I would assume it’s still possible to be moved through a very large creature that carries them (similar to the one that would make a new heart) it’s just a very strenuous and slightly dangerous proposition (due to them being much more vulnerable and lacking in power while not connected to their root network). I mean they had to get to this world in the first place somehow. Here’s my basic ideas, though as always, these could be changed if someone comes up with something really good (rather large post so I’ve spoilered the individual sections):
[spoiler=Communication]Triffids hearts have at least partially mastered the way that portals work. Due to their psionic tie-ins with the dimensions around them, if you’ve got a rooted triffid heart at both ends of an intended portal (and both are willing to expend the energy required) they can open a portal between the two locations. As such when one triffid heart wishes to speak with another, they basically just send a “ping” through space to the one they want to speak with. If that triffid responds in turn, a microscopic portal opens between the two, allowing for them to communicate as if they were in the same room.
With enough energy these portals could potentially be expanded to allow for transport of living things as well, but the amount is huge enough that instead minions are transported by a handoff chain instead (I give the minions to my neighbor, who gives them to his, and so on until they reach their destination). The triffid hearts back at the home world could probably open a portal large enough to get entire creatures through by working together, but it’s something that is basically reserved for actual war times; during war each of the triffid houses only has to pay a tiny cost because they are all chipping in (in fact I would suppose they would be required to by law) but for pretty much any single house the amount of energy is so great that unless you are talking about a very valuable objective there is almost certainly a better use for it.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Society]The fact that each triffid heart depends greatly on their neighbors would mean that they would in most cases be extremely limited in the ways that they could move directly against them. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if there were laws stating that during a minion handoff you couldn’t mess with the minions in any serious fashion, regardless of how much you hate the other hearts involved (though posting a toll to cross your land would probably be acceptable). Each heart is willing to bribe, blackmail, influence, steal or do whatever else they think they can get away with to get ahead in their positions, but they’re very careful not to get caught actively crossing the line, because then all the other ones band together to put them down hard. It would be like if we all lived our entire lives suspended by balloons over a pit of lava. Sneakily stealing some of other people’s helium to keep yourself up is okay and while it’s technically not something you are allowed to do, is still commonly done. Actively trying to slash other people’s balloons so that they fall into the lava, not even bothering to take their helium for yourself? That’s an act of psychopathy at the best, and grand terrorism against the society as a whole at the worst. (And this is aided by the fact that it’s very difficult for a heart to actually physically attack another directly, since to control their minions in another’s territory takes quite a bit of energy indeed).
Also imagine if you stick a bunch of people together that can only interact with their immediate neighbors but each one also has a cell phone that can contact any other person, but that you have to purchase minutes for any time you use it. On top of that not everyone has access to the same resources, either. Some people might say have a washing machine in their room that could be used to clean laundry, while some might have access to food you could eat (but not things to cook it with) and others to stoves and cooking utensils but not to the actual food itself. Because everyone can talk to everyone else (but can’t change what is available in their rooms) you’d probably imagine that trading would start going on pretty quickly, and trades, of course, involve a definite “well what do I get out of it?” feel to them. And that’s even before you consider the “what will you give me for taking this across my room” factor. I’d imagine that there is at least one triffid house that has made their fortune by making long chains of just their house across their worlds and then charging flat rate postal fees for the transportation of goods, while maybe another house has worked on consolidating energy production areas (food/electricity) and get by by trading it for other goods that they don’t have access to.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=New Triffid Hearts]Now things have settled down; Joe’s friends over there are growing food like no tomorrow, Susan and a bunch of her friends have started cooking it all, Billy has opened up a postal service getting things to and for for very little cost, but there are still a bunch of rooms on the edges! Also people might live a long time, but every once in a while one of them still dies of old age (or ends up starving to death while all of their food packages get “mysteriously waylaid”). The end result is that there is an empty room, and a new person can move in. But keep in mind that children take a lot of resources. You’ve got to provide enough food for them to eat while they grow, toys for them to play with, and clothing for them to wear, which is a lot altogether.
