Hello all, Ric here with a quick video on a mysterious species from Star Trek Voyager,
simply known as the swarm.
I debated whether to make this a bestiary or a cultural index but, well… we simply
don’t have enough about the Swarm to even speculate on their society or much beyond
what we see on screen; so I’m dropping them into this series of videos.
The Swarm are a sentient, humanoid species of warp technological levels but are incredibly
xenophobic to the point of defending their territory with zealous effectiveness.
We do not have a species name for them, a location of their homeworld or the ability
to fully translate their language, but they are located in the Delta Quadrant, just beyond
the fringes of Kazon space but on the north side of the Nekrit expanse.
Beyond this expanse lie the Borg among other dangerous powers, so the Swarm dwell on the
less technologically advanced side of this natural barrier.
In fact, they are one of the only species that has a strong understanding of shield
frequencies and transporter technology.
This means that their nearby competitive powers are not as dangerous as they are, leading
them to be able to lay claim to large areas of space, hundreds of sectors, seemingly at
random.
A partial map of their territory is shown, and it does not conform to your typical borders.
This is probably a result of their lack of communication with outsiders, and a speculative
map based on encounters with the Swarm.
Speaking of encounters, they have universally been hostile with many incidents of ships
passing into their territory, often by accident because they do not advertise their borders.
When a vessel passes into their territory, it is common for the ship never to be heard
from again, or emerge with the entire crew dead on board.
The only sign that you are entering their space is a hidden tachyon detection grid.
Tachyons are faster than light particles produced from cloaking devices, transporter beams and
other technologies.
This means that even a cloaked ship sneaking across, or someone attempting to beam over
their border can be detected.
Once inside their space, things get complicated further due to an ambient Resonance particle
wave spatial phenomenon, an effect which acts as drag on warp drives, slowing ships passing
through their space.
For a species that want no visitors, they sure do make it difficult to tell exactly
were their borders are.
The Swarm ships will descend onto any intruding vessel and engage in one of two tactics depending
on the scale of their quarry.
For smaller ships, they will simply board the vessel and attempt to kill the crew before
leaving the vessel drifting.
Which is interesting as they do not attempt to loot or claim any salvage, they only care
for neutralising interlopers.
On larger target ships, their smaller swarm vessels can land on the enemy and begin to
drain the power from it.
These small vessels cannot hold a large number of crew, but travel in swarms of thousands,
hence the moniker for the species.
They can deplout a polaron burst to radiate and mark a vessel as a target, kind of scent
marking it for their swarm to locate and fire an interferometric pulse.
This pulse is modulated specifically to their target, and allows them to bypass the target’s
shielding and even neutralises their target’s energy weapons by dispersing it among the
swarm.This pulse is also connected to any other nearby Swarm ships to share the pattern
and power among them.
This is also their weakness as if this pattern is overloaded, it can chain through the network
and affect the rest of the Swarm.
More ships will dock, continuing the drain effect, eventually allowing for boarding parties,
to once again, kill off the crew.
With the ship drained of power and drifting, often a single Swam ship will remain to ensure
that the intruder eventually perishes or in case there are more nearby that somehow slipped
their detection grid.
The swarm themselves are only glimpsed twice in person and they have a complicated language
that the Universal Translator had a lot of trouble with.
A Starfleet translator eavesdropped on unsecured subspace channels to build a lexicon of a
language passively, even before first contact is made.
With the Swarm being so isolationist, it is likely that the translator had nothing to
assimilate prior to their meetings, as with time, the crew were able to create some basic
translations.
Their appearance is rather difficult to discern too, but they almost appear reptilian-ish
and have three digits on each hand, two talon like toes, and a tube appendage from their
mouth to their neck.
They wore armour, but with no helmets and the gear was dark and rather undescriptive.
It did however have upturned designs giving it a more menacing silhouette but overall
had a utilitarian look reflecting that the Swarm are all business.
Their hand weapons are of a strange design too, inverted from most common armaments,
more like a baton than a disruptor and they do release a powerful pulse of neuro-electric
energy that can stun a target, however it also really messes with the brain, memory
and nervous system of the victim, which can be fatal without treatment.
Overall, their reputation is valid.
They seldom leave survivors, but occasional get-aways must exist in order to tell the
stories alongside the remains of drifting vessels.
The fact that they do not even pillage their targets adds to their menace.
They only care about destroying intruders and defending their space, like wasps around
their hive.
They are one of the more technologically advanced species in the area too, making them a real
threat, but fortunately they do not travel beyond their territory, as mottled as it is.
They are sentient and do have a language, so perhaps with time and effort some work
around could be established as it seems most of their issues could be avoided if they just
communicated a bit more.
Thanks for watching, I’ve been Ric and that is about all we have on the Swarm aliens of
the Delta Quadrant, thanks again and goodbye!