We once ruled much of the world. Our empires spread through all but the most inhospitable of lands, our great buildings and monuments dominated all others, our knowledge was second to none. But the other species finally organized, and overcame our empires, allowing the overgrowth invasions to overrun us. Now, we are like anyone else on this world, pushed back to our core lands.
As we rebuild, we will encounter other chitinous, with different traditions and histories, which all leaders must understand. We will also encounter other beings, and must understand ourselves, and how we differ from the other intelligent beings, to prepare for challenges ahead.
Other Chitinous
Compared to other intelligent beings, it is easy to assume that all of us are the same, and to make mistakes as a result. As when meeting other intelligent beings, diplomats, traders, or anyone else who will interact with another chitinous should understand the society and culture that one is interacting with.
Though we had numerous empires and nations before the overgrowth invasions, it seems that most cultures divided into 5 general types. Those like us should be easy to understand, but others have different ways of obedience, religion, and views toward trade and warfare. In our society, and societies like ours, a single leader commands everything. To us, this makes sense, as only a single leader with no attachment to any portion of their nation, and with understanding of all facets of a civilization, can truly balance and understand all concerns, and only through obedience to such a leader can we ensure a stable society. Indeed, to many of our priests, the world itself seems organized in this way, with the creator choosing one of the chitinous societies to lead the world, with all others organized to take care of facets of the world. However, if one approaches other chitinous leaders in a similar way, they will be confused and frustrated.
Breeders
Some cultures, the breeding hives, are instead ruled by a supreme breeder. Though this breeder, like our own supreme rulers, must understand something of all facets of a society, the leader instead focuses their energies on creating smarter, stronger, or more powerful citizens of the hive, and leaves much of ruling to subordinates, specially created by the breeder to be supremely skilled at their own domains. This obedience structure exists all the way through the society, to the lowest members, with leaders focused far more on training, or breeding, than on commanding or organization. Such societies believe the strength of a hive is in its members, and strive to breed and train the strongest, smartest, and most excellent of citizens for whatever the task. Most believe that the original creator filled a similar role, creating all creatures and plants of the world to fill their roles, and leaving the fate of the world largely to us.
These societies will have the strongest and bravest soldiers, the most skilled craftsmen, best laborers, best workers of any sorts, and will take pride in such, but organization is always slower, as direction and command is weaker and leaders take longer to consult with others and make decisions.
Shifters
These cultures do not have a single, fixed leader. Instead, whichever leader is most skilled in the most important goal of the society is the one to rule. During wartime, the military commander rules, when new settlements are needed, a breeder or builder rules, when trade is desired, a merchant rules. We cannot understand how citizens could adapt to such a constantly changing structure, yet it seems their loyalty to the hive as a whole keeps everything organized. These societies pride themselves on the ability of their members to adapt to, and overcome, most challenges, viewing our type in particular as inflexible, but we have found them to often be chaotic.
Constant changes of obedience structures are the most obvious difficulty, but one that is easily adapted to. More difficult to adapt to is the fact that, in our own society, a higher ranking member of our own society must know enough to work with those under their command, in these societies, members are less focused on outside knowledge. Knowledge of who will be higher ranking is important, whether in warfare, trade, building projects, or anything else we might do together.
Uncommanded
If shifters, with constantly changing leaders, seem chaotic, uncommanded cultures are perhaps the strangest of all. They do not have leaders, instead, members communicate with each other to create some sort of agreement, which is than followed by all involved. These societies, like shifters, are adaptable; unlike other cultures, the loss of a leader means little to the uncommanded. Their ability to make decisions is often astounding, yet such cultures can take a long time to make decisions, and can sometimes persist in poor decisions, or become paralyzed among choices, without strong leaders.
Working with such a wildly different culture proves challengine to most other chitinous, to the point where those used to working with other chitinous are better suited to understand these cultures. One must develop a skill in working with large groups, and at clear communication.
Supporters
In these cultures, leaders are skilled at administration or support, and their main role is to provide resources to those underneath them. Like breeders, most decisions are made by subordinates, and this organization method extends throughout the culture. These cultures pride themselves on their management abilities, and in the past were most famous for large building projects, especially irrigation and roads.
Those who can interact with breeders will understand these cultures as well, for they share many of the same views towards organization and obedience.
Chitinous and other Beings
When understanding other intelligent beings, it is vitally important to understand how we differ, and how other beings view us. The creator made us much like large ants, and that is indeed how others view us. The other common beings are about the same size as us, but other types of beings have wildly different sizes, and may view you with fear, or barely notice you.
Almost universal amongst other beings is a lack of obedience. Us chitinous do not fight against our own groups, either obeying leaders, or obeying decisions made by a group, as part of our nature. Yet other beings must often be forced or threatened to obey leaders or group decisions, as they often refuse to follow such decisions. Even among the most peaceful, many prefer to treat each other as equals, or argue amongst themselves, and chitinous among them will be uncomfortable. Chitinous are often shocked at how little respect most other beings have for obedience, as they watch members fight for status, or argue and fight to make a decision, or refuse to even have or respect a hierarchy, while non-chitinous often are resentful and rebellious when expected to obey us. On the other hand, on-chitinous often prefer to make agreements with us, expecting us to behave as expected, rather than trying to backstab or swindle.
Our priests have often argued that the creator placed each being on the world to fill a role, and that our role, as the most organized, was created to rule, much as our leader's are bred to rule over our societies. When chitinous empires were powerful, this story was easy to believe, but after the invasions of other beings and overgrowth, many now doubt this story. Origin stories in some other chitinous cultures tell a similar story, and non-chitinous resent the idea that they should be subordinates. Uncommanded or shifter cultures in the past could attract alliances more easily, as their stories flatter the other beings, by viewing them more as equals. In our current situation, our priests may need to rethink the origin of the world, and the other beings and us may interact differently.
While us chitinous have special breeders to have children, in many other animals, including intelligent beings, half the members can produce children in some way, who split their time between breeding and other work, while the other half also split their time between mating with the breeding ones and other activities. Among the common beings, humans and tentacled breed in this way, with breeders called "females", "women", or some other equivalent word, while non-breeders are called "males", "men", or an equivalent word. Within societies, rituals surrounding breeding and mating are highly important, and some languages and cultures view all beings, including intelligent ones, as male or female.
When interacting with other beings, one should be highly aware of the rituals and expectations surrounding breeders and non-breeders, as other beings can be easily offended, and highly emotional, if not done as expected. Some beings will also insist on describing us as male and female, especially if the language has no alternative to male or female to describe a being. Most of the time, the "gender" is described by job, although sometimes with appearance, and the division changes from culture to culture. Almost all agree that our breeders are "she" and maters are "he", some humans cultures assume all are "he", dangerous or strength work, to humans, is commonly "he", but otherwise no clear pattern exists, apart from following how males and females divide in the culture in question.
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