History Main / HiveCasteSystem

--->''An army has a use -- they can go and fight a war.\\

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
** Although Gem types fulfill roles more typical of a FantasticCasteSystem (corresponding to human occupations like engineers or architects, and even having nobility), they vary greatly in shape, size, physical ability, and [[ComboPlatterPowers various powers]] even if though they're all humanoid and fully sapient. These differences come from deliberate design instead of evolution, as the whole race (except perhaps their leaders, [[LargeAndInCharge the Diamond Authority]]) seems to have been created artificially. In one commonality with bees, they are [[OneGenderRace all female]]--there's no equivalent to drones because gems [[BizarreAlienReproduction are grown from the ground using machines]]. This origin makes Homeworld denizens completely ignorant of how other sentient species, such as humans, are born and named. On many occasions, Homeworld Gems believe that individually named humans are representative of a type of human, such as when Aquamarine and Topaz are sent by Yellow Diamond to collect [[spoiler:"My Dad, a Connie, a Lars, a Sadie, a Mailman, and an Onion-I-Think" for the Human Zoo, based on something Steven once said to Peridot about humans prior to her HeelFaceTurn]].

* ''WebOriginal/HamstersParadise'': Eusocial insects such as ants, termites and wasps were among the selection of organisms brought to HP-02017, most of them are what you'd expect but there are a few more standout examples.

** [[BloodKnight Quartzes]] (Rose Quartzes, Amethysts, Jaspers, Carnelians, etc.) are soldiers, who live for fighting. [[TheNeidermeyer Agates]] are the leaders of a group of Quartz-soldiers, responsible for managing their tasks and keeping them in line.

* ''WebOriginal/BosunsJournal'': The humlings are a eusocial species with a complex caste system inspired by the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard side-blotched lizards]], which have three male and two female morphs in real life. Humlings have three sexes -- males, fertile females (called pregnantrices, and much larger than the others) and sterile females -- divided between three castes each -- workers who dig the colony's underground nests, scout territory, and gather food, nurses who tend to young and pregnantrices, and hunters who track and kill prey and fight off threats. Fertile females perform the basic tasks in the colony, pregnantrices of all three castes produce young, and males live as nomadic, solitary predators who roam around looking for colonies with whose pregnantrices they try to mate -- worker males sneak in and cuddle with pregnantrices to get them in the mood to mate, and sometimes spend a longer period with the colony and aid the female workers in their tasks; nurse males try to impress the colony with dances, singing, and offerings of food; hunter males throw themselves against the colony's defenders and fight them until they either fall over from exhaustion or have sufficiently impressed the pregnantrices. Matings between same-caste males and pregnantrices produce a crop of sterile females of that caste; if two of different castes mate, they produce either a male or a pregnantrice of the other caste. As all fertile humlings are born to parents of other castes, this serves as the main method by which the different morphs don't speciate into different breeding populations.

* And, of course, there's usually the InsectQueen, who lays eggs and is probably [[LargeAndInCharge bigger]] and [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking badder]] than the other castes.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Although Gem types fulfill roles more typical of a FantasticCasteSystem (corresponding to human occupations like engineers or architects, and even having nobility), they vary greatly in shape, size, physical ability, and [[ComboPlatterPowers various powers]] even if though they're all humanoid and fully sapient. These differences come from deliberate design instead of evolution, as the whole race (except perhaps their leaders, [[LargeAndInCharge the Diamond Authority]]) seems to have been created artificially. In one commonality with bees, they are [[OneGenderRace all female]]--there's no equivalent to drones because gems [[BizarreAlienReproduction are grown from the ground using machines]]. This origin makes Homeworld denizens completely ignorant of how other sentient species, such as humans, are born and named. On many occasions, Homeworld Gems believe that individually named humans are representative of a type of human, such as when Aquamarine and Topaz are sent by Yellow Diamond to collect [[spoiler:"My Dad, a Connie, a Lars, a Sadie, a Mailman, and an Onion-I-Think" for the Human Zoo, based on something Steven once said to Peridot about humans prior to her HeelFaceTurn]].
-->''An army has a use -- they can go and fight a war.\\

** [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking Hessonites]], along with other types of Garnet like Demantoid and Pyrope, appear to be high-ranking military officers.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'': There is only one playable non-hybrid alien in the original game (though you can get another with the ''University'' ExpansionPack), Pollination Tech#9 Smith, and from what can be seen in his family tree, alien society is organized like this. The only two castes seen are drones (called Pollination Techs) and {{hive queen}}s. Pollination Techs also are the ones that abduct, [[AnalProbing probe]] and impregnante male Sims.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

Since the Ants and Bees that inspired this trope have all-female worker castes, this often leads to a sort of OneGenderRace.

