The Collective

The Collective
General Information
Aliases	The Collective SDS-023 (By SDS Foundation) The Worm of the Flesh (By the Covenant of Wan) The Assorted King (By the Library of Eden) A myriad of voices speaking as one (By Sizhou) It (By Sizhou)
Type	Decentralized Telepathic Hivemind
Headquarters	N/A
Mission Statement	Divided, man will only reach extinction. Connected, the possibilities are endless.
Products	Industrial Equipment Nutritional Products Energy
Status	Active
Personnel Information
Leader	N/A (Publicly) "Collective" (Secretly)
Notable Members	BESI Supervisor Hao Xiuying Unnamed Unity Station Occupant
Member Count	~35000
Territorial Information
Notable Bases	Anomalous Object and Inactive Entity Containment Facility (River Naktun, Arstotzka) (Shared with UOI) Beijing Experimental Science Institute (Beijing, Sizhou)* Collective Detention Facility (Unknown Location) Sentinel Colony (Appalachians, Yorica) [COMPROMISED]
Historical Information
Founded	Unknown (Born) 317 (First discovered)
Preceded By	Pre-Assimilation Sapients
Alignments
Member Groups	People's Revolutionary Directorate Sizhou (Not fully assimilated) (Several Others)
Allies	While The Collective lacks any true "allies", it cooperates with groups such as: United Occult Initiative Department of Containing Anomalous Entities Labour Collective of Sizhou
Enemies	While The Collective lacks any true "enemies", it actively opposes groups such as: Covenant of Wan Library of Eden SDS Foundation
Other
Created by	Hakced
Controlled by	Hakced

The Collective is a Telepathic Hivemind initially born from a telepathic link between a few hundred people, eventually spreading into a vast network composed of more than 35000 people via voluntary assimilation. The Collective generally operates as a communal organization between these telepathically linked people, who use this ability to share its total sum of knowledge and capabilities among each-other, while also retaining their individuality, personality and free-will, though despite this most Collective members tend to live in fairly typical circumstances. While collective members are autonomous and individuals, each of them tend to present uniform traits including a concern for suffering or disadvantaged individuals, a desire to improve the world, and a highly cooperative nature. These traits, especially their cooperativeness and deep level of understanding between one-another, has made several outsiders describe Collective members as somewhat "uncanny" to observe or talk to.

The Collective aims to connect all of humanity in order to everyone access to the entirety of human knowledge, which would then be used to better humanity via scientific and technological advancement with the goal of eliminating various socioeconomic issues within human society such as poverty, world hunger, war, etc. Despite these goals currently being seen as a future prospect, they already attempt to better the world with their current resources, which has been fairly successful. Much of their success can be attributed to them siphoning knowledge by infiltrating other organizations and even certain governments such as Sizhou.

Administratively The Collective is organized in a similar manner to a Technocracy, with those deemed experts at specific tasks or functions being put in charge of said task. As the Collective's knowledge-sharing can only transfer actual knowledge, utilising pre-established experts is still considered optimal due to their own training and muscle-memory, which the hivemind is largely incapable of providing. Alongside their own more specialized training, every Collective member is capable of basic close-quarters-combat, combat tactics, and the know-how to operate an assortment of weapons and machinery for self-defence, safety, and security.

Their Hivemind

The Collective is capable of "connecting" other humans to its hivemind via prolonged proximity with a Collective member. The connection process itself is not a subconscious or accidental thing that just "happens", instead it is an intentional act done by The Collective if it is able to. The Collective generally tries to make this process consensual by asking or convincing people to connect to it instead of forcibly assimilating people. They try to respect people not wanting to become a part of it, but in rare emergency situations they may ignore this moral restriction and forcibly connect someone. Resisting being connected to the Collective is in some cases possible via methods such as shielding against psionic/telepathic influences, or simply being genetically resistant to connection, although this is incredibly rare.

Because of their telepathic link Collective members are capable of various abilities, such as the instantaneous transfer of knowledge and training to one another. Additionally this makes The Collective immune to infiltration and memory erasure, as its decentralized and connected nature allows them to easily notice a spy or re-grant a member's lost knowledge in the case of a memory wipe. Though the Collective can theoretically be susceptible to cognitohazards and psionic attacks, such threats are typically dealt with efficiently via various methods such as isolating affected individuals from the network.

Their Central Intelligence

While The Collective initially started as just a mere telepathic link between several people, the mere existence of this link eventually led to the birth of a 'central intelligence' out of each member's collective will. This collective intelligence is effectively its own being, which claims to also be called "Collective".

