I think that they are modified humans due to four different reasons 1) A usocial insect cannot survive on its own, whereas a hiver can. This means somewhere in its genetic makeup independence is at least a possibility. This itself isn't a smoking gun because it may have evolved due to them being able to help the hive in ways the hive cannot due to the nature of hive minds (such as advancing technology, finding new ways to farm, ect). This could also mean that the pheromones actually just suppress their individual identities, with it being weakest in the princes, and that when the pheromones stop they go mad due to them suddenly becoming the individual they were biologically meant to be. 2) The queen is not a biological lifeform, meaning she could not have come about due to evolution, and must be constructed. This means that either the first/second empire made/modified a skeleton, or a species beforehand brought them to kenshi to settle the lands. 3) they are incredibly similar to humans in size, shape, language, and design. This is not a smoking gun as evolution does routinely come to the same evolutionary designs due to the environment favoring those traits (such as tarantulas and crabs). 4) They came around the same time the Second Empire was going through a famine, and their society is geared towards farming and trading while most of their forces are able to eat the meat no other race can consume, meaning they could be used as a farming force with most of their diet being something useless to everyone else.
I like the hivers being native to kenshi theory. They are grounded to the earth in their behavior and seem perfectly adapted to the planet. The acid rain doesn't bother them, and they can metabolize the flesh of native fauna... What if the more obedient humans the skeletons tried to make were not hivers but actually the... greenlanders! That could be an interesting reason why the religious teaching of the cult took such strong hold.. they were designed to be told what to do and to be oppressed.. Just a fun theory.
Genetically modified humans. Ones that could be controlled better. From the 2nd empire days. Like the shek police force to oppress humans as the skeleton population grew smaller by the day
Cool vid. I personally have subscribed to the genetically made theory in the past, but hearing the idea they were the reason for the behemoths I like because that explains how they got their vita wombs in the war they researched it!
My theory The Hivers are native to the Moon of Kenshi but not the Continent Kenshi takes place on. Perhaps the first empire never got a chance to go beyond The Continent before the great war thus the Skeletons have no memory of Hivers.
The Kenshi wiki is a bit interesting here, potentially citing that the Hivers have changed a bit by the time Kenshi the first game starts. Whether this means they are more, or less, evolved it's not clear. But definitely there is so little lore about them, and so little is known. I don't personally think that they were the invading aliens or the Skeletons would know exactly who they are (The Behemoth's were of course just really large Skeletons and part of their "race"). But honestly we have so little info that there is so much room for them to take it anywhere with their origin. I like to think that they were organic lifeforms that were forced into rapid evolution with the harsh changing of their environment (with the Skeleton's attempt at wiping out the race of "men"). As they setup their hives right amongst other native creatures on Kenshi, which does imply that they are somehow natural to the continent - as they are not found anywhere in Skelton "affected" lands. And the differences in their colours with the Southern Hive does imply that they evolve and adapt based on their environment and quite quickly. Kenshi wiki entry I am referring to: "Hivers are confirmed to be a returning race, with some additions to the variety of their appearance"
The quality of this video is outstanding! I really like how much care you put into showing all the different points of view while at the same time leaving the door open for more speculation also, thanks for mentioning me Rasen ^^, wow even a link to my channel, maybe I should start uploading stuff xD
I find it fascinating that the Holy Nation is the direct result of skeleton oppression and rebellion against their cruelties and experiments, yet everyone (Outside the HN and pretty dominantly within the fan base) act like they aren't completely correct and justified in the foundations of their beliefs. Can't wait for your HN video! Personally I think that Hivers were created by skeletons as an alternative to humans.
That would be because... THEY'RE NOT! To build and fester a society and culture based purely on a tragic event and overwhelming fear is historically and demonstrably a terrible idea and never a "correct" or "justified" one. Can it be understood? Yes. Does that make it correct? Absolutely not.
