Multi-Species Hive Minds

[101Titan101]

I can't be the only one who thinks it'd be cool to have a Hive Mind empire wherein the ruler is a seperate species than the rest of the empire like the Swarm in Starcraft. It'd make perfect sense and could add to making your ruler feel like an all powerful being.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

In a (Stellaris) Hive Mind, there is no ruler. The "ruler" you see in the empire window or when you contact a Hive Mind for diplomacy is a figurative representation of the collective consciousness of the entire entity, which spans the many billions of life forms that comprise it.

Concentrating control of the entire hive into a single life form would not make sense, if it were even possible. This would be like suggesting that a human brain should be controlled by one single alien cell. Trying to route all decisionmaking through that one cell would be inefficient and would make the brain much more vulnerable to disease and damage.

[It's a Mind Game]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

[..]
Concentrating control of the entire hive into a single life form would not make sense, if it were even possible. This would be like suggesting that a human brain should be controlled by one single alien cell. Trying to route all decisionmaking through that one cell would be inefficient and would make the brain much more vulnerable to disease and damage.

I think your anology is wrong. Brain controls other parts of the body (and itself), so you could call brain "ruler" in this sense. Other cells do their small thing, but overall direction comes from brain.
If every single cell were to contribute to decisions, it would be inefficient, since they would have to be much more complex. We have specialization almost everywhere for a reason.

If you have one controlling body of the swarm, then you can have the best possible combat drones, 100% dedicated to fighting, with no added clutter. They could have minimal, instinctive behaviours coded in (like breathing, eating), but anything intelligent would go thru "overmind" or lets say "overseer" that gets its orders from "overmind" and manages less important aspects.

[Astasia]

Doesn't matter, that's not what a hive mind is, or a gestalt intelligence. Hive mind in this case specifically means the entire hive is the mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_mind_(science_fiction)

A hive like empire with a queen structure would be a nice addition to the game though, as a new empire type, perhaps somewhat of a hybrid between some of the hive mind mechanics and the imperial government types.

[StrictNine]

Originally posted by Astasia:

A hive like empire with a queen structure would be a nice addition to the game though...

So what you are saying is you would like to play as the Prethoryn Scourge?
There is a mod for that I think.

[Astasia]

There are a number of mods that do something similar. I am aware, I've used many of them.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by It's a Mind Game:

I think your anology is wrong. Brain controls other parts of the body (and itself), so you could call brain "ruler" in this sense. Other cells do their small thing, but overall direction comes from brain.
If every single cell were to contribute to decisions, it would be inefficient, since they would have to be much more complex. We have specialization almost everywhere for a reason.

If someone was asking for a hive mind with more than one species in it, where one species served as the "brain" of the hive, and other species served other functions, then what you are saying would apply, and it would be a valid position to take. It would also be something that you can sort of do in Stellaris, once you have access to genetic ascension and can integrate new species into the collective.

That's not what the op was proposing. He suggested a single individual of a distinct species acting as the sole unit of control for the rest of the hive mind (aside from the autonomic responses like breathing, which presumably would be handled by each individual). That may work for Blizzard's writers, but it doesn't work with the hive minds that are present in Stellaris.

However, that doesn't mean someone couldn't mod it in if they really wanted it. Mods don't need to be constrained by the design of the base game, nor do they necessarily need to make sense.

[Evilgenius]

Theoreticly this can be done. If you take Engineered Evolution and Evolutionary Mastery (which you probably want if you are a hive mind) there is an option to change the picture of your species. So if you change the picture of all your drones, your leader is the only one with the original species picture. This way you can make worker drones, research drones and fabricator drones with a different picture. It is just alot of work, but a good RP experience takes some effort to make fun.

[Shahadem]

The Swarm are not all different species. The Swarm uses the genes of different species but has always been a single species until Kerrigan. That is why all of their units come from the same maggots.

A much closer parallel would be the Borg from Star Trek.