Ant Misunderstanding

Order is Beauty, Beauty is Peace, Peace is Order.

This is the mantra of a working member of the insectoid Androne, so for Drone Thirty-Seven to be anxious something would have to be very wrong. It was very wrong, and he was anxious.

His many legs twitched as he tried to settle his segmented body in the train cabin. To calm himself he took stock of the familiar surroundings, the compartment perfectly moulded to his thorax, while positioning his forward body to allow the view of his home. Hive Beta looked magnificent as it slid by his window, a hundred thousand rectangular nests reaching skywards, towering chrome obelisks silhouetted against the sunset.

Nearby Worker Drones had formed a sub-hive, and were using fusing tools and magnetic hand equipment to raise another addition to the hive-line. The building's sleek sides rose visibly as a thousand Androne worked in perfect unison.

One of them moved their forwards arms in the position of 8th degree contentment, and the signal spread like a ripple outwards through the crew's black bodies out into the Hive. Thirty-Seven found himself unconsciously forming the gesture, taking a measure of comfort from the satisfaction of the sub-hive. He sometimes wished his own birth role was so simple, that he too could join that collective, but the Hive had different requirements of him.

On the train glided, past buildings that became more varied in form and function. Here a Magnetic Chute to launch shuttles into orbit, there an Algae farm to feed the masses, here a coiled generator sending power out into the great city like lifeblood. It was all so perfectly planned, coordinated, ordered, beautiful, peaceful.

Sadly, he reached his destination quickly, disembarking with his fellows to form a perfectly straight river of grey chitin entering through a vast entry tunnel to the Hive core. Here and there subtle differences showed the sub-breed Workers from the larger Soldiers, against the willowy new breeds of Space-Bound from the Drones like himself. Many of the drones and space-bound greeted him with gestures of respect, and pheromones to indicate deference. Ordinarily this would have comforted him but today it simply reminded him of the heavy responsibility he bore. Past millions of his species he scurried, each on its own errand but happy to be part of the greater whole.

He made haste towards the Hive-core, joining the fast track route to the centre as he clacked his mandibles in warning. Soon he arrived at his goal, the Drone Chamber’s simple metal doors ahead.

No signs marked it, but any Androne would hesitate before walking into this hallowed chamber. Here the decisions of the Queen were interpreted and the specially bred Drone-Administrators like Thirty-Seven decided how best to move the Hive forwards across the planet and beyond.

He clacked three times and the simple door swung open soundlessly for him to stride in.

Dear Queen! He was the last Drone there! He struggled not to exude alarm pheromones to the room and start a panic as he strode through his ninety-nine fellows ringing him to take the central lectern. Here a Drone greeted him formally from the back, there another older one signalled disapproval of the perceived lateness of youth.

He stepped up and signalled greetings to all, swinging his arms forwards to show them he was starting. A Hologram lit to life in the centre of the room to project a Blue Planet, dotted with fertile green islands across its seas. The crowd settled as one to hear his tensely clacked report.

“This is a planet our Space-Bound seed ships have found 330 light years from here. It is fertile with life we can consume, resources we can use and a comparable atmosphere to our own. It is however dominated ...” the crowd stirred at that word “by an intelligent Space-Bound species.” Some arms moved in response to this, but this find wasn’t unheard of and no questions were raised. Thirty-Seven's anxiety rose as he played over what he was about to say one last time.

“They look like this.” Thirty-Seven pressed his data pad to change the central image and the room surged with motion. The image floating above them was preposterous, impossible! “They are soft, pink, have no exoskeleton and stand on two legs, with no tail to support them.”

The audience went still again until Drone Fourteen clacked a question “Are we sure? They have only two legs and no supportive structure, surely they need one for balance like Chipe Tree Dwellers? For it to be otherwise would mean a re-write for the whole theory of evolution, no small thing!”

Thirty-Seven responded “We are sure. Apparently they do not even need the arms for balance.” This stifled a host of raised questions and he took the moment to press on “They have gained dominance through traditional means, using a scattering of small hives to harvest the other animals and plants for sustenance as their technology developed.” The crowd settled slightly at the more familiar story.

“We took some from one of their comparatively simple Seed-Ships for further study and confirmed our observations. We did find one other thing at this stage ...” He closed his eye membranes and forced the words out “They don’t have any connection to each other. They don’t have clearly defined Hive connections, what we thought were sub-hives are in fact clusters of ...” he struggled for words “Individual queen-type thinking.”

Deathly silence fell on the crowd. Uncomprehending faces just stared at him as though he’d said the sky was falling or that gravity no longer applied.

