At the beginning of the Age of Conquerors, humanity was swept aside by the billions of other intelligent species in the mad rush to fill the power vacuum caused by the collapse of the Celestial Empire.
Over night, hundreds of emperors declared themselves before thousands of others tore them to shreds, and the galaxy began to slowly rip itself apart. The struggle for dominance saw the destruction of thousands of planets, and Humanity was forced into the cold depths of space where they drifted for months on end before they encountered a small planet . Upon this planet, the explorers encountered an insectoid race named the Araki who welcomed these new visitors from beyond the stars.
Curious, the human leaders met with the queens of the Araki in their royal chambers, where human legends say the treaty between Araki and Man was forged.
The human leaders emerged from the chambers with a promise that the Araki would follow them to war. To communicate with the Araki in their war of conquest, psychics were employed to link their minds with the Araki and thus marked the beginning of the Hive Agency and its entomancers.
Alongside the ever-evolving Araki, the entomancers formed the most powerful force in the galaxy, and Humanity tore its way through dozens of competitors to stand at the pinnacle of all races.
-Thirty Years Later-
Rory loved his job working at the Hive Agency, the pay was good and the hours reasonable. Despite possessing a rather low psychic potential, he'd been in contact with the Araki longer than any other current administrator at the Agency , so he was trusted with several important administrative duties.
To the public, his work was that of an ambassador between Araki and humanity as well as arranging partnerships between new Araki and entomancers, but that could not be farther from the truth.
Even now as he strolled into the control booth, he could see the enormous carapaced forms of the seven Araki Queens shackled into their harnesses. The Queens ranged from 20-30 meters in length with their swollen abdomens making up more than half of their length and numerous metal diodes and steel tesla coils were implanted every few dozen centimeters on their heads.
It was from these implants that Rory perused the day's scan of their mental behavior. Other than slightly above average levels of negative emotions (as they had been for the past couple days but Rory dismissed it), the queens were relatively docile due to the dozens of glass tubes and needles administering a potent cocktail of sedatives and hallucinogenics directly into their veins.
Meanwhile small crews of human workers and androids attended to each of their assigned queens and the multitude of eggs that each one produced. The football-sized eggs were carefully sorted into crates that were then sent to the multiple hatcheries and nurturing centers under the management of the Agency.
A small gasp behind him drew Rory's attention to a young woman in a red dress standing wide-eyed in the entrance to the control booth along with two security bots. A quick peruse of his schedule revealed the young woman to be Allison Cortez, a name he'd heard many times from her father, Arthur Cortez. Arthur, a successful entomancer himself, had often complained about his daughter's lack of interest in his work, and he had hoped to kindle some interest in her by having Rory show her around.
Rory cleared his throat, shaking her from her trance, and he asked her, "First time seeing the production grounds, miss?"
Silently, she nodded as she watched multiple teams of entomancers beginning to encircle the heads of the Queens. Rory silently signalled the rest of the administrators to continue their tasks while he led Allison to the enormous glass windows set into the walls of the control booth.
He explained, "You see, the Araki possess a mental web at the center of which are the Queens. They're the brains of the entire operation and the Overseers, Royal Guards, and Captains are the organizers. Once larvae cut off from all their guidance, we can effective guide the larvae to evolve in the direction that we require--"
Suddenly, the largest and oldest queen's head snapped up straight before it released a psychic howl of rage and frustration that sent every human rolling on the floor in agony. Normally, this act alone would be impossible but as Rory checked the readings he noticed something odd. For some reason, the periodical sedative had been delayed for 5 minutes, and the controls for the sedatives were coincidentally next to Allison.
Before he could step forward to question her, issue orders, or send a mental probe to the teams of psychics, the rest of the Queens took up the cry as well. Pandemonium reigned as the Queens raged in their shackles and all of their anger and power flowed into the eldest queen before echoing out once again.
Amidst the chaos, the eldest queen laid a single, red egg filled with the glowing red rage and carefully deposited it into the gentle hands of a human worker with an empty look in his eye. The worker quickly dropped the egg into a small cart of garbage which was then quickly wheeled out by a droid. Once the egg had exited, the Queens screamed out a message that only later the humans would interpret as "Go Forth and Conquer!" before every single one dropped dead.