Sa'arm Behavior

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

Sa'arm Behavior - Page in work!

   This page is for canon and discussion on Sa'arm Behavior.  For information on the Swarm's appearance, physiology, reproduction, etc go here.  Details of their ships can be found here.

Types of Knowledge

   (This page is a mishmash of several types of knowledge about the Swarm Cycle's universe.  Some 'facts' are only known by the authors and not the characters.  Other 'facts' are known by the characters but not the authors.  Still other 'facts' turn out to not be true but the characters don't know that.  We as writers have to keep this straight. -ZM)

Sa'arm Intelligence

   The Sa'arm are a distributed intelligence.  Each ADULT unit contributes a small net gain in the gestalt's total mental ability.  Each IMMATURE unit contributes a small net loss, since the gestalt must provide control processing for the unit but is not yet gaining anything back.  Note that the Confederacy's understanding of the Sa'arm starts at nothing and only gradually grows.  ZDD's story "Mary Celeste" provides a controlled experiment where researchers can demonstrate the below intelligence levels, but that story is set ~year 20, long after the majority of Swarm stories.  The Sa'arm, of course, know all about how they work.  An author needs to know this so he (or she) can write coherent, canon-observant stories.  Most characters don't know the following and won't until after many years of observation and analysis:
  1 Sa'arm unit by itself is nonfunctional.  It becomes comatose and dies within hours of having been removed from contact with gestalt.
  3 units are the smallest number we've ever found alive, in damaged ships.  3 will be able to recognize food or not-food, gather and eat it, and operate a functional food-processor.
  5 or 6 units will have the intelligence to re-load the supply hoppers in those processors if those supplies are nearby and those particular units have done this before.
  8 (or so) will have the intelligence to re-load the hoppers in those processors even if the supplies are difficult to reach.  It might take them awhile, though.  Any interference will result in task failure.
  10 can act as a semi-independent crew in a minor vessel if there are other units usually nearby.  Typical Sa'arm Bomber or Courier crew.
  30 can make functional decisions.  This is the minimum 'gestalt' capable of planning in the sense of time-based cause and effect.  Typical Sa'arm "Vacuna" Scout ship crew.
  90+ can make rapid tactical decisions.  90 to 100 is the minimum number of units that a mature gestalt will assign to any task that may require decisions. 3 Vacunas, 9 bombers.
  243 - This is the number of suspended-animation swarmsicles found in _every_ 'berthing' compartment of _every_ colony ship we have captured intact enough to count bodies in.  There's gotta be a reason they always do that.

   If there are only 4 or 5 survivors, they will breed.  That's instinctive, and on a planet with abundant natural food sources this will rapidly raise their numbers to where they can think.  However, "Mary Celeste" points out that if food is limited because they are on a ship, they aren't smart enough to reload the processors, so breeding makes them run out of food _faster_, since there are more mouths to feed but the young aren't yet contributing as much to the group mind as running their body consumes.

   On March 5, 2015, one of the authors said "IIRC every mature Sa'arm has 4 fertile eggs in their brood pouch.  All the time!  Just waiting for the appropriate environment and 3 other Sa'arm.  Only the biggest hyper capable Swarm ships carry lizards in cold sleep."
   And on the 6th "TH's 'The Mercury Incident' suggests there is a two (2) year maturation period.  I would think that addition to the gestalt would be incremental during those two years.  It would be like adding a Commodore 64 to a Cray XK7 super computer.  Where the Commodore's output is "FEED ME!" for the first 18 months."
   On the 8th we got "My take is 10 is the absolute minimum to handle the ship.  (the fighters) 30 (3 fighters) gives them the ability to use minimal tactics and leaves someone to run and call for help.  This is the standard insystem combat unit.  one Vacuna has 30 or so and can do minimal scouting and courier duty.  3 Vacuna (90) would be the standard sent out if there was any possibility of conflict or for a serious scout/recon mission to a new location.  This again gives them some minimal tactical possibilities as well as the ability to be a trip wire and go warn the main hive."
   TH had the last word on the 18th: "I think I said that it takes four units to dredge up the brainpower to be able to see themselves fed.  The size of a scout crew would be bigger than that.  Ten might cover it.  Thirty might be better."

