D&D General Hive Mind Evil?

[Zardnaar]

So, I don't see how, "restricting their numbers to a sustainable level" is consistent with "cannot feed themselves except by expanding into humanoid lands". If they need to expand, their current situation is, by definition, not sustainable.

Explained it earlier. Human adventurers/explorers/settlers have gone into their lands and liked some.

The Queens have laid more eggs that have hatched with more hatching soon.

So diplomatically asking the Queens not to expand means they starve.

Whatever the humanoid races are they don't have the resources to feed them either.

From the Queens PoV the humanoids are the resources after the humanoids provoked them and killed their workers.

The incident happened a year or so ago and they've ramped up egg laying in the intervening time.

 

[Umbran]

Explained it earlier. Human adventurers/explorers/settlers have gone into their lands and liked some.

Some? Like, a dozen? Like a thousand? How many extra are these queens making that the human lands can't even produce food to cover them?

The Queens have laid more eggs that have hatched with more hatching soon.

So diplomatically asking the Queens not to expand means they starve.

But, in a hive mind, the lives of individuals isn't terribly important. Individuals are disposable.

Normal insects don't care if they lose a few. That's part of the point of having a high reproductive rate - losses are expected, the price of doing business. If they lose a few, they are quickly replaced and it is like nothing ever happened. They don't respond to the loss of a few with a sudden overpopulation action that requires massive expansion of the hive. That is not sustainable or reasonable.

Unless the queens have reason to see the incursion as an act of aggression that's going to continue. But then, that overpopulation is for a purpose - war. And again, if the war is averted and those die... well, most of them were expected to be lost in war anyway.

From the Queens PoV the humanoids are the resources after the humanoids provoked them and killed their workers.

Humanoids are not good resources. We take nine months to produce one small offsprig, and a couple of decades to reach full size, and that's not very large. And we are clever and tend to cause difficulty. Humanoids make lousy cattle. Especially when real cattle exist.

Which is not to say you can't have the ants/whatever act this way, but then you are into "varelse" territory - they are acting as you say, for reasons the mammals cannot understand, and then you don't need to justify it with reason.

 

[Tonguez]

Funnily enough, Enworld has already explored this scenario back in 2003 via the Formian Invasion of Cressia which was part of RangerWickets Fantasy Arms Race. Formians use Myrmarch and Taskmasters to coordinate the otherwise mindless drones and workers.

The links there if you want to check it out for inspiration - or not

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

 

[MarkB]

As pointed out previously, the killing of a few individuals doesn't really register as particularly terrible to a hive mind, because they're disposable parts of a single organism.

But this also means that a hive mind may not comprehend the concept that killing a few (or even a few dozen) individual humanoids would be particularly terrible, because the hive mind doesn't understand the concept of individual sentience - quite possibly doesn't even have the frame of reference to understand it. That's a fairly common trope in fiction that includes hive minds.

Whether the hive mind is acting out of evil or simply ignorance is probably somewhat immaterial to the rulers whose people it is killing.

 

[Zardnaar]

Some? Like, a dozen? Like a thousand? How many extra are these queens making that the human lands can't even produce food to cover them?



But, in a hive mind, the lives of individuals isn't terribly important. Individuals are disposable.

Normal insects don't care if they lose a few. That's part of the point of having a high reproductive rate - losses are expected, the price of doing business. If they lose a few, they are quickly replaced and it is like nothing ever happened. They don't respond to the loss of a few with a sudden overpopulation action that requires massive expansion of the hive. That is not sustainable or reasonable.

Unless the queens have reason to see the incursion as an act of aggression that's going to continue. But then, that overpopulation is for a purpose - war. And again, if the war is averted and those die... well, most of them were expected to be lost in war anyway.



Humanoids are not good resources. We take nine months to produce one small offsprig, and a couple of decades to reach full size, and that's not very large. And we are clever and tend to cause difficulty. Humanoids make lousy cattle. Especially when real cattle exist.

Which is not to say you can't have the ants/whatever act this way, but then you are into "varelse" territory - they are acting as you say, for reasons the mammals cannot understand, and then you don't need to justify it with reason.

Thousands I'm guessing.

Think Roman empire with the Rhine but instead of Germanic tribes you have insect folk.

They don't plan on farming humans they're protein right here and now. If they say depopulate northern Gaul they have enough land to return to previous behavior.

PC actions can prevent this. The scenario I suppose is another sentient species that can out compete and produce humans (or Elves, Dwarves etc).

Humans have wiped out species sometimes deliberately. Another species might see us the same way.

 

[Zardnaar]

As pointed out previously, the killing of a few individuals doesn't really register as particularly terrible to a hive mind, because they're disposable parts of a single organism.

But this also means that a hive mind may not comprehend the concept that killing a few (or even a few dozen) individual humanoids would be particularly terrible, because the hive mind doesn't understand the concept of individual sentience - quite possibly doesn't even have the frame of reference to understand it. That's a fairly common trope in fiction that includes hive minds.

Whether the hive mind is acting out of evil or simply ignorance is probably somewhat immaterial to the rulers whose people it is killing.

Fantasy hivemind the drones might also be sentient.

Tosculi from Midgard are a PC race and any PCs have gone rogue.

 

[Richards]

If you're looking to insert some "evil" into a hivemind insect race, maybe the creation of a new queen of their species requires the implantation of an egg into an intelligent host, which might need to be paralyzed and made helpless in the nest while the implanted queen larva grows inside, eventually eating her way out into the open (and killing the host quite painfully). You might make this a parallel to illithid ceremorphosis (at least for the creation of new queens - the drones might come about via normal egg-laying). So while the PCs intruding into the hivemind's territory and slaying a few of their drones might not have been an act requiring retaliation, now that the hivemind is aware of a new race (or races) compatible with their queen-birthing needs....

Johnathan

 

[MarkB]

Fantasy hivemind the drones might also be sentient.

Okay, but are they like Mind Flayers where the individuals are sentient, but the Elder Brain is an individual being that exerts control over them? Or are they more like networked computers, where the individuals interlink to become a single shared consciousness, without necessarily any central being?

And I still don't really know what you're asking in the OP. Are you asking for opinions as to whether a hive mind in this general situation would be evil? Or are you looking for ways in which to make it evil?

 

[Oofta]

Yeah may not be ants just used it as an example.

Just an idea atm.

I still like the idea of giant ants (or whatever hive-mind you have) as infiltrating the local communities, taking slaves, being a fantasy tangent emulation of the Borg. If you want them to be evil, of course. Because, really, your question is kind of pointless. Are they evil? Well, being a hive mind doesn't make them inherently evil. They can be if you want them to be, what makes the most sense for the story?