It's been stated that most of the Infinity Stones have a certain level of intelligence and will, the remnant of the New Gods from which they were formed. Few have the sentience and ability to manipulate that of the Mind Stone, an ability derived from the Genesian known as K'zandar.
In the previous timeline, K'zandar was an elderly-appearing New God who served as Highfather's Oracle. Most of the denizens of New Genesis knew her for her abilities of precognition but her abilities went well beyond simple divination. She was one of the most powerful psychics in Known Space, rivaling the power of Phoenix-enhanced Jean Grey.
With the Mind Stone possessing its own self-direction and the ability to alter memories, much of its history remains untold. Those that had studied the Infinity Stones could pinpoint possible locations where the Mind Stone hid, but any investigation proved fruitless as no one could remember the artifact being present.
It is therefore quite possible to theorize that the only reason Leo and his ThunderCats were able to secure the Mind Stone was that it wanted to be found; that it saw a chance to be reunited with the other Stones for reasons that can only be guessed at. When Leo then gathered the Infinity Watch, the Silver Surfer was given the Stone.
After the Enshrouded One was defeated the Surfer continued to keep the Stone with him, defending it from those seeking its power. Though the Power Cosmic granted Noran Radd a great many powers, it did not shield him from the influences of the Mind Stone. While it allowed the Surfer to shake off the mental conditioning inflicted by his master Galactus, it also began influencing him in other negative ways.
His cosmically-aware mind began to sense the influence of the Mind Stone had on his thoughts. In order to keep from being further manipulated, he cast the Mind Stone onto the remote planet Starro, a world devoid of sentient life. There, without anyone to psychic influence, it could remain without threat.
Starro was home to a dominant life-form, a species of creature which greatly resembled echinoderms. They had a unique structure, where a central Queen communicated with her Drones via a complex neurological signal. The Queen had biological control over her children and could alter their genome during gestation, usually doing so to adapt to some environmental threat or correct a genetic flaw.
The Mind Stone enslaved the Starro Queen and used her biokinetic knowledge to rewrite a new generation of Starro Drones with enhanced intelligence and psychic ability, all linked to the Queen (and the Mind Stone) via a complex hivemind. Now the Stone had an entire species of servants, willing and able to do its bidding.
When a Bolian explorer vessel made an emergency landing on the planet, the Starro Drones captured and took control of the crew without incident. With a starship cargo hold full of Drones linked to a Queen empowered by the most powerful psychic artifact in existence, the Starro have made a move to pacify Known Space.
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