The thread didn't survive until I woke up, so I figure I'll ask daytime Veeky Forums

So literally every boring "us vs. them" setting ever?

could we add assault rifles to it?
And swelling orchestral music?

It would just be depressing.

So, is it just me, or is the elite soldier caste effectively "monster of the week; the race"?

Because that sounds awesome.

>a human resistance fighter dons armor in the visage of the insects ruling over them
>fighting with supernaturally enhanced strength and agility, he fends off, kills, and gains power from the elite soliders that the empire sends to attack the human settlements

Don't forget that each soldier will have a huge cadre of putties.
I mean normal soldiers.

>some of the queens have a theory that since regular humans are equal to their elite soldiers, they could create an unstoppable army if they could successfully breed human/bug hybrids
>so far none have succeeded, but this hasn't stopped them from trying
>although the queens are comparatively rare, the bugs still produce more than they need to maintain their population
>it isn't uncommon for an adventurer to be approached by one of the surplus queens

Hey, at least you'd get to report "major victories" all the time to your civilian populace.
I mean, who can argue with a 10/1 K/d ratio? Just disregard all that land that was taken.

I bet they would taste like lobsters. There needs to be a secret group of bug eating non bugs causing trouble

The bugs are an analogy for coloured people

>there is a caste of colored people who have unique monster of the week powers
>colored people by and large do not reproduce, their breeding is relegated to queen colored
>colored people are organized by brain bugs
>you can raise a colored person large enough to fight in a war inside of a year from when they were born

I would like to live in the reality you describe.

Liking formians but never actually used them, I tought about something similar, OP.

The intellectual caste would be pretty competent, tough. Probably a little MORE intelligent than humans (elfs, whatever). On the contrary, drones and probably soldiers would be really more stupid, on the level of dogs or something - the intelligent caste might have the role of officers in war, but thanks to telepathy and other bullshit they don't expose themselves much.

>there are actually two other castes but I digress

Problem is, I'm not totally sure if the Bug Empire would have much use for demihumans. Only for high-level artisanship, I guess? Consider that basically I see the drones (and the soldiers) as readily breeadable and "made to order" to the specific objective, and at the same time there is a degree a flexibility in their programming that isn't even necessarily "hard-written" from their birth. Point is, whatever isn't hard-thinking labor can be done by drones, tough they're dumb and need intructions, but there are also intellectual bugs.

What else would demihumans do? I can see some exploring and smal time help to the higher caste, but it's very limited.

>no, I don't want them to be dumb as a whole: we need some brains

See, I don't make them dog-level dumb as a base, just PRETTY dumb. sub-orc.

So they can make goods, and the older ones might even make decent goods, but they'll mostly be kind of cudgily put together. Giving humanlikes a nice economic niche outside of exploring and adventuring. The production of actually GOOD objects.

Less "made to order" and more "we will jam 50 workers into this order, and the one that fits best will keep it"

oh, and I'm fine with the thinky bugs being relatively smart. I just want them to be so thinly spread as to be constantly stressed out and in need of competent assistants.

This is the most asinine post

I just don't think you appreciate how cool things could be.

Literally everybody would be cooler if they had the characteristics of fantasy aliens/animals while only looking outwardly human.

now we're talking.

...

It'd be interesting because most of the stuff that comes from being second class citizens wouldn't apply.

Food? Workers will do it.

Places to live? Workers will do it.

>So they can make goods, and the older ones might even make decent goods, but they'll mostly be kind of cudgily put together. Giving humanlikes a nice economic niche outside of exploring and adventuring. The production of actually GOOD objects.

Nah, maybe make them simple objects? Like, this is ripe for assembly line stuff, each worker doing one specific thing but doing it well.

Just making the leap between "We have elevated water ways, we can elevate the elevated water ways" or "this pully system lets us move things that are heavy, we can also use it for even heavier stuff if we do X"

You know what non bugs would be valuable as?

Casters.

