Hive BeetlesThese are really obnoxious critters. They have some spaceships, but most of them are non-spacefaring. They have a few system defense ships and a station at their homeworld ("Hiveworld," short for "Hive Beetle Homeworld") and that's about it. Hive Beetles cost 28 points, according to Fantasy Folk, 1st ed. (Haven't checked it with 2nd ed. yet.) Hive Mind; Maint. Drones, range: 1 mile, 10-99 drones, can produce 1 drone/day, 2 week maturation, telepathic (25-10%= [23 points]) Hive Beetles evolved on a relatively hostile world, from a hive-beetle point of view. They started setting traps for food-critters and/or predators. This also evolved into a mating ritual, of sorts. The better a joke a Hive Beetle can pull off, the better a mating-alliance it can make. Most other races really hate this. Hive Beetle "Queens" are the sentient ones, and are large and immobile (they can be carried by their drones in the "wild," or with tech-stuff (much prefered)). Their stats don't matter, since they're nearly helpless. The "drones" are all males - mating is generally accomplished by sending a drone to an allied queen. It is not known whether the drone is also a snack. Drones can be trained to do certain things - carry things, watch lights, etc. - without direct guidance from the queen (who can only directly control one drone at a time). They are clueless about fighting, though; about the most dangerous thing they can do is munch on your plastics. "One Hive Beetle" generally refers to the whole hive-mind, queen and drones both. ("We have a Hive Beetle engineer" means one queen and her drones - not one drone or just a queen, for instance.) Hive Beetles are usually gendered as "it," though "her" is almost as correct. Hive Beetles can speak most languages, though very click-ily. Their own language has a lot of clicking in it. Typical Hive Beetle names: T'kik (or T'K'K), K'k'k'Clrk, K'kree, K't'k, T't'si. (Back to A Common Background)
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