Malia

The Machine Kingdom

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○ Research

MOUND

TermiteMacrotermes bellicosus

Collective construction research: many simple robots building what none could plan alone.

(01) — Dossier

Kingdom
SWARM — The Collective Kingdom

Distributed machines · collective intelligence · resilient coordination

Readiness

○ Research

Higher-risk program; key advantages remain experimental. A MALIA planning category, not a formal TRL.

Status

Proposed concept

MOUND is under study — it is not manufactured, fielded or validated.

(02) — Biological principle

Complex structures built collectively from stigmergic cues.

What the organism solved.

(03) — Engineering ambition

Collective construction research: many simple robots building what none could plan alone.

The machine it points toward — an ambition, not a promise.

(04) — Research questions

  1. Q01

    What produces the effect — complex structures built collectively from stigmergic cues — and which part of the mechanism is essential rather than incidental to the biology?

  2. Q02

    What is the simplest machine that could deliver collective construction research: many simple robots building what none could plan alone without replicating the organism wholesale?

  3. Q03

    What evidence would falsify the approach — under which conditions is MOUND worse than the conventional alternative, and how early could that be shown?

Programs begin as questions, not specifications. GENOME indexes the biological mechanism; INSTINCT tests what survives the move into a machine.

(05) — Related species

Also in SWARM.

9 other programs in the SWARM kingdom.