• Touching antennae as a friendly greeting (brief touches in more casual/formal settings, longer and more information-rich touches among friends and loved ones)
  • Queens as revered philosophers/poets/mathematicians/etc. (critical to a hive’s survival so kept healthy and comfortable, lots of time spent sitting around pooping out eggs and probably wanting something stimulating to do, bodies not really suited for most physical activity)
  • Cities are half-buried arcologies that are dark and claustrophobic by human standards but resulted in strong institutional knowledge of engineering closed systems which means (if in an interstellar sci-fi setting) they contribute a lot to the galaxy’s orbital habitat/spaceship design
  • Children raised in communal creches by a class of dedicated workers, they don’t really have a “parental instinct” as we understand it but their childcare workers are the best you could ask for. They view the nuclear family as akin to a society where everyone has to build their own car in their garage instead of just taking a damn train
  • Their equivalent to the neolithic revolution was the rise of poly-queen societies, that is, polities that could organize around and maintain internal cohesion with multiple queens
  • hotspur [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    16 hours ago

    Was gonna mention this one also. Additionally, can’t remember exactly which one of the books it was (possibly hydrogen sonata?) but in Ian Bank’s Culture series there’s a fairly well imagined race of insects with complex cultural behaviors. Another book had an interesting lobster/nordic warrior/klingon type race as well.