John had strung Benny along for months, with Johnny's stupid nickname and feigned ignorance, waiting until the most comedically timed moment to reveal his con. Forcing Johnny to apologize for his machinations, and Benny to accept the apology with a barely hidden grin and an even less hidden interest in his eyes. And John had picked well, Benny was handsome. Stout and strong and steady in a way that had Johnny sweating through his shirt slightly, tugging the light fabric away from his chest before the sweat dimpled it. He'd given Benny his number, taken his, and weathered the triumphant crowing from John as Meatball had wound himself between their legs.
The exchanging of phone numbers had felt like a massive step off a flight of stairs into the darkness, Johnny taking it without realizing how perilous his footing really was. And so though he and Benny had chatted for a bit over text, a lump had begun to form in Johnny's throat that grew larger and larger until it choked away all his ability to reply.
Johnny had enough going on. He had enough baggage without trying to teach someone how to carry any of it. He was too busy with his work.
thank you to my dearest @reallylilyreally for editing this one for me <33
no parents: the seemingly paradoxical potential of a eusocial individual
(a rant about biology, philosophy, and various fictional societies from scifi settings)
first things first: when i talk about eusociality i mean it in the core biological sense of the word; it's a reproductive strategy. it's fundamentally about polymorphism within a single species, and the smallest of distinctions necessary is the distinction between reproductive and non-reproductive castes. the "ant queen". the "queen" is not a ruler; it's an egg-laying machine. the queen of a naked molerat burrow-complex holds no more inherent authority over "her" offspring than any other rodent matriarch would. each molerat is an individual. each ant, each termite, each bee, each sponge-symbiote shrimp.
the point im trying to emphasise is that im not talking about hiveminds here!!!
good? good.
^an indidual
now with that out of the way:
-PART ONE: HUMAN APPROXIMATIONS
so, first of, examples of fictional societies of *humans* who switched their mode of reproduction to something akin or close to the eusocial "worker, queen, drone" template, though again, not all pieces are needed to "count"
1a: brave new world
starting off with an old scifi classic! BNW's society is interesting in just how it walks the tightrope between dystopia and utopia; to steal the term from isaac arthur, it's "post-discontent". every single individual is fully and completely human current day baseline-standards; a mortician wouldn't see a single strange thing about them. but they're all purpose *grown*. production-line wise, "our fordship be with us". it's production. no parents. all are free to do what they want. and they were made to do what they were made for. it's the culmination of a well-intentioned dream of fulfillment and efficiency.
the one factor to keep in mind is that technically speaking, *everyone* is still potentially reproductive. not in the mammalian reproduction way, but in the gene-donor for the hatcheries way. this detail does little to detract from the eusocial structure of the society.
individual-potential, there's actually very little to say! the entire thing is genuinely just shockingy *healthy* for each individual. and there are outliers! and there's also contingencies for outliers that are beneficial to said outliers. the new world does not limit. that would be cruel. and it is never cruel. the issue some of the outliers have is that it's *too* kind, in fact!
1b: tleilaxu
in contrast, the tleilaxu from the dune universe follow the structure of a eusocial organism almost to the letter. *almost*.
they're curious in how their incredible feats of society-shaping and biotechnology are all made in service to what ultimately amounts to an extreme form of fundamentalist zealotry. the culmination of the ultimate religious misogyny: "all tleilaxu women are queens", which, in the eusocial terminology, means they exist solely for reproduction.
on top of this, the majority of the tleilaxu population consists of completely sterile "face dancers" who are on the one hand still fully *people*, but simultaneously completely beholden to the orders of their masters on an instinctive level. orders given not in spoken language, but a complex inherent system of whistles and chemicals. like the pheromone trails of ants but more detailed.
and then there's the "masters". the *other* reproductive caste. they too are genetically modified to hell and back but on top of this keep simply regrowing themselves, in a twisted approximation of immortality. the ever-reborn rulers of their army of "growth tanks" and disposable face-dancer servants.
dune doesn't need aliens; given enough time to diverge, any human can become an alien.
and no individual can be an individual here. not at first at least. because there are still parents. the masters spoil the potential. they should've died long ago.