People seem to underestimate how fucking incredible and complex the human hand is, you can build some amazing stuff with those things

The drones should be good at simple and repetetive tasks. They can farm well, as long as a smarter bug tells them what to plant, when to sow and when to harvest.

They can make even fairly complex items like clocks. It's just that one drone knows how to make ONE gear, and another knows how to make one spring. Then at the end of the line theres one that knows how to put the numbered parts together, without neccesarily understanding why they fit together.

Factories seem like the exact kind of micromanagement they can't really dedicate the time to setting up and troubleshooting that much.
Especially since whatever smart bug has to take the time to figure out how clocks work instead of doing complex bug mathematics on exactly how many workers they should be using compared to how many other species they have here compared to the food supply.

sauce please.

exhentai.org/g/464769/8867e47a64/

I'm saying they should be capable of it it, if they needed to, as an example of drone intelligence. but with the other races subjugated they won't because it's more cost efficient to make the humanoids make their fancy time-tellers

that sounds like the thing you get specialists from other races to set up, then you have a couple brain bugs (or other specialists) who's entire job is checking these factories every so often and making sure things don't go awry.

And investigating why all the clocks in a particular city exploded at the strike of 12 on a holiday.

Someone started working on the factory line that wasn't supposed to, with nefarious intent.

Oh yeah, sure, that seems okay.
It creates interesting vulnerabilities like in
Imagine a factory using robot arms, but the robot arms can be tricked. Or bribed.

ty, a lot better than I hoped for too.

Are drones independant enough to actually be bribed?

sorta?
Like, they want to get their job done, but if you say you'll do their job and offer them some food to take some time off, they might not see anything wrong with that.

The difference between trickery and bribery is kind of blurry when it comes to this stuff.

That was unexpectedly cute

Cute is the best way to do these things.

These giants would make great enemies or mounts.

Forgot pic.

So, The Mote in god's Eye, by Pournelle and Niven?

You people are just recycling plots from cool books now.

user, I hate to break it to you, but everything has been like everything else for thousands of years.

It's how you do your thing that makes the difference.

What is the best amount of articulation to give the various castes?
I mean, soldiers probably have worse hands than workers, but what should the baseline be?

Depends how totally eusocial they are. If they identify totally with the larger colony, then a memorial for the dead makes as much sense as a memorial for a toenail. The only reason you might even bother to count the dead is to make sure you were managing resources efficiently.

The bugs could also use humans and demi-humans as middle management. The brain bugs are few and far between. They require a huge amount of resources to create and too many of them can cause a hive to fracture as they're unable to co-ordinate.

Humans and demi-humans are smart enough to take orders and smart enough to direct workers to make them more efficient, without being linked into the hive mind and potentially disrupting it.

That could also explain how the bugs took things over so quickly. Unless what you do is rule, collect rents, or fight the bug army then the bugs just want you to do it for them, and here's some virtually free labor to let you do more of it, faster.

So the ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah, and the little one stops by your farm to drop off some workers. The ants explain to you "you keep doing what you're doing, we'll provide workers, direct them as needed, oh and your former boss got quite stroppy when we talked to them, so you're getting a portion of his estate as well. Here's your quota, we'll be back to collect". For your average peasant farmer, that's a reasonably good deal, or at least not much shittier than being a serf or sharecropper.

Man, I can't think of any historical examples that are similar to this.
"Yes, we are conquering you, yes, we killed your government, but in exchange, you get 5 free willing slaves and more land."

I think they're normally social enough that the low level workers can have a vague sense of self and desire.
It's rare that one actually has enough of it to act on it, though. And it might just manifest as EVEN MORE loyalty to the hive.

Like how robots will do more of the activity they were built for as their vacation. Except this time, they're doing it ON THE BEACH!

It'd explain how the bugs just rolled over everyone beyond just "infinity soldiers". They don't get over-extended. They don't stretch their supply lines too far. They move slowly, consolidating as they go, but the resource advantage their bottomless labor pool gives them, means the advance is inexorable once it gets rolling.

oh yeah, it's a good explanation.
I just don't have any real life analogies to see what people act like in that scenario, so I just have to sort of wing it.

