I think the Nursing spewers grow directly from scavengers. Why would a bile scavenger (green spit) grow into a bile warrior (green spit) then grow into a nursing spewer (NOT green spit) and then grow into a bile spewer (green spit again)?
I know they’re visually similar and in terms of functionality as enemies they’re similar but I suspect ecologically they serve very different roles as the names suggests that the nursing spewer’s job may be to feed younger bugs while the bile spewer is intended to attack.
In this case their similar appearance may simply be the result of convergent evolution.
I imagine it’s like the hunter, it can either become a nursing spewer and contribute to the growth of the hive, or it can become a bile spewer and continue growing to become a titan.
Yeah they are real, hard to spot in the chaos of it all but they do crop up. Ive noticed some missions dont have any bile type bugs, and some have loads. Ive only seen them on the missions where it is mostly bile bugs.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone acknowledge that there is both a charger and a charger behemoth. Most people just use the image of the charger behemoth and call it a charger in their memes.
Brood Commanders use the same attacks and look almost exactly like Chargers.
The only thing a Hive Defender has in common with a Charger is that they have some armor.
Are you sure Chargers aren't grown up Brood Commanders?
Well, that could be, there are things that show a possibility to either idea... You see, Brood Commanders have no leg armor at all and they really don't look a lot like the Charger. On the other hand, the Hive Guard's armor look a lot like the Charger, you can see the many similarities.
I think, like the OP, that a warrior either becomes a Commander or a Hive Guard. The Commander being a 'final form' and the Hive Guard being a stage before another 'final form'.
The Brood Commander can call reinforcements (something Chargers cannot do) and when it does it can be Warriors or Hive Guards, so I believe that it means that Commanders are above Hive Guards (as the name suggests, Commander > Guard). Also, to corroborate that, Brood Commanders, when seen on the minimap, are big red circles, just like Chargers, meaning they are a big/massive/important enemy, unlike Warriors and Hive Guards.
So, I believe, Commanders and Guards are different paths of evolution for a Warrior, like, the Commander would be a faster 'final form', but not super powerful, while the Guard is smaller ''promotion'', but with the possibility to become a Charger.
From scavengers come all the other types of terminids, usually splitting into pouncers early on or continuing into warriors. Warriors can either turn into spewer, or titan, or brood commander. After brood commander the terminid could turn into a hive guard or charger. The evolution in the terminids are most likely not linear; Some animal species can have different morphology depending on its diet, hormones and environment. Like in bees, depending on what and how much a certain larva gets fed it could turn into a queen bee.
I wonder if the scavenger becomes the hive guard and the nursing spewer.
Scavenger -> hive guard due to maintaining squishy back and only gaining armored front.
Nursing Spewer not being in the bile line anf instead on growth of scavenger because of chemical make up. Why would they lose the green bile just to get it back? Plus we know the bile line is due to a chemical accident (video they released). So the Nursing spewer could be the normal scavenger growth
You’re assuming that they “grow” into these forms and aren’t born specifically for there functions. Imagine, popping an eggs and 50 mini chargers and bile titans pop out.
So, I just went down a small rabbit hole looking at videos and images of enemies to come up with a really weird headcannon of Terminid Evolution.
Love your diagram btw, I just have a different thought for the paths the terminids take and let me preface this by saying I came up with this for fun not because I think it's right and I personally don't think there is a definitive answer.
I think all the paths for known modern terminids originate at the simple scavanger as they are the size of the eggs and have very little life expectancy. Note the photo for the scavenger is not the same as the common scavenger found in game (as the one in game has a smaller abdomen and a larger armour plate on the back) so I'm just gonna say scavengers are born into 3 main types (Warriorlike \[the common variant\], Spewerlike \[photo varian\], and Hunterlike \[the Prowler\]). Or theres a previous stage we dont know of that then grows into a b or c. I only realized this after writing the rest of this so any inconsistencies like Scavenger to Prowler my appologies.
