I Am The Swarm

In the satellite bases orbiting Planet Izumo, all the Brood Queens collectively produced tens of thousands of Space Octopus eggs daily. The maturation process for a Primordial body, under conditions similar to Planet Raze—where only cosmic radiation could be absorbed—took approximately twenty years.

However, in the orbit of a gas giant, with the advantage of massive “power banks,” this timeline was reduced to five to eight years. In orbit, the process became even faster.

This meant that if the conflict dragged on for more than five years, and assuming ideal conditions, the Izumo base clusters alone could theoretically add tens of thousands of Primordial bodies to the Swarm’s ranks every single day.

Of course, this was merely an ideal scenario. With the constant attrition of war, larvae were the most vulnerable and suffered the highest casualty rates. Reality would inevitably fall short of this theoretical maximum.

Even so, the numbers remained staggering.

In contrast, at the Swarm’s rear bases in the Genesis Star System and the Neighboring Star System, where no wars were raging, conditions were closer to the ideal. Although these areas weren’t entirely dedicated to mass production, years of accumulation had resulted in forces that could only be described as astronomical.

By comparison, even if the Rikens poured their entire civilization’s resources into building warships over the same five years, they could produce no more than 3,000 ships—less than the Swarm’s potential daily output five years later.

Since the Swarm occupied Planet Izumo, two years had already passed before the Rikens managed to deploy their electromagnetic railguns.

By the third year, thanks to unending support from the Neighboring Star System, the Swarm’s Primordial bodies in Izumo’s orbit exceeded 20,000. They had firmly entrenched their position. Even a full-scale Riken nuclear strike would be intercepted mid-flight by a dense barrage of electromagnetic projectiles.