I wanted my insect world to be different from the present day, but also be a reflection of this world for allegorical purposes. I knew I wanted to evolve and enlarge my insects, but keep them more or less anatomically correct—no four-legged insects like Disney’s bug world years ago. But I let them be semi-standing—abdomen and four legs down with their heads up and thoraxes slanted upward. I did tell my cover artist to give them “regular” eyeballs rather than compound eyes because personality shows up in eyes. He “saw” what I was thinking and drew it well for all four books.

Present day ant colonies do not have “families” as such, but are a sisterhood—infertile female workers are all daughters of the same queen—but I did allow my ant colonies to evolve into family groups, couples, etc. However, within ant culture, females are dominant in leadership and held in highest esteem, even though they have equality of the sexes. This was so I could have a “reflection” or flip side of the traditions of present-day humanity—while there are many women leaders in modern politics across the globe, it’s still pretty much a “man’s world”. My roaches, on the other hand (or pod) are more “human” in their motives and desires, still striving for material things, wealth, and power, and in Roacheria, males are definitely dominant. I needed contrast between the two cultures to drive the plot in each book.

I did a great “what if” with their sex lives. In our world, new queen ants fly from a colony with the drones (males) chasing them. One mates the queen and then goes off to die—sorry guys, that’s how it is with most species of ant. The queen drops to the ground, burrows in, carrying all the eggs she will ever lay and popping them out over a long period of time. The queen eats her wings until the first worker ants emerge from the pupa state and begin to take care of her. I thought about what humans would be like if we could only mate ONCE physically, so all children born would be from ONE father and never any other physical sex. That’s an upside-down thought! And I went with it. But while I did the same for female roaches with only one physical mating for them and all eggs belonging to the first male, I let the males be able to mate more than one female—that idea seemed to go along with the male-dominant idea.

So present biology “evolved” into my fantasy world with some nonscientific facets.

Next time: How did I settle on the topic of religion in Roacheria and in the Combined Colonies?