Is anyone else not buying the Buggers' story?

Question

I never really bought the Buggers' story that they didn't realize humans were thinking creatures.

The quote the queen uses is something like "We never thought intelligence could arise in a species which cannot dream one another's dreams" or the like. So far so good, right?

I can see how during the first contact they'd slay the astronauts... "Turning off their radio" as it were. They could reasonably think they weren't hurting anybody, because drones are like fingernails. At this point they must have thought they could eventually contact the humans' queen.

The entire First Invasion can be written off this way. But during the Second Invasion ... the humans attack them with sophisticated tactics. They shoot them with nuclear missiles, from spaceships. This can't possibly be instinctive behavior. They had to have realized that there was an intelligence running the humans, whether they could telepathy-talk with it or not.

Bugger units landed on Earth. Remember Ender on the colony world? He discerned pretty quick from artifacts that the Buggers were rational. Couldn't the BQ (Bugger Queen) have figured this out while "scathing China"? Skyscrapers, artificial lights, heck, straight-line roads might have been a tip. I haven't read the book where China gets scathed, but it sounds pretty metal.

To me it seems like the BQ knew darn well that something non-animal was happening on Earth, and was going to slay or displace it anyway.

So, my question... What am I missing here?

The issue wasn't that the buggers(formics) didn't think that humanity was intelligent, it was that their entire society was based around a very small number of intelligent queens directing billions of unintelligent drones and communicating through a form of mental telepathy. They simply couldn't conceive of an entire race made up of queens. Eventually they realised that there was a directing intelligence in the 2nd invasion (Ender) and attempted to communicate with him via the game. — Valorum, Sep 12 '17 at 20:04
I'm fairly certain the Formic justification for the Second Invasion is never explained in depth, but you can infer a few options- maybe they thought they were just killing drones, maybe they wanted revenge for their scout ship, maybe they didn't have the resources to cancel the invasion once they realised humans are intelligent. — j4eo, Sep 12 '17 at 20:08
@j4eo I'm just thinking that the BQs claim ("Aw shucks, we had no idea youse were thinking beings") is a little disingenuous. If that really were the case, I'd've thought they would stand down as soon as the 2nd Invasion was opposed with agile spaceships, lasers, missiles, etc, or at the very least when the BQ got a good look at the planet & our artifacts. It strains credulity that they could have a whole space war with us and think they were just doing wild animal removal. They should have grabbed a "drone" and punched him to the beat of the Fibonacci sequence or something... — akaioi, Sep 12 '17 at 23:39
@Valorum: I think you misunderstood the question. The question summarized is "How is it even remotely reasonable for Buggers to assume there was no sentience controlling the humans, when the humans were using nuclear missiles?" The question is not about realizing that individual humans are sentient. — Mooing Duck, Sep 13 '17 at 00:35
Racism? I mean, there have been plenty of crimes against humanity on earth where people have argued that their fellow humans aren't really human because they're of a different ethnicity. — pjc50, Sep 13 '17 at 10:37
In this case, I would suggest substituting the phrase "self-aware" for "thinking." Many animals think at some level, but at what point do they become self-aware? From the Formics' perspective, this may be defined by whether they're a communal organism or not. — Deacon, Sep 13 '17 at 12:58
@j4e0 The second invasion was the same fleet - the colony fleet from which the scout ship was launched in advance. It couldn't turn back easily. The scout ship told them the planet already has a queen, so there's going to be a fight (Which the Formics were certainly willing to do!) - it didn't tell them that every human is a Queen. They wanted to displace the "human queen", not kill her (unless necessary). Imagine the horror if you thought you were just cutting someone's hair (realising that it was intelligently combed), but you're really killing individual sentients! — Luaan, Sep 13 '17 at 13:17
@Luaan I like your hair metaphor, but if you cut enough drones it's more like amputation. The Bs were willing to move into the "Human queen's" house, hold her down, shave her head, and ... then what? Send her on her way? Kill her? What was their endgame, esp. if they realized we had no interstellar travel and our queen had nowhere to go? I think what I'm trying to say is that their intentions toward humanity were inimical -- orthogonal to their misunderstanding of our lifestyle -- and that their protestations of "Oh, we never knew we were doing something wrong" ring a bit hollow. — akaioi, Sep 13 '17 at 15:17
@akaioi The thing is, even if you kill all the drones of a queen, the queen survives and can recover fully (as we see in the books). The drones are considered completely disposable, even more so than your hair. And few queens would be stupid enough to keep fighting when it's clear she's going to lose. Sure, the invading queen was still invading someone else's turf and trying to establish dominance/expel them, which certainly isn't friendly. However, this is a common theme both for humans and against humans in sci-fi - open imperialism (the main point of colonising space, really). — Luaan, Sep 14 '17 at 16:45

