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So I am making another insect themed character (I can’t help it insects are just so amazing to me❤️) and I want this one to be able to control insects from a distance.

I have some ideas (Pheromones and brain wave surges) on how but I’m not too sure how plausible they are or if there are better ways to do it. And I also know that in some solitary species group behavior can happen during food abundance with some chemicals in the brain (locusts).

So my question is how to accomplish long range, mass, insect mind control (about 5 miles)? It doesn’t have to complex control just like directing and saying when to bite or sting.

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  • $\begingroup$ Not really an answer to your question, but you might find this.... interesting. theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/… $\endgroup$
    – Charles Burge
    Commented Apr 18, 2018 at 1:24
  • $\begingroup$ Do you wish to focus on one specific aspect of this very complex problem? You must be aware of how many components there are to this problem, it can't really be solved with an answer containing 10 readable sentences or so. $\endgroup$
    – Raditz_35
    Commented Apr 18, 2018 at 8:19

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Remote controlled insects already exist. You get a small board attached to their backs, connect some wires to their nerves, and then you can control their movements.

You dogg I heard you like bugs so we got a bug in your bug

La cucaracha, la cucaracha...

You can find out more by browsing the North Carolina State University site on this. One of the purposes of this is to drive roaches with microcameras into the debris of accident sites to find survivors.

And of course, since this is done by electronics, the range depends on which one you pick. Class 2 Bluetooth is good for 10 meters, and Wifi should be good for up to 50 meters - supposing a clear line of sight. Using 4G or LTE, though, you could control a bug in another continent.

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Chemicals kind of limit your range, if you're talking about like 5-10 meters I would say using chemical sprays and the like would be reasonable, but five miles is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps something along the lines of what Charles said in the comments:

Not really an answer to your question, but you might find this.... interesting. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/

The controller can plant one "seed" into a colony and they slowly spread it around until each individual insect (or at least their queen/leader) is infected with this biological controller. In which the character can direct them. Also, I think being able to instruct every single insect when to bite or sting might not be possible. Mostly it would be where to go and the general behavior like:

  1. move to location
  2. speed of movement
  3. if they should be aggressive or not
  4. what to be aggressive to
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  • $\begingroup$ "about 5 miles" $\endgroup$
    – Raditz_35
    Commented Apr 18, 2018 at 8:18

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