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Description

When the original Nest and nestling species inhabiting it were discovered, the baseline information about them was compiled and presented in the document you can find here. Sometime later, an amateur explorer Andrew Yanovsky had provided the world with the additional data regarding the Nest’s customs and history, available here and here.

Unfortunately, contact with that Nest had been lost since then.

For reason unknown, the ever-present rifts had shifted their destination from the Nest to a different realm – identified as corresponding to the "Outside World" prominently featured in the Nest’s culture. Subsequently, this new world had been given a name of "Liminal Plane ", or "Limen" for short – and while the initial Nest (referred to as the First Known Nest from this point) still hasn’t been found, a considerable number of other nests where discovered during the following expeditions! These discoveries put previous findings in broader context, revealing that while some aspects of the First Known Nest were unique to it and it alone, a substantial portion of its traits was ubiquitous and apparently inherent to the species as a whole. Therefore, this document is intended to outline what we think to be the key principles of nestling society at large, present across all nests:
* * *

Since nestlings are eusocial, their nests are always made up of colonies – giant family-like groups of 2000 – 2500 individuals comprised of one reproductive pair, about 20-60 of their reproductively capable successors and a whole lot of sterile workers. Usually, each colony occupies its own place in the given nest, though the strictness of this is varied – sometimes they may be completely isolated and even walled-off, while sometimes they can significantly overlap. A number of colonies per nest is usually somewhere from 100 to 500.

Relationships between colonies within any given nest can range from friendly to competitive, and sometimes even be outright antagonistic.

There may be specialization between colonies. It can range from subtle (colonies from different parts of a city produce different goods) to extreme (different colonies live in completely different sections of their layer and have radically different lifestyles).

Each colony is further subdivided into smaller groups – one royal group that includes breeders and successors, and a variable number of worker groups clustered around it. In the First Known Nest, these were called "cooperatives" due to their largely self-governed and democratized nature – but since their organization in other nests can differ, we will use a more generalized term "cohort" for them further. The main task of the central royal cohort is to supply colony with eggs, while tasks of any worker cohort depend on their particular specialty. Stable layers can take all manner of shapes, and nestlings are able to adapt to almost all of them – resulting in near-infinite variations of specific cohort types. In predominantly forested nests, there may be cohorts concerned with foraging for different kind of resources, while in more urban nests you can find cohorts of plumbers or electricians. The possibilities are endless.

Royal cohorts, in additions to eggs, may also have some extra responsibilities: in the First Known Nest, for example, they functioned as historians and religious priests – something that may not be the case in other nests. The role of young successors (gynes and drones) that weren’t yet elevated to starting their own colonies can also vary: sometimes they can be pretty much confined to their parental homes, sometimes they can perform only a select number of jobs, and sometimes they can live freely alongside their worker brethren.

Societies of most nests can be considered caste-based: three primary castes correspond to the three "genders" nestlings possess (gyne, drone and worker), and are then further subdivided into various sub-castes. Technically, these sub-castes are more like regular jobs than anything, but due to the way cohorts operate, these jobs are usually predetermined before birth – a nestling whose egg ended up in a cohort of, say, potters would be also raised as a potter, without anyone asking them if they want it or not. As for whether or not a nestling can change their caste/occupation at will – well, it seems like most of the time the answer is "no", but there may be some rare exceptions. Nestlings that are without cohort, and by extension without caste ("pariahs"), are often kept in low regard by their peers, and usually employed to do the most dirty work by other cohorts. Nestlings can become pariahs due to their cohorts being destroyed or disbanded, being disowned by their cohort or – exceptionally rarely – due to coming from a different nest altogether…

Governance of nests can vary, but is oftentimes aristocratic in nature – with select ruling cohorts presiding over an entire nest or large portions of it. Sometimes, an entire colony may be comprised of nothing but ruling cohorts, essentially making it into a ridiculously large royal family. Individual royal cohorts usually hold at least some power thanks to their monopoly on reproduction – but it’s typically local, only extending to their colony’s domain. More democratic systems are knowns to exist, but they are much rarer.

The religion of First Known Nest seems to be of a relatively "primitive", ancestral kind for the species – with many other nests practicing what seems to be more transformed and derived versions of the same underlying idea. In many nests, the object of worship seems to have been shifted from abstract Will of the universe to the more tangible entities. Concepts of saints and prophets were identified – and at least on a few occasion, particularly powerful aberrations were regarded as divine. The emergence of more centralized religion in certain nests was also observed, with individual cohorts or even entire colonies taking the roles of clergy.

Regardless of how exactly colonies treat their successors, at least some of them have to find a mate and start their own colonies. Cultural details of the process vary a lot, but the gist is that a gyne from one colony and a drone from another would be somehow paired with each other, have some manner of "wedding ceremony" followed by a wedding night – and then settle in some place where they would start to produce their offspring. At least one such new colony would usually act as a direct successor to their parent one, inheriting their dwelling, possessions and subjects when the previous breeding pair dies. The specific details of how exactly the mates are found, how new colonies develop, how new cohorts are formed within them and who gets to inherit what are all too complicated and too diverse to be summarized here, and instead should be inspected on case-to-case basis for each given nest individually – something that we will hopefully do in the future…

Description

When the original Nest and nestling species inhabiting it were discovered, the baseline information about them was compiled and presented in the document you can find here. Sometime later, an amateur explorer Andrew Yanovsky had provided the world with the additional data regarding the Nest’s customs and history, available here and here.

