Cyclone

Hivemind

The distant beehive finished the last of their evacuation procedures as we dispatched the first raider squads into the deep forest. Some of the hostile beetles that remained entrenched in the woods were eliminated while others (mainly those in larger groups) were simply harassed and driven out of the forest, to the northwest away from our territories and into the desert wilderness. Careful watch was kept over the captive and domesticated beetles during this effort, and no signs of contact between them and the foreign beetles was observed. Information quarantines also ensured that they remained blissfully unaware of our systemic efforts to rid the forest of their (now distant) kindred.

With that matter dealt with, the forest was scoured and after many days of searching we were finally able to rest satisfied that there were no wasp nests anywhere in the woods. But a few days later, a team of workers reported having witnessed what they thought to have been a wasp scout flying in a westward direction. A new caste of our own winged scouts was quickly dispatched to search in the direction that the wasp had purportedly came from, and after following the southern river for a long enough time, they surely enough came across a gnarled, twisted, and long dead tree. It must have been grand in its prime, for even as a withered husk the thing is massive and it serves as a landmark for a long ways around. At the top of that weathered and venerable tree is a blight, though; a massive wasp nest is up there.

Work continues on the newest hive that we built. A small tunnel now connects it to its sister hives, despite some concern about the potential for flooding. The channel between our great pit and the river was finally carved out, so we now have a shallow pond (though the bottom is a goopey mesh of organic matter mixed with sand, dirt, and gravel). Some of the newest berry bushes have also started to bear their fruits, leading to record harvests.

The Land

Hundred Years of Change

I think it's somewhat misleading to put this in the NRP section when close inspection makes it look as though this will be a character-driven RP where we're all in just one colonial nation that's presumably detached to some extent (whether by their backward status as in point 2 or their own will and isolationism if in point 1) from the old world and most other nations in this world.

Your idea for magic seems unique, I'm not sure whether I like it or not; maybe some examples of what you might do would help me to decide.

I'm mildly interested in this and might join, but no guarantees from me yet. For the record I do prefer option 2.

Hivemind

The bees, it turns out, really don't know much about own old enemy. They do know wasps are hiveminded and live in nests, sometimes building said nests up in trees or high places but sometimes even in the ground. The wasps tend to attack suddenly and in great swarms; they work together to take down larger prey, and only rarely go hunting for smaller things alone. So if a lone wasp is ever spotted, it's probably just trying to scout, but that's perhaps even more dangerous, for the wasps adore honey and will apparently massacre an entire hive just to steal its honey and sometimes even eat the larvae.

Beyond that, the bees claim that they wouldn't know anything about the loathsome wasps. They've never made any efforts to launch an offensive against the wasps, viewing it as utterly futile given that the giant wasps are easily capable of killing a dozen bees each. The wasps hunt other insects and will gladly wage war to feast upon the fallen, but for the bees, fighting the wasps can offer no benefit and risk only utter ruin. Whenever they see a lone wasp scout, they do everything in their power to kill and silence it lest its nest learn of their presence and launch a raid.

But if the bees should ever fail to spot and kill a wasp scout, and sometimes if they even so much as suspect that there might be wasps nearby, they take the precaution of abandoning their hive and fleeing elsewhere. They note that sometimes certain birds prey upon the wasps and help to cull their numbers, but at the same time those birds will readily eat bees, so they have never been able to successfully pursue any sort of alliance with the wasps' enemies. But if we would be able and willing to kill off the wasps, the bee queen nearest to us ensures that it would gain us the gratitude of just about every bee colony in the land.

Regarding our search efforts in the far end of the forest, we began to redouble our efforts by sending groups of scouts, some of which developed more advanced tracking pheromones. We sent a few larger groups into the areas where we seemed to have had the most scouts go missing, and we quickly discovered the culprit--more beetles! We accidentally discovered a small group of them trying to head west and leave the forest, and they attacked upon sight. Fortunately a few scouts from that group managed to successfully flee and live to tell the tale.

