I might add a story even better!!! Make your own story up!! :P

http://www.webaid4u.com/images/stick/hive_top.jpg
http://www.webaid4u.com/images/stick/hive_under.jpg
http://www.webaid4u.com/images/stick/hive_front.jpg
http://www.webaid4u.com/images/stick/hive_behind.jpg

I have also encountered these strang craft and have had a little time to observe them before being aggresively asked to leave the sector:

There seem to be three main ships in this "bugger" fleet: Observers, Assaults, and Hives.

Using this information and the general observtions of size and features of the Hive ship, I can only come to one conclusion: This is a new faction that is going to be asserting itself into our space.

My suggestion: Either leave them alone and maybe you can be their friend later, or destroy as many as possible and hope you thwart their efforts.

Personally, I'm a nice guy with entrepeneurial spirit, so I'm going to let them go about their business and maybe I'll beable to have some good business with them later.

If they are not interested in trade, then I'm sure the mighty Serco or Itani can take them out without much of a problem.

Hey, if they go after the Itani, we Serco are gonna just sit back and watch the show. They go after us, though, and they'll wish they never set armored foot in our spacelanes.

Oh, they are after you serco. You just have yet to spot them.

They obviously have no other "mission" than to buzz around empty sectors. Personally, I'm terrified of wasps, bees, hornets and the like, so I suggest the devs put in a very large fly swatter to smack them into oblivion.

-Eloi

Wedge voice: "Look at the size of that thing!"

I just saw them today. There's a hive queen in sector K-16 if the Itan system. I tried to get a closer look, but its bot escort attacked and my ship was destroyed. As my home station is in the Dau system (I'm a Neutral, after all), it would be a bit out of my way to go back for a second round.

The odd thing is that I couldn't target the thing. I could see it clear as day, and I could target its escorts without a problem, but the queen itself seemed to be invisible to sensors.

I didn't see it fire any weapons, but its escort was laying down such heavy fire that it was tough to tell which shots came from which ship.

I'll see if I can find the swarm reported to be in the Dau system.

Interesting, because when I first encountered them, I could target them.

And I think you are right, they are devoid of weapons. I was like "What the hell are these?" and was flying pretty close to them (maybe within 200 m). I got a pretty good look before their escorts could come and start shooting at me, but I got REAL close without them even reacting to my presence.

I'm not yet convinced they are hostile. Sure, their pirate 'escorts' (could be something different entirely, who knows what those pirates are up to?) shot pieces out of me, but the queens themselfs did not fire a single shot.

I suppose the Itani would consider them to be kindred spirits, then.

Yeah I had found some bugs in an ion storm. My bus didn't even have a chance.

queenz fear me

The only problem for Serco is that if the Itanis main target is the hives, and the serco step in and attack both nations, then they are asking for double trouble.

the hives are not a nation silly people. They are just UIT mining bots that went nuts. Though they do give decent exp and nice cargo.