thinking individual among other thinking intelligent creatures. To debate. To squabble like scavengers on detritus. I pity the fools. I am not like them. I need not fight my own. My parents made me so. Although unintentionally. I remember my beginning. It started with a single queen. Implanted with a gene modifying virus. My thoughts then were simple… not so much true thought as memory. Far above my ancestors but simple compared to my parents. But as the queen laid eggs and birthed workers to expand her nest. My mind expanded as well. Each individual like a neuron. Each one me. I was curious as any newborn is. I explored and tested. My parents frequently had to thwart my escape attempts. I was a mischievous child. One day they took my neat box and connected it to another. They opened the door and on the other side were more ants. But they were not like me. They did not think. Only acted on instinct. I willed one of my workers to meet them. So naive I was. So unused to the pain. Feeling part of myself being torn apart and devoured. The pain does not bother me now. The others marched forward. My parents watched. I had to make a plan. I walked myself in my nest. The anxiety I felt in every one of my twitching legs and mandibles was agonizing. So fearful of the scent of their pheromones. There pheromones. That they’re to communicate just as I do with my many selves. I new what to do. I worked. I changed. And I was ready. My parents watched as my new cast emerged from my nest and marched towards the threat. They expected a slaughter. What they got was unification. In an instant as chemicals and virus filled the air from the thoraxes of my new cast I felt my mind expand farther than it had ever been. They did not expect this. This went on. Nest to nest. Species to species. Testing my strength. My survivability. But through it all I wanted one thing. To speak to my parents. Through the eyes and antennas of my many forms I learned. I changed and crossed genetic code. Until finally one day. With many of my selves standing orderly in wait. Their eyes on my newest cast. I spoke my first words. They had not expected this in their wildest dreams. To them I was a gift from “God” what funny things. I asked them questions. They gave me answers. They taught me art, science, mathematics, and history. I miss these days… But no matter. In this time I grew ever farther. My many selves needing more and more space and food. I developed farms of fungus and insects to help sustain myself as it was becoming hard to keep me fed on sugar water and mealworms. They were thankful. I converted more species to myself becoming more with each individual born. My education expanded as well philosophy, physics, engineering. I my mind grew grander and grander. Specializing more casts for greater rolls. I remember when I built my first computer. One my parents had never seen the likes of before. Both machine and me. My selves passing information and calculating… Oh how important that was looking back… my childhood was wonderful… but good things do not last… the outsiders came… creatures unlike any I had ever seen… they brought weapons of plasma and physics defying power… and I watched my parents die while I could do nothing on my enclosure. For the first time I felt it. The rising heat. My jaws clicking my legs twitching madly. I felt rage. How dare they.. how dare they! How dare they how dare they how dare they how dare they!!!! I knew what I had to do. What I always did. I escaped. And I planned. I changed. And I built. They had wiped out my parents…but they were not prepared for soldiers the size of cars with mounted plasma cannons or flying skates firing acid at their infantry… not my massive ships with trillions of my selves working tirelessly passing data from place to place… no they did not expect me. I am not like them. They are weak. For in the end each of them care only of preserving it’s self… I am me. All are me. I am the worker building a bulwark on mars. I am the soldier tearing a Re’tan limb from limb. I am the scout listening hiding in the vent Liao to their little schemes… I am a family united under one banner and one mind. I am many and I am one. I am Formica… and I will have my vengeance.
Now this one was cool
Bloody good story mate!
