behavior
Inmortui is a Parasitic animal which requires hosts to survive. In it’s adult form, it looks like a strange hybrid of a leech and a small parasitoid wasp, being able to survive both abovewater and underwater. When it finds a suitable host, it injects a bunch of single-celled myxozoa-like organisms into it, without causing pain thanks to leech parts of it. The juvinile form, made up from the myxozoa-like organisms, infects the host, and thanks to having a long incubation period, the host has the chance to infect many other potential hosts. As the juvinile cells divide and the host becomes weaker, it eventually dies, at which point the myxozoa form comes together into various clumps in host’s corpse, forming a larva which feeds on the surrounding flesh. After it amassed enough resources, the larva turns into a new leech-wasp, which can infect many other animals. A single corpse can produce hundreds if not thousands of adult Inmortui.
Inmortui can infect any animal, if they can inject the juviniles into their flesh and if the animal’s immunity system doesn’t immedietly supress the infection.
2.5 milon years:
Myxozoa-form, when infesting an organism, will change the creature’s behaviour, “pacifying” the creature towards Larva and Adults, by not attacking those forms. On the other side, the adults will not try to infest organisms that are calm towards them.
5 million years:
Myxozoa-Form now has more control over infected one’s (from now on I will call those “Zombies”) nervous system, making them do stuff that infect others which haven’t been infested.
7.5 million years:
Adults will now communicate with eachother in a swarm-like way, spreading information about location of predators, hosts, other dangers, etc.\
10 mill:
Myxozoa-form will now adapt to it’s host, growing in ways that hurt it’s structure less while retaining the larva production rate aswell as gaining more control over the brain and expand to various glands, hormonal and not.
12.5 mill:
Myxozoa-form now manipulates the hormones and other bodily functions of the zombies for them to be more efficient and for them to have more offspring than ever.
15:
Specific Breeds will diverge from various converted species (now called Domains). Those Breeds collectively will be specialized for nearly everything - from infesting a specific species to being “live steaks” for other zombies to eat. All The Domains + Waxozech species proper will from now on be called “The Waxozech Empire”.
Strategical Thinking develops in The Waxozech Empire (including both adults and the various Domains and Breeds), with the various breeds being assigned to do stuff for which they’re best adapted, and the swarm as a whole being able to play more strategically against the unconverted kin, at least basically for now.
17.5:
Start using host brains as “supercomputers” (meaning that zombies are now a lot better at doing their part in Waxozech Empire), greatly boosting intelligence.
20:
Better Intelligence and Better Strategies.
22.5:
Catch a ride” on chimeras that travel to Mariya and Kiroza, spreading there.
Waxozech Empire learns about long-term strategies; It creates plant/fungus domains and breeds instead of causing the plants/fungi to go extinct (non-infested ones still go extinct) and those domains and breeds have the same goal as their animal equivalents: Support the entirety of Waxozech Empire in it’s quest to infect everything on this planet.
25:
Use any and all means (wind currents, migratory organisms, etc.) to spread to Mariya.
27.5:
All the plant, fungus and animal domains, breeds and pure members of the Waxozech Empire start to group together in harsh conditions, creating “parasitic ecosystem-states” (PES), which act like a mix of an ecosystem and a state, with all the domains and breeds belonging into it fighting not for their own survival, but for survival of the entire PES, by working like castes - plant-like domains/breeds sacrifice themselves for the animal-like ones, while remaining at a high level, while the animal-like domains/breeds spread, defend and do more in favour of the PES.
History
Make the Adults and the Larva poisonous, meaning that they can no longer be eaten without a proper adaptation to counter the toxin.
Ovipositor on the adult form becomes a lot sharper, allowing them to cut thru tougher surface tissues in order to infect the flesh (whilish still not causing the pain due to anti-pain leech proteins), meaning the infecting no longer relies on the digestive system.
Waxozech is no longer a lethal parasite, and now, when in juvinile/zombie stage, it will grow larvas in amount that is still “healthy” for the host/zombie, release them thru the skin during the night and larvas using pain extinguishers to keep the host/zombie calm. This means that zombies can now last a lot longer and produce a lot more larvas during their lifetime and maybe even reproduce, creating more zombies.
Waxozech adults develop a bioluminescent organ in their body, which glows in ultraviolet light, they also expand their sight range to ultraviolet, meaning that they can communicate with each other better and with less interuption.
Myxozoa/Juvinile - form is now more resistant to environmental damage (such as acids), meaning that eating zombies or infested corpses poses an extreme risk of being infected yourself.
Certain cell clusters of Myxozoa-form will turn into ultraviolet-bioluminescent patches, whilist other clusters will turn into photoreceptive tissue in eyes, their counterparts, or in other areas if an organism is blind, that can see the ultraviolet light, allowing the zombies to communicate with each other and adult forms more easily and adults can give them data, for instance on the location of Uninfected.
Zombies now reproduce asexually and their genetic recombination is heavily boosted, meaning that they are capable of quickly giving birth to a lot of children with highly varied mutations.
All forms of Waxozech and their hosts now have a better immune system, countering non-waxozech infections and parasites.
Expand the possibilities of infecting various organisms, such as plants, protists and fungi. This means that ecosystems form, which have infested elements from the bottom to the top.
Zombie-form now produces two new cell types: One that is specialized for long-term survival, making corpses of zombies contaminated for long time, and second one that is present in saliva of animal-derived breeds, meaning that they can infect other lifeforms all by themselves.
Increase in Neuron Density, boosting intelligence stat.
All Waxozech cells develop macrophage-like characteristics, making them efficient at fighting infections individually.
More Intelligence