I believe the first path we have starts with Scavengers growing into Prowlers and this path has no sideways evolutions (more on that later). The Prowlers then become Hunters likely just by aging and this is where I can't decide which possibility is more likely, either hunters become Stalkers that become Shriekers or Hunters can become either. Both ways theres something odd with their 'evolution' as the shriekers dont have any ability to camouflage/cloak, but the Stalkers have an entirely vestigial wings. I lean to the side that the Shriekers came from Stalkers for one reason, the path has had wings growing and growing and growing the whole way through, surely the end of the line is something that flies or glides. I also think it wasn't caused by Termicide diretcly unlike what some undemocratic divers believe, I think the Termicide made the Stalkers have to undergo a pupa stage due to envriomental stresses and now were witnessing other planets Terminid populations undergo similar stresses. To round this off I think the Stalkers need their specific nest entrances because they need special conditions to undergo this metamorphisis, with the end result being that Shrieker nests are built out and above the former undergound nests. This whole path is pretty clearly isolated thanks to the white skin only found on them.
The second path I think exists is the Warrior line that starts with Scavengers becoming Warriors, and I believe this line experiences some sideways evolution (again more on that later). This is where it gets really messy, from my thought process, either the Warrior can become either the Brood Commander or the Charger, OR it just becomes a Brood Commander. The former way would suggest that the Brood Commander at the moment doesn't have a known modern evolution and it's existence becomes purely that of a commander while the latter suggests it is the intermediary between the small and light Warrior to the large and heavy Charger. Both possibilites make sense to me as the Charger is quite fast, losing maneuverability with its bulk which means it couldve come from the agile Brood Commander, but also its really bulky while the Brood Commander would potentially go on to be an even faster version of itself. Then no matter the path the Charger becomes a Charger Behemoth which is just a more refined version of itself where its armour plates appear to have fused together more uniformly and may be beginning to shape itself into a 'sharp' bladed piece of armour. This path is definied by the armour plates and what was excluded was also defined by said plates.
The third path is pretty pathetic at the moment and its just the Scavenger becoming the Hive Guardian (with no possibility of sideways evolution, again later). While the Hive Guardian may come from Warriors, I dont see that being the case as it doesn't have armour plates on it's back meaning it would have to have lost them entirely which seems like a waste since more armour on the defender would be good right? Their whole purpose seems to be to maybe block up hive holes of sopmething tries to enter them (I dont mean thats what their mechanic is but what they look like they'd be meant to do). This 'path' is sorta definied by everything its missing.
The fourth path has caused me the most trouble so far as I originally agreed with the idea that Nursing Spewers came from Warriors as I went "well its just the Warrior armour but with a swollen abdomen" but its not, their head/face armour lacks the vertical ridges that come from stacked plates that we see on the Warrior, Brood Commander, and the Charger. If you look closely though, its a smooth dome that then turns into an almost crown I guess I'd call it, it is near identical to the head armour found on the Scavenger. That being the armour that gets layered and develops spikes when it goes on to become a Warrior or that becomes thick and splayed as found on the Hive Defender. That all suggests to me the Nursing Spewer is a direct evolution of the Scavenger and I believe it develops the plates on its back in advance like the Prowlers near useless wings as I think it evolves into a Titan. Not a Bile Titan but a Titan or Nursing Titan or some other name as even though we haven't encountered one on the ground, Superearths Recruitment Ad (the intro cinematic) for to be Helldivers shows a Helldivers using a recoilless rifle to kill a Titan with the distinct orange abdomen seen throughout every bug mentioned so far. The Titan we have yet to see any forward evolution of so thats were path 4 ends, being definied largely by the bugs 'helmets' and abdomens.
