In the Trekverse you are The Swarm (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario you wake up in an usual situation: first of all the hair on your head has been replaced by a bunch of articulated chitinous quill things. Second of all, is your surrounding, which is a squishy organic chamber in a creature, specifically this colossal Leviathan...


You also hear things running around, slithering, grunting, growling, barking, squelching and otherwise making animal sounds. Suddenly you ask for answers, then a sphincter in ceiling opens up and down comes this lady...


She refers to you either as "my king" or "my queen" and informs you that you are in control of the Zerg Swarm. Then this comes behind you...



...and suddenly part of your brain activates and you control it, ordering the Hydralisk to move about, seeing through it's eyes and similar. You become aware of the behemoths and overlords which are around the Leviathan, as well as a lot more Zerglings, Roaches, Queens, scourges and Hydralisks inside the Leviathan.
Apparently, a large number of Zerg ended up in this universe after going through a dimensional rift a few months ago. The Swarm then split off into about twenty groups each led by Brood Mothers who broke away and attempted to form new swarms and carve up new territories, as well as taking the genetic code for other Zerg Lifeforms such as Mutalisks, Corrupters, Ultralisks, Brood Lords, Guardians, infestors, virophages and so forth.

She also says that recently they encountered an enemy starship, which they destroyed and captured a creature in a party of said creatures which attempted to teleport over and take the Leviathan by force. Said creature is being kept alive for your interrogation and latter be sent down to the evolution pit for Abathur's evaluation (and fortunately he has also worked out a few electrostatic field generating organs for the Leviathan to prevent any future unauthorized teleportation boardings). Said creature is of this species...

Basically you are in the Trekverse slightly before the onset of the Dominon War. For a few months the Federation and Klingon Empire have had several of their Fringe Worlds attacked by fairly small scale Zerg Swarms which are proliferating in number. Some of the queens are fighting with each other, some will bow into line at your arrival, some need to be beaten into submission and others will need their Brood Mother killed to make their broods fall into line.

Your job is to get the Swarm under your control and do what you will with it. What do you do?

Zor

[NecronLord]

I try and get the swarm in line, and make peace and engage in diplomacy with the goal of benefiting my zerg and the population generally.

Why would I want to kill folks?

[Zor]

I try and get the swarm in line, and make peace and engage in diplomacy with the goal of benefiting my zerg and the population generally.

Why would I want to kill folks?

Well there have been some Klingon worlds that have been attacked by runaway broods which have been attempting infestation of their planets. Some of the Klingons might not realize the fine details between the Zerg bringing the swarm in line and those under your command.

Zor

[NecronLord]

Well I would naturally seek diplomatic assistance from the UFP in this matter, and make reasonable opportunities for amends as I could, and offer what I can to recover their losses, while explaining that it was not me but another swarm. They're aggressive, not non-sapient, they are quite capable of understanding internal divisions and accepting that.

If that does fail, I might offer to meet a klingon champion for a duel to settle the matter. That should be... short, though obviously I lack Kerrigan's pre-conversion skills, most of that seems to be power she got from her campaigns with the swarm.

[Tribble]

From the Klingons, I would have hopefully gained knowledge about Tribbles. I'll mutate them to be space worthy and so they can self destruct. Self-destruct with acid that eats through the hull of starships! At the rate they reproduce, the Alpha Quadrant would soon be mine! Kneel before the kamikaze space Tribbles! muhahahahahaha!

[Simon_Jester]

So, basically, Scourges only cheaper?

[Grumman]

So, basically, Scourges only cheaper?

And fluffy. Can't forget the fluffiness.

[Borgholio]

If my current morality and intellect remain unaltered, I would solidify my foothold in the galaxy and make my primary goal the submission of all the other Zerg swarms with the eventual goal of helping to defeat the Dominion and carve out a section of the Gamma Quadrant for myself. Since the other swarms already took over several worlds belonging to the ST empires, I would have access to some of the technology on those worlds including subspace transmitters.

I would use the tech I found to immediately open up communications with the major governments and explain the situation. The Feds might be understanding but the Klingons and Romulans would likely be / remain hostile towards me. With this in mind, I would grow the swarm as fast as I can and throw them against the Dominion, hoping to prove my intentions and demonstrate my usefulness as an ally. What happens next depends on how successful I am vs the Dominion.

I expect that a Zerg swarm will easily overrun Jem Hadar ground forces, but I don't know how well I'd do against their space forces. The Dominion tends to use "zerg-ish" tactics in space with their fighters, so it might be quite the stalemate. If so, then at least we will be able to hold the line while the Alpha Quadrant forces beat the Cardassians then move to support an invasion of the Gamma quadrant.

In the end, I expect to have a large empire of my own in the Gamma Quadrant and hope to be allies with the empires in the Alpha. Now for the next big question...how would my full-scale Zerg swarm fare vs the inevitable contact with The Borg?

