The Bugs

[Ares Land]

Mother Root and a young Ropemaker

ropemaker-and-mom.jpg (88.9 KiB) Viewed 8494 times

[Raphael]

Wow, interesting!

Why were the largest eggs sacrificed? Isn't it a bit of a waste of effort to produce and lay eggs and then eat them yourself?


(I think there might be some minor English mistakes, unless they're typos.)

[Ares Land]

Wow, interesting!

Why were the largest eggs sacrificed? Isn't it a bit of a waste of effort to produce and lay eggs and then eat them yourself?

Thanks!

The egg sacrifice is religious, if you like; or maybe it's magical thinking: you sacrifice something of value (part of the brood) for the continuous well-being of the colony.
And it's said to restore the queen's health -- and the extra calories certainly help, especially for a very weakened queen such as Mother Root.

But the real cause is deeper: actually, it's a way to regulate population growth. It's always the largest eggs that get sacrified: in other words, those most likely to give birth to sexuates. That way the colony adapts its number of queen to the resources available.

Mother Root, besides, is aging and so tends to give birth to more sexuates... Surely she needs a replacement, but chances are she already has one (there's most likely a few other queens reaching maturity in the colony. And the new dominant queens will likely produce a very large clutch, with one or two surviving queens among the eggs.

In short, egg sacrifice serves more or less the same purpose as female infanticide once did in human societies.

(I think there might be some minor English mistakes, unless they're typos.)

Sigh. Yes, unfortunately, both are very likely.

[Ares Land]

A teaser for the next part...

The Bugs have relatives... indeed, there are many related eusocial species.

One of these is called the bloodmare. The Bugs keep have domesticated them: indeed they can be considered the Bug's best friend and her noblest conquest.
Bloodmares are about the size of horse. In a way, they're our analogues on Orenda: they're ominores and persistence hunters that evolved in the savannah.

Here's a worker bloodmare:

a-good-girl.png (218.29 KiB) Viewed 8452 times

Who's a good girl?

(I kind of like this one because it has, I feel, a very Dougal Dixon look to it. Sigh. I wish used copies of After Man weren't so expensive...)

[evmdbm]

Looking forward to part 2

Incidentally if there are worker bloodmares, does that imply that bloodmare social structure is like that of the bugs - or am I reading way too much into things?

[Ares Land]

Incidentally if there are worker bloodmares, does that imply that bloodmare social structure is like that of the bugs - or am I reading way too much into things?

Yes, they have the same social structure (with small groups rather than full-fledged colonies, though).
There are somewhere between two or three hundred species in the order Glaucomimids (the name might change later on), to which Bugs and bloodmares belong, and eusociality has evolved several times: all of these species share the same diploid-triploid chromosomal system. (The colonies are less impressive than in hymenopterans, because they're typically largeish carnivores, a lifestyle than can't support really large colonies).

The similiarity in lifestyle has allowed the Bugs to domesticate the bloodmares : bloodmares treat the Bugs as workers and queens of their kind.
Likewise, Bug cities are host to other Glaucomimid species, familiars and gargoyles, which as far as we can serve no useful purpose, yet the Bugs take care of them as youngs of their kind. Depending on how you look at it, they're either pets or parasites taking advantage of the Bug's eusocial behaviour.

[Raphael]

Just noticed this - presumably "Shepherd" isn't meant as a literal translation, so what would a literal translation of his name be?

[Ares Land]

Just noticed this - presumably "Shepherd" isn't meant as a literal translation, so what would a literal translation of his name be?

in-ji:ngr:-ta

stray-cattle-DONE

'Someone has taken care of the stray behemoths'

The behemoths are only distantly related to the Bugs. Picture something like a mammoth, with two feeding arms instead of a trunk (Orendan fauna tends to be larger than Earth's). The Bugs make use of pretty much all parts of the beasts, wool, eggs (the behemoth are r-strategists and produce large numbers of eggs), meat. The bones are often used as construction material.

The behemoths roam vast territories and sometimes male Bugs make themselves useful by driving them back to the Bug cities.

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[Xwtek]

The similiarity in lifestyle has allowed the Bugs to domesticate the bloodmares : bloodmares treat the Bugs as workers and queens of their kind.

Actually, you don't have to make both having a similar lifestyle. Humans are arguably eusocial, while cats are almost a solitary animal.

Likewise, Bug cities are host to other Glaucomimid species, familiars and gargoyles, which as far as we can serve no useful purpose, yet the Bugs take care of them as youngs of their kind. Depending on how you look at it, they're either pets or parasites taking advantage of the Bug's eusocial behaviour.

Interesting, so just like cat in our society?

[Ares Land]

The similiarity in lifestyle has allowed the Bugs to domesticate the bloodmares : bloodmares treat the Bugs as workers and queens of their kind.

