Solaris and the Hive: An Extinction Theory

[Skuld]

 Salutations my peers! Within this article you shall find a collection of facts regarding the supposed science-fiction hive mentality of our insectoid trespassers, as introduced in Extinction. A common misconception of these alien creatures would be the application of the term "Hive Mind" to their social functions. This implies a collective conscience, where all members share the memories and experience of another organism of their swarm. In fact, the actual term for the foreign Extinction race's organizational ability, would be Eusociality. The most common participants in such an animal society would be ants, bees, wasps, and termites; each has a caste based existence, each level of caste serving various functions, from  worker to warrior, such applies to Extinction creatures as well. Due to this, one can place the Extinction beasts in a separate category than the all-consuming force some of the community have labeled them as, as if they were akin to The Flood, etc.

 

  A secondary consequence of their eusocial activities, would place them lower on the food chain, meaning that there are others, greater predators, and the seemingly mindless insectoid destroyers are not apex predators, but perhaps secondary/or primary consumers, requiring by nature that a larger threat exists among the stars. Although the monsters' apparent colonization strategy coupled by their increased aggression could mark them as artificially engineered shock troops, sent by a higher echelon of intelligence.

 

  Continuing on, I have prepared an analysis of more recent events, namely "The Solaris Event" (a term propagated at one time by the PTGCentral YouTube channel). The most common cultural reference I could obtain with relevancy is in relation to the novel Solaris:

 

  "Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life on a far-distant planet. Solaris is almost completely covered with an ocean that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing organism, with whom Terran scientists are attempting communication. What appear to be waves on its surface are later revealed to be the equivalents of muscle contractions.

Kris Kelvin arrives aboard "Solaris Station",[3] a scientific research station hovering (via anti-gravity generators) near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, a scientific discipline known as Solaristics, which over the years has degenerated to simply observe, record and categorize the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, they have only achieved the formal classification of the phenomena with an elaborate nomenclature— yet do not understand what such activities really mean in a strictly scientific sense. Shortly before psychologist Kelvin's arrival, the crew has exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans.

The ocean's response to their aggression exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists — whilst revealing nothing of the ocean’s nature itself. To the extent that the ocean’s actions can be understood, the ocean then seems to test the minds of the scientists by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories. It does this via the materialization of physical human simulacra; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers are only alluded to but seem even worse than Kelvin’s personal ordeal.

The ocean’s intelligence expresses physical phenomena in ways difficult for their limited earth science to explain, deeply upsetting the scientists. The alien (extraterrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from the human mind of (objective) consciousness that attempts at inter-species communications are a dismal failure." - Obtained from Wikipedia

 

  The main purpose of the tale is for the readers to recognize the futility of human communication with an extraterrestrial specie. This is due to vast differences in each race's evolutionary process, beings that develop from different classes of organic life will no doubt create cultural differences and moral standards so foreign to an alien world, that to apply any type of human thought to them would be impossible. The ideology of war, colonization, emotions, languages, nations, science, none would apply. This lack of communication would entail dangerous outcomes put into play by both sides. We would be unable to comprehend extraterrestrials at most, if not all, levels; how can one put aside the millennia of history that we as a race have input to our very core? Death is guaranteed, if They didn't pull the trigger, soon we would; our only hope for integration would require such an unlikely similarity between each race, as to allow minor communication, which itself is a very low probability.In correlation to Extinction, one could assume this refer to a point of attempted communication by one species to another, only to meet utter failure. Cross' existence could suggest she would be a catalyst to bridge a Solaris event, and establish communication, possibly even command between each specie. Should this be the same Solaris, we are at the mercy of lifeforms who know, and perhaps care not of us, for that is the sad truth of such a Solaris Event.