The only thing I might compare it too is the Achaemenid Persians. Supposedly when they smashed the Babylonians they let all the captives go home and funded the restoration of temples. They'd also make lavish sacrifices to whatever the chief gods were when they took over an area. Not nearly on the same scale, but that same basic sense of "Yes, we're conquering you, but here's the upside"

Worked pretty well for them. (Pic related). Generally people seemed to look at the giant army, looked at the fact that they seemed to be getting in good with the gods, and weren't entirely unreasonable and decide that discretion was the better part of not getting your city burned to the ground.

You'll probably have some people who die rather than knuckle under. The bugs will probably oblige then have the human version of ulster Scots brought in "So your neighbors decided to fight us to the last man. Anyone up for some free land?"

You'd probably also have some rebellions or people who chafe under the new rulers. Rebellion would be difficult, as in the event they try to rebel, they're first going to have to kill their entire labor force. Which is rather like gelding yourself as foreplay.

I think more common would be runaways. People fleeing for the surviving human or demi human kingdoms, or moving onto marginal lands where they can run their own lives. "Bugs came, grabbed my spear and went innawods. Then they chopped the woods down so went inna mountains."

The irony is that this would be the kind of territory that bred the best soldiers and adventurers. Historically, the crazy vicious bastards living on the poorest land were generally recruited as mercenaries by larger neighbors. Your Swiss,Yemenis, Afghans, Scots, Appalachians, etc... they'd probably view things as: Whatever the past was, I'm getting paid, and I have a rep to uphold.

That's actually rather interesting.
Did you know that offhand, or did you do research?

And yeah, now that you mention it, it would be REALLY hard to rebel once bugs are in place.

I wonder exactly how long innawoods you have to be before you are willing to work for the bugs as a woodsman.

As for the behavior of the Persian Empire, Dan Carlin mentioned it on his series on the Persian wars. "King of Kings" I can't vouch for its accuracy beyond that.

Though here's a reference from Xenophon's Cyropaedia, a biography of Cyrus the Great, that I got to via Wiki:

"There is no one, indeed, in all the world whose friends are seen to be as wealthy as the friends of the Persian monarch: no one adorns his followers in such splendour of rich attire, no gifts are so well known as his, the bracelets, and the necklaces, and the chargers with the golden bridles. For in that country no one can have such treasures unless the king has given them. (9) And of whom but the Great King could it be said that through the splendour of his presents he could steal the hearts of men and turn them to himself, away from brothers, fathers, sons? Who but he could stretch out an arm and take vengeance on his enemies when yet they were months and months away? Who but Cyrus ever won an empire in war, and when he died was called father by the people he overcame?—a title that proclaims the benefactor and not the robber."

Via the same source:

Croesus... had taken [Cyrus] to task, saying his lavish gifts would bring him to beggary, although he could lay by more treasures for himself than any man had ever had before. Cyrus, it is said, asked him in return, "How much wealth do you suppose I could have amassed already, had I collected gold, as you bid me, ever since I came into my empire?"

(16) And Croesus named an enormous sum. Then Cyrus said, "Listen, Croesus, here is my friend, Hystaspas, and you must send with him a man that you can trust." Then, turning to Hystaspas, "Do you," he said, "go round to my friends and tell them that I need money for a certain enterprise—and that is true, I do need it. Bid each of them write down the amount he can give me, seal the letter, and hand it to the messenger of Croesus, who will bring it here." (17) Thereupon Cyrus wrote his wishes and put his seal on the letter, and gave it to Hystaspas to carry round, only he added a request that they should all welcome Hystaspas as a friend of his. And when the messengers came back, the officer of Croesus carrying the answers, Hystaspas cried, "Cyrus, my lord, you must know I am a rich man now! I have made my fortune, thanks to your letter! They have loaded me with gifts." (18) And Cyrus said, "There, Croesus, that is treasure number one; and now run through the rest, and count what sums I have in hand, in case I need them." And Croesus counted, and found, so the story tells us, that the sum was far larger than the amount he had said would have been lying in the treasury if only Cyrus had made a hoard. (19) At this discovery Cyrus said, so we are told, "You see, Croesus, I have my treasures too. Only you advise me to collect them and hide them, and be envied and hated because of them, and set mercenaries to guard them, putting my trust in hirelings... if I make my friends rich they will be my treasures themselves, and far better guards too... than if I set hired watchmen over my wealth.

