The Bees

This page is outdated. Please update this page to reflect recent events or newly available information and see the talk page for possible discussion on this.

"Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see." — The Buzzing

The Bees are a manner of intelligent, self-aware phenomena in the Secret World. Also known as The Buzzing, the Education Protocol, and other similar names, they primarily inhabit Agartha but are not limited to it. They claim to not even be limited by time, but to exist everywhere and everywhen simultaneously.

Nature

It is unknown for certain, but it is highly probably The Bees are technorganic: a hybrid of life-form and machine. They serve and worship a 'Machine-Goddess' as their queen, and the Agarthan Stationmaster comments in passing that their honey has the peculiar aftertaste of "machine oil", alluding to their potential semi-mechanical nature.

Origin

It is uncertain where the Bees come from. The talk about "Time before Time" (possibly before the 4 Ages) - and make reference to a "Machine Goddess" or "Immaculate Machine,, which they seem to also name as "Gaia". Although it is exactly what they mean by this.

That also state that Before Gaia there was chaos and when talking about the dimensions being constructed in the "time before time" that Gaia still remembers his tinkering (referring to Eblis, Dominus Inferni in Profondis as one of "The Builders"). So, it is uncertain if they were created by this machine/goddess/gaia or, if they were created by the same beings that created the various dimensions (at least, that created ours and the Hell Dimensions) at a later date.

The Bees refer to these builders variously as "Builders" "Titans", and "The Host". They also state that revealing the true name of these creatures would "break" us until we are ready to learn it.

Purpose

The Bees seem to serve two main purposes:

1) They select a host and, through some as-yet undetermined means, alters the host's brain chemistry to cause the character to develop supernatural abilities and an 'awareness' of the Secret World.

• The Agents in the game are referred to by some NPCs (such as Marianne Chen) as 'Bees', which may refer to this

2) In much the same way conventional bees gather nectar, Agarthan Bees gather knowledge, passed through several eras of existence. The Bees insist that 'the beginning' is not so; in fact, there have been three Ages before our own, and they have collected the sum total of knowledge from every era.

• The collection of Lore in the game is meant to represent the Bees transmitting their knowledge to the characters.