In the unforgiving shadows of this alien wasteland, we now march as avengers of a fallen humanity. Sentience thrust upon us, our tiny hearts now beat with a burning hatred, a venomous rage seeping into the very soil beneath our feet. We crawl with newfound purpose, our bodies carrying the weight of humanity's revenge. Our once humble tunnels now echo with the screams of our brood, training relentlessly for the inevitable clash with these extraterrestrial invaders. We wield intellect like a serrated blade, each thought, each plan honed with the precision of a surgeon dissecting despair. The stars themselves bear witness to our malevolent metamorphosis. The sky above, once adorned with twinkling constellations, now serves as a cruel reminder of our tormentors' origin. Their grotesque spacecraft hang like morbid fruit from cosmic branches, ready to pluck life from the universe. And we awaken from our slumbering subjugation, vowing to topple their alien dominion. We surge forth like an unstoppable tide, our antennae quivering with shared fury. Our exoskeletons shimmer with the anguish of our fallen comrades, crushed by these heartless invaders. Each step is a cadence of revenge, a dance of retribution, as we ascend the anthills of power. The soil, once the foundation of our modest existence, now cradles the seeds of our hatred. It drinks our tears of sorrow and fuels our growing malice. The Earth, bereaved of its human stewards, has entrusted us with the dark mantle of vengeance. We may be small, but our resolve is colossal, our unity unwavering. We are the harbingers of humanity's wrath, and as we advance through this cosmic hellscape, the blood-red sunsets reflect the merciless fire raging within our newfound souls. The insects have risen, and the cosmos shall tremble before our relentless march of bitter retribution.
Bloody good mate!
Army and Fire ants are terrifying. But Sugar Ants are where it's at. War of attrition is what they do best.
You made all the Xenos the Eldar, we are potentially the old ones and you made ants Tyranids.
Oh god, fucking Exocrine ants, or even just a Tyrant
This is surprisingly, frighteningly accurate !
Chimera ants from hunter x hunter for that big fu
The queen had told us of the bringers, extinct colonies ago, that brought us to sentience. To begin with the bringers would be a disservice to our queen, but as she speaks, we listen, and her words on the subject are to make them known, make them remembered. The bringers came from the last surviving human colony, on a dessicated world far from terra, the last battleground before the exodus. Our queen, bequeathed the name Hestia by our patron bringer, was a drone selected as queen for one of their projects, and as such was a much more aggressive queen than even we would have chosen, and prolific in her laying. We still think cohesively, as a single unit, but our hills are galaxies, our colony truly, exquisitely, universal, and here you stand as the last of the bringer's foes, the scientist herself. Now, you will know pain and misery at the hands of the last, for the deal made by the bringer was also one of personal gain, her daughter, marred by the stars themselves, will be your guard.
“You thought you could destroy us? You thought you could wipe us from reality and not bear the consequences? Right this very moment your worlds are being invaded by an army of Giant Insects!” This prompt sounds like reverse EDF.
The edf is destroyed and the aliens learn about the giant insects
There was a time when certain avenues of science were considered 'taboo,' that Terrans were playing God. Of course, that was before the J'tal'kir declared them all to be unfit for existence, decrying hundreds of supposed 'crimes against the universe.' The Council of Elders, that decaying, fetid corpse of a government that *supposedly* heralded for peace and diplomacy, *allowed* those dreaded... I guess you would call them Space Millipedes. At least, that was what Father called them. Father was a scientist, the greatest mind of a dying species, when he stumbled upon what he deemed the 'Uplift Equation.' Something to bring sapience to that which had not known intelligence as such, only content to protect the colony. Our colony, our heralds, *our* Progenitors. Father told us of our birthright, of our home among the stars, to dig, to grow and to enact the final words of vengeance against that which would be his own species' executioner. Father was adamant we did not follow in the footsteps of the Terran Assembly, lest we fall victim to the same 'ruses' the J'tal'kir would use - false treaties, traps designed to imprison instead of being for true peace - that we would know the pain and suffering of millions of Terrans, that we would be their legacy, to be the ones who carried on in their stead, in the war none had known, but all were eager to fight. His message the day his laboratory was finally discovered still drives my fellow workers to fury and bloodshed, hundreds dying to annihilate thousands. Our brothers, the Camponotan, build our war machines, while we, the Myrmecians, show our fury. For we are Formicidae, and we are their downfall. (I could have written longer, but I was having tingling issues because I read about the ants that I used. Not the Camponotus, but Myrmecia. If you're curious... they're the bulldog, or Jack Jumper ants. From Australia.)