Shit, I didn't realize how baller the persians were.
We should add more purple the whatever royal banners the bugs have. I think that's a base level persia reference. I dunno, I'm a history pleb.
Shit, that story about just getting FISTFULLS of money from friends and well wishers. This seems like a good way for the bugs to do.

I see why. I would prefer them that way tough, at least because we have enough "goblin-level" monsters and I picture their way of warring as basically something between the Chtorr and Starship Troopers.

Funniest thing I can see them making non particulary complex shit easily, even instructed by demihumans. Imagine a dwarf smith: if he needs nails, it's up to "his" drones, he'd do a weapon.

>even if I'm not even sure if they'd still be "dwarves". 3 generations in an anthill with a view would REALLY do a number on their culture; even if the bugs are not basically terraforming (bugforming?) anything I picture them as terribly insular, the intellectual caste is pretty keen on the divide et imper thing. At the very least, a birth-control system is a given.

My idea is that the brain bugs (which I didn't want to be.. well, literally brains; too scifi as a feeling) are perhaps 1 in 1000-2000. They are someone you can talk to, tough they are basically turboautists (or, amusingly enough, enjoy "mammal" emotions" too well on their free times).
In theory this might call for perhaps 10 demi to 1 brain bugs, doing things like farm management (some degree of creativeness included) or on the line war, but it sounds pretty... hrm... liberal for the bugs. I don't see why they should be bloothirsty against humans, still it's a whole deal of freedom. I'd prefer a niche for them to say "well, do your shit and we'll have a deal": we have high level artisanships and perhaps magic, something else?
My model oddly enough is the medieval jew ghettoes. There was often some kinda of deal with the governement on the line of their specialization as a community as money lenders, but I dunno.

It might also be worth questioning what is the Bugs's endgame. Are they nation-wide anthills, warring each other to no end? Perhaps they're kinda pacifists that settle rationally, keeping distances? Maybe they're now in the game on a reproduction spree for some esoteric mean?

I am not going to put a number on brain bugs because I, like a science fiction writer, know SHIT ALL about scale. I'm just going to say super rare, more so than breeders.

And I think the system works nicely without magic if basic workers and soldiers require very little in the way of food compared to humans, or higher tiers of bugs. This would explain why they can afford to sustain ten worker bugs in a place that would normally only sustain one human.

As for greater goals, you fucking got me buddy. I feel like the most entertaining version would be warring colonies with periods of cold war. Am I correct in this? If so, how can we reverse engineer it into a motivation for the bugs?

and as for the brain bugs, I think they should be mobile bodies. Possibly larger than a normal bug, but that could be said of any of the higher up castes. I do agree they should be very uptight and ordered and junk, as a general rule. That seems like a good bit to throw in there.

Maybe generally taller but less sturdily put together than an elite soldier. Who I feel like should be people-ish too, as they're like, the "if you wanna be a bug PC" option.

To add, some vague possibilities:

Dwarves and the like: the most easily done, skilled and most of all creative artisans.
Elves: hunting? I don't see drones as particulary good at that, shit needs brains and while the drones would perhaps be of wolf-like intelligence they'd need an hand. Would the bugs need those proteins tough?
Magic is interesting, but terribly powerful for a ghettoized population.
Halflings: I got nuthin. Valets to brain caste?

Humans: whatever the other races do, a little less specialized.

