Cyclone

Hivemind

The foremost general prince responsible for the conquest of the beetles was stationed at their nesting grounds with an occupation force. As it turned out that the fungi on and around the log and its surrounding area was edible and nutritious enough to have long been a staple of the beetles' diet, as part of his role he oversaw its cultivation and harvesting. That fungus, along with the occasional berries, was given to select male beetles. In time their eggs would hatch and their diminished numbers would rise, but in the meantime a breeding program was underway. Because the beetle males were expected to offer the females food as part of their courtship ritual, it was easy to identify the docile ones and ration them much larger portions of food so as to allow them a much better chance at mating.

Experimentation into bringing the beetles into the fold of the Hivemind hadn't achieved success (and neither had any attempts at making hybrids between our species and the beetles), but at least through controlling their females and influencing their breeding we were able to discourage the overexpression of negative traits like individualism and rebelliousness. The beetles overall seem to be somewhat less intelligent than us to begin with, which probably helps our cause because we don't think that they fully understand what we're doing to them or that the prince now placed in charge of their home was responsible for the deaths of so many of their peers. For the most part, they actually seem reasonably happy and content with the accommodations that we allow. We found some success training them to utilize their greater size and strength to assist the worker drones in harvesting berry or fungi crops and in cutting, carrying, and pulverizing twigs into wood pulp that's used in construction. With the beetles' help, construction of the much larger and reinforced hives was expedited.

The beetle captives that we kept in our own nests with all their limbs severed were finally killed and eaten, given that they are no longer of any particular use to us. The others of their kind need not know, and hopefully never shall. What few troublesome elements that arise in the remaining beetle population are being similarly dealt with by a few vigilant princes working on the breeding project.

On the topic of other projects, more berries were planted in the open space east of the main hive, and some of the closer ones forming a ring around it have begun to bear their fruits. This great increase in food supplies is allowing us to sustain a larger population, but it's also begun to draw the attention of colossal creatures from deeper in the forest and from the grasslands to the northwest. This increased attention from the giant animals is becoming a real problem, as it means we have to devote even more resources towards protecting the food supplies. There's also the issue that nothing less than a swarm of warriors is capable of killing such large creatures. In small groups, they end up being eaten or just proving to be minor annoyances despite their paralytic venom presumably causing muscle cramps and minor pain in small doses.

Before we needed to resupply him, the prince leading the exploration team retreated back to our territory. He, as well as all the bugs under his command, looked haggard and worse for wear, and at least half of the warriors that had accompanied him were gone. He detailed having discovered a horrible land far to the east, where the grasslands ends and the river widens and bends. There pools of stagnant or slow-moving water breed all manner of horrors, the tall reeds shelter predators, and what looks like solid ground is sometimes a muddy slurry that traps any who steps into it and leaves them doomed to slowly sink and suffocate. Inside of this swampy fen were water moccasins, giant snakes that helped contribute in part to the expedition's diminished numbers, but also frogs. The frogs had not only eaten numerous warriors, but they'd actually pursued them some ways beyond the edge of the wetland and hunted them until they'd gone almost a full third of the way back! Such a savage land also bred savage insects; the scouts reported having seen tiny flying bugs with long, needle-like mouths. If for some reason the hivemind ever decided to try and conquer that swamp, those mosquitoes would probably be the only ones with which diplomacy could even be attempted.

The Land

Hivemind

One of the gigantic beetles received its tribute at a location that left it almost perfectly between the satellite nest and one of the lost bunkers. Having selected that particular one as an ideal target for capture, we waited for the next beetle raid on the berry bushes, offering some token resistance so as to throw off any suspicion. The raiders began making their escape, but lo and behold, the gigantic beetle was leaving the treeline and coming toward them this time, chased by a host of our own warriors that had emerged from under that one bunker behind and moved to flank. They'd quickly overwhelmed and killed the bunker's occupants before rushing the giant beetle, who had no safe direction to flee. Moving into the berry bush clearing brought the beetle closer to the raiders that could protect it, but that maneuver also left it completely surrounded as the berry bushes' guards as well as reinforcements from inside the satellite hive now had the monstrous beetle completely surrounded.

