How can I represent independent individuals as part of a hive mind?

Question

The demigods of this world are avatars of the one true God known as Dea and built in the image of humanity. They are independent and have their own opinions from each other, but are connected by a universal consciousness that operates similarly to a hive mind. This "super-consciousnesses" underlies their actions and governs them according to a set of universal laws and principles, which they are instinctively aware of. This prevents them from interfering with the mortal plane in most cases. These gods exist in the hundreds, and can be male or female.

These demigods breed differently from mortals. When a man and woman get busy, they produce an offspring which shares half of their parents DNA. These influences gene expression and creates a completely new individual. Demigods breed by leaving their physical avatars and combining their souls with each other to create a new soul. Every demigod currently alive will participate in this process together, causing the resulting offspring to have literally hundreds of "parents" who are also their siblings.

I want to represent these gods as beings that are connected to each other as a hive mind, yet still retain individual qualities and personalities like "normal" people. What would be the best way to showcase this in writing form?

Answer 1

You could do this by the individuals each having their own personalities and opinions, only to have these "overwritten" by the hive mind.

In other words, people become whatever sort of person is expedient for the hive mind.

For example, Joe is a hard working and honest businessman. Then, one day, he shoots a policeman. Joe has never been in trouble with the law. Why would he do this? That's completely out of character for him. The policeman was about to solve a case and incriminate Sam. But Sam and Joe have never met. Why would Joe have this motive? It makes no sense.

The only link connecting Sam and Joe is that they're both of the same species. Does this species simply look after their own? The humans wonder. But how did Joe even know about Sam? No, they hadn't been meeting in secret.

Slowly, as several such mysteries are solved simultaneously, the existence of the hive mind can be revealed.

Answer 2

A good example you could take inspiration from are the Vortigaunts of Half Life fame. In Half Life 2, they go from enemy to ally, and throughout reference 'the Vortessence'. While it's never fully expanded upon, said Vortessence allows them to suddenly know things their distant allies also know and allows them to coordinate their efforts to perform weird, metaphysical feats. Even human characters remark on this, such as Dr Isaac Kleiner saying, 'This is a broadcast to all allies, human or otherwise, though to our vortigaunt allies this message is no doubt redundant', implying the vortigaunts' 'oneness' is a noticeable facet of their race.

Despite this, the extent they're willing to reveal their transmitted information and how they act upon it varies from vort to vort. Some simply do whatever they can for 'the Freeman' (the playable character), others assist the rebels surrounding said 'Freeman', and others still sit around a campfire spouting cryptic allusions to their greater knowledge. While they're all united and psychically linked, they do different things with said link.

Answer 3

Have all of your demigods be fatalistic

Demi-godly foreknowledge, or prophesy, is perhaps a result of some partial awareness of the will of the higher mind which dictates what will happen. Thus, whatever feelings or opinions your demigods might have, they simply stop short of acting contrary to the will they sense above them. Explicitly acknowledge their awareness.

"Sure, I'd love to see you go home to your family," the goddess purred. "You're so adorable with your wife; one of the happiest couples I ever arranged. And I arranged it personally. But DEA forbids that you live to the end of this day. I'm not personally required kill you - but I assure you that you cannot survive. It's out of my hands."

Answer 4

I strongly recommend reading Ancillary Justice, the first book of the trilogy by Anne Leckie. She creates exactly the effect you're looking for, where there are 'ships' and 'ancillaries'

The ship is a character in and of itself and all of the ancillaries are part of it mentally, but each individual also has its own senses, place in the physical world and to a certain extent, opinions.

She does interesting things where she jumps from individual to individual within the viewpoint of the ship, which of course is disorientating at first, but you sort of get used to it, and it's highly effective.