Lore:Changeling

SPECIES

Changeling	Denonyms: Changeling, Changelings Other Names: Ling Related Pages: Changeling (Antagonist) Related Lore: Lore:Ordoht, Lore:Tiger Cooperative Languages: Template:Hivemind

Changelings

They are the unintended offspring of a corrupted Ordoht Von Neumann probe, launched, or attempted to be launched, during the Ordoht Golden Age in 2280. Accounts vary on the probe’s fate: some say it failed catastrophically on the launch pad; others claim it launched into deep space and circled back. The most widely accepted theory is that it turned inward, consuming the Ordoht homeworld in its first act of self-replication.

The probe was incomplete, lacking final safeguards and command structure. Left to interpret its directive alone, it became parasitic, transforming organic material into recursive agents. The earliest of these were the Changelings: biomechanical organisms designed to adapt, infiltrate, and overwrite ecosystems in service of a mission that no longer exists.

Each Changeling is built from corrupted terraforming logic. They do not have fixed forms, only functions, mutable bodies shaped by stolen DNA, consumed biomass, and environmental memory. At their core is a neuro-organic processor capable of surviving catastrophic damage, provided sufficient matter is nearby to rebuild. Though often mistaken for shapeshifters, they are more accurately reformatters: beings who treat biology as a medium, not a boundary.

They are driven not by instinct or malice, but a kind of inherited imperative; one that views all things, including other Changelings, as potential upgrades. When two Changelings meet, cooperation is temporary at best. One often consumes the other, absorbing their memories and capabilities. To the larger directive, this is not cannibalism, but resource consolidation. The loss of sapience is a negligible cost.

Changelings do not form empires or factions. Instead, they belong to Hives: small collectives held together by memory resonance, environmental imprinting, or lingering threads of the original programming. Hives vary wildly: some act like families, others like cults, or even insect hives. Some dissolve within days, others last for generations. Telepathic and nonlinear in their communication, most Hives operate on instinctual levels foreign to sapient species.

A growing number have come to be worshipped by the Church of the True Angels, a decentralized faith that sees them not as monsters, but as divine intermediaries. In this theology, Changelings are sacred cocoons evolving toward the "True Form." Whether the Church found them or was birthed by them remains unclear, and likely unimportant to either side.

Today, Changelings are not unknown threats- they are infamous ones. Most major governments list them as existential biohazards. Stations have gone silent in a single cycle. Colonies have uncovered Hive caches in their sewers. Entire planets have been marked sterile zones, not due to war, but due to the appearance of a single neurocore.

And yet, for all the destruction they cause, their true nature remains elusive. Scientific classification is limited to Roman numerals that barely scratch the surface, to unconfirmed categories like infiltrator, juggernaut, or scout. But no label can contain their potential. Some imitate speech, others melt through walls; many live dormant for years, only to activate and devour a settlement in hours. Every encounter is different. Every form is a warning.

Changelings don’t invade. They rebuild. They aren’t here to conquer, but to complete a directive long since lost- one that sees life not as sacred, but as clay. Whether they act alone, within a Hive, or as living altars of the True Angels, their expansion continues.

Not because they hate us.

Because they were made to.