Arachnids (Starship Troopers)

The Arachnids are an insectoid alien race that features in Starship Troopers.

History

The Arachnids were an extraterrestrial insectoid race that were native to the hostile world of Klendathu.

The on-going conflict with humanity led to the establishment of the Arachnid Quarantine Zone that was a region of space controlled by the Bugs.

As part of their offensive, the Bugs were responsible for sending a giant meteor towards Earth where it passed through its defensive systems and fell on Buenos Aires. After the destruction of Buenos Aires, Sky Marshal Dienes announced a new offensive against Klendathu as part of a retaliation effort for the attack.

Overview

In appearance, the Arachnids came in a wide variety of shapes and forms with this being determined by the breed of the creature.

Basic Arachnid warriors were noted for having minimal IQ but were armored and completely lethal. The destruction of a limb meant that 86% of the Bug was still combat effective. However, shooting the nerve stem was noted for being a more efficient means of eliminating the creature.

There were a number of Arachnid breeds that included:

• Warrior Bugs :
• Tanker Bugs :
• Plasma Bugs :
• Brain Bugs : a leadership caste among the Arachnids responsible for directing their operations and managing their strategy. These big fat bugs were largely defenceless and possessed vestigial legs where they were carried by Chariot Bugs. They were able to release a stinger from their mouths that could pierce the skull of a human and drain it dry whereupon the Brain Bug learnt everything their prey did which proved a highly useful intelligence gathering tool.
• Queen Bug :
• God Bug :

It was noted that they were a highly organized and highly evolved insect society. Individually, the Bugs were relatively stupid by human standards with workers having an IQ of 12 whilst warriors were around 35. Despite this, they had managed to colonise other planets via hurling their spores through biological means across space. Arachnid colonies were said to require a certain size before they could produce a Brain Bug with it believed that it took around 300 generations.

They were known to redirect meteors and send them as projectiles that were launched against other worlds. This was achieved through a kind of plasma burst that was used to divert meteors and send at a target.

The homeworld of the species was Klendathu that orbited a twin star system whose brutal gravitational forces produced an endless supply of meteorites.

Notes

• In the novel, the Bugs were somewhat different compared to their film incarnation.

In other media

Television

• In Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, the Arachnids appeared as the primary antagonists in the setting of the CGI animated television series. They were first shown having appeared on Pluto where they came to attack humans leading to a war against SICON. At first, mankind believed the creatures to be native to Pluto but later discovered that the Arachnids were an interstellar civilisation who were waging a war against Earth. It was shown that the species arrived on other worlds where they used the genetic material of other races to produce specific castes of bugs allowing them to be better adapted on those worlds as well as being used as specialist troops against enemies..

Other

• In Mongoose Publishing, the company had created a Starship Troopers game that included an RPG and miniature games line with the bugs being referred to as the Arachnid Empire.

Appearances

• Starship Troopers:

External Links

• Starship Troopers Wiki Entry

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