Starfleet Jedi

Posted: **Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:48 am**

Every once in a while, you get a versus debate involving Slivers, from Magic the Gathering.
They're a type of creatures added several years ago (they're actually more than a decade old, and bit put on hold a few times). I even played them when they came out. Back then, there weren't that many Slivers to begin with. They were quite fun nonetheless, although hard to drop as a whole due to the different mana colours required to really cover all the most interesting abilities, so you'd often try to focus on the best ones, and add a few random spells. Besides, multi-colour cards weren't as numerous as they're now. But we already had the Gemstone Mine, Lion's Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal (sometimes you'd see Birds of Paradise and City of Brass, but I remember strong limitations on both). I pretty much stopped playing by that time (the money aspect of MtG was really sick, and I was tired of the constant bickering on the rules).

The game has continued to evolve in many ways, and I'm quite impressed with some of the additions such as Lotus Vale. I wouldn't even have thought such a card would have been created, it's very powerful (although it concentrates three lands into one, which is a big risk against certain games) but considering the new game types, it was needed, mostly because MtG has really increased the number of cross-colour combinations.

But this is not a topic for talking about the game rules or how decks are cool and all, but about the Slivers.
This is not a topic I intend to complete in one post, as I foresee several additions. It begs pointing out that in versus debating, Slivers are powerful creatures, but their abilities are often overblown, mostly because of the problem of game mechanics and fluff conflation.

Needless to point out, if in some games, the mechanics might allow for a degree of interpretation and usefulness, vs debating wise, as far as MtG is concerned, it's pretty bonkers to rely on them, as they more of the general idea flavour: a given mana cost - or any other method to build up your forces, notably creature tokens - may give a rough idea of how cheap they are.

Things become much more interesting though when it comes to the fluff, and at the same time, much more different than generally thought. What is revealed is that despite their very obvious power, they also suffer considerable flaws which are generally overlooked.

The best way to begin with this is to cover the relevant chronology: because it's often forgotten that the Slivers never appeared all at once, but at various times, and for very different reasons, and the Slivers of a give era were not sighted during other times.

Reading the Storyline is a necessity. I must say that when I was playing MtG, I never realized how WotC was actually putting lots of efforts into building a large and coherent background to their prominent game. It kinda dawned upon me very recently, when I read through the wiki, that it was significantly developed.
That said, there were clues: by the final months of the Mirage block, it was clear that the fluff seemed to tell a story. It felt new.
It felt merchandising. :D
It doesn't mean it's always met with success. The Multiverse, which by itself isn't very original but much needed to explain all the so different eras and worlds of MtG, also proves confusing. Many Fantasy fans will prefer a solid and well crafted "mono" universe, rather than an all in one jack of all trades sort of mess.

The reality of the storyline is that the Slivers can be divided into four main ages, even if they actually go by pair due to release within the same block, but as separate extensions.

Reign of Volrath [Weatherlight saga]
Rathi Overlay [Weatherlight saga]
Mirari Call [Mirari saga]
Devastated Dominaria [Mirari saga]

(Only Rathi Overlay is an official call, all others are just my own invention.)

What we can quickly understand is that some of the cards, or creature types, are mutually exclusive. The Sliver Overlord is unique, just as the Sliver Queen was, and is the result of a specific event.

But that is not all.
The Slivers wouldn't be the Slivers for their own very unique ability: anytime a Sliver enters a game, all the Slivers owned by the player who plays that Sliver card gain that particular Sliver's ability.
In terms of gameplay, as I remember them when they were played, the Slivers of a player would not provide their abilities to the Slivers of another player, although this may have changed, and it's possible that some players use the overall buff rule for their own games. In team games, Sliver abilities are shared within the Slivers of a team.

But these shared abilities are conflicting, when you begin to pay attention to the fluff.
The fluff descriptions for some Sliver capacities can quickly becomes problematic as they're naturally opposed. To give an example, one description may say that the skin of a Sliver is solid as hell, while another say it's very soft. Etc.
I'll cover that in detail later on.

What became quickly relevant was how this power would spread, what it is, and what the Slivers exactly are. This also requires a detailed look into the fluff of some Sliver cards.
The way this power spread is very important, as it allows us to understand what are its advantages and fallings. On that point, I've found a detail from the fluff that's crucial to this question.

Posted: **Fri May 13, 2011 1:51 am**

Yay! Time for a bump. Let me quote the storyline first, from the wikia.

The first slivers shown in the storyline lived in Rath. It's unknown from where they originally came. Volrath is said to have genetically modified them, but to what extent is also unknown.

Already, we're dealing with non-pure Silvers, although it's hard to know what the pure slivers are. This begs the question of knowing if even the Queen is some pure entity or not. That said, due to Volrath's limited ability to creature his own sliver, it's likely that whatever he managed to change to them would be minor.
Not insignificant, but minor nonetheless.

