Swarming Sovereignty

Irene was sitting in a small diner with some of the other members of the Truthseeker’s guild when Fae started her stream. Like always, the gathered members of the Truthseeker’s guild each pulled it up in a side window, leaving it on mute and occasionally glancing to see if anything interesting was happening.

Instead of the usual waiting screen, however, there was a plain black background with the words “IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT” written in large text above a five-minute timer, and a clickable link to another channel called “Unassuming Empress”. This was highly unusual for Fae, and Irene couldn’t help but get excited at the prospect of whatever it was.

“Are you all seeing this?!” She asked. “What do you think it is?”

“I’m seeing it.” Aaron, the guy who went by “Ironbrown” on the forums, said. “I’m assuming that link isn’t to ParadisiaTV for you all?”

“PublicAccessStreaming for me.” Gloria, the guild’s leader, said, taking a bite out of her donut.

“That really what they call your streaming site in Romoti, Donut?” Rusty, or “No Legs No Problem” asked.

“Yeah. What about you, Legs? Is it any better or are you just talk?”

Rusty shrugged. “The biggest one is called Overload. It’s as good a name as any, I guess. And yes, the link is an Overload link for me. Footstool?”

“Yeah, it’s a Spellstream link.” Irene replied. “I’m gonna go take a peek at it, let me know if anything happens.”

She quickly willed the window to “click” on the link, and was brought to another page. It was…blank; no profile picture, no bio, nothing. It was streaming, with just a black background and the same timer from Fae’s stream. The stream was simply titled “Announcement”, and…that was it, no description or anything. The channel had been created earlier that day, and there were no prior streams or any indicators that it was…anything.

“Just a blank channel with the countdown.” Irene relayed. “Made earlier today, and it hasn’t been customized at all. The stream’s just called ‘Announcement’, can’t really figure out anything from just this.”

“Isn’t Unassuming Empress Lia’s current species?” Rusty asked.

Irene’s eyes widened. “No way. Do you think it’s her?!”

“It’s someone important.” Gloria said. “They couldn’t stream to different planes like this if not.”

“I’ll stay on the channel for this, I’m assuming whatever comes after the countdown will be the same.” Irene said. “But…now that I’m thinking about it, wouldn’t streaming open her up to reading chat? She’d learn about World Saviors, and she can’t do that, right?

“Maybe it’s just recordings of stuff she says? Or like propaganda announcements or something?” Aaron suggested.

They excitedly discussed the possibilities for the remaining few minutes before the countdown expired, then quieted down to watch. The moment the timer hit zero, the screen changed to reveal the Swarm’s Queen in a large, official-looking room in the World Tree.

“Hello, everyone.” She said. “I’m sure you all are wondering what this is about, so I’ll just get right into it. We’ve known for a while that something strange is happening on Yasato involving people from other planes, but a few days ago we received the news that the gods opposing the Swarm took actions that broke the information restrictions. As such, the gods that support us were allowed to tell us about World Saviors and all public knowledge about it.”

Irene’s eyes widened. “It’s the Queen giving an announcement, right?” She hissed quietly.

Everyone else nodded, so Irene turned her attention back to the screen, where the Swarm’s Queen had paused for a moment before continuing. “Furthermore, as those restrictions are now completely nonexistent, we are now allowed to browse the internet on Yasato, and we have already taken steps that allow us to view it here on Ratha.

“After some discussion, I decided that I would begin streaming, much as Fae has been. As hard as it may be for many of you to believe, I will not be playing anything up for these streams. They will be completely unfiltered views into my daily work, with the sole exception that you will not be able to hear inter-Swarm telepathic communication.

“This even includes military matters, at least for the next couple of months.” The Queen continued. “The way we are currently going about things is different than we will ever be able to again, outside of other surrender scenarios. As such, we have decided that there is little harm to be done by letting our potential opponents view these proceedings. Once we return to traditional warfare, however, I will stop streaming any war-related content.”