Similarly new triffid hearts aren’t usually the result of a love-struck match between two hearts; instead they are usually an economic decision brought on by the fact that a particular house has finally managed to secure enough room for a new heart to grow in. Unlike our people in rooms example, these rooms can be adjusted without being destroyed, so it’s possible for a new triffid’s area to be created by chipping the corners off of all of the nearby neighbors, as well as from a brand new room (or recently vacated one) but you get the idea. The process basically involves sticking a new baby heart (heart root? could probably have some sort of snazzy name) on a transport and transporting it to it’s final destination of cleared ground. The carrier probably contacts at least one other heart in the house as it dies and becomes nutrients for the growing heart, allowing a psionic link to be maintained while the new heart grows to keep it safe until it can take care of itself. Once it grows enough it takes control of it’s own minion swarm, and defends itself from that point on, working for the good of its house.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Houses]A triffid heart’s basic house is constructed when it’s still a newborn root, but from that point that house and the surrounding area is where it will live out the rest of its days (plants aren’t immortal after all, though they are often long lived). AS that point imagine that you are a person who will spend the rest of your life in a single room. You’d probably eventually come up with some sort of organizational system where you put the books over on that shelf in the corner, the video games go in this drawer, etc… Triffid hearts are much the same way, and this idea is aided by the fact that some of their toys don’t always want to play nice with each other. It’s like if you had a bunch of cats and a bunch of mice. While you are there and paying attention the cats might leave the mice alone. However in the long run it takes much less effort for you to just put them in separate cages than it is to constantly monitor them so that the cats don’t start to murder and eat the mice.
For defense a large portion of the defense is self maintained, with each heart being responsible for managing their own defenses and protecting themselves from harm. That said a lot of how much defense a heart can maintain is dependent upon how much energy they have access to, and how well connected they are with their houses. Those war elephants might make for a mighty defense against any intruder, but unless you can afford to bring in the several tons of hay and grass you need to feed them every day they will quickly starve to death regardless of their impressive statures.
Despite this for some of the highest ranked nobles they may outsource defenses by simply opening and maintaining a micro-portal for another triffid to extend their control through. This allows nobles to focus all of their time and effort on communications and alliances with other hearts, without needing to micromanage their own holding as well. Should the noble change his mind about the management, he can always cut the portal’s power from his end, ending any control the other heart may have had and taking direct control himself. (Unless, of course, the other side has the massive amount of energy required to force the portal to remain open and maintain it despite the other actively attempting to close it).[/spoiler]
In truth, a lot of a triffid heart’s role in life is set the moment it begins to grow in a given location, though there is some flex to it. For example if you own a building you could certainly change it from a hardware store to a restaurant with some interior remodeling, and both would be equally valid ideas. On the other hand, however, if your building is a shack in the middle of a field it will never be as good of a store or restaurant as something on a busy intersection would be (while the busy intersection might make for a much less relaxing day spa). Similarly triffids have a fair bit of flexibility in whether they turn their land into minion producers or energy collectors, a large minion throughway or an experimental lab for new minion breeding, but in some ways some places are obviously going to be better for some roles than others. In addition it’s fairly common for a house to expect a new heart to at least perform some type of role as their focus for long enough to pay back the house for their creation.
Personally I’ve always viewed them more as an oligarchy than a monarchy. Rather than being a king with his orbital nobles, they would rather be a parliament with a chairman. The chairman has the most power, but should he turn too many other parliamentary members against him he could easily lose it. For communication I wouldn’t be surprised if the hearts did a “rolling meeting” style, where they take turns acting as host for the day’s parliament meeting, each one serving in turn after the previous.
Going back to our “people in rooms” metaphor, imagine that one day you wake up in the morning and find that overnight somebody installed a bunch of those pneumatic tube systems you see at bank drive throughs and some government buildings. These tubes connect to a bunch of empty rooms, as well as connecting directly to a variety of different occupied rooms, and they connect to a bunch of new places that are totally empty! The result would be total chaos as different groups scrambled to get their hands on the transfer linking rooms, knowing that whoever managed to do so could charge a fortune for transportation fees alone, and would have the distinct ability to access all of the brand new places and resources they connected to. That’s what our world essentially is. We’re the transport tube rooms that every house wants to control, and as such the whole moral system has started to fray a bit. Aided by the fact that it takes a lot more energy to punch a communication portal from here to the Nether dimensions or vice versa, we’ve essentially become the wild west of the triffid heart society. You can make your fortune off of the gold and riches that are out here, but you are just as likely to get shot by your neighbor over that gold strike as you are to make it home safely with the money, and in the same way there have certainly been at least a few direct attacks by triffid hearts on one another during periods where they knew the other didn’t have the energy to phone home for help, and several more where triffids have used their minions to lure things like zombie hordes down upon their rivals. It’s a wild new world out there, but whatever heart can tame it and harness its power and resources is going to come out rich beyond their wildest imaginations.
