Talgians

The Talgians are a Xenopoid type lifeform that exist naturally as small, worm like fungi who, by themselves, possess very little individual cognitive ability or intelligence. However, being what they are, the Talgians possess the ability to link with other Talgians to form a larger whole, each of which possess a greater cognitive ability than the individual members do by themselves. By joining together, Talgians are able to increase their total mental processing power hundreds of times over, allowing these larger communities to possess intelligence and cognitive abilities either matching, or exceeding, those of other sentient species across the galaxy.

These "hive" colonies also provide the Talgians with an important advantage in both mobility, and speed, increasing the speed by which they can move to many hundreds of times more than what an individual Talgian can do. Hive colonies also give the Talgians the ability to hunt in packs, allowing them to take down, process and consume much large prey than they would on their own. The hives also allow the Talgians to escape a wide range of threats and dangers far easier than were they to be moving about individually. And, while the Talgians prefer to live in large, communal hive colonies, each member of the colony fully retains its own individuality, and sense of self.

This allows the colony, as a whole, to function more efficiently, and effectively, as parts of the community can choose to disagree with the greater whole, and even split off from the colony, and take a different path than the others in the collective. This, in turn, creates a type of democratic rule and freedom of choice within the hive that benefits all. This also allows the hive to divide up work, and share it among smaller groups within the hive to greatly improve both speed and efficiency when handling difficult tasks.