A group mind, group ego, mind coalescence, or gestalt intelligence in science fiction is a plot device in which multiple minds, or consciousnesses, are linked into a single collective consciousness or intelligence.[1]
This term may be used interchangeably with hive mind.[2] "Hive mind" tends to describe a group mind in which the linked individuals have no identity or free will and are possessed or mind-controlled as extensions of the hive mind. It is frequently associated with the concept of an entity that spreads among individuals and suppresses or subsumes their consciousness in the process of integrating them into its own collective consciousness. The concept of the group or hive mind is an intelligent version of real-life superorganisms such as a beehive or an ant colony.
The first alien hive society was depicted in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901) while the use of human hive minds in literature goes back at least as far as David H. Keller's The Human Termites (published in Wonder Stories in 1929) and Olaf Stapledon's science-fiction novel Last and First Men (1930),[3] [4] which is the first known use of the term "group mind" in science fiction.[5] [6] The phrase "hive mind" has been traced to 1943 in a context of beekeeping; its first known use in science fiction was James H. Schmitz's Second Night of Summer (1950).[7] [8] A group mind might be formed by any fictional plot device that facilitates brain to brain communication, such as telepathy.
Some hive minds feature members that are controlled by a centralised "hive brain" or "hive queen," but others feature a decentralised approach in which members interact equally or roughly equally to come to decisions.[9] The packs of Tines in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and The Children of the Sky are an example of such decentralized group minds.[10]
Hive minds are typically viewed in a negative light, especially in earlier works, but some newer works portray them as neutral or positive.[11]
As conceived in speculative fiction, hive minds often imply (almost) complete loss (or lack) of individuality, identity, and personhood. However, while the individual members of a group mind may not have such things, the group mind as whole will have them, possibly even to greater degree than individual people (just like a human has more personhood than a single neuron cell). The individuals forming the hive may specialize in different functions, similarly to social insects.