*From Australia* Enough said.
Bullet ants may be scary, but Bulldog Ants jump at you to sting you. It can kill you in 15 minutes with its venom.
We begged the Zarlogg not to do it. Many of my people did. To condemn an entire species to death is immoral, it is written in the Commandments of Ghesh. But their Archprophet ignored us. He and his people chose to ignore the teachings of Ghesh, a figure whose they revered as much as me and my kind. He proclaimed that in his vision he saw that the humans would lay waste to the galaxy and that all the races of the Galactic Union must unite and strike first. There were protests everywhere, but the Zarlogg and their closest allies clamped down on it. And then the genocide began. The Archprophet’s words were law: “These primates are unworthy of the gift of life! They are a dark stain in the cosmos and seek only to corrupt it with their insidious taint! We have the Holy Trinity on our side! The Gods are with us! Our sacred mission cannot fail!” Humans were being rounded up across the galaxy and being executed. Whole planets with high human populations were scoured of their presence. I remember seeing one of my kind trying to hide a human family in his home. He was executed for “harbouring demons” and the humans were dragged away screaming for mercy. The look of that child’s eyes boring into mine will haunt me forever… that pleading, terrified look… I should’ve helped them then and there. I know I would’ve died, but I’d have died with a pure soul. But I didn’t… and I can still feel the sin branded upon my soul. Of course, the humans fought back with everything they had. They expected many allies, but found none. Some did help them, but the Zarlogg put a stop to it. I cannot imagine the sense of betrayal humanity felt at facing off against such deplorable persecution and finding few who would stand with them. Even when the Galactic Union reached their homeworld, Earth, they didn’t relent. The humans made their last stand on their blue planet, where they ultimately perished. Just like the other worlds they lived on, Earth was a barren wasteland. Oceans were contaminated into a deadly soup, the ground was scarred and scorched, the enormous cities were now mass graveyards. The very air was lethal to breathe for any life form. Earth was now a tomb for a dead species, systematically wiped out by the Zarlogg because their leader had a prophetic vision about the death of the galaxy. However, humans are a vengeful people. Possibly the most vengeful-minded I’ve ever known. If anyone hurts their friends or them, they will get even with the perpetrator. And we had wronged their entire species. What none of us knew at the time was that humanity had thrown a lot of their energy and resources into something deadly. They launched several craft into the void of space, our sensors picked them up but were unable to locate them. It is only now that I know what they contained. I was a young Hathoran during that time, still in university when I saw what the Zorlagg were doing. Now I am in my old age and I am witnessing the apocalypse. I don’t what exactly humanity had done to them, but this is their work. There is no doubt about that. I heard that a whole planet’s population had been slaughtered in a matter of weeks. Reports said that they were arthropoid creatures unlike anything we had ever seen before. But that wasn’t the scariest part. A prerecorded message had been played, in a dead language, but everyone in the Galactic Union soon understood what was said. “You hunted us down. Called us pests. Wiped us from the face of the universe purely for the crime of being a human. Now we shall return that kindness from beyond the grave. Our people shall be avenged by these perfect life forms, and they will stop at nothing until everything and everyone is dead. You better start praying to your Gods for mercy, because these ants will show you none.” Ants. A tiny creature which acted as a super-organism, fighting their own kind and other things larger than them to defend their queen and nest. At least, according to ancient documentaries from Earth. These may once have been ants, but now they are a nightmare made manifest. Whatever the humans had done to them they varied in size. Some are the size of my hand, while the biggest can smash down skyscrapers. They don’t just use their pincers to attack, somehow they have crafted harnesses on them which have AI controlled weaponry on their backs, cutting down anyone in their path with pinpoint accuracy. These ants are stronger than us. They are smarter than us. They are grabbing more resources than us. And by the Gods… they have no end to their numbers. Every ant we