I kinda wished we got more hover types, or more drastic physical features like queens being massive beings with mechanical egg sacks or something, or more larger casts like the praetorian. Or even massive gorilla like casts, much like king but organic and hiverized, acting as tanks for the hive
About the speech of hivers (and partially also why they can survive being exiled from the hive and thrive) I don’t believe the Hivers are quite as cut and dry as irl insects like bees and ants. Even though they all of them instinctively are loyal to their queen and follow the tasks set out by her the princes still squabble amongst each other fairly often and it’s shown that at least some of the exiled hive princes are in their situation because a rival prince took over their group/station. Therefore I don’t really think the pheromones work as communication for the hivers but more as means of social control for the hivers and they would use verbal communication amongst each other especially between princes.
There's something about the Hivers body that always struck me and still struck me as odd. They have no feet. Realisticly they couldn't stand still with just 2 legs. They would have to constantly move their body to balance themselves out. I have the theory that Chris intended for them to have 4 Legs; a total of 6 limbs similar to the Skin Spiders, but due to the hard development of Kenshi this wasn't going to happen. Maybe Kenshi 2 will change that. I kinda hope so, because Hivers with 4 Legs would make them a lot more unique.
I always wondered how their little peg legs worked. Either they would need insane balance, or those staffs they carry around are walking sticks. Them being four-legged would make sense in how fucking QUICK they are. I have Beep to about 97 athletics in my current save (of course using the 10x XP mod because I have a job and want to actually experience endgame combat sometime eventually) and bro runs almost 10 mph faster than my starting character with similar equipment, who is 99 athletics. Four legged critters can shit and get, have you ever SEEN a small predator like a fox take off after prey? The screaming orange dogs can run up to 45 mph in short bursts, meanwhile Usain Bolt was clocking about 27. The Cheetah is even more ridiculous at 70 mph potential. This oversized house cat is literally doing interstate speeds. Meanwhile the two legged hiver is running at damn near 40 miles per hour. Yeah they were probably meant to be quadrupedal, 30-40 mph is relatively reasonable for a particularly athletic quadruped in short bursts, but it was probably scrapped due to the limitations of the ogre engine.
Just idea to extend upon the idea that the hivers a were what the first empire fought off with the behemoths. What if the hivers proved to be so formidable that a plague of sorts was used to remove their reproduction, thus requiring electro wombs. I think these mechanical wombs would give an explanation for the race if we knew how and why they were built. Perhaps regretful humans/skeletons/etc felt they needed to right their wrongs against the hivers? Or maybe the hivers were a dying race after the empire settled in kenshi’s world? The hivers are extremely interesting, but understanding those wombs will actually explain them a lot I feel.
The dev blog alludes to one of the faction races is not originally from kenshi. I originally thought it was the shek. But i believe more now it was the hivers
My favorite theory about them is that they were life created by Skeletons as biological robots, able to produce food, protect others and lead with wisdom. Basically the skeletons created them as future replacements of themselves when they all break down.
My personal Theory is that they are a modified version of "the Enemy" the first Empire though, combining dna from those creatures with Humans to make modern hivers. resone why the queen of the western Hive is on that Island is because After the fog land Queens death, the Queen moved out There for her own Safety.
Werent the Shek made by the 2nd Empire(Cat-lon) as enforcers? The Hiver queens also bear some similarity to the biomechanical wombs in Dune. “axlotl tanks”, same concept.
