Formica, Colony 874

The caves, tunnels, and underground structures were usually dimly lit. Only in the large downtown areas of the colonies was there ever serious illumination. Colony 874, being one of top producing colonies both in terms of ships as well as high glucose moss agriculture. The Formicans, being large ants, hadn’t ever found the need for names. They communicated through a series of clicking noises for basic or focused communication, but they used a form of emotional telepathy for all other communication within their species. With a range of nearly a kilometer, telepathic emotional communication could sweep over the entire planet within hours which came in handy, but also caused much of the species to be often needlessly distracted by it. They used a simple Alpha numeric identification system based on rank; every colony(1078 at last count, each with an average of 2 million members) followed the same system and each individual ants rank, especially at the bottom, could change several times a day, and the upper echelons could stat consistent in their designations for years.. A-1 was always the leader of the colony, and for 874, C-275867 was the youngest newborn who had been hatched only a few hours. And it had been born C-275872. But 5 members of the had perished since its birth.

“We should start building our military might now while we have an advantage. If we are angling to be one of the 10 colonies chosen to lead the exploration of the stars we should start preparing now.” B-34, one of the senior Guardians said.

“I disagree, the agreement from the Inter-Colonial Council specifically states that all colonies chosen for the mission will be fully supported by all other colonies when the time comes. If we are seen to be preparing military forces and developing tactics and procedures before we have been chosen we may lose votes. We may even lose enough votes to fall right out the Top 10 entirely. Respectfully, your recommendation may lead us to ruin.” A-4, the current Head Advisor replied.

“You may be right sir. I yield to your seniority.”

“Do not back down so easily Guardian. He may be right, but there is also wisdom in what you say. Have some of your Guardians who serve with our trading vans start gathering as much tactical intelligence as they can silently. Find out the best of what the other colonies are working on and report your findings to us at our next session.” A-1 finally spoke after listening to his advisors and senior staff prattle on for the last 20 minutes. He was actually the 5th oldest living Formican and the second longest serving A-1.

“A-6 transfer any excess workers you have from Moss Ag to Ship Construction please. A-11 will that be sufficient, or shall I also reassign some power generation specialists from the furnace tunnels to Ship Construction as well?”

“A few power specialists would be of great assistance, yes, that will be sufficient to meet our targets.”

Just then the Ferengi consultant for their colony and the 9 others in their region arrived.

“Boxes! Boxes with little engines. Dozens of em already. Big ugly boxy things. But you Formicans, I gotta hand it to you, when you put your weight behind something you all know how to get things done. We’re gonna make millions together, boys and girls, or whatever genders have.” Sub-Daimon Jok said as he strolled up to the sandy mound in the tunnel where they were meeting.

“It’s so dark in here that you A-1. Am I in the right tunnel?” Jok continued.

A-1 did his species version of sigh. “Yes Jok, I am here.” He raised his left arm distinguishing himself from the other 72 Formicans in the room. Though each Formican knew all the minute differences of each individual in their family and most of the their entire colony too, to Jok, they all just looked like a bunch of giant ants.