[b]Big Daddy Zedicus demands it[/b] The Hive trace their origins to a gas giant named Fundament. Long ago, the proto-Hive crashed their homeworld into Fundament, ostensibly to hide from something unknown. The shards of this homeworld became a number of continents that floated upon a sea called the Fundament Ocean within a layer of the gas giant's atmosphere, and the proto-Hive eventually built a meager civilization upon them and forgot their old history. In addition to the proto-Hive, Fundament was home to hundreds of other intelligent species, and Fundament's fifty-two moons were inhabited by a space faring species called the Ammonites who were overseen by the Traveler. Life was quick and harsh for the proto-Hive. Their natural lifespan rarely exceeded ten Fundament-years, though females who ate "mother jelly" became able to spawn and live longer. In terms of environmental hazards, Fundament was almost inhospitable. The Fundament Ocean was toxic, the skies were eternally stormy, the rain poisonous and sometimes corrosive, lightning had enough power to vaporize anyone it struck, "living clouds" called Stormjoys would prey on the populace, and the proto-Hive frequently warred with each other. The progenitors of the contemporary Hive were Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash, the three daughters of the Osmium King who ruled the continent called the Osmium Court. When the Osmium King was ten years old, he fell to madness, fearing an event called the Syzygy wherein Fundament's fifty-two moons would align and create a massive tidal wave, the God-Wave, that would destroy Fundament's civilizations. Taox, a sterile mother who served as the teacher to the King's daughters, feared the King's daughters were too weak to succeed the King and invited a rival kingdom, the Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, to invade the Osmium Court, kill the royal family, and allow Taox to rule the Osmium Court as their regent. The Helium Drinkers invaded and slew the Osmium King, but the three sisters, two years old at the time, escaped on a ship and vowed to take their revenge against the Helium King and Taox. After a year of traveling the sea, the sisters salvaged an ancient, high-tech ship they called "The Needle" from the Shvubi Maelstrom. Xi Ro wanted to sell it at the Kaharn Atoll, a gathering place of Fundament's many species, in order to raise enough money to hire a mercenary army, but Aurash wanted to take command of the ship. Sathona sided with Aurash, goaded on by a worm that their father had kept; the worm had washed up on the Osmium Court's shores and was seemingly dead, but Sathona could hear it speak.[16] The sisters spent the next two years reactivating the ship, until Aurash decided to use it to fulfill its intended purpose: she wanted to dive to Fundament's core in the hopes of learning a secret that would prevent the Syzygy. As they descended, the sisters encountered a vast creature called the Leviathan, a disciple of the Traveler. The Leviathan warned the sisters against proceeding further, telling them that they faced a choice between the Sky and the Deep, the Light and the Darkness, the way of life and the way of death. The sisters rejected the Leviathan, unable to accept that allowing their people to suffer was the better way, and instead decided to follow the worm Sathona had saved, which urged them to continue diving. [b]And that is all for today! [/b] [i]See you next time on the next recruitment post![/i]