Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

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

• Prologue — Prologue
• Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 58 — Sultan Rishi the Usurper

Progression

Paulie: everything born on a seeded world carries a grain-sized primal system, and the crawl harvests it (ch. 0); the macro AIs made over and over because the spectacle pays (ch. 0); 'the communal nature of his Primal race', Victory guesses (ch. 18); Rishi's version of the collection (ch. 58).