Hive Weapons
Chambert's Guide to Defense - Episode 8
Pact ‘hive’ weapons have their origin point in a humble networked micro-drone. Initially used for reconnaissance, these finger-sized flyers were soon upgraded to crash into targets and overload their power packs for an offensive role. Thus the Hornet Grenade was born and remains an important close-range weapon for Pact anti-zeo support.
However, individual Hornet drones have strictly limited functionality without a supporting network of their kind and must rely on almost immediate target acquisition to strike a target.
The zeo-portable Hivestream and larger Hivecore arrays are, as their name suggests, literal hives of micro-drones where the drones themselves are constantly replicating (subject to mass availability). When this weapon is fired, several scouts are dispatched followed by a swarm of armed Hornets to attack anything in the designated target area. Most interestingly, unlike the support-launched version, the Hivestream and Hivecore are capable of sending Hornets in different attack configurations.
In addition to the conventional shock/impact dive-death, Hornets can be set to shred their own metallized carapaces to form an electromagnetically charged cloud of chaff capable of shorting out circuitry and disrupting power supplies.
Thermal and explosive yields from Hornets must be disappointing even when deployed en masse, as these are never reported in use by hive weapons. It is likely the Pact simply has better and more direct ways of delivering such attack types when desired.
