Category talk:Hivers

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Q: I like that the Hivers seem to embrace aspects of human culture, an obsession with chess, spices and cheese is all I can remember off the top of my head.

A: The Hivers know a good game when they play one, and a good meal when they smell one. Even though they have a tendency to re-name the pieces when they play chess, and to combine spices and cheeses in unexpected ways.

Q: I always wished that the Hiver name for themselves (or some kind of mangled transliteration into the Roman alphabet) made as much of an appearance as "Tarka" and "Liir".

A: the human centric naming of hivers was meant to really drive home their connection to the human race. By the time their multisyllable sound and scent name for themselves became known it was as hard to eradicate the term hiver as it is nazi.

Q: What exactly what makes Hivers get drunk? Seems like dairy... or maybe the culture that turns things like milk into cheese or yogurt?

A: It's the latter. Cultures of lactose and a few other random sugars are able to intoxicate a Hiver; the standard alcohol molecule that we enjoy, although it registers as "tasty" and "interesting", does not affect their brain chemistry the way it does ours.

If you want to "mess with the crystals" you need to either sample the native alkaloids and micro-organism waste from their planet, or figure out which ones on our planet give them a buzz. The active cultures of yogurt, as it happens, are pleasantly trippy. Some cheeses also pack a kick.

Q: Who is the queen child to? Their goddess? The previous queen (you know, the one whos brain she ate)? No-one, since she is the (grand)mother of all?

A: The Queen is the child of a former queen and of the Goddess, who is Mother of All. Hivers practice a certain amount of ancestor worship, for obvious reasons, and even the Queen's relationship to ancestors is important. All Hivers have a keen interest in matters of lineage and pedigree, and often credit for individual merit is shared with the parents, clan or lineage. "Bad blood" can also be blamed for deviant or anti-social behavior, as well as "mis-birth"--a defective Hiver born to an otherwise worthy clan.

Q: What does a non-breeder in the hiver military refer to a Prince as? (I assume that Princesses and the Queen are referred to as Highness and Majesty). Would it be a term equivilant to "lord/my lord" or as simple as referring to them by rank?

A: Generally, if the two Hivers are non-related to one another by blood, they would simply use rank or "brother" if they were of equal rank.

If the conversation were more personal and the Hiver wished to show personal respect that went beyond rank, "Prince" is already a significant title which indicates a privileged position. If there was also a clan relationship, "Father" (if the Prince was his father) or "My Prince" (if the Prince was simply his mother's mate) might be used. Transfered from forums by --Nspace 17:17, 2 May 2007 (EDT)


Q: I was wondering just how common is it for a hiver to be hatched more than once? Only the best and the brightest and even them only after a heroic sacrifice, or anyone with above average skills?

A: It is extremely rare. The circumstances depend on the Princess. She always has the power, but it does take a good deal of her internal resources to achieve a resurrection. The more experienced and mature the female, the better her results will tend to be--it is not uncommon for a young, inexperienced Princess who wishes to have one of her clan reborn to call in a very special favor from an older female. Transfered from forums by --Nspace 13:23, 11 April 2007 (PDT)


Q: Would the Hiver need propaganda, then? For that matter, do they even make life choices for themselves, or is their lot in society predetermined?

A: There is a lot of propaganda generated for Hivers, both at the rank and file level and the individual caste level. The space corps in general requires warrior Hivers of various clans to cooperate and co-exist in unusual circumstances. You have to persuade a Hiver to leave his own family and go to serve a higher calling--and you have to persuade his princess to give him his freedom to enter the space corps, which can be quite difficult.

Sometimes a Hiver princess will actually join the war effort herself, commiting all her sons and resources to military-industrial service.

Again, as with all propaganda, it is important to establish the presence of a great threat or a wonderful opportunity to motivate Hivers to take these risks and make these sacrifices. --Nspace 11:07, 20 June 2006 (PDT)

Q: I thought they were mortified when seeing their two queens fight but they target women first?

A: They are mortified seeing two princesses fight because princesses do not fight. Princesses are defended by an entire sub-species of Hiver which exist for no other purpose than to protect and serve them. But the fact that Princesses do not fight does not mean that princesses are not frequently killed. They are just killed by the children of their enemies. --Nspace 12:44, 3 February 2006 (EST)

Q: Do all Hivers have antennae? Are they mostly vestigial/decorative or do they provide any kind of important sensory input?

A: 1) All Hivers have antenna of a sort, yes. They are one of the most easily altered pieces of a Hiver's anatomy, as well, so the variation in shape, size and color is enormous.

