Alien ants

I was more talking about the stereotypical ‘queen of a hive’ take in that part and not irl

I think eusociality would be a cool thing to implement in the game, perhaps it would work as a slider that goes from individualistic and competitive to fully eusocial or even hive-minded (similar to the current sliders for cell behavior).

For a species that is eusocial like earth’s ants individuals would probably need to be intelligent enough individually to achieve industrialization, but perhaps not as much as humans since they would surely be more coordinated and specialized. In game this could mean bonuses to some stats depending on how social the species is and different behavior for auto-evo.

Hive mind are a whole other discussion since I don’t think there’s anything similar on Earth, but if implemented they might play just like eusocial species with some extra boons or cool abilities (think maybe like hive-minds in stellaris).

However as far as I can tell the idea is that societies as complex as these would only be possible in the society stage (except for species that are simply more cooperative in the aware stage, and not as much as ants). Would it still make sense for a creature to evolve full eusociality or a hive mind structure only after they have achieved sentience and thus reached the society (maybe just awakening) stage? Could an exception be made for these creatures to have a simple society in earlier stages, or maybe that had already been in the scope of the game?

1 Like

I agree, with two caveats, a single slider is way too simple, and why would hives be locked off to sentient creatures? Eusocial insects are plain dumb, unless you count their hive inteligence.

I know it makes no sense scientifically, but wouldn’t complex societies work only in the society or awakening stages? Now that I think about it you could maybe use swarm intelligence, as opposed to individual intelligence as an alternative prerequisite for advancing to the next stages? Maybe that wouldn’t be too time-consuming to implement after all.
By the way, when I say complex eusocial society I mean stuff like ants that farm fungi and herd aphids as livestock, you can see how that would make more sense for later stages.

Regarding the slider thing, maybe it should be topped off by stuff like communication, pheromone glands and receptors as prerequisites to move towards eusociality, and creativity/self expression (couldn’t think of anything else) as requirements to move towards individuality.

I don’t know how much brain/behavior development in the aware stage has been discussed but individualism/collectivism could be a part of a larger set of parameters that are intertwined with the structure of the brain and the rest of the creature’s biology

Hmm, I see that, but I like the idea of eusociality being an alternative prerequisite rather than it having a prerequisite. As for the slider I thing having a 2- or 3-dimentional “slider” would be better, as sociality can go many ways irl. Take humans, we’re very social, inhumanly good at communicating (try talking to an ant about an abstract concept), have a totally unique storytelling instinct- and are utter :belgium: at working together. Contracted with ants, who couldn’t communicate for :belgium: but work together better that the cells in some people’s bodies.

This Thread and the other threads like it may shine some light

1 Like

As something of an ant myself, they better be

4 Likes

Well two things first lotta of o2 or the “ant” needs to breath different from how ants breath

Who says it can’t just be ant sized? Not everything has to be on a familiar scale.

humanoid ants, so strong they can lift tanks

Not how that works. Look up the square-cube law

You can create a ant-like creature that would be very different from ants in physiology (like, for instance, having bones, lungs…).

isnt that just mole rats?

Mole rats are useless, they don’t work together as well as a eusocial species should, the queens brithrate is too low, and they don’t do anything that a dozen sociable ferrets couldn’t do better.

Counter point: Mole rats are immune to cancer

Exactly, why waste epicness on a power that benefits the individual when you are eusocial, massive waste,

Because you don’t care what humans think

Humans aren’t eusocial, it’d be great if we could avoid cancer, like, out special ability is sorta accumulating knowledge over our lifetimes, lengthening them would be great. Same for most birds or apex predators. But eusocial creatures run on pure teamwork and there is no I in team. They’d be much better off with quick replacement of workers.

That’s what a human thinks

I think alien ants are a requirement for any sci-fi setting