Collective secretly controls the entire organization behind-the-scenes, keeping itself hidden from its members. Collective aligns with the goals and objectives of the hivemind as a whole, however it may occasionally intervene in the organization by hijacking and rewriting the personalities of those who step out of line, don't align with The Collective's goals, or discover its existence. Additionally Collective has various goals of its own, including the spread of itself, which it makes its members do unknowingly.

Their Foreign Affairs

The Collective has somekind of presence or an interest in most major organizations and some governments across Human Space as it seeks to utilise knowledge and technology from various differing sources to improve its capabilities. While some of these plants within other organizations are merely for cooperation or business, some of its operations into other organizations are for espionage or sabotage purposes.

The Collective's "official stance" when it comes to other groups is fairly neutral, claiming to not have any true allies or enemies, although it does informally have various positive and/or hostile relationships with various organizations. This informal stance also affects how The Collective decides to work with other groups, such as cooperating with them or actively sabotaging and/or trying to destroy/assimilate them.

History

The early history and creation of The Collective are largely shrouded in history, even to itself. Possible origins include the likes of ancient rituals, mind-control experiments, a psychic parasite, and whatever other explanations the world's psuedo-scientists conceived of to explain The Collective's nature. Little is known about the earlier phases of Collective's existence, although it can be inferred that it was not always a force of dedicated individuals working towards societal progress, instead The Collective during its youth appeared to be largely apathetic, thinking it had experienced everything a highly intelligent entity inhabiting a couple hundred human minds could see. This apathetic attitude was however derived from the very thoughts that would eventually become the basis for its ideals; inequality. Its hosts were located in various different positions of human society, while many were living in comfortable positions, many were also impovrished and living in the midst of pollution and hardship. Through some kind of prophetic experience it has never elaborated on, The Collective came to the realisation that the only way that injustices it hated could be cured was if instead of leaving Humanity to bicker and fight amongst one-another for useless causes, an entity such as itself could push them in the right direction, the direction of progress and inspiration.

The first time The Collective was discovered by an outside force was by the SDS Foundation in 317, whom discovered The Collective and its underground compound named "Sentinel Colony" in the Appalachian Mountains, which it was utilising as its primary base of operations. While it is unknown if all Collective members of the time were present in Sentinel Colony, what is known that all suspected members of The Collective were executed, with the various prisoners within the compound being administered Amnestics and released back into the public. What the SDS Foundation did not know at the time was that the Collective is that these prisoners were also members of The Collective simply pretending to be prisoners, as the Collective's members are resistant to memory-wipes due to the hivemind's decentralized nature, allowing said individuals memories to be granted back to them neigh-instantly. Once these former prisoners re-entered public life, they over-time began to spread The Collective across the general populace of Yata, recruiting a vast majority of the next generation of Collective members in a rebuilding effort.

While already being somewhat aware of what The Collective was thanks to recovered documents from the SDS describing it, the United Occult Initiative accidentally encountered The Collective assaulting SDS Forces in Storage-Site-4 in the year 367, which the UOI was also planning on attacking. UOI members broke into the facility and assisted in the defeat of remaining SDS forces, as The Collective did not prevent their intervention. UOI soldiers thus attempted to figure out who or what the Collective actually was, in response The Collective described itself as a group of like-minded individuals dedicated to bettering the world whom decided to take advantage of the SDS-UOI Conflict to launch attacks on the SDS, which they saw as a mutual nuisance. The UOI decided to trust these claims, and organized a meeting with The Collective to discuss what should be done with the captured facility.

These discussions were held onboard Unity Station between a Collective Representative and Jason Winters, Deputy-Secretary of the UOI. Initial agreements such as sharing Site-4, now rechristened as the Anomalous Object and Inactive Entity Containment Facility, and some degree of cooperation between the two groups. As The Collective saw the UOI as a possible ally, it decided to convince Jason Winters by revealing certain things about its history and nature, including details about the attack on Sentinel Colony, its egalitarian principles regarding free-information and betterment of humanity, and its nature as a Hivemind, and how any additional connections to the Hivemind are voluntary and non-intrusive in order to gain the UOI's trust. This was successful, as the UOI agreed to form a proper alliance between itself and the United Occult Initiative due to supposed shared common goals. Slightly concerned by The Collective's capabilities, the Order of the Metal Mind, which was secretly present in the meeting, began introducing psionic screenings to its members to prevent Collective espionage.

