Formics

Formics, usually referred to by the pejorative term, "buggers," are a fictional insectoid alien species from the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels by Orson Scott Card.

The term "Formic" is derived from formica, the Latin word for ant.

The Formics share a single hive-mind directed by a queen. If the queen dies, all the Formics in the hive lose all will and intelligence and will die shortly afterwards. The Formics are able to communicate instantaneously via philotic connections; through studying the Formic technology leftover as wreckage from the Formic Wars, humans learned to harness gravity, and faster-than-light communication via the ansible which uses the same type of philotic connections that the Formics used. They live in vast underground colonies in complete darkness.

Although originally thought of as evil by humans because of the attacks, it was later realized that they were in fact peaceful. Because the Formics were a hive mind they believed that intelligent life must naturally be hive minded, thus when they killed humans they merely thought they were getting rid of animals. Once they realized that humans were sentient individuals, they immediately halted their attacks. Unfortunately, humanity did not realize this fact and still believed the Formics were preparing to attack again, leading to their decision to take the fight to the Formics.

In the novel Ender's Game, Ender Wiggin unknowingly commits xenocide, destroying the Formic homeworld and wiping out all the Formics except for a single queen cocoon. The initial reaction at the destruction of all of the Formics was jubilation on the part of humanity. However, following the release of Ender's books, The Hive Queen and The Hegemon, under the pseudonym of The Speaker for the Dead, humanity came to realize the destruction as a xenocide, and Ender's name was vilified. Ironically, while Andrew Wiggin as "Ender" becomes vilified, Andrew Wiggin as "Speaker for the Dead" becomes a hero, and the founder of a new religion. Ender eventually finds the only remaining egg on the colony world that he is sent to colonize. The Formics placed the egg on the colony world in a landscape terraformed to match the outlay of the landscape in a psychoanalytical game that Ender played in Battle School so that he would recognize it. Ender finds a place for the egg to hatch on Lusitania, a Brazilian Catholic colony world, allowing the Formics another chance at life.

Buggers are also mentioned in the game Advent Rising.