Star Hives / Hive Spawn

[Warshield73]

Described in DB 2 page 91 to 95 the hive spawn have a basic description there are no stats given for Star Hives, or any ships that they may have. Have they been mentioned in any of the more recent books or has anybody created an actual star hive or Hive Spawn ships?

I have only used separated / sentient Vacuum Wasps and Termite Engineers as NPCs in my games but I was thinking of using them in an upcoming convention game next year so if anybody has anything that would be great.

[Axelmania]

Do you think it would be too powerful if we just copied Kormal's MDC for the hives?

[Warshield73]

Do you think it would be too powerful if we just copied Kormal's MDC for the hives?

While not a bad or unreasonable idea I think that is way over powered. What we know of Hive Spawn most of them are about equal in power to people with super powers and all of their abilities are psionic with zero magic.

I have been looking at the development of Xiticix hives for numbers, and maybe even an idea for general layout, and at the Necron ships in the Three Galaxies books for how they might use psionics for space and FTL travel. I was hoping to find a version of a jump or fold style travel for them but really FTL won't be a big deal for the adventure so I might leave it out.

The biggest thing for the hive spawn "technology" I believe is that it should be organic and/or psionic in nature.

[glitterboy2098]

honestly i suspect that they left details of their ships unspecified so that GM's can decide for themselves what the hives are like.

personally i had always gotten the impression that the hives were basically asteroids and planetoids the buggers had tunneled out and converted into mobile colonies.

[Warshield73]

honestly i suspect that they left details of their ships unspecified so that GM's can decide for themselves what the hives are like.

personally i had always gotten the impression that the hives were basically asteroids and planetoids the buggers had tunneled out and converted into mobile colonies.

I think you're giving CJ too much credit. He created my favorite PB setting, I love Phase World more than Rifts itself, but there are holes in it you could drive a pile of Sourcebooks through.

I like the idea of the asteroid or small moon tunneled out as a colony but the problem of FTL travel. I don't know how they are supposed to get around. When I worked on it a few years ago I thought about creating a 6th species of Hive Spawn that would be similar to the Phi Warper from Mechanoids. This species would be able to psionically warp the ship from system to system. I was thinking that they would just use small asteroids with 4 or 5 of them to move a few dozen hive spawn for raids or dozens of them to move an actual hive. I like the idea of this but truthfully if this or organic ships I still have the problem of creating it from scratch. Truthfully I think this is why I have never used them before, they're just not that interesting and are a ton of work.

[The Beast]

I would say maybe he had Starship Troopers on his mind when he wrote them up, but the book predates the film by three years.

[dreicunan]

I would say maybe he had Starship Troopers on his mind when he wrote them up, but the book predates the film by three years.

The book predates CJ's book by over 30 years, however.

[Warshield73]

I would say maybe he had Starship Troopers on his mind when he wrote them up, but the book predates the film by three years.

The book predates CJ's book by over 30 years, however.

Hive Spawn are radically different than the bugs in the books, movie or even the animated series (which is my personal favorite). If you are looking for bugs for Starship Troopers I think that is closer to the Xiticix.

[Pepsi Jedi]

No.. Not really.. at all in any way, other than both being 'buggish'. Starship Troopers bugs, in either the book or movie are not like the Xit's at all.

Well I mean they 'are' but only in the boadest sense.

It's like saying that Humans are like, bears because we're both mammals. We have 4 limbs, heads, fur, teeth, two eyes, one nose... but Humans and bears aren't that much alike.

Starship troopers bugs are described as massive spider/crab looking things, the vast majority are just workers, and more or less the only way to really tell the workers from the soldiers is when one suddenly inexplicably tries to slaughter you.

They have smarter castes as they are 'inner steller' but they're not bipedal, and aren't toating around rifles etc.

And the movie ones aren't much like the Xit's either other than.. they tend to swarm and are aggressive. Which is kinda like saying the bear and human are both mammals and like to eat fish.

[Axelmania]

I fell in love with the series staying up until 2am on school nights to watch "Roughnecks", now trying to remember if the bugs were very different in that compared to the films.

That, along with the 80s anime and the anime film sequel to the live films, I found much better than the films.

[Warshield73]

No.. Not really.. at all in any way, other than both being 'buggish'. Starship Troopers bugs, in either the book or movie are not like the Xit's at all.

Well I mean they 'are' but only in the boadest sense.

It's like saying that Humans are like, bears because we're both mammals. We have 4 limbs, heads, fur, teeth, two eyes, one nose... but Humans and bears aren't that much alike.

Starship troopers bugs are described as massive spider/crab looking things, the vast majority are just workers, and more or less the only way to really tell the workers from the soldiers is when one suddenly inexplicably tries to slaughter you.

