Hiver Federation & the RC.'s relationship- friendship or manipulation?

[Liam Devlin]

Third topic to this board of inquiry & interest. I'm no leo Guatney, and SPica isn't my forte sector of choice. GDW's "Hivers & Ithklur: Aliens of the Rim' maybe my only reference point here (and the book has its faults, lets face it). This too comes from A Starpilot posting, and some things I have encountered on other lists.
This isn't a flame versus the book now--this is a debate of where do YOU see the relationship between the RC & the Hivers. Is it one of manipulation only (get the humans to kick Vampire ship butt, risk their necks, etc), or is it one of freindly patronage. Perhaps somewhere in between.

INquiring heretics wanna know!

 

[tjoneslo]

Reading from pretty much the same sources: I vote for something in between.

In order for the Hiver psychohistory to work (even it if doesn't work as advertized), the need to take a very long view of history. And the very long view of future history seems to indicate that the Virus is a new lifeform which isn't going to go away. It's evolving at a very fast rate currently, but will settle into a stable state. Then, like all intelligent life forms, look to expand it's sphere of influence. And the virii have and can control enormous industrial productivity. The fear is if the Virus stablizes into a xenophobic/aggressive state it could sweep out and kill all life forms (in particular the Federation). Making friends with the RC allows the humans to build a strong empire to allow negotiation from a position of strength.

The other point is maintaining a very high technology, partiularly across a large interstellar empire, requires an enormous investment of resources. So much so the Hiver have strained the limits of Federation to support it, to the point of sacrificing their military capability. The hivers are afraid if the Virus gets orginzed and uppity, or the K'kree get aggressive again, or the RC turns hostile, the shift of resources to producing for a war effort may well collapse the Federation economy.
The Virius is a wild card and too scattered to work with. The K'kree are mortal enemies only cabable of "not attacking right now". However, the RC can be a source of raw materials and services, a market for goods, and a way to expand the Federation economic base. The same reason why the Hiver were so interested in the trade deal with Margret during the Rebellion, after the Solomani went all "Humans only" on them.
And there's a large group of Hiver for whom the mothering instinct has been aroused. The poor humans, all beaten up and bruised need a helping hand from the friendly Hiver.

So it is a genuine friendship the Hiver are offering, but it give the Hiver something much more important that the RC can imagine.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Tjoneslo, You're the first person I've spoken with on this topic that even mentioned the Hiver Federation's economy!! EXCELLENT observation. Excellent.

As for the rest of your views, I believe the Hivers (most of them) believe as you say, Most Of virus is unstable, and heaven help the universe if it stabilizes, for then it will run amuck, and will not be reasoned with, or manipulated (and all organic lifeforms will be at risk...!)
So I see altruism on their part for seking the Human's aid in the eventual battle over them (the AI's).
But the Hivers are also pulling the strings of the RC as well, pushing the Federalist plan over the Centrists--and if unchecked, could implode the RC (lack of human infrstraucture behind all these worlds being "tamed" conquered/ Ted-busted requires a major amount of internal trade, shipping, and funds to propel it along--or risk repeating the beginning of the "Long Night" crash-depression of the ramshackle empire.
It has also been speculated that not all Hivers supported the plan to recontact the humans--after all, they created the AI Virus that wiped out most of the universe and did major damage to the Federation itself (and at time of RC campaign, much of the Federation still has not recovered). There maybe those HIvers wishing to see the whole thing fail, then say "I told you so", and dominate the humans as they do the ones within the Federation's "Safe".

 

[Liam Devlin]

Comments Mr Scott Kalkwarf? PLease share them!

 

[tjoneslo]

The first thing to avoid would be trying to treat the Hivers as a monlitic block. They are, if anything, more scattered than humaniti. Hivers, delibertaly, have no central governing system and trusting to luck that one or more of their manipulators will recognize a threat to the Federation in the early stages and manipulate out of existance.
The issue the Hivers have is Humaniti is too random to effectivly manipulate. Every single attempt to do so has failed, and in some cases failed spectacularly. So some Hiver nests, recoginizing this, have ceased attempting to manipuate the RC (and humaniti in general). The problem is other Hiver nests, with arrogance born of ignorace, are still attempting to Maipulate the RC into "doing the right thing". So there is a Manipulation war going on with in the Federation about what to do with the RC. And worse than having one side or the other win, the fallout from this "Discussion" is nothing but bad for the RC.

The virus is scary to the hivers because they don't understand it, can't study it, and have no way of mainpulating it. The Hivers figure the various strains will go on mutating and killing each other for a one to two hundred years by which point you'll get a number of stable and some sane virus strain scattered about. These will become empire builders which will fight for control of their space. The Hiver want the Federation (and the RC, and the Aslan, and the K'kree, and anyone else not virused) to be strong enought to aid the most sane (read: Most suseptiable to Hiver manipulations) strain into becoming the dominate one. An exercise in selective evolution.
The trick is to perform a forced restart to an economic system on the verge of collapse and prepare a beaten and exausted population for what may be a war against their genocide.

 

[shield]

remember the old Hiver supplement and other stuff since. The Hivers regard all other intelligent species as children that need educating. The Imperium was the favoured child until it went s did something very naughty.

Now the Hivers would hold out a hand to a repentant child and try again. But true friendship bewteen equals, no, more of a parental instinct, parent child type of relationship.

Also the RC acts as a convient buffer state and trial area for new anti viral tactics/ equipment without endangering the heart of the federation.

Now virus scares the Hivers, they were always the best at computers. Here is a foe that turns their strenghts against them, that they cant manipulate (at least until it evolves into a sane species), and brings the violence right up close and personal.

Is a virus a new child. I think they probably regard it more as a wolf. A dangerous preditor, but one that you could train into a guard dog.

Cheers
Richard

 

[shield]

And lets face it, manipulating a new civilisation across the entire area of the old imperium is a colossal task and would elevate the controlling hiver to a status equal with the first Hiver manipulators.

Nothing like a huge ego boost.

Cheers
Richard