Jeff · Answer 1 · 2017-09-14T13:10:35.043

134

There was never any doubt in the mind of the Formic Queens that humanity had an intelligence, they simply didn't understand that all humans, individually, had intelligence and individuality.

Formic society was extremely limited, consisting of a very small number of queens, who each commanded thousands or millions of drones. Those drones were part of the queen, yet had no individual intelligence.*

The queens expected humanity to function similarly. Even when they were invading Earth, the concept of an entire society of beings with individual bodies - ONE body to ONE mind - was completely alien to them.

War for the formics had always been a pretty formalized thing - drones would be slaughtered en masse, but they were considered disposable and no real damage was done. When one side gained an advantage and could threaten the opposing queen, that queen would surrender. They only rarely killed another queen.

It wasn't until they studied Mazer's attack plan and realized that it had taken the humans that long to understand that the formics had a single queen that it even occurred to them that humans might be individuals. As a species, they recoiled in horror, knowing that they had slaughtered thousands or millions of queens (to their eyes), not a similar number of drones.

So I'd say that what you were missing is that the Formics (Buggers) didn't think that humanity was non-sapient or non-intelligent, they simply didn't understand that we are individually intelligent.

*Other answers have pointed out that later books (which I have not read) include drones which are, indeed, intelligent. This fact in no way changes my answer, as the general pre-Ender formic society seems to consider them an abomination and/or an anomaly.

edited Sep 14 '17 at 13:10

answered Sep 12 '17 at 21:08

Jeff

105,749
30
342
417

I'd like to see some quotes to back that up. I definitely remember the HQ claiming that they believed humans weren't intelligent and they could immediately see that they had no queen. – BlackThorn Sep 12 '17 at 22:42
4

@TBear here's a quote: "We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams." According to the BQs, spaceship-building, city-building, nuclear-missile-throwing, Ecstatic-Shield-stealing humans haven't had "thought arise". (Pause while I raise an eyebrow) I think this quote argues against Jeff above... Jeff, thoughts? – akaioi Sep 12 '17 at 23:34
21

@user54373 I think it perfectly backs up Jeff's answer. They never dreamt that thought could arise in billions of individual, independent creatures ("lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams"), not that thought hadn't arisen among "spacehip-building, city-building, nuclear-missle-throwing, Ecstatic-Shield-stealing humans". – Chris G Sep 13 '17 at 00:00
11

@user54373: The quote you quoted seems quite clear to me. BQs realized that humans have thought but never thought that individual humans can have thought. – slebetman Sep 13 '17 at 02:35
Hmm ... I think we mostly agree on what the quote means, but look at their actions. It just seems to me that they wouldn't have prosecuted the war as hard or as long as they did if it was all a silly misunderstanding. Recall that there were months and months of sparring (with nukes, tactics etc) in the outer reaches of the solar system. What I'm suggesting is that the Bs kept on fighting way after it should've been obvious that the humans were some kind of sapient, even if in some weird non-telepathic way. TL;DR -- I don't think they were sorry until they lost. – akaioi Sep 13 '17 at 05:03
22

@user54373 The assertion here is that the Buggers thought there were some Human Queens somewhere, and that they were killing Human Drones - expendable, meaningful-only-as-resources, remote controlled Drones. They knew that humans were intelligent, but they thought all the intelligence was far behind the front lines just like theirs was. – Douglas Sep 13 '17 at 06:04
2

