图鉴：Gold Myr

名称（单数）：Gold Myrmedion

性别：雌性与雄性比例为 9 比 1。

Height: Female Myr are around the same height as terran females, while males tend towards smallness and slightness, often averaging heights around 5’ 2” - just under 1.6 meters.

Weight: Heavy for their height thanks to numerous chitin plates and denser than average muscles and bones.

Arms: Four narrow but strong limbs ending with three fingers and a single thumb.

Abdomens: All gold myr have insectile abdomens, used for storing nutrition in lean times as well as reproduction in female queens.

Hair: Blacks, oranges, and strawberry-blonde are all common.

Eyes: Myr eyes are solid black (or more rarely gray) compound eyes. They are noted to have relatively poor eyesight, and blindness and various eye problems are unusually common.

Ears: Myr have pointed ears, called “elfin” by first contact explorers.

触角：每个 Myr 的额头都有一对昆虫式触角。这些高度敏感的器官对空气振动和化学物质极敏感，在补充敏锐听力的同时也兼任嗅觉器官。

翅膀：雌性没有翅膀。雄性有过小、无法托起身体的退化翅膀。

外观与蜜罐 Myr

两种Myr亚种都在多方面显得像虫子，而 Gold Myr 尤其如此。它们四条手臂和后置的几丁质腹部，让它们看起来像会走路、会说话的蚂蚁。由于仅在金色亚种中存在的一种惊人变异——蜜罐基因——这种比较更加贴切。

这个名称极不准确，是由贪婪胜过知识的探索者起的，但仍沿用至今。所谓蜜罐“基因”实际上是复杂的进化奇迹，使 Gold Myr 能在腹部或乳房内储存过剩营养，以备匮乏时期使用，或后来分享给更饥饿的同胞。用于储存的器官大致依性别区分：雄性使用腹部，雌性使用乳房。一些罕见雌性两者兼用，甚至能在两者间转移质量。

营养充足时，它们能被自身蜜露胀得几乎泛起琥珀光。作为蜂巢的活体粮仓，这些 Myr 的器官膨胀至惊人尺寸，往往仅因重量便使它们行动困难：它们几乎无法移动，如同蜂巢城市中的餐馆，安顿在街角和专门餐厅，为民众“直接从龙头”提供蜜露。

对 Myr 蜜露的初步检验报告称，它比蜂蜜稀薄，味道更接近枫糖浆。实验室检测发现其中含有痕量的多种情绪提升化合物。U.G.C. U.G.C. 调查队不建议非 Myr 大规模食用。

性别二态性

少数幸运 Gold Myr 是“女王”，即无需医疗干预便可繁殖的有翼雌性。女王通常由数名雄性工蜂服务，繁殖周期异常快速，每胎产下一大窝由数位不同父亲受精的卵。女王可活数百年，在一生中产下数百乃至数千名年轻 Gold Myr。正如其名，女王受到其他 Gold Myr 的高度崇敬，有些甚至被当作女神。

首次怀孕前，女王与其他不育雌性无法区分；但一旦孕育第一窝卵，她会经历第二次青春期，变态成拥有第二对分泌营养乳汁的乳房、更大身体及极度膨胀腹部的形态。她的腹部会随时间缓慢生长，逐渐提高繁殖能力。女王高耸于其他 Myr 之上，但繁殖性膨胀令她们无法在冲突中妥善自卫。

雄性寿命较短且有翅膀，因身体更轻，力量远不如平均雌性。雌性同类亲切地称它们为“工蜂”，多数雄性过着相对奢华的生活。未服务女王者极受珍视，可以安逸度日。雄性 Myr 以纤细轻盈的身体和大型生殖器为特征，阴茎和睾丸比例失常地大；在频繁排空时，它们能膨胀以产生更多精液，甚至长大到拖在地上。

战斗

Gold Myr 不以暴力倾向闻名，但坚韧身体、内置护甲和令人意外的力量，使它们完全有能力进行近战。远距离视力差降低了它们在现代、以神射手为主的战斗中的用处。U.G.C. 不大可能将它们用于进攻，但它们的多条手臂使其即使不做义体强化，也能成为非常有用的战地医疗人员。

