Tea Party
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Splitting from their ancestor, some colonial filtersquids returned to grow on marine bubbleweed. occasionally taking in the smaller bubbleweed seeds, they made use of the bubbleweed hydrogen. The ones that reversed the growth of their inner cavity from their embryonic disc-like state, as many of their cousins have done in the past, placing their mouths between the tentacles holding to bubbleweed, were able to capture enough hydrogen to fully replace the role of nitrogen as the main lifting gas. In turn, the bubbleweed had little problem adapting to survive the simple filter-feeding digestive system, making use of the nitrogen-rich fecal matter as fertilizer, courtesy of the nitrogen-producing gut bacteria (Nitritus, Nitratus, and Denitritus), eventually growing directly out of their oral opening, independent of the seabed. As the hydrogen provided higher buoyancy, many would be adjected out of the water surface, and adapting their skin to secrete a slimy mucus lining & desiccation provided the means to make use of that for extended dispersal. it was only the arrival of the growing rooijmas that pushed them out of the water and into air-sifting & a neuston. By growing a detachable membrane that connects all the zooids and enables the transport of resources, they were able to form one large cohesive organism, making use of the intermediary gradients between their ancestral castes to form the component zooids of the modern tea party. To survive the extreme vulnerability of their new lifestyle, they produce botulinum within the mucus glands, a potent neurotoxin that makes them deadly to the bite.
Hatter Zooid
Forming a translucent yellow cloud floating past the skyline, like a solid wall of bubbly foam, each Hatter appears like a bubble stretching into a thin shimmering ribbon fluttering in the wind. These ribbons are the Hatter's inside-out digestive tracts, stemming from what was once the throat, sifting through microorganisms and spores in the air on a sticky surface, they provide most of the food for the entire colony. The nutrition is transported across the thin interconnected membranes, under a yellow coating, warning predators of the neurotoxins covering the outer surface. The warning protects the vulnerable structure, as they hold on tight to their neighbors via the nubby remains of absorbed tentacles. Together they form a double-layered wall, containing a large inner sphere of hydrogen keeping them afloat, the inner wall made of what was once their anal orifice, opening and closing to provide suction and manipulate the internal airflow.
When the Hatter produces Gametes, they'll be released within the inner sphere, joined by a constant cloud of spores from their teabag symbionts. These will be funneled towards a corner between the oldest Hatters, where some of the eggs will squeeze through, forming a Royal or entering an existing one, connected in a long chain dragging in the wind under the float. At the very end of the colony's lifecycle, When the float is as large as it will ever be, the Hatters will break off the tethers tying them to the ocean and ascending to the edge of the troposphere, entering the Prince stage. As Prince, they will float over the world's oceans, gradually letting go of the trailing payload of Royal Pips one by one, and use their remaining days to release airborne sperm until they die, as the Hatters are not the beginning of the zooid life cycle, but it's very end.
Pillar Zooid
Forming the tethers connecting the Float to the ocean, the Pillars are the heart of the colony. They climb one on top of the other, forming a continuous stack and connecting their inner cavity. Each stack sits above a collection of teabag seeds, that will be consumed one by one by the lowest member of the stack, pumping up the seed's hydrogen and spores by squeezing their tentacles over each other. In the same gulp, they consume the seed's polyurethane & polyethylene inner coating, building the walls within their inner tissue that reduce the constant leakage and make hydrogen containment tenable in the first place, preparing them for their future life as hatters. When it's time to expand the float, the Pillar will squeeze itself into the corner between the Hatters above & move the stack to connect in a corner by its side, reduce its tentacles, release its gut tissue out of its oral opening and inflate to form the float's outer wall.
Within the lip tissue of the oral opening, the Pillars have fully developed mucus & botulinum glands, providing the neurotoxic slimy mucus lining that coats and protects the rest of the colony, mostly concentrated within the Hatters & Royals. The neurotoxin, along with water and occasional nutrition, is passively transported within the pillar tissues using capillary action. To prepare the float for sexual maturity increase the air-sifting envelope, the pillar stacks need to get taller. To do so the bottom Pillar will climb upon a nearby Narghile, which will grow out of its stomach and become the newest Pillar at the bottom of the stack. As the float grows in size and the hydrogen feed rate no longer matches the leak rate well enough to maintain an increased internal pressure, it will naturally descend, and additional Narghiles will take the role of Pillars, forming additional stacks & providing further security against premature release.
Narghile Zooid
During the Ace stage, all of the newborn Royals will become Narghiles. Forming the vast fields floating across the water's surface, the Narghile is as much the farm as it is the farmer. They are intimately intertwined with the Teabag symbionts, whose roots reach all the way to its stomach, where they get plenty of nitrogen from the Tea Party's symbiotic gut microbes, Nitritus, Nitratus, and Denitritus, as well as the Narghile's own contribution of fertilizer, for the Narghile filter feeds from the ocean surface, providing nutrition to both itself and its symbionts. It is the most active of zooids, with two arms constantly tending to its Teabag companion and passing its seeds to the collection points at the base of the Pillars, and four of its arms forming the interconnected grid binding the Narghiles and the Pillars. They are also the least poisonous, and thus the most vulnerable, resulting in constant shuffling and grid rearrangement, in response to predation, storms, or new Pillar stacks.
Royal Zooid
- Royal Pip: Every new colony starts its life as a Royal descending from the sky. Leaking out its hydrogen as it sways in the wind, the Royal Pip will slowly descend onto the water, where it will start absorbing water to find its place beneath the waves. The simplest of zooids, inside its delicate it carries enough royal zooid eggs and symbiotic teabag spores to form a full colony, with more to spare. But its membrane is not without purpose, yellow tone warns predators of the neurotoxic coating covering its outer surface, while still allowing it to filter feed and absorb nutrition, letting the eggs develop into additional pips. The pip, identical in form, will take some of the eggs and seeds, emerge out of the opening, and stick to its outer membrane, in a process that could easily be mistaken for a large-scale version of mitosis. Within days an entire field of interconnected Royals will emerge. Each royal will start growing out its tentacles, becoming a Narghile.
- Royal Ace: Once the field of Narghiles and Teabags is large enough to support a float, the Narghiles closest to the center will start collecting the seeds, with the first one maturing through the Pillar caste into a Hatter caste, followed by more and more Narghiles piling up to develop the Float and Tethers. As soon as the float can support a reproductive tail, it will start growing Royal Aces, Royals insusceptible to fertilization whose only role is to mature and drop into the water and join the ever-expanding agricultural workforce of Narghiles.
- Royal King: Once a Tea Party reaches sexual maturity, it will start growing Royal Kings. Filled with male gametes and hydrogen, they will await the winds to break off from the colony, swaying in the wind like a leaf as they gradually let go of their content of airborne sperm to make its way through the skies in the hope of fertilizing a Royal Queen.
- Royal Queen: Halfway through their reproductive life cycle, the Tea Party will move from its King phase to its queen phase. It will stop producing male gametes and move to produce the Royal Queens that will be in charge of reproduction, collecting male gametes dispersed in the wind, they will await the final days of the Tea Party.
- Royal Prince: Upon the end of its life, the float will detach from the farm and ascend to the sky, entering its Prince phase. As a prince, it will go back to producing airborne sperm, self-fertilizing the remaining unfertilized Royals, releasing them to become Royal Pips and form new colonies, and spending the rest of its existence releasing airborne sperm until it dies. During this time, the remaining farmers will not go to waste but will rearrange themselves to form another float, starting the process again. In that way, a colony is potentially immortal, reincarnating again and again until it's beaten by the elements.