Article 49: Legion Change
The process of conversion of a non-Legion entity into a Legion one can be confusing at times, in large part due to bans that have been placed on replicating the specific processes that brought it into being. It has, however, been completely documented and is well-understood, particularly by Legion Biotechnicians and Recruiters who continue to tweak the process to this day to ensure that their new willing converts are as comfortable and happy with the outcome of the transformation as possible. The transformation process takes place in four distinct steps: Injection, saturation, activation, and linkage, and all four are required for a healthy and stable Legion to result.
The first stage of transformation is the injection. A developed Legion's body is able to shift the nanites in their hands into a "vine" form that can deliver the payload of nanites to the target. The tendency for this use is also why wood-colored slightly-armored "gloves" are the second-most common armor feature on a member of Legion after footwear that allows for rooting. Typically, this vine form takes the shape of the eponymous mass of vines, hypodermic-tipped injection tendrils that (usually) painlessly pierce a target's skin and seek out parts of the circulatory system to place the nanites into. While tendril vines are the most common means of delivery, during the Great Legion War numerous other nanite delivery systems were developed, most taking the form of combat weapons that could more quickly deliver batches of nanite at the point of contact, though these are obviously painful to the target and generally require multiple strikes to saturate.
The second stage of Legion transformation is circulatory saturation of nanites. While Legion nanites are powerful mahoutechnological devices, their specific purpose and small size render them fragile and vulnerable to a wide array of threats, including the immune systems of potential targets. To counteract this, Legion transformation nanites have an active and an inactive state. In their inactive state, transformation nanites scan and emulate essential cells within the host's body. In humanoids, they typically take the form and role of red and white blood cells, to the extent that nanites emulating blood will deliver oxygen to the body and white blood cell emulators will fight off infections. Biotechnicians have adapted this technology to provide emergency transfusions and pre-programmed cells to deal with viral infections, though neither are a permanent solution. Transformation nanites lack the full function of a Legion nanite and will break down after a few hours if not activated, with a body disposing of dead nanites in the same manner as other dead cells. The purpose of the saturation phase of transformation is to ensure an even and stable change, as the nanites must often shift around parts of body mass and transmute fat, bone, and muscle. It also prevents the famous movie trope of a soldier being injected in the arm, then cutting off the arm as it changes to stop the rest of the body from changing. While this method was used very early on in the Legion War, the current method with the inactive nanites was developed early enough that it historically wouldn't have happened many times.
The third stage of transformation, activation, occurs once saturation with standard transformation nanites has been reached. The exact volume of nanites required for this stage differs from subject to subject typically based on body weight, but generally rests in the range of 100 nanites per cubic centimeter of body volume, with nonhuman bodies requiring a larger amount. Specialized nanites also exist for especially small and large creatures, with Kaiju in particularly being vulnerable to injection from coordinated groups of Legion girls with specially-synchronized nanites. When a full payload of transformation nanites has reached circulation through the target's body, the Legion's injection vines will release a set of specialized nanites typically referred to as "activator" nanites. These nanites are considerably larger than transformation nanites, though still able to navigate the bloodstream of their host. Using tiny transmitters and sensors in conjunction with miniaturized magical spells, they quickly disperse through the body and transmit data between themselves to map out the host body and coordinate instructions to send to the various transformation nanites. Once they are all in place and their mapping instructions have been coordinated with the "body blueprint", which is telepathically gleaned from the Legion injector, the activation nanites begin to broadcast instructions to the transformation nanites within the body and the actual transmutation of cells begins. At this point, the change into a new member of Legion is considered typically irreversible, though in the centuries after the war, technologies have been developed that can cause the activation nanites to reverse their instructions and return a body to its original forms, though even this method becomes impossible after the activation nanites are themselves converted into Legion cells, a process that happens after about a week of error-testing the new Legion body and seeking out missing cells to convert. Transformation nanites in their active state are powerful mahoutechnological machines, completely rewriting the DNA of host cells then propagating those changes through advanced body magics and even building new cells when needed from surrounding materials such as clothing, terrain, and even air. When the body contains excess material to what is needed, the transformation will often send this extra mass into the ground for later nutrient use. Spots where larger beings were transformed will often show telltale signs of this, with especially fertile ground producing abundant plant growth in the area. The transformation itself is tailored to the host's body, and tends to make best use of the materials it has, gauging both natural physical abilities and mental capacity, though it is able to alter both of these parameters if the Legion providing the nanites is skilled enough at guiding the activation nanites.
With the body completely converted into a new Legion form, the final phase of the transformation, hive linkage, can begin. The body's new legion cell-based brain is innately capable of telepathy and will automatically make contact with the telepathic frequencies matching the legion that transformed them. This introduces them to the hive network, and grants them access to subroutines that let them instinctively use their new Legion abilities, including rooting, retracting and extruding their armor, their racial telepathy, and the basics of their new terraforming or spellcasting abilities. While these benefits occur regardless of whether they are able to contact a full planetary hive or a single Legion venturing away from their home planet, connecting with a larger group, especially a full Legion hive complete with hive tree, has even greater potential effects. In the days of the war, this connection, or connection to a large squad of Legion, would result in the victim's personality being overwritten and their memories and spiritual essence being discarded, only to be collected in Althea's massive telepathic well called the Void of Souls, making a victim into a loyal and effective soldier to be directed by the planet's environmental imperative and an instinctual view of sapient life as pollution to be eliminated. Now, though, with few exceptions (namely certain unsavory pirate queens) the connection process is of great benefit to many who join Legion. Chemical imbalances that would have resulted in serious mental conditions are corrected and personal trauma is rooted out and made accessible to potentially thousands of telepathic therapists who can choose to share in the mental pain in order to help understand it. While not a perfect fix, it gives a new recruit and their new sisters insight into their mental problems that may not have been available otherwise.
Initially, the process of Legion conversion only worked on Humans, though during the war and since Biotechnicians have made modifications to the nanites that allow them to work on nearly any sapient being. Some otherwise difficult conversions, like Nanoswarms, are simply a matter of allowing the nanites to propel properly as they take position with other nanites, which they must work harder to emulate. Others, such as Androids and Golems, have been adapted to circulate through systems of lubrication or thaumaturgic pathways within the beings, and create entire new systems using the raw materials as a baseline but taking great care to migrate the consciousness of the being into the newly-created brain. Androids in particular have their subsystems copied from their mahou drive cores, and the intensely valuable crystal that remains from this core will find itself reincorporated as ornamentation, weaponry, or armor. With recent advancements, even Spirits with their amorphous ectoplasmic insides are vulnerable to nanite conversion, and once the activation process has begun the nanites will even go intangible with the spirit, cutting off that technique as an avenue for preventing the process.