We don't know whether this means that there's an entire second nest of them that's been hiding out here, or if these are just the exiled remnants of the nest we conquered. Either way, in a fashion similar to how the bees did everything they could to ensure that one wasp scout never returned to its hive, these beetles seem to have been trying very hard to hide from our scouts and kill any that witnessed them or discovered signs of their presence. Unfortunately, that very strategy is what drew our attention to them. The governor in charge of the fallen log and its fungi farms (who has continued working on the beetle breeding program, to some limited success) is naturally an eager proponent of subduing this group of beetles as well, but if that is the path that we choose, we'd best hurry because it seems that at least some of the beetles are fleeing the deep parts of the forest to get even farther away from us.

Coating the entire bottom of the sandpit in a woody mesh is going to take a fairly large investment in time and resources. Several hundred worker drones have been devoted to the task, but because we're confident that the new floor will be able to retain water, we've started simultaneously digging a small channel to the nearby riverbank. Rather than relying on infrequent rains to keep the pond full, the hope is to have a small waterway with a removable floodgate (though rather than one solid, cohesive gate it's probably going to end up being more like a pile of rubble that acts as a dam; but that's no matter, we have the manpower to dismantle and replace the dam as necessary) so that we can empty or fill the pond whenever needed. Assuming no delays, the construction will hopefully be done in the near future.

Hivemind

A few worker drones maintained a cautious presence near the bee colony that had encountered the wasp. They started planting flower and berry seedlings in as nonthreatening a manner as possible, but the bees there seemed to pay them very little attention. In fact, they've started evacuating their hive and seem to be in the process of trying to find a new place to move. We spoke to our bee allies, and while they too expressed horror and apprehension at he prospects of a nearby wasp nest (it seems that the bees and wasps are ancient enemies) they're almost as concerned that they'll now be facing even more competition for the resources in their territory if these other bees move closer.

Meanwhile, a small council of princes were placed in charge of overseeing further expansion. They ordered the establishment of a small hive close to the river's edge. To protect against flooding they built it on a small rise and kept most of the space above-ground, with minimal tunnels underneath and (as of now) no underground connection to the other two hives. In order to get the materials to build this great hollow mound of a nest, they had to excavate a sizable sandy pit nearby. The hope was to just leave it there in order to create a pool, but that's been met with some obstacles. Small puddles have been forming in it after the rain, but the sand underneath is porous and most of the water sinks down before long. Building an artificial pond might take some more work and cleverness!

Numerous scouts have been sent out to the southwest to search deeper into the forest for the wasp nest; however, several have gone missing, and the others kept trekking through forest until they came across a great body of water where the trees finally come to an end. It's obviously natural to suspect that the wasps were the culprits behind our scouts' disappearance, but in fairness, we never saw that happen and to date neither we nor the bees have even so much as seen a second wasp scout. In any case, we could continue sending these small scouting forces and perhaps suffer even more attrition, or we could consider blindly sending in an entire army with orders to seek and destroy. They'd probably stop being picked off one by one if we sent an army, but having a couple hundreds bugs rummaging around in the forest will probably destroy any element of surprise that we might have been able to gain if we could find the wasps before launching our attack.

The Land

Hivemind

The initiative to create a strain more adapted to the water found success in an unusual pairing with the beetle breeding program. Our efforts to create a hybrid between the beetles and our own species have finally borne fruit, and we now have a small number of these hybrids. As our species has evolved it has gradually become larger and larger, but these hybrids surprisingly resist that trend in that they are smaller and lighter than both the beetles and many of our current phenotypes. Initial experiments have shown that they are capable of floating in water where most of our heavier insects eventually sink, and they can swim (albeit somewhat awkwardly, and not easily through moving water as in the river).

As a sign of goodwill, we planted a number of flowers and other plants near the beetle nest. The local beehive there has begun to pollinate those plants and seems quite appreciative. We attempted to similarly reach out to the third and most distant colony of bees, but when our worker drones arrived bearing seeds, they were witnesses to a brutal skirmish between a giant wasp and a dozen bees. Though the wasp was a giant when compared to the bees and it easily bit one or two of them in half, it was soon overwhelmed. The bees almost suicidally threw themselves onto it in a great heap, covering it so completely that it fell from the air before suffocating and overheating. That particular beehive seems highly distressed and they have been in a frenzy ever since that hostile encounter with the wasp.

