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>>82101854
Thread Question: Do you think eusocial bug societies would keep it where only the queen reproduces, or would it be expanded out to where a certain class or the full populace can? If only the queen reproduces, would the society all consider each other family or just citizens?

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>>82101895
I'd "expect" things to be worked out aping supercolony behaviors even without the instincts for it to push coordination advantages, for thematic reasons probably mapping loosely to feudal arrangements. Also worth noting is that social hymenopterans technically don't have fully sterile workers in the first place, the sex-determination mechanism means asexually produced unfertilized eggs that basically all of them CAN make (whereas the fertilization mechanism needed for other workers and queens is usually broken at some stage) develop into males. This is instead regulated by pheromones suppressing ovary function and other workers eating the eggs.

The evolutionary theory of how a lot of this pans out rests on sister-workers having more genetic similarity with eachother than their mother, brothers, or sons due to how that sex-selection affects underlying gene-transfer, and so the active kin selection pressure in "full" eusociality is more concentrated in them, which could easily be translated to a rather awkward-to-us social order of highly collectivized decision-making by the workers then enforced on the "queens" and any extraspecific residents (which in ants can be an EXTREMELY long list)

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>>82104494
Did not even know about supercolony stuff, something that makes them lean even further into the feudal lords theming even better, though I suppose that is sort of undercut by what you mention about the workers ultimately making the decisions. Also, what you said there in turn raises the question of whether that fertilization mechanism would deteriorate in an anthro eusocial bug and what the views on breeding outside of the queen/special breeding caste would be, though given the bottom-up setup for decision-making, would have to keep in mind those views would likely come from a utilitarian mindset rather than any caste system structure/oppression

>>82105045
>Did not even know about supercolony stuff
It's just eusocial species that have very broad kin-recognition.

>though I suppose that is sort of undercut by what you mention about the workers ultimately making the decisions
It's brought up as an alternative for grounding an inversion of expectations, though one could have both between "natural" supercolonies not needing the high-order social constructs to engineer buy-in for geopolitically significant coalitions and various models of division or devolution of powers. Could use the occasionally observed thing of queens seemingly saving energy from reproduction so they can beat off their daughters/nieces in certain replacement attempt conditions.

>Also, what you said there in turn raises the question of whether that fertilization mechanism would deteriorate in an anthro eusocial bug
To my understanding, it having deteriorated is partially defining of arriving at eusociality. Before that point, you've got social wasps and even ants doing all the hive-stuff at smaller scales without phenotypical distinctions, just some opaque decision-making process of who gets to have the next generation of offspring.