They have smarter castes as they are 'inner steller' but they're not bipedal, and aren't toating around rifles etc.

And the movie ones aren't much like the Xit's either other than.. they tend to swarm and are aggressive. Which is kinda like saying the bear and human are both mammals and like to eat fish.

I agree with everything you said. All I said was the Xit's are closer to the bugs than the Hive Spawn are which I still think is true.

I fell in love with the series staying up until 2am on school nights to watch "Roughnecks", now trying to remember if the bugs were very different in that compared to the films.

That, along with the 80s anime and the anime film sequel to the live films, I found much better than the films.

School night for Rounghnecks? God I'm old.
IMHO Roughnecks is the best of Starship Troopers, I know this is sacrilege but I am not a fan of the book or really Heinlein in general, it has great characters and each of the settings changes the narrative enough to keep it interesting.

[taalismn]

[ This species would be able to psionically warp the ship from system to system. I was thinking that they would just use small asteroids with 4 or 5 of them to move a few dozen hive spawn for raids or dozens of them to move an actual hive. I like the idea of this but truthfully if this or organic ships I still have the problem of creating it from scratch. Truthfully I think this is why I have never used them before, they're just not that interesting and are a ton of work.

Quit reading my mind. Yah....A Queen as psionic 'navigator' plus massed hive mind to determine the moving power of the hive-ship. The more wasps, the larger the hive that can be moved and the farther it can be moved(and the more it HAS to move, as the larger the hive, the more prey and other resources it needs).

[Warshield73]

[ This species would be able to psionically warp the ship from system to system. I was thinking that they would just use small asteroids with 4 or 5 of them to move a few dozen hive spawn for raids or dozens of them to move an actual hive. I like the idea of this but truthfully if this or organic ships I still have the problem of creating it from scratch. Truthfully I think this is why I have never used them before, they're just not that interesting and are a ton of work.

Quit reading my mind. Yah....A Queen as psionic 'navigator' plus massed hive mind to determine the moving power of the hive-ship. The more wasps, the larger the hive that can be moved and the farther it can be moved(and the more it HAS to move, as the larger the hive, the more prey and other resources it needs).

I like the idea but truthfully I am just having trouble coming up with how and why the star spawn travels around. What I have always leaned towards is organic ships, like the transport bug in Roughnecks. These would be giant living bugs themselves of various sizes so I could just kind of start with a wasp and then go big. Just not sure if it is the way to go.
It would be great if one of the talented Rifter contributors submitted something for these guys we could use.

[dreicunan]

I would say maybe he had Starship Troopers on his mind when he wrote them up, but the book predates the film by three years.

The book predates CJ's book by over 30 years, however.

Hive Spawn are radically different than the bugs in the books, movie or even the animated series (which is my personal favorite). If you are looking for bugs for Starship Troopers I think that is closer to the Xiticix.

I'm not looking for anything other than to point out that the timeline did allow for Heinlein's book to have inspired CJ.

[taalismn]

[I like the idea but truthfully I am just having trouble coming up with how and why the star spawn travels around. What I have always leaned towards is organic ships, like the transport bug in Roughnecks. These would be giant living bugs themselves of various sizes so I could just kind of start with a wasp and then go big. Just not sure if it is the way to go.
It would be great if one of the talented Rifter contributors submitted something for these guys we could use.

Nah, I favor big reshaped asteroids, envirosealed with great gobs of extruded resin and polymer-paper...Less of a sensor signature at a distance(looks like another rock).Maybe drops ablating paper-nests to establish footholds on planets before teleporting the whole hive down to a site prepared by the first waves.

As to the why? Niche-fillers. The wasps feel the need to find large prey. Not enough close enough in deep space, so they gravitate towards life worlds. They don't completely overrun them, but they certainly try to become the alpha apex predators in a given local, and kill off any competition. Eventually, though, two or more hives may claim the same target world, and they go to war with each other, the loser(if they survive) fleeing to find their own territory. Same thing with old hives established on worlds; eventually they spawn a younger, more vigorous queen who seeks to become dominant, and the queens have at each other, the loser driven into space to seek her fortunes elsewhere.

[Warshield73]

I would say maybe he had Starship Troopers on his mind when he wrote them up, but the book predates the film by three years.

The book predates CJ's book by over 30 years, however.

Hive Spawn are radically different than the bugs in the books, movie or even the animated series (which is my personal favorite). If you are looking for bugs for Starship Troopers I think that is closer to the Xiticix.

I'm not looking for anything other than to point out that the timeline did allow for Heinlein's book to have inspired CJ.

Inspiration is hard to measure, he was clearly more inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars the Starship Troopers. All I was saying is that the bugs in Roughnecks are radically different then the Hive Spawn.