I also suggest that if you substitute the words "self-aware" for "thinking," this makes more sense. – Deacon Sep 13 '17 at 12:59
6

@user54373 - You're interpreting it backwards. Your quote says that from the moment of meeting the BQ's understood that humans were intelligent (collectively, as a species). What didn't occur to them until later was the possibility that each individual human was intelligent. They recognized the intelligence, but initially (and wrongly) assumed that humans had a hive-mind structure similar to their own. In short, they knew mankind was intelligent but needed some time to figure out that each man and woman was intelligent too. – aroth Sep 13 '17 at 13:10
@aroth And not only that, but they couldn't feel the links between humans the way they could with other Formics. So humanity looked like a hive that lost its queen - they spent most of the invasion looking for signs of a queen, with increasing desperation. Individual formic drones are still shown to have agency, but aren't really considered self-aware and separate beings - when they lose a queen, all sorts of things can happen; some die outright, some starve, some become mad, some actually do become self-aware at some level (remnant of individuality long lost in evolutionary history?). – Luaan Sep 13 '17 at 13:22
@Luaan I think the key question is when did the Bs start realizing that it was wrong to fight the Hs. You make a very interesting point that they may have decided that the Hs were a bunch of rogues -- wonder if there's some textev floating around for that, hmm... What has me doubting their motives is that they fought against organized opposition (and scathed China) and never seemed to relent until Mazer Rackham blew up their queen. Seems like they were prepared to displace the Hs whether they (er, we) had a queen or not. – akaioi Sep 13 '17 at 15:10
8

@akaioi No, you continue to misunderstand. They understood from the get go that humanity was intelligent. They "never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams". This doesn't mean they didn't see humanity as unintelligent; rather, it means seeing humanity as intelligent, assumed we where not lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams (ie, we where hive minds). Intelligence to them implies hive mind. – Yakk Sep 13 '17 at 17:59
8

@akaioi Displace the Hs: yes. Kill rogue Hs with no queen: yes. Kill the H queen? Not so much. If the Bs thought that all of what they were doing wasn't killing a queen, then they'd do it. It is like sparring with a friend in some RTS. You can eradicate their base in–game, time and again, but would you go and stab that person? Probably not (we'd hope). Of course, that all depends on whether the Queen was being straight–up and honest with Ender — but, whether or not, the scenario outlined in this answer is reasonable as a standalone. – can-ned_food Sep 13 '17 at 22:27
3

@akaioi You seem to be conflating humanity with a human. Look at it in their terms: Buggers are a sentient, intelligent race. A Bugger drone is not. It's like a telepathically controlled cell of a much larger organism. They saw lots of those cells, but couldn't find our queen, the presumed source of our consciousness. – Travis Christian Sep 15 '17 at 20:30

score 51 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 12 '17 at 23:05

51

I believe you are right to question the Hive Queen's story. The first formic war could be chalked up to a misunderstanding by a terraforming crew, but the second invasion was war. We can't really know if they thought they were killing sentient beings or just drones, but we do know one thing - The Hive Queens lie.

In Shadows in Flight, Bean's children

have an encounter with sentient male drones that tell a different story than the Hive Queens tell. Hive Queens claim that the drones are merely their appendages, controlled by the mind and empty without the will of a Queen directing them. The male drones show that this is not true. Drones have enough intelligence to perform almost any task without any direct interference from the Queen. Sometimes, they rebel against the Queen and exert independence, but are quickly shut down by sheer force of the Queen's will. The Queens have learned to enslave the drones completely, and lie to Ender, and perhaps themselves, about the nature of the slavery.

This shows that the Queens are liable to tell very large lies to either ease their own consciences, or appear of higher morality to Ender, the humans, and the father trees.