[Tandrax218]

I have a question about this:

After you wake up are "you" still human with your "own" intellect and morals and cultural heritage ? Or are you Zerg with the mind set to match ?


Because for instance what Borgholio is saying he would do something a HUMAN would do , but if you are Zerg, then your values are different and your only goal is annihilating and absorbing all sentient life in the galaxy. Then again if you are something in between, why not just absorb the whole swarm ( said brood mothers) and collect your species and leave this galaxy and leave the stupid wars to lesser races...

[OmegaChief]

I have a question about this:

After you wake up are "you" still human with your "own" intellect and morals and cultural heritage ? Or are you Zerg with the mind set to match ?

Well, Zor seems to be basing this pretty firmly on Heart of the Swarm era Kerrigan for capabilities and motivation, especially since the initial set up he describes seems to be the 'de-zerged' Kerrigan style thing with just the hair being Zergy.

So we appear to still be ourselves with new powers, to start with at least, given the nature of the Zerg it is entirely possible that we could work out some kind of self evolution if you wanted to be the one man army like NecronLord.

As for me? Well I don't know if the swarm will even be able to use the local tech to communicate, so there's only one sure fire option, which is to warp my Leviathan towards Federation space, being non-hostile and apologising profusely to the first Starfleet ship I come across (Which is doubtless going to be the Enterprise). Then I explain as much of the situation and about the Zerg as I understand, offering my help to get the broods on the Federation frontier in line, potentially having federation tech/support ships could come in handy for a few things after all as well providing handy proof they can give to the Klingons to try and smooth things over with in future.

When all the broods are eventually in line, hopefully I'll have enough goodwill to request some colony worlds for myself, given the Zerg seem to prefer very hostile planets, there shouldn't be much dispute with anyone. At this point I focus on developing as much space combat capability for my swarm as possible as that's my current biggest weakness.

Then when the Dominion War starts in earnest I simply move to support the federation and hopefully help them end the war much more quickly, my swarm can probably pretty easily blockade the Wormhole and stop DS9 from falling. But I'm just not sure what to do after the war.

[Purple]

Can the other swarms be reasoned with? As in, can they be counted on to not attack me until there is no one else left to eat? Because if so, I'd leave them alone entirely. If they get them self killed, fine by me. If they kill a lot of aliens doing it even better. If not, try and point them toward the enemy and play keepaway.

The tribble plan is definitively a go. But not in the way NecronLord described them. Instead, I would seek to find a way to implement their rapid reproduction system into my swarm in order to gain a 40K ork like effect. That is to say to ensure that once a planet or starship is seeded with spores the swarm can newer truly be rooted out from it short of burning off the surface.

As for the dominion war, I'd stay the hell away from it. The conflict is ideal in that it weakens both sides substantially. Something that I would want to happen to ensure my interests are secure. And these interests of course are establishing my self as the king of the alpha quadrant.

Why such a goal you ask me? Well it is simple. It just so happens that the delta quadrant is filled with a rather nasty and massively powerful group that due to recent event has a personal beef against groups that use exclusively organic technology. And no amount of diplomacy in the AQ is going to give me enough friends to help stave off the Borg when they do come. But gathering up all their bio mass and technology just might.

[Mr Bean]

1. Start working on a talking Zerg Diplomat mode asap. I need a meat puppet to go meet with the UFP and the other races since meeting with them in person myself is not exactly a smart move.

2. Start putting together a backstory and cover to explain the rampaging Zerg for the UFP which the Klingons are part of. Face the fact the Zerg are going to squick 7/8's of the UFP races right out. Best quick explanation, the Swarm was made to be a weapon by our long dead creators with a side goal of genetic perfection. The war has long since ended but our other goal of genetic perfection remains, we seek samples of all life to enhance ourselves, however we are created as weapons... without our (My) strong guiding hand the other Zerg have been reverting to basic instincts seeing all others as enemies to be destroyed or feed on.

So... help us out otherwise the other Zerg will go nuts, only by destroying the other Queen's can peace be restored again.
Why did they go crazy to begin with? Umm... would you buy holodeck malfunction?

3. Start recruiting allies, I want the other brood mothers dead ASAP and those zerg back under my control. I need to settle a few worlds and start tinkering with the Zerg.

[Purple]

The diplomat creature idea is definitively a good one. A mostly humanoid looking member of the swarm would make it easier to communicate with the AQ powers as well as provide endless hours of persona entertainment.

[phred]

I am totally going with the Tribble Scourge(TM) thing as soon as possible. First thing is to try and get, if not allies, then at least some communications going with the local governments so they don't shoot me on sight. Then find some uninhabited worlds to get materials for building my fleet up, and go brood hunting. After that it depends on how the locals react to me

Quick question: Are you tied to your body still? Or is your mind spread around the Zerg you control?

Also, how fast are my ships? IIRC StarCraft ships were kinda slow by Trek standards. I might want to look into warp drive tech in that case.