[Warshield73]

Nah, I favor big reshaped asteroids, envirosealed with great gobs of extruded resin and polymer-paper...Less of a sensor signature at a distance(looks like another rock).Maybe drops ablating paper-nests to establish footholds on planets before teleporting the whole hive down to a site prepared by the first waves.

See I like the asteroids too, in fact before I posted this I already started using the Invid hives from Robotech and the Xiticix hive from Rifts as a sort of template for what I'm doing. The problem is how big do you make it? What I want is a small presence that can be handled by a player group. You want to be able to vary the size for different encounters. Its like if the only ship the Kreeghor had was the Doombringer Dreadnought. The Kreeghor would be less interesting if they didn't come in a size the PCs could deal with.

This is the main reason I have thought about living ships ranging in size from an attack shuttle to a Light Cruiser with the hive itself being in a giant asteroid or small moon in interstellar space.

As to the why? Niche-fillers. The wasps feel the need to find large prey. Not enough close enough in deep space, so they gravitate towards life worlds. They don't completely overrun them, but they certainly try to become the alpha apex predators in a given local, and kill off any competition. Eventually, though, two or more hives may claim the same target world, and they go to war with each other, the loser(if they survive) fleeing to find their own territory. Same thing with old hives established on worlds; eventually they spawn a younger, more vigorous queen who seeks to become dominant, and the queens have at each other, the loser driven into space to seek her fortunes elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure the intent of the original material is that new hives do not come from old hives, that it comes from whatever the main hive is out in intergalactic space. Given the nature of the Hive Spawn this just seems more likely as they are such different sub-species within the hive.

I have envisioned a planet sized (the rumors in the book say it could be sun sized) Hive spawn with a master Queen who produces a new young queen every few years. She then births a few of each species and maybe one living ship to leave in and then she builds from there. If she encounters too much resistance before she builds her hive well then she dies.

[Axelmania]

School night for Rounghnecks? God I'm old.
IMHO Roughnecks is the best of Starship Troopers, I know this is sacrilege but I am not a fan of the book or really Heinlein in general, it has great characters and each of the settings changes the narrative enough to keep it interesting.

"High" school, if it helps. I like how Roughnecks actually addressed the "Skinnies" in the original book, something which the anime and films ignored, actually made one a major character.

Also made Dizzy much cuter and more likeable than in the live films.

[glitterboy2098]

Nah, I favor big reshaped asteroids, envirosealed with great gobs of extruded resin and polymer-paper...Less of a sensor signature at a distance(looks like another rock).Maybe drops ablating paper-nests to establish footholds on planets before teleporting the whole hive down to a site prepared by the first waves.

See I like the asteroids too, in fact before I posted this I already started using the Invid hives from Robotech and the Xiticix hive from Rifts as a sort of template for what I'm doing. The problem is how big do you make it? What I want is a small presence that can be handled by a player group. You want to be able to vary the size for different encounters. Its like if the only ship the Kreeghor had was the Doombringer Dreadnought. The Kreeghor would be less interesting if they didn't come in a size the PCs could deal with.

This is the main reason I have thought about living ships ranging in size from an attack shuttle to a Light Cruiser with the hive itself being in a giant asteroid or small moon in interstellar space.

while we tend to think of asteroids as these big things, they range from 1 meter across all the way up to 1000km.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid#Characteristics

in fact the number of asteroids under 1km numbers in the millions for our solar system.. which is probably fairly typical. (and we've observed some systems that appear to be far denser in the big stuff, suggesting they'd have many many more of the small ones too.)

so you could have hives of all sizes. so you could have everything from corvettes up to full on battleships.

[Warshield73]

while we tend to think of asteroids as these big things, they range from 1 meter across all the way up to 1000km.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid#Characteristics

in fact the number of asteroids under 1km numbers in the millions for our solar system.. which is probably fairly typical. (and we've observed some systems that appear to be far denser in the big stuff, suggesting they'd have many many more of the small ones too.)

so you could have hives of all sizes. so you could have everything from corvettes up to full on battleships.

The size is not the issue, smal rocks with no weapons mainly made out of SDC dust with some Termite goo increasing it to a little MDC isn't that exciting for a group to fight from there Corvette sized player ship. On the otherhand a giant bug flying around firing psychic blasts hits the rule of cool more.

Truthfully, I've already kind of set this aside and probably won't use them as the bad guys. I'm not even running a Phase World game at my upcoming con in February so that change of mind has removed any urgency.

The biggest problem I discuvered is that we just don't know enough about there behavior of the Hive Spawn to really make any good ship or hive designs or even to use them as the central part of a campaign. In addition to ship ideas I would love to hear if/how other GMs have even used the Hive Spawn.

