Eagleland: Boorish, as all the Americans in charge are negative stereotypes in some way or another.Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Johanson is constantly described as being identical to Maximilian Schell, to the point he's once mistaken with him.Big Damn Heroes: Anawak and Greywolf preventing the assassination of Johanson.Berserk Button: Anawak has THREE of them: Greywolf flanderizing his Native American heritage, interrupting him while explaining his research, and saying the 'Indian' word in front of him.

Assassin Outclassin': Vanderbilt attempts to kill Johanson, but Greywolf and Anawak prevent it.

Anyone Can Die: And most characters do.But they disperse after the whales have gone postal.

Animal Wrongs Group: The group around Greywolf, harassing whale watchers.

US government, through General Li, would rather attempt extermination of the yrr to preserve American primacy even if it risks destroying the Earth's biosphere.

At the end of the day, just why does Weaver's plan make the yrr stop their destruction of humanity? Was it because it showed the yrr that humanity is intelligent and diplomatic enough to reproduce the yrr's means of communion? Was it because it literally fooled the yrr into thinking that humans and yrr are the same? Or because it caused such a Logic Bomb on them that they essentially noped out?.

Is it because of some unknown course of thinking? Because they are somehow automatic in nature and their actions depend on stimulus? Or just becase they are simply that alien?

Discussed in-universe: how much intelligence and/or sentience do the yrr really have? It's ostensible that their brainpower and knowledge are massive, as they essentially form a giant, living computer that has been around for millions of years, but their attacks go from brilliant and cunning to erratic and contradictory.

The novel received a loose TV adaptation in 2023, The Swarm. In the end, a fringe theory by Johanson turns out to be true: Behind all this are the yrr, a hitherto unknown sentient species living in the depths of the ocean.

The main characters are maritime biologist Sigur Johanson and whale researcher Leon Anawak, who have to deal with human opposition and the maritime threat at the same time. Scientists all around the world try to determine the reason for all these events, and of course hope to find a way to stop them. All in all, the creatures of the ocean seem to be hell-bent on exterminating mankind. The plot: Sea life has gone crazy! Marine worms cause devastating tsunamis, whales attack ships, and crustaceans invade the coasts in order to infect everyone with deadly micro-organisms. Der Schwarm (English: The Swarm) is a 2004 novel by German author Frank Schätzing (who is also the author of Limit).

Der Schwarm by Frank Schätzing