[Zor]

Well, Zor seems to be basing this pretty firmly on Heart of the Swarm era Kerrigan for capabilities and motivation, especially since the initial set up he describes seems to be the 'de-zerged' Kerrigan style thing with just the hair being Zergy.

So we appear to still be ourselves with new powers, to start with at least, given the nature of the Zerg it is entirely possible that we could work out some kind of self evolution if you wanted to be the one man army like NecronLord.

Pretty much this, you are still you.

Zor

[Vendetta]

So, basically, Scourges only cheaper?

More like infiltrator banelings.

The Zerg would be basically unstoppable for any Star Trek polity in any conflict, so after bringing the swarm to heel I'd be able to do pretty much whatever I pleased.

[bilateralrope]

leave this galaxy

And go where ?

[Simon_Jester]

As for me? Well I don't know if the swarm will even be able to use the local tech to communicate, so there's only one sure fire option...

To be fair, the Zerg have to have FTL communication capability, because their swarms are routinely coordinated by brain-organisms across interstellar distances.

It's not much of a stretch to assume they can duplicate or infest communication systems that will work with what Starfleet has.

...which is to warp my Leviathan towards Federation space, being non-hostile and apologising profusely to the first Starfleet ship I come across (Which is doubtless going to be the Enterprise). Then I explain as much of the situation and about the Zerg as I understand, offering my help to get the broods on the Federation frontier in line, potentially having federation tech/support ships could come in handy for a few things after all as well providing handy proof they can give to the Klingons to try and smooth things over with in future.

Now, I don't disagree with any of this.

Also, how fast are my ships? IIRC StarCraft ships were kinda slow by Trek standards. I might want to look into warp drive tech in that case.

I think it's reasonable to rationalize that Star Trek just has better warp drives than Starcraft- the technology has the same name in Starcraft and there's no obvious evidence that it works differently.

On the other hand, we've seen what appears to be the Swarm opening a giant wormhole to travel interstellar distances without a long warp-travel flight in between, during the move from Char to Aiur.

[OmegaChief]

To be fair, the Zerg have to have FTL communication capability, because their swarms are routinely coordinated by brain-organisms across interstellar distances.

It's not much of a stretch to assume they can duplicate or infest communication systems that will work with what Starfleet has.

I'd always thought that was implied to be psychic abilities though? That said Kerrigan did appear on the Hyperion's comm screen somehow in Heart of the Swarm, I just figured suddenly popping into the minds of federation ambassadors wouldn't be the best first impression, especially since we already have the other swarms nibbling around the edge of space.

[Lord Revan]

Zerg communications are psychic, while it's not outright stated it's very strongly implied that Kerrigan's ability to contact the Hyperion is due to her psychic abilities Spoiler

and the power boost she gained at Zergus from the primal Zerg

.

that said most zerg cannot actively use their psychic abilities and it's more of link that binds them together, I remember only 3 zerg that could use active psychic abilties and of those the first 2 are special cases and the third wasn't really a zerg but some sort Zel'naga agent (we're never told what he truly was).

[Tribble]

To what degree are the Zerg dependant on the Khaydarin crystals? If I remember correctly, the Overmind deliberately evolved the Zerg to incorporate them. That could potentially be a huge problem as the crystals were artificially created by the Xel-Naga and probably wouldn't exist in the AQ.

[Zor]

To what degree are the Zerg dependant on the Khaydarin crystals? If I remember correctly, the Overmind deliberately evolved the Zerg to incorporate them. That could potentially be a huge problem as the crystals were artificially created by the Xel-Naga and probably wouldn't exist in the AQ.

The Swarm was doing just fine before it reached Aiur.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

I'd always thought that was implied to be psychic abilities though? That said Kerrigan did appear on the Hyperion's comm screen somehow in Heart of the Swarm.

Kerrigan has also teleconferenced with other allies before in the Brood War, and there's a fair amount of evidence for some of those conferences taking place over interstellar distances... though some of it she could have done in person.

Zerg communications are psychic, while it's not outright stated it's very strongly implied that Kerrigan's ability to contact the Hyperion is due to her psychic abilities...

Well, granted, that's a fair point. They might, for all I know, not have any other means of communicating across interstellar (or even tactical) differences...

[Lord Revan]

It should be noted that even before being turned to zerg Kerrigan was one of the most powerful human psychics (at least if the SC wiki is correct) being grade 10 which is pretty much the highest grade recorded on humans before becoming Zerg, in Wings of Liberty (and presumebly in Broodwar as well) she's grade 12 "psionic waveform signature" and in Heart of the Swarm when she contacted the Hyperion the sensors just gave up trying to classify her power going for the classic "readings are of the scale".

that said her powers seem to have a range as in one of the Heart of the Swarm mission a new created Swarm Queen went out of range of her at the end of the mission.

[NecronLord]

Clarification: For those not in the know, the broodmother was aboard a protoss ship at warp when she went out of range. (Incidentally the effects on that level are very much like ST warp)