The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 230 Sociobiology

It finally came. Looking at the meteor falling from the sky with its tail of flame, Lin Yi quickly responded.

A large number of swarms of giant-winged flying insects and ancient web-winged flying insects flapped their membrane wings, approaching the approximate landing point of those "meteors" as shown by the camouflaged telescope observations, and were preparing nearby.

This couldn't help but arouse his imagination - during the Middle Ordovician, was the scene between heaven and earth also like this? And what was the mentality of the anomalocaris nest that controlled the swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimp chasing meteors at that time?
But at this time, he didn't have much time to think about this. In several mother nest groups, biological astronomical telescope structures that are camouflaged and difficult to detect are keeping a close eye on the falling unknown objects and observing their landing points.

Based on their size, these long objects are most likely not landing modules. Lin Yi guessed that they may be some kind of special detector structure that may be used to analyze information such as the composition of the atmosphere of habitable planets.

In the field of view, after these meteors falling into the atmosphere passed through the ionosphere, a white parachute flower slowly bloomed at the tail, causing their speed to slow down and slowly pass through the middle layer.

Then, something unexpected happened - when the atmosphere had become dense to a certain extent, the structure that seemed to be a heat-resistant fairing wrapped around the outside of these structures split from the middle, exposing the main structure underneath.

The main structure is very different from what Lin Yi imagined. The back of these structures is covered with a black layer that seems to be a solar panel structure, while the overall structure is still cylindrical.

The cylindrical front end is a huge spherical structure, which seems to be some kind of camera or observation instrument. And at the end are two...propeller blades?

Then, the blades suddenly began to rotate, and two slender wings unfolded from the center of the main body, which were also covered with solar panel structures.

Lin Yi didn't dare to confirm for a while. In his imagination, a civilization with the ability to travel at faster than light speeds should not be too backward in the means of exploring the planet's surface.

Everywhere in the atmosphere, these detection drones dropped from the sky have entered and started detection and scanning everywhere. It seems that they are working with the reconnaissance satellites overhead to scan the earth in all directions.

The correct style of painting, even if it is not an anti-gravity aircraft flying directly over the earth, casting a shadow and bringing an invincible sense of oppression, it should be an aerospace fighter jet entering the atmosphere.

As a result, apart from the reconnaissance satellites released in orbit, some simple small drones were dropped, which was far from what was imagined.

Under operation, they quickly stabilized their bodies, began to soar in the atmosphere, and spread out. The front-end observation structure was operating and seemed to be observing.

While thinking, more small drones were dropped from space, discarded their fairings, spread their wings, stabilized their bodies, and flew in other directions.

Judging from the technological level of these guys, I'm afraid they are not much higher than the means mastered by later generations of humans. They can only supply solar panels for aircraft flight with some technical content, but in other aspects, they are about the same level as later generations.

Among them, some detection drones began to hover and lower their altitude, seeming to be preparing to view the earth's situation more clearly from low altitudes.

This gave Lin Yi the opportunity - the nest version of the ancient Dictyoptera flying insects quickly flapped its membrane wings, followed these detection drones from a distance, and began to conduct reconnaissance.

In this way, the forces in the atmosphere on both sides faced each other in a light and dark manner. …

The signal from the scientific research ship interrupted Warmani's thoughts - it seems that the comprehensive scan has produced preliminary results.

"The results have been scanned. There are highly evolved creatures here. They don't have the same form of civilization as us, but there are some things that are interesting. The details have been sent to you."

The signal coming from the other end was not from the correspondent, but came directly from the scientific research team. Some iconic features made Warmani immediately recognize who sent the signal.

Willery is the leader of the scientific research team aboard the ship, and this sociologist from his home planet has a somewhat legendary experience.

After entering the era of interstellar navigation, the scientific research system of the Ezki civilization has undergone a major change. All disciplines are divided into three major categories - physics, which mainly studies theoretical physics, engineering, and its application, and sociology.

Each of them is divided into several subcategories, and among them, sociology covers a slightly wider range, from real social research to biology and natural sciences.

The beginning of it all was Vellery. Initially, his research direction was biology and he proposed a somewhat whimsical theory.

This theory envisioned a completely new form of biological existence, which he himself called - the superorganism.

Different from ordinary social creatures, in this kind of "super-individual", individual individuals do not have a high level of intelligence, but they can form a consciousness network through special signals.

An individual's actions are completely determined by the signals in the signal network, and at the same time, each individual has the ability to change this signal network to a certain extent, and will send out signals according to changes in the environment, changing the entire network.

This makes each individual equivalent to a cell, operating according to the instructions of the neural network, and emitting neural signals itself, which is also the origin of the name superindividual.

These alone are not an exaggeration, but what is truly amazing is that this theory points out that complex divisions of labor may occur in superorganisms developed to the extreme.

There is no precedent for a simple division of labor. For example, there is a kind of social predator on the Ezki home planet. The female is more slender, has slender legs, and can hunt and contain it over long distances, while the male is stronger. , used to execute large prey.

But this theory points out that when this division of labor develops to the extreme, ordinary individuals may even completely degrade their reproductive abilities. The tasks of reproduction and gene continuation are completed by one or more specialized, highly specialized individuals.

This one or more individuals will become the entire super-organism's reproductive system, heavily protected by ordinary individuals, and become the core of the super-organism's reproduction.

Even further, this idea goes even further. Will there be an individual who specializes in thinking, with a highly specialized brain, becoming the core of super-individual thinking, and ultimately forming a...civilization in a certain sense?
But at the beginning, this theory has been called evil because it even fundamentally goes against the core of biology, which is the "selfish" nature of genetic material. This has also led to the fact that Willery has been unknown for a long time. Although he has some private supporters, he has not played a big role.

(End of this chapter)