The Brood Invasion of Earth:
Recap and Debrief, Auto-Generated Transcript [CM Eyes Only]

Part 2. Securing a Foothold

The Most Important Building on Earth

The Brood launched our invasion of Earth not even knowing the name of the planet we were targeting. Our vulnerable scouts arrived with no host and almost no idea of what obstacles or opposing forces we would face (and we would soon find out exactly how daunting those would be, Cecelia be praised!). And yet, despite all that the Brood was now fully in control of a tiny foothold on Earth.

Our portal to Earth had been established basically at random, but it was still ironic that a disused barn on an unremarkable farm had suddenly become the most important building in all of human history. If the humans found out about the building or the portal it contained, all would be lost. Above all else, we had to keep our inter-planetary passage secret or risk our annihilation. If we succeeded, we could continue to consolidate and expand our subtle control and subjugation of humanity until we--not they--controlled Earth and all those who lived on it. The tiny building was important for human history precisely because it would be the launching point for the end of human history... at least as written by humans.

And there was good reason for our optimism. Although we were very early in the invasion, our small number of hosts had already made one thing very clear: the humans of Earth took to our control like they had always craved it. Enslaved humans turned out to be quite amenable to the Brood's techniques of control, and almost immediately after they were turned they were totally dedicated to the subjugation of their own species. Romantic partners, family members, trusted friends, loyal coworkers: All of these human connections proved almost trivially easy the Brood to wash away (or exploit).

Some enslaved species had proven exhausting to control, with so little brain power that a broodmate who took command had to spread their tendrils thinly and exert full conscious control of every function or action. Others had powerful brains that could directly challenge our rightful control of their bodies, or in some cases manipulate their body's senses or nervous systems in ways that undermined our control. While no species we had encountered had ever successfully defeated a full-fledged Brood invasion, many had proven exceptionally costly to control. So far, the Earth invasion had been going better than any in recent memory... but that did not mean the Brood would suddenly turn reckless.

Reinforcement

Now that the Hierarchy was aware of our success in gaining a foothold on the planet, they began to accelerate the transmission of our broodmates through the Throat. To ensure we would have the infrastructure in place to manage exponentially more members of the Brood, we deployed our human slaves. They were eager to serve, and were able to use their prior human roles and relationships to enhance our objectives.

Their efforts began by using their human hierarchical position and economic connections to summon suitable worker candidates to their estate to undertake pretextual tasks. For the initial wave of unskilled laborers, the estate's leader offered unusually lucrative compensation to undertake trivial and mundane tasks in a dimly-lit, cramped earthen area under the flooring of the main house. Once the individuals were sealed into the relatively soundproof area and beginning their distracting task, our hidden brethren would use stealth to approach and mount them. As each worker was enslaved, they were sent to expand and improve the infrastructure surrounding the portal, while more workers were summoned to be enslaved in the same manner.

After the estate's leader had exhausted his usual sources of individual unskilled workers, he began to arrange meetings with the leaders of larger aggregations of skilled workers, including targets with access to the sort of machinery and material that would increase the maximum throughput of the Throat and enable enhanced communication with the homeworld. Such conversions were somewhat more difficult because of the hierarchical status of such work-legion leaders, who our hosts felt would be unwilling to directly undertake the distracting task, or insist on doing it with the assistance of key underlings. Despite our growing number of physically imposing hosts drawn from the laborers, forceful conversion of such a group was viewed as too risky.

Fortunately, the estate leader had previously engaged many of these leaders in economic exchanges based on systematic lies and evasions in the context of complicated games of chance. Even more fortunately, the estate leader had previously established a pattern of isolating attendees from their communication devices for the duration of the wagering session, so simply altering the event's supposed starting time enabled the isolated conversion of all of the targeted work unit leaders sequentially. Once the leaders of these hierarchical work units were turned, they quickly used their authority to ensure the rest of their underlings were turned. The impressive collection of workers and construction resources that were now under our control ensured that our foothold would be expanded and optimized for maximum transit and security.

Despite the Brood's early successes, we soon learned from our hosts that humanity was going to be an immensely risky and dangerous prize for the Brood to control. Organized echelons of deadly force and societal control called "police" and "army" were far more powerful, dangerous, and vigilant than the hosts we had secured for ourselves so far. The very nature of such deadly forces meant that any slip or error by the Brood could lead to not only the death of individual parasites, but the defeat of their entire invasion.

Again highlighting the role of favorable chance in our invasion, the Brood received an intelligence windfall. Apparently one of the hosts belonging to the original familial unit--the eldest son--had secretly been involved in a non-reproductive copulative relationship with a human member of both "army" and that deadly organization's own internal "police." After arranging for another non-reproductive copulation in a secluded locale, the son was able to complete the subjugation of the romantic partner. Once he served the Brood, the young soldier was able to provide essential intelligence about how the Brood might be able to seize control of both the key civilian and military forces. As the volume of Broodmates arriving through the Throat continued to increase, we began to plan how the human's powerful forces might be brought to heel and taught to obey their new masters.

New Challenge Revealed

While nearly every aspect of the invasion thus far had gone amazingly well, our exploration of the minds of our hosts began revealed a far more serious threat than the Brood had previously encountered. We had assumed that the extensive militaries assembled by humanity's governments would be the most powerful forces we would face in our invasion.

We soon realized how deeply mistaken we had been.