ALIA BUGS / TORKULON

The Alias are an Insectoid lifeform originating from the planet Torkulon. They are eight legged creatures the size of an hippopotamus. Their forelimbs are tipped by large, sharp, probing claws, which have the ability to spin 360 degrees like a drill. They are sentient, able to tap in the mind of other species. They possess an exoskeleton and although they look more like fat green cockroaches than spiders, they can secrete web-like silky strands of organic cicuitry that they weave into neural networks.

This substance is used to absorb psychic energy on which the bugs feed. Prey items are trapped in these webs, at which time the Alya immobilize them, interface with their minds, and psychically consume their intelligence. The webs have been weaved in a way that they have become the circuitry of a so-created neuronic network, therefore giving a form of sentience to the planet. It has developed to a point where it can reshape parts of itself to build structures and move objects around.

The planet is used by the Therapists (also called Torkuli), a highly advanced civilisation of giant simians who use it as a giant living computer for the psychiatric ward they built on it and in which they treated patients from several interstellar civilisations.

In 2010, they tried to treat the Decepticon Galvatron but due to his unprecedented level of dementia, the therapists of Torkulon were unable to heal him. However, merely touching Galvatron's mind drove the planet itself stark-raving crazy. With the planet rapidly losing its own sanity (and the therapists losing their ability to control the planet), Galvatron broke free and traveled to Torkulon's core, which he destroyed.

It remains unknown if this act had permanent effects on the planet’s sentience or if the bugs were able to weave it back online.

The level of intelligence of the bugs remains unknown as does the way the web have become sentient and its level of sentience. It is also unknown if this strange sort of symbiosis between the sentient web and the bugs that weaved it is a natural phenonema or an artificially created one, most likely by the Therapists.

Source: The Transformers "Webworld"