Summoner
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| Classification | |
|---|---|
| Structure | Field |
| Origin | Derived (Branch parasite) |
| Class | Primitive; Adapted |
| Characteristics | |
| Length | 1.2–1.6 m |
| Mass | 50–80 kg |
| First recorded | 2023 |
The Summoner is a branch parasite, a field organism of Derived origin, that calls reinforcements to an engagement. It has little fighting ability of its own. Through the parasite network it requests organisms from nearby Beckons and Dispatchers, and it repeats the request every few minutes for as long as it is alive. An engagement with a Summoner present keeps drawing in new organisms. Federation field manuals compare it to a unit's radio operator.
Like the other branch parasites, the Summoner occurs in a Primitive and an Adapted form, and has been recorded since 2023. European Defence Force doctrine makes it the second priority target in an engagement, after the Bolster.
Description
A Summoner is 1.2 to 1.6 metres long and weighs 50 to 80 kg. It moves on four limbs, slowly, and keeps behind the organisms it accompanies. The body is long and low, near-black, with a narrow head that has no eyes. Its back carries a folded structure of twelve to twenty leaf-like plates of the same kind as a Dispatcher's flower, which open into a fan 1.5 to 2 metres across when it calls. Its membrane is thin, and it can be killed with ordinary small-arms fire.
The Adapted form is slightly smaller, carries its plates closer to the body, and has a ring of short tendrils around the base of the fan, which hold the plates steady while they are open.
Behaviour
A Summoner stays near the edge of an engagement, out of the direct line of fire, and calls at intervals of a few minutes. Each call lasts 5 to 20 seconds, during which the plates are open and the animal stands still. Each call brings organisms stored by the Dispatchers in range, and the rate of arrival does not fall while the Summoner lives. In the chain of command it works under a Bolster, and engagements with both present are the hardest to end.
A Summoner's calls are emitted as short bursts of radio noise, in the frequencies at which a Dispatcher's flower receives best, and can be picked up on ordinary receivers within a few kilometres. The Primitive form called from open ground at regular intervals. The Adapted form calls from cover, at irregular intervals, and moves after each call.
Summoners do not attack people unless cornered. Like other field organisms, they return to their Beckon after an engagement and are reabsorbed into its ground.
Genome variants
Sinic Summoners, in East Asia, call more often than others, and Pontic Summoners, in Ukraine and around the Black Sea, draw organisms from a wider area along the region's shared root systems. Summoners are rare in the Aridic genome of the Sahara and Arabia, whose organisms receive the least direction from the network.
Control
Federation infantry doctrine makes the Summoner the priority target after the Bolster. Snipers and observers look for it behind the line of contact, where the opening of its plates gives its position away. Since 2024 infantry companies operating outside held territory have carried radio direction-finding sets, which locate a calling Summoner to within about 100 metres at a range of two kilometres, and mortars or artillery are called onto the position. Killing it does not remove the organisms it has already called, but stops new ones arriving.
History
The Summoner was first recorded in 2023, with the other branch parasites. The name was in use among European Defence Force units by the end of that year. The Adapted form was first recorded in 2024, and reached most regions through the upgrading of organisms in Dispatcher storage. Radio bursts from Summoners were first linked to their calls by H&A's Hyperbiology Division in 2024.