[taalismn]

Why not a combination? The asteroid glommed together with bug-spit, but providing the support infrastructure inside is a giant pseudo-bug, sans a lot of traditional parts(like a central shell or definite head)...perhaps the result of a biological melding of a previously unseen caste-species of bugs like aphids. Occasionally, the outer structure of the asteroid may be pierced by giant limbs that act as antennae, weapons, or propulsion arrays. This adds a touch of the really eerie, as the PCs facing the thing are unsure if they're looking at one organism or a giant mass of biotech.
The more aggressive forms this takes can be considered akin to certain predatory insects whose aquatic larvae form outer casings of gravel glued to their skins, providing them with both camouflage and protection.

I see the phrase 'we don't know enough about them' as a blank check. And if Palladium later comes out with more details about Star Wasps that contradict what we create? Well, big mega verse, and it's not just humans who can have variant septs....

[Warshield73]

Why not a combination? The asteroid glommed together with bug-spit, but providing the support infrastructure inside is a giant pseudo-bug, sans a lot of traditional parts(like a central shell or definite head)...perhaps the result of a biological melding of a previously unseen caste-species of bugs like aphids. Occasionally, the outer structure of the asteroid may be pierced by giant limbs that act as antennae, weapons, or propulsion arrays. This adds a touch of the really eerie, as the PCs facing the thing are unsure if they're looking at one organism or a giant mass of biotech.
The more aggressive forms this takes can be considered akin to certain predatory insects whose aquatic larvae form outer casings of gravel glued to their skins, providing them with both camouflage and protection.

Like I said earlier I was thinking about an asteroid/moon hive with tunnels and such with large insect style ships for raids.

I see the phrase 'we don't know enough about them' as a blank check. And if Palladium later comes out with more details about Star Wasps that contradict what we create? Well, big mega verse, and it's not just humans who can have variant septs....

Sometimes mystery is built in and you can run wild with it. The Killer Apes in PW are a good example of this. But the apes are simple so you can just use them. In this case there is enough to make them complicated but not enough to really dive in and use them. Here are just a few questions you need to answer before you create there hives and ships:

Do they travel between systems (like marauders) or do they go into a system and strip it clean before moving on (like a pestilence)?

What resources do they need? Do they need to feed on biological life?

Do they infest an entire system with billions of bugs or do they slowly feed on a system with just a few thousand to millions?

Do they have FTL or do they travel by Rifts?

Is there a maximum size of hive or do they create new hives with "young queens" born to the original queen or are they all born from one central hive?

[eliakon]

I see the phrase 'we don't know enough about them' as a blank check. And if Palladium later comes out with more details about Star Wasps that contradict what we create? Well, big mega verse, and it's not just humans who can have variant septs....

Sometimes mystery is built in and you can run wild with it. The Killer Apes in PW are a good example of this. But the apes are simple so you can just use them. In this case there is enough to make them complicated but not enough to really dive in and use them. Here are just a few questions you need to answer before you create there hives and ships:

Do they travel between systems (like marauders) or do they go into a system and strip it clean before moving on (like a pestilence)?

What resources do they need? Do they need to feed on biological life?

Do they infest an entire system with billions of bugs or do they slowly feed on a system with just a few thousand to millions?

Do they have FTL or do they travel by Rifts?

Is there a maximum size of hive or do they create new hives with "young queens" born to the original queen or are they all born from one central hive?

That is the "blank check" comes in.
Its blank after all.
Thus you can make them work the way that works best for your game.

If your game requires space wasps to be a menace due to their territorial instincts so that if they set up some of their hives in a system they will attack its shipping, then thats what they do.

If your game would best be served by a horrific menece that anhilates entire star systems and devours everything in its path then do that

All the things you ask all have the same answer "you have a blank check here, fill in the details that make the most sense for your game"

[Warshield73]

That is the "blank check" comes in.
Its blank after all.
Thus you can make them work the way that works best for your game.

If your game requires space wasps to be a menace due to their territorial instincts so that if they set up some of their hives in a system they will attack its shipping, then thats what they do.

If your game would best be served by a horrific menece that anhilates entire star systems and devours everything in its path then do that

All the things you ask all have the same answer "you have a blank check here, fill in the details that make the most sense for your game"

I understand the blank check idea, but Hive Spawn are less a blank check and more a blank piece of paper. Compared to a lot of the other villains in the Phase World or even in Rifts proper. There is not enough art and I just have to create too much for them. With as little as we have on them I might as well just create my own faction.

In the case of the scenario I'm running I just decided to use Necrons. I have plenty of artwork I can use and I know what drives them. Just easier.