Its monstrous size allowed it to kill or maim several warriors. Some worker drones on hand helped by spitting sticky globules at the giant beetle (as well as any others that got too close) and eventually the giant beetle succumbed to a combination of warriors pinning her down, adhesive spit awkwardly making her limbs clumsy as they stuck to one another and to the dirt and leaves around, and finally paralytic venom as a few warriors were able to find vulnerable spots in her armor. The now-helpless beetle was picked up and slowly carried back toward the hive as a prisoner, and as predicted, other beetles from the treeline saw this and tried to charge to her rescue. It was in that time, where they had fully exposed themselves and ran out of their spots in a disorganized scramble, that the warriors underneath all of the other bunkers and ambush points burrowed upward and struck.

Sure, there were enough of the beetles rushing to save the giant one that they managed to kill and drive off the warriors holding it captive, but it was still so thoroughly incapacitated that it couldn't even move, much less try to escape with the would-be rescuers. As more and more of our kind emerged from behind and from the nest and from hiding spots in the upper reaches of the berry bush, seemingly everywhere, the chaotic battlefield started to devolve into a massacre. At least two hundred of the beetles were slain or captured around the clearing. A few managed to escape, but the princes led the warriors in pursuit. We followed them back to their nesting site and continued pressing the attack there, storming the leaf pile and fallen log. We experienced much greater casualties there as we fought a cornered and determined foe and no longer had the advantage of surprise and overwhelmingly superior coordination that we'd had in the previous surprise attack, but in the end it was still a victory.

Upon raiding the beetles' nesting site, we discovered numerous hatching ideas filled with countless eggs and occupied by the giant beetles. It would seem that those large ones were simply the females, and the smaller beetles males that would try to curry favor by bringing offerings of food. Well, that was one mystery solved.

With dozens of males and a few females captive, studying the beetles was easier and we began to understand the basics of how they communicate. Maddeningly enough, they seem to be inferior organisms that lack a hivemind. Unlike the bees and us, each beetle runs around trying with its own thoughts trying further its own goals, and though they live together in communities and do care about the welfare of the collective, they don't truly become one with the collective. They lack unity and coordination, and that was ultimately what left them so disorganized in their battles against us and ultimately caused their downfall.

Now some questions arise, like what we should do to all the live beetles and eggs that we captured, whether we should move into this newly opened territory that had been theirs, and whether we should try to search for the inevitable few that would have managed to escape.

Hivemind

@Dusty

Getting the cold feet now?

Hivemind

Whilst we were rebuilding the hives with our new material and deciding upon how to react to the beetle incursion, the beetles began to grow bolder. A series of skirmishes broke out, with each starting when large groups of the beetles would suddenly emerge from behind their lines and charge to the berry bushes. There they would quickly battle with whatever guard force was present and in the midst of the fighting, some of them would seize berries. Then after about only a minute of carnage, before more of our own warriors could arrive as reinforcements, they would begin to make off with their looted berries. Pursuit was futile, as more of them would be lurking in the trees and the fortified posts beyond.

A few of the beetles inevitably fell during these assaults, and though they tried to fight to the death, the warriors were able to take some live captives as requested. When placed near one another and observed, they can signal one another through twitching and clacking. Some patterns have been observed by the princes studying the captives, but the work in deciphering the beetles' language is probably quite hindered by how the warriors had to bite off numerous limbs and large chunks of the beetles' mandibles to subdue them, and being maimed like that limits the beetles' ability to communicate. The beetles don't seem to have possessed any secrets that helped them to fare better in the rain; we presume that they simply don't mind the mud, live mostly above ground where flooding is less of a concern, and can swim better than we can anyways.

