Tiny Steps Black Ants, Red Ants, and Aphids

Black Ants:
One of the most powerful types of bugs around even today, black ants are, well, ants, and this very fact predisposed the early black ants to two very important things. Firstly, as a hive bug, ants including black ants were predisposed to put together a highly hierarchical society that puts a heavy emphasis on conformity. In the case of the black ants, this means that there is a very strict system of ranks and military organization that makes up their societies and is rather all-encompassing: civilians simply have ranks like Scavenger or Worker that bluntly describe their profession, but military black ants (of which there are a lot) range widely from Recruit to General, with tight organization of how these military ants are deployed. Though some level of political agitation is allowed, you are expected to perform your assigned role and perform it well, without exceptions. The second predisposition that affected the black ants was the tendency of ants to accept their genetic brethren as allies – as people, what this meant that black ants took on a singular identity for a very long time, even if this was as allied cities rather than a central entity. Though the Peace Wars in the Scholars’ Redoubt have shattered this somewhat as a whole, black ants *within the Scholar’s Redoubt* retain much common identity, and still often scrap with their red counterparts. It also means that black ant societies don’t really have queens, as the group identity trumped that, and instead are typically ruled by Generals, or on occasion groups of junior officers or sometimes even Mayors.

Black ant names are literal in some form like essentially all bug names, but the rank of a black ant is baked into their name as an integral part of it, followed by a descriptor. Particularly eventful changes in rank can see changes in the other part of their name as well.

Example Black Ant Names: General Vigilant, Recruit Bend, Scavenger Skitter, Captain Bright, Lieutenant Colonel Shellback.

Red Ants:
A mirror to black ants in many ways, despite being somewhat weaker than them the red ants still make up an extremely prominent presence within the Scholars’ Redoubt, and in large part this is because they have shared many of the predispositions of the black ants. They also have a very hierarchical structure like do black ants, and rank holds every bit as much the importance here that it does in black ant society – the difference Is primarily that red ants are organized mostly on religious rather than civilian grounds, giving them ranks like Acolyte and Crusader for the military, Faithful or Pupil for civilians, Deacon for low-level leadership, and Hierarch for city leadership. Red ants are quite strict about their religion – it isn’t a proselytizing religion (at least in the Scholars’ Redoubt), but rather a certain structure of red ant cities and red ant life is seen as something sacred that must be protected and perpetuated; red ants who don’t follow this religion are often in some level of danger, though they demand little of other bugs. On the other hand, the Scholars’ Redoubt’s red ants are much more tolerant of failure and divergences than the black ants: it is the religion and the place it grants in society that they prioritize, and they’ve been through too much to be hard on failure. Much as the black ants, the red ants have eschewed queens in favor of finding common ground through their religion, an identity which shared much the same course of strengthening and then breaking and localization as that of the black ants – red ants share an identity with their brethren in the Redoubt, but often hold resentment towards the eastern red ants or wariness towards those in the Domains of Cooperation.

Red Ant names are much similar to black ant names, being rank names and then a descriptor that may change from rank to rank, but they tend more towards poetic and virtue-based (if still literal) names, though black ants aren’t quite immune to this either and though red ants aren’t quite immune to using plain descriptors either.

Example Red Ant Names: Hierarch Ponderer, Acolyte Six-Legs, Faithful Humility, Nourisher Charity, Deacon Visionary.

Aphids:
Aphids are kind of a strange presence within ant societies, and most bugs don’t pay them all that much attention; when bugs turned into people, aphids were not exactly able to physically perform the same role that they had beforehand, but most aphids of the time still felt the desire to play a fairly submissive and sedentary role within ant cities – and most ants were happy to let them do so. Aphids ultimately end up as civilians within ant cities, who almost never ascend to positions of leadership and usually just perform various mundane roles, but who have very little expected from them from the ants, who are happy to provide them food and lodging and civilian employment. Even other bugs typically just regard them as background noise of ant cities. In reality, aphids are extremely torn on the subject – many aphids *are* just happy to take on a rather easy and secure life within ant cities, devoting themselves to their trade of choice, but many aphids of the newer generations chafe extremely at being kept from importance and it is not unheard of for aphids to just up and leave ant cities to explore the rest of the Scholars’ Redoubt and join cities of the many bugs (the various non-ant bug groups). Even there, though, they’re rarely respected and life for self-exiled aphids can often be difficult, although many of these individuals are by nature driven and ambitious.

Aphid names when in ant colonies match the pattern of the ant names, albeit with rather less variance as both black and red ants simply assign aphids the role of “Aphid”. Often, independent aphids will reject these names and come up with their own, which don’t follow predictable patterns except that they usually refer to their new journey in life in some idealistic manner.

Example Aphid Names: Aphid Long, Aphid Green-Eyes, Aphid Sleeper, The Experience of New Horizons, Solitary.