   In parallel with their intelligence is their knowledge base.  In a discussion on the email list about racial memory, TH said:
   "If it is big enough – and always has been – a Sa’arm can remember everything it and it’s ancestors ever did, said and had for breakfast.  But it’s a matter of storage capacity.  If there was a period when the numbers shrank beyond a certain level, the resulting gestalt won’t have it – and won’t recover what was lost just by sizing back up – it’s going to have to re-learn things.  That minimum number required to retain everything gets bigger over time, so it could get to be REAL hard for Big Daddy Numero Uno to bud himself a full replication of his entire knowledge base – if he’s still around.  Since in many cases units left behind during a migration die in place, poisoned by the environment they destroyed, he may not be."
   We as authors need to remember that this is background info about the Sa'arm.  We authors know this, and can use it to help write stories about the Sa'arm side of the war.  However, there is no way for a story character to know this short of running experiments like "allow 3 Sa'arm survivors from a crashed ship to develop into a complete colony, leaving them alone for 20 years".  In a total war of extinction, fighting over rare habitable planets, that ain't gonna happen.  Ergo, our characters will never know this.
   On the other hand, as the war continues we will occasionally re-visit smashed Swarm systems and we will find where sometimes the survivors have rebuilt but their tech is different from "whole" Swarms.  The emergent survivor Swarm has had to re-invent any technology they could not salvage and reverse-engineer, and sometimes their solutions will be different from their ancestors.

Sa'arm Behavior Inside a Single Gestalt

   A key issue that I have described but need to emphasize is their reaction mode.  Any attack on a single Sa'arm results in immediate reaction from other hive members in the immediate vicinity.  This could have ugly consequences, especially for a team trying to collect a live specimen.  I'd planned to frame a story around this. (See Mercury Incident)  A dead body would not be linked, and might fairly easily be transported out -- but a live one is his own GPS, detectable WELL beyond low orbit.  Since every resource immediately available would be applied to the apprehension of the kidnappers -- not so much due to the value of the unit, but in order to determine the nature of the threat -- I envision not only the team failing to escape, but it's support vessel being destroyed -- or self-destructing to avoid capture.

   Obviously, ground combat will be interesting, too.  I saw teams with antipersonnel mines trying them out on the Sa'arm; one item being a simple Claymore mine with the trip wire replaced by a laser unit (just an episodic thing, but it would be something we could combine advanced tech with current hardware to make...).  Tactics are all about hit & run -- don't be there when the reaction force arrives.  Preferably, you set up a multi-stage ambush, drawing several larger and larger sorties -- perhaps culminating with a nice tactical nuke...

   I didn't see the Sa'arm carrying weapons, as such, early on -- on most worlds, especially Confederacy worlds, they just landed and took over, ignoring the locals while they panicked, and creating their honeycombs of tunnels under the surface to support the surface hive structures -- more or less after the fashion of an iceberg -- most of their construction beneath the surface where they're going to be a bitch to get out.  We'll teach them differently, of course.  I saw them carrying a very sharp vibroblade-type energy knife or something to butcher pests with, but nothing more advanced until they discover that they aren't in Kansas any more...

   The Sa'arm aren't big innovators, but they learned a long time ago to study the hardware of whatever livestock they happen upon.  As a result, they have a varied arsenal -- but probably not much experience if any at using it.  This can play into our hands as they field new weapons without an adequate understanding of their function and end up misusing them...  -Soronel

Sa'arm Gestalt Identity

(An email list conversation in July 2021 between TH and assorted authors about how the Sa'arm gestalts view themselves and each other can be found here.

Sa'arm Behavior Between Gestalts

   If a group of Sa'arm gets far enough away from the hive, they lose their contact and become independent.  However, intelligence is drastically limited by the number of units available to the new gestalt.  It may well be instinctive to follow previous orders where possible, then seek a larger gestalt to join. 

   It is known that Sa'arm systems send small ships containing at most three units -and often only one- to other systems.  It is assumed that these are 'couriers' simply transferring memories from one gestalt to another.  These 'courier' ships that are assumed to only go one place and then join another gestalt and thus are not required to be very smart.
   The smallest ship used by the Sa'arm for independent operations appears to be the corvette or scout design we call the 'Vacuna'.  Those few we have disabled without complete destruction and were able to inspect afterwards invariably were found to carry between 25 and 35 units, and the low end may be due to combat damage removing some units.  We have tentatively listed them as carrying 30 units.  Experience has shown that a single Vacuna behaves with little imagination or ability to learn.
   It is far more common to encounter a group of three Vacunas working together.  It is assumed that the roughly 100 units available give the scout group significantly more smarts, and the triads are easily recognized as responding more intelligently to changing tactical situations.
   Each gestalt is independent.  A pair (or more) may cooperate in some manner, but not closely.  A possible example might be several Sa'arm systems each contributing several ships to a sort of 'combined fleet' if that is considered necessary to capture or destroy a particularly irritating set of natives.  However, each contingent would be its own gestalt, budded-off from its parent, and if this tactic was decided upon each contingent would attempt to take over all other contingents.  There would not be any physical action taken; the struggle would all be internal or mental and would happen immediately after any two groups approached within the limit of their communication system.  No units are harmed in this struggle.  After the two gestalts have merged, the surviving gestalt would have access to all memories of both 'parents' and would control all units from both.

