"We can bring order to the chaos of human expansion."
In the far future, Dr. Afriel (Jason George) arrives at the self-sustaining nest of the Swarm, a millennia-old insectoid race. He convinces Dr. Galina Mirny (Rosario Dawson), a fellow scientist who has been living with and studying the Swarm, to help him obtain an egg that humanity can exploit.
Written and directed by Tim Miller, based on the short story by Bruce Sterling.
Tropes:
- Actionized Adaptation: In the short story Simon immediately accepts he has no chance against an army of warriors and peacefully surrenders to them to be escorted to the Intelligence. In this adaptation he instead goes down fighting as long as he can so the warriors beat him into submission and then drag him to the Intelligence.
- Aerith and Bob: Simon and Galina. What makes her stand out is that she's at the very least Ambiguously Brown, while her name is East Slavic.
- The Assimilator: The hive assimilates other races into its collective, having at the start of the story 15 non-native species within its ranks.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: How the Swarm deals with threats from sapient species trying to exploit it. After capturing specimens, it breeds hyper-intelligent versions that vastly outthink and conquer their parent race.
- Bring It: Simon is offered a choice by the Swarm to leave it alone or continue attempting to exploit it and have humanity subjugated in the confrontation. Simon defiantly calls it a challenge that he accepts.
- Breeding Slave: The Swarm threatens Simon with this fate, being forced to mate with Galina — or at least clones of her — to produce humans the Swarm can integrate into itself.
- Compressed Adaptation: Many world-building details from the original short story are omitted to the bare minimum necessary to understand the story. Omitting the politics of the situation entirely, the story becomes one about mankind in general, rather than a story of two warring human factions, the Shapers and Mechanists, vying to exploit the Swarm to become the de facto human representation in the universe.
- Dead Guy Puppet: Galina is killed and reduced to a speaker for the Hive Mind after capture, with tendrils digging into her skull and body as evidence of control.
- Evil Is Visceral: Not entirely evil, because Simon attempted to exploit it first, but the representative the Swarm presents to him is essentially a giant brain grown into the cavern walls with tentacles gruesomely inserted into Galina's brain to use her as a mouthpiece.
- Formerly Sapient Species: The swarm is essentially composed of the genetic remnants of all previous races that tried to abuse it. It then cloned them as non-sapient, harmless versions, fulfilling the various castes of an insect colony.
- Genetic Memory: The intelligent Swarm representative is only a few weeks old, but contains the genetic memory of the Swarm's history and that of the species it has assimilated.
- Goal-Oriented Evolution: Galina says this is the Swarm's greatest ability, it can evolve a new organism to fit whatever niche that the Queen intends.
- Hive Mind: The swarm, obviously, runs on this. Everything is commanded by the correct set of pheromones, but the castes responsible for that are operating as a single mind.
- Hive Queen: The one commanding the titular swarm, though in a twist the entity that speaks to Simon is not the queen, but an expression of the hive bred in response to his and Galina's tampering.
- Hollywood Darkness: The nest is evenly well-lit with bio-luminescence throughout, a departure from the original short story where Simon has to wear infrared goggles the entire time to see most effectively.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with. On one hand, humanity and previous sapient races were the instigators in their conflict with the swarm, which otherwise exists innocently isolated in the depths of space. On the other hand, the swarm retaliates with extreme measures, resulting in the opposing force being reduced to a Slave Race.
- Humans Are Warriors: The Queen tells Simon that humanity's intelligence means its civilization will eventually collapse, but Simon asserts that humanity won't allow themselves to be assimilated into the Swarm. We don't get to see if he's right.
- Hypocrite: The Swarm claims that intelligence is not the best asset to long-term survival, favoring more efficient forms of mindless endurance, but it clearly relies on intelligence to defend itself, in the form of its Genetic Memory, massive brains that can be created on short notice, and even states that the clones it creates to subjugate enemies have deliberately enhanced problem-solving skills and creativity. If it truly didn't respect intelligence, it wouldn't have made that speech to Simon about why humans are bad.
- In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: Invoked by the Swarm toward humanity and its expansionist drive, which drains their resources too fast to keep up the pace and, more importantly, being intelligent, sentient beings, which from Swarm's perspective means nothing but misfortune. The Swarm itself is driven by instinct and only develops intelligence in response to threats.
- Ironic Echo: At the beginning, the quadruped alien tells Simon that he will miss his conversation on the rest of their voyage. In the end, the Swarm tells him "I'm glad that I won't have to absorb you. I would have missed your conversation".