Irene quickly glanced at her friends before returning her attention to the video. They seemed just about as shocked as she was, but discussion would have to wait until the announcement was over.

“I also feel the need to warn you that I am both busy and not a professional like Fae is. I will do my best to interact with chat when possible, but I can’t be exciting all the time. There will also be questions I can’t answer and I’ll probably get confused at certain words and concepts, but unfortunately there’s no real way around that. I will begin streaming tomorrow at this time, on the channel Fae has linked.”

The Queen paused, then gave the camera a sad smile. “And, finally…I wish to apologize. If it were up to us, we would have been content to stay on Ratha, and all of this would never have had to happen. That, unfortunately, is not our choice to make; the gods have decreed that we must continue with other planes after we finish with Ratha, and so we must.”

The Queen bowed her head in apology. “I’m sorry that this has caused many of you grief and anxiety, but we’ll be doing our best to make sure we’re improving your lives as much as we can. That’s probably hollow comfort, but just know that we won’t hurt you if you don’t fight us, and that so long as your lifestyles aren’t built upon exploiting others, your standard of living will at the very least not get worse, even if it’s not immediately improved.

“As far as I am concerned, you are not enemies to be defeated, or subjects to be conquered. You are people thrown into a conflict against your will and who just want to live their lives. I cannot blame you for struggling against us, and, when the time comes, you will not be treated any worse when you are part of the Swarm.”

She straightened back up, giving the camera a confident look. “And make no mistake, there is no other outcome. The Swarm will win, and that is not in question; World Saviors is not enough to stop us, not in the least. In fact, several gods who support us helped supply the power needed to operate World Saviors because they believe it will strengthen us instead of defeating us.

“And, to repeat something some of you may know, World Saviors is using the system that Amelia created for the Swarm, with a couple alterations meant to disable Swarm-specific functionality. I believe you all can understand the implications. Farewell.”

And with that the announcement ended, leaving a palpable silence in its wake. Irene and her friends were silent for a few long moments, then Irene hesitantly spoke up. “So…thoughts?” She asked.

“Do we have any confirmation on the system thing?” Gloria asked. “It came up in the video where Fae was converted, but I don’t think we’ve heard anything one way or the other.”

“Nothing from the gods, but the system that the Swarm is using is basically the same with some extra bells and whistles.” Aaron said. “And Amelia recognized it before she even knew about World Saviors. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption, even if I don’t like the implications.”

“Do you think she’s being honest about them being content to stay on Ratha and the gods being the ones to force them further?” Rusty asked, leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful expression. “That seems…unlikely.”

“No less likely than them wanting to expand further, I think.” Irene replied. “I mean…what does it gain them, really? Most of their plane is still unexplored, so there’s a wealth of natural resources for them to tap into, and they open themselves up to a lot of danger by choosing to try and expand further.”

“Then why do they have the leeway to take a couple of years off between conquering Ratha and going to Yasato?” Rusty pointed out. “Shouldn’t they be forced right into the next plane if the gods are forcing them?”

“I believe that a couple of years of a break would be within allowable limits.” Gloria said. “We’ll have to ask Championess about it later, she’s the theologian, but assuming the gods supporting the Swarm are pushing it because they believe it’ll improve our lives, it makes sense to allow them time to…improve lives.”

“I think she has a point there.” Aaron said. “As much as the marketing of World Saviors doesn’t want us to think like this, the Swarm is composed of people, and it’d be really harsh to force them into constant war for decades. I’m sure a lot of people would prefer that to be the case, it’d make defeating the Swarm easier, but I think that whatever sort of rules the gods have wouldn’t allow that.”

“That all being said…how much do you think we’ll be able to trust the streams to portray things accurately?” Gloria asked. “The Queen says she won’t be playing things up, but she’s got to be…right?”

“Unless she’s confident that she doesn’t need to.” Irene countered. “And I think whether or not she’s putting on an act is mostly irrelevant. Just the fact that we’ll have two different sources of looking into what life is like in the Swarm will help us determine the truth. We can trust most of what Fae shows us, since she has the backing of the goddess of Hearth, so we can also use that to determine how much of what the Queen is showing us is real.”