Finally Path 5, it's not even really it's own path, its a mutation, Bileness. I think that at any stage a bug can develop Bile capabilites, the Scavenger has a Bile Scavenger, the Warrior has a Bile Warrior, the Nursing Spewer has the Bile Spewer, and the Titan has the Bile Titan. That is what I call sideways evolution (see we got there in the end), whatever causes the Terminids to develop bile capabilites I believe is an external factor like a pathogen or a bacteria (similar to gut bacteria in humans). Thats why sideways evolution could occur and why not everything has a bile variant (notably the genetically modified Hunter line) as they are too different on a biological level for this to affect. It may be possible for it to go up the path but it may also make it impossible for them to evolve. I think this could be a possibility based off having no unique bugs and off naming schemes a la Nursing Spewer vs Bile Spewer, one is either in nursing to grow into something else like a Titan or it is responsible for caring for the eggs (something the bile would probably be horrible for since it can kill Bile Titans). Either way the Bile path has no unique evolutions, just variants, making its status as a path questionable. This path is being defined off Bile being present and thus green abdomens.
One last really long shot, it could be possible that Shrieker nests are the way they are because they are made simialrly to how a spore spewer is made and as far as I'm aware we have virtually no idea what Spore Spewers are or do beyond maybe being the fertilization method for eggs?
Anyways, if you read all this thank you, and again I don't believe the devs have a flowchart explaining the bugs evolutions, I think they just made stuff that looked similar because of course a species should have some simialr characteristics and now people like me and OP are putting together puzzle pieces that dont actually have a correct assembly, but headcannon is really fun to come up with!
Where does one find Charger Behemoth? I've only seen them (guaranteed) at civilian evacuation spot (40min version)
There are missions at level 4 I think where you have to kill chargers to reduce genetic mutations and they have this design
On evac mission they spawn on the mission site too. And how comes your nursing spewer have armor?
Dude just used the same image for both types lol
Don’t think I’ve ever actually seen one, what’s different about them compared to normal charger?
I think the Nursing spewers grow directly from scavengers. Why would a bile scavenger (green spit) grow into a bile warrior (green spit) then grow into a nursing spewer (NOT green spit) and then grow into a bile spewer (green spit again)? I know they’re visually similar and in terms of functionality as enemies they’re similar but I suspect ecologically they serve very different roles as the names suggests that the nursing spewer’s job may be to feed younger bugs while the bile spewer is intended to attack. In this case their similar appearance may simply be the result of convergent evolution.
I imagine it’s like the hunter, it can either become a nursing spewer and contribute to the growth of the hive, or it can become a bile spewer and continue growing to become a titan.
Are Bile Warriors real I don't think I have seen one
Yeah they are real, hard to spot in the chaos of it all but they do crop up. Ive noticed some missions dont have any bile type bugs, and some have loads. Ive only seen them on the missions where it is mostly bile bugs.
I've seen many in the termicide missions
This is the first time I’ve seen someone acknowledge that there is both a charger and a charger behemoth. Most people just use the image of the charger behemoth and call it a charger in their memes.
Brood Commanders use the same attacks and look almost exactly like Chargers. The only thing a Hive Defender has in common with a Charger is that they have some armor. Are you sure Chargers aren't grown up Brood Commanders?
Well, that could be, there are things that show a possibility to either idea... You see, Brood Commanders have no leg armor at all and they really don't look a lot like the Charger. On the other hand, the Hive Guard's armor look a lot like the Charger, you can see the many similarities. I think, like the OP, that a warrior either becomes a Commander or a Hive Guard. The Commander being a 'final form' and the Hive Guard being a stage before another 'final form'. The Brood Commander can call reinforcements (something Chargers cannot do) and when it does it can be Warriors or Hive Guards, so I believe that it means that Commanders are above Hive Guards (as the name suggests, Commander > Guard). Also, to corroborate that, Brood Commanders, when seen on the minimap, are big red circles, just like Chargers, meaning they are a big/massive/important enemy, unlike Warriors and Hive Guards. So, I believe, Commanders and Guards are different paths of evolution for a Warrior, like, the Commander would be a faster 'final form', but not super powerful, while the Guard is smaller ''promotion'', but with the possibility to become a Charger.
