The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 78 Defense System
  Such a large amount of nutrients piled on the seabed will inevitably attract the attention of other deep-sea creatures, and defense becomes an important task.

Traditionally, organizations such as the brood group are patrolled and guarded by soldiers. However, since this place is located in the deep sea, the soldiers are relatively limited. If he wants to protect this important structure group that stores the hope of the nest group's comeback, Lin Yi needs some new methods.

With the genetic sequence currently stored in the brood, it is not difficult to create a brand new defense system. The main problem is how to achieve the perfect balance between efficiency and cost to meet the demand with as few nutrients as possible.

The first thing needed is an enemy tracking system. Because it is located in the deep sea, the vision of the compound eyes is limited. Even if the night vision compound eyes from the Anomalocaris nest are installed, it can only meet the needs at close range. Long-distance tracking of enemies must rely on other means.

The solution is also very simple, which is the echo positioning system installed by Lin Yi on the second-generation reconnaissance mother.

The vocal organs are mounted on a fixed biological template similar to the mother's nest and are connected to the mother's nest to obtain nutrients.

However, it is not a long-distance directional pulse like the pioneer mother's nest, but like the sound-producing organ of the primitive mother's nest, it emits sound waves to all directions to detect nearby enemies.

The receiving system is separated from the transmitting system and distributed around the storage structure to facilitate better target positioning.

The hemispherical bodies of these signal-receiving structures have multiple structures similar to the lateral lines of the ancient jaws to better receive reflected echo signals.

This circle of receiving structures and the central transmitting structure together form the radar system of the deep-sea mother nest group, monitoring all approaching creatures. After solving the problem of finding the enemy, the next step is to attack or drive away.

Originally, Lin Yi planned to design an infrasound wave repellent system that would use infrasound waves of specific frequencies to cause internal resonance to drive away creatures that broke into nearby areas.

But considering that there may be all kinds of strange creatures in the deep sea these days, from various pan-arthropods to the current dominant stone species, to future emerging fish, the effective sound wave frequencies for them are different.

The infrasonic repellent system needs to have multiple sound wave frequencies at the same time to drive away various creatures. It is a bit troublesome. It is better to use simple and crude methods to directly solve the problem with physical attacks or toxin attacks.

Previously, Lin Yi installed a jellyfish-like stinging cell structure on the body of the ringworm in order to deal with the threat of the ring snail to the ringworm clusters to drive away or directly kill the ringworm trying to obtain food from the mouth of the ringworm body. screw.

Now, the new repellent structure will be based on it, using poisonous needles to drive away or directly kill the creatures trying to get close.

The new extended structure of the brood still uses the sea forest body as a template, but it is mixed with a large number of genetic sequences of other organisms.

Its brand-new muscle tissue comes from starfish - for some reason, the echinoderm's genetic sequence matches the mother's nest surprisingly well. Make its tail handle thicker, longer and more powerful to support a more complex main structure.

The main structure is still calyx-shaped, but it is more developed, and the interior does not have the filter-feeding structure of Ringo. Instead, it is filled with a huge venom gland whose gene fragments come from the isothorn insect.

The tentacle structure at the end of the calyx-like structure is replaced by several hook-shaped arthropods with sharp barbs at the end. The hollow end is connected to the venom gland, which can penetrate into soft prey and then inject toxins into the body through the venom gland. .

At the same time, the mouth of the original cluster structure of the ringworm was also replaced by a retractable needle connected to the venom gland. After the outer hook-shaped limbs penetrated into the prey, they also extended and penetrated, and the injection was more Much venom. The new structure is simply called the spine by Lin Yi. These spine needles will be arranged at certain intervals among the clusters of searings, serving as the last line of defense for the nest.

The fixed nature of spine needles makes them suitable only as a last line of defense against fish that slip through the net. As for the defense line farther forward, instead of passively defending, it is better to take the initiative and use a concept similar to the active defense system of later generations to send out smaller grades to intercept the intruders.

As for these small volley grades, Lin Yi did not specifically design them, but directly chose to improve them on the basis of the existing grades.

The template chosen was naturally a micronized torpedo, and there were not many changes, just simple modifications to make it adapt to the water pressure of the deep sea.

Because of its small size, Lin Yi did not install a pressure-resistant shell on it. Instead, he used a method to directly change the pressure in the body, making it a subspecies of micron torpedo that can only survive in the deep sea.

Due to the characteristics of the micronized torpedo turtles being unable to obtain food on their own, Lin Yi also referred to the placenta-shaped core supply sac structure connected to the gna storehouse in the pioneer mother turtles and fearless soldier flies, and installed it on the mother's nest-like fixed structure.

Previously, when Lin Yi was using guerrilla tactics to defend against the Helical Stone Nest Group, he had considered installing a granary chamber and a core supply bag on a nest-like structure so that it could release a large number of micronized torpedoes to attack the enemy.

However, due to the subsequent changes in the tactics of both sides, the Zhihejiao Stone Nest Group did not think of using its individual combat effectiveness and mobility advantages to carry out guerrilla tactics, and this plan was not implemented.

Now, the defense needs of the deep-sea mother nest group made Lin Yi pick up this plan again.

The micron torpedo does not have any sensory organs and relies entirely on other levels of relay guidance to attack.

In shallow seas with sufficient lighting, they mainly rely on the field of vision of their compound eyes for guidance, but in the deep sea, even the night vision compound eyes of the Anomalocaris nests do not have a very large field of vision.

The most terrible thing is that the optic nerve structure of night vision compound eyes has changed, causing them to lose the high refresh rate of arthropod compound eyes. It is indeed a bit reluctant to guide a faster level like the Micronized Torpedo.

Therefore, Lin Yi adopted a brand-new sonar system as the guidance structure of the deep-sea micronized torpedo. It just so happened that the fixed sonar structure group, which was modeled on the mother nest and had separate receiving and transmitting systems, has a higher capability than the one used to detect the mother torpedo. The precision is enough to take on this important task.

Of course, in order to make up for a small amount of errors and reduce the number of fish that slipped through the net as much as possible, Lin Yi arranged a small number of improved version 2 ordinary soldiers adapted to deep-sea activities in the brood group area as a supplement to the entire defense system.

Because of the existence of the sonar system, Lin Yi can sense the approach of creatures from a considerable distance and send out soldiers and micron torpedoes to drive them away or kill them, without the need for long-term and wide-area patrols, which consume precious food resources. .

After everything is designed, the next step is the final production and filling of nutrients.

(End of this chapter)