The Beast (Homeworld)
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The Beast is a viral-like entity that acts as the antagonist in Barking Dog Studios' expansion set to Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm. In this game the Beast is a virus-like entity that is able to use both mechanical and biological material to spread its matrix and melds the two into one living organism which it controls.
The Beast was unlocked by Kiith Somtaaw unwittingly when they recovered an artifact during the second mission of the single player campaign of Cataclysm, in the area of space designated Sector 112, near Hiigara. It originally came to the galaxy onboard the mysterious extragalactic vessel Naggarok. The Beast is said to have come from hyperspace itself and infected the ship during the trip. The Beast infection forced the Somtaaw engineers to eject the hangar bay of the Kuun-Lan command vessel, where the artifact was being studied, which eventually formed the basis of the new Beast mothership.
The Beast caused great damage to the galactic civilization before the Somtaaw managed to destroy it, stopping the plague that they had unleashed by destroying the Naggarok vessel.
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Naggarok
One million Hiigaran years prior, the exploration vessel Naggarok arrived in the Homeworld galaxy from the next nearest one using an experimental hyperspace drive of incredible power. When the vessel caught the Beast infection, the onboard crew realized almost immediately the potential for destruction if it took control of the ship. The drives and communication systems were completely scuttled, so that even with the assimilated knowledge of the crew, the Beast would be left confined to the vessel as they could not be repaired without external help.
Their sacrifice was however undermined by their own skill at ship design. The destruction of those two critical systems caused the ship to automatically launch an emergency signal beacon as part of its design, a beacon that carried a small amount of the Beast. The very same beacon Kiith Somtaaw found.
For the period of time since its arrival, the Beast has somehow been able to listen in on the radio signals emanating from the various worlds in the galaxy, perhaps using the hull of the entire ship as a massive antenna. Presumably it has been able to learn a lot during this time.
When the ship is finally found by a modern civilization, in this case the Imperial Taiidani, the entire craft is more or less intact, except with some superficial damage to the outer fins. It isn't revealed until the last portion of the game the other two abilities of the craft. Firstly, the ship doesn't rely on traditional propulsion to drive itself in normal flight. Instead it uses an inertialess drive that sustains a low-power hyperspace field around itself that permits it to travel at incredible sublight speeds far exceeding even fighter-class ships or high-speed exploration probes. Its maneuvering ability is likewise unmatched and the craft has no concern for acceleration/deceleration effects, being able to start and stop immediately at will.
Its second ability was probably installed in lieu of a proper weapons loadout. A large node in the bow of the craft is a phased matter disassembler. The device can forcibly deconstruct any form of matter down to its component atoms and use it to administer repairs to the vessel. The Beast uses this as a weapon, locking onto an enemy ship and deconstructing it along with the crew. However while the device is in effect, the craft cannot move as it would terminate the absorption process. The Naggarok may only move again once the process is done.
The ship's drive is vulnerable to EMP, though it takes only seconds for it to recover. It is during these moments of weakness, along with its aforementioned "feeding" immobility, that would allow the Somtaaw fleet to rain enough firepower on it to destroy it once and for all.
The ship's name is most likely derived from the word Ragnarok, given its phonetic similarity, as well of choice of letters in the name.
Language
The entity's command of English is based on vocal and textual analysis from various sources. While competent enough to state its thoughts, the disjointed nature of its speech is easily noted by anyone. Also, the Beast is unable to maintain a single vocal profile by itself when directing transmissions to non-Beast vessels, alternating between a deep masculine voice and a raspy female one several times as it speaks. It sounds a lot like The Kuun-Lan's bridge officers. Subverted vessels retain their original voice profiles but the Beast taint is apparent; words are spoken with a telltale unearthly rasp.
Its writing ability is composed of short deliberate sentences, with composite words being separated. As such, the Beast would render "The missile carries a polymer warhead containing a dense payload of the Beast that discharges upon impact" as "Self carried in polymer war head medium. War head medium keeps self safe from explosion. Medium sticks to enemy parts when missile hits". It should be noted at this point that the Beast appends suffixes to all ships. Fellow Beast vessels as "-Self", groups as "-Selves" and any unsubverted ship as a "-Part" or "-Parts" for a group. For example, "Command self is pained! Command self must flee from parts!".