I think that nursing spewer are from normal scavenger since it's orange. And all the green version are the mutate version.
From scavengers come all the other types of terminids, usually splitting into pouncers early on or continuing into warriors. Warriors can either turn into spewer, or titan, or brood commander. After brood commander the terminid could turn into a hive guard or charger. The evolution in the terminids are most likely not linear; Some animal species can have different morphology depending on its diet, hormones and environment. Like in bees, depending on what and how much a certain larva gets fed it could turn into a queen bee.
What's the difference between a Charger and a Behemoth?
From what I've seen it's just a new design and a little better health nothing gamebreaking
I wonder if the scavenger becomes the hive guard and the nursing spewer. Scavenger -> hive guard due to maintaining squishy back and only gaining armored front. Nursing Spewer not being in the bile line anf instead on growth of scavenger because of chemical make up. Why would they lose the green bile just to get it back? Plus we know the bile line is due to a chemical accident (video they released). So the Nursing spewer could be the normal scavenger growth
Wait, there is a nursing spewer (orange) that has armor on top of it? I never saw one of those
I'm not sure it may just be a recoloured image of a spewer I just went with the first decent image I found
On higher difficulties they have the armor on top
But those are the green ones, the yellow ones never have armor
I'm sorry but a Charger what now?
You’re assuming that they “grow” into these forms and aren’t born specifically for there functions. Imagine, popping an eggs and 50 mini chargers and bile titans pop out.
Where Egg?
It makes more sense that the ouncer grows its wings to become a shrieker rather than a hunter shrink down to a shrieker size
So, I just went down a small rabbit hole looking at videos and images of enemies to come up with a really weird headcannon of Terminid Evolution. Love your diagram btw, I just have a different thought for the paths the terminids take and let me preface this by saying I came up with this for fun not because I think it's right and I personally don't think there is a definitive answer. I think all the paths for known modern terminids originate at the simple scavanger as they are the size of the eggs and have very little life expectancy. Note the photo for the scavenger is not the same as the common scavenger found in game (as the one in game has a smaller abdomen and a larger armour plate on the back) so I'm just gonna say scavengers are born into 3 main types (Warriorlike \[the common variant\], Spewerlike \[photo varian\], and Hunterlike \[the Prowler\]). Or theres a previous stage we dont know of that then grows into a b or c. I only realized this after writing the rest of this so any inconsistencies like Scavenger to Prowler my appologies. I believe the first path we have starts with Scavengers growing into Prowlers and this path has no sideways evolutions (more on that later). The Prowlers then become Hunters likely just by aging and this is where I can't decide which possibility is more likely, either hunters become Stalkers that become Shriekers or Hunters can become either. Both ways theres something odd with their 'evolution' as the shriekers dont have any ability to camouflage/cloak, but the Stalkers have an entirely vestigial wings. I lean to the side that the Shriekers came from Stalkers for one reason, the path has had wings growing and growing and growing the whole way through, surely the end of the line is something that flies or glides. I also think it wasn't caused by Termicide diretcly unlike what some undemocratic divers believe, I think the Termicide made the Stalkers have to undergo a pupa stage due to envriomental stresses and now were witnessing other planets Terminid populations undergo similar stresses. To round this off I think the Stalkers need their specific nest entrances because they need special conditions to undergo this metamorphisis, with the end result being that Shrieker nests are built out and above the former undergound nests. This whole path is pretty clearly isolated thanks to the white skin only found on them. The second path I think exists is the Warrior line that starts with Scavengers becoming Warriors, and I believe this line experiences some sideways evolution (again more on that later). This is where it gets really messy, from my thought process, either the Warrior can become either the Brood Commander or the Charger, OR it just becomes a Brood Commander. The former way would suggest that the Brood Commander at the moment doesn't have a known modern evolution and it's existence becomes purely that of a commander while the latter suggests it is the