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Castes
Topic Started: Nov 27 2009, 01:13 PM (464 Views)
Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

So what do you think about intelligent beings that have a natural caste system? Take, for instance, ants on Earth. They act as a hive mind, no one ant (not even the queen) has control over any other, and using a communication system of pheromones they rely information to every other significant ant in the vicinity and then the collective makes a decision on what to do next. They also seem to have some sort of natural protocol, similar to laws or rules in human society. This seems to work out well for the ants, as many colonies can have billions of members, all of them in perfect coordination with the others. They build structures that would be an impossible feat for most other insects, they divert sources of water to better suit their needs, they even farm, growing mold and algae in their colonies to help feed their fellow ant. It's also well known that they engage in some form of organized warfare, and they've even been documented enslaving smaller species of ant whose colonies they "conquer." I'm sure they may even have some form of domestication of other insects, keeping them in their colonies and feeding them until they're ready to harvest them.

How likely is this to evolve in alien races, and how likely are they to become intelligent and form a civilization? This hasn't occurred in just ants, most organisms that live underground appear to exhibit a similar caste structure, do you think it occurs only in organisms that make colonies underground, or do organisms that make colonies underground exhibit a caste system (does living underground cause a caste system or does a caste system cause living underground, in simpler and clearer terms)?

From what I can tell this system is the most likely, having occurred generally in all organisms with a caste system:


  • Worker Caste: They gather food and perform construction feats.
  • Soldier Caste: They engage in warfare with enemy colonies as well as protect the colony from predators
  • Queen/Breeder Caste: Generally a single individual (I suppose an entire caste is possible) who produces new organisms


Should a civilization develop, do you think new castes would as well? Would there end up being things like a scribe/scholar caste or an engineer caste? And since there would need to be some kind of order, would castes have some kind of sub-caste? Like a general sub-caste in the soldier caste?

Discuss. Also, here's an interesting picture that somewhat inspired this thread (as well as the movie Antz):

Posted Image
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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It might be possible.

Hive based (as opposed to individual based, like humans) intelligence would operate differently.

For example, individuals might not be that smart, and might not even have the ability to conceptualise. They'd just be workers, so to speak. For example, inventions would be few and far between; they wouldn't invent technology, they would evolve it.

Thus they would have no greater intentions then survival. Worship, recreation and war (besides perhaps territorial disputes or such) would not exist to them. Their society might progress very, very slowly. Over a course of thousands or perhaps millions of years.


You could also have a caste system where individuals are intelligent and posess some personal motivation, but live within what is effectively a hive-minded system (like in District 9).
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

The latter is what I was thinking of. They would need some way to develop new ideas and technologies in order to build a civilization, so there would have to be a pretty significant amount of individualism in the society. Perhaps instead of having a queen or breeder caste that spawns all members of the other castes, each caste instead breeds with individuals from their own caste (and just to be safe let's assume right now that it is not possible to crossbreed castes). That way you have multiple societies and communities rather than castes of the same species. That would also help formulate "sub-castes," a particularly smart worker could become a scientist/scholar caste, while a particularly intelligent soldier could form a general caste within the soldier caste.

Or perhaps there would be a caste similar to the officers in Multiwinia, in that they are a caste whose job is to direct other castes, i.e, the "thinker" caste. It would be they who formulated new ideas, then passed on information to the worker caste in order to construct their new idea.

There definitely needs to be some degree of individual intelligence in order for civilization to develop. unless they had some kind of instinctual desire, or perhaps even emotional need, to discover and record new information. It would make sense, if you think about it; the more you know, the better the chances are for the colony to survive. If you can divert rivers, that means the colony has more food. If you can build walls, the colony is better defended from other colonies. If you can learn to make bronze, you can more easily defeat enemy troops.
Edited by Ànraich, Nov 27 2009, 02:02 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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is it possible for a caste system to evolve in a non-eusocial species? I need to know for a story I'm planning.
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Are you plausible?

The idea of exclusive intra-caste reproduction suggests to me that each caste is, by definition, a unique species. There would be room for some very divergent specialization here...
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food for thought
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That's what I had in mind. My aliens have effectively evolved (with the help of very advanced genetic engineering) to the point where there are some individuals that don't even have legs, resembling snakes, while others seem to be nothing but legs and look like spiders. What do you think of that
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Are you plausible?

That kind of polymorphism is certainly doable, and it wouldn't even have to be done with different species, I think. And if genetic engineering is involved then you can just throw natural selection out the window.
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Ànraich
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Dec 5 2009, 09:29 PM
That kind of polymorphism is certainly doable, and it wouldn't even have to be done with different species, I think. And if genetic engineering is involved then you can just throw natural selection out the window.
In a physical sense, yes; natural selection would be null and void in that situation. But in a psychological sense, it would not. It's possible that those with greater independent intelligence would survive to reproduce more, thus ensuring that the generation would have greater individual intelligence, and the cycle would continue until you eventually had, well, individuals. It could potentially cause a great upsurge in society. Imagine a world in which a strict natural caste system is suddenly put into jeopardy when the workers become intelligent enough to realize that even though they're the bottom of society (though that may not necessarily hold true in all cases, but for the sake of discussion we'll assume so) they have power because the other castes rely on them. The workers are the foundation of all societies, regardless of how they're structured. Without workers there is no means of production, no means of construction, and no means of repair or advancement. They have nothing to lose but their chains, and they have the cosmos to gain! WORKERS OF THE COSMOS, UNITE!

But seriously, the advancement of individual intelligence through natural selection in a caste society could have the potential to cause great upheaval in said society.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Well, that woulnd't happen in my story because the "worker"-caste aliens have a very different psychology than humans. They WANT to do the work for the "leader"-caste aliens, because they see it as their function, and if they don't do it they actually feel depressed.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
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