Unfortunately, contact with that Nest had been lost since then.

For reason unknown, the ever-present rifts had shifted their destination from the Nest to a different realm – identified as corresponding to the "Outside World" prominently featured in the Nest’s culture. Subsequently, this new world had been given a name of "Liminal Plane ", or "Limen" for short – and while the initial Nest (referred to as the First Known Nest from this point) still hasn’t been found, a considerable number of other nests where discovered during the following expeditions! These discoveries put previous findings in broader context, revealing that while some aspects of the First Known Nest were unique to it and it alone, a substantial portion of its traits was ubiquitous and apparently inherent to the species as a whole. Therefore, this document is intended to outline what we think to be the key principles of nestling society at large, present across all nests:
* * *

Since nestlings are eusocial, their nests are always made up of colonies – giant family-like groups of 2000 – 2500 individuals comprised of one reproductive pair, about 20-60 of their reproductively capable successors and a whole lot of sterile workers. Usually, each colony occupies its own place in the given nest, though the strictness of this is varied – sometimes they may be completely isolated and even walled-off, while sometimes they can significantly overlap. A number of colonies per nest is usually somewhere from 100 to 500.

Relationships between colonies within any given nest can range from friendly to competitive, and sometimes even be outright antagonistic.

There may be specialization between colonies. It can range from subtle (colonies from different parts of a city produce different goods) to extreme (different colonies live in completely different sections of their layer and have radically different lifestyles).

Each colony is further subdivided into smaller groups – one royal group that includes breeders and successors, and a variable number of worker groups clustered around it. In the First Known Nest, these were called "cooperatives" due to their largely self-governed and democratized nature – but since their organization in other nests can differ, we will use a more generalized term "cohort" for them further. The main task of the central royal cohort is to supply colony with eggs, while tasks of any worker cohort depend on their particular specialty. Stable layers can take all manner of shapes, and nestlings are able to adapt to almost all of them – resulting in near-infinite variations of specific cohort types. In predominantly forested nests, there may be cohorts concerned with foraging for different kind of resources, while in more urban nests you can find cohorts of plumbers or electricians. The possibilities are endless.

Royal cohorts, in additions to eggs, may also have some extra responsibilities: in the First Known Nest, for example, they functioned as historians and religious priests – something that may not be the case in other nests. The role of young successors (gynes and drones) that weren’t yet elevated to starting their own colonies can also vary: sometimes they can be pretty much confined to their parental homes, sometimes they can perform only a select number of jobs, and sometimes they can live freely alongside their worker brethren.

Societies of most nests can be considered caste-based: three primary castes correspond to the three "genders" nestlings possess (gyne, drone and worker), and are then further subdivided into various sub-castes. Technically, these sub-castes are more like regular jobs than anything, but due to the way cohorts operate, these jobs are usually predetermined before birth – a nestling whose egg ended up in a cohort of, say, potters would be also raised as a potter, without anyone asking them if they want it or not. As for whether or not a nestling can change their caste/occupation at will – well, it seems like most of the time the answer is "no", but there may be some rare exceptions. Nestlings that are without cohort, and by extension without caste ("pariahs"), are often kept in low regard by their peers, and usually employed to do the most dirty work by other cohorts. Nestlings can become pariahs due to their cohorts being destroyed or disbanded, being disowned by their cohort or – exceptionally rarely – due to coming from a different nest altogether…

Governance of nests can vary, but is oftentimes aristocratic in nature – with select ruling cohorts presiding over an entire nest or large portions of it. Sometimes, an entire colony may be comprised of nothing but ruling cohorts, essentially making it into a ridiculously large royal family. Individual royal cohorts usually hold at least some power thanks to their monopoly on reproduction – but it’s typically local, only extending to their colony’s domain. More democratic systems are knowns to exist, but they are much rarer.

The religion of First Known Nest seems to be of a relatively "primitive", ancestral kind for the species – with many other nests practicing what seems to be more transformed and derived versions of the same underlying idea. In many nests, the object of worship seems to have been shifted from abstract Will of the universe to the more tangible entities. Concepts of saints and prophets were identified – and at least on a few occasion, particularly powerful aberrations were regarded as divine. The emergence of more centralized religion in certain nests was also observed, with individual cohorts or even entire colonies taking the roles of clergy.

Regardless of how exactly colonies treat their successors, at least some of them have to find a mate and start their own colonies. Cultural details of the process vary a lot, but the gist is that a gyne from one colony and a drone from another would be somehow paired with each other, have some manner of "wedding ceremony" followed by a wedding night – and then settle in some place where they would start to produce their offspring. At least one such new colony would usually act as a direct successor to their parent one, inheriting their dwelling, possessions and subjects when the previous breeding pair dies. The specific details of how exactly the mates are found, how new colonies develop, how new cohorts are formed within them and who gets to inherit what are all too complicated and too diverse to be summarized here, and instead should be inspected on case-to-case basis for each given nest individually – something that we will hopefully do in the future…