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'': The Skrall are a gender-segregated version of this. Among the males, there are the nameless "warrior" Skrall, which make up most of the population and serve as {{Mooks}}, then the Elite Skrall (Bigger, more powerful Skrall ), and finally the enormous Leader Class who are in charge of the Skrall society. The females [[LadyLand live separately]] to the males, and it's implied that the only interaction between the genders consists of fighting or mating. The [[GenderRestrictedAbility females also have]] PsychicPowers.

* Some will be [[GiantMook oversized versions of the warrior]] - tougher to kill and big enough to bite through tanks.
* Some will have specialized weaponry as [[NaturalWeapon part of their body]] - [[BreathWeapon spraying acid, flame]], or darts.

* The manga version of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' mixes this trope with FantasticCasteSystem for the demons. Although we're never told the details of the system, demons often talk about the "rank" of themselves and other demons, and the higher the "rank", the less beast-like and more intelligent and powerful the demon seems to be. There also seems to be clearly defined roles for demons--among the ones the audience learns about are Pursuers (which seem to be Demon Cops of some sort), soldiers, Sinners (outcasts), and Pandaemonium, the HiveQueen.

* The Slivers in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' are pretty solidly this. The trope is played with in that their apparent home plane, Rath, is a DeathWorld, and so even the lowest of the low of them are deadly enough to kill and devour a human--there is no real "worker caste", just "specialized breeds that are useful in this particular tactical environment". Each breed also shares their adaptations with everyone else in the hive. Thrulls also fit the bill. There are even some that exist primarily to be worn as armor by other creatures.

* The alien invaders from ''ComicBook/{{Camelot 3000}}''.
* The Reach from the Franchise/DCUniverse, who primarily appear in ComicBook/BlueBeetle. They're different from most examples as members of the higher castes can earn their way to changing to other high castes over time, but the lower ones like solders and workers are physically different and cannot.
* The Brood from the Franchise/MarvelUniverse.
* The Evronians from ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'', even though the ants are {{Funny Animal}}s, soldier ants are about twice the size of workers and have {{Heroic Build}}s. The Queen has an enlarged abdomen and gives birth every ten seconds, though Princess Bala does not yet look any different from a worker.
* The [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fairy]]-race from ''Franchise/DisneyFairies'' are all BornAsAnAdult from a baby's first laugh. At the moment of birth, they are presented with a specific item that represents their in-grown talent. When their talent is revealed (tinker, animal, light, water, etc.) they work with the other fairies of the same talent with their jobs in relegating nature and the seasons for the rest of their eternal lives. They are unable to personally choose their talent and abilities, nor are they able to switch between them [[spoiler:before Zarina figures out how to create pixie dust that can accomplish this]].

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' series features several stages of life for Xenomorphs, from facehuggers through chestbursters to your standard double-jawed Giger nightmare. And then there was the Queen, who laid eggs and was [[MamaBear fiercely protective of her offspring]]. It was implied and then later confirmed in the movies, video games, and books that the xenomorphs take on characteristics from the host they gestate within. That explains why a chestbuster coming from a dog looks doglike and why one from a ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' is bigger than those from humans and has the characteristic mandibles and dreadlocks. {{Novelization}}s and ExpandedUniverse material would feature more castes, such as tiny drones (who serve the Queen) and even a "Pretorian class," which was far tougher than the standard Xenomorph.

* In ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002'', the Morlocks have not only evolved to live underground and prey on the surface-dwelling Eloi, but also into at least two different castes, one of them the more muscular drones/warriors, and another one possessing greater cognitive abilities and psychic powers to control the other.

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulh'': At least one sourcebook divides the Mi-Go into three castes: warriors, workers and scientists.

** Modrons, the embodiments of LawfulNeutral, have an even more rigid version than the devils. There are 5 'normal' grades of modron and 10 'heirarch' grades (which have a strictly limited number of members). Each type is one grade more intelligent than the grade below it, and is only capable of communicating with its own grade and the grades directly above and below it. The base types are Monodrones which are spherical and can only think of one thing at a time, Duodrones, who are rectangular and can think of two tasks at once, Tridrones that are inverted pyramids that can think of three things at a time (allowing them to actually delegate things), Quadrones who are cubical can understand 4 things at a time (allowing them to perform more complex tasks than other modrons), and Pentadrones, which are weird starfish-things who can have up to five functions, allowing them to communicate, operate, monitor, plan, and manage. The Heirarch modrons are Decatons, Nonatons, Octons, Septons, Hextons, Quintons, Quartons, Tertions, and Secundi, with the ultimate modron, Primus, serving as both the motherboard of modrons and their equivalent to a god.