I find it very unlikely that the HQs were ignorant of their actions against the humans. I think they either had a change of heart, or were simply rebuffed. But whether or not they actually believed individual humans were block-headed drones, which I doubt, they certainly intended to kill any undeniably sentient human queens if they existed. In the best case, they assumed humans were varelse, with no means of communication for diplomacy.

answered Sep 12 '17 at 23:05

BlackThorn

4,499
1
24
43

4

+1 for excellent point & quote showing that the BQs can tell fibs. I'm willing to believe they were fooling themselves during the 2nd Invasion, but ... c'mon. – akaioi Sep 12 '17 at 23:42
1

I vaguely recall that in the 3rd or 4th Ender book, Ender and his sister were fully aware that drones would rebell, but were concealing that from other humans for now. – Mooing Duck Sep 13 '17 at 00:37
3

@MooingDuck if the news ever gets out things might get tense. From the Buggers' point of view, the rebel drones must be sick, insane, or even monstrous. But from a human perspective it looks pretty bad, like the drones were being enslaved with mind control. I'm not surprised Ender & co are chary about spreading any gossip. I haven't read the book where this all comes out, I think I may just have to now! – akaioi Sep 13 '17 at 01:40
9

I never saw that as a lie, but as the viewpoint of the queens. From their pov, drones are just lesser beings that they control like appendices, and sometimes they malfunction. It might as well be that in the evolution they always were like that, but only recently gained the ability to act individually, which is so alien a concept to the queens that they can't really understand it, also because they evolved to have no need to understand it – PlasmaHH Sep 13 '17 at 07:12
5

Wasn't there also a massive story thread about the Hive being unable to consider being wrong? And as such they routinely change their memories without actually meaning to. This makes everything the Queen says about the past highly suspect. Personally I always assumed she didn't even remember the reasons for stopping the war, and only remembered what she wanted to. Especially considering she was but a larva at the time, and we know nothing about the actual coherence of the memories she inherited. – Reaces Sep 13 '17 at 10:48
1

@Reaces you made me laugh with that "she was but a larva" comment. ;D I can just imagine a larval queen trying to look cute, making puppy-dog antennae at the adults... – akaioi Sep 13 '17 at 15:19
5

@akaioi That's what she was though. A cocooned larval queen that was left specifically for a human to find... Why wouldn't they leave her with the memory that the war was unintentional? Leaving the last hope of your species with the memory of being the purposeful aggressor in a bloody violent war seems like a bad idea... Especially considering she had to use her thoughts to communicate with Ender. – Reaces Sep 13 '17 at 18:08
@PlasmaHH good thought. Maybe it's similar to why men think women are too sentimental, and women think men are too cold and heartless (at extremes) – Vylix Jan 28 '19 at 03:28

March Ho · Answer 3 · 2017-09-13T11:39:05.957

I guess the Bugger Queen's reasoning process can be conceived by analogy.

Imagine you are a schoolyard bully who routinely beats people up and steals their lunch money, but will never outright murder one of your schoolmates. Stealing is accepted in your school and nobody condemns this, but murder is not.

One day, a new schoolkid enters your school. You beat him up and steal his lunch money, as usual. The next day, he returns and pushes you off the 10th floor railing. On the way down, you realise that when you punched him in the face, you had killed off millions of his cells. Each one of these cells was a sentient being in itself. To you, killing some cells is simply part and parcel of stealing. To him, killing some cells amounts to murder.

Since the Bugger Queens had never encountered a race that is sentient on the organism level in addition to the hive mind level, they assume that any intelligence displayed by humanity (such as attacking with nuclear missiles) is part of the normal resistance encountered when they are fighting for territory. As such, they ignore it. Only when they notice that humanity is aiming to kill all Bugger Queens in retaliation do they realise that humanity is retaliating for the death of sentient beings.

March you make a good point (and excellent analogy!), so let's dig a little more. What was the BQ's endgame? Specifically, if they thought we had a queen, what was to happen to her after the invasion? Was the BQ planning to coexist with the now-chastened H queen? With Buggers there's got to be some kind of transition as you kill off more drones; at some point it becomes less of a forced haircut and more like an amputation. I do agree that they must have been shocked at the totality of the Hs response. — akaioi, Sep 13 '17 at 15:29
@akaioi I don't think it was ever explored in the original 4 novels what the BQs did amongst themselves when they disagreed, and how BQs warred amongst themselves. It may even be the case that the BQ that attacked Earth was a deviant of some kind. In any case, I doubt that there is a canonical answer for the excellent questions you posed. — March Ho, Sep 13 '17 at 17:44

Paul Draper · Answer 4 · 2017-09-14T12:43:01.760

10

Short, direct answer, straight from the original novel:

We are like you; the though pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again. We though we were the only thinking beings the universe, until we met you, but we never dreamed that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams. How were we to know? Believe us, believe us, believe us.