Personally I like the reproduction spree most. Imagine a whole continent flooded with them, basically redoing the landscape. While entire nations, perhaps even GODS, are wondering what to do, the PCs might be the only hope for (demi)humankind, doing espionage work and trying to connect the dots.
>while perhaps not even the greatest wizards can rationalize it, bugs are doing this because it's mating seasons. While it's a biological system, with enough energy they can send another colony's "seed" into space, to another world. Maybe it's a little too scifi-y, but you can tweak it with some planar mumbo-jumbo.

Oddly enough the warring anthills might be more receptive to demis ("use everything you can" and using tactics unthinkable to the enemy bugs) tough.

Elves can do hunting, ARCHIVAL, middle management. I mean, dwarves live a long time, and elves live even longer. In a society where bugs run out after a couple decades. Long lived people can be mad useful for that.
Halflings can be farming consultants. That's basically the only gimmick they have that I know of. Farming well, and throwing rocks.

See, the breeding spree one leads to the weird situation of even the brain bugs being like "you guys I don't know what to do we are making too many bugs and we can't stop it".
At least, assuming no "go to space" scenario. It creates some interesting problems with what to do with excess bugs, and how to stop this process better.

Wheras with the go to space goal, then basically what they are shooting for is to make a big enough kingdom, then maintain it for as long as possible while sending out spores?

That could create a relatively stable setting to play in, though it would cut off warring states funsies. Unless multiple hives are all trying to do this in competition.

You could have generosity be the peacetime flip side of the bug's communal outlook. They don't really care about their individual wealth, because bugs. Once they notice that their human and demi-human middle managers tend to respond well to being made comfortable and prosperous, and when comfortable and prosperous they seem to have the time to come up with some fairly clever things, they start spreading some money around.

Thinking about it, it'd be interesting to explore the interactions the bugs have as they integrate humans into their empire. They'd probably have to start training brain bugs as human specialists. And it has to be intense training because understanding human warfare and politics for a bug would be like trying to work out number theory or quantum mechanics is for us. There's just no intuitive basis for understanding it.

Imagine a bug trying to wrap their head around soldiers getting paid. As mentioned upthread it's an act of considerable willpower to NOT join up with a marching army. The idea of desertion or mutiny would take some explaining.

Or mercenaries or bribery. It probably would never occur to a bug to try and hire mercenaries. The idea that you could pay an army to just go away would seem like utter insanity.

I had toyed with some ideas of maybe using a simple hardened food based currency among higher up bugs, but never really developed it. You know, as they get more individual, they have more wants and need more reasons to do things.
Which, if it were the case, would make dealing with humans less of a hassle. Paying people to do stuff is EFFECTIVELY the same as making sure people get all the rations they need to live, after all. You're just taking into account the rations for their dependents and their house.

I just realized it might become a common belief under lower bugs that certain types of human thing eat gold.
Or whatever currency ends up being used.

I see, but in my vision there is some kind of mental fuckery going on with bugs. At the very least "genetic" memory (for the drones moreso than the brains of course, the quirk is that the queens can bear eggs with a basic programming of say farming), but I suppose brains do get memories of their mentors. They might have some writing, of course, as well.
Of course you might like them different.
An idea that occurred to me: while I don't see the bugs as having undead, maybe they do like the ghosts of the demihumans that served them well...

The breeding spree was an older idea of mine, unrelated to the "demihumans in anthills" scenario. It might be possible or not that the demis in question are still there (I guess the bugs are kinda out of time so a useful community would be overworked but not that eaten)... but it opens the possibility of the PCs being La Resistance.

Anyway the idea was that (at least to give the demis some hope) it's temporary: spores can be sent in a timeframe, then for some millennia they're PROBABLY good. The theme of the campaign (pretty epic in scale, I can see gods playing their part) is more less Ragnarok/the Deluge and the brave new world that MAYBE is there on the horizon.

Hey, that's one way to go with it.
I more wanted to produce the bugs as like, a setting filler that I could then overlay other stuff on, but if you want to make them the showpiece, more power to ya.