1c: krieg
yes, that krieg. from warhammer 40k. the trench WW1-larper guys. *insert shovel joke here*
but there's something there!
krieg is strange. you could argue the vita-womb born soldiers of the bombed-out shell of a hiveworld that is war-in-german are no different from say, clone troopers in star wars. except there's a massive difference under the hood; *krieg made and makes itself*. it's a society. the regiments of krieg are conscripted, sure, but they always send more than asked. they'd go out there unasked. they weren't made on order. they're a culture. a very distinct and purposeful one. and they no longer have the concept of a parent. a ruler, yes. a god too, in the great god-emperor of mankind. but each individual in the ranks of the underground cities of krieg is an individual. no parents, not an orphan.
^one of the happiest people in the imperium, somehow
and an added quirk of krieg is the fact it's a eusocial outlier in an otherwise very much reproductively baseline greater imperium (give or take whatever goes on with servitors and on some forge worlds). which is something i genuinely know no other examples of in fiction (if you do let me know please!)
-PART TWO: INTRINSIC EUSOCIALITY (IT'S JUST HOMESTUCK AND VAST ERROR BUT TRUST ME ON THIS ONE)
you all knew this was coming! troll-time baby!
-2a: alternia
to understand troll reproduction i will *not* be going into quadrants; because funnily enough, interactions and relationships between individual *trolls* doesn't mean much for the complete picture. because trolls, funnily enough, occupy the same part of the "triangle" of eusocial phenotypes as the tleilaxu masters. not queens, not workers, but drones. (except troll workers are called drones because terminology is never straigth-forward!). or more accurately, 3 trolls are 1 drone, reproductively speaking.
that also explains the rampant intraspecific violence and other r-selected traits that seem out of place for a eusocial species, which are normally very good at caring for their offspring. except this does happen: to drones! because troll society is run *by drones* trolls fight and squabble and invent and the entire society and quite possibly troll sentience itself is a result of this rampant competition and sexual selection. ultra-individualists with no parents. a lusus isn't a parent, it doesn't have *expectations* beyond affection and food (though that last one can in itself be a huge issue: see spidermom and gl'golyb). but not a parent. a hive is a home. and ironically the straightforward stable ancient cruelty of alternia, though filled with mundane dread, is mercifully bereft of most existential dread. as is fitting for a society that evolved sapience in a post-scarcity environment.
almost the most individualistic eusocial society imaginable. almost.
(-2a*: beforus)
similar to alternia except in that past initial culling in the brood caverns the intraspecific violence is kept to an absolute minimu at the cost of very strong and paternalistic control. objectively a better place to live but it has a lot of issues and is arguably worse mentally for most. (beforus too has *issues*, they're just less in your face than alternia's, which is in itself part of the larger issue)
-2b: repiton
and at last, repiton my beloved outlier that does things to my perception and lives in my thinkpan rent-free, not that i ever ask rent.
repiton of the upside-down uncanny valley. the ex-post-scarcity society of eusocials keeping themselves going with mother grubs. without drones. ony trolls and almost-cloning. a species on permanent life-support. such an odd outlier, almost reminiscent of brave new world, but they got where they are from the other side of the growth tanks. the humans of brave new world could always go back to mammalian reproduction within a single generation, but the mother grubs are *gone*. it's barely eusocial at all anymore, just the remnants of it.
crumbled to the feudal ancap wasteland of desperation pretending to be freedom. the malaise of borrowed time.
end
im sorry i have no conclusion, only pent-up thoughts i wanted to share.
about brave new world and repiton as mirrors, written almost a century apart.
about krieg as the philosophically fascinating outlier it is.
about the difference between parent and lusus, and why i wish i grew up with the latter.
and about why a hivemind sucks all the interesting parts out of eusociality as a concept.
thanks to the single-digit amount of people reading all the way to the end.
i have to vote for mole rats because i enjoy bugs (espeially hymenoptera, wasps my beloved) and mole rats are like if some rodents decided to try to be termites. i think there should be more groups of animals that evolve eusociality i think that would be Neat. imagine eusocial birds. that would rule.
oh man I wish. that would be so interesting. More eusociality!