It's worth mentioning, though, that Volrath could control flowstone, which is described as being made of billions of nanorobots.
This is an odd thing, but I suppose that it represents the core amount of initial flowstone Volrath uses, because billions of bots at the nanorange is ought to represent a ludicrously small volume of matter in the end, even if we were to claim close to trillions of those machines.
However, no source is given for this information, and would logically come from an expanded universe source, since no flavour text provides this information.
It is acceptable to understand the sentence as billions of nanobots, themselves perhaps part of flowstone, produce more flowstone in the furnace. They'd duplicate themselves, maybe.
Cards like Flowstone Flood and Skyshroud Claim might remotely imply that the flowstone can increase its own mass.

Skyshroud Claim wrote: The forest's constant struggle is to keep the spreading flowstone at bay.

A card like Flowstone Sculpture could ehlp us a bit:

Flowstone Sculpture wrote:{2}, Discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Flowstone Sculpture or Flowstone Sculpture gains flying, first strike, or trample. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)

The sculptor, weary of his work, created art that would finish itself.

Although the flavour text could be understood as the artifact only having the ability to shape itself with a given fixed mass, the gameplay part of it clearly supports the idea that it can grow in mass, especially thanks to the Trample attribute. Or it could imply, because of the sacrifice cost, that it can assimilate any kind of matter and turn it into flowstone. An interpretation that verges on the needless complication.
However, without this gameplay element, the flavour text is useless.

But it turns out that this matter recycling ability may not be as far fetched as one may think.
From Lowland Basilisk

Lowland Basilisk wrote: Unlike their cousins, Rathi basilisks turn their victims into puddles of flowstone.

Basilisks generally tend to be deadly poisonous creatures. Those found from the latest editions immediately got the Deathtouch attribute.
It seems that the Lowland Basilisk injects a flowstone poison that begins to transfer the mass of the victim. It can also apply to artifacts.

Besides, these nanobots are controlled by magic.

It allows to produce a variety of things such as armor, some buff for a group of creatures, and spread over a given land to the point it renders the land dead in terms of mana.
This last ability falls in line with the intended goal of sosrt of phasing Rath, an artificial plane, into Dominaria, by increasing the mass of Rath. The lands of Rath were made out of flowstone apparently.

That said, we have a clear example of a clash between extrapolated abilities from a card's name and what it does. The Flowstone Armor actually adds +1 to the offense, but -1 to the defense. Yet it's called armor. Meaning that in game, many creatures, mostly humans and other humanoids or less, will be destroyed.
This both implies a rapid effect and somehow a recycling process. Only creatures with more life (meat? mass?) could handle being partly used?
This essentially makes any biological creature a sort of cyborg.

Now, out of this disgression and back to our slivers.

He attempted to create artificial slivers, but these were a poor approximation of the real thing and had no innate abilities to share with the hive.

The Metallic Sliver has no abilities, but the fluff says that it's a clever counterfeit which increased Volrath's influence over the Slivers.
It's possible it's made out of flowstone although there's no evidence of that. That's speculation due to the fact that the sliver is metallic. Note that slivers don't become metallic.
In game, it's considered an artifact creature. Artifacts are crafted objects, or/and machines, and animated machines often become creatures.

What this reveals is that an individual, once human, who at some point became able to control magic to the point of managing nanorobots and also held the knowledge to fiddle with genetics, was capable of creating an artificial sliver that got accepted by the hive, and that's important to understand, because it implies that any civilization capable of manipulating nanotech and genetics could produce a sliver specimen that would act as a trojan to the species itself.

And surprisingly enough, there is a "negative" sliver that proves that point. But we'll come back to that later on.

Volrath used the hive to guard the Legacy and to attack Weatherlight and her crew on their quest to retake those artifacts and their captain, Sisay. Thanks to Hanna, who realized how the slivers' hive mind worked, the crew defeated them in the Furnace of Rath and Karn was able to convince the Sliver Queen to release the Legacy to him, arguing that the artifacts were as much a part of him as the slivers were a part of her.

The Skyship Weatherlight is a kind of magical artifact in itself, the most powerful of the Legacy.

As we read, the Legacy is a collection of artifacts. The Skyship is one of them, Gerrard, of the Capashen, was another, by virtue of being part of some of Urza's project working on an enhanced bloodline to produce a perfect human hero.
For some odd reason, Sisay, captain of the Weatherlight, although being born of another one of Urza's tinkered bloodlines, is not part of the Legacy.
Gerrard was actually chosen to be part of the Legacy, as a human element was deemed necessary. So the enhanced bloodline projects certainly helped find the right human, but didn't automatically produce Legacy-humans.
Karn, a silver golem, was another artifact of the Legacy.
Several artifacts were recollected before the attack on Volrath's fortress. But the Weatherlight's crew didn't have them all.

Before looking at the other artifacts, let's look at the Skyship Weatherlight itself and her crew.

The question being, were the Skyship and its crew capable of fending off the slivers.

