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.[1][2] The first alien hive society was depicted in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901) while the use of human hive minds in literature goes back at least as far as David H. Keller's The Human Termites (published in Wonder Stories in 1929) and Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men (1930),[3][4] which is the first known use of the term "group mind" in science fiction.[5][2] The use of the phrase "hive mind", however, was first recorded in 1943 in use in bee keeping and its first known use in sci-fi was James H. Schmitz's Second Night of Summer (1950).[6][7] A group mind might be formed by any fictional plot device that facilitates brain to brain communication, such as telepathy.
This term may be used interchangeably with hive mind.[7][8] "Hive mind" tends to describe a group mind in which the linked individuals have no identity or free will and are possessed or mind-controlled as extensions of the hive mind. It is frequently associated with the concept of an entity that spreads among individuals and suppresses or subsumes their consciousness in the process of integrating them into its own collective consciousness. The concept of the group or hive mind is an intelligent version of real-life superorganisms such as a beehive or an ant colony.
Some hive minds feature members that are controlled by a centralised "hive brain" or "hive queen" while others feature a decentralised approach where members interact equally or roughly equally to come to decisions.[9] Hive minds are typically viewed in a negative light, especially in earlier works, though some newer works portray them as neutral or positive.[3][10]
As conceived in speculative fiction, hive minds often imply (almost) complete loss (or lack) of individuality, identity, and personhood. The individuals forming the hive may specialize in different functions, similarly to social insects.[citation needed]
The Bugs in Robert A. Heinlein'sStarship Troopers.[13] They include workers, warriors, brains, and queens; however the films and subsequent TV series feature several other castes.
The gestalt consciousness (called the homo gestalt) formed by individuals able to "blesh" (a portmanteau of "blend" and "mesh") their abilities together, in Theodore Sturgeon's novel More Than Human.[19]
Sophia in Project Nemesis (Book 3: Chrysalis) by Brendan Reichs
The Squeem in the Xeelee Sequence future history by Stephen Baxter: a group-minded aquatic race, and the first extrasolar intelligence contacted by mankind.
The Tines in A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge: a lone individual is like a dog; a pack of about 4–7 is equivalent to a human adult; in larger numbers they become confused, often nonsapient.
The Akatsuki leader Nagato in the Naruto series via using special rods to transmit his consciousness into six corpses that he controls while his real body is hidden at a safe distance.
In the Pocket Monsters Special Diamond and Pearl Saga, the members of Team Galaxia share a hive mind that controls their moves and actions.
The Skraaldians in Men in Black: The Series are psychically linked; if one of their kind is killed, the others immediately know about it and who did it.
The Anti-Spirals in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are a group mind, having foregone their individuality to stop evolution. The final battle of the series is against a being representing their collective minds.
The Sibyl System in charge of controlling society is made up of human brains linked together to form a super-computer in Psycho-Pass
The Ex-Machina, a race of mentally connected cybernetic life forms, sharing information and being divided into clusters, which appear in No Game, No Life Zero
The Machines in the Matrix trilogy form a seemingly connected mind, especially at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, where they coalesce into a face to speak to Neo
The Nanochips in Ben 10: Alien Swarm are composed of insect-like nanochips that are connected to a queen, and are able to inhabit humans to take over their bodies.
The Kaiju from Pacific Rim (film) share a hive mind. The scientist Newton Geiszler creates a machine which allows him to create a mental link with a kaiju brain fragment, however the result is that it attracts two Kaiju; Leatherback and Otachi which attack Shangai, China. This mental link allows Newton to view the memories of the Kaiju and find out more about them.
The Replicators in Stargate SG-1 are linked via subspace, but each Replicator has its own "corner" of the space where it can think privately without the others knowing what it thinks. This, however, may be exclusive to the human-form Replicators.
The Inhuman known as Hive, who is possessing Grant Ward's corpse, in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is a parasite that can infect other inhumans, and forms a hive mind with them.
The Darkspawn in Dragon Age Origins, led by an Archdemon. Players can drink the blood of a Darkspawn, and it will either kill them, drive them mad, or give them the ability to sense the Darkspawn, and the Archdemon.
The Infection (caused by the Radiance's influence over the minds of bugs), the "shared mind" of the fungi dwelling in the Fungal Wastes, and the collective mind of the bees of The Hive, in Hollow Knight.
