Hive Caste System

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Oftentimes, when Bee People show up to fight a Bug War against humanity, while the humans use the full panoply of technology, including spaceships, tanks, Powered Armor, and military aircraft, the Bugs are likely to instead use specialized castes of their own race, with a large level of polymorphism between different castes of the same species to adapt them to specialized roles. This system is actually inspired by certain Real Life ants, bees and termites, who indeed come in several of the varieties seen below.

Since the Ants and Bees that inspired this trope have all-female worker castes, this often leads to a sort of One-Gender Race.

When aliens have a caste system, but the various castes are not physically very different, that's not this trope, that's Fantastic Caste System. Often leads to Crippling Overspecialization for individuals, or is a way to avoid it for the race as a whole.

Examples of Hive Caste System include:

Anime and Manga

  • The manga version of Chrono Crusade mixes this trope with Fantastic Caste System for the demons. Although we're never told the details of the system, demons often talk about the "rank" of themselves and other demons, and the higher the "rank", the less beast-like and more intelligent and powerful the demon seems to be. There also seems to be clearly defined roles for demons—among the ones the audience learns about are Pursuers (which seem to be Demon Cops of some sort), soldiers, Sinners (outcasts) and Pandaemonium, the Hive Queen.
  • For the most part averted with the Bugrom of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World. Despite being human-sized insects, there seem to be only two "castes" in their society: Queen Diva, and everyone else.

Comic Books

Film

  • The Starship Troopers movie and its direct-to-DVD sequels added Plasma Bugs, who shot blue death from their butts clear up to orbit; Tanker Bugs, giant bombardier beetles who spat red death at close range; Chariot Bugs, who carried around the bloated Brain Bugs; Hoppers, which could fly but were otherwise similar to Warriors; and in the later films Control Bugs, who were much smaller and could mind-control people similar to Puppeteer Parasite.
  • The Alien series features several stages of life for Xenomorphs, from facehuggers through chestbursters to your standard double-jawed Giger nightmare. And then there was the Queen, who laid eggs and was fiercely protective of her offspring.
    • It was implied and then later confirmed in the movies, video games and books that the xenomorphs take on characteristics from the host they gestate within. That explains why a chestbuster coming from a dog looks doglike and why one from a Predator is bigger than those from humans and has the characteristic mandibles and dreadlocks.

Literature

  • Starship Troopers. In the original novel, there were workers, who couldn't fight but were available in huge numbers and useful for diversions; Warriors, who fought with technological weapons equal to those of the Mobile Infantry; Brain Bugs, who psychically controlled most of the rest; and Queens, who laid eggs in huge numbers but did little else.
    • Partially averted, however; workers and warriors (which compose 99% of the race) are nearly identical in appearance. This is actually a plot point, when a massive decoy force—composed entirely of non-aggressive workers—is used as a feint.
  • H. G. Wells' First Men On The Moon. Older Than Radio.[context?]
  • The Mote in God's Eye. The Moties are divided up into a number of castes, including Mediators, Engineers, Physicians, Warriors and Masters. They have genetically based differences in bodies and mindsets.
  • Kevin J Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns has the Ildirans with dozens of different castes, each different enough that some of them don't even appear to be the same species.
  • Averted in the Spellsinger books, where the social ranks of Plated Folk are determined by what species of insect they are, rather than what caste within a species.
  • There's a borderline example with the Kiliks in the Dark Nest Trilogy. Kiliks in general are hivemind insects, and the people of other species who've been absorbed into the hive mind are called Joiners. There are several species of Kilik, all of them sentient, all of them different somehow - mostly, these are minor things like speed, dexterity, priorities like aesthetics, skills, and preferred tactics, but some are particularly specialized, from being only inches long to fifty-meter-long tanks.
  • The Vord from Codex Alera, which adapt different sub-species to deal with specific situations. Vord Queens, Vord warriors, wax spiders (which fill the "worker" slot) and Takers are the standard castes, but there are many more beyond that which are created during the course of the series.
  • In David and Leigh Eddings's The Deamers quartet, the original workers and warriors are joined by humanoid bugs capable of semi-independent thought. Eventually this causes problems for the species are contrary points of view need to be dealt with for the first time.
  • In the Xeelee Sequence, there is a librarian hive—a great Archive full of large-headed Scholars, lean book-finding Runners and spiderlike Maintenance Workers.