“True.” Rusty said. “Whatever the case, we definitely shouldn’t take it at face value. It’s a useful source of information, but not necessarily a trustworthy one.”

“Yeah.” Irene said. “Still, it’s going to be a little tough having to pick between her streams and Fae’s, since I assume there’ll be some overlap.”

“We should make sure at least one of us is watching the streams, so we can make highlights.” Aaron mused. “I know a couple of us have been doing it for Fae for a while, and it’s going to be important to have a relatively neutral source of clips for the Queen’s streams too. I get the feeling there’s going to be a lot of clips that misconstrue things one way or the other.”

“Come to think of it, how do you think she’s going to handle moderation?” Gloria asked. “Lots of streamers end up modding people who have stuck with them since they were a small streamer, but the Queen is going to go straight into the big leagues. And she doesn’t have the backing of Hearth’s church like Fae does.”

“Fae will probably end up needing to help.” Irene guessed. “She has some reach in other planes and knows how to get things done.”

“How much moderation will she really need?” Rusty said. “She can’t exactly ban people who are hostile to her, that’d be a PR nightmare, and I think chat will often go too fast for any real degeneracy to become an issue.”

“I’m not so sure it will.” Aaron said. “She can’t interact all the time because she’ll be busy, and I think most people are just going to be lurking. She’s made it clear that they won’t be streams made for entertainment, so once the novelty wears off people are going to get bored fast. She’ll maintain viewership, but it’s mainly going to be the kind of people who are probing for weaknesses and taking notes, I think. The trolls and other weirdos will be a proportionally higher part of chat than in most streams.”

“I can totally imagine someone like Swarm Slayer going in and making a scene.” Irene said, making a face. “They’ll probably have to deal with some of those types, bad PR or no.”

“Speaking of, have any of you seen him in the wild?” Aaron asked. “I think I came across him the other day.”

“How could you tell?” Irene asked.

“Just an educated guess, really. There was this guy being really loud in a town square, lecturing some kid about ‘dangerous degeneracy’ and how they couldn’t even afford to question whether or not the Swarm is not an absolute evil.”

“That sounds like him.” Rusty agreed. “Did you see how that ended or did you leave?”

“I stuck around for a little bit. Someone who looked like the kid’s dad showed up and started getting really heated when the guy refused to back down or apologize. I think the cops ended up getting called. Honestly, the dude was pathetic, the kid was like ten and he was treating him like some sort of traitor to all of society.”

“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that that’s him.” Irene laughed. “Did you see what happened with that tier list thread?”

“No, what?” Aaron asked.

“He was a total fraud and had way skewed perception of certain abilities.” Irene said smugly. “He got into a fight over the efficacy of fire-based abilities and ended up getting blocked from any future interaction with the Rankers guild. It drove him insane that my writeup on Jump Boost actually got accepted and his on Flame Blade didn’t.”

“He wouldn’t accept that fire wasn’t always a net positive when attacking things that aren’t immune.” Rusty chuckled. “We pointed out that it has a negative synergy with bleed effects and he just said to not take bleed effects because they weren’t worth it when you could be using fire, then threw a fit when the Rankers agreed with us.”

“He’s definitely got some screws loose.” Gloria said. “But…I kind of pity him; living with so much anger sounds absolutely miserable.”

“Oh, Fae’s taking questions about the Queen’s stream!” Aaron said. “I’m gonna start recording, I think this is gonna be important!”

“I’ll send a text to speech with questions anyone here has.” Gloria offered. “Anything you all want to know?”

“Ask about moderation.” Irene said. “It seems important.”

“And I want to know if Fae knows what the other gods did that broke the information restrictions.” Rusty added. “She probably doesn’t know or can’t say, but it can’t hurt to ask, right?”

“Right.” Gloria agreed. “Alright, one sec, I’m drafting up the message…”