Nice to see I've inspired a few minds out there.
Now, I recently thought of a novel use for the Hydra.
It's going to get complicated, so bear with me.
Now, a robot can only have four ties, and I hope everyone already is aware of that.
This is a limit, among other things, on the power that a battery bot can have.
So! What does that mean, you may ask? The Hydra may be able to find food, but if it finds a veggie, hopefully it will be able to 1) Tie the head to said veggie, and 2) pass the veggie down the line of tails. In this way, the hydra can store massive amounts of energy, and also gets a little passive defense as well
Of course, there are a few problems here. What if, for instance, the hydra cannot afford to stay close to the veggie for the twenty turns it takes for the ties to harden? (Once hardened, the head can change the angle of the veggie, so the veggie gets passed down one step.)
I've thought of a solution, but it seems overly complicated. Take a third "throwaway" cell, that doesn't take a lot of energy to produce. Deploy said cell to the plants once the head sees one, and then the "veggie scout" can find its way back to the head, which passes it down the line as before. Still, this does provide some unusual benefits (for instance, the scouts may be able, eventually, to relay information about the location of the plants).
Some thoughts to stew over! -The Archivist
P.S. Would this sort of thing be a Single Cell organism, or a MultiBot organism? Haven't quite worked that out yet.