War Marshal Helix
Technological Terror
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a sentient bio-weapon for Helix Solutions, as well as a vector for possible future threads.
- Image Credit: Link
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Name: Helcyte
- Designation: Non-Sentient (Capable of temporary, conditional sentience.)
- Origins: Helix Solutions laboratories
- Average Lifespan: 3-4 years
- Estimated Population: Scattered
- Description: Large, parasitic arachnids.
- Breathes: Type I, II, III
- Average Height of Adults: 1.1 Meters
- Average Length of Adults: 1.8 Meters
- Skin color: Typically red, mixed with streaks of bilious yellow.
- Hair color: None
- Distinctions: Swift, lethal predators, with little in the way of sexual dimorphism. Females tend to be slightly larger than males, but otherwise visually identical.
- Races: None
- Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive
- Stolen Sentience: Helcytes are capable of attaining sentience if bonded to a sentient host, at least temporarily.
- Hunter-Killers: Helcytes can be deadly, boasting bladed forelimbs, lightning-quick movements, a resistance to telepathic influence, and a powerfully venomous bite. This goes double for those who have infested sentients, as they may be found using any number of weapons, skills, and abilities.
- Just Another Bug Hunt: Helcytes themselves are vulnerable to small-arms fire, possessing no special resistance to most common weapon types. A solid shot or strike will handily dispatch them. Even the far tougher hosts can be disabled quickly if the attached spider is targeted and killed.
- Diet: Haemovore
- Communication: Hisses, chirps
- Technology level: None
- Religion/Beliefs: None
- General behavior: Highly eusocial life forms, Helcytes tend to form colonies from which they hunt their unfortunate prey.
A revolting parasitic organism, Helcyte spiders are the result of nanogene tampering with various different arachnoid life forms. Though theorized to possess Droch ancestry, the rest of these horrors' parentage remains a mystery.
A hideous, chittering, many-legged lifeform, the typical Helcyte measures nearly two meters wide from legtip to legtip, though the creatures' body core is much smaller. Females are usually slightly larger than males, though most will fail to spot any visible differences between the two. All share the same ravenous predatory behavior, and hostility to lifeforms that they do not recognize.
Helcytes possess razor-bladed forelimbs, and will use them both in self-defense and attack, but their preferred weapon is a paralyzing bite capable of toppling a gundark in seconds. Unfortunately for their victims, this toxin is rarely fatal, being powerful but short-lived. Victims generally recover from the paralysis on their own within the hour, if rescued from the spiders' murderous intentions. Occasionally, this venom is harvested from live specimens, though the spiders will seldom give it up willingly even to Helix personnel.
Helcytes are extremely social animals, and are virtually never found alone, living in vast web-colonies in Helix properties, or places where the organization currently wages war. A typical hunting pack consists of between four and ten individuals, while a full colony can easily boast a population in the thousands.
These animals reproduce like wildfire, laying clutches of luminescent eggs amidst the still-struggling bodies of captured life forms. A single breeding pair can render a large swathe of land uninhabitable, as the Helcytes multiply exponentially, pushing out or killing native life forms and causing significant damage to the native biosphere.
Young Helcytes hatch hungry, and are typically fed by adults in their colony. They grow to adulthood in approximately one standard week, and have a maximum lifespan of 3-4 years.
While certainly deadly on their own, boasting organized pack-hunting behavior and paralytic venom, the true threat comes from the creatures' parasitic lifestyle. A Helcyte infestation, upon establishing a viable colony, will seek to spread out and capture nearby lifeforms. Though they can kill and eat prey in the manner more typical to arachnoid species, Helcytes more commonly attempt to overpower a prey animal, then use their sharp-pointed legs and adhesive webbing to bond themselves semi-permanently to a host.