Angels as Eusocial Insects: Caste Determination and Task Allocation
hey guys im back at it again with the applying my studies to xenobiology and my cringe interests <3 and im here to talk abt the angels of supernatural bc i saw this post and it made my brain start zooming. i don’t know shit abt christian or jewish mythology nor will i be digging into it bc thats just not what this is about. im explicitly treating angels basically as a species of alien and only working w what is provided by supernatural itself.
In Supernatural it’s implied that angels are separated into predetermined ranks, largely determined by how powerful they are as a function of their grace, as well as having several specialized angels such as cupids, rit zien and grigori. You know what else experiences a similar phenomena?
(image source)
ANTS!! As well as other eusocial species like some bees, wasps, all termites and weirdly, naked mole rats. I’m going to be focusing on ants primarily bc that is what i know best. i’m going to be breaking down angels as eusocial insects in two topics:
CASTE: what are the castes and how are they determined, and what are analogous biological examples?
TASK ALLOCATION: on a smaller scale, how do angels divide work among the same caste?
Before we get into it, let’s just get a definition of eusociality out of the way and see if angels check the requirements: Eusociality is the most “advanced” or “complex” form of sociality, defined by:
• Cooperative brood care - we know basically very very little about how angels are “raised” and they more or less seem to be created fully matured, but from the vibes it seems like younger angels are taught and accountable to a variety of older angels.
• Multiple generations living in the same colony - eyup.
• Division of labor into reproductive and nonreproductive groups - I would argue yes! In this case I am defining angelic reproduction as the ability to make more angels (excluding nephilim, we are just. ignoring nephilim for the purposes of this meta). In this case God and Archangels are our reproductive castes.
o Angels reproduce asexually, so we thankfully don’t have to worry abt sex determination. There are no drone/male equivalents.
Stunning. Incredible. Angels are eusocial. MOVING ON!
CASTE:
Caste in eusocial organisms is a morphological category that is roughly split into the queen(reproductive female), workers(nonreproductive females) and drones(male reproductives.) These are not harshly defined in all species and you can get intermediate forms, as well as highly specialized subcastes of workers. If I were to apply these castes to supernatural angels I would sort them like this.
Queen: Chuck lmao
Intermediates: Archangels
Workers: Basically everyone else
• Some specialized sub castes of worker would be the cupids, rit ziens and grigori. Examples of some cool specialized ant castes are twig nesting ant soldiers who have a big flat head they use to plug the entrances to their nests and honeypot ant repletes who basically just eat a bunch of food and hang around and feed other ants through trophallaxis(regurgitate into other ants mouths)
Now castes are morphologically distinct, and these morphological differences are determined by a combination of genetics and environmental factors. In many eusocial insects, reproductive caste determination is a product of how much they are fed in the larval stage, quantity over quality, royal jelly is fake and doesn’t actually affect the development of queens.
In some eusocial species(some wasps, naked mole rats) the reproductive queen is determined by who can beat everyone else up. If the current queen/alpha female dies or is removed from the colony, the strongest females will then enter a period of conflict where they will beat each other up, sometimes even killing competitors. I think this is basically how spn angels work and why the archangels are at eachothers throats as soon as God dips.
In summary: angel caste is determined by “genetics” aka how they were initially made, how much power they obtain, and dominance.
TASK ALLOCATION:
So! If 90% of angels are the same caste, how to they decide who does the smiting and who gives the heavenly lobotomies?