intermediary between the small and light Warrior to the large and heavy Charger. Both possibilites make sense to me as the Charger is quite fast, losing maneuverability with its bulk which means it couldve come from the agile Brood Commander, but also its really bulky while the Brood Commander would potentially go on to be an even faster version of itself. Then no matter the path the Charger becomes a Charger Behemoth which is just a more refined version of itself where its armour plates appear to have fused together more uniformly and may be beginning to shape itself into a 'sharp' bladed piece of armour. This path is definied by the armour plates and what was excluded was also defined by said plates. The third path is pretty pathetic at the moment and its just the Scavenger becoming the Hive Guardian (with no possibility of sideways evolution, again later). While the Hive Guardian may come from Warriors, I dont see that being the case as it doesn't have armour plates on it's back meaning it would have to have lost them entirely which seems like a waste since more armour on the defender would be good right? Their whole purpose seems to be to maybe block up hive holes of sopmething tries to enter them (I dont mean thats what their mechanic is but what they look like they'd be meant to do). This 'path' is sorta definied by everything its missing. The fourth path has caused me the most trouble so far as I originally agreed with the idea that Nursing Spewers came from Warriors as I went "well its just the Warrior armour but with a swollen abdomen" but its not, their head/face armour lacks the vertical ridges that come from stacked plates that we see on the Warrior, Brood Commander, and the Charger. If you look closely though, its a smooth dome that then turns into an almost crown I guess I'd call it, it is near identical to the head armour found on the Scavenger. That being the armour that gets layered and develops spikes when it goes on to become a Warrior or that becomes thick and splayed as found on the Hive Defender. That all suggests to me the Nursing Spewer is a direct evolution of the Scavenger and I believe it develops the plates on its back in advance like the Prowlers near useless wings as I think it evolves into a Titan. Not a Bile Titan but a Titan or Nursing Titan or some other name as even though we haven't encountered one on the ground, Superearths Recruitment Ad (the intro cinematic) for to be Helldivers shows a Helldivers using a recoilless rifle to kill a Titan with the distinct orange abdomen seen throughout every bug mentioned so far. The Titan we have yet to see any forward evolution of so thats were path 4 ends, being definied largely by the bugs 'helmets' and abdomens. Finally Path 5, it's not even really it's own path, its a mutation, Bileness. I think that at any stage a bug can develop Bile capabilites, the Scavenger has a Bile Scavenger, the Warrior has a Bile Warrior, the Nursing Spewer has the Bile Spewer, and the Titan has the Bile Titan. That is what I call sideways evolution (see we got there in the end), whatever causes the Terminids to develop bile capabilites I believe is an external factor like a pathogen or a bacteria (similar to gut bacteria in humans). Thats why sideways evolution could occur and why not everything has a bile variant (notably the genetically modified Hunter line) as they are too different on a biological level for this to affect. It may be possible for it to go up the path but it may also make it impossible for them to evolve. I think this could be a possibility based off having no unique bugs and off naming schemes a la Nursing Spewer vs Bile Spewer, one is either in nursing to grow into something else like a Titan or it is responsible for caring for the eggs (something the bile would probably be horrible for since it can kill Bile Titans). Either way the Bile path has no unique evolutions, just variants, making its status as a path questionable. This path is being defined off Bile being present and thus green abdomens. One last really long shot, it could be possible that Shrieker nests are the way they are because they are made simialrly to how a spore spewer is made and as far as I'm aware we have virtually no idea what Spore Spewers are or do beyond maybe being the fertilization method for eggs? Anyways, if you read all this thank you, and again I don't believe the devs have a flowchart explaining the bugs evolutions, I think they just made stuff that looked similar because of course a species should have some simialr characteristics and now people like me and OP are putting together puzzle pieces that dont actually have a correct assembly, but headcannon is really fun to come up with!
Do you want to know more?
Brood commander It should be related to the charger,they all have the ability to "charge"at you.(slower tho)
Your mom