What would a civilization of sapient ants be like? Would they

>>55086301
They're called the Geth and they were great and now they're gone forever

>>55086301
So, you haven't read Ender's Game or seen/read Phase Four yet. Got it. Now go do so.

>>55086370
So's the rest of Mass Effect

Probably however you want because scaling a species up to sapience isn't any direct 1:1 thing, you're adding an element that it does not possess and therefore change it however yo udesire

http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-752

east asians

>>55086301
Ants are very warlike. If one colony encounters another war breaks out and the victory rip the opposing Queen to pieces
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X5YaihAtnC4

>>55086301
Honestly, I'd just make ants bigger and smarter and you have a pretty good civilization.

>>55086301
A civilisation of advanced Ants in ships travelling through space sounds horrifying

>>55086301
Dogs can tell you a story or two about that.

>>55086301
i mean just an upscaled version of the warfare they currently engage in
they raid, they steal they enslave they conquer and they destroy
ant colonies even reach points where some of their population realised how good things are and lazes about all day knowing their individual output wont threaten the colony

ants are fucking scary and awesome at the same time
they are like little bronze age psychopaths that just lumber on seemingly in defiance of the fact that there are these god titans everywhere

>>55086370
RIP Legion, you were a bro to the end. At least you didnt live long enough to see your badass race get replaced by starwars rejects.

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How would advance ants deal with aardvarks?

>>55087673
the same thing they do everything else
swarm and destroy
or some swarm and some flee
all answers involve ant-wave doctrine

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series had peoples with different insect elements to them as the "races" of his world.

The ant city states fucking HATE each other, and pretty much are entirely dedicated to war and fighting other ants.

They have a mind link, as a more fantasy version of the pheromone trail deal real ants have, which makes them very regimented and effective at making changes in battle.

>>55086720

Various species have various attitudes towards queens. Some species will accept multiple queens without competition and those that do that often create supercolonies that are made up of smaller colonies. The Argentine Ant actually considers all known ant colonies of the species to be part of one single worldwide megacolony.

>>55086301

People overestimate how different hive insects behave from humans. There's a surprising amount of competition and confusion inside the hive.

One big difference I can think of, though, is smell. Industrialization is going to be an awkward process for a creature that relies as much on smell as ants.

>>55088767
well one would assume a sapient ant race might be larger and have added in some other methods of communication, either greater body language of even some form of speech

>>55087673
Ants bath themselves in poison than sacrifice themselves to it.

>>55086301
Ladybirds would be their equivalent of dragons.

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My setting has a species based on eusocial insects (termites and ants, specifically), whose society I tried to derive from actual eusocial animal behaviour.

They don't have a hive-mind like a lot of space-bugs have, but are culturally and instinctively predisposed to place the benefit of the hive above personal gain. The workers in particular barely have concept of personal ambition, being far too short-lived anyway to really accomplish much on their own. They still have individual personalities and preferences that affect their decisioin-making, though.
Thier society is split into of hive-cities, each with its own queen. In the past the cities used to fight each other over resources nearly constantly, but after several world wars and threat of nuclear annihilations they finally put together their differences and joined forces, or at least stopped warring. Instead, competition now occurs through political machinations.
Essentially, despite appearing to outsiders as a massive unified horde (this is mostly true when looking at a single hive, but even then you ahve individuals whose personal goals might differ from each other even if all are fanatically loyal to their queen), in actuality their society is split into countless factions who are all scheming against each other and only agree that the survival of the hive-collective is the highest priority.

>>55086390
>Phase Four
Could you clarify? Google isn't turning up anything.

>>55088994

I keep thinking the queen, you know, isn't the brains of the hive, she's the genitals. I suspect she'd have a lot of cultural clout but little political power; something like a shogunate might emerge.

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>>55086301

I imagine they would absolutly become the dominant species in the wild. They'd start monopolizing all the biological resources in nature. replace all undesirable plants with ones they can harvest for food and aphids. Litterally the whole of nature is at their mandibles and ready to be farmed. They'd develop traps for birds and small animals, then larger animals. Then use them for for heavy labour. Their nests will grow into humongous sizes, and they'll number in the hundreds of billions per colony. With hundreds of would-be woodland creatures restrained and used as hard labour. Male ants with wings be become the messagers of colonies, relaying information and orders around.

