Generic Space Combat
Bionid Background
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    The Bionids are a race of organisms which have developed an advanced hive-like society where nearly all of the functions of machines have been duplicated through living creatures. This has been accomplished through the genetic manipulations of Bionid Queens, who can absorb DNA from nearly any species and combine it with the Queen's library to create nearly any creature desired.

    Bionids have little use for the commerce in te normal sense of the word - their worlds have been nearly perfectly adapted to serve their queens, and nearly any desired resource can be gathered from planets and asteroids deemed uninhabitable by machine-based species. Rarely a Bionid Queen may offer a rare biosynthesized product for a particular desired resource.

    Bionids are largely hated by the other advanced races - bionids are very insect-like for the most part, and most non-insectoid races are deeply insulted to find out that the most perfectly evolved creatures have chosen carapaces over fur, fins, scales or feathers. Bionids also have a nasty habit of seeking additional genetic information  from other sentient species, and are quite willing to take a planet from a less evolved race if they decide they need it.

    Bionid ships are themselves living entities, controlled by captains that often merge intricately with the ships they pilot. The interior of a bionid ships is much like any other ship - chambers are set aside for certain functions, and crews of various organisms carry out maintainence and defense duties like the any other ship's crew.

    Bionid ships often carry assault crews, launched from pods to board enemy ships. Boarding actions may be to take genetic samples from the crew, to harvest food for the crew of the Bionid ship, or often so that the Bionid ship can eat parts of the ship. Bionid ships have the amazing ability to digest neutronium armor, then to use it to build their own carapaces as they grow.

    Bionid ships are weakly armored in comparison to ships made of solid neutronium plates, and have no capacity to generate shields or deflectors. The Delari once exterminated a small race of psychics capable of generating psychic fields, just to be certain no queen ever captured the genes to breed shields into her brood.

    Bionids prefer a missile with an acid warhead, using enzymes similar to those used in the neutronium digesting stomachs of Bionid ships. These missile can continue to do damage turn after turn, until the ship can burn off or neutralize the composition.

    Bionid ships are extremely maneuverable, due to the flexible nature of their hulls. It can be a very bad thing when a Bionid Destroyer gets on the tail of a large ship, as that ship has almost no chance of outmanuevering the bionid vessel.