Live-Action TV

  • In Farscape, the Scarrans have at least three castes in their hierarchy, sorted into Low, Middle and Ruling class: the Low-class "Horse-Faced" Scarrans are used as warriors, torturers, and ambassadors; the Middle-Class Scarrans tend to be found acting as bodyguards to the Ruling class; finally, the telepathic Ruling-Class Scarrans are high-ranking politicans and military officers, though some are happy acting as torturers and secret agents.
  • The Wraith on Stargate Atlantis are divided into Queens at the highest strata (typically just one per Hiveship), followed by male Wraith (functioning in officer and science capacities), and Wraith soldiers at the bottom, who are under the constant mental influence of the higher groups.

Tabletop Games

  • The Tyranids from Warhammer 40,000 don't have castes per se, but various different types of Tyranid creatures bred to do a specific job, ranging from enormous Hive Ships to not-quite-as-enormous (but still as big as most Humongous Mecha) Biotitans to various Synapse Creatures (that control lesser Tyranid creatures) to tank-sized monstrosities and smaller and more numerous warrior organisms. Non-combat Tyranid creatures include the Norn Queen (that breeds other Tyranids inside the Hive Ships), capillary towers and mycotic spores (organic drop pods). Even their weapons and ammo are Tyranid creatures.
    • Granted, they are not bug people, but the Tau have a caste system where members of each caste possess different physiology. The military Fire caste are tall and strong, the pilot Air caste are slender and have better depth-perception and G-force tolerance, and the worker Earth caste are short and stocky.
  • The Lizardmen of Warhammer Fantasy Battle have the Skinks (drones) Saurus (warriors) and Kroxigor (workers) with the Slann as the kind of 'Queen Bee'.
    • Although all four of them will fight if called upon. The Skinks also act as scribes and overseers to the others, (and some can do magic) while the Kroxigor double up as Giant Mooks in battle.
  • Dungeons & Dragons has the Formians, an ant-like Outsider race with various specialized subtypes (worker, warrior, elite warrior, winged warrior, giant warrior, observer, taskmaster, and queen). All outsider types are specialized in a similar, although less overtly insectoid, way; Modrons are the most obvious.
    • Beholder hives have Hive Mothers (magically modified beholders) which rule over normal beholders and specialized abominations they spawned.
    • Kreen are very social insectoids, but live in networks of small groups, not hives—so there are basic roles, but no "castes". However, some Dark Sun tohr-kreen create lots of Super Soldier scouts, so modified that the term for them translates as "altered near-person" (but scouts don't know this).
    • Saurials do something like this via social symbiosis of several different species, naturally with different abilities. It's not a strictly binding limitation, but small fragile flier both naturally makes a great scout and courier, and is likely to prefer such an activity over any manual labour.
    • Abeils are literal Bee People with three castes: vassals (average citizens and basic infantry), soldiers (elite warriors), and queens.
    • The Hivebrood from Basic/Expert/etc D&D combine this trope with The Virus.
  • At least one sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) (Delta Green?) divides the Mi-Go into three castes: warriors, workers and scientists.
  • In Talislanta, native insect-folk include the aggressive "sniper bugs" and nomadic "caravan bugs". These Bugs Are Different in that they're the size of ordinary insects, and are included more for exotic flavor than as potential opponents ... although the former are feuding with the pixie-like (and equally small) whisps, and the latter will trade tiny samples of rare plants for minute amounts of food.
  • The Slivers in Magic: The Gathering are pretty solidly this. The trope is played with in that their apparent home plane, Rath, is a Death World, and so even the lowest of the low of them are deadly enough to kill and devour a human—there is no real "worker caste", just "specialized breeds that are useful in this particular tactical environment". Each breed also shares their adaptations with everyone else in the hive.

Toys

  • The Skrall in Bionicle are a gender-segregated version of this. Among the males, there are the nameless "warrior" Skrall, which make up most of the population and serve as Mooks, then the Elite Skrall (Bigger, more powerful Skrall ), and finally the enormous Leader Class who are in charge of the Skrall society. The females live separately to the males, and it's implied that the only interaction between the genders consists of fighting or mating. The females also have Psychic Powers.

