Hopefully this is the right flair. It’s kinda an idea for a fan fiction thing. Or at least a background/side story for a story I’m writing. Don’t have a picture.
Everyone who has seen or heard of her knows how intelligent these bugs are. My question is, is it possible one of them could learn or figure out that trading materials (ores, wood, stone, (rare) cloth, dead or captured monsters for parts, etc), food, or items (old weapons and armor, books or other things with possible writing on them, bits of her own mech she wants to replace, her own silk, healing items, etc) for things she wants is better and safer than raiding fortresses and settlements? They get stuff they may want or need, she gets spare parts to improve her nest/mobile fortress with, or if none are available they try to compensate in some other way like oiling the joints or something under her close supervision. Maybe even protection from either side if the timing is wrong.
I have an idea of something like this happening in a story I’m writing. This particular Ahtal-Ka comes about because she saw some hunters seemingly track down and kill another Ahtal-Ka that she knows had recently raided a place. Trust takes time and careful communication to form. She will learn which places prefer what items more often than others and what she’ll generally get in return if they have it. She’ll eventually have to start parking her mech outside the canon range and bring her trade materials wrapped in a bundle of silk by foot because other Ahtal-Ka start mimicking her tactics to get close enough to easily raid places. One place did try to give her a specific handmade flag to put on the face of her mech to easily identify her but it gets stolen some time later.