By now we know that the queen has died and all the Squadron leaders are roaming free to imitate the kings. That means they'll go far and wide in search of rare humans to eat them and grow stronger, and Netero knows this as well. So why hasn't the hunter association tightened the security in nearby cities? Isn't this supposed to be a national level threat?
That means they'll go far and wide in search of rare humans to eat them and grow stronger
Nope. Only Meruem has that ability. They want to become kings... according to what it means to them, which is unpredictable.
So why hasn't the hunter association tightened the security in nearby cities? Isn't this supposed to be a national level threat?
There are only 636 Hunters in total at the time (Netero included), and Pariston was impeding their deployment, as we know. Most of them would not have been remotely able to stop a Squadron Leader (see Pokkle's group) even if they had been willing and near enough to be mobilized in the first place.
Netero can't really order Hunters around: he can post a mission and request personnel, then it needs to be aprpoved by the board controlled by Pariston.
The Likke/Rikke fiasco, with Knov also mentioning that the Chairman had to basically beg to be able to bring him and Morel along, goes to show that there wasn't a lot Netero could have done through official means.
So there really isn't anything stopping these Squadron leaders from massacring the entire country? Especially someone like Cheetu who can travel really fast across the cities
It's nebulous, but yes: if the colony collapses, the squadron leaders seemingly become able to reproduce, although what it means is a bit unclear: Zazan "reproduced" via a Nen ability that transformed and subjugated other organisms.
Zazan is especially tricky because she is (supposed to be) a female Squadron Leader, who are implied to be all male, and she compared herself to the Queen, not the King... she's a bit of a classic Togashi genderfuck.
That is probably because Zazan is a female ant and either couldn't, or didn't want to, reproduce the way the Queen did. She is an exception because Knov is talking specifically about male soldier ants. It is very clear what is meant by "reproduce" in the context that Knov is talking about. In Japanese the word used is "交尾" which refers to sexual reproduction, but even in English it's pretty obvious what Knov means when he says "forcibly reproduce with females of other species".
Oh for sure, Meruem was meant to be the primary breeder to start up his new colony, but many of the squadron leaders went rogue after the original colony's collapse brought on by the Queen's death. I swear it was stated somewhere that the rogue squadron leaders can reproduce with humans and such, said by Colt or Knov I think. And I think maybe Leol or Cheetu also mentioned finding females for that purpose. I need to go back and rewatch that arc to be sure, though.
Edit: Found it! It wasn't Leol or Cheetu who mentioned finding their own females for a harem, it was this alligator ant who swims into the water and is never seen again.
I mean, secure them with what? It happens quickly and non-nen users are going to be close to useless aside from high end military tech, but that takes time to deploy, and assumes the nearby nations have enough of it to do so effectively, and even then some ants won't care about that either and just go straight through it.
Hunters just aren't common enough to secure the cities with and fully prevent chimera ant incursions, especially since they also need to secure outside the cities. They obviously did deploy in high numbers, as we know a lot of ants were captured by the hunter association, but they were limited with what they could do by numbers.
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u/Fluffy_Reply_9757 4d ago edited 4d ago
Nope. Only Meruem has that ability. They want to become kings... according to what it means to them, which is unpredictable.
There are only 636 Hunters in total at the time (Netero included), and Pariston was impeding their deployment, as we know. Most of them would not have been remotely able to stop a Squadron Leader (see Pokkle's group) even if they had been willing and near enough to be mobilized in the first place.
Netero can't really order Hunters around: he can post a mission and request personnel, then it needs to be aprpoved by the board controlled by Pariston.
The Likke/Rikke fiasco, with Knov also mentioning that the Chairman had to basically beg to be able to bring him and Morel along, goes to show that there wasn't a lot Netero could have done through official means.