How did the Hive evolve?

[Keita]

The Hivers.

A race of insectoids, living in a hive-like structure with the queen in ultimate control, the only intelligence in the Hive. They communicate by pheromones (a very weak arguement as pheromones are chemicals that induce certain behaviour in other creatures. It is not a true method of communication, as in transfering infornation from one mind to another). The queens generally do not see eye to eye with each other (look what happened at Xh33, both times), and yet sometimes they DO cooperate: to operate the ships, for one thing). How did this semi-cooperation come to be, given that their basic nature is not exactly hospitable toward each other?

When the Rowan first "contacted" the hive, she described a 'many mind'. This implies a certain telepathic ability, a method of communication between queens. And during the long search for the hive homeworld, it was made clear that the hive DOES have some sort of long distance communication. Is this telepathic or technological, given that their primary method seems to be pheromonal?

Given this basic structure, how could a race like the Hive ever attain starflight in the first place?

[granath]

A very good question!

Perhaps there's some sort of family affinity between queens, i. e. the ones who work the same ship might be a mother and her daughters, who would only turn on each other if things got really, really rough.

We don't see the queens ever using fire, surely a requirement for metal-smelting developments.

Pheromones are good for forcing loyalty and enforcing certain emotions through hormonal effects, but at least between queens there must be something else as well.

Without continuous contact with the queens, the workers would just freeze up and do nothing (the scurrying critters) or at the most continue an action which had become useless, which implies constant telepathic or other immediate control. That said, it was later thought that the warning the women on Deneb got was more like a disaster precog than actual telepathic communication.

[Keita]

That's the thing right there! The queens would have had to develop all the technology themselves. And really...there are not that many of them. Given that they slaughter each other once a planet becomes crowded. This would happen countless times.

Now, the Hive's basic instinct is to survive. Given that the queens went out PHYSICALLY to do battle on XH-33, NOT using their advanced technology, it would suggest that technology was not developed as a tool for survival.

I like the family affinity model, Granath! It would give a means of cooperation at least, but in none of the Hives do you see that. In an insect colony, one daughter is raised, and the rest are all killed. A Hive can only have one queen. So you'd have to have several seperate Hives working together to develop the technology. Or if only one queen did it, she would have had to think it all up herself.

[granath]

Well, there was the one planet where the warlike instinct of the Hiver queens was quelled. I'm just thinking out loud here, but what if the Hiver home planet (whose sun went nova) ordinarily contributed to the development of pacific queens who wouldn't threaten each other, and occasionally something happened that would provoke an all-out war, rather akin to climate changes on Earth, such as ice ages. That way, the queens might cooperate to develop their technology during one of the peaceful phases, and when things turned violent they'd each use the tech to go exploring for new worlds, some of which might support a peaceful colony, but most wouldn't. How's that?

One thing's pretty certain, flying a Hiver ship would require more than one Queen and her workers. The one they transported to Phobos Moon Base did manage to start up the ship on her own, but I'm betting they had some functions that were separate, such as navigation, weapons and maybe comms... Bees don't kill all the superfluous queens, some survive to leave the nest to swarm and build their own. In any case the Hivers are insectoid, but not related to any Terran species. I'm thinking it's pretty long a stretch just to imagine Hiver exoskeletons consisting of chitin, like on Earth.

[Brenda]

I have a hard time believing that the queens are the only Hivers with any intelligence whatsoever. They have a link which, when taken away, leaves their underlings catatonic, but the underlings have to be doing more than endless scurrying through tunnels.

[Detrital Homunculus]

I agree with Attraio in that the Hivers are unlikely to develop starflight on their own. Maybe they stole it from another, currently unknown sentient race? After all, their techniques and technology haven't changed according to the Mrdini. Of course, this theory doesn't explain why the technology seems to be conformed to them.

[granath]

The Hivers aren't like the Catteni, who used Eosi-developed technology (if you haven't read the Freedom series yet, DH, I recommend you do so ASAP, especially the first three books). My biggest problem with Hiver tech is still the apparent lack of fire.

[portalvast]

The hivers don't make much sense to me...the only thing I can guess technology-wise is something like how a wasp, who is never taught by its parents, knows exactly how to make a paper nest, like it's coded in their genes. Maybe technology for the hivers was evolved by trial and error, and is hard-coded into their genes. But if that's the case, I would expect them to be a very, very, very old race, because it would take so long for them to hard-code how to make such advanced technology into their genes. But if the knowledge was hard-coded, and the queens intelligent, maybe the queens can tinker/make improvements, and then somehow re-code their genes so include that new knowledge.

Or, oddball theory with no support whatever...what if they were a race created by Sodan's race? (heh.)