"These insects are fighting to the death. Is that ship so important to them?" Evil Dragon asked, watching the Skyworms throw themselves into the attack.
Brando had already donned the Junba Armor. He struck a few poses, ready for battle. "It must mean something special to them."
Lin Li asked, "Who's this Legendary Empress they keep talking about?"
Huang Ji was dismantling the ship in the biology lab. "Nai Di, you explain."
Nai Di promptly obeyed, starting with an introduction to Shell Civilization.
"Shell Civilization has countless species and more nations—or tribes—than anyone could count. These pirates belong to one of its strongest, most advanced branches: the Skyworms."
"They reproduce at an astonishing rate. From birth until death, they can eat, digest, and breed without stopping. They evolve quickly, too."
"But don't think all they do is eat. They give a great deal back to nature. Countless species depend on their waste, and some even live as parasites on them."
"Skyworms sit at the top of the food chain, but they're also the foundation of the entire ecosystem. They extract what other animals can't eat from rock, deep underground, the ocean depths, and the atmosphere..."
"The ecosystem on their Homeworld is a perfect web of symbiosis. Otherwise, no ecosystem could withstand a species with a limitless appetite."
Everyone nodded. Lin Li said, "We studied this. The Shell Race are both apex predators and producers at the bottom of the food chain. They provide food for species in nearly every other ecological niche."
"Even when they were still primitive swarms, they could devour magma. They ate around the clock, but they didn't keep all that energy for themselves. Instinctively, they left some nutrients for the rest of nature."
"Then they developed a civilization and started hoarding every resource. They evolved away