First, the Skyship.
Alas, there isn't much direct information on this vessel. It's built out of Thran metal and powerful wood (see Multani's wikia pge) and around a Weatherseed. There's not much info I can gather at the moment about the later, but there could be several notes about the Thran technology in the Thran book.
It's powered by a powerstone, a Thran device that emits radiations that generate some very specific ills similar to tuberculosis (see here). This page on Urza's Legacy Backstory implies that a powerstone may provide a long lasting power supply.
An example of a powerstone is the one that once split into two stones the size of a human's eyes, were capable of either granting power to all creatures or weakening them. This device could also open portals between planes. All in all, it's hard to say how powerful it is. The Mightstone is said in the wikia to be able to activate artifacts, while the Weakstone deactivates them.
The Thran are an extinct empire which had advanced knowledge.
The Skyship was built with the help of the Mana Rig.

If nothing can be obtained that way, we still know that at some point, the Weatherlight and the Predator fought two battles. The former was more of a boarding operation. The second is interesting as it mentions that both ships damaged each other. The Predator had apparently more armor and potent weapons, but it was slower and had a less capable crew.

The Predator has beam weapons with an obvious major thermal component that allows them to torch large areas. There's at least a battery of four pieces on the portside, but could be five, it's hard to tell. We can only presume there's just as many on the starboard side.
A quick guess would seem to point to some napalmish high kilowatt/low megawatt weaponry, topping at mid megawatts eventually (the flames and fireballs are easily several men high). There also seems to be thunder guns or something similar, although it's not sure if those aren't related to the maneuvering of the ship close to the ground.
With the card Cataclysm, we can compare the sizes of both Skyships.
On the card Hesitation, we spot a cannon on the open forward tier, but which seems significantly smaller than the piece seen on the card above (Cataclysm). It seems to be a large grappling hook, as seen in the Cataclysm card. Whether this is an inconsistency or a different weapon is unknown.
Considering the structural differences between the models featured on other cards and the one seen on Cataclysm, including the entire shape of the fins (very Orkish), it could be possible that the ship was retrofitted at some point. But I think the other cards refer to events that both precede and follow what we see in Cataclysm, so it's more likely a mistake.
Hull Breach shows the Predator crashing into the Stronghold's Citadel.

We now have a better idea of what the Weatherlight could do. Since it's less powerful than the Predator, it's ought to have less potent weapons or fewer of them, perhaps both. How this could be of use against what essentially is a swarm of slivers is hard to tell. I'm not sure we could picture the Weatherlight with any kind of point defense system.

EDIT: According to Captain's Maneuver, the Weatherlight seems to have nothing on the offensive side, counting on sections of its mirrored hull to deviate beams of energy.
Ertai's Meddling also strongly implies that Ertai could cast a barrier that would at least block a direct shot from one of the Predator's broadside weapons. The card is used once, so I wouldn't really say that it would be a continuous barrier at all.
Napalm couldn't be deflected so we're clearly looking at beams of thermal energy here, for the Predator's weapons.

Restrain gives an idea of the Weatherlight deck's size. Based on all other pictures featuring the Skyship, I'd say it's about 30~40 meters long.

Now, the Weatherlight's crew.
Of said crew, the most impressive members shall be those with magical capabilities. Gerrard seems to be capable of activating some machines with skills in artifice, so he reanimated Karn.
Other than that, he just seems to be some character with higher combat aptitudes and a fair dose of character shields I guess, just like many other brute force characters on board.

Karn may be powerful, but he has vowed not to kill again after some disaster that occurred while he protected the young Gerrard. Besides, it doesn't matter, since he was captured and stuck inside a horrible torture room in the fortress, forced to endlessly trample on goblins thrown into said room that kept tumbling.

Aside from some knowledge, Sisay is nothing special. She had a ring that could give her mana though (2 colourless manas in game).

Orim is a healer, but the fluff is rather scant with information. All we have that's remotely useful is from Havoc, which shows that Orim could cast a shield that isolated her from the heat of the Furnace of Rath.
The overall impression we get from the cards related to Orim is that she can prevent damage to other individuals, but it's generally limited to a few hit points on one particular creature. Clearly, she's be totally overwhelmed against a group of slivers.

Then we move to Multani, Maro-Sorcerer. The game mechanics have him being as powerful as the number of cards held by players, but fluff wise, there's little of use.
Gaea's Might implies a considerable force.
Most of all, the cards clearly imply that Multani's powers are great when he operates from within a mighty forest. Which obviously would be lacking in the Stronghold.
Franly there's not much to see here.

So we move to Ertai. See the edit above about the Skyship Weatherlight. There's not much else to get. At best he looks like good at opening portals only and countering some spells.

So much for the crew.

So we need to look at the other artifacts.

Some of them were added later when the ship returned to Mercadia.
But from those which we could safely guess to have been used during the assault of Rath, the Null Rod, likely the one planted by Orim, seems to be of very limited use against organic being such as slivers.
The other artifacts are small wonders, either affecting other artifacts with limited effects, or providing some minor amounts of colourless mana.

And that is all. To be honest, there's nothing here that suggests that magic or the crew would be very effective at fending off the swarm of slivers, especially if you consider how powerful the slivers are imagined to be once they pile up.

