Piracy Among Hivers

From SOTS

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 or 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.