2) The function of the modern-day Hiver's antenna is social. A Hiver's antenna are deeply expressive of emotion and states of mind, and other Hivers tend to read them the way humans read the tiny signals around the eyes and mouth of other humans. They are also highly sensitive to touch.

Q: Did Hivers evolve from what we would recognize as insects?

A: Well, yes, but only to the degree that the same could be said of humans, Tarkas or Liir. Insect-like forms are some of the earliest forms of life on most planets.

Q: Or did they have more of a, I dunno, reptilian evolution, with chitinous armor instead of scales, and the insectoid appearance is just a coincidence?

A: The insectoid appearance is something of a coincidence. A Hiver's armor is an adaptation from a softer-bodied organism, but they have always had the body divisions and number of limbs which are associated on Earth with insect life. --Nspace 09:39, 12 June 2006 (PDT)


Recently Added Info

Hivers do not have direct blood flow to the outer shell of their armor "skin", and most workers and warriors only have vestigal wings: only a Hiver of the breeding class (prince, princess, queen) can show emotion and communicate by flow of blood to the visible tissue of the wings.

On the other hand, Hivers do have facial expressions, posture and gesture, and very eloquent body language. And all Hivers communicate a great deal of emotional information through pheromones--fear, respect, joy, sorrow, hate, etc..

Q: How articulate would a Hiver Prince/Princess' wings be? Would they be able to form sounds that approach human speech?

A: Hivers are capable of forming most of the sounds of human speech simply with their mouthparts, although there are a few that are difficult because they do not have the same arrangement of tongue and teeth that we do.

The sounds made by wingcases are more like stringed instruments--violin, viola, cello, bass or lower. A Prince who can play his own wingcases as an instrument is a romantic figure to the Hivers. --Nspace 15:00, 12 January 2006 (EST)

Q: Do hivers get drunk, and if so, what would the comparison be to an AVERAGE human?

A: Hiver can derange their senses, but alcohol is just a flavor to them; their neurochemistry is different enough that the molecule doesn't affect them. No human could outdrink a Hiver...if the drink was alcohol. For a Hiver, it isn't the wine that's intoxicating--it's the cheese.

Q: What about sweets... its very cliche, but they are bugs.. and bugs like sugar. Do Hivers enjoy honey, candy, and dessert type things as well?

A: Hivers enjoy sugar, but they prefer fats to carbohydrates. The ideal human food from the Hiver nutritional point of view is probably some kind of triple fat super chunk frozen yoghurt--flavored with an alcohol like rum.

Q: What about thick egg nog flavored milkshakes, or is that too spicy?

A: Watch out! Bug stampede!

Q: It was mentioned how the Hiver reacts to human female. Was the Hiver reaction to the Tarka female mentioned?

A: The reaction is the same. The hormone that makes an organism "female" is estrogen--the estrogen cycle is where eggs come from, and the ability to create eggs is universal to Tarka, Hiver and human females. Hivers can smell that hormone a mile away, and the smell has great significance to them--significance which can have very negative consequences for enemy females encountered in battle.

Q: "Hivers have been known to target females first in ship-to-ship boarding actions, which can have unpleasant psychological effects on human crews." why?

A:Bossman has somewhat explained the Hiver logic behind targeting females first, but his version is a little too mild. The real instinct behind it would be:

Estrogen = Female.
Female = Mother.
Dead Mother = Dead clan. After enemy princess is killed, war is just a matter of mopping up. Morale loss is just a corollary to that.

Q: Could there be (is there) Hiver pirates out in the black that prey on vessels of their own race? Mandible and Cross clawed legs.

A: Hiver pirates could exist, although socially they would be much more likely to be of the privateer variety--servants of the Queen who chivvy and harass the shipping lanes of her enemies. Truly independent pirates, who prey on all who cross their paths, would be extremely unusual; such a force would have to be made up of Hivers who had lost their clan, or been exiled/banished.

A Hiver pirate of the warrior or worker caste would have to be, by the standards of his own species, criminal and psychotic--unless his mother was the leader of the fleet, in which case he would simply be the loyal son of a pirate Queen. From his own point of view this would make sense, regardless of how despised or feared he was by the rest of his race.

Without a pirate Princess or Queen, the ship or fleet would likely be led by a rogue Prince who could manipulate a group of wicked, sociopathic Hivers to follow him, with the promise of mayhem and profit. They might be his own sons, or they might simply be a rag-tag group of outcasts. Either way--they'd be extremely dangerous bugs. --Nspace 16:25, 26 June 2006 (PDT)

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