It lived on a world that would come to be called Joad. Its home was one of the many metal spirals that twisted through the planet's crust like a rooty scaffold.
We shall call it Violet, for like its Willy Wonkian namesake, it was a large purplish-blue sphere content to sit around consuming based on the work of its ancestors. Not that there was anything worth moving for. As far out as Violet could see from its high perch was just a barren wasteland dotted by the spiral scaffolds emerging from the ground. Staying on the scaffold Violet received a constant supply of magnetic ripples to sustain itself.
But if that was the end of it, this story wouldn't be worth telling. No. One day, everything changed for Violet. The air vibrated its outermost layers as if distant lightning was striking, but there were no storms. Instinctually, Violet hardened its energy shell fearing an attack. But no further strike came.
Over months Violet noticed a change in the flavor of the root's pulses. Even the taste of the air grew more carbony.
Violet realized it was gripping the vine tight at each end where it pierced Violets violet orb. Violet grew less orby and more lumpy. The new taste in the root was getting worse, but Violet fed even more than ever, growing both its main body and the two new lumps. Other lonely spheres on other loops of root were doing the same all across the wasteland.
After a year Violet's lumps pulled away, feeding and growing on their own. Within four years the metal roots were full of dangling energy orbs of many colors. That was when a magnetic field unlike any Violet had seen before approached its root.
Upon stopping at the root's base, the metal and plastic contraption disgorged three fleshy bipeds. Violet saw memories from its ancestors and knew that such fleshy creatures were rarely worth the energy it cost to hunt them, but that vehicle might be worth a bite. Then violet remembered the abundant energy flowing through the root and ignored the newcomers.
"I'm telling ya, there's more of um now. Vine like this, last year had maybe 5 or 6, now there's 12 to 20 on each."
Violet and its brood had no concept of what the bipeds were saying, or even that soundwaves could be used to communicate. But they did take notice when the bipeds sent and received radio transmissions from someplace in the distance.
"Fine, Wilberforth, I can run some tests. Command says no ones filed anything out this far yet, so might as well get some prelims done. We'll both grab a nice little bonus check."
One of the primates ignited their backpack thrusters and flew up to Violet's perch. At the approaching hot air, Violet and its neighbor scootched away leaving more room for the biped.
"Well, they are capable of responding to external stimuli. Looks like the largest one is about 10 meters across, almost perfect sphere. The center of the sphere dangles about two meters below the polymer lattice. That's all consistent with findings from long-range photography.
"Up close I can't see any membrane, and the magnetic readings are just, I can't make anything of this, it's crazy powerful, all over the charts. The mass spectrometer…? I don't know, it’s like they don't exist. All I'm detecting is our atmosphere."
Violet wobbled toward the magnetic boxes the biped was pointing at it, but the biped flew a little further back.
"Looks like that grape's interested in ya, Mac."
"That would be very bad. These grapes have a storm of energy so strong it would rip my cells apart in seconds. I wonder if we can tap them as a power source. No idea how they are even containing it all."
Mac returned to his vehicle for equipment before flying back up and landing next to Violet. "OK, magnetic stimulus test #1." He extended a probe discharging an electric arc between its tips.
This electricity tasted wrong to Violet. A fracture formed in Violet’s outer shell and blasted the threatening fleshbag with a small fraction of its energy causing its overall size to slightly shrink. The other bipeds screamed as their friend's mangled corpse scattered across the wasteland.
The blast aroused the other grapes, both on Violet's vine and many others. A signal of danger, of threat, of war.
Violet let go of the vine and dropped down to the other bipeds as they scurried into their vehicle and radioed for help. They didn't get far, five other grapes fractured their surfaces and obliterated the jeep and its occupants in seconds. But the threat remained. A call had been made.
Violet followed the radio signal and lead hundreds of grapes rolling along the ancient blasted ground. It had been two generations since the grapes had been to war. There was no joy or thrill in this, for the grapes lacked such metacognition, barely aware of their own existence. What little awareness they had was focused on their survival, and right now, that meant war.
No commands were given as the grapes approached the colony, each just acted in response to the whole of the swarm. Some rolled up and over the colony walls, others blasted through them.
Small arms fire was useless against them, even gatling cannons just pissed off the grapes. A pair of Tesla tanks rolled out of the central tower that had been their landing craft a couple of years prior.
Concentrating their lightning the tanks managed to pop a single grape, but the resulting tornado of plasma instantly destroyed half the colony including the tanks. The tower got out one last transmission to a satellite in orbit and launched a quarantine beacon before toppling into the storm and melting.
The beacon warns everyone, "The planet Joad is off-limits. Fear the Grapes of Wrath."
Violet would never know of the beacon. As most of the grapes returned to their vines, Violet and a few others stayed to grow a new vine. The scraps of the colony were collected and reshaped, driven down into the ground until they contacted the magnetic mantle that linked all of the vines. Violet pulled the metal lattice behind itself, leaping and diving through Joad's crust, using up its stores of energy and shrinking out of existence as it established a solid foundation for future generations of grapes.
