Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: ideas and monsters in time. Over the past two weeks,
Speaker 1: we've looked at the Tyrannid invaders of the Warhammer forty
Speaker 1: K universe, biological armies and high fleets from beyond the
Speaker 1: limits of the Milky Way on an inhuman quest to
Speaker 1: consume all biomass in their path. They constitute an outer
Speaker 1: threat to the imperium of man unlike none other, but
Speaker 1: they also pose a terrifying inner threat as well. As
Speaker 1: described in the ninth edition Gene Steeler Colts Codex from
Speaker 1: Games Workshop, the Tyrannids have a means of corrupting a
Speaker 1: host world ahead of a high fleet's arrival, ripening it
Speaker 1: for the plucking. We're told that a form of Tyrannid
Speaker 1: known as a gene stealer initiates this corruption, stealthily stowing
Speaker 1: away in cargo or aboard derelic spacecraft in order to
Speaker 1: reach a new human occupied world. Once there, the creature
Speaker 1: will begin to infect members of a planet's agricultural or
Speaker 1: industrial workforce with its genetic material via an ovipositor in
Speaker 1: its tongue. This act initiates a multigenerational process that introduces
Speaker 1: a variety of human tyrannid hybrids. While initial generations are
Speaker 1: monstrous and remain below ground, later generations are essentially humanoid
Speaker 1: in appearance and can actively infiltrate different segments of the
Speaker 1: human society, collectively the gene Stealer hybrid stage and underground
Speaker 1: resistance and eventual violent rebellion against imperial planetary rule, all
Speaker 1: of which is time to converge with the arrival of
Speaker 1: an invading high fleet, which is drawn to the gene
Speaker 1: Steeler cult like a beacon in the vast night. This
Speaker 1: darkly fantastic scenario invokes various accounts of natural world parasitism
Speaker 1: and mimicry, but I think it especially mirrors the manipulation
Speaker 1: of youth social insect communities by certain organisms. Aunt colonies
Speaker 1: and bee hives, after all, aren't too different from the
Speaker 1: notion of an imperial forge world, where vast populations toil
Speaker 1: to supply the imperium with its armor and its weaponry.
Speaker 1: For Aunts, especially their warlike nature is also reminiscent of
Speaker 1: the forty k setting, But at heart, the main comparison
Speaker 1: is that we have a complex social order within one
Speaker 1: species that is deceived and manipulated by another organism for
Speaker 1: its own ends. For example, there's the death's head hawk moth,
Speaker 1: a genus of moth famous for both its skull like
Speaker 1: markings and its ability to infiltrate and raid honeybee lives
Speaker 1: by mimicking their smell. For a similar ant world example,
Speaker 1: certain spiders also use chemical mimicry to enter the colony
Speaker 1: unopposed and eat whatever larvae they desire. But these are
Speaker 1: both cases of rating and predation. What about bending the
Speaker 1: system to the outsiders? Will? I think we might well
Speaker 1: compare the gene steeler colt to many forms of brood parasitism.
Speaker 1: The classic example we're all familiar with is, of course,
Speaker 1: the cuckoo bird, which doesn't care for its own egg,
Speaker 1: but rather places its egg in the nest of another
Speaker 1: bird species, an act that is both stealthy and violent.
Speaker 1: The gene steeler colts certainly grows within a civilization on
Speaker 1: a given host planet, but it's of course a bit
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, so they also remind one of
Speaker 1: particular examples of social parasitism in the world of ants,
Speaker 1: termites and bumblebees. The bumble bee Bombus bohemicus, for example,
Speaker 1: the species neither builds its own nest nor produces its
Speaker 1: own works. Instead, a queen invades a host nest of
Speaker 1: another bombas species and defeats the existing queen. Afterwards, the
Speaker 1: workers identify her as the queen and they raise her young.
Speaker 1: This is an example of nest usurpation, which is at
Speaker 1: least thematically fitting when compared to the revolutionary gene Steeler cults.
Speaker 1: But here's another thing to think about. As the Gene
Speaker 1: Steeler Codex points out, the whole gene Steeler hybrid enterprise
Speaker 1: might begin with monster attacks and end with the arrival
Speaker 1: of a world consuming high fleet. But before the uprising
Speaker 1: and the so called day of ascension, third and fourth
Speaker 1: generation gene Steeler hybrids, who again are humanoid enough in
Speaker 1: appearance to fully infiltrate human societies, may contribute greatly to
Speaker 1: the host civilization. They work hard, and they perform their
Speaker 1: duties to the imperium quite well, at least until it's
Speaker 1: time to rise up. During that pre revolutionary period, we
Speaker 1: might be tempted to think of the gene Stealer hybrids
Speaker 1: as in Kline parasites, and that they're not actively harming
Speaker 1: the host civilization while residing within it. Again, members of
Speaker 1: the cult might well be beneficial to the host civilization,
Speaker 1: at least in the short term, though I think we'd
Speaker 1: be pushing it to call his mutualism. After all, if
Speaker 1: the Gene Steeler Cult has its way, the rebellion will
Speaker 1: be bloody and the arriving high fleet will consume everything,
Speaker 1: including the hybrids themselves. Biologist E. O. Wilson famously described
Speaker 1: parasites as quote predators that eat prey in units of
Speaker 1: less than one unquote. The colts desired end meal is
Speaker 1: somewhat larger. For a more thematic introduction to the Gene
Speaker 1: Steeler Colts, I highly recommend the short story The Child
Speaker 1: Foretold by Nicholas Kaufman. It's a mild spoiler to reveal
Speaker 1: that it's a gene stealer story, but it still packs
Speaker 1: a horrific punch. Tune in for additional episodes of The
Speaker 1: Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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