Video Games

  • In StarCraft, the Zerg are this way to such an extreme that they live inside living castles made from the bodies of their own drones.
    • Note that the Zerg Drone is a worker unit, not a mate.
  • In Age of Wonders, differences between units of the same species sometimes is obviously biological, at least for Draconians and Shadow Demons.
  • Pikmin. They're far cuter than most examples on this list, they're plant-based, and they're stuck on the bottom of the food chain without the player's guidance. With the player's guidance, they quickly fly up the food chain.
  • Antlions from Half Life 2 are composed of several different castes. These including the standard Antlion, Workers (which tend the Antlion grubs and can spit corrosive acid), and Antlion Myrmidonts (which are huge and serve as miniboss monsters).
  • Rlaan in Vega Strike are very far from a hive, despite their arthropodal appearance. But they have "workers" and "defenders". Their government mostly consists of hybrids—sterile, but with mental qualities of both subspecies balanced. As a bonus, these aren't going to spawn any hereditary aristocracy.
  • Hivers in Sword of the Stars are organized in clans centered around a princess, who has birthed all members of that clan. Aside from birthing princesses, hivers come in three kinds: Workers (scientists, engineers, artists, etc.), warriors (heavy manual labor, high-risk work, soldiers, etc.) and princes (sexually active and otherwise basically big, intelligent warriors). Each of the castes can apparently be further divided, as the princess is able to modify her eggs to slightly specialize the role of the hiver that hatches from it—she can, for instance, make a clutch of soldiers slightly more radiation-resistant than normal to work in fallout clearance, but she can't make soldiers with wings and acid-spitting. Hivers thus use a panoply of technology (guns, tanks, starships, armour, etc.) roughly equal to those of humans and tarka, and nothing strictly prevents a worker from picking up one of their guns and using it... Apart from the problem that said gun was likely built for a soldier and weighs a bit more than your average worker can handle.
    • The Hiver system also has a weird form of social mobility: Hiver brains can survive for a few days after the body dies, and princesses can swallow the disembodied brains and recycle them into new bodies. If a worker or soldier impresses the princess enough she might decide they're leadership material and rebirth them as a prince. Do something really impressive and Grandma might decide they're what she's looking for in a new princess.
    • There is also the Queen who births all princesses, when she dies her daughters fight amongst one another for the right to consume her ovaries, transforming her into a new Queen. Though a princess who isolates herself for about 200 years might also turn into a Queen, explaining how multiple Hiver factions are possible.
  • The bugs in Simtunes are insects crossed with musical instruments.
  • Mass Effect has the rachni. Among the types you can fight are Workers (who just explode to kill you), Soldiers (who actually fight you) and Brood Warriors (larger, Biotics-using Soldiers, who according to the codex are also the Rachni males).
  • The Space Pirates of the Metroid series. Higher ranks are more powerful and specialized, whereas ordinary grunts serve as either arm cannon fodder, unwilling test subjects for the science division, or lunch. Yeah, life as a Space Pirate sucks.
  • The Pfhor in Marathon are hinted to be like this. In Infinity, Tycho says "bugs are so obedient" in reference to the Pfhor under his command, and they have a clear caste system in which the lower ranking members are considered more expendable than the upper ranking ones.

Web Original

  • Tech Infantry repeats most of the bug castes it borrowed from Starship Troopers, but adds Guardian Bugs and Emperor Bugs, gigantic guards and mates for the queen; Drones, a tougher version of Workers that can fight by trying to bite enemies, and gives the Warrior bugs and larger castes the ability to use magic.
  • On the opposite extreme, in Drowtales it's suggested that because most driders are sterile, there is a mass egg-laying drider queen, though they do not have many specialized castes otherwise.

Western Animation

  • Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles The animated TV series kept all the new bugs from the movie, and added the Transport Bugs, huge bugs that serve as Living Starships; Ripplers, acid-dart-spitting variations on the Hoppers; Firefries, bugs that spit flame, and Ice Bugs, huge bugs that hide as ice-covered asteroids and live in a symbiotic relationship with the Firefries. There are various other insectlike species on several planets, but it's unclear if they're part of the Bugs or just dangerous animals; the Bugs can assimilate other species or absorb traits from them, so variations in appearance don't tell you much.
    • The last two campaigns introduced Bugs based on human DNA, infiltrators that on Klendathu needed to wear MI armor to pass for human but could actually shapeshift in the Earth campaign.

Real Life

  • Ants and Bees, all of order Hymenoptera, and Termites, from order Isoptera, almost all of which have specialized Queens, Drones, and Workers. Some also add nursemaids to take care of the young, up to several sub-castes of Soldier Ants, and Honeypot ants add workers adapted to serve as living storage jars for nectar. Bugs are cool, huh?
    • Some termite species even have warriors that spray irritating liquids: a genuine example of the Breath Weapon caste option.
    • There is even a species of ant whose warrior caste takes expendable to new heights. Upon critical injury, it explodes in a shower of harmful chemical agents, doing more damage then it could fighting to the death after such a wound. Even humans have yet to fully utilize a suicide chemical attack.
  • The Naked Mole Rat, also called a "mammalian ant", is one of two mammals that have insect-like sociality, with a "queen" and "workers" (the other mammal is another species of mole rat). It's also said to be insusceptible to cancer.
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