In 408 the Government of Sizhou, which had already conceived of various radical collectivist ideals such as the collectivization of humanity itself, launched a series of investigations into the possibility of telepathic communication. While they did not manage to develop such a method of their own, they did make another discovery; the Noosphere, a metaphysical layer of reality containing the total sum of all possible thought. While further investigations into this layer of reality were somewhat successful, yet another thing was discovered in these investigations; a myriad of voices speaking as one, The Collective. The Collective had already been interested in Sizhou's projects, seeing them as compatible with their own worldview, thus it infiltrated these experiments and gave a simple request to the scientists working on the project, to speak with their leader Hao Xiuying. While most worldleaders would likely say no to speaking to an entity such as The Collective, Hao regardless agreed, and used Sizhou's prototype Noosphere-interacting devices to move into the realm of thought, where his scientists had documented these "voices." Collective, the central intelligence behind The Collective spoke to Hao, telling him of their shared aspirations of unity, comradery, egalitarianism, and technological advancement, saying how it could provide him with everything he needed to advance his projects as long as he agreed to follow its lead. While initially sceptical, Hao eventually agreed to Collective's proposal, and was assimilated into the hivemind. Upon being disconnected from the device, Hao Xiuying was born anew, now connected to the total sum of knowledge present in countless other individuals under The Collective, including many of the individuals working at that very building. From here on, The Collective gained its first government-scale proxy, gaining control over the government of the fastest emerging post-Confederacy nation-state on Yata, although a vast majority of Sizhou's population outside of the People's Revolutionary Directorate, the collective leadership of the nation headed by Hao Xiuying, remains non-assimilated, yet still technically under The Collective's influence.

Capabilities

The Collective has access to highly advanced technology and commodities, despite often lacking the manpower to achieve more intricate global operations of its own, only really being able to do this via its direct proxies or organizations under its influence.

Specialized Crafts

Specialized Crafts are advanced crafts created by The Collective for its own uses. These are very expensive to build, so only a handful of them are in existence. Each Craft is ordered to avoid direct combat engagements, and pursue evasive manoeuvers. If these fail, lethal force is authorised in order to protect the integrity of the vessels.

Terrestrial Crafts

Maritime Ark: Alpha Location: Yata Maritime Ark: Alpha is a large submarine roughly 455 meters in length. Ark Alpha is built with a heavy and thick hull in order to protect it from enemy crafts and environmental damages, while still being surprisingly maneuverable. Interior-wise Ark Alpha has 6 decks, which together include a command center, crew quarters, a galley, engine rooms, storage facilities, a dry dock, several small recreational facilities, research facilities specced into hydro-oceanographic study and maintenance, a green house, and a passenger room. Ark Alpha is primarily maintained by automated androids varying from near-nano drones to human sized robots. The androids perform several tasks including machine maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and maintenance of life-support systems. These androids are deployed both inside and outside of the craft. Ark Alpha is protected via a fairly standard weapons system, including torpedoes, anti-air, sound-based and kinetic weaponry. Ark Alpha is entirely self sustaining, operating with a fuel synthesized from sea water, together with the automated androids allowing the craft to not need to surface indefinately due to its ability to autonomously maintain fuel, cleanliness, repairs, air, and asset production without issues. Ark Alpha's primary purpose is the construction of underwater habitats at up to 5000 meters below sea level. These habitats can range in size from small rooms to large facilities, also being self-sustaining after construction is completed. These structures are primarily constructed via construction androids, which can be given the orders to create a specific kind of structure.

Maritime Ark: Beta Location: Theia Maritime Ark: Beta is a large submarine roughly 305 meters in length. Interior-wise Ark Beta has 4 decks, which together include a command center, crew quarters, a galley, engine rooms, storage facilities, a dry dock, several small recreational facilities, research facilities specced into hydro-oceanographic study and maintenance, a green house, and a passenger room. Ark Alpha is primarily maintained by automated androids varying from near-nano drones to human sized robots. The androids perform several tasks including machine maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and maintenance of life-support systems. These androids are deployed both inside and outside of the craft. Ark Alpha is protected via a fairly standard weapons system, including torpedoes, anti-air, sound-based and kinetic weaponry. Ark Alpha is entirely self sustaining, operating with a fuel synthesized from sea water, together with the automated androids allowing the craft to not need to surface indefinately due to its ability to autonomously maintain fuel, cleanliness, repairs, air, and asset production without issues. Ark Alpha's primary purpose is the construction of underwater habitats at up to 5000 meters below sea level. These habitats can range in size from small rooms to large facilities, also being self-sustaining after construction is completed. These structures are primarily constructed via construction androids, which can be given the orders to create a specific kind of structure.

