User:Echo 1125/Beast

"We...live!"

- The Beast

The Beast is a bio-mechanical virus that is able to use both organic and inorganic material to spread its matrix and melds both organic and inorganic material into one living organism which it controls.

Language
"UNSC parts! We want beacon brain! Give us data or we take data with your parts!"

- The Beast

The entity's command of human language is based on vocal and textual analysis from various sources. While competent enough to state its thoughts, the disjointed nature of its speech is easily noted by anyone. Also, the Beast is unable to maintain a single vocal profile by itself when directing transmissions to non-Beast vessels, alternating between a deep masculine voice and a raspy female one several times as it speaks.

Subverted vessels retain their original voice profiles but the Beast taint is apparent; words are spoken with a telltale unearthly rasp.

Its writing ability is composed of short deliberate sentences, with composite words being separated. As such, the Beast would render "The missile carries a polymer warhead containing a dense payload of the Beast that discharges upon impact" as "Self carried in polymer war head medium. War head medium keeps self safe from explosion. Medium sticks to enemy parts when missile hits". It should be noted at this point that the Beast appends suffixes to all ships. Fellow Beast vessels as "-Self", groups as "-Selves" and any unsubverted ship as a "-Part" or "-Parts" for a group. For example, "Command self is pained! Command self must flee from parts!".

The largest collection of Beast entities, the Vishir vessel, is capable of speaking in perfect English, but still with the aforementioned alternating vocal profile. It has presumably gained this ability by spending its million Earth years of isolation listening in to communications chatter from the galaxy around it, going so far as to state that "We know you better than you know yourselves".

Psyche
"Then be destroyed and join us anyways!"

- The Beast

Despite being an aggragate of simple cells, the Beast is anything but a simple being. It shows innovation, tactical and strategic prowess and a very rapid rate of assimilating new information.

Motives
"You are what all life is to us - food!"

- The Beast

The Beast's motivation can be summarized by its own simple words: "We'll harm and consume". Much like viral entities here on Earth the Beast seems intent on simple consumption of eligible matter (in the Beast's case this is not limited to organic life forms). The Beast is looking to multiply endlessly through assimiliation of ships, life forms and technology.

Psychology
"In return for their help, the ones known as Remnant will be given half the galaxy, an ample return for repairing this ship's systems and leading my children back to me"

- The Beast

While its motive is simplistic, the Beast is uncannily shrewd in achieving it. It puts emphasis on absorbing powerful enemies as fast as it can (as seen when its first target after the UNSC batlefleet escaped the initial battle site was to go after a Bentusi). The Beast is quick in absorbing data and using it for its own ends. It was quick to get a leverage on the Imperialist Taidan forces by exploiting their desire to return to the glory days of the empire and get revenge on the Higarans. The Beast shows its true intents towards its Imperialist allies when, at a moment of pressure it admits the Imperials, like any other life forms out there, are nothing more than food for its consumption. However its willingness to withold attacking the Remnant in order to further its own goals shows a remarkable strategic thinking. Likewise, the beast shows tactical prowess. In one instance it uses an assimilated Republican heavy cruiser to lure away the escorts of a refugee convoy, leaving the unarmed transports an easy prey for its cruise missiles. At another, it uses a Prowlers's advanced sensor array, to deactivate a sensor around a Unsc scout base, opening the way for a surprise attack.

Infection
Infection only requires that the Beast entity come into contact with a suitable surface, with any ship being compatible. Once done, the Beast begins an extremely rapid process of breaking down the ship materials in order to construct more of itself, and when it comes into contact with organic matter, it likewise breaks them down and reassembles the cells for use as living biocircuitry. The Beast interfaces this living computer system into the ship's electronics, merging them into one. It is apparent however that the new system still retains the memories and thoughts of the original crew, making this a truly horrific way to continue life (that is why the Bentusi was particularly afraid of the Beast: they would not die, but neither can control the ship, nor can communicate, trapping them inside for eternity). This however allows the Beast to rapidly assume control of the new vessel, as opposed to using trial-and-error to find out what everything does.

Direct physical contact
Ships that come into direct contact with an infected vessel risk subversion if they are not properly engineered or trained to withstand an infection. Examples including the Somtaaw mining tugs and Worker units. Without the proper precautions, a Light frigate will immediately acquire the Beast entity when attempting to ram it.

Infection beam
Most heavy-class ships in the Beast fleet grow specialized beam emitter nodes all around the vessel. When activated, they generate a charged particle beam that the Beast entity can ride on and onto a target. The charged nature of the beam allows it to jump to neighbouring ships, depending on how much mass the ships have. Several fighters can be infected with one beam shot, compared to one or two frigates. As the beam operates at relatively short ranges and is instantly generated, it is impossible to avoid the weapon. Only vessels that have implemented the necessary safety protocols can ride it out. Unmanned ships are instantly destroyed by the beam as they present no organic matter to infect.

Beast disposal protocols
Initially, no ships were safe from Beast infection as it was an entirely new threat that no one knew how to deal with. This was later dealt with via development of new biohazard sterilization procedures stemming from stolen Forerunner containment technology.

The purging protocols mentioned are quite brutal. It involves flushing decks under threat of infection with surplus superheated plasma from the fusion drives, instantly immolating everything in the area including crew, unshielded equipment and the Beast entity itself. This is based on the rationale that it is infinitely preferable for the crew to be instantly killed than to spend an eternity as part of a Beast biocircuit, and that it would be better to lose a few decks than the whole ship.