Multiple races in the Mass Effect universe, most prominently the rachni. The Reapers are sapient starships each composed of billions of organic minds;[33]Sovereign, the vanguard of the Reaper fleet, addresses this by stating "We [the Reapers] are each a nation." The Collectors appear to have little or no consciousness of their own, being thralls to the Reaper known as Harbinger.
Speak-As-One in The Blackout Club, the personified ideal of unity and order consisting of ancient human memories cherrypicked over eons. They designate their mostly unaware human hosts with set roles fulfilling different tasks, similar to eusocial insect colonies organized into drones, soldiers, or queens.
The Skritt in Guild Wars 2. An individual Skritt is able to think for itself, however, is extremely unintelligent and vulnerable prey. However, the more Skritt you get together in a group, the more intelligent each member of the group becomes. In theory, an entire city of Skritt could be the most intelligent species in the game.
The Sunken in Oxenfree, the crew and passengers of a nuclear submarine fused and trapped between dimensions collectively driven by anger at their fate.
The System in Superhot. Breaking the fourth wall, the System warns the player repeatedly to stop playing, going so far as to close the game. When their warnings are ignored, the System begins to encourage the player and gives the mantra "Bodies are disposable. Mind is software." before leading the player to assimilation.
The X-Parasite organisms in Metroid Fusion kill and revive their living victims to turn them into zombies-like beings. The War Wasps in Metroid Prime culminate in a gigantic hive mind called the Hive Mecha in an attempt to prevent Samus Aran from receiving the missile launcher upgrade.
Corvus and humans with a Direct Neural Interface in "Call of Duty: Black Ops III", Causing the dead to coexist in the Frozen Forest as long as they have an active Direct Neural Interface.
Stellaris features an optional "Gestalt Consciousness" trait for player- and computer-controlled civilizations.
The slivers in Magic: The Gathering storyline. They appear first on Rath but are seen again under the battle of Otaria, and once more during the temporal chaos of Time Spiral
Slivers take the hive mind idea a step further: instead of sharing just a consciousness, they also share physical attributes, such as breathing fire, regenerating, growing wings, or an extra claw. They gain these attributes by being in close proximity to another.
The Xar-Ggothua in Xombie not only share thoughts with each other, but each one can be reborn into a new Xar or even a group of three by the Xin-Jithoth. It is assumed this can also be done to their "cousins", the Xi-Thyndri and the Xth Nthogg.
A group mind that is not a hive mind: the individuals retain their identities and free will, and can join or sever from the group mind of their own volition. Some examples can have characteristics of both a hive mind and group mind. There is not always a clear cut dividing line: some Star TrekBorg drones such as Seven of Nine have been forcibly split from the collective.
The Monicans, a mysterious group of assassins in the movie Æon Flux, are able to secretly communicate with each telepathically, enabled by a pill. As it is not explained, it might also be possible that the message is carried via the pill in a way that the recipient might be able to interact, allowing the simple two-way dialogue that occurred in the second message.
The Advent in Sins of a Solar Empire A subspecies of humans that is in constant mental contact with one another.
The hyper-evolved Arisians of "Doc" Smith's Lensman series can form multi-mind fusions, as can highly trained Lensmen.
The Founders (Changelings) in Star Trek are individuals, but form a group mind while connected in the Great Link.
The Divine Predecessors, a collection of disembodied brains taken from previous incarnations of His Divine Shadow in the television series Lexx.
The Edenists in Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy remain individuals, but rely on telepathic empathy for emotional support, personal stability, and colony-wide referendums on major decisions.
The "Fold", a wireless network of nanites infecting humans and superhumans in "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2", altering the mind of the infected, leaving personality intact while changing all goals and desires to match those of the fold, with the infected not realizing it.
The Vermillion, from [ninjago]. They are snakes that join with metal, usually armor, to form warriors. While most of them are hive minded, the three generals (Blunck, Raggmunk and Machia) have a mind of their own.
Kithkin from Wizards of the Coast's card game Magic the Gathering. They have their identities intact but are linked by Thoughtweft, which binds their feelings.
The Martians of A Miracle of Science use brain-to-brain FTL communication; they do not lose their individuality despite being members of the group mind.