In social insects there are a couple theories and it varies by species, but in the case of angels I think the two that align the best are morphological and spatio-temporal task allocation.
Morphological Task Allocation:
This one is pretty straight forward. In social insects, often bigger, burlier workers will do more dangerous/physically demanding jobs, like defending the nest, foraging and scouting for resources. Smaller ants will be in charge of tasks like tending brood and queen, cleaning the nest, and nest construction.
Bigger, stronger angels will be in charge of more dangerous jobs like smiting demons, fishing the michael sword out of hell, etc and weaker angels will be in charge of maintaining heaven and it’s souls and ambiguous corporate angel duties. Also the lobotomies.
Spatio-Temporal Task Allocation:
This theory on task allocation is the idea that as an individual gets older they do progressively more dangerous tasks, a good example of this is honeybees! When a bee pupates into a bee, it’s first job is tending brood, then it moves on to nest maintenance/construction, then nest defense, and then the last thing it does before it dies is scouting/foraging. This is the temporal aspect. It’s basically to maximize the efficiency of a lifespan.
The “spatio” aspect is that ants are essentially doing whatever job needs doing wherever they are, so when they are born they tend the the brood, then other ants pupate and they run out of work, so they move further out in the nest to see what else needs doing like nest maintenance, then more ants start doing that job, so they go further out to forage.
I think there’s decent enough evidence for this for angels. The temporal aspect is less strong admittedly, though I do think younger angels are probably more relegated to working in heaven instead of going to earth or hell. A strong piece of evidence to me is that Metatron gets saddled with the job of being God’s scribe just because he was there, he was just a random worker in proximity to a job that needed doing, so he did it.
SUMMARY: Bigger angels do more dangerous jobs, stronger angels also do more dangerous jobs, older angels do more dangerous jobs, and also angels just do whatever job is in front of them.
WOW I THINK I’VE SAID EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY ON THIS TOPIC! THIS WAS SO LONG! IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, I LOVE YOU <3 I LOVE ANGELS AND ALSO ANTS!
With 60-mile-per-hour pincers that create noisy shockwaves capable of stunning or killing their foes, it's no wonder snapping shrimp are sometimes compared to pistols.
But being quick on the draw is not the most interesting thing about these see-through crustaceans, several species of which make their home within sponges on coral reefs.
You see, snapping shrimp are the only animals in the ocean known to practice eusociality —or the division of labor and collective raising of young most commonly seen in insects such as honeybees and some mammals, like naked mole rats.
Snapping shrimp have incredibly fast pincers that make loud noises in the ocean. PHOTOGRAPH BY KENNETH MACDONALD, SMITHSONAIN
Egg-laying shrimp queens rule over complex colonies—and a new study reveals their intriguing evolution.
snapping shrimp are the only animals in the ocean known to practice eusociality—or the division of labor and collective raising of young most commonly seen in insects such as honeybees and some mammals, like naked mole rats.
The waggl dance is how foragers in a honey bee colony communicate about food sources. Using a combination of the angle of dance from a vertical line, the duration of the dance, and the tempo of the dance, bees communicate to other foragers:
A. The direction of the food source relative to the sun.
B. The distance to the food source.
C. The quality of the food source.
What's great about this is that it is universal, and every foragers can understand it. The workers, however, do not understand the dance, because they have a different brain morphology. When signaled by low food availability, a select number of workers will undergo developmental changes causing their brain morphology to grow more complex, cementing their transition into foragers.
It had also been discovered that in addition to being used to communicate judgements about food sources, the waggle dance is used when a swarm is moving to a new nesting location. In this particular case, honey bees employ another signal. Once a prime nesting location had been discovered and agreed upon to be the best option, dancers for the better nesting site will headbutt dancers for less desirable sites and make a short, loud buzz to indicate that they should stop dancing. By this method, the entire swarm comes to a single decision, and moves as one.
This methodology for communication in honey bees had contributed to the super organism hypothesis in eusocial insects.
