Hive Mind Bacteria

This is an unnamed kind of telepathic, symbiotic bacterium which resembles individual neurons in form and function. Huge colonies of these bacteria exist deep in the crust of an uncharted planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Billions of years ago these symbiotic telepaths started infecting all life on their world, animal and vegetable alike, replacing their original nervous systems. The entire biosphere was soon controlled by the microscopic organisms, which formed a sapient planetary hive mind. As everything on the world was part of a single unified mind, the ecology, it could be said, became self-aware: flowers would tell pollinators when it was time to pollinate; dying creatures would signal to carrion eaters when they were about to die; order triumphed over chaos and no energy was wasted.

Over the course of history, numerous alien species arrived at the planet and attempted to colonize it, disrupting the natural balance. The hive mind eventually responded by using telepathy to create elaborate illusions to the newcomers, who would become trapped in a fantasy world, unaware that their surroundings were not real, and eventually starving to death. In 2262 the planet was visited by a Psi-Corp vessel, whose crew suffered the same fate of previous visitors, with the exception of a single survivor who managed to escape. His ship was discovered by Lyta Alexander and G'Kar, who used the ship's log to find the planet and investigate. Both of them were trapped in the illusion, but used clues to deduce what was really happening, after which the hive mind decided to take a different approach and have the animals attack Lyta while talking to G'Kar to try to understand what was wrong with the illusions so it could learn for future reference. G'Kar used the conversation to distract the entity while Lyta, whose telepathic abilities had been enhanced by the Vorlons, managed to interfere with the mental link of the underground colony. The hive mind was completely unprepared for such kind of attack, and the link was severely crippled, causing the animals to roam aimlessly. Lyta speculated that the hive mind would take centuries to be completely restored.

Appearances

 * Genius Loci, by J. Michael Straczynski (Amazing Stories #599, 2000)