Spacecrafts

Space Ark: Gamma Location: Alpha Sol System Space Ark: Gamma is a large spacecraft roughly 1300 meters in length. Interior-wise Ark Beta has 10 decks, which together include a command center, crew quarters, several large cafeterias, engine rooms, storage facilities, a large main hangar bay, , several smaller hangar bays, several recreational facilities, research facilities specced into astronomical study and maintenance, a green house, passenger quarters. Ark Alpha is primarily maintained by automated androids varying from near-nano drones to human sized robots. The androids perform several tasks including machine maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and maintenance of life-support systems. These androids are deployed both inside and outside of the craft.

Specialized Weaponry

Specialized Weapons are advanced weapons created by The Collective for military use. These are typically more advanced or more unorthodox than typical guns or melee weapons, making their use beyond the Collective rare.

Bioweapon: Shouldermount The Shouldermount is an amorphous organism functioning as a shoulder-mounted weapon that was engineered by The Collective. The Shouldermount is equipped with various highly-evolved sensory organs and highly durable and stretchy limbs/tentacles capable of various offensive and defensive maneuvers, both of which are utilised for both their own functions and using its primary weapon, a specially designed venom which it is capable of either excreting in bites or by spraying it. Once equipped, a Shouldermount acts as both a defensive and offensive tool for the wearer, which is able to stay highly coordinated with the Shouldermount thanks to both of them being coonnected to the Collective's telepathic hivemind. A Shouldermount can be sustained via polymers and meat as its primary diet, which it uses to generate the necessary energy to function. Waste products are excreted out through its skin to act as a protective fire-retardant layer for extra defence.

Standard Crafts

(WIP)

Standard Weaponry

(WIP)

Other Technology

While many of its innovations are in the field of warfare, most of the Collective's technologies are dedicated to more civil purposes.

Advanced Nutritional Production Unit The Advanced Nutritional Production Unit (or ANPU) is a specialized industrial device capable of synthesizing matter from waste or inedible materials into processed edible foodstuff, all being possible with little to ono electricity. While the ANPU can typically produce said products entirely autonomously as long as it is provided with sufficient materials, its output, efficiency, and packaging can be tweaked by a human operator. The produced products additionally are high-quality nutrition wise, although somewhat bland flavour-wise. Products procured by the ANPU are either used to keep the Collective's own members fed, sold for exorbitantly cheap prices to supermarkets, or donated to services such as foodbanks or soup kitchens.

External Documentation

Despite its secrecy, several organizations have taken note of The Collective's activities and infiltrations over the years. The following is a collection of such documentations.

The Worm of the Flesh thumb COVENANT OF WAN We don't want to sound judgemental, but the Covenant of Wan is too big of a commitment to just join because you're interested in tech and brain implants, therefore we always screen new followers before we go through with any physical augmentation. But those infected by the Worm always seemed like true believers, we weren't able to detect anything wrong until we connected to them to the COVENANT-NETWORK for the first time that we discovered what was actually going on in their heads. We've managed to block their access to our network for now, thus they have not been able to spread digitally. We are concerned though, if the Flesh can somehow upload a Worm into human minds without us noticing, we're in much more danger than i thought.