The Formics knew there was intelligence; but it was of a totally different nature than what they expected.

It's as if we discovered that not only was there an intelligent civilization on an alien world, but breathing the atmosphere somehow murdered thousands of inhabitants.

edited Sep 14 '17 at 12:43

answered Sep 13 '17 at 18:22

Paul Draper

5,103
4
27
48

2

The OP's question is based on not believing the words of the Formics, that they are lying. Working under the assumption that the Formics have lied to justify themselves precludes their statements as valid counterevidence. – Flater Sep 14 '17 at 12:03
@Flater, sure. But the OP has some misconceptions. This is it the explanation straight from the horse's mouth, and we don't really have any other sources, so it's take it or leave it. – Paul Draper Sep 14 '17 at 12:42
6

I'm noy saying you're wrong, but your answer does not answer the core of OP's issue. OP is already aware of what the Formics claim, he just doesn't think it's truthful. Your answer only repeats what the Formics say without justifying why their statement must invariably be correct. If anything, the Formics also continue with "Believe us, believe us, believe us.", which reveals that they know that they may be considered as liars, which lends credence to OP's question, how do we know that they're being truthful and not just lying to save their asses? – Flater Sep 14 '17 at 12:48
@Flater, we don't. – Paul Draper Sep 14 '17 at 17:02
OP says "They had to have realized that there was an intelligence running the humans" as other answers note they did think that an intelligence was running the humans, they just assumed the intelligence couldn't have been the humans themselves. Not sure the given quote really demonstrates that though. – gmatht Sep 16 '17 at 15:20
@gmatht "we never dreamed that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams" They didn't even consider that workers could think. – Paul Draper Sep 16 '17 at 16:54

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 13 '17 at 06:27

The two answers already given deal with the situation from the in-universe point of view. I would like to point out an another approach to this problem. That is - the perception of intelligence (since OP used this term).

You seem to think that the usage of advanced tools is a definite proof of intelligence. For humans it is logical to view the world that way - we are definitely intelligent, and we are the only species to use spaceships and nukes, so one fact is connected to the other, right?

Wrong. Right? Maybe??? The fact is, humanity has no frame of reference on this matter. We do not know any other intelligent species that uses tools as advanced as ours. We are defined by our tool use, and our civilisation is inseparable from tools. But the only (possibly) intelligent species known to us (cetaceans and higher primates) use nothing like these. On the other hand, many animal species generally considered non-intelligent (to give some example, crows, beavers, coral polyps and banded acaras) do use primitive tools and/or construct quite intricate structures, but we do not take those as a proof of their intelligence. We assume that dolphins and higher primates are intelligent based on other factors - that they apparently self-aware, that they have a language and seem to be able learn (to an extent) human and artificial languages, etc. And if the Bugger civilisation is as defined by their philotic communication as we are by our tool use - it would seem logical that they dismiss humanity as a species that although using intricate tools, seems to lack any (known to them) means of communication. Is it possible for a specie to evolve into using spacecraft and nuclear fission? Current data shows that it is highly unlikely... in Earth-like environment. In other environments - who knows? It is not proven to be impossible.

Thus, while it is possible that Bugger queens lied about knowing that humans are intelligent (either as individuals or as a hive-mind) during the second invasion, that lie is at least believable. Just because you met a being that defends its territory and is efficient in that, does not mean it is intelligent. It just means that it is better adapted to its environment. And while "intelligence" currently seems as the best choice in adapting to Earth's environment, that might not be true in another environment.

P.S. I'm thinking that "sentience" would be a better term than "intelligence" in this question, but I am not a native English speaker, so I might be wrong.