This actually doesn't bode very well for the slivers, and an explanation to the Weatherlight's survival must be found elsewhere.

So let's continue with citing the wikia's history.
We'll advance further into the future.
Another age, another breed of slivers...

Posted: **Fri May 13, 2011 9:50 pm**

I turns out that in the first message above, I forgot to talk about the special weakness Slivers share amongst their kin.
Namely, the Plague Sliver:

Plague Sliver wrote: A sliver shares everything with its hive—even its afflictions.

That said, let's continue.

During the Rathi Overlay the slivers were transported to Urborg. Most of them were killed when they materialized in the heart of a volcano, and all the others were killed in the subsequent battles of the Invasion.

Well clearly they don't seem immune to a volcano's lava at least, and their other numbers were killed by the forces of Urborg.

One hundred years later, wizards involved in the Riptide Project on Otaria discovered sliver fossils on their journeys and planned to bring them back to life in order to study them.

FOOLS!!

The Riptide wizards did not know the importance of the Sliver Queen, however, and didn't recreate her. Without her, the slivers went rampant and overran the island housing the project.

At the same time the Mirari was causing havoc all over Otaria. The magical waves it produced accelerated the slivers' growth, but it also lured them to the mainland since they confused its call with that of their deceased queen. Most of the slivers were therefore present at the battle at Averru and were killed in the magical explosion that created Karona. A small group of slivers survived, however, fused into the ultimate manifestation of the hive mind, the Sliver Overlord.

Right off the bat, we see that we're starting with fossils being used to recreate slivers. It's impossible to tell if the wizards working on the Riptide Project had access to each variant that existed a century before on Rath. Most of the slivers were killed as they reappeared inside a volcano. Plus every time a sliver would die, it would increase the chances of being the last sliver to cast its ability onto its brethren. However, we can consider that some fossils would obviously belong to slivers that died while being enhanced. But it's unknown if their bodies would lose all their abilities.

To know that, we'll have to look at the fluff of all slivers and see how the abilities are transmitted.

Other point, we see that the Sliver Overlord is a total artificial construct. It's described as a mutant, and "the end of evolution" by the card's fluff. Most of all, it only appeared because of the existence of the Mirari (cards here). This page strongly implies that Karona's existence maintained the existence of the Overlord. Karona only existed because of the Mirari.

We'll look at the slivers of that saga later on.

Slivers that survived the apocalypse caused by Karona's destruction and a few breeds that were "timeshifted" into the present by the violent upheavals of the time stream were one of the few creatures to flourish on the dying plane of Dominaria. As other species fought for survival in a world almost completely drained of mana, the slivers continued to multiply and mutate into new forms.

Once again, a new breed emerges.

Simply put, there's about three global families:

The untampered original slivers. They're of Rathi origin.
Those which were genetically modified by Volrath (which are the first batch of slivers we got to play with). They also were shifted into the volcano in Urborg during the Rathi Overlay.
The specimen grown from fossils which saw their metabolism amplified by the Mirari, as part of the Riptide Project.
The new mutated strains on the mana depleted Dominaria, plus those pulled from the past (timeshifted - extension Time Spiral) into the "present".

For each one of them, it's very hard to tell how many pure strains made it to the next era.

In theory, it is possible that minus the Sliver Queen and Sliver Overlord, all the strains were present in the final family, as all it takes is just one member of each particular strain to have first survived the Rathi Overlay, then the destruction of Otaria.
The timeshifted strains could easily fill the gaps and allow all specimen to be present again at a single point in time.
However, it would require to see which ones were timeshifted, and see if they existed during the Mirage saga.
We'll know that later on, when looking at the sliver cards.

Some of these new breeds mimicked traits of other life forms in the multiverse; the vampiric sliver fed upon the life essence of its prey and was strengthened in return, much like the dreaded Sengir clan and their ilk. The gemhide sliver adopted an ability similar to that of the fabled Birds of Paradise, creating mana of any color whenever it wished. Basal slivers possessed the innate drive to sacrifice themselves to provide for their nestmates, similar to the way the master breeders of the Ebon Hand used Basal Thrulls for their dark rituals. Another new strain present during this time was the shadow sliver, trapped between two worlds when the nest within the bowels of Volrath's Stronghold was overlaid on Urborg. Presumably, this breed was a terror to the Rathi Tribes who were also caught in the overlay in their home, the City of Traitors. Without the leadership of their Queen, these sliver swarms raged across the plane, largely unstoppable when gathered in great enough numbers. The destruction caused by the slivers was not necessarily malevolent, the hive-minded creatures only sought a new queen, new leadership to guide their numbers.

Interestingly enough, the Shadow Sliver is a result of a half-assed existence between two worlds resulting from the Rathi Overlay. It's the only case of sliver I know that was changed-created from a plane overlay, essentially adding a new strain to the slivers that appeared in Urborg.
It's essentially a retcon as I get it, because this variant wasn't present during the Mirage saga.
This species is therefore an old one. They existed alongside the Queen, but they're not the same as they were before the overlay.