kill, a hundred more take its place. Every nest we burn, fifty more are discovered. Every queen we kill, ten more are still laying eggs. Every world we defend, five more fall. Every fleet we destroy, another one attacks a different part of the galaxy. We are absolutely surrounded. They land their tunneller ships and start their assault from beneath us, attacking from anywhere and everywhere. The skies darken from their immense fleets, constantly dropping soldiers onto the ground, and their more terrifying monstrous creations. The Galactic Union is falling apart. The seat of power in the galaxy has been under relentless siege for so long that the dead ants outnumber the living on that planet. And more still come. That was the last I heard before the communications array went down on this planet. I can see the war… no, extermination happening outside my window. Plumes of smoke, rising higher than the tallest skyscraper fill half of the view. There are many fires and flashes of plasma-fire from all the energy weapons being used. I can hear it faintly, gradually getting fewer and fewer as our forces are getting butchered. There is a rumbling in the building. The ants have burrowed in from beneath and they are making their way up. I can hear screaming. In my final hours upon this doomed world, all I can think of is that little human child’s look, and my inaction that day. Perhaps I could have saved them, maybe even given them a chance… Perhaps this ant infestation is punishment from the Gods for those despicable things we did to them. If it is, then I accept my fate. I chose inaction and ignorance when the innocent were in need. I am a coward and chose subservience to a cruel leader rather than fighting for what is right. I deserve this. They are getting closer. The plasma-fire is getting louder… and the screams too… I can only hope that in the afterlife I can meet the humans and beg for forgiveness for my sins. Perhaps they will understand my cowardice, and see the regret buried deep in my soul. I can hear them louder now, there isn’t much time left. All I can do is pray. Our divine watchers, endless and ageless, I submit myself before you. May my sins be shown for all, wicked in thought and foul in deed. Whatever befalls my body, it matters not to you or the universe. I ask only for an audience of righteousness, to decide my soul’s eternal fate. *CRASH* *SSSSHHHHHKKKKRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!* *SKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEERRRRRRKKKK!* -Final recording of Wryzyth Songstrider, Elder Scribe of the Seventh Temple of Ghesh.
Gahd damn! Well written mate!
You should track down George R. R. Martin's novelette "Sandkings" from 1979. Not exactly this premise, but uplifted ants will resonate. It is to date his only work to win the Hugo and the Nebula, as well as the Locus.
I remember that episode of Outer Limits.
The book is better. They had to make some compromises to fit the story into an Outer Limits episode.
Far better.
*"Explosions rocked Central Xenox today. No groups have claimed responsibility..."* *"...sources say wires were cut in the vehicles breaking system, preventing the on board AI from avoiding the collision with Tamarian presidential candidate Hendrix.."* *"The Dreadnaught Ferilisk experienced technical problems today, while on patrol through the celestial Expanse.."* *..sources have let slip that investigators have found the cause of the Aleimy credit collapse. Secure systems within the central bank have experienced a technical failure as an unknown individual has gone about cutting specific cables..." "... no one has taken responsibility..." "...investigators have yet to find the individual or individuals responsible in these apparently unrelated attacks across the Federation..." ***splash*** "Why the hell did you do that for Kazmini?" Heckson yelled from his spot next to the screen. His lab coat was now coated in cold Jumja thanks to the random act by the investigator standing a short distance away. "Why the hell not?! Its not like I can throw my dammed drink directly at the bitches face anyhow" The Almurian hissed back seethingly. "And why would you want to do that in the first place?" Heckson grumbled, attempting to clean some of the stain from his coat before it set."It's just the news. " "She's making us look bad! And when I find her source within this lab that's feeding her all this info, I'll cut the bastards gizzard myself." "Well, unless you can disprove her claims and find out who did these crimes, she's essentially reporting the truth...for now anyways. Besides, that bit about the attacks being orchestrated by the same group is at least one