Attention Artists

[bloodyrosemccoy]

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I need an alien.

 

I have all the character ideas for my Doctors In SPACE! project somewhat worked out, except for one. Most of the time my characters manage to come sort of self-assembled;* even the alien-looking ones tend to have a basic outline. But this time I got nuthin’. The Hive’s physical appearance totally escapes me.

 

So … does anyone in my group of highly artistic friends want to take a crack at it? I’d be interested to see your designs. Anyone who wants to can try it. I just need a look so’s I can picture it in my head and write relevant gestures and expressions for it. You can let your creativity flow on this one; below are a very basic character outline and my only guidelines.

 

• The Hive is, as its name suggests, a hive mind. This means it is a single mind in millions of different bodies. Each body lives its own life, but they do not have individual consciousnesses. The Hive coordinates and networks all these bodies in the most spectacular display of multitasking in the known Universe, and is a valuable resource when you want news. It knows everybody. Unfortunately, it’s also a helluva gossip.
• The Hive’s bodies can be male or female. Nobody knows if there’s some sort of queenlike entity at its core, but most Galactic denizens who pay attention to this sort of thing tend to think of it as female.
• No one knows where The Hive's homeworld is or what it's like.
• A Hive body is roughly human-sized, give or take.
• A Hive body can survive in a range of environmental conditions that includes those of Earth.

 

That’s all. Have fun!

 

 

*Although sometimes this involves casting from external sources, like when I decided that my world needed Cary Elwes to be a pirate captain or when I noticed that an alien scientist bore a distinct resemblance to Annie Lennox.

Comments

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

I love Hive races and insects in general. Doctors in Space? Have you read the Sector General books? http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Sector_General

And here's some sketches I did; I was planning to just draw you up something vaguely mantis-like but somehow my two insectiod species snuck into there; the Chye, who aren't Hive mind, and the Evdi, who are a good deal like the Hive you just described (and are they ever gossipy!)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Never heard of Sector General. Looks cool. That bastard stole my idea 40 years before I had it!

I did read a Stardoc novel after I'd started my own project, but while her protagonist and mine had slightly similar backgrounds, the book sucked. My story is a sort of anthropological/xenoanthropological (how's that for awkward?) exploration ~ a series of vignettes about finding a way around the cultures of the different species as well as around their biology. Similar, though I hesitate to say it, to the ideas of Star Trek: TNG in theme. If I ever bother to get any of it written. :P

Anyway, mahalo plenny for the drawing. Very cool. I'll have to hear about the Evdi sometime.

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

Whoops; that's the same link twice, sorry.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I imagine it/them looking like anthro bees/wasps, except only with slightly concave hexagonal indentations all over, almost technorganic-looking, as if they were all living hives like the hive-man from Ninja Scroll, only tall, scrawny and maybe a little shiny.