Hellstroms Hive

by Frank Herbert

Dr. Nils Hellstrom, an entomologist, is a successful film maker and influential scientific advisor with strong political ties. Living and working with a small staff on a farm in rural Oregon, he attracts the attention of an unnamed government organisation when documents are discovered that hint on cult like activities and a secret weapon project.

It is revealed that the farm is situated above a vast system of tunnels and caves, hosting a hivelike subterranean society of nearly 50,000 specialized workers. Hellstrom, thanks to advanced bioengineering, has been the appointed hive leader for more than a century. He is completely convinced of the superiority of the hive and its abandonment of conventional morals and ethics: Sexuality or violence, indeed any individual action, is rated strictly whether it strengthens or weakens the hive as a whole.

The story is told from various perspectives of members of both the nameless organisation investigating the farm and plotting against each other, as well as Hellstrom and several high ranking hive members collectively dealing with the threat of being discovered and probably extinguished by ‚the wild ones‘. In the end the hive's weapon project is ready to protect the hive and the upcoming 'swarming' - the gradual displacement of individual based humanity.