Sa'arm Behavior When Resisted

   The Sa'arm have been described as an 'operant intelligence' meaning that if conditions are the same, we can predict what the Sa'arm will do because they will always respond the same way; there appears to be little to no leeway or free will in a gestalt's actions.
   When the Sa'arm encounter resistance, they crush it.  Otherwise, they generally ignore unknown items that are not 'acting dangerous' if they are doing something.  Soon, other Sa'arm will arrive to investigate the unknown items.  We observed on Tulak that they ignored the natives unless they were in the way.  The Sa'arm only killed masses of natives on specific occasions and then gathered the bodies.  We assume that those were food-gathering missions.
   In space, ALL ships are investigated.  We assume this is because the Sa'arm see non-Sa'arm ships as already-concentrated resources that usually contain food and often contain new technology.  Once a particular model or style of ship has been completely investigated and all contents assimilated, we assume that everything learned is put in the next courier ship to tell all other gestalts.
   We have taught the Sa'arm that some non-Sa'arm ships, and some of the contents, resist being assimilated.  As in everything else, they respond by piling on until the resistance is crushed.  By Year 8 or so we no longer see anything 'new' in Sa'arm ships; the reply to not winning is merely the same ships in larger quantity.  Thus, as long as we have ships that can beat their current ships and we remain alert for new ships, tactics, weapons, and other tricks, we should be able to beat any Sa'arm fleet.

   With that in mind, when the Sa'arm lose a fight, they invariably respond in one of three ways:
  - Continue fighting, nothing changes until the last unit is killed,
  - Change tactics to meet a new set of goals such as maximizing enemy losses instead of maximizing Sa'arm gains,
  - Destroy the theater of operations.
   Note that the second one is a red herring; every occasion of use that we have seen is either "Choice three with limited means" or "We didn't understand what was going on".  A prime example is the "Third Battle of Earthat" where the incoming gestalt was absorbed by the entrenched gestalt in Africa.  The incoming fleet had been trying to bypass the defenders and land, but the Africa gestalt changed their goal to destroying the defending fleet without regard to casualties.  The authors know what happened, how, and why.  All our characters know is the visible tactics change.
   Thus, the Sa'arm really only have two responses to the recognition that they are losing.  Either they kick the board over, or they simply continue to fight to the last dickhead.  To date, our characters do not understand how the Sa'arm decide which to do.
   On the other hand, TH has told the authors so that they can write stories that fit 'canon'.  If the Sa'arm are defeated by methods that they recognize (guns, bombs, lasers, swords), then they accept defeat.  They know that sometimes this happens.  Sooner or later, another gestalt will arrive with a bigger fleet and absorb this planet.
   If, however, the gestalt does not understand what happened (irradiation, biowarfare, hidden weapons, etc), it will do something to eliminate all possible sources of the problem, like a "Doomsday Bomb" which disrupts the planet's crust and kills everything present.  As a side benefit to the Sa'arm, even if the source of the problem survives, the planet is left with no ecosphere so future invasion fleets will go elsewhere.
   This applies to the Battle of Earth because the human defenders do not know why the Sa'arm sometimes give up, while other times they destroy the whole planet.  Ergo, no matter how well we seem to be doing on Earth, extracting as many people as possible to other planets is an even higher priority than pushing the invaders back.  No one knows when or how the Sa'arm will react to realizing that they are losing. 

Discussion

(The following paragraphs are considered non-canon)

Sa'arm Communications

   I have not been able to come up with the nature of their communication facility yet -- I'd like to see it as a neural net or something that extends for distances of up to a quarter million miles or so, (The Mercury Incident had the range at 500K miles but 250K has been settled upon) based upon there being a large number of them available to generate it.
   Long-range communication (as between systems) consists of literally transporting a specialized unit with an abstract of the current state of the current hive and any messages to the target hive for integration.  (Catching couriers ends up being the way we get our live ones -- quite aside from disrupting their communications.)
   The humans believe that the communication limit is approximately a quarter-million kilometers for a large hive such as a planetary one.  We have not yet found a way to 'block' or even detect the communication link, so we assume that it is not electromagnetic in nature.  There is a body of evidence that the range can vary, but we have no understanding yet of how or why.
   One theory is that it becomes a bandwidth issue with range: inside a particular range (which may vary) communications is total, while outside of that range it is limited, until at the farthest possible range all that is communicated is existence; the two groups know that the other is there or, as we have seen, suddenly isn't there any more.  Tactically, it is very difficult to surprise two different groups of Sa'arm unless the two attacks are simultaneous or they are very far apart.  More than once human naval forces have attempted to attack two widely-spaced Sa'arm forces, only to find that the Sa'arm communications link is better than the Confederacy's timing and only the first group was caught by surprise.

