I just had a thought about how it's weird that all fictional hive-minds generally still have some queen or overlord
or other building-sized entity. How about a hive-mind with no social ranking whatsoever? Just a bunch of (cute) drones wandering about contently building some giant city somewhere or something?
The only problem I can think of is when they get a phone call and the person on the other end asks for the one in charge.
@BatElite the obvious solution is for the person who picked up the phone to say "speaking".
@BatElite Well, Mars's solution to that in A Miracle of Science is to basically pick a member of the Hive mind that Mars figures will be compatible socially with the outsider. The AMoS Mars hive mind is pretty much my favorite.
@DialMforMara @BatElite I'm not sure how much more I could say without entering spoiler territory. Hmm, there's a somewhat similar non-drone group mind in K.B. Spangler's Rachel Peng novels (and the webcomic A Girl and Her Fed, which is set in the same universe but earlier than the novels). The members are all still individuals but they are also linked together.
@DialMforMara @BatElite I'd say either can be read independently. I've read a little of the webcomic but I don't think any of what I read there is necessary to understand the for the novels.
@DialMforMara @LilFluff @BatElite I adore that comic
Human: Take me to your leader.
Several drones in unison: What's that?
@BatElite Fire upon the Deep had a pretty cool hive mind idea that I think was close to what you want ( the tines )
@BatElite In Blindsight the alien race was a pure hive mind. Not a great book but I liked how they played with the idea of intelligence as pure pattern matching.
@BatElite I had been thinking of hiveminds where each body does whatever the community needs and that it's well-suited or good or happy at doing.
But felt bad for the bodies that are particularly skilled at feeling anxiety or awkwardness or misery, and take on that load for the team.
@Austin_Dern @BatElite I think those loads would go to the bodies/brains that are particularly good at coping with those emotions, not the ones who feel them strongest.
@BatElite Whoever answers could just say, "Oh, that's me," to make things easier.
@LilFluff @netshade @hjkl This accidentally gave me some stuff to maybe check out. Cheers!
(Pardon the repost, I messed up the first time)