Queens don't really control jack in an ant hill. That being said, if they gained human level intelligence, they'd still be damn important and if they live longer than the normal ants then they would become actual leaders due to continuity. I'd think that an elite community of inter-colony queens would form amung ants. THEY would run everything and produce all their science and culture stuff because the other ants are to short lived to actually do any of that.

>>55089732
That's semi-true in this case as well. Most of the day-to-day politics are done by the hive-lords, who are primarily the queen's consorts, or other members of the "admistrator" caste she has bestowed the rank. The queen mostly sits around eating and popping out eggs (not like she could not sit around even if she wanted; she's too big to really move under her own power), with the hive-lords actually running the show and reporting to her that everythign is working fine. However, the hive-lords are supposed to rule in the queen's name and follow her wishes, and if the queen does decree something her word is absolute (although each individual hive-lord may try to intrepret the command in a way that best suits his interests).
Also, like termites, the queen lives far longer than any other individual (several hundreds of years, as opposed to workers living a few decades and hive-lords maybe 60 years), so she has a lot of experience and is unlikely to die any time soon which makes her a good choise for a head of state.

>>55086301
I once read about the hivemind vs. the gesalt mind. Gesalt is actually what most people commonly think of as a hivemind, that is, a single, shared consciousness. A true hive mind is made of many individuals who are biologicaly programmed to put the collective good of their society before any individual inclination. Imagination, creativity and individial expression would all be possible in such a society but dissension and interpersonal conflict would not be. The instinctual compulsion to serve the greater whole would prevent pride or greed from slowing the progress of the culture. This is all with a disregard for the individual that is alien to us individualistic humans.

The upshot of this is that a true hive society would be frightenly swift to develop technologies. They would not pursue any end with single minded focus but with the fury of millions of minds seeking every end that benefits all.

It is pretty unlikely that such a society would have war with members of their own species. However, if moved to war with some other species, they would dedicate whole heartedly to the effort without dissension. No individual would think themself too important to serve the war effort. There would be no profiteers, no draft dodgers and no deserters. The best minds would be turned toward developing weapons and the strongest bodies would take their place in the ranks of soldiers, obeying the instruction of those who have been shown to produce the best tactics. It would be a terrifying force to oppose and, potentially, impossible to defeat in war.

>>55089732
sword of the stars had (along with other weird fucking biology) queens leveraging birthing rights as control of their own little factions
only queens can birth "princesses" and "princes are merely nonbreeding but noble command style insects
had a rather interesting take on a fluid caste system as an interpretation of the space feudalism meme

>>55086301 (OP)

Many individuals would rebel against queen and form own colonies despite of their inability to reproduce. Rebellions are commonplace and it becomes a standard for some colonies to tear themselves apart. Some colonies might start farming queens to produce more individuals for their community.

Basically, if all individuals are capable of sapience, hive mind stops being a thing.

>>55091369
>Many individuals would rebel against queen and form own colonies despite of their inability to reproduce
This actually happens with bees sometimes. Worker bees can actually lay unfertilized eggs which hatch into haploid females (which for bees are workers IIRC). If the queen finds eggs laid by workes, she will destroy them. Which sometimes leads into the workers responding by laying more eggs, which may escalate into all-out war between the queen and the workds, ending with the workers overthrowing the queen in some kind of miniature bee communist revolution. This results in the now queenless hive collapsing shortly after, because it turns out communism just doesn't work, even among bees.

>>55091369
The rebellious ants will be stomped out immediatly because they have no way to reproduce and short life spans
Also you assume sapience means they won't still band around queens
Also keep in mind that queens also have sapience and could easily force themselves into the upperbrass

>>55089369
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuhgBvOWb_k

>>55086301
My Queeeeen! You should research Hivers, my Queeeeen!

>>55091489

That's honestly fascinating. And that feeling when you hit right by accident.

Even the most hive minded species of tiny insects with their tiny brains have some degree of individuality which if not appreciated can lead to devastating consequences within a community.

>>55095006
The woker bee thing is mostly caused by nasty parasites
Also the individualisim is fucking up the bees and may drive them extinct
That is not a good thing anon

>>55096056

As a slightly narsistic human it feels nice that i'm not alone, even when it's goddamn bees.

Bumpity.

>>55086301
>What would ant warfare look like?
You literally took one of the three animals on Earth that wages war and asked what their warfare would look like instead of looking it up.

Try a nature documentary sometime man.

>>55087673
>How would advance ants deal with aardvarks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag
>meter-tall mini-jaegers