What's basically said for the other slivers is that they rapidly "read" traits of some other species and soon begin to mimic them, sometimes to an extent that is almost as good as the original - in case of the mana bird, it's a perfect replica of the effect!

I can smell a no limits fallacy here which is easily countered by the fact that there's only a limited amount of new slivers and yet countless creatures with all different abilities which have yet to be copied and integrated into new sliver strains.
Still, the copied abilities are particularly good ones.
So we can settle on few copied abilities, but some of the best available around. That said, they don't copy the abilities of creatures with mid/high mana costs, although they can copy the abilities of Sengirs, who are not exactly cheap to cast.

For a time, the planeswalkers Freyalise and Lord Windgrace maintained some control over the slivers in their respective realms. Once the Weaver King discovered the simplicity of their hivemind, he quickly took control of them for his own purposes and used them to wage war on their former masters.

The hivemind is supposedly simple - not stupid I guess, but nothing exceptional so much that a sort of psychic vampire with telepathic and mind control abilities could actually find the key to the control of all slivers.
Did the slivers act as relays to propagate the Weaver King's control?
I have neither the time nor the will to read two MtG novels to learn more, at the moment, but surely, based on the article, there would be a great many quotes about the slivers to dig there.

Since his destruction, the slivers are presumably once again without leadership, though it's indicated that the slivers' hivemind is slowly becoming sentient and self-aware, negating further need for a Queen.

So as a whole, they'd get closer to the end of evolution that the Overlord was, but with its own collective mind being spread among all creatures.
There was no mention of sentience and self awareness regarding the Overlord, and yet it was the absolute evolution of the species. If we were to reconcile both facts, we'd have to consider that the Sliver Overlord was, for all intents and purposes, sentient and self-aware.

Sure enough, this also means all slivers before that certainly are fiendish.

The Hivestone, a strange artifact discovered within the ruins of the Stronghold, was later found to have been used by the various evincars of Rath's past to control the seething sliver hive and its Queen. Upon its rediscovery however, the device became a curse to its wielder, bending its possessor's will to the will of the swarm.

The Hivestone, a rather complex addition.
The game mechanics have all creatures of the player who uses the hivestone to become slivers as well.
But the fluff
However, I think it's pretty clear that if any further fluff were to be added about that artifact, it would certainly support the idea that at least some creatures within the vicinity of the device would become slivers.

It also brings the problem of knowing if such creatures lose free will, of if they lose any capacity or will to harm slivers and get harmed by them, and will actually try to protect other slivers and even band with them.

Besides, game wise, that would mean those transformed creatures suddenly gain that strange capacity to gain all other slivers' abilities, and that means gaining that special connection that "binds" all slivers.

Last but not least, although the game mechanics don't produce such an effect, do slivered creatures cast their abilities to other slivers? If this would be true, it would be quite crazy. But let's keep cool, there's just no evidence of that at all.

Those hivestones are still powerful artifacts nonetheless, they beg further clarification.
The fluff itself implies that several such stones were needed to fully control the slivers:

"Rath's evincars used hivestones to control the slivers, but the overlay put their power into unwitting hands. Now the stones make not masters, but slaves."

One could be used to control even the Sliver Queen.

The problem here, though, is that the article complicates matters by talking of only one stone and amplifies the disconnect between the card's effects in game, and the fluff. But both the article and the fluff agree that the overlay changed the properties of an excavated hivestone.
I'd say that the wielder of that stone, according to the fluff and the article, loses a large part of his free will.

Slivers are implied to survive well into the future, taking on even more new and bizarre abilities.

More evolutions down the road, more abilities-copying.

Posted: **Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:30 am**

Well, guess the new bizarre abilities are not so much strange at all.
Like in other fictional universes involving swarm creatures with mimetic and cheaty seemingly-grow-mass-out-of-thin-air abilities, the Slivers have assumed a new form.

The humanoid form.
The only remote hint at this possibility was guaranteed by the Muscle Sliver, and that was it. This one always annoyed me, it looked nothing like the other slivers.
But now it's all rastamanoid sliver. Yeepee!

Several details were provided in this little story: Prisoner of the Skep; or, How I Encountered the Slivers—and Lived to Tell the Tale! (Jennifer Clarke Wilkes
26 June 2013)

"One emitted a strange series of buzzing clicks and guttural commands, then clawed arms emerged from all of them. Is there no limit to their adaptations?"
—Hastric, Thunian scout

The letter Being a Report on an Urgent Threat to All Civilized Nations
by Hastric, scout in the employ of Ardestan

A seeming eternity of struggling through the savagery of a benighted land at last brought me to the borders of the territory I had sought for so long. Ragged, starving, and harried by bloodsucking vermin of every description, I no longer resembled the bold adventurer who had set out to find glory and fortune in the wide wilderness. Shelter and sustenance were my primary needs now.

I surveyed my surroundings. I had come at last to the shores of the Eastern Sea, an ill-starred realm that had seen much conflict in past ages. The echoes of ancient mage wars still rang here, preserved in weird formations of unnatural stone and amber shapes that sprouted like some unholy forest from the wave-battered cliffs. Every rock, it seemed, held ancient monsters birthed in a primordial chaos, now preserved as eternal shadows in the tortured earth.