The hivers being a native species completely falls apart when you look at the fact the skeletons don't remember them. That must mean they didn't exist before or during the first empire, but they're confirmed for the second from kenshi 2. The first empire would have come into contact with them, being a space faring race they would have seen and likely surveyed any other continents before settling in to such a degree. The only way I could see them being native is that they were hidden somehow during the first empire and came up at some point later on, which if they're biologically evolved beings then why does the hive queen have obvious cybernetic attachments? They also end up much like the other humanoid races once separated from their hive, enough to integrate into most of society. Things that work in a hive don't gain independence when they leave the hive, they simply get confused and die (Bees and ants for example). There has to be something more to the hivers than being naturally evolved, everything points to them being modified from something. I hope we get to find out in kenshi 2 :)
skin spiders could be failed attempts at hive. there is a theory, that the bug master was a second empire scientist ordered to do this by cat-lon. but became reculsive and insane, (some how stopped or slowed the aging process). and had the precursors of the shek go out on a misson to kill him. this stuck over 976 years became a religion for the shek. behaviour aside. skin spiders look like they could be from the same genetic manipulation. they don't look hive or human. but they do look like hive abominations. and the bugmaster of course is guarded by skin spiders that don't attack him. (i have a weird test i may try... I wonder if the southern hive... are aggressive to him) also no way even hive princes made those incubators. look at the prosthetics they make. it is a Skeleton arm stripped to its "skeleton muscle" and has half a grog can on it so you can stick it you arm or leg. the wombs are theorized that they need organic material to reproduce. westen hive using crops. southern hive, pure blood via crimper. and fogmen. well we know their style. it is assumed that the fogman queen is dead this is why they all went insane. they can still reproduce. somehow. so they likely have the incubator. a good indicator of this. the other in game name for them is literally deadhive the real ???????? is the fish men
Let's be honest a usocial humanoid with intelligence would take over the world, humans or shek have nothing compared to hivers, just cause they are very intelligent and usocial Oh shit you dropped it in the end of the video
I think that they are modified humans due to four different reasons
1) A usocial insect cannot survive on its own, whereas a hiver can. This means somewhere in its genetic makeup independence is at least a possibility. This itself isn't a smoking gun because it may have evolved due to them being able to help the hive in ways the hive cannot due to the nature of hive minds (such as advancing technology, finding new ways to farm, ect). This could also mean that the pheromones actually just suppress their individual identities, with it being weakest in the princes, and that when the pheromones stop they go mad due to them suddenly becoming the individual they were biologically meant to be.
2) The queen is not a biological lifeform, meaning she could not have come about due to evolution, and must be constructed. This means that either the first/second empire made/modified a skeleton, or a species beforehand brought them to kenshi to settle the lands.
3) they are incredibly similar to humans in size, shape, language, and design. This is not a smoking gun as evolution does routinely come to the same evolutionary designs due to the environment favoring those traits (such as tarantulas and crabs).
4) They came around the same time the Second Empire was going through a famine, and their society is geared towards farming and trading while most of their forces are able to eat the meat no other race can consume, meaning they could be used as a farming force with most of their diet being something useless to everyone else.
The Queen is biological, her robotics are attached to her.
I like the hivers being native to kenshi theory. They are grounded to the earth in their behavior and seem perfectly adapted to the planet. The acid rain doesn't bother them, and they can metabolize the flesh of native fauna...
What if the more obedient humans the skeletons tried to make were not hivers but actually the... greenlanders! That could be an interesting reason why the religious teaching of the cult took such strong hold.. they were designed to be told what to do and to be oppressed..
Just a fun theory.
Genetically modified humans. Ones that could be controlled better. From the 2nd empire days. Like the shek police force to oppress humans as the skeleton population grew smaller by the day
Cool vid. I personally have subscribed to the genetically made theory in the past, but hearing the idea they were the reason for the behemoths I like because that explains how they got their vita wombs in the war they researched it!
My theory
The Hivers are native to the Moon of Kenshi but not the Continent Kenshi takes place on.
Perhaps the first empire never got a chance to go beyond The Continent before the great war thus the Skeletons have no memory of Hivers.
The Kenshi wiki is a bit interesting here, potentially citing that the Hivers have changed a bit by the time Kenshi the first game starts. Whether this means they are more, or less, evolved it's not clear. But definitely there is so little lore about them, and so little is known. I don't personally think that they were the invading aliens or the Skeletons would know exactly who they are (The Behemoth's were of course just really large Skeletons and part of their "race"). But honestly we have so little info that there is so much room for them to take it anywhere with their origin.
I like to think that they were organic lifeforms that were forced into rapid evolution with the harsh changing of their environment (with the Skeleton's attempt at wiping out the race of "men"). As they setup their hives right amongst other native creatures on Kenshi, which does imply that they are somehow natural to the continent - as they are not found anywhere in Skelton "affected" lands. And the differences in their colours with the Southern Hive does imply that they evolve and adapt based on their environment and quite quickly.
