English

I have reread the text and searched it, but cannot find the word "collapse" at any place of it. Instead, the process of gradual rotting away and gentle resorption of the tunnels once ventilation and maintenance are gone is described in detail.

After thinking about long time, I assume you refer to what I said in the last Rangers' assembly, where I mentioned that after the collapse of ventilation, the tunnels would collapse, too. It would have been more appropriate to refer to that sentence with a quotation instead of letting me search.

Indeed, I expressed myself bit unclearly. Of course, ventilation will collapse, in the sense of being halted immediately. Once the mounds are gone, the bark sealed, and the tunnels slowly sinking down in the growing marrow of the living planet, liquid, plants, lichens, and small underground animals will invade the cavings, making the destructive work irreversible. This process is rather slow but powerful, and impossible to be halted or reversed by the builders of the tunnels.

One should imagine how the Kitins built the tunnels in the first place. The first step was that specialized quite small kipee and kiban workers drilled an extremly narrow ventilation tunnel fast, barely large enough to let some further workers and guards squeeze through to the surface to secure and extend the tunnel mound. Now, with ventilation working, the kitins had all time of the world to extend the tunnel to its huge size, large enough to let soldiers march through in parallel, great kipestas fly, and even giant Kitin Generals like that we fought against during the retreat of hominkind into exile passing through without major discomfort.

Once we have destroyed the mounds, the kitins cannot maintain the large tunnels anymore, as the maintenance effort surmounts their force, nor can they shrink them to the size of the ventilation tunnels they built in the beginning. We have to guard the surface for some cycles to prevent and if necessary destroy ventilation tunnels they will try to drill from the existing tunnels to stop rotting. That won't be hard as only small weak kitins can perform such task which may be killed easily by most homins on sight, we only have to stay vigilant for some time. We should always be, anyway.

Thus there will be no sudden collapse of tunnels , thus no quake or other destruction. In fact I see less concern of disruption here than in usage of such a powerful force as magnetism, which plays a role in keeping our planet spinning and may cause enormous disruptions, flashes, and fires, being able to rip and cut parts of continent cliffs. I would be more concerned when responsible for handling those forces which should remain in the hands of the higher powers rather than about some breeding of small packs of social insects.