The Olthoi are a very disciplined, dedicated and relentless race; humans could learn a lot from them. Instead of floundering in the myriad of governmental styles that we have adopted (thanks Locke and Hobbes), we should have one supreme ruler, whose ordinance would be unquestionable. That way, whenever something went wrong, we would know whom to blame. If humans were like Olthoi, we would have no reproductive issues, because the Queen (gurlz rule!) would control which of her female children would be allowed to form colonies, thus preventing teen pregnancy and unwanted children.
The drones, (men, what else?) would be unflaggingly faithful to their Queen, their home and their way of life. They would kill, maim and bring home dinner like they are supposed to (instead of sitting around on the couch watching sports and turning flabby). The only problems that would really remain are class issues. There are so many different types of Olthoi, each with different levels, colors and body types, that the physical discrimination that humans are already used to would be magnified to even larger proportions. Can you imagine how many different restroom types there would have to be? You would have “Eviscerators Only,” “Harvesters Only,” etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, on and on, so on and so forth… you get the picture.
The hive mind is a cool thing though, especially for people who are indecisive. They will go with the flow or they are thrown off a cliff into the Truly Nolan complex. In the event of a coup, the old Queen would have one final decision to make: die now or submit to the new Queen and die now. The Queen is dead! Long live the Queen! The new Queen would be installed with proper pomp and circumstance to legitimate her hostile takeover and as the sun rose on a new day within the Humthoi (Human + Olthoi) order, she would begin to disseminate her words of wisdom.
Of course, food would be a problem because we would need to conquer other worlds in order to get slaves who could stir vats of fungus for us. Then we would have overpopulation of animal species and depletion of plant life because we would now all be vegans, so systematic hunt and kill missions would have to take place to preserve the balance of the food chain. This would be good exercise for the drones; they would be led by the Queen and then she would get to take the finest animal head and place it on her wall (the new Queen’s quest, hehe). The world could be a more orderly, although more savage place. Then again, we would never have to suffer through another Barry Manilow concert, so I guess its an even trade.
Discuss this in The Tavern.