Kenshi wiki entry I am referring to: "Hivers are confirmed to be a returning race, with some additions to the variety of their appearance"
The quality of this video is outstanding! I really like how much care you put into showing all the different points of view while at the same time leaving the door open for more speculation
also, thanks for mentioning me Rasen ^^, wow even a link to my channel, maybe I should start uploading stuff xD
Do it!
I find it fascinating that the Holy Nation is the direct result of skeleton oppression and rebellion against their cruelties and experiments, yet everyone (Outside the HN and pretty dominantly within the fan base) act like they aren't completely correct and justified in the foundations of their beliefs. Can't wait for your HN video!
Personally I think that Hivers were created by skeletons as an alternative to humans.
That would be because... THEY'RE NOT! To build and fester a society and culture based purely on a tragic event and overwhelming fear is historically and demonstrably a terrible idea and never a "correct" or "justified" one. Can it be understood? Yes. Does that make it correct? Absolutely not.
Looking forward to seeing your future Hive videos. Thanks you for sharing.
I kinda wished we got more hover types, or more drastic physical features like queens being massive beings with mechanical egg sacks or something, or more larger casts like the praetorian. Or even massive gorilla like casts, much like king but organic and hiverized, acting as tanks for the hive
Kenshi was colonized by an arc the skeletons were the caretakers and they reseeded the human clones in storage my interpretation of the world
Oh i love hiver lore, they're my favourite little guys! who did the art at 4:07 ? the fluidity of the pose is very nice :D
The art appears to be from user godzukigooch on furaffinity
About the speech of hivers (and partially also why they can survive being exiled from the hive and thrive) I don’t believe the Hivers are quite as cut and dry as irl insects like bees and ants. Even though they all of them instinctively are loyal to their queen and follow the tasks set out by her the princes still squabble amongst each other fairly often and it’s shown that at least some of the exiled hive princes are in their situation because a rival prince took over their group/station. Therefore I don’t really think the pheromones work as communication for the hivers but more as means of social control for the hivers and they would use verbal communication amongst each other especially between princes.
Where is part 2 you mad lad
Great vid! Thank you so much for the mention it made my day 😁
No thank YOU for the 3-5 minutes of content :D
There's something about the Hivers body that always struck me and still struck me as odd. They have no feet. Realisticly they couldn't stand still with just 2 legs. They would have to constantly move their body to balance themselves out.
I have the theory that Chris intended for them to have 4 Legs; a total of 6 limbs similar to the Skin Spiders, but due to the hard development of Kenshi this wasn't going to happen. Maybe Kenshi 2 will change that.
I kinda hope so, because Hivers with 4 Legs would make them a lot more unique.
I always wondered how their little peg legs worked. Either they would need insane balance, or those staffs they carry around are walking sticks.
Them being four-legged would make sense in how fucking QUICK they are. I have Beep to about 97 athletics in my current save (of course using the 10x XP mod because I have a job and want to actually experience endgame combat sometime eventually) and bro runs almost 10 mph faster than my starting character with similar equipment, who is 99 athletics. Four legged critters can shit and get, have you ever SEEN a small predator like a fox take off after prey? The screaming orange dogs can run up to 45 mph in short bursts, meanwhile Usain Bolt was clocking about 27. The Cheetah is even more ridiculous at 70 mph potential. This oversized house cat is literally doing interstate speeds. Meanwhile the two legged hiver is running at damn near 40 miles per hour.
Yeah they were probably meant to be quadrupedal, 30-40 mph is relatively reasonable for a particularly athletic quadruped in short bursts, but it was probably scrapped due to the limitations of the ogre engine.
Love Kenshi, great work!
"imagine ants that are 6 foot tall and are capable of weapon manufacture"
I FUCKING SWEAR THAT I HAD DREAM ABOUT THAT RECENTLY XDDDDDDDDD
Just idea to extend upon the idea that the hivers a were what the first empire fought off with the behemoths.
