I Am The Swarm

The star system containing the Genesis Planet was named the Genesis System by Luo Wen.

Long-term observations from the lunar observation center revealed that the Genesis System comprised eleven planets. Luo Wen named them sequentially from the star outward as A1, A2, A3… A11, with A5 being the Genesis Planet.

Of these planets, A1 to A3 had no moons, A4 had two, A5 (the Genesis Planet) also had two, A6 had three, A7 had thirty-six, A8 had five, and A9 had four. The presence of moons around A10 and A11 remained uncertain due to their extreme orbital distances.

To better organize these celestial bodies, Luo Wen devised a new naming system. The moons of the A-series planets were given grouped identifiers. For example, A5B1 referred to the Yellow Moon, and A5B2 refers to the Red Moon. The “A” with a number indicated the parent planet, while “B” and its subsequent number represented the moon’s designation, ranked from closest to farthest.

Over the years, the Swarm had honed its expertise in slow-projectile launches through its “ball-tossing” experiments between the two moons. Combined with rapid advancements in computing and trajectory calculation technologies thanks to the rat folk, the accuracy of the launchers significantly improved. Now, spore capsules launched between the moons could land within a kilometer of the target location.

With technical proficiency secured, the Swarm was ready to implement the next phase of its plan.

This second phase was ambitious: to colonize the entire Genesis System.

The first step involved launching spore capsules toward the planets and their moons to establish subsidiary bases.

While the varied environments of these celestial bodies presented challenges, long-term observations indicated no signs of existing civilizations within the system. This eliminated the primary risk. Environmental factors would be addressed by the Swarm’s magnetic field protection systems, with extreme cases managed as they arose.

Although described as “slow,” the spore capsules still achieved a velocity of 30 kilometers per second, a speed roughly 10,000th of the speed of light—several times faster than the rat folk’s rockets.

Achieving a successful launch, however, required extensive calculations. For instance, the nearest planet to the Genesis Planet, A4, was about 60 million kilometers away at its closest approach and over 400 million kilometers at its farthest. During the latter, the star would obstruct the path, making a launch impossible.

The optimal launch window, therefore, was during the closest approach, when the spore capsule, traveling at 30 kilometers per second, would take about 23 days to reach A4.

However, both planets orbited the star at high speeds. Accurate targeting required accounting for lead angles, gravitational influences from various celestial bodies, planetary rotation and revolution, and even the star’s motion.

Luo Wen alone couldn’t handle these calculations, but with a team of 15,000 rat folk researchers, the benefits of cultivating rat folk civilization became evident.

A4, the closest planet to the Swarm, was just the beginning. The system’s outermost planet, A11, required over 300 years to complete one orbit around the star and came no closer than 8 billion kilometers to the Genesis Planet. A spore capsule would take roughly ten years to reach it. The complexity of lead angle calculations over such distances was staggering, requiring consideration of multiple planetary orbits.

Given these challenges, colonizing A11 would rely heavily on luck, so Luo Wen decided to focus on closer targets first.

Luo Wen also opted to temporarily forego A1 to A3, as their proximity to the star made their environments extremely hostile, posing significant colonization challenges with minimal reward.

Over more than a decade, the Swarm launched spore capsules to planets A4 through A8 and their moons. The extended timeline was partly due to missing the closest approach to A8 when the plan was first formulated, forcing the Swarm to wait ten years for the next alignment—measured in billions of kilometers of separation.

Meanwhile, the Swarm successfully landed and expanded on A4 and A6.

A4, being closer to the star than the Genesis Planet, had higher temperatures, lacked an atmosphere, and was subjected to intense radiation. Surface temperatures reached over 200°C. Despite these harsh conditions, the Swarm adapted by utilizing genes from deep-sea organisms found near undersea volcanoes. Such temperatures were trivial by comparison.

However, A4’s limited water resources restricted the growth of the fungal carpet, slowing the base’s development.

In contrast, A6, located farther from the star, was coated in frost and had abundant water resources. Despite temperatures dropping to nearly -100°C, Luo Wen’s experiments with enhanced glycerol secretion systems allowed Swarm organisms to function normally. Magnetic field generators further stabilized their internal temperatures, rendering the cold a non-issue.

With plentiful water, the fungal carpet spread rapidly, supporting a thriving Swarm base.

Observations indicated that A7 was a gas giant, the largest planet in the system, nearly 1,500 times the size of the Genesis Planet. It boasted 36 moons.

Even at its closest, A7 was about 1.5 billion kilometers from the Genesis Planet. Two years earlier, the Swarm capitalized on this proximity, launching over 100 spore capsules toward A7 within a year. Factoring in other influences, the capsules traveled over 2 billion kilometers. They were now approaching A7 and its moons, with their arrival expected in a few days.

Luo Wen eagerly anticipated this milestone, marveling at how, in the vastness of space, the Genesis Planet and A7 could still be considered “neighbors.” Yet even a neighborly visit required travel times measured in years.

Thankfully, Luo Wen no longer perceived time as a constraint. For the rat folk, however, a trip to a distant neighbor might take so long they’d perish of old age before arriving.

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