Technically, we evolved into being able to (learn to) use spacecraft and nuclear fission... But it's still unlikely. — wizzwizz4, Sep 13 '17 at 06:50
Octopi use tools. Just wanted to correct that point of detail. — Clement C., Sep 13 '17 at 12:29
Also note that the current formic queens had no experience with establishing communications. For them, communication was just a thing that is - and humans didn't seem to have it. Where a human encountering an intelligent being might try various methods of communication (say, visualising or voicing patterns and noting responses), a formic queen wouldn't. It would be like trying to use light to communicate with a being that doesn't see light - she couldn't "feel" us, only see us - as with other animals (and "mad" drones). — Luaan, Sep 13 '17 at 13:29
@ClementC. A lot of animals do. I just picked out some examples at random. — Danila Smirnov, Sep 13 '17 at 14:32
There's an interesting story along these lines that has come up in story id questions a couple times. An entire pre-industrial civilization is discovered to be non-sentient/sapient. Their abilities were based on instincts and commands from God. — Z. Cochrane, Sep 13 '17 at 14:38
@ClementC in another Orson Scott Card book, Lost Boys, an emotional climax happens when the main character proves to a petty teacher that the plural of octupus is not octopi, but octopuses. I just thought it ironic that someone would misuse it on a comment about an OSC book. Normally wouldn't correct it, but it was funny to me. — BlackThorn, Sep 13 '17 at 15:06
@DanilaSmirnov My point was that octopuses/i ARE considered intelligent. — Clement C., Sep 13 '17 at 15:11
@ClementC. That's why I noted that "intelligent" might be the wrong word to use in the question. Octopi are intelligent, and dolphins are intelligent - but there is quite a bit of difference between those intellects. Of course there is the possibility that octopi is just too alien for us to understand the whole depth of their mental capabilities, but I wouldn't bet on that =) — Danila Smirnov, Sep 14 '17 at 03:09

Flater · Answer 6 · 2017-09-14T13:04:08.307

You're making a few leaps in your assumptions:

I can see how during the first contact they'd slay the astronauts... "Turning off their radio" as it were. They could reasonably think they weren't hurting anybody, because drones are like fingernails. At this point they must have thought they could eventually contact the humans' queen.

It makes no sense to kill the astronauts to "turn off the radio" and then try to contact the human queen. If they wanted to contact the human queen and thought that the astronauts were psychically connected to the queen, they could've used the astronauts.

It makes much more sense that they simply saw the astronauts react differently to their presence (e.g. one panics, the other remains diplomatic, the third one becomes hostile). Their different approaches directly proves that humans are not a hive mind, thus confirming their notion that humans are not intelligent (as they already assume non-hive minds to be incapable of intelligence).

But during the Second Invasion ... the humans attack them with sophisticated tactics. They shoot them with nuclear missiles, from spaceships. This can't possibly be instinctive behavior. They had to have realized that there was an intelligence running the humans.

If you know how evolution works, then you should see that complex tactics are not always proof of intelligence.

Giraffes didn't always have long necks. No giraffe has ever "thought" to extend it's own neck. There was never an intelligent thought by a giraffe that contemplated how to achieve a longer neck.

However, giraffe's necks still grew over time. Because the giraffes who just happened to be born with longer necks, also ended up as being more succesful (because they could reach more leaves than their short-necked brothers), thus making them more likely to procreate and pass their genes on.

Over centuries, giraffe necks increased in length. This cleverly solved a problem in their environment: being able to reach as many leaves as possible. However, this is not a sign of intelligence.

The same is true of ants. Suppose that ants are not always born with an innate sense of group spirit (living for the colony instead of yourself). Let's say there is a 50/50 coin flip whether an ant is selfish or selfless (for the sake of example).
We can already conclude that the ants are not intelligently deciding to be selfless or selfish. It is simply their genetic makeup that invariably drives their behavior. The ants are not intelligent.

So let's say 100 ants exist, 50 selfish ants and 50 selfless ants.

The selfish ants live by themselves. Even if they try living together, their selfish nature will eventually break any alliance that they have.
The selfless ants, however, start working together, and their alliance does not break (because they all observe their common shared ideal, and don't resort to selfish behavior).

As it turns out, a colony is much stronger than a sole ant, and after a year many more selfish ants have died (compared to the selfless ants).