   I have some ideas on Sa'arm communications and evolution.  A gravitronic communication mechinism allows for the envisioned neural network, with the net being centered in the hive ship or a significat planet side congregation.  Each unit is by itself non-sentient, only as a group can they achieve intelligence.
   This can be discovered through such means as a malfunctioning gravity accelerated torpedo or by catching a hive ship near a binary neutron star system, where the rapidily changing gravitational field renders the entire hive unable to function and thus easy to capture as a whole.
   I do not see such a race as having evolved naturally, instead they were a bio-weapon introduced into the apparent home world in order to destroy another race.  Unfortunately as with so many things they proved to be more than their creators could control.
   Let me know what you think of these ideas. -deGaffer

The following was copied from an email from TH:    The idea that the Sa’arm is a manufactured race was always out there.  I haven’t locked that one down, one way or the other – it’s a ‘never to be resolved’ situation.  A full-up Sa’arm gestalt IS self-aware – but it takes size to get there.  Individual units are NOT self-aware.  Small elements caught out alone (even a few dozen, removed from the main gestalt) would be primarily occupied with basic survival for quite some time – and might not make it.  A gestalt that ‘grew up’ that way would have large gaps in its knowledge base.  It would not be a normal occurrence.
   Also, as I have indicated at some point, gestalts are ‘self-centered.’  Solipsism is the basic philosophy employed.  Thus, if a gestalt that grew from a tiny initial seed (very few units) in isolation came across another gestalt (we’re assuming that this is the full gestalt, not just scouts, which the other gestalt would absorb on contact) a conflict could result.  In any case, the self-interest of each individual gestalt is paramount in its thinking – any cooperation would be in the face of a serious threat (i.e., us.)  The cooperative effort to attack and subdue the Earth comes under the heading of ‘rooting out an annoying infestation’ – much like destroying a hornet’s nest in order to get rid of the things.  And, ultimately, one gestalt will own Earth.  They can only cooperate at a distance, using individual courier units.  Two gestalts in close proximity are instantly at war with one another for unit resources when their fields of influence overlap – which can paralyze them both and the majority of the units in the overlapping areas of influence.  Therefore, while they might be able to direct coordinated attacks using resources from multiple gestalts, such coordination is difficult and won’t be entered into lightly.
   Large ships and small fleets will have collections of units aboard sufficient to operate independently, but perhaps not as efficiently as a human crew.  Coordination would be difficult between units of relatively equal size, as any little shift in numbers could cause a unit – or a vessel or a fleet – to instantly shift allegiances.  Courier communication assumes that the transmitter and the receiver are full gestalts that are self-aware and that a direct link between gestalts is not possible.  Two task forces operating too close to one another would cause an active link to be generated between them and control would be homogenized to one gestalt – probably the one with the larger number of units in place.  Inter-gestalt coordination would therefore be on to order of “You take the left flank and I’ll take the right and we stop here – BEFORE we meet in the middle.”  And there would be considerable negotiation (read argument) over who GOT the middle.  The double-cross would CERTAINLY be an option...
   Let’s assume for a moment that two or three gestalts are in charge of the invasion of Earth.  (Frankly, three is too many.)  We have to assume that the ‘child gestalts’ in the Hive ships are by some agreement carefully proportioned and that they cannot control all of Earth upon arrival – they are not large enough to generate a control field that would encompass the entire planet on arrival.  Each parent gestalt will be operating under the assumption that their ‘child’ will eventually assume ascendancy and control all of Earth.  Each parent would PROBABLY have loaded the dice in some manner.
   While this plays out, there will be certain cross-territory locations where the total gestalt coordination that would be normal in most instances will NOT be available on Earth, i.e, if we launch strikes from one gestalt’s area of influence into another’s and then retreat to the original location, we will gain from their lack of instantaneous control.  The attacked gestalt would have to communicate this via courier – and some distance (and therefore time) would have to be involved, lest the gestalts come into conflict.
   Hmmmm… Bet there is a story or two there.
(ZM 3/8/2015 - Isn't the above invalidated by the decided 250,000 mile range of their link? Such duality could not happen on a single planet. However, if there were two habitable planets in a single system....)

(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))