在内战背景下，Gold Myr 与其red敌人拥有相匹配的生物条件：双方都有差视力和身体护甲。红色 Myr 的唾液具有致衰弱作用，但在以近战武器和轻武器为主的冲突中几乎没有咬人的空间，因而抵消了那点优势。战斗力量真正的差别在于训练：Scarlet Federation 的军队是久经磨炼的士兵，Gold Myr 则是相对缺乏战斗经验的新手。它们能坚持如此之久的原因，也许只有原始技术知识、更多人口和化学武器。

环境

Gold Myr 是温血生物，能在略高于冰点至 43 摄氏度（110 华氏度）的各类温度下存活。它们的母星Myrellion大部分是难以居住的沙漠，使其只能在地下聚居地生存。数个世纪间，小城市变成不可思议的地下巨型城市，但战争已令许多城市化为坍塌的废墟。

Society

Golds typically value individual freedom and creativity in spite of their matriarchal society. Every single living gold myr is a direct descendant of a myr queen, raised in familial schools called thollums. Outside of the recently introduced draft, they are free to discover and seek an individual calling. One function of the thollums is to allow them free training in any actively practiced discipline.

The Gilden Republic (closest approximate translation), is ruled by the Council of Queens, a governmental body made up of every myr capable of reproduction. Each queen’s power is relative to the number of her offspring, with older, more fertile queens carrying significantly more weight than their younger, inexperienced peers. This bizarre, motherhood based political system seems to work well for the gold myr.

U.G.C. researchers have seen few if any signs of dissent amongst the tawny ant-people. Current theories for this vary between biological predisposition to the success of the Gilden Republic at providing for its people. Many of the Council’s laws are analogous to those of 20th century earth’s nordic model - a kind of highly regulated “cuddly capitalism”.

That isn’t to say that gold myr live a life without strife. The seemingly endless war with the reds has strained their economy to the breaking point. Rising unemployment has brought with it a surge in criminal activity and lawlessness. Usage of red myr saliva as an illicit drug/aphrodisiac is almost an epidemic all its own. Had a ceasefire not been reached, it is likely the gold myr way of life would have been entirely annihilated within the span of a year.

Relationships

Due to the overwhelmingly female-heavy population, males are in high demand: most normal females are unlikely to ever see a male in person, much less be able to copulate with him. As such, lesbian relationships are extremely common and widely accepted. Indeed, a marriage between male and female is quite literally unheard of in myr society; most males are shared between groups of bisexual females.

Female-female marriages, on the other hand, are a little more common, though monogamy is a relatively new concept for the myr, many of whom still fondly remember a more tribal past with great orgies centered around their precious breeders.

Sexuality among female myr is quite open, and most take several casual lovers. Gold myr still practice regular public orgies as part of fertility rites led by their queens and drones, though they also have a higher rate of monogamous marriage than reds do. Golds are quite open with their sex, even flaunting it in public: gold myr dress is highly revealing, and there are no laws or inhibitions about public intercourse.

Technology

Myr technology is nearly analogous with early 20th century earth technology, with basic coal-powered electricity and gas-operated monorails having been recently installed in some of the larger hive cities. Highly primitive computers have just entered service before First Contact, using punch-tape processors and tubes. Despite their largely underground existence, the myr do have aircraft, though most have been re-purposed into transports and military craft due to the war (indeed, the current Joint Ausar Fleet base in Gildenmere, the Gold Myr capital, is a repurposed airfield).

Just before First Contact, the war between red and gold myr took an unexpectedly lethal turn due to the gold myr introducing poison gasses into the conflict, an incredibly effective deterrent against the unchecked red myr advance into their territory, followed by the red myr threatening to unleash a primitive atomic weapon the day before First Contact. Due to the appearance of the ausar expedition to Myrellion, thermonuclear war has been temporarily averted, which has since given the gold myr the opportunity to fashion their own WMDs in response.

The presence of the alien expedition is assumed to be the only preventative factor keeping the world war from escalating to a nuclear inferno. Due to the surprisingly advanced nature of the race, and their “honeypot” biology (which is seen as highly promising by Xenogen), U.G.C. diplomats have arrived on the planet and are working with both hierarchies to achieve a cease fire in the seven years’ war.