While all of this nonsense occurred, we were naturally tunneling in preparation for our surprise attacks on the ambush points and bunkers that they'd stolen from us during the rainstorm. That plan had its merits, but it also necessitated a fair amount of time and caution. Fortunately the beetles seemed content to maintain their tactic of encircling the satellite hive and occasionally raiding the berry bush; no doubt they thought that this siege tactic was weathering us down, but of course the satellite hive's underground connection to the main hive meant that secret supplies and reinforcements kept coming in with the beetles none the wiser.

Interestingly, on a few occasions the warriors spotted gigantic beetles waiting behind the siege lines to receive the berries as an offering. These beetles are easily twice the size of their smaller peers, which range from equal to slightly larger than our own warriors, and they sport extra thick armor and even larger mandibles for it. Their bulk makes them quite intimidating; however, these giant beetles have never tried to partake in the raids and have never engaged us, which seems to rule out the initial suspicion that they'd developed a warrior type of their own.

The bees buzzed overhead throughout this entire standoff much as they always had; however, now that the hivemind understood the creatures' mannerisms better, it was clear that they were much more observant than we initially assumed. Though the drones always seem to be busy and occupied with their own tasks to the point of being oblivious to the ground, they in fact seem to break up their regular patterns and fly in different paths to investigate any battles or movements of interest. So they are certainly aware of our conflict with the beetles, but thus far have neither said nor offered anything.

Our preparations are now done. We've finished the tunnels and bred more drones to help replace some of those lost in the flooding, and numerous princes are standing by to command waiting armies of warrior drones to breach the last little bits of dirt separating them from the beetles' positions on the surface above. We could either give them the affirmative now, or stall a bit longer to do other things like request aid from the bees or reconsider our plans given this new knowledge of the mysterious giant beetles.

Hivemind

When the rain finally ceased, loss assessment and preventative measures for the future could begin. Despite damage control, there were hundreds of drones that drowned or died in collapses while parts of the food stores and other supplies were waterlogged, but the queens and the vast majority of the eggs and larvae were relocated and kept safe.

Good ideas had at least been generated for how the Hivemind should move forward. A great deal more berry bushes were planted in such a way as to form a ring around the central hive; the satellite one already had a good deal of foliage cover, and planting more berry bushes would have been difficult in such a densely forested patch of land. Following the earlier talks, the bees had greatly increased their presence around the berry bushes; they now seemed to feel more comfortable doing so. And they took notice of the new berry bushes sprouting, and to that they buzzed in delight; it seemed that we had inadvertently done what their queen had been trying to ask of us. In hindsight, it seemed rather obvious that she was trying to tell our prince that they wished for us to plant more bushes.

The new worker drones used sand and wood pulp to make their papery mortar, with the occasional pebbles stuck into the goop. This new biological concrete was being used to coat the walls of the underground tunnels and build up the above-ground mounds. It would take quite some time to finish, but the end product would one day be hives that were much larger and sturdier. They'd not just be less prone to weakening and collapse when wet, but also almost entirely resistant to wind erosion.

As our species recovered from the disaster, warriors and workers once again began leaving the hives in droves; however, the warriors found a nasty surprise when they tried to take up their old posts and patrols. While they had expected the various bunkers and ambush points along the border with the beetles to have been washed away and ruined, the posts had seemingly been repaired and occupied by the enemy! Beetle warriors had taken advantage of our vulnerable state to press their borders a good ways farther, forming a tight circle around the original patch of berry bushes and the satellite hive that protected them. Our own efforts to entrench that border had also been turned against us, for even though we obviously knew where we'd built all of those ambush points and redoubts, they were naturally in defensible spots that were now being manned by a vigilant and formidable foe.

There was at least some good news, though. Some messengers from the scouting expedition had finally made it back to report that our prince had ventured a long ways east and encountered no other creatures of note. There's just wide tracts of open grassland ripe for the taking, and while it seemingly lacks any new resources of note, it would make a fine place to direct future expansion. He is intent upon pressing farther east for a while longer before turning back.