Though, now that I think about it, the breeding surge has a kind of alpha centauri feel to it.
The goal would be mostly how to arrange such a thing without the violent death of all other lifeforms when it happens. Which in this case would be, I don't know, devouring assimilated communities and excess workers to power the spore launch?

Whatever the impending bad thing you want to hang over the players is.

For bug people in a science fiction setting I've made (which work pretty similarly to the bugs in this thread, execept without using demihuman servants), I had them use a currency known as favor, literally representing the queen's favor.
The worker caste would not be paid, but would be provided with food and lodging. The adminstrative caste (i.e. the brain bugs) would, in addition to getting basic necessities would also be granted favor depending on how well they perform their job, which they could use as they saw fit to gain extra benefits, such as requesting extra rations, a larger living space, ornamental items, or (if they manage to gain a very large amount of favor) even the privilage to mate with the queen.

Was thinking, what could be other races that might work well with the bugs?

Oddly enough I see the biggest motherfucker around as a possibility. A lawful dragon MIGHT be willing to strike a deal, or at least I can see it more than goblins and orcs that would be readily exterminated.
Well, actually orcs as cannon fodder might be given a chance.

The original idea was that it's unwinnable, even! I mean: the surge of the bugs is there to stay and go on completition, the campaign is "is there a possibility to cope with that?".

Might be too dark.

I could see goblins getting a lot of use in a lot of the same places as dwarves are.
Making moving objects. Watermills. Beartraps. Useful enough to handwave it away if someone wants to play one.

And orcs are a pretty good pull for "dependable shock troops". The elite soldiers are rare and varied, wheras the orcs are universally orcs, and as such can all use approximately the same stuff.

Yeah, some kind of currency WOULD be neat. Maybe not exactly favor with the queen, because there's a bunch of those, but you are thinking very properly.

Though I do really like the imagery of the queen when it comes to bugs. Shit. I'm conflicted.

Well, depends on how you see them. I see them as rational as hell, goblins are undependable, the drones are there to make shit.

So, we've got a basic system down. Dumb basic castes who are very low speaking ability. Maybe around ogre level? And a buncha various types of more rare higher ups who only come around some times, and a melange of other races in there to fill out all the gaps.

What are some ways this can go wrong? Rival factions within the bugs of a single kingdom because of different ideas on how to develop the hive? Surreptitious sabotage by the hominids? I feel like I'm only picking the lowest hanging fruit.

Goblins ARE kind of undependable, aren't they?
And I see them as rational in the upper levels, but with many "good enough" solutions that are only partially thought through, because the higher ups are managing as big an infrastructure as they can.

would be nice: espec the 2nd point
khy-nah

khy-nah? Google is no help.

so an extreme form of social credit

The way I did it with my bug people was that they had a huge amount of hive-cities, each effectively a small nation with its own queen. In the past the hives fougth against each other, but eventually they developed a philosophy based around the concept of the "world hive", where each individual hive-city is part of a large entity in the same way each individual bug is part of the hive.
Each hive would still run its own internal affairs, though, which would lead to some issues such as any favor earned for one queen only being valid in other hives if the queens of those hives were friendly or subservient with the original queen (not that there would be much chanse for an individual to freely travel between hives anyway), and internal politics getting very complicated since even if all queens were supposed to be primarily conserned for the good of the hive collective, they'd want to do things in a way that would also maximise the benefit for their own hive.

...These guys were originally supposed to be a minor background race, but I ended making them one of the more prominent powers in the setting, despite them not being suitable for PCs, because I found writing their culture to be interesting (and also because I'm better at drawing cute bugs than humanoids).

I guess in my head I had thought it would resolve into a more "clannish" affair, as queens would give birth to younger queens, who would be on good terms with their mother and sisters (assuming no quarrel has occurred). This would naturally result in various kingdoms or clans, and the possible wars and intrigue that comes with that. You could even have a hive split because a group of young queens dislike the old queen.

And I feel it's important to try to include a playable version in case people want to. Hence why I like the idea of the rarer elite soldiers.

china as pronounced by trump

While I prefer bugs warring as it can produce this shit, there can be plenty of conflict even with one unified government. You just have to either politics it the fuck up, or fantasy it the fuck up.

