How does the Swarm choose its targets?

[Pope Uncommon the Dainty]

I am considering a campaign in which the PCs come across evidence that the Pact Council somehow arranged for the Swarm attack in 291 AG as a means to engineer an end to the Silent War, probably using the Exo-Guardians faction of the Starfinder Society as their agents (possibly including several who joined the Acquisitives after the Scoured Stars Incident). Or maybe the Aspis Consortium?

So I'm trying to figure out how the Council/Starfinders/Consortium could have done that....

So how does the Swarm choose its targets?

Do they just wander aimlessly, striking at whatever decent target they come across like some Hollywood misunderstanding of a biker gang, or is there some kind of plan or deliberation behind it?

[Peg'giz]

I would look at Starcraft, especially the Broodwar story. It's basically what you are looking for (a goverment which controls/lead the attack of a swarm alien species by the use of "psi-emitters").

Otherwise take a look at the Attack of the Swarm AP, it has a TON of background info about the swarm. (Baically it's controlled by a "main-entity" (sort of a Hive-Queen) and can even create special "task forces" which are then controlled by "under-queens".

[Garretmander]

Quote:

is there some kind of plan or deliberation behind it?

The swarm itself is smart and it's original species it evolved from were at least as smart as the average human. Just because they're now a hive mind doesn't mean they've become a random locust swarm. They're still smart.

They scout and plan like any other military force, it's just that their goal is far more alien to the average single minded person.

So any such organization probably doesn't need psi emitters to lead the swarm anywhere, they just need to 'accidentally' lose a ship to the swarm with data showing the pact worlds and veskarium as a good target.

[Metaphysician]

I tend to think the Swarm, like any other aggressive force, basically picks targets under three criteria:

1. It has something specific that they want

2. It is a threat to be destroyed

3. It is an opportunistic target of convenience

Given the scale of both the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium, either would pretty much fall into either 1 or 2 ( as opposed to being a target that could be effortlessly conquered and eaten because its convenient and vulnerable ). It thus depends in part on what kind of attack you want to happen, because the attack *should* be significant different. If the Swarm are trying to acquire something like the Starstone, then their attack would need to penetrate to some location, take and hold that location, and distract or defend against counterattack; expect a lot of 'human' wave tactics and expendable forces used as ablative armor. OTOH, if they are trying to cripple or kill the Pact Worlds as a military threat, you'd expect a lot more scorched earth tactics and WMDs; they don't need to take and hold places, even in a 'food' sense, they just need to ruin them.

[Kishmo]

Mild spoilers for the Attack of the Swarm AP!:

It's sort of implied in the AotS! AP (mostly in book 5, but the overall history of the Swarm is scattered across all the books) that the Swarm never really got over the shirren breaking free from the Swarm after The Gap, and that they followed the Shirren Exodus, hoping to reclaim them (or at least, kill every last one of 'em.) The Exodus deposited a sizeable chunk of Shirren in the Pact Worlds / Veskarium (among other places) so the Swarm eventually followed there. It's also sort of implied that The Swarm had never really failed, before the invasion of the Pact Worlds / Veskarium - they had more or less won every single engagement they'd been in. So it's possible that The Swarm went into that invasion not entirely realizing that defeat was an option?

If you wanted to try and tie that into a motivation, it's very possible that some "Shadowy Board" lured shirren refugees into settling in the Pact Worlds, knowing it would draw the Swarm in? Alternatively, maybe the Shadowy Board just happened to casually reveal intel to the Swarm that there was a big refugee shirren population there?

[Wesrolter]

Going to add my random thoughts.
2 things come to my mind with this, Borg from Star Trek and Tyranids fro Warhammer 40K.
Not how they specifically act but more how they have been introduced or manipulated.
Garretmanders 'accidental' ship loss makes me think of the Borg, how they were introduced, show them something they would be interested in and they will come.
I don't know if this is ment to be Lore or just random ideas but one of the thins the Empire did when attacked by the Tyranids (Swarm mind alien race) was use a freighter which had been infested with Genestealers (Infiltrator/scout type unit) and sent it towards another target rich area., one of their other enemies.

So they could be 2 ways the swarm was manipulated into targeting the Pact. I don't know much about the swarm so I can't say how they would act, but its a possible couple ideas

[Pope Uncommon the Dainty]

Kishmo wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

This idea, honestly, seems like the most useful one so far...

The idea is a take on the Pentagon Papers (revealing the depth, longevity, and, well, just plain s****iness of the US's involvement in Vietnam), so I think this one fits the best so far and definitely starts popping off in my brain a bit! Thank you!

[BigNorseWolf]

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[Sophiestarshaman]

how has noone pitched the Starship Troopers version.. Captured Brain bug can lead the swarm wherever..