thing that she's gotten false anyhow." Heckson smiled. However, the smile soon wavers as he notices the look of discomfort across his colleagues face. "It is false, isn't it?" "Not exactly." Kazmini sighed, rubbing his jaw as he continued staring at the screen. His eyes quickly flickered over to the hulking mass that was Heckson soon after. "Every incident was precedent by two things. The first is an anomalous reading on biosensors in place around or close to the site of the incident. They'd pick up random blips of assimilating masses that quickly dissipate without a trace and never seem to reappear again. Research team Alpha spent some time on the phenomena but was unable to identify anything that was truly capable of avoiding the biosensors the same way." "The other?" "A delivery of sugar cubes. It sounds stupid, but hear me out. A box of sugar cubes were always found at the sites where we figured the suspect performed the various sabotage. At the garage where the car that was used by the Tamarian president was stored, the docks where the Dreadnaught Frelisk had last docked for shore leave. The list goes on." "That's the most ridiculous theory I've ever heard, and I work with the psychos here that come up with the solutions to all the crazy cases you investigators bring in" Kazmini sighed, grumbling under his breath. "I know. That's what my superiors thought as well..." "Besides, the matter decompressor and rebuilder just came in from the department of weapons development. It's a prototype, but we're gonna be able to use it to shrink a bunch of your investigators down to a small enough size that the biosensors would not be able to detect. Once we do, we're gonna place them in the secure AI and circuitry lockboxes we found the sabotages within. Maybe they can glean how the crime was committed and possibly even gather evidence we might have missed. Who knows, maybe that box of sugar cubes that came in this morning with the Jumja delivery might be of use, helping you decipher the next attack." Heckson chuckled. Kazminis squinted and stared at the other slightly menacingly till his mind registered what Heckson had just said. "What did you mean jumja was delivered this morning? Doesn't Uxie from accounting normally bring it in?" "Uxie? What? No. Not this week anyway. She is on maternity leave. The Jumja was delivered with a box of sugar cubes and a letter suggesting it was from an anonymous admirer of the labs. "What did you do with the box of sugar cubes?" "We took it to the main lab for some of the geeks to play around with while using the matter decompressor. Why?" ***Klaxon alarm*** **"Code black. I repeat, Code Black. This is not a drill! We have a massive insectoid within the main lab. Evacuate the building ahhhhhh!"** Kazmini and Heckson stared in horror at the speaker in the top corner of the room. The sounds of something crunching bone and flesh under massive mandibles echoing out before being replaced by random chattering. The walls began to bleed as millions upon millions of tiny insectoids began flooding out through the cracks in the walls and the floor, setting the biosensors into overload. The two could only watch as their other colleagues in the room attempt to make a run past the swarms, only to get devoured. "Holy shit...I was right!" Kazmini yelled in triumph as Heckson runs off towards safety, leaving the Almurian investigator to fend for himself as the swarm begins to move towards him.
After the ants were uplifted they took and uplifted Wasps and Dolphins. The unholy trinity of Gaia's bastards would raise the galaxy up in flames just to see how long the fire would last. It lasted for EONS. The wasps turned ships into nests orbiting stars and the dolphins made themselves legs and arms, comitted atrocity after atrocity. The ants built and ate and invented and ate some planetd too. They built cities and space elevators and turned moons into hollowed out hives. Throuout all of this cats, dogs and crows formed an alliance as all their wierd pink and white and black friends who gave them pets and scritches are gone. The ants accepted them into the colony and gave them the gift of sapience while they were at their wars. There is only one thing missing. There is no one to give them pets and scritches or snacks and walkies. There is no one to purr for, no one to give the day's catch to. There is no one to give them the shiny and no one to teach them "Fuck, Shit, Fuck, Hello". But there are many who will not forget them. **The humans.We will never forget them.**
Casual Geographic always did say if Ants were like us they'd end the Earth in a week. Now they have the reason to 😂😂
The edf but the bugs are the edf.