Hivemind

While preparations were being started for a much larger and well supplied caravan of explorers, complete with a portable "tent" built from papery mesh, we sent a drone to ask the bees about the surrounding lands. They know quite a bit as their flying nature and a desire for variety in their nectar has led to them exploring a wide area. Though it was difficult and slow for them to convey much about the outlying regions through gesticulations, we eventually gleaned some knowledge. We're getting better at communicating, too; a sort of pidgin language is developing.

They warned us that the grasslands eventually give dry up and give way to a bleak and sandy landscape out west. It seems to extend quite far, but as there are hardly any flowers to pollinate, the bees rarely venture in that direction. Perhaps there is something beyond the desert, but they've never tried to go out so far. They also warned us of the presence of dangerous predators, confirming our suspicions of what might have happened to that fateful scouting party that vanished in the northwest so long ago. They described one type of lizard that lurks still and hidden in plain sight with natural camouflage, and which likes to stalk the various flowers or edible plants. In light of these revelations, perhaps the expedition and colonization efforts should be focused elsewhere. There still is a reasonably large patch of land between our central hive and the swamp that is both habitable and seemingly rarely frequented by frogs.

But the bees told us of more than just the west. If we can ever manage to cross the river, they have claimed that the land there is lush and rich with a natural bounty of fruits and berries. However, there is a forest much denser than the woodland near our own home, and within those trees lurk all manner of other insects and creatures that would prove to be competition.

The queen that we spoke to surprisingly knew little of the lands south and the rest of the forest. It turns out that the various beehives are all independent from one another, and that we've only ever been in communication and good relations with one--that one nearest to the forest's edge. By longstanding agreement with the other bee colonies, our friends do not venture south or very deep into the forest, as those lands sustain the other colonies. Presumably they're rich enough, though, as the other two beehies seem to be getting along fine.

The beehive nearest to the beetles' former territory has been somewhat skittish near us, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise seeing as they were a front-row witness to our invasion and conquest of the beetles. But after seeing our dealings with the other beehive, they don't seem to feel overly threatened or fearful, just a bit cautious. Perhaps we should investigate establishing relations with them as well.

The continued usage of the mutated spitting workers has led to their saliva gradually becoming an even more powerful adhesive agent. Our two hives have finally been completely coated and built with our biological concrete, but now they are being fortified with additional layers and built even taller. Some attempts were made at developing a breed of flying warriors, but the effort was in vain. Our warriors have evolved to be much larger and better armored than the rest of our species, and it's gotten to the point that any wings are just vestigial. They are too bulky to actually take flight, and perhaps we would achieve better success by starting with the princes or even the workers. But then we would face the issue of having flying insects suited perhaps for scouting, but without the stingers, strong forelegs, armor, or mandibles of the warriors that make them adept at combat. They would need to gradually develop those weapons again, or else adapt a new means of fighting.

Hivemind

@LogantheCat

Lol thanks, it's actually the artwork for an obscure Hearthstone card.



Basically what Gentleman said; I'm trying to preserve at least some element of realism (so no mind control or telepathic powers), but if there's some way to use a bunch of scientific jargon to explain away an ability (like maybe hallucinogenic venom that makes a creature receptive to commands, instead of outright mind control) then it might slide. No harm in trying, though. Your suggestion might get taken and just get toned down a bit if I think it's too far out there.

Hivemind

In response to the threat of large creatures, the warriors developed stingers on their rear ends. While their mandibles still contain a light paralytic agent, their stingers inject a venom that denatures proteins and effectively "melts" flesh. It is somewhat slow to act and usually only lethal in quite large doses, but quite painful. The threat of being stung has begun to deter most animals from our berry bushes, but the bees have agreed to help us by giving warning when larger beasts come near.

Additional evolution of the warriors has lead to them now possessing latent receptors for a certain hormone found in the saliva of princes. It has no effect upon young warriors, but the bodies of more mature ones react quickly to it. Upon receiving the hormone, they become incapacitated for some time as their bodies once more enter a state of rapid growth usually associated only with the larvae. At the end of their vegetative state, they are much larger and stronger with thicker armor. Their minds are somewhat enhanced, and their lifespan is elongated as their age is practically "reset" and old wounds are regenerated during the growth phase. In this way, our princes are able to find the most grizzled veterans among the warrior drones and "promote" them that they can continue to serve the hive in a greater capacity.

No new notable threats seem to have emerged, which allows a brief respite where we could look inwards or perhaps focus on expansion.

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.