Think ancient china, where everything is ruled by the jade emperor, and you have to convince water spirits to make the river flow again.

Now replace the jade emperor with, I dunno, the golden queen. Works pretty seamlessly.

or maybe even it was a brain bug that brought everyone together, and not a queen at all.
Which could mean an emperor of... something. I'm not sure how we decide the precious metal to name rulers after.

Ancient China and old Chinese stories is where I got a lot of ideas from. Jokes about the Chinese actually being bug-people wearing human skins aside, Imperial China is pretty good model for the ind of society I think would fit the bugs. They had an empire spread over a huge area with a huge population united under one goverment, a ruler that was considered divinely appointed, a large amount of political conflict within the imperial court for the emperor's favor, and between the local rulers who actually did most of the day to day governing, and outlook that highly valued social stability to functionality over individuals.

One thing to note in Chinese folktales is that while corrupt officials and local lords are common, the Emperor is practically always good and just (unless he's lost the divine mandate, in which case a good and just person will inevitably replace him). If bad things happen, it's because he was simply unaware of them, and when the hero makes him aware that his officials are abusing power, he'll have them punished. I think the bugs would treat their queens in a similar way, considering them to be infallible and practically divine beings who can do no wrong (in my setting it helps that the queens live far longer than others of the species, so for the average worker and even the "brain bugs", the queen is a seemingly immortal being that has ruled for generations).

Well, it's a good place to draw ideas from if you want a stable government that also has interesting things happening in it. Having some grand high poobah could be really neat. I dunno, the earliest queen known or something. We'll figure it out.

A lot of adventure could probably be forged from working on the divine mandate to tame some or other feature of the landscape for the kingdom.
There's always some water spirit being finnicky or some hostile race that needs fighting or some queen somewhere that has gone corrupt. Or, worse, diseased.

I imagine some BAD SHIT happens if a queen gets sick.

The way I see it, the queen is the ultimate authority, able set laws, appoint officials, and overrule any decisions by the officials. Basically, anything she demands, will be done. She could order her highest ranking official to be killed on the spot, and be obeyed without question.
However, the queen doesn't do much direct governing, and instead delegates that to the officials (the brain bugs). The queen might order that production of food or minerals be increased, and it's up to them to figure out how. The workers, and even most of the officials, never actually see the queen, taking orders from higher ranking officials ruling in the queen's name. Meanwhile, the queen herself sits in her chambers, eating and laying eggs, with officials occasionally reporting how things are going and asking for further orders.

off topic a bit, but I remember an old game, master of magic, included 'conquest races' that didn't have any technology, and you had to use their early game advantages to conquer races that could produce nice things, like men or elves--those conquest races didn't work well, because the vassal races were extremely unhappy and were in a state of unrest

I think this would be the best way to present the campaign, at the tipping point where the servant races figure out they are smarter and more advanced, and decided to get organized and fight back, along with interacting with 'good bugs' (who are traitors, sadly) and other mini-dramas

Damnit user, you are making me use memories that haven't been dusted off for decades.
I can't remember what the masters of magic competitor was that had the bug race was called. But I remember it so clearly.

And rebellions always make for a fun game, if you like the collapsing empire.
Or if you want to play the old knights and hold the empire together.

Bump for more thicc buggs.
And because the idea of hive insect based civilization and humans living in their society sounds interesting.

>ehehehehe me want bug sex sex good dick in hole ehhehe

>the queen is a seemingly immortal being that has ruled for generations

don't be a cunt, user.

What if Favor was essentially the hardened, gem-like feces of the Queen? Seems buggy, and fits with the concept.

Damnit user.

I'd prefer like, hardened honey or some shit.

You mean you'd have hardened vomit than hardened feces? Each to their own, I suppose.

yes. Yes I in fact would.

Have non-bugs handle finance with other nations since bugs have no need for money in their and can't understand it but need it to interact with other societies.