The largest collection of Beast entities, the Naggarok vessel, is capable of speaking in perfect English Template:Audio, but still with the aforementioned alternating vocal profile. It has presumably gained this ability by spending its million Hiigaran years of isolation listening in to communications chatter from the galaxy around it, going so far as to state that "We know you better than you know yourselves".
Infection
Infection only requires that the Beast entity come into contact with a suitable surface, with any ship being compatible. Once done, the Beast begins an extremely-rapid process of breaking down the ship materials in order to construct more of itself, and when it comes into contact with organic matter, it likewise breaks them down and reassembles the cells for use as living biocircuitry. The Beast interfaces this living computer system into the ship's electronics, merging them into one. It is apparent however that the new system still retains the memories and thoughts of the original crew, making this a truly horrific way to continue life. This however allows the Beast to rapidly assume control of the new vessel, as opposed to using trial-and-error to find out what everything does.
Direct physical contact
Ships that come into direct contact with an infected vessel risk subversion if they are not properly engineered or trained to withstand an infection. Examples including the Somtaaw mining tugs and Worker units. Without the proper precautions, a mining tug will immediately acquire the Beast entity when attempting to ram it, and a Worker will pick them up when it tries to salvage one. Unmanned ships such as the Somtaaw Leech are immune to direct infection as they are controlled remotely and therefore present no organic matter to infect.
Infection beam
Most heavy-class ships in the Beast fleet grow specialized beam emitter nodes all around the vessel. When activated, they generate a charged particle beam that the Beast entity can ride on and onto a target. The charged nature of the beam allows it to jump to neighbouring ships, depending on how much mass the ships have. Several fighters can be infected with one beam shot, compared to one or two frigates. As the beam operates at relatively short ranges and is instantly-generated, it is impossible to avoid the weapon. Only vessels that have implemented the necessary safety protocols can ride it out. Unmanned ships are instantly destroyed by the beam as they present no organic matter to infect.
Cruise missile
Drawing upon schematics and designs available from subverted engineering data, the Beast conceived a spacefaring cruise missile carrying a warhead densely-packed with the Beast entity. The warhead was a polymer-like substance which would protect the payload up to the point of impact. Once the missile itself had rammed through the victim ship's hull, the warhead would finally break open, and the Beast entity could begin the process of subversion. If the hull could withstand the impact, it wouldn't matter either way as the Beast entity can work just fine from outside of a vessel.
The cruise missile itself is equipped with a corvette-class fusion rocket drive that allows it to reach speeds almost comparable with a fighter-class vessel, and grants it high maneuverability. The navigation and guidance equipment can track its target over a significant distance, and may remotely receive new data from a commanding Beast vessel. The entire package weighs in at 490 tons.
Armoring of the missile is relatively weak and as such can be disposed of easily, but usual Beast tactics are to attack from multiple vectors and in massed groups, vastly diminishing the chances of interception. The weapon's engineering permits rapid and cheap mass production, making this a common tactic for a Beast fleet to consider.
The tip of the warhead is organic in nature, allowing it to slip through the charged field of a Sentinel wing, effectively rendering forcefield technolgy useless.
Beast disposal protocols
Initially, no ships were safe from Beast infection as it was an entirely new threat that no one knew how to deal with. This was later dealt with via development of new biohazard sterilization procedures stemming from stolen Imperial Taiidani bioweapons research and the implementation of ad hoc emergency purging protocols onboard ships.
Workers can be upgraded with an Infection Vaccine that allows them to safely engage an infected vessel for salvaging, by sterilizing the Beast entity forcibly. This allows a ship that would otherwise have to be abandoned to be returned to active duty. The technology and protocol for this came from the aforementioned Taiidani research.
The purging protocols mentioned are quite brutal. It involves flushing decks under threat of infection with surplus superheated plasma from the fusion rockets, instantly immolating everything in the area including crew, unshielded equipment and the Beast entity itself. This is based on the rationale that it is infinitely preferable for the crew to be instantly killed than to spend an eternity as part of a Beast biocircuit, and that it would be better to lose a few decks than the whole ship.
Subsequent refinements in the technology and protocol resulted in all traces of the Beast being destroyed in the years succeeding the events of Cataclysm.