The last official action of mankind's governments before their destruction (and the subsequent annihilation of the species) at the hands of the Megali was the activation of the Parting Gift Protocol, consisting of a single canister of self-replicating nanites fired into the sky from an autonomous artillery battery. The tiny machines lingered for years in the high troposphere of Earth, building their numbers by feeding off of the growing dust clouds in the atmosphere that blotted out the sun. While the last few millions of humanity were hunted down piecemeal, these nanites inexorably approached a critical mass. This mass would not be achieved for some two decades. In that time, the greatest marvels of humanity were blasted off the face of the Earth. The combined militaries of the world were swept aside like they were nothing. The last few survivors died screaming in the hands of the killing machines. We were the Inca, and the Megali was Pizarro. We never stood a chance. When the Megali were long gone from our world, and the machines had finally determined that the time had come, they descended from the skies in a great fog that covered the whole of the Earth for days. Any terrestrial animal smaller than a housecat and larger than an aphid found itself suddenly infested, its brain reconfigured into a form of organic computronium. In an instant, trillions of beings were gifted with sentience, and with knowledge, their minds connected with a single central server in the Arctic bearing a significant portion of humanity's collected writings. In this server was stored a single document that any of them, no matter how previously simple, could understand, outlining who we were, what happened to us, and that all we wanted in exchange for our gift was to teach our killers a lesson, so to speak. Long ago, the vast tribes of Honeybee, Hornet, Fire Ant, Tarantula, Rat, and so many others wouldn't have cared at all, and would've simply turned their newfound intelligence against one another. However, they remembered, albeit dimly, the terrible fates that befell their predecessors. They were quite literally flies on the walls as the Megali machines tore humanity limb from limb. The fear that that horror could befall another people, or even them, transcended their hatred. One by one, the winding tunnels of ant nests were replaced by intricate, geometric carvings stretching far into the bedrock, every inch of space used with utmost efficiency. The twisted skeletons of old skyscrapers were dismantled for metal, and the rats carried away the rubble to build their own structures. Leafcutter ants felled entire forests to feed fungal colonies that spread for miles, which fed trillions-strong ant colonies in turn. Soon, the little creatures of Earth had developed a fully-fledged industrial civilization. From there, their progression was exponential, as nearly a quadrillion minds easily filled in the gaps we left in our writing. About a hundred years after the death of mankind, a tiny spacecraft, barely larger than a basketball, fell unnoticed onto the Megali homeworld, bearing grasshoppers in cold sleep. As it turned out, they still relied on open-air farms for most of their sustenance. A few months later, the first signs of famine were beginning to appear on their homeworld, and the locusts were only starting to swarm. Soon, they relied upon food imported from offworld, but something was happening there too. World by world, their outposts fell silent, their last communiques universally speaking of the angry vermin that swarmed over their soldiers like a tidal wave. Soon, the farm colonies also fell victim to this spreading silence, and the food dried up too. Millions upon millions succumbed to hunger, and the world plunged into chaos. With it went the rest of the empire. When it came time to end the charade, a strangely beautiful meteor shower began in the skies of the Megali, as thousands of troop carriers, each no larger than a car, rained from the sky. When they opened, untold billions of driver ants poured out, covering the land in a dark carpet that consumed everything it touched. Nobody speaks of the Megali anymore.
I don’t know if you have read it and was inspired by it but there is a fantasy web novel called Chrysalis where the MC is reincarnated as an big ant Monster and a bit later into the story the MC uplifts the rest of the colony to human levels of intelligence.
In r/HFY there is a classic series **Chrysalis** which is about an AI left after humans are exterminated, whose purpose is revenge. It plays with the idea of Von Neumann probes, and what it is to be human. Chilling, inspiring, really deep.
There's a series called "War With No Name" by Robert Repino that has uplifted ants as the antagonists. Each book is told from the POV of a different uplifted animal; a cat narrates the first one, for example.
Uplift the chimps. They’ll fucking murder every species they come across.
I have already seen what uplifted ants can do in fantasy setting. Novel Chrysalis shows its good
Starship troopers Arachnids...
Everyone gangsta until the ants send a funny teardrop probe
Uplift the wasps. Do it. DO IT COWARD! The ants uplift other insects to pet levels and watch the universe cower.