Strange marks scarred the stones and the thin, sour soil. They resembled the scars left by beasts to mark their territory, as bruins claw the trees. But these bore no resemblance to any spoor I had encountered in my many expeditions, and I began to fear I was among beings unlike anything familiar. The scoring seemed to change midway through an individual's passage, growing deeper and farther apart, then nearly vanishing as they became finer and smaller. I had crouched down by a cliff to examine a set of tracks more closely, reaching to extract my notebook and pen so as to record them with as much exactitude as I could, when a sound from above alerted me to danger. I started to look up.

Too late.

I was struck with all the weight of a basher's cudgel, and all sensibility fled for a time.

Awareness returned, along with an unholy head-ache and a weird, shrieking gabble. I cracked open my eyes to find myself partly buried amid loose earth, slabs of shale, and other detritus, at the bottom of a subterranean cavern. Dim light filtered through a small opening high above, where the earth had apparently given way. My small blade, the only protection I had brought on my journeyings, was not to be found, and was most likely entombed beneath the rockfall.

I apparently had tumbled into some sort of beastly nest. On every surface swarmed beings out of nightmare, with gleaming, gemlike eyes and "hair" more like the squirming tentacles of a jelly-fish or polypod. Many were of bestial appearance, but a few could generously be considered humanoid. All were covered with chitinous plates that glistened and slid about like oiled pieces of machinery. The creatures chittered to each other in a never-ending racket as they pursued rote tasks with no apparent purpose.

As my head cleared, I began to wonder: How had I survived my untoward arrival? I focused for a moment on my physical condition and felt nothing more serious than a few scrapes and an egg-sized swelling at the base of my skull. I tried raising a half-pinned arm, experimentally, and saw, to my horror, that during my unconscious state my natural... inclination had shaped my body to resemble those of my strange companions—the limb tipped by a clawed and jointed member. Instinctively, I began to return my form to its most typical state. As I did so, the chittering grew louder and more excited, and the upper limbs of the nearer creatures began to ripple and re-form themselves. Before my very eyes, they became tentacular, then sported five-fingered hands that clutched at the air.

Apparently the things had thought me one of their brood and had left me to my own concerns. Though they clearly had some sort of shapeshifting ability, I sensed that too rapid or extreme a change on my part might be perceived as a threat. I relaxed again into the form of the others and rested quietly. The incessant noise returned to its normal low thrum, and the creatures focused again on their ceaseless work. It dawned on me that my circumstances offered a unique opportunity to explore and learn more about this strange colony, as long as I could avoid hostile attention.

On looking more carefully about my surroundings, I noticed something else. Everywhere, in the slabs of shale stone that formed the cavern, I could see myriad fossilized creatures. They were scaled, plated, with crablike claws, long tails, elongated probosces. Something about them was inescapably familiar, and in a flash of intuition I realized that those preserved specimens must have been kin to the beings that surrounded me. What had happened to change them so fundamentally?

Perhaps my investigation could turn up more about their history and origin. Fortunately, my journal was still within reach, the bent quill yet caught amid its pages. If I could hunch my posture and keep my body turned partly away from the others, I might be able to surreptitiously record my experiences.

I began to unearth myself from the rubble, carefully, all the while attempting to mimic the alien movements of those around me. Their unearthly thrumming was beyond my ability, however. There were several openings in the cavern, and I started moving slowly toward one of them, when the hive was thrown into disorder by the sudden appearance of a monstrous specimen of their kind. It boomed at the smaller creatures in an imperious fashion, and they scuttled about into a formation at its feet. When I remained, irresolute, the giant turned its horrid face to me and repeated its dreadful command. I decided to join the general movement rather than risk suspicion.

The large one moved purposefully into a tunnel, followed by the flock of smaller beings and myself. I quickly lost track of the many twists and turns and branching ways we followed, until we finally arrived in another chamber. I squinted in the light, which, though feeble, was nevertheless brighter than my previous location. Around me rose tier upon tier of shelves built out of a curving wall seemingly crafted from amber slabs. A sickly yellow glow filtered through those plates, in which were suspended inhuman forms. Myriad openings snaked off in every direction, including up and down.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw that scores of other creatures filled the place. Many were like the drones (or "thrums," as I had begun to think of them) that surrounded me. Others, somewhat larger, crouched against its walls, scratching at the soft stone, while more yet creaked and clicked in what sounded like a chant. Beyond were shapes that confounded my eye: translucent globes that grew like pustules from the walls, nightmare shapes twisting within their membranes. They resembled nothing so much as eggs, but what embryos would they hatch? Other thrums crawled over and between the swelling pods, evidently tending to them as worker bees within a hive.

Under me was stone, within which gaped the form of another ancient horror. The petrified behemoth was clearly akin to those that filled the walls, but it was even more insectile and alien than the fossils I had seen before. It was also immense, greater in size than a dragon. Of more immediate import were the heaped shreds of armor and clothing, and the fragments of bone, that mutely told the fate of others who had preceded me into this monstrous den.