If this same pattern repeats itself time and time again, then the selfless ants are more likely to survive and procreate. Over time, this means that the ant population disproportionately favors selflessness over selfishness (genetically speaking).

Over centuries' time, the ants will be selfless. But they did not bcome selfless intelligently. It happened evolutionarily.

The humans' tactical approach may simply be a consequence of their genetic makeup. Centuries of evolution may have proven that humans who do have tactics are more successful (evolutionarily speaking) than humans who do not have tactics; thus making "tactically inclined" humans genetically predominant over a long period of time.

Your assumption that human tactics prove human intelligence are not necessarily correct. Human tactics could also have emerged as a long-term consequence of evolution.

Note that I only addressed human tactics, but the same principle applies to everything else, including the fact that humans use weapons.

So did Neanderthals. But someone alive in 2017 doesn't consider a Neanderthal as intelligent. If the Buggers are sufficiently advanced, they will consider human weaponry as "laughably simplistic", and not as an indication of intelligence.
The weapons may have been developed by another species, and humans have gotten their hands on them before their civilization reached a point where they're intelligent enough to build them themselves (like a child who finds a gun and plays with it).
Many animals make their own weapons (venom), but their bodies automatically (genetically) produce this weapon. The animal does not intelligently know how to make venom.

Could the Buggers have realized that humans are intelligent?

Yes, you are right about that.

Should the Buggers have invariably realized that humans are intelligent?

Not necessarily. The indications of intelligence that they "should have seen" are not irrefutable evidence. There are explanations that can forgo the acknowledgement of human intelligence.

Furthermore, it stands to reason that the Buggers' notion that "non-hive-minds cannot possible be intelligent" inherently prejudiced the Buggers to assume that humans cannot possibly be intelligent regardless of wielding weaponry and tactics.

Consider what a (figurative) echo chamber is:

In news media, the term echo chamber is analogous with an acoustic echo chamber, where sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure. An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative echo chamber, official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.

I would argue that a hive mind is inherently an extreme echo chamber. A hive mind only has one opinion, so they are not experienced in how to handle conflicting ideas. The same wrong notion ("non-hive-minds cannot be intelligent") gets repeated over and over, to a point where it is assumed as a common truth, and no longer as an unproven assumption or a rumor.

And once you accept something that common truth, then you won't easily be swayed to believe the opposite. So it's perfectly possible that the Buggers never reevaluated their prejudices, even if they could've noticed human tactics and weaponry.

