The Chimera are a parasitic, alien species featured prominently in the Resistance series.
Physiology and Biology
Physical Traits
The official autopsy report of a Chimera (Hybrid)
Physical characteristics of the various forms of Chimera include having between two to six bright yellow eyes, greatly varied anatomies, and grayish-green skin. Their metabolism is another one of their more interesting aspects, as it is twelve times that of a normal human being. This enhanced metabolism grants them extraordinary regeneration abilities, speed, and strength.
The side effect of this trait is that their bodies tend to overheat, which literally cooks them from the inside out. In order to counteract this effect, Chimeran soldiers have artificial cooling devices implanted on their backs in order to survive. This suggests that Chimera are not being created under ideal conditions. The Chimera tend to thrive in very cold temperatures and there have been successful attempts by the Chimera to alter the Earth's climate to suit their needs. As a direct result, temperatures in certain locations such as London have been reduced to sub-zero temperatures, resulting in those areas being frozen during July. The biology of the Chimera is detailed even further in SRPA files XX458199 and DNA548781PA.
The genetic make-up of the Chimeran virus appears to have been specifically designed to attack and modify human genes, suggesting that there is something more to the Chimera than is already known.
Reproduction
The Chimera reproduce through parasitism, converting other species into various Chimeran soldiers by sending Crawlers and/or Spinners (both being small, insect-like Chimera) in a Spire missile to infect any creature near the crash site where the Spire lands. The conversion process (which normally goes very slowly) is greatly augmented with many giant conversion centers, which also, artificially, speed up the conversion of massive amounts of Humans into Chimera.
In Resistance: Fall of Man, it appears as if conversion centers are where all humans infected with the Chimeran virus are taken to be transformed into Chimeran soldiers. In Resistance 2, however, the Chimera only use conversion centers to create their more advanced troops, and they appear to now be located within Chimeran Towers and warships of the Chimeran Fleet, instead of being in separate buildings altogether. Most of the general population of areas they take over are now converted into Grims by Spinners; Captured soldiers appear to be taken to these conversion centers, perhaps because they are more battle-hardened than most civilians are.
Psychology
The psychology of the average Chimeran troop appears to be very limited, with only the Angel caste (and now Daedalus) having advanced thought. However, SRPA file XX458198 suggests that normal Chimera may in fact retain vestigial memories of their previous life. The objects detailed in that file were normal items such as soap bars and toys, which were found to be carried by the Chimera that had been killed in battle. There are however ferel Chimera that are no longer apart of the hive mind such as Leapers; Grims; Leeches; Krakens; and Widowmakers. It is unknown as to why this is, and this is only seen after Resistance 2. Chimera are not really capable of common thought, but they are quite intelligent when it comes to military actions. In Resistance fall of man, when all of the Angels are killed in the Centrel tower the Chimerain army begins to fall. This is seen again in Resistance Retribution when the Final boss is killed. The Chimera begin to fade off in France. When in Resistance 3 the Chimerain Wormhole was closed the whole Chimerain military is now slowly dying without a fight. This is because the Wormhole lead directly to the chimerain home world, were the Pure Chimera lived. Even Daedalus was being controlled by them. The quote "They are calling to us, can you hear them, it is beautiful." Is uterd by both Daedalus and Nathan Hale. This is due to the fact that the pure Chimera can communicate telipathically. So the Pure Chimera are in charge over all other Chimera telling them and what to think and do.
Hybrids and Titans prepareing to attack.
Military
The Chimeran military is made up of many different breeds of Chimera and models of drones that the chimera used for jobs that they normally can't do, like scouting or being used to attack humans behind the frontlines so the Chimera didn't have to waste time or troops to kill some people. The Chimera at first used conversion centers to convert humans to make their armies stronger by using carriers to collect infected humans. Over time however, the conversion centers were phased out sometime after 1951. So the Chimera simply started to convert humans using Spinners; but the Spinners only turned humans into Grims, and leeches, so they put conversion centers in their battleships. There where already centers in the Chimeran towers that received infected humans the old way which was using Crawlers that where delivered by Spire missiles that where shot out from Goliaths. Goliaths are huge machines that are used for siege and infection. The Chimera also many other types of warmachines like Stalkers, Hammers, Burrowers, Dropships, and their many, many types of ships.
Chimerain Fleet over Sanfrancisco
History
Hybrids combating humans
65-60 million years ago The Pure Chimera fought a war agenst another unknown alien race. The result of this war was the crater in Mexico that was theroized to have killed off the dinosaurs. It is unknown if Earth was the homeworld of the Chimera, or if it was a colony. Weapons around the time of the Chimera invasion were just being unerathed after the millions of years of being barried from this war. The Chimera came to Earth in 1908. Landing in Russia. From 1927-1949 the Russians closed their borders. The Chimera first used a meteor to get to Earth. They proceeded to assimilate all the inhabitants behind the Iron Curtain before spilling over the border and taking Europe by storm. Due to their lightning-fast attack, only Britain was left unscathed. They eventually made it "over the pond" to the United States and Canada.
Originally, it was thought that gruesome Russian experiments resulted in the creation of the Chimera, due to their invasion starting out of that country. However, the Chimera themselves claim to be the original inhabitants of Earth, and they also claim to be "the evolution of man". Whether or not this is true has yet to be seen. The war ended around 1957 after the wormhole closed.
LongLegs in St.Louis
Overview
The Chimera use a biological weapon that converts humans (and perhaps other creatures) into Chimera variants. The virus is spread through contact with a carrier strain, such as the Crawler or Spinner. The virus imparts great healing, lightning-fast reflexes, and a highly efficient metabolism. However, their supercharged bodies generate such a massive amount of heat that most Chimera need to be refrigerated constantly, lest they literally stew in their own juices.
Variants
- Abomination
- Advanced Hybrid
- Alpha Grim
- Angel
- Boiler
- Brawler
- Brute
- Burrower
- Carrier
- Chameleon
- Chrysalis
- Cocoon
- Crawler
- Daedalus
- Executioner
- Fury
- Gray Jack
- Grim
- Hag
- Hardfang
- Howler
- Hybrid
- Impaler
- Kraken
- Leaper
- Leaper Pod
- Leech
- Leviathan
- Mauler
- Marauder
- Menial
- Mother Spinner
- Overseer
- Pure Chimera
- Primarch
- Queen Leaper
- Ravager
- Roller
- Siren
- Slipskull
- Spinner
- Steelhead
- Swarm
- Titan
- Widowmaker