Group mind (science fiction)

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A group mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men.[1] A group mind might be formed by techlepathy, by adding brain-to-brain communication to ordinary individuals, or by some unspecified means. A hive mind is a group mind with almost complete loss (or lack) of individual identity; most fictional group minds are hives. The concept of the group or hive mind is an intelligent version of real-life superorganisms such as ants or bees.

“

What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to the mind? Our unity is full of wonder, which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive.

”

- The Many, System Shock 2

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 List of hive minds
2 List of non-hive group minds
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] List of hive minds

Hive minds are group minds with (almost) complete loss (or lack) of individuality, identity, and personhood. The individuals forming the hive may specialize in different functions, similarly to social insects.

The Aparoids in Star Fox: Assault
The Borg in Star Trek. The Borg Queen takes a co-ordinator role; the drones are indistinguishable, though they have species identifications and individual designators. Some Borg unconsciously retain their identities in Unimatrix Zero.
The Bringers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Bugs in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. They include workers, warriors, brains, and queens
The evolving children, part of the Over-Mind at the end of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End
The Comprise in Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers
Groups of cranium rats in the Planescape campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
The cyborg army of CABAL in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: Firestorm
The coalescent hives from Stephen Baxter's Destiny's Children series
The Autons and Rutan Host in Doctor Who
The Dark People in The Longest Journey and Dreamfall.
The Drummers in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age
The Flood in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 games.
The Formics in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game Series (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind)
Gah Lak Tus, the Ultimate Marvel version of Galactus, is depicted as a massive swarm of robots forming a collective mind.
The Hive Mind in Neal Asher's novel The Skinner
The Invid race in Robotech
The Kharaa (alien species) in Natural Selection
The Little Green Men (LMGs) from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
The Majat in the novel Serpent's Reach by C. J. Cherryh
The Modron (Dungeons & Dragons).
Man in The Last Question
The Machines in "The Matrix" Trilogy form a seemingly connected mind, especially at the end of the last film, where they coalace into a face to speak to Neo
The Many in System Shock 2
The Overlords in Dante D'Anthony's "Tales from the Pandoran Age"
Palador in Arthur C. Clarke's story "Rescue Party"
The Partnership Collective™ in Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary
The Phalanx
The Phindin from the Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice book series by Dave Wolverton and Jude Watson.
Planet in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
The Precogs in "Minority Report", a short story by Philip K. Dick (and its film adaptation).
The Primes in Peter F. Hamilton's "Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained"
The Replicators in Stargate SG-1
The Rat King in The Ballad of Halo Jones
The Sand Beasts from Deltora Quest's The Shifting Sands
The slivers in Magic: The Gathering storyline, they appear first time on Rath but were seen again under the battle of Otaria, and once more during the temporal caos of time spiral.
- Slivers take the hive mind idea a step further, instead of sharing just a consciousness, they also share physical attributes, such as breathing fire, regenerating, growing wings, or an extra claw. They gain these attributes by being in close proximity to another.
The Swarm in Bruce Sterling's short story of the same name in Schismatrix
The Tines in A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. These dog-like creatures form group minds of small numbers of bodies; in larger numbers they are overwhelmed.
The Tyr in C.S. Friedman's The Madness Season
The Tyranid race in Warhammer 40,000
The Vortigaunt race in Half Life and Half Life 2
The Xenomorph race in Alien, Aliens, Alien³, Alien: Resurrection, Alien vs. Predator, and Alien vs. Predator 2
The Zerg race in StarCraft

Unnamed hive minds occur in

Quatermass and the Pit
Star Maker
The Forever War - The civilisation of humans at the end, and also the race they are conducting the war against throughout the book.

[edit] List of non-hive group minds

A group mind that is not a hive either lets individuals retain some individuality, or can itself split back up into functional individuals at need. The dividing line is blurry; some Star Trek Borg, such as Seven of Nine, have been split from the collective.

The hyper-evolved Arisians of "Doc" Smith's Lensman series can form multi-mind fusions, as can highly-trained Lensmen.
The Founders in Star Trek are individuals, but form a group mind while connected in the Great Link.
The Omar in Deus Ex: Invisible War
A group of telepathic child prodigies in Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human (ISBN 0-375-70371-3).
The Conjoiners in Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, and short stories. They retain their identities, but communicate via implants and act as a group.
The Edenists in Peter F. Hamilton's 'The Night's Dawn Trilogy' remain individuals, but rely on telepathic empathy for emotional support, personal stability, and colony-wide referendums on major decisions.
Gaia and Galaxia in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series
The Little People of Robert A. Heinlein's Methuselah's Children; the individual memories of the original bodies are retained.
The Martians of A Miracle of Science use brain-to-brain FTL communication; they do not lose their individuality despite being members of the group mind.
The "'Strangers'" in the film Dark City, a group of aliens who experiment on humans in search for their soul. Although each Stranger seems to be an individual, they can combine their psychokinetic powers to work the city-wide Machine, have a hive memory set and have a library of human memories which their doctor can combine to create a new memory. The goal of the Strangers is to obtain human individuality.
The singularity in the backstory of Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge seems to have involved a group mind created with the aid of brain-level communication and computer networks.
Humanity is approaching Unity with the existing galactic group mind in Julian May's Galactic Milieu series.
All of humanity at the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion, after being reduced to LCL.
All of humanity in the last episode of Serial Experiments Lain, after everyone is subconsciously connected to each other through an advanced, global, wireless version of the internet.
Evronians from the Disney comic series Pk.
The Franklin Collective from Accelerando by Charles Stross.
Las Plagas, and, by extension, the Ganados, from Resident Evil 4.
The Unity in Hosts by F. Paul Wilson; newly infected members can occasionally break free of the group mind and think for themselves, but are eventually overpowered completely.
The inhabitants of Camazotz, from Madeline L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle In Time'
[to some extent] The Human Beings, according to Nature's Semi-consciousness/on going auto-learning process in Nature is seeing a shrink by Lucas Monaco Toledo
The underground(Also referred to as "The Joined") in The Light of Other Days uses Brain-computer interfaces and wormhole communication.
The leader of resistance, Kuze, in TV Series "Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG" communicates with war refugees through their cybernetic implants. By constantly transmitting all his thoughts and feelings to the refugees through "the Network", Kuze becomes their friend, comrade and leader in their fight to establish a new state. The only difference from a mastermind is that he lets everyone decide, wether to follow his lead or not.
The transcendence in transcendent by Stephen Baxter
The Keymasters in Spectrum by Sergey Lukyanenko
The Fleetmind, or Petey, in Schlock Mercenary
The Protoss from Aiur in StarCraft; notably the Dark Templar, who are renegade Protoss, do not have access to a group mind.