It is absolute that the buggers must realize immediately that humans are intelligent. A non-intelligent does not wield nuclear power or spaceships. That is utterly impossible. If they eliminated hive-mind the only viable conclusion is individually intelligent. — Joshua, Sep 14 '17 at 18:05
@Joshua Your definition of intelligent is not the same af the Formics' definition of intelligent. By their own words: "we never dreamed that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams". This strongly suggests that they dismissed evidence like weapons and spaceships, because we already didn't dream eachother's dreams (= their minimum requirement for considering intelligence). Similarly, it's not impossible for an animal to not realize that plants are living creatures, as they don't look anything like an animal (don't move around, don't seem to eat, etc.) — Flater, Sep 14 '17 at 19:38
@Joshua: You said "If they eliminated hive-mind the only viable conclusion is individually intelligent" but that is precisely the point, they actively thought intelligence to be impossible if you lack a hive mind. Their idea turned out to be wrong, but they believed it at the time. Which boils down to the point in my answer. Could they have known? Yes. But did they realize it at the time? It's at least plausible that they never considered it, because we didn't fit their initial markers for intelligence. — Flater, Sep 14 '17 at 19:40
Controlled space flight is irrefutable evidence of intelligence. Yeah sure a machine can do it, but that machine was made to do it. If they couldn't find a hivemind demands they conclude there is either individual intelligence or a hivemind they can't find. The only conclusion we can draw for the buggers claim is they are lying. — Joshua, Sep 14 '17 at 23:27
@Joshua You keep missing the point that the Formic at the time thought it was patently impossible to have intelligence if you don't have a hive mind. They were prejudiced, they were wrong, but it was what they thought to be true. — Flater, Sep 15 '17 at 06:28
@Flater I think I see where Joshua is coming from; his comment is similar to the thinking that made me ask the question. We may end up agreeing to disagree a bit, but I had the (paranoid?) notion that the Bs couldn't possibly miss that Hs were intelligent in some way based on behavior & tech. Aliens are supposed to be exotic and weird, right? This got me spinning a fable about the B's being disingenuous or even ... sinister. ;D — akaioi, Sep 15 '17 at 15:10
@akaioi "This got me spinning a fable about the B's being disingenuous or even ... sinister." Don't ascribe to malice what can reasonably be explained by incompetence or ignorance. — Mar, Sep 15 '17 at 16:54
@immibis: No. Neither individual ants nor ant colonies exhibit learning behavior, let alone any intelligent behavior at all. And bees only managed to pass one test of learning behavior: learning the beekeeper is benevolent. And you happened to pick a case where I bothered to look. — Joshua, Sep 18 '17 at 15:56
@Joshua: If you consider ants to not be intelligent, then the Formics can consider humans to not be intelligent. Take the example of the leafcutter ant. They cut leaves, not to eat, but to feed to a fungus that they farm. When the fungus consumes the leaves, it leaves a byproduct that the ants can eat. The ants learn which leaves the fungus likes and which it doesn't. I would say that agriculture is a marker for intelligence. Yet you dismiss it, just like how the Formics can dismiss weaponry as proof that humans are intelligent — Flater, Sep 18 '17 at 16:01
@Joshua Before this devolves into an argument about ant intelligence, the key note to take away from this is that you and me define intelligence in a very different way, thus coming to a very different conclusion. You made a claim (ants are not intelligent) and provided a justification (ants do not learn), but you were wrong (ants do learn, see the link I posted). Similarly, the Formics made a claim (humans are not intelligent) and provided justification (they have no hive mind), but they were wrong (they did not observe individual intelligence as meaningful intelligence) — Flater, Sep 18 '17 at 16:05
@Joshua So you say that organisms need to exhibit learning behaviour to be considered intelligent. In that case most animals are intelligent. But if the Formics were killing millions of pigeons I don't think you'd be quite as upset, so why are humans special? — user253751, Sep 18 '17 at 22:29
@immibis: Wow did you misread that one. Intelligent behavior of individuals is kind of hard to test for but learning behavior is stupid easy to test for. Ants always fail a test for learning behavior despite exhibiting a few cases where observations suggest they have it. Intelligence is so hard to test for at an individual level it's easier to say an individual is intelligent if a member of an intelligent species and allow the best representatives of that species to pass. The single best test is able to control fire; but another good test is deliberately teaching learned solutions. — Joshua, Sep 19 '17 at 02:07
Of these and having looked at many cases I only found one pass; where chimpanzees have been observed teaching American sign language to their offspring (the chimps were worse than the gorillas at learning it but passed it on which the gorillas failed to do). Controlling fire is ridiculously hard as merely a learned behavior. — Joshua, Sep 19 '17 at 02:11
Intelligence may be defined as selects actions to get desired consequences. Testing for it requires setting up novel situations (otherwise you would classify hard-coded behaviors as intelligent by mistake). — Joshua, Sep 19 '17 at 02:13
@Joshua So, pigeons are intelligent (I think. Let's suppose they are). But if the Formics were killing millions of pigeons I don't think you'd be quite as upset, so why are humans special? — user253751, Sep 19 '17 at 02:14
@Joshua "No [ants are not intelligent] Neither individual ants nor ant colonies exhibit learning behavior, let alone any intelligent behavior at all." This is your quote, and directly contradicts your next quote. "Intelligent behavior of individuals is kind of hard to test for but learning behavior is stupid easy to test for." Because if your second statement is true, then your first statement is dead wrong. Regardless of all this banter, the argument remains that the Formics had a different definition of intelligence, which caused them to not consider humans as meaningfully intelligent. — Flater, Sep 19 '17 at 06:45

Is anyone else not buying the Buggers' story?

6 Answers6