What could make an insect race intelligent?

TL;DR: I want a society which behaves as a hive. Is it plausible and how to achieve this?

The setup: Different planet in our universe. In other words: Normal, physical rules apply, there is no magic involved. I would like to have plausible explanation for everything.

Bonus: Because This is around creaturebuilding and not worldbuilding, I am leaving out the world setup. But, obviously, I would like my creature to meet with humans, so I would like to end up with a planet, which can also support trained humans to survive (= human who went through nowadays NASA astronaut training).

And as I am typing this question, one becomes obvious: The planet has to have at least one moon.

The creature: As stated in the bold text above, I would like to end up with a creature which:

• Shoots for the moon (and at least has the technological level to go there)
• Has hive state of mind (possibly evolved from ants or bees)
• Is large enough to be recognized by human as someone "who runs the show" (ant of size 0,5 meters to start with?)
• Looks like the insects here on Earth. Does not need to look exactly like an insect, but on the first look at it you would "categorize" it into insects.

The question(s) (again):

• Is such a creature actually plausible? Could evolution process end up in "intelligent insect"?
• What traits does such a planet need to have in order to maximize plausibility of such evolution?

And ultimately:

• Would that planet be able to support astronaut's life if (s)he takes off their helmet?

posted about 10 years ago

Pavel Janicek‭

6 reputation 38 0 1 0