I became aware of strange marks in the shale walls: some sort of crude carvings amid the ever-present fossils. Intent as I was in studying my surroundings, I did not at first realize that the leader was "addressing" the group again. At its signal, the thrums spread out across the chamber and began to sway in time to the chanting. I imitated their motions as best I could, wondering all the while what purpose this gathering served.

The noises ceased. A new figure had entered the chamber, not as large as the one that had led us here, but which exuded obvious authority. Its form was closer to human than those I had seen up to this point. All eyes were on it as it began to declaim in a clicking, fluid speech. Although I could not understand the barbarous sounds, there was obvious organization that suggested at least a somewhat higher level of intelligence. (I have dubbed this form "primes" and the more bestial versions "predators.") It turned around and around as it spoke, gesturing at its audience, at the walls, at the horror in the stone floor. Its form twisted and shifted constantly, at times resembling the preserved specimens that loomed in the amber, at others the various forms that surrounded me. It alternately grew heavier, more thickly armored, with oversized claws and fangs; then stretched out into a more serpentine form; then returned to its original shape.

I perceived that it was leading a call-and-response, the spectators moving in precise patterns and answering its clattering in ritual fashion. A particular sequence of clicks and buzzes was repeated over and over. Was this some sort of religious ritual? Perhaps the strange performance was recounting the story of the creatures' origin or arrival on this world. Or maybe it was a war dance!

Though the thought of escape was uppermost in my mind, I realized that I had a duty to warn the civilized world of this uncanny threat. The more I could learn of their history and nature, the better I could arm society against them. Then, while the hive was occupied, I might best be able to explore its secrets. Only after studying all I could might I seek clean daylight again.

Swaying along with the crowd as best I could, though my throat could not form the barbarous sounds they made, I slowly moved toward one of the entrances. I slipped partly into the tunnel, apparently without attracting noticed. I fumbled out my notebook and hurriedly sketched out some of what I saw. Some dried ink yet remained on the pen's nib, which I moistened with my tongue—sufficient for a crude record at least. I would have dipped it in my own blood if necessary.

I backed away farther from the singing hall, and soon was plunged into endless dark. Only by touch was I able to progress, fearing at every moment that my hands would encounter some plated monster. My ears strained for the sound of the omnipresent hum, which I turned away from whenever I found a suitable passage. I sensed the weight of the rock above me, felt the air grow thick, and knew that I descended. Gradually, I picked my way downward. The alien scent of the hive, whose tang had filled my consciousness for so long that I had ceased to notice it, began to thin. In its place was a new smell: salt water, sea wrack. Somewhere nearby there must be an outlet. I let my senses guide me onward, though I still shivered at the thought of nearby horrors.

Slowly I grew aware of a change in the texture of the primeval blackness. The smell of the sea grew stronger, and I began to make out the vague shapes of my surroundings. Step by step I edged forward, until I came to an opening into a new cave, quite unlike those I had seen till then and evidently uninhabited. It seemed much older, somehow. Bluish light faintly illuminated the expanse from a small opening on the far side, and I could hear, echoing within the gloomy confines, the beat of surf on shore.

I stood on a veritable pavement of fossils like those I had seen suspended in amber, as well as among heaps of long-dry bones and carapaces both in the shape of my captors and those of bats, fish, and insects. On the walls were daubed some shapes that suggested insects and small flying animals, as well as the ever-present fossils, in slabs arranged to show them prostrate. A long gap, and then some uncouth scratchings, imbued with pigment, that depicted beings like those that swarmed above. The first ones in the sequence were small, four-legged but with the unmistakable tendrils these creatures all shared, then more and more varieties and sizes, including the bipedal specimens that seem to direct the colony's activities. Some flew with bat wings, others sported great horns, yet others had finned feet like those of frogs; there seemed numberless adaptations of shape.

Whatever had transformed the progenitor race had evidently occurred in this seaside cave—and for all I knew, many others like it. Evidently, those ancient predators had eaten the smaller creatures, but how did that connect to their peculiar evolution? The strange dance I had observed might have been intended to reproduce this event in some way. Perhaps a strange disease, or a magical curse of some sort, had been carried by the food animals? Or the plated horrors might themselves have come here from another world—borne on a storm of the Æther, perhaps—and been irrevocably changed by their arrival here.

My whole being rebelled against the idea, but cold, logical deduction led me to the inescapable conclusion: This great hive was built, not found, by the brutish-looking things that now inhabited it—or at least by their forebears. Although they clearly had no sophisticated intelligence, they were clever and organized enough to present a terrible threat.

My reverie was broken by rasping cries behind me, as a number of the horrors burst through the tunnel I had followed. There was no more time to study the mystery, and I sprinted for the sea-cave's egress, adopting as I did so a form better suited to an aquatic escape. Some of the creatures bristled, hedgehog-like, as the various plates and spines of their bodies elongated and then were launched as deadly missiles. Clouds of darts flew about me as I leapt into the water, and one pierced my leg. But my disguise preserved me, and as I slipped beneath the blessed waves I could no longer hear the chittering screams.

