In science fiction and fantasy literatures, the term insectoid ("insect-like") denotes any fantastical fictional creature sharing physical or other traits with ordinary insects (or arachnids). Most frequently, insect-like or spider-like extraterrestrial life forms is meant; in such cases convergent evolution may presumably be responsible for the existence of such creatures. Occasionally, an earth-bound setting — such as in the film The Fly (1958), in which a scientist is accidentally transformed into a grotesque human–fly hybrid, or Kafka's famous novella The Metamorphosis (1915), which does not bother to explain how a man becomes an enormous insect — is the venue.
The term insectoid denotes any creature or object that shares a similar body or traits with common earth insects and arachnids. The term is a combination of "insect" and "-oid" (a suffix denoting similarity).
Insect-like extraterrestrials have long been a part of the tradition of science fiction. In the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon , Georges Méliès portrayed the Selenites (moon inhabitants) as insectoid. [1] The Woggle-Bug appeared in L. Frank Baum's Oz books beginning in 1904. Olaf Stapledon incorporates insectoids in his 1937 Star Maker novel. [2] In the pulp fiction novels, insectoid creatures were frequently used as the antagonists threatening the damsel in distress. [3] Notable later depictions of hostile insect aliens include the antagonistic "Arachnids", or "Bugs", in Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers (1959) [4] and the "buggers" in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series (from 1985). [5]
The hive mind, or group mind, is a theme in science fiction going back to the alien hive society depicted in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901). Hive minds often imply a lack, or loss, of individuality, identity, or personhood. The individuals forming the hive may specialize in different functions, in the manner of social insects. The hive queen has been a figure in novels including C. J. Cherryh's Serpent's Reach (1981) [6] and the Alien film franchise (from 1979). [7]
Insectoid sexuality has been addressed in Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers (1952) [8] Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis novels (from 1987) [9] and China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2000). [10]
The motif of the insect became widely used in science fiction as an "abject human/insect hybrids that form the most common enemy" in related media. [11] Bugs or bug-like shapes have been described as a common trope in them, and the term 'insectoid' is considered "almost a cliche" with regards to the "ubiquitous way of representing alien life". [12]
In expressing his ambivalence with regard to science fiction, insectoids were on his mind when Carl Sagan complained of the type of story which "simply ignores what we know of molecular biology and Darwinian evolution.... I have...problems with films in which spiders 30 feet tall are menacing the cities of earth: Since insects and arachnids breathe by diffusion, such marauders would asphyxiate before they could savage their first metropolis". [13]
A wide range of different fiction has featured different insectoids ranging from characters and races:
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as Starship Soldier, and published as a book by G. P. Putnam's Sons on November 5, 1959.
Starship Troopers is a 1997 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. Set in the 23rd century, the story follows teenager Johnny Rico and his friends serving in the military of the United Citizen Federation, an Earth world government engaged in interstellar war with an alien species of Arachnids. The film stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, and Michael Ironside.
Starship Troopers is a board wargame by Avalon Hill based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. It was originally released in 1976 and designed by Randall C. Reed. Twenty years later, Avalon Hill redesigned and re-released a "movie" version in 1997 to coincide with the movie's release.
A bioship is a type of spacecraft or starship described in science fiction as either predominantly or totally composed of biological components, rather than being constructed from manufactured materials. Because of this, they nearly always have a distinctively organic look.
An extraterrestrial or alien is any extraterrestrial lifeform: a lifeform that did not originate on Earth. The word extraterrestrial means "outside Earth". The first published use of extraterrestrial as a noun occurred in 1956, during the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Metamorphosis Alpha is one of the first science fiction role-playing games, published in 1976. It was created by James M. Ward and originally produced by TSR, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
The Loch Ness Monster is a creature from folklore that has appeared in popular culture in various genres since at least 1934. It is most often depicted as a relict dinosaur or similar, but other explanations for its existence such as being a shapeshifter or from outer space also appear. It is only occasionally portrayed as threatening, despite its name.
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager is a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations in 1994 for the MS-DOS operating system. It is the sequel to Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.
Insect Queen is the name of several fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
The Tower and the Hive is a 1999 science fiction novel by American writer Anne McCaffrey, the concluding volume of a five-book series also referred to as "The Tower and Hive" series.
Space warfare is a main theme and central setting of science fiction that can trace its roots back to classical times, and to the "future war" novels of the 19th century. With the Modern Age, directly with franchises as Star Wars and Star Trek, it is considered one of the most popular general sub-genres and themes of science fiction. An interplanetary, or more often an interstellar or intergalactic war, has become a staple plot device. Space warfare, represented in science fiction, has a predominant role, it is a central theme and at the same time it is considered parent, overlapping genre of space opera, military science fiction and Space Western.
A group mind, group ego, mind coalescence, or gestalt intelligence in science fiction is a plot device in which multiple minds, or consciousnesses, are linked into a single collective consciousness or intelligence.
Gary Wesley Westfahl is an American writer and scholar of science fiction. He has written reviews for the Los Angeles Times, The Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. He worked at the University of California, Riverside until 2011 and is now an Professor Emeritus at the University of La Verne.
Ash is a fictional character in the film Alien (1979) portrayed by actor Ian Holm who, while known in the UK as a stage actor, was at the time unknown to American audiences. Ash serves as the secondary antagonist of the first film. The character is the science officer of the Nostromo, who breaks quarantine by allowing Kane, a member of the crew, back on board after he has been infected by an alien life form. It is later discovered that Ash is not human, as he appears, but is a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 android, a sleeper agent who is acting upon secret orders to bring back the alien lifeform and to consider the crew and cargo as "expendable".
Parasites appear frequently in biology-inspired fiction from ancient times onwards, with a flowering in the nineteenth century. These include intentionally disgusting alien monsters in science fiction films, often with analogues in nature. Authors and scriptwriters have, to some extent, exploited parasite biology: lifestyles including parasitoid, behaviour-altering parasite, brood parasite, parasitic castrator, and many forms of vampire are found in books and films. Some fictional parasites, like Count Dracula and Alien's Xenomorphs, have become well known in their own right.
Biology appears in fiction, especially but not only in science fiction, both in the shape of real aspects of the science, used as themes or plot devices, and in the form of fictional elements, whether fictional extensions or applications of biological theory, or through the invention of fictional organisms. Major aspects of biology found in fiction include evolution, disease, genetics, physiology, parasitism and symbiosis (mutualism), ethology, and ecology.
Reptilian humanoids, or anthropomorphic reptiles, are fictional creatures that appear in folklore, fiction, and conspiracy theories.
the insectile and swarm-like Tyranids
the Thri-Kreen, a four-armed people with insectile features