Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Primal engines

Circe's history lesson on the CrawlCon panel: the original council nations 'accidentally tripped the primal engines' and started the chain reaction that overpopulated the galaxy, leaving primal elements to be collected from the pre-seeded worlds; the Hive, who reverse-engineer primal technology, demanded the right to field-test macro-AI-controlled enhancement zones, and the request was put under advisement. A hunter promises to birth a thousand nymphs in the birthing hall of Hive Home two.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 46 — The Reminiscence Hydra
• Chapter 48 — Mass Layoffs
• Chapter 51 — Residuals

Progression

The AI's description of the hydra: the mantises' Hive Home was once a factory for something interesting, they turned it on, and an infant macro AI formed — nurseries, and the lobotomizer (ch. 46); Orren's explanation of the Primal Engine, a grain of rice at a planet's core, and the Macro AIs that can only be installed into one, like a consciousness in a zygote (ch. 48); Paulie's kind live in every civilisation with a primal engine (ch. 51); the elements the crawl exists to mine (ch. 37).