## Scipicant Caste Scipicants are divided into a complex caste hierarchy based on the quality of the symbiont that is hatched. Queens have the ability to learn how to spawn a variety of types of Scipicants depending on the need and desire of the Hive. The higher quality of symbiont takes longer to spawn. ### The Lords A high quality scipicant with high psionic abilities. They are separated into four grades themselves * Master Lord - A powerful symbiont with abiltiies and levels that are seen to rival Old blood darkarians. Once it was seen of their great power, they were culled and limited only as were needed. * Dominion Queen - A newly encountered Lord created exclusively by Derrick and his Brood. * High Lord - A replacement for the Masterlord leadership, they exhibited half of the masterlords abilities and psionic power but were just as effective in the hives pursuit of peace. * Overlord - Overlords were created to help with management of the Catalysts and provided a bridge between the hive and the old blood. They were created as a lower cost proto-overlord that was never perfected.^[ Although it was never given a name, a symbiont was created to help with the intense mental management required for maintaining the vast number of individuals in the hive. This proto-overlord had difficulty integrating into the hive, and the hive unable to locate the right host, put the project on hold and pursued an alternate path.] ### Myrminions Myrminions are the captains of the hive. They are generally regarded as the elite warrior class of Enlightened. Occasionally lesser spawned symbionts are joined with Cominions to create Myrminions. ### Minions Minions are the most common form of general enlightened beings. They are used for general populations to attach them to the hive mind. Minions are the worker class of Darkarians. ### Infiltrators (Assassins) Infiltrators different approach to host control as they provide little improvement aside from subservience and limited physical healing. The design of this scipicant is as its name implies, infiltration of an organization or species without extreme physiological or physical changes to the host. While this allows the host to be more difficult to detect, it comes at the cost of reduced physical, physiological and psionic enhancements that a symbiont would normally grants its host. The host is allowed a limited connection to the hive mind, making it fully subservient and controlled and unable to disobey the will at the hive. The hosts personality is completely in tact. Infiltrators do not posses a sentience or personality, allowing the host to retain most of its behaviors and mannerisms that anyone could expect from them. The infiltrator is absorbed into the spinal column of the host, making removal all but impossible. Infiltrators are considered quite expendable once their usefulness has been achieved. The main other ability aside from enforcing subservience to the hive is enhanced healing factor, nearly on par with the rest of the hive. Infiltrators do not go through an enlightenment process with their host and absorption is nearly instant. This makes the Infiltrator rather delicate. Absorption into the host is generally done, like all symbionts, through a cavity in the chest where access to internals is clear and easiest. While absorption through the skin is possible, its generally had a extremely low success rate and is slow. Infiltrators are known to be given certain hosts for the purpose of torture and guaranteeing to keep them alive ^[During the Darkarian Holocaust, Lilly Demonas was captured alive by the Hive and tortured for 6 months by having her body vivisected the entire time, having been kept alive by a Infiltrator symbiont. She was later rescued and the symbiont was removed through complete spinal column removal and regenerated along the use of a full cybernetic suite.]. ### Drones Lesser expendable symbionts. Used for hazardous non-technical work and operations. Heavily used as soldier fodder with little to know psionic abilities outside of enhanced regeneration. They are simple symbionts and easy to procreate by Spawn Queens. They are also often created when a symbiont is joined with an incompatible host that would otherwise create a Minion or better.

Scipicants closely resemble arthropods in the general structure, having a head, thorax and abdomen. The entirety of the symbiont is covered with neural proboscis ^[Proboscis: A needle like device used for generally painless hypodermic insertion. Example: the mouth of a mosquito is a Probiscis.] antennae which are used to connect the symbiont to the host as a permanent resident and integrated companion. The head and thorax resemble an acorn; the head large and smooth, tapered at the end to a point, the thorax flared slightly and covering the neck of the head like a cap. From the Thorax, three ^[More may be created depending on the host body] long gnathites ^[Jawlike appendage. A snake is good example of what a gnathite would look like on a Scipicant.] extend out from the thorax which end with flexible orifices. The mouths of the gnathites can stretch to surround objects many times its size. While there are no teeth in these mouthes, inside are new more neural proboscis. The Gnathites surround the abdomen. The Abdomen extends from the thorax as segemented tail with a much larger proboscis at the end. [[toc]] ## Size Symbionts are tailored made to the species of their hosts, and are about the size of the hosts heart. Certain more powerful symbionts are known to be the size of the heart and a lung. ## Neural Proboscis The purpose of the Neural proboscis is to fully integrate the scipicant into the host body on a neurological level. The various appendages area able to grow and weave itself throughout its hosts body before making a connection, giving the symbiont direct access to all parts of the body. Initial Enlightement only uses the proboscis in the gnathites and its abdomen and over the course of the next weeks, it will gradually hardware itself into the body painlessly. At enlightenment, the tail directly targets the main spinal column and brain stem of the host. ## Gnathites The jawlike appendages with mouths on the end serve to immediately integrate itself over the hosts systems, such as respiratory and circulatory systems. While those systems are intact after this initial takeover, after several weeks, they become completely dissolved merged with the gnathites and are no longer separate organs, but a complete part of the scipicant as a singular organ. ## Post Enlightenment (Symbiotic Attachment) After symbiotic attachment, the scipicant begins to fully integrate itself into the host through neurological proboscis connections and absorption of the various primary systems of the host. ^[Certain species may require the gnathites to connect with other systems which can't be directly modified, or would be more effectively modified through gnathite absorption. Higher caste Symbionts also end up taking over more organs to be more fully integrated.] Within a few weeks, the outside skin of the scipicant hardens to protect the scipicant from all but the most extreme of trauma. ## Sentience By themselves, scipicants are not sentient beings, but contain a component of personality ^[ First generation Scipicants do not have this component and were used on Expletun Darkarians as a way to enhance themselves and create a tighter telepathic bond.] and sentience which requires a host in order to fully realize and mature. At the time of enlightenment the two beings end up merging to create a whole new individual. This process is not well understood outside of the hive, and is generally considered irreversible. Detachment of the scipicant personality most often causes extreme psychological problems. ## Infiltrators One of the few exceptions of the rule are the Infiltrator class Scipicant, commonly referred to as Assassin. The Infiltrator is about 35 cm long, flat, worm-like with translucent body. ## Vulnerabilities In their larva, newly spawned state, Scipicants are highly vulnerable. They are unable to move or eat on their own, nor are they able to communicate and must remain with the Spawn queen in her environment for them to live. Most scipicants receive hosts as soon as they are birthed. Shortly after enlightement they are protected by its carapace , reducing their vulnerability to the proboscis that extends from the abdomen into the spinal column and into the brainstem of the host. Severing this is generally fatal for both host and scipicant.^[ Fatality of unenlightment is largely dependent on how long the host and symbiont have been joined and how integrated their systems are. About 1 in a million are known to survive removal within the first two weeks, and 1 in a trillion within the next 6 months, and there are no reported survivals after that.]