Once done, the Helcyte uses a specialized pair of limbs to form a connection between its central nervous system and the host's. If successful, the Helcyte and the host are now effectively one organism, sharing a bonded consciousness with the host subordinate to the spider's will. Helcyte spiders, while possessed of a certain low cunning and surprising problem-solving ability, are not sentient creatures. Yet, when attached to a host, they gain access to all of the host's memories and skills. The resultant dual-organism is sentient (if the host creature was sentient before infestation), though driven largely by the Helcyte's simple drives to catch prey.
These spider-hosts are utterly alien in psychology and reasoning, being a combination of the sentient host's memories and the spider's endless thirst for fresh blood. Any attempt to contact, read, or subvert these compound organisms telepathically is often hazardous to any who attempt it. At best, the attempt simply fails, with the reader getting only vague impressions of animal hunger and uncaged horror. At worst, touching the mind of such a being can be shocking, frightening, and disgusting, and it is a rare telepath that can interact with such an entity unscathed.
Over time, the spider gradually hollows the host body out, feeding on bodily fluids while keeping the host in a state of hideous, seemingly paradoxical vitality, not dissimilar to the feeding process of the dreaded Sarlacc. Yet, as the hosts invariably come to resemble withered mummies, the spider imbues its victim with significantly increased strength and speed. Helcyte hosts have been observed to continue moving and fighting despite injuries that would certainly kill an ordinary example of their species. So long as the spider-section of the combined organism survives, the host body can suffer horrendous damage and remain ambulatory.
The exact mechanism by which this works is still under analysis, but it is theorized that the spider uses its write-level access to the host's brain to greatly increase production of adrenaline, inhibit pain and shock responses, and in general turn the host into a nigh-unstoppable berserker. The reason for this is obvious: the host body is little more than a vehicle for the spider to traverse its environment, procure more prey, and kill anything that threatens it.
Helcyte hosts who were sentient species have been observed to operate vehicles, weapons, and any other form of technology that they would have been able to utilize prior to infestation. The spider body is seldom idle during combat either, using its long legs to allow the host to scale walls and ceilings, as well as form formidable slashing weapons. Most such hosts are swift, athletic, and deadly predators, able to attack from unexpected angles and suffer enormous damage before falling.
Just how much consciousness the original host retains during this process is unclear, perhaps for the better. The spider seems able to access the host's memories to utilize tools, access restricted areas, lure prey that were close to the host, and otherwise make use of the host's capabilities, indicating that at least some part of the unfortunate victim may remain.
It is possible, in theory, to remove a Helcyte from a host, provided that the infestation is caught early. A skilled surgeon or medical droid, operating on a subdued spider, may be able to successfully remove the animal and free the host. Hosts treated in these early stages often recover, though the severing of so powerful a mind-bond often leads to lifelong psychological problems. Later-stage infestations have a far grimmer prognosis. Any such host who has born the spider for longer than a few days is unlikely to recover, and those who have carried these foul passengers for weeks or even months will almost certainly die if removed from the spider's noxious vitalization capabilities.
Eventually, the spider's predations invariably kill the host, at which time it will detach from the body and seek a fresh one. Hosts rarely survive longer than a year, at which time the spider may find a replacement.
Mercifully, no known colonies of Helcytes exist in the wild, being servitor animals for Helix Solutions, and the organization generally removes the spiders when leaving an AO, as they are better put to use elsewhere. The animals form an almost canine loyalty to Helix personnel, but show not a glimmer of mercy to their victims or to any intruders into their colonies.
Occasionally, these creatures are loaned out to other Sith-aligned causes, and may be found among their ranks.
Most often, their wartime use consists of simply dumping the spiders behind enemy lines, and letting the infestation spread. The animals are exceedingly stealthy and subtle, and it is not uncommon for an infestation to go unnoticed until the streets are suddenly full of bloodless walking corpses. Infestations are particularly dangerous in densely-populated areas, and can easily balloon into the thousands or even millions in a very short period of time.
Thankfully, while the host body is exceptionally tolerant of small-arms fire or other typical anti-infantry tools, the spiders themselves are somewhat less rugged. They are swift and agile in the extreme, but can be dispatched easily enough with most weaponry provided a shot can be landed.
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