/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

>>27157004
You keep calling your wasps parasitic but the only real downside I see to these things is the excruciating pain they cause. They don't kill the host, they don't steal resources off the host, and they're an added, completely automated defense system for the host. They even serve to make the host unappealing to potential predators. What predator is going out of its way to essentially fight off two animals at once (the host and the hive) when the only reward is a foul-tasting meal? Even when it's not an absolute pain to go after, many predators will completely avoid bad-tasting prey. You see many species of animals in real life who have taken advantage of this as their main survival strategy, such as the case with viceroy butterflies. Viceroy butterflies taste good, but they've evolved to look like monarch butterflies, which taste absolutely foul. As a result, most bird ignore them entirely unless they're absolutely desperate. I suspect you'd wind up with a similar phenomenon in regard to animals hosting these wasps - predators would learn they taste bad, and would then not care to go through the hassle of hunting them. The host has gained nature's equivalent of a notice-me-not field.

The only real drawback, the pain, is mitigated by the brainwashing (yes, I think most people would consider "ignore the excruciating pain you're in" brainwashing, albeit a very mild form of it). The only time the hive actually becomes a problem for the host is if the host tries to remove it. Aggression against other wasps is not a drawback unless these wasps of yours are abnormally weak. Otherwise, these things probably fucking obliterate other wasps and may have become the only wasps in their native biome. Hyper-aggression is a valid survival strategy. As for them still having a normal wasp's weaknesses...I don't know about that.Those are heavily mitigated by the existence of the host. Smaller animals like rabbits may not be able to deter a wasp's natural predators, but would a bird divebomb a monkey or wild boar just to get at these wasps, when they can eat other, easier prey? I have my doubts. While smoke and gas are, of course, effective against wasps...this is only in regards to its weakness vs humans. What's its weakness in its natural habitat? I'm really having a hard time imagining an ecosystem this wasp doesn't just bulldoze over.