- Life in Zero G: The Swarm's nest drifts through space but contains a breathable atmosphere sealed off from the outside. With only minimal gravity, members of the Swarm (as well as human visitors) get around the nest by to "swimming" through the air.
- Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: Essentially the Swarm's low view on sapience. Intelligent races make expansionist empires across the galaxy that, if they don't self-destruct some other way first, commit the grave mistake of attempting to exploit the Swarm. It retaliates by out-competing them in intelligence to subjugate and then assimilate them as mindless, parasitic castes. The Swarm's representative makes a point of this with a scavenger that came around to eat Simon's vomit, saying this was its race's exact fate and the fate of humanity should they keep going down the same path.
- Meaningful Name: The Investors, the alien race escorting Simon in the opening, are an advanced alien race obsessed with wealth and willing to share the secrets of faster-than-light travel to races they think could best profit off it; which is to say, only if it seems like a good investment that will pay off for them.
- Mood Whiplash: A suddenly dark, moody and serious short after two comedic ones and followed by another comedy.
- Motherly Scientist: The female scientist, Galina, has been studying the nest for much longer than Simon has and is genuinely affectionate and admiring towards it. She initially rejects Simon's proposition to grow a separate nest for humanity, and agrees on the condition that the nest she's studying won't be harmed.
- Mugging the Monster: The only real strategy to deal with the swarm is to simply let it be. Try to attack it or use it for your own goals, and you will get assimilated, while your race will be wiped out outside of the collective.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Apparently everyone in the universe is made of the same genetic molecular material, hence the swarm is able to clone them. This is flat-out lampshaded by Galina, who notes that the fungus that serves as food for the various castes is biochemically compatible with human physiology. There's also the Swarm's capacity to assimilate foreign lifeforms into new castes of their own.
- No Ending: The short ends with lots of implications for the future, but no concrete ending for the story itself.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The swarm is content existing in the depths of space in isolation. That said, it will make you regret starting a conflict with it.
- Organic Technology: The Swarm is a naturally evolved hive of organisms bred on demand by the queen for essentially any task the hive needs.
- Sex Starts, Story Stops: The sudden consummated sexual attraction between Simon and Galina comes from nowhere. Must be the pheromones...
- Slave Race:
- Humanity's true goal of studying the swarm is to clone their own queen and use the resulting swarms and nests as a cheap source of countless workers and warriors. Galina protests against it, seeing her harmless research being taken over by someone's greed, but under the stipulation that nothing happens to the nest she's studying, she ultimately agrees to help.
- In the end, it is revealed the swarm uses this as its defensive strategy: breed whatever race that is a danger to it, unleash it on the attackers with mindless fury and then, after winning and wiping out the danger, use the survivors as new, enslaved and devoid of sentience part of the nest.
- Space Is an Ocean: A particularly weird case. Whatever it is inside the swarm's nest, it acts like water, but it's just made of breathable air and doesn't offer much resistance to movement.
- Spiteful Suicide: Simon threatens this when the Swarm explains that it intends to use him and Galina as a breeding pair to fight against humanity. The Swarm bluntly replies that it would just clone him and proceed with its plan.
- Starfish Aliens: The Investors, the alien race assisting the humans, isn't even humanoid and seems to be quadrupedal. The hive meanwhile is populated by an insect-like race.
- Superior Species: Simon (and by implication humanity) believes that it is the true calling of humanity to rule over the universe, seeking to exploit the swarm as just another resource. It wastes no time serving some humility pie.
- Time-Passage Beard: Simon's beard growing longer indicates that he's spent more time in the Nest.
- Treasure Chest Cavity: Simon was able to smuggle some synthesized Swarm pheromones past his escort's quarantine by secreting it within an artificial varicose vein in his leg.
- Two of Your Earth Minutes: Simon arranges a deal with the Investors to be left with the swarm for just under 2 years, or "600 of your days", as they put it.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Simon and Galina spend all their time in the nest in their underwear. Justified Trope: since the entire nest seems to be awash in breathable, low-density fluid of a perfectly comfortable temperature, more clothes would be a hindrance for how they "swim" through it. In the short story it's even mentioned that Galina prefers to live in the nest in the nude and is only wearing clothes for Simon's benefit.
- Zero-G Spot: Simon and Galina have sex in the atmosphere of the nest which has low gravity.
