Ants

Ants are social insects whose colonies expand across the green planet. An individual ant does not think, but a colony can test responses, adapt, and develop new castes and techniques. There is no single mind directing it. Ant communication relies on chemical messages, which spiders detect through smell.

Description

In the colony Portia first studies, workers are between fifteen and thirty centimetres long. Some cut timber with metal toothed sleeves attached to their mandibles. Workers harvest liquid from the trunks of trees grown in plantations. The ants also dig underground nests and mines. They use fire to clear land, ventilate nest chambers, and attack enemies. Some castes produce chemicals that heat and ignite in the planet’s oxygen rich atmosphere.

The colony’s behaviour can look planned, though ants do not understand the processes they carry out. The colonies experiment with resources and responses. They retain techniques that work, develop specialized castes, and can incorporate smaller colonies into a larger system. Portia describes this as a superstate. Individual ants do not innovate, but the colony’s accumulated behaviour changes over time.

History

Portia encounters a large ant colony beyond the forests near Great Nest. The ants have cut back forest and planted stands of squat trees with fleshy leaves and warty trunks. Their colony mound has underground passages, fires, and metal tools. They have also made contact with a crystal that receives a signal from the orbiting Messenger. Ants gather around it and respond to the signal through waves of movement.

The spider settlements have fought ants and learned to limit or manipulate their choices. In the attack on Seven Trees, an advancing ant army sends expendable scouts ahead to trigger traps. Its force includes shock troops with saw edged metal mandibles and protective head shields, as well as castes that spray heated chemicals and launch incendiary projectiles. The ants overwhelm the defenders and set the city on fire. Spider colonies use chemicals to confuse or redirect ants, but the large army advances through losses that would stop a smaller force.

Role in the story

Spider societies use ants for work, including mining. The colonies build their own mine workings, using metal picks attached to their mandibles and substances that weaken stone. A dispute between mining colonies at the boundaries of Seven Trees and Great Nest contributes to the conflict between those spider cities. In the fighting, ant armies carry out the attacks while the spiders direct them.

Ant colonies also serve as analytical tools and control systems. In the Sky Nest, a colony bred to respond to complex conditioning monitors the airship and acts on information about its state. A network of cultured tissue carries signals between the ants and distant parts of the vessel, where they become chemical instructions. The ants can alter the network by severing some links and encouraging others to grow.

By the time of the Voyager, the spiders and humans have built a living vessel with a symbiotic ant colony. It regulates, repairs, and improves the ship. The colony’s role has shifted from a danger the spiders try to contain to a partner in their technology.

Unanswered questions

• How much of a colony’s behaviour can spiders predict or control?
• Whether ant colonies have any form of awareness beyond their coordinated responses is not established.