HiveComb

They tried to control their population by keeping them weak and hungry. Then came the crash that spread all sorts of dust, powder, and tiny little floaty seeds all over the place. The soil was suddenly extremely rich, instead of polluted, the parasites and fungi that were harmful to people died out quickly, and a surprisingly large variety of small, seemingly ordinary, plants, began to spread swiftly. -- Anon Guest

The people on the northern islands actually saw the invader shot down. Footage was all over the networks for five days, until another crisis came that was more spectacular. People were told to avoid the "air flotsam" that poured out of the vessel as it streaked across the sky. It was obviously poison, an infestation, or some kind of bioweapon.

They sent troops to burn all the flock they could reach, and held a big parade to honour those heroes.

The crisis declared over, the whole world got back to normal. The sacred economy had to keep flowing. Which meant that the workers had to go to their hazardous factories on the dangerous roads whilst breathing polluted air and taking in toxic sustenance. But the invader's windblown fluff was too dangerous.

They did not, and could not, get all of it. Nobody noticed or paid attention to new plants growing in vacant lots. Not until someone noticed that the broad leaves had pictograms on them. Describing how to eat the leaves, or to dig up the tubers and prepare them as food.

It did not take long for the vacant lots and verges to be plundered. Churned to mud by the relentless digging implements of the neighbourhood. It was not over. The plants regrew better in the churned dirt, from the root fragments left behind.

Word got out. People started growing them in abandoned buildings, potted up in any kind of container, and under any kind of light they could make happen. They grew everywhere, in anything, and under all kinds of conditions.

The news treated them like the worst kind of poison. Warning the public of deaths, disease, and disaster linked to the plants. It didn't work. People already knew that their health improved when they ate them.

Even the soldiers refused to attack those growing the plants. Mostly because the chosen victims were their connections to get some themselves.

Once the social controls no longer worked, the economy dependent on them fell soon after. A bloodless revolution, caused by a shipment of Tukkatukka seeds.

A gengineered plant made to grow anywhere, in anything, under any conditions... and made to wring any kind of nutrient out of any kind of dirt, putting it into a massive tuber that is high calorie and full of everything good for a human.

A gengineered plant that wasn't made to ruin Deregger worlds, but it sure looked like it could have been.

[Photo by Eddy Billard on Unsplash]

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