What if the hivers proved to be so formidable that a plague of sorts was used to remove their reproduction, thus requiring electro wombs.
I think these mechanical wombs would give an explanation for the race if we knew how and why they were built.
Perhaps regretful humans/skeletons/etc felt they needed to right their wrongs against the hivers? Or maybe the hivers were a dying race after the empire settled in kenshi’s world?
The hivers are extremely interesting, but understanding those wombs will actually explain them a lot I feel.
personally i like the idea that the Hivers are the native species of the planet. just makes the most sense and is more interesting to me.
The dev blog alludes to one of the faction races is not originally from kenshi.
I originally thought it was the shek. But i believe more now it was the hivers
My favorite theory about them is that they were life created by Skeletons as biological robots, able to produce food, protect others and lead with wisdom. Basically the skeletons created them as future replacements of themselves when they all break down.
Oh wow, best of both worlds. Biological robots has a nice ring to it.
My personal Theory is that they are a modified version of "the Enemy" the first Empire though, combining dna from those creatures with Humans to make modern hivers. resone why the queen of the western Hive is on that Island is because After the fog land Queens death, the Queen moved out There for her own Safety.
Swiggity swoody these vids are groovy
Werent the Shek made by the 2nd Empire(Cat-lon) as enforcers? The Hiver queens also bear some similarity to the biomechanical wombs in Dune. “axlotl tanks”, same concept.
They kinda look like the synths(or whatever they were called) cut from Half Life 2.
The hivers being a native species completely falls apart when you look at the fact the skeletons don't remember them. That must mean they didn't exist before or during the first empire, but they're confirmed for the second from kenshi 2. The first empire would have come into contact with them, being a space faring race they would have seen and likely surveyed any other continents before settling in to such a degree. The only way I could see them being native is that they were hidden somehow during the first empire and came up at some point later on, which if they're biologically evolved beings then why does the hive queen have obvious cybernetic attachments? They also end up much like the other humanoid races once separated from their hive, enough to integrate into most of society. Things that work in a hive don't gain independence when they leave the hive, they simply get confused and die (Bees and ants for example). There has to be something more to the hivers than being naturally evolved, everything points to them being modified from something. I hope we get to find out in kenshi 2 :)
skin spiders could be failed attempts at hive. there is a theory, that the bug master was a second empire scientist ordered to do this by cat-lon. but became reculsive and insane, (some how stopped or slowed the aging process). and had the precursors of the shek go out on a misson to kill him. this stuck over 976 years became a religion for the shek. behaviour aside. skin spiders look like they could be from the same genetic manipulation. they don't look hive or human. but they do look like hive abominations. and the bugmaster of course is guarded by skin spiders that don't attack him. (i have a weird test i may try... I wonder if the southern hive... are aggressive to him)
also no way even hive princes made those incubators. look at the prosthetics they make. it is a Skeleton arm stripped to its "skeleton muscle" and has half a grog can on it so you can stick it you arm or leg. the wombs are theorized that they need organic material to reproduce. westen hive using crops. southern hive, pure blood via crimper. and fogmen. well we know their style. it is assumed that the fogman queen is dead this is why they all went insane. they can still reproduce. somehow. so they likely have the incubator. a good indicator of this. the other in game name for them is literally deadhive
the real ???????? is the fish men
Noice good pissmeat i mean vídeo
Make longer lore vids!!!!!
It is difficult, even this short one took like 15 hours to produce from research to discussion to writing to recording to editing
Hivers will be debated about for meany moons to come.
Good video whether i agree to your thierys or not.
Watched and 👍 Liked
I see what you did there
The Skin Spiders are also human.
Let's be honest a usocial humanoid with intelligence would take over the world, humans or shek have nothing compared to hivers, just cause they are very intelligent and usocial
Oh shit you dropped it in the end of the video
Excuse me... "beh-heh-moths"? Um...
its pronounced Beyomoths, you know like Beyblade
Shockingly low level of lore knowledge to post vids about it
Yeah? What did I get wrong?