Drone Two stirred first to clack a simple message “That’s not possible. How would they cooperate with each other to achieve anything, let alone become space bound? They would pull apart, fight for resources!”

Drone Thirty-Seven sucked in air thoughtfully before responding “It is unlikely, and against conventional wisdom. Research is at an early stage too, but we are certain, they have no Hive-mind, no birth purpose, no given meaning or drive for any of their lives.” An overwhelming sadness for the poor lonely aliens filled him. Whole Hives of loneliness, it was unthinkable.

“They compete with each other and their surroundings in artificial groups of mutual protection, but these groups are so abstract and ever changing we are still trying to understand how it all works. The impression our more developed Space-Born came to was that they themselves may not know. Even within the physical hive buildings, or worker groups, they compete with each other.”

The reactions varied this time, from the pheromone stink of alarm at one end of the room, to signalled bewilderment, signalled curiosity. He’d never seen the Drones divided so, usually the council thought as one, worked as one. However no joint birth-programming as larvae could prepare them for something like this, something so Alien.

Drone Two kept his composure “We need to decide as one what to do about this species, and if to seed their planet. Continue Thirty-Seven, I sense you have more to say.”

Thirty-Seven continued as asked “They communicate through a combination of noise made through their mouth proboscis and arm gestures, we are still working on the sequences of these. Again they may vary from individual” that word caused a shudder again “to individual. Technology wise they are far behind us, but developing quickly from what we can tell of their back dated transmissions.”

“One last thing we must know, that we learnt from those transmissions, and confirmed from those we took.” He tapped and the hologram changed again to show a group of the life forms, in strange outfits and irregular positions  around a room. “Those taken, earlier today.” Suddenly one of the Aliens started making louder noises through it proboscis at one of it’s hive-mates and waving its arms about wildly. The hive-mate responded in kind to form some sort of display, then ... then they started striking each other. They started deliberately harming each other for no clear reason. One fell to the floor, a red fluid leaking from it as the other hive-mates restrained the first.

The Hologram ended, to freeze on that scene “They fight each other, as our species hives once fought, but they do it within their groups. They turn on each other, and even kill. Their groups are forced to maintain armed forces to police such actions, to keep them from killing themselves.” He almost physically collapsed in that moment, the release of tension that had been building in him leaking out.

The nearby Drones rushed over, comforted and steadied him, releasing calming scents into the air while the others signalled to each other so fast their arms practically blurred. Drone Two cut in with sharp clacks and Thirty-Seven took the stand once more.

Questions came swiftly after that release. “How do they bond within their chosen groupings?”

“Physical contact and social similarities seem important but we’re still not sure. It’s very chaotic.”

“How do they breed?”

“Usually monogamously, with no centrally organised Queen or breeding pool. They also have no Larvae stage, instead being thrust straight into adult competition.” This new small horror sank in

“Do they have any positive features?”

Thirty-Seven took a moment to think on this “They are structured in many complex ways and they do seem to care for each other, especially within their direct families. The majority of them are also non-violent, and violence is seen as a negative to them. Their issues come from their divisions, and the distrust and competition this has bred. In time they may overcome this, but I cannot see how.” His mouth went dry again “Perhaps we could show them how?”

The deliberations went on throughout the evening, through algae consumption breaks into the dead of night. Eventually they were of one mind.

Drone One took the stand, to re-iterate what they would recommend to the Queen one last time for agreement “The Human Species is a risk to themselves, and a risk to us. But not one we can assess well. They represent an unknown, for all we know about them their actions make no sense by any rational way you would structure a species.”

“So we must investigate further, we must provoke a reaction from them. We will reveal ourselves to them, our ships will enter orbit above this planet, this poorly named blue planet ‘Earth’ and announce ourselves. If any hostile action is taken, we will cleanse and harvest the planet. If not we will study them further. We will understand them, and their structures or they will be destroyed.”

Every Drone raised their arms in assent, and clacked with one voice “Agreed. Order is Beauty, Beauty is Peace, Peace is Order.” They filed out in a perfectly spaced line, Drone One leading the way. Drone Thirty-Seven had his head bowed, as though in thought.

A little over one year later the people of Earth stood and looked to the skies, to find it no longer pure blue but dotted with a thousands of chrome rectangular ships. Wars ended immediately, minor differences were settled overnight.

In the face of an outside threat, a truly alien race, Humanity united as never before and stood to face the new threat. That, the Androne could finally understand. Everything went well for sometime, until a single madman with a gun fired a shot that changed the Earth forever ...