The Strangers in the film Dark City, a group of aliens who experiment on humans in search for their soul. Although each Stranger seems to be an individual, they can combine their psychokinetic powers to work the citywide Machine, have a hive memory set and have a library of human memories which their doctor can combine to create a new memory. The goal of the Strangers is to obtain human individuality.
The Pods in Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko consist of up to five people each contributing their individual capabilities and strengths.
Humanity is approaching Unity with the existing galactic group mind in Julian May's Galactic Milieu series. 'Operant' humans are also able to form smaller, temporary group minds, called metaconcerts with other operants.
All of humanity in the last episode of Serial Experiments Lain, after everyone is subconsciously connected to each other through an advanced, global, wireless version of the internet.
The Unity in Hosts by F. Paul Wilson; newly infected members can occasionally break free of the group mind and think for themselves, but are eventually overpowered completely.
[to some extent] The Human Beings, according to Nature's Semi-consciousness/on going auto-learning process in Nature is seeing a shrink by Lucas Monaco Toledo
The leader of the Individual Eleven, Kuze, in the anime Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG communicates with war refugees through their cybernetic implants. By constantly transmitting all his thoughts and feelings to the refugees through "the Network", Kuze becomes their friend, comrade and leader in their fight to establish a new state. The only difference from a mastermind is that he lets everyone decide, whether to follow his lead or not.
The Cyberbrains of every cyborg in Ghost in the Shell, revealed even more so in Solid State Society, when Koshiki revealed that every cyborg shared the same consciousness.
The Virindi, a race/species in the PC game Asheron's Call, are floating, invisible entities that wear physical hooded shrouds (mostly tattered shrouds, but some forms of Virindi wear what looks like armor), white masks (think Vega from Street Fighter II) that have glowing purple eye holes (some have red pupils) and sometimes have twisted smiles on masks. They fight using magic crop sickles. They are of a singular mind which calls itself "The Singularity". The Virindi speak only in the plural (i.e.: us, we, our, etc...) when talking about themselves. Some "individuals" have broken free of The Singularity, and are of their own individual consciousness.
The Zilart in Final Fantasy XI, an ancient race connected by a kind of mental link they call the Whisper of Souls. Some are born without this link and are fearfully enslaved and forced to wear an amulet that artificially connects them to the Whisper.
The Asurans from Stargate Atlantis: Although their leadership can use the collective to reprogram deviant thoughts, they possess individual personalities beyond this, and can use it to transfer their consciousness to new bodies after their old ones are destroyed.
The Vex machine race in the video game Destiny possess specialized commanders referred to as Axis Minds. These units are used to coordinate planetary troop deployment and terraforming while freeing minor units from complex strategy.
The replica soldiers from F.E.A.R. universe are controlled by Telepathic commander.
The Sylvari race in Guild Wars 2 share a common Dream of Dreams, through which they learn basic understanding of the world.
The werewolves in the Twilight Series are able to share thoughts among their own pack. Alpha wolves can also share thoughts with each other, but must think directly at each other.
In David Alexander Smith's trilogy of science fiction books, starting with Marathon,[35] the Cygnan species is revealed in the second book Rendezvous as capable of entering a trance-like state of consciousness with other members of their social unit called a djan. During this time the djan mind becomes aware and is capable of thought, caused by pheromones exchanged amongst the djan. The individual Cygnans come away with increased bonding and unconscious affections, but have no cognitive recollection of the experience.
In David Alexander Smith's book "In the Cube", the Pheneri species are capable of seeing, re-enacting, and actually feeling each individual death of past members of its species.
The telepathic Hydrans of Joan Vinge's Psion and Dreamfall. These vary; the ones in Psion seem more like a continuous fluid consciousness, but described as unusual due to hard circumstances, while the ones in Dreamfall are more recognizably human individuals typically in at least light mental contact with each other.
The Nexus children in Ramez Naam's series Nexus. The children are able to telepathically communicate with one another and teach each other new information via a nano-tech known as "Nexus".
Key decisions within an individual fleet in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series, may be undertaken by temporary hive-mind of Generals.
Two or more Gems, an alien race in the cartoon Steven Universe, can form a ‘fusion’, in which both their minds and physical forms are combined into a single being, who displays all of the constituent Gems’ skills, abilities and personality traits.
^ abStableford, Brian M; Langford, David (June 13, 2017). "Hive Minds". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Nicholls, Peter; Sleight, Graham (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (3rd ed.). London: Gollancz.
