A technologically advanced arthropoid species first encountered by humans in the Sol system. The virgonid language is based on a combination of pheromones and sounds which humans cannot reproduce, and is thus not transliterable; their human name is derived from their star system of origin, Ross 128, located in the constellation Virgo.
The virgonids are the only sapient insectoid species in the known galaxy and possess a unique life cycle. Each virgonid is born male, in which capacity he may serve as the “contributor-parent” in sexual reproduction; later in life, he may transition to female, at which point she will be able to serve as a “bearer-parent,” carrying a number of fertilized eggs to maturity. This process results in the death of the bearer-parent, usually within hours of successfully giving birth. The individual virgonid lifespan averages only three to five Terran years.
Virgonids were able to develop and maintain a complex, technological civilization despite these extremely short lifespans only after evolving an incredible ability: near-perfect genetic memory transfer from bearer-parent to offspring. This ability, combined with renowned virgonid selflessness, allows multigenerational training for complex skills, which can then be passed down generation to generation, each one gaining new experience and knowledge. Today, virgonid genealogies, or “dynasties,” often dominate the highest ranks of science and engineering professions.
An individual bearer-parent is able to control the number of eggs she brings to maturity, which may be anywhere from one to around twenty. This allows virgonids to easily maintain sustainable populations in established colonies, on long-term space missions and the like, while also permitting “population bomb” scenarios to occur, such as when a new virgonid colony or outpost is being established. In these multiple-offspring births, each receives the full memories of the bearer-parent; however, each child soon develops his own personality during the rapid early maturation stage, resulting in a clutch of discrete, if similar, individuals.
This ability for relatively small numbers of virgonid to rapidly produce geometrically increasing numbers of offspring, combined with their high level of engineering knowledge and skill, gives the virgonids, as a species, military potential paralleled only by that of the self-replicating Ciphers. Historically, though, this potential has been almost entirely unrealized. The virgonids are naturally a peaceful and inquisitive people, being roused to war only by the greatest necessity. Even during the Galactic War (2477–2485), the virgonid contribution, while essential to the ultimate Compact victory, was largely limited to engineering and manufacturing support, with most virgonids eschewing combat roles.
Virgonids are almost universally seen as friendly, inquisitive, and quick-witted, both as individuals and as a group. They bond easily with humans, who for their part—provided they can get past the atavistic fear engendered by massive, talking insects—can find in virgonid genealogies a series of lifelong, steadfastly loyal friends. Virgonids who interact with other races regularly take human names rather than attempting to transliterate their monikers in their own unique language, so closely do they identify with humans.
Another human-style label applied to an essentially untranslatable virgonid term, the Greater Hive concept refers to the virgonid interstellar state, the body of the entire species, and to the long-standing alliance between virgonids and humanity. While outsiders instinctually try to distinguish between these three concepts, the virgonid themselves find no distinction necessary.
The political embodiment of the Greater Hive is the only pure direct democracy in the known galaxy. All decisions are reached by scaled consensus; a decision to declare war is voted on by the entire adult virgonid population, to found a new settlement by the population of the world in question, to levy a new tax by the population that will be affected, and so on. By the standards of other species, such mass consensus is astonishingly easy to reach. Genuine political disagreements are vanishingly rare. Even most ships and space installations are governed by consensus rather than having a human-style command structure; only military vessels have a designated captain, though he or she is also chosen by the consensus of the crew.
The original Greater Hive concept dates back to around 9000 BTSY. Like humans, virgonids spread across their home world from a single point of origin, before being fractured by environmental factors around the time they attained sapience, roughly two million years ago. The virgonids’ short generations mean they can evolve quickly; by the time the local hives that expanded from these colonies came back into contact over the succeeding millennia, they had changed so much biologically that they invariably regarded each other as existential threats.
The planet gradually descended into a state of near-constant total war, each hive trying to wipe out the others with which it was in contact, sparing none. Many hives were annihilated or absorbed, until a handful of super-hives dominated the habitable zone of their home world, a ring along the tidally locked planet’s terminator line. The war between these hives continued for centuries, until several of the hives began developing a theory of science.
These scientist-genealogies quickly determined that the planet’s resources were growing scarce; if unrestricted wartime breeding and devastation continued for a mere few decades more, they would be depleted, and the entire species would inevitably go extinct. The only solution was for the hives to unite and restrict their birth rates until the planet’s environment had a chance to replenish itself.
Once this Hive Unification concept was disseminated, it was adopted with extraordinary rapidity; thousands of years of warfare were set aside in a matter of months. The disparate virgonid peoples joined together and interbred, keeping their numbers in check. In the space of a century, the planet’s environment indeed recovered, and the modern virgonid physiology still known to us today was established.