I append now for your edification a summary of the characteristics and forms of the beings I encountered, as well as the hurled plate that injured me, with its mysterious fluid still evident, if coagulated. You will find also detailed sketches of that great nest or hive, which in their clattering tongue they name the Skep. I have dubbed these strange creatures "slivers." Uncouth though they may be, they constitute a serious danger to civilized folk everywhere. The more we can learn of them and their strengths and weaknesses, the better we can prepare to exterminate them. For the sake of progress.

Story's crap and of course, the author comes up with the name sliver. It's a background for their introduction to the 2014 edition, so I'd have to see how that fits in the timeline.

In the story, we learn that shapeshifters can be considered by slivers as kinfolk, see?
Assuming you can do something as similar as turning an arm into some articulated claw-life blade, you're good to go, basically.
Considering that the modified Rathi slivers were fooled by an artificial construct built by Volrath, this is not surprising.
They don't even try to repel the intruder.

On another note, it is perhaps intersting to learn that according to Sliversmith, "after centuries of labor, its creations outnumber those they were to mimic."

Now, one of the most powerful sliver, storywise, would probably be the Spinneret Sliver:

Spinneret Sliver wrote: Each new generation of slivers evolves to assimilate the strengths of the prey upon which their progenitors fed.

If we recall what's told in the story above, we read this:

Of more immediate import were the heaped shreds of armor and clothing, and the fragments of bone, that mutely told the fate of others who had preceded me into this monstrous den.

[...]

I stood on a veritable pavement of fossils like those I had seen suspended in amber, as well as among heaps of long-dry bones and carapaces both in the shape of my captors and those of bats, fish, and insects. On the walls were daubed some shapes that suggested insects and small flying animals, as well as the ever-present fossils, in slabs arranged to show them prostrate. A long gap, and then some uncouth scratchings, imbued with pigment, that depicted beings like those that swarmed above. The first ones in the sequence were small, four-legged but with the unmistakable tendrils these creatures all shared, then more and more varieties and sizes, including the bipedal specimens that seem to direct the colony's activities. Some flew with bat wings, others sported great horns, yet others had finned feet like those of frogs; there seemed numberless adaptations of shape.

Whatever had transformed the progenitor race had evidently occurred in this seaside cave—and for all I knew, many others like it. Evidently, those ancient predators had eaten the smaller creatures, but how did that connect to their peculiar evolution? The strange dance I had observed might have been intended to reproduce this event in some way. Perhaps a strange disease, or a magical curse of some sort, had been carried by the food animals? Or the plated horrors might themselves have come here from another world—borne on a storm of the Æther, perhaps—and been irrevocably changed by their arrival here.

My whole being rebelled against the idea, but cold, logical deduction led me to the inescapable conclusion: This great hive was built, not found, by the brutish-looking things that now inhabited it—or at least by their forebears. Although they clearly had no sophisticated intelligence, they were clever and organized enough to present a terrible threat.

Therefore it becomes clear: they obtained humanoid shapes because they ate humanoids.

Flavour-wise, I think this ability sucks, as it opens the door to a ton of designs that largely depart from the sliver style.
Not to say that the slivers are predators, yet among the many creatures they ate, they hardly ever took the extra limbs, extra fingers, eyes and so on.

Simply put, they've assimilated the humanoid shape because HUMANS!

Oh and they cleverly left out the best part though: the brains (no sophisticated intelligence).

So much that in the flavour text of Sliver Legion (Future Sight), we read:

Sliver Legion wrote: Hidden within the clicking, chittering swarm is a unique mind, still young, but growing more aware as time passes.

It becomes aware. Keep going dude!
It's from Future Sight, meaning that this could stretch as far as the Magic universe goes.
We know for example that thanks to the text on the Sliversmith card, slivers were built centuries into the future.

This capacity to assimilate the best traits doesn't happen out of the blue. There's probably a process of trial and error, to see what abilities seem good enough to keep.
The astute mind would see that bearing you could genetically create a creature, one could introduce a seemingly good ability, only acting a backdoor for a later much disastrous side effect or sleeping function.
For example, on the premise of making slivers more powerful by taping a given source of power, said source of power would also corrupt them or have them decay, or make that source unstable, etc.
The possibilities are limitless.

Add that to Plague Sliver and Metallic Sliver, plus the ability for any acceptable shapeshiter to easily enter the Skep, and you have enough ways to actually get rid of these creatures.

Another fantastic ability though is the one obtained from the Mistform Sliver:

Mistform Sliver wrote: Taking the form of a junior researcher, the first sliver slipped out of Riptide.

Starfleet Jedi

Magic the Gathering: Slivers, the real deal

Magic the Gathering: Slivers, the real deal

Re: Magic the Gathering: Slivers, the real deal

Re: Magic the Gathering: Slivers, the real deal

Re: Magic the Gathering: Slivers, the real deal