Actually, you don't have to make both having a similar lifestyle. Humans are arguably eusocial, while cats are almost a solitary animal.

Dogs, however, have a very similar social structure to us, and you'll have better results training a dog than training a cat!

Interesting, so just like cat in our society?

Yes, it's fairly similar, although gargoyles and familiars are eusocial as well...

But the way it works is more similar to brood parasitism or slave-making ants. Slave-making has evolved several times independantly in ants, so presumably that sort of parasitism is a common consequence of eusociality, so it makes sense that it would occur with Bugs and related species as well.

In the case of bloodmares, Bugs are the parasites; and contrariwise, Bugs are host species to the parasitic gargoyles and familiars.

(BTW, it's funny that nobody made the connection between brood parasitism and domestication of cats and dogs before...)

[Xwtek]

The similiarity in lifestyle has allowed the Bugs to domesticate the bloodmares : bloodmares treat the Bugs as workers and queens of their kind.

Actually, you don't have to make both having a similar lifestyle. Humans are arguably eusocial, while cats are almost a solitary animal.

Dogs, however, have a very similar social structure to us, and you'll have better results training a dog than training a cat!

I'm saying just in case you had to make the two creatures having the same lifestyle.

I liked your conlang more, though. It's utterly alien, yet still making sense.

[Ares Land]

I liked your conlang more, though. It's utterly alien, yet still making sense.

Heh, thanks. There'll be more on Bug language later on. (Though language is the hardest part so far. I still need to figure out how sound change works, for instance.)

[WeepingElf]

This is good stuff, original and interesting. I considered adding a eusocial species to my future history myself, as an unfathomable and dangerous antagonist. However, I have my doubts against that. A eusocial society of sapient, self-aware beings shouldn't work well (it would be a totalitarian nightmare that makes Stalinist Russia look like a libertarian paradise in comparison, and likewise would require brute force to maintain), and one of non-sapient beings, well, those have existed on Earth for millions of years, and none ever built starships.

[Raphael]

A eusocial society of sapient, self-aware beings shouldn't work well (it would be a totalitarian nightmare that makes Stalinist Russia look like a libertarian paradise in comparison, and likewise would require brute force to maintain),

I think you're generalizing too much from "human beings" to "sapient, self-aware beings".

[Ares Land]

This is good stuff, original and interesting.

Thanks a lot.

A eusocial society of sapient, self-aware beings shouldn't work well (it would be a totalitarian nightmare that makes Stalinist Russia look like a libertarian paradise in comparison, and likewise would require brute force to maintain)

I'd be really interested if you wanted to expand on why you think it'd necessarily turn out that way.

[WeepingElf]

Good objections. Indeed, while enforcing a eusocial society on humans probably requires a lot of brutality, it may be different with alien minds, especially if they have evolved from a species that already was eusocial when it developed sapience. This of course borders on the question: What is "sapience", before anything else? We only have one example of a sapient species - ourselves - so we can't say what sapient minds on other planets may be like. Perhaps most technologically advanced societies in our galaxy are eusocial, and we individualistic humans are a rare exception.

[Ares Land]

Good objections. Indeed, while enforcing a eusocial society on humans probably requires a lot of brutality, it may be different with alien minds, especially if they have evolved from a species that already was eusocial when it developed sapience. This of course borders on the question: What is "sapience", before anything else? We only have one example of a sapient species - ourselves - so we can't say what sapient minds on other planets may be like. Perhaps most technologically advanced societies in our galaxy are eusocial, and we individualistic humans are a rare exception.

I don't know. My model for the Bugs is that of a very, very large family and I've kept things easy by keeping a small-ish colony size. Which makes sense anyway; an alien Formic or Xenomorph-sized isn't going to have colonies with population in the millions to begin with; the ecology can't support that. So they'd have to start with smaller groups.
As Bug societies grow, I don't know how they'd scale. Presumably they would have to invent a form of politics; some Bug culture may well end up "totalitarian" while others would be "liberal".

As for sapience, I don't know. In my mind, it's pretty clear that the Bugs are sapient, but I like to keep things a little ambiguous, with their sentience something an external observer would need some effort to notice. But the question on the definition of sapience is interesting, and I think I'll take it to a new thread...

And as for galactic societies, I suppose the dominant societal organisation is something unutterably weird that can only evolve on planets orbiting red dwarfs

[Salmoneus]

Just wanted to mention that I approve of the approach here. It makes me kind of want to go back to my own aliens (I try to come to aliens from what you might call a 'bioeconomic' point of view, looking at how the alien basic physical and social nature is reflected in their society).

[Ares Land]

I'd like to check if the Bug language is actually functional, or find out some of its limitations.
Would anyone here have ideas for sentences I should try translating? (I'd rather avoid long texts for now...)