The Assorted King thumb Library of Eden Traits The Assorted King has no physical form, only existing within a network of subjugated sapient minds. Many telepaths have attempted to understand how the Assorted King works, but little has been learned, due to direct psychic contact often leading to assimilation into the hivemind. The few which have survived such a psychic encounter spoke of a being far beyond any mortal mind, speaking with countless harmonised voices. The King's subjects are not physically altered, although their allegiance is apparent to telepaths, psychics, etc. There does not appear to be any way to resist the King's influence, besides avoiding contact with him. Though, some individuals appear to me immune to The King's influence, though due to the unknown frequency of this "resistance" testing one's own resistance is not recommended. Nature While the King claims to be beneficient, seeking only to unify mankind with a shared vision of a better future, the King is intent on the eradication of free will. The subjects of the Assorted King retain their old knowledge, habits and personalities, but their priorities become aligned with the King's ones. These priorities include a concern for human suffering, a desire to improve the world, and a desire for the Assorted King's influence to spread further across the world, and in time even further. The King holds the combined knowledge of all of its subjects, sharing them between each of them to consistently grow more powerful and precise in his operations. History & Associates The Assorted King's origins lay in mystery, although their earliest suspected origin lays deep in the ages of Ancient History. Since this period, the King has sought to expand his domain, and is believed to now consist of thousands of subjugated voices. With every new person claimed by the King, it becomes more powerful. There are very few groups not connected to the King in some form, there are only those who are aware and on guard, and those who are ignorant of his presence. Approach The Assorted King should not be approached, either physically or psychically. Prolonged proximity to one or more of the King's subjects is the main way his Collective expands, and so the easiest way to protect yourself is to avoid suspected members, and be wary of unscreened individuals. Though, it has been noted that sustained psychic contact is an even more effective way of exposing oneself to his influence, despite one's own prowess in the mindscape, and so it is strongly recommended to cut off any psychic connection as soon as the King's presence is sensed. To Prevent the Assorted King from spreading beyond the confines of his home reality, the subjects of the King are to be prevented from entering the Library of Eden.

thumb SECURE-DEFEND-SUBJUGATE

Item#: SDS-023⠀	Clearance Level 3: Confidential
Containment Class: Narakan	Disruption Class: 4/Ekhi
Secondary Class: Uncontained	Risk Class: 2/Caution

⠀ Special Defensive Safeguards Discovered people infected by SDS-023 are to be detained to prevent its spread throughout the public. These detained members are to be contained into automated cells to prevent them from "infecting" SDS Personnel. Discovered Collective Installations are to be targeted and destroyed. Description SDS-023 is a gestalt intelligence that was discovered operating within an underground complex in the Appalachian Mountains in 317. The inhabitants of the colony operated in perfect unison, developing technology and weaponry ceaselessly. The method how these individuals are connected to each other is unknown, however it is known that a single collective entity has emerged out of this collection, distributed across each member. Ever since their discovery The Collective has spread out throughout human society, slowly assimilating more individuals they hang around too close to into SDS-023. These assimilated individuals claim to retain their individuality and free will, although if this is true or not is unclear. How the psionic network between the people part of SDS-023 works is unclear, including how it spreads to new people. Though it is known it operates telepathically with no delay, instead of being limited by speed of light or otherwise. Other than just being intentionally spread by SDS-023 into nearby individuals, the connection to SDS-023 is hereditary, being passed on to children of infected individuals. The Collective The Collective is the term used by SDS-023 to refer to itself. It has an ultimate with a goal of assimilating humanity as a whole. The motive behind SDS-023 wanting this is also unclear, other than its claims that it would be a net positive to humanity's development as a species. SDS-023-1 SDS-023-1 was an underground bunker-like complex hidden deep beneath the Appalachian mountains ran by SDS-023. This is where the SDS Foundation discovered SDS-023 in 317, and seized from them. All SDS-023 members that operated within SDS-023-1 were detained, with many eventually being executed once the hivemind's existence was discovered. Prisoners that SDS-023 was holding within SDS-023-1 were released from the facility with their memories wiped of being held there. Although it was later found that these individuals were kept in there as a backup plan if they were discovered and destroyed, as the prisoners were in fact assimilated. SDS-023 survived the memory wipe, and slowly spread into the general public through these ex-prisoners. While the ex-prisoners were eventually detained by the SDS Foundation once this was discovered, further infected individuals continue to operate in the public.

While its claims make The Collective sound as some benevolent force for good, all of this is just its public intentions. After all, what could the behind-closed-doors true goals of a entity claiming that all of humanity surrendering their minds to it is beneficial? It could very well be possible that The Collective wants to over time completely eradicate free will. While the people assimilated into its hivemind DO retain their old knowledge and personalities from before they were connected to it, but all of their priorities and goals become aligned with The Collective. These 'priorities' include a concern for those whom suffer in the world, a desire to improve the world, and a desire to see The Collective spread across the entirety of humanity and beyond. The origins of The Collective remain unknown, being possibly born in various different times ranging from ancient to modern. Since this unknown inception within just a handful of people, the Collective has assimilated countless people across history, currently wielding several thousand people under its control. Being assimilated by The Collective is difficult to avoid, with the only sure way to avoid it being actively avoiding suspected Collective members both physically or psychically, as even a psychic connection leaves one susceptible to being assimilated. While this may just be "our" views towards The Collective, others share similar views.