The Land

Hivemind

At a modest yet reasonable pace, the princes were growing more mentally capable, and with that increased brainpower came something very unusual for insects...boredom. When faced with little to contemplate or do, they started to find things to occupy their time. Often this took the form of strange hobbies, like having the worker drones organize gathered sticks and pebbles by size or scour the riverside for pebbles of unusual colors. Sometimes it acted as a much more productive driving force, though. The thought of exploring the lands east of the forest and the central hive arose, and no sooner did it reach one restless prince's mind than he was rallying dozens of drones. Within an hour that prince was had launched the scouting expedition. To ensure that this group did not vanish into thin air as had that fateful group that ventured the other way into the grasslands, the prince was accompanied by mostly warrior drones and had made plans to send back small groups of messengers back at regular intervals.

Meanwhile, the prince that had been assigned to treat with the bees began attempting to explain the Hivemind's role in the creation of those new berry bushes, but the bee queen seemed to be well aware. Perhaps the drones that served her weren't as oblivious as they seemed. She brushed past the topic and kept pointing at the new bushes as well as their surrounding area, though the prince wasn't sure what to make of that. He in turn tried to express a receptiveness towards allowing the bees to drink the berry bushes' nectar (though he did also at least try to solicit some sort of favor in return) but communication was difficult and after the better part of a day, the queen grew tired of the talk and retreated back into the beehive. The prince was brought back onto the ground where his bodyguards waited, and then he made his way back to the central hive.

A period of some heavy rains followed. Flooding killed many drones and damaged parts of both hives, as well as made it quite difficult for the drones to leave the hive in search of food or to patrol the borders. The bees were not seen either, and seemingly were waiting out the bad weather in their nests and consuming stored food. On the other side were the beetles, who didn't seem so disturbed by the rain at all. They maintained an active presence patrolling in the forest even as our own hivemind's warriors hunkered down in their small outposts or retreated back to the nests for shelter.

The newly mutated worker drones that possessed the capability to make the papery material proved quite valuable. By coating the most vital tunnels and chambers in the nests with their biological building material, they were able to stop large parts of the nests from caving in. Still, large parts of both nests did collapse. That was the folly of living inside of dirt mounds.

The rain probably also explained why no word had come from the prince leading the eastward-bound scouting expedition; they too were likely rendered immobile by flooding, but unfortunately they probably had even less shelter than everyone else.

Hivemind

Official Discord

Hivemind

Hey guys, somebody suggested that I make a Discord for this and I figured why not. So here you go. Come strategize or hang out if you want!

Hivemind

Whispers of engineering a rivalry between two augmented 'warlord' princes with independent hives ultimately had to be rejected due to a lack of resources. With the Hivemind only having two hives, two queens, and a little over a thousand drones to work with, a project of such a scale was deemed infeasible at the current time.

Some attention was directed towards further evolution, though. Adding stronger forelegs and chitinous barbs to the warriors was easily done, and it has increased their effectiveness. There was also effort devoted towards mimicking the venom of spiders and snakes, as well as on the webweaving ability of spiders, but for now those have yet to fully meet the desired results. A subset of worker drones has adapted to generate proteins that turn their saliva into a sticky goop, and a matching ability to spit this fluid a short range with some accuracy. While that initially seemed like a failure as they lack the ability to draw out threads of the protein and finely weave it like spiders do, it's still somewhat useful. They are able to chew bits of wood and other organic matter, allow it to mix with their adhesive saliva, and then regurgitate it as a sort of papery material that is useful for construction. Their spitting might also be useful in combat situations as a distraction or as a means of constructing sticky traps; we could consider adapting this new worker type to fulfill a supportive role to the warrior drones much like the proposed smaller and better armored "bait" warriors, or we could instead evolve them to gradually become more like spiders. Or we could perhaps just accept their current state and use them for construction workers.

One of the newly enhanced princes left the main Hive, accompanied only by a few bodyguard warrior drones. It attempted to hail and observe the various bees that it saw, but most seemed to just buzz by obliviously. Eventually it grew frustrated and took a more direct approach, marching to the nearest beehive and sitting underneath it. For a long time the prince looked expectantly at the beehive, occasionally clacking its mandibles together and gesticulating (in what it hoped was a non-threatening way) with its various limbs. A few bees hovered closely to investigate this strange visitor, and after some more time passed, one of them returned into its hive. A few moments later, dozens of other bees emerged. They began to slowly circle around, with about seven of eight of the little buzzing things edging closer and closer to the prince. The bodyguard warriors were apprehensive and their instincts were screaming to bite at the bees, but sensing that such an effort would have been futile, the prince made them stand down and offered no resistance as the bees grabbed onto his bulk and slowly lifted him into the air, up to the hive. They set him down upon a small branch up in the tree just next to their hive, and then from out of the beehive's opening peeked the head of one massive bee, their queen!

Much clicking and clacking and buzzing followed. Without any mutually intelligible language, communication was very difficult and slow, but the queen bee seemed to be of a reasonable intelligence and to have some desire, or at least receptiveness, towards taking the time to communicate. The queen bee gestured repeatedly in the general direction of our central hive, towards the berry bushes that we planted and which were just now beginning to bloom for the first time!

Hivemind

In order to satiate the Hivemind's newfound curiosity with the other local insects and their means of communication, the bugs begin to watch the bees and beetles in a different manner. Previously the drones had mostly paid attention to where the other insects were, where they were going, and how many of them were about; however, now they were looking very closely at other species' strange biology. The goal was to try to find some pattern to the madness that was the other bugs' mannerisms, but it seemed futile. Perhaps more promising was the idea that these other bugs might communicate with some sort of smells or chemicals, so whenever the bees or beetles would leave an area, our own drones would quickly try to sweep it for any pheromone trails or other scents that might have been used for communications. If there were any pheromones, they weren't the same ones that our species evolved to smell and utilize.

It seemed like a rather Sisyphean task, at the end of the day. Though the Hivemind as a whole was undeniably sapient and capable of logic and imagination, far less could be said for the bugs as individuals, especially in the case of the worker drones. Those bugs just acted almost like tools, using almost all of their limited autonomy and brainpower to interpret and fulfill their orders, rather than to think critically on a higher level. The warriors were slightly better off; they had to have some innate understanding of tactics in order to effectively work together and protect the Hive. Still, their intelligence was highly specialized and their minds were mostly concerned with things like searching for interlopers and how to most optimally fight beetles.

So neither the drones nor the warriors were able to glean much through their continued observations of the other bugs. Even if that obstacle could be overcame, with what resources and abilities the Hive possessed, composing and delivering some sort of message would have likely been difficult even if they discovered the mechanism by which the other species could communicate. But ever persistent, the Hivemind did not give up. In order to solve these issues it generated a plan that was maybe just crazy enough to work, and impulsively began work on it immediately.

Numerous ideas were floating around for how the Hive might best direct the species' evolution, either through enhancing the warriors or through trying to have the workers emulate the spiders' natural silk, but all were pushed aside at least temporarily while the forgettable prince caste underwent some drastic changes. Prior to this point the princes only had been charged with one job, and they had done it admirably; they lived for just a few weeks, and existed only to mate with the queens. All of their spare time was spent idling around and being utterly unproductive, despite them being more numerous and certainly far more expendable than the queens.

That unfulfilled potential was shaped into a new purpose by the evolution of much more sophisticated neural networks inside the princes. They grew to be intelligent, more than any of the drones and even the queens. To accommodate the increase in autonomy and intellect, the princes' bodies grew larger to the point that they could rival or even surpass the warrior drones in size if not sturdiness and ferocity. Their lifespans also became greater than before. They still are fleeting to the point that they individually might struggle to innovate or advance much, but it is no matter. They can work together, and the Hivemind remembers. If one generation dies too soon and leaves something unfinished, the next will be ready to pick right back up where they left off.

Eventually these princes might become even more autonomous, to the point that they could act as extensions of the Hivemind by organizing and directing the drones around them, and perhaps acting as ambassadors or generals. But for now, they are just smart enough to perhaps succeed where all others failed in studying the beetles and bugs. We'll just have to figure out exactly how they should go out and try to get the other bugs' attention.