Tracing the lineage of insect hordes in sci-fi

[FramFramson]

Wife and I were chatting away about this earlier (perfectly normal discussion, right?) and the timeline as we understand it is something akin to

50's popcorn horror flicks > Starship Troopers > Alien (for the Giger aesthetic) > Tyranids > Zerg

Now Zerg are pretty definitely directly ripped from Tyranids, and I'm fairly certain Tyranids were born from the combination of Giger aesthetics with Starship Troopers-type bug hordes, and Troopers itself was massively influential to a lot of sci-fi, with its space marines and power suits and such (it was required reading for the marines in the cast of Aliens!).

But the rest is shaky and I don't know how much is missing. And there's many VERY VERY easy real world references (fire ants, etc.) creators may have also drawn inspiration from along the way. I guess Ender's Game might fit in there somewhere, but it always felt more tangential than a direct step on the line to modern "bug horde" sci-fi villains (especially since in that case the war is a misunderstanding and the bugs are far from "mindless").

I don't think Lovecraft was a big contributor this time, as the bug hordes as we know them in modern sci-fi are in most ways quite ordinary and not otherworldly at all (usually), and while Moorecock and Tolkien both wrote extensively about spiders and the bugs in Starship Troopers are occasionally referred to as 'arachnids', Tolkien's & Moorecock's creations tended to be solitary and anthropomorphized in many ways, rather than a hive-mind type horde like ants, bees, etc. as were depicted in Troopers

Anyone have any insights here? Especially for the exact source which might have inspired Starship Troopers' insect enemies? I've never seen any specific mention about that, but for all we know it could have been a simple anthill.

[dadlamassu]

Interesting, the earliest I remember giant insect enemies is the movie "Them!" and Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" book.  Both from the 50s but not seen or read until the 60s/70s. 

From memory the first insect opponent might be the Selenites which were in the Strand Magazine serial by HG Wells "First Men in the Moon" of 1900.  Followed by others in the SciFi comics from the 1920s maybe?

So Selenites - scifi comics 1920s onwards - Them!, 1950s films and Starship Troopers (book) - Doctor Who (Zarbi/Menoptera/Wirrn/) - Aliens film - wargames and contemporary books/films.

[tin shed gamer]

Lucian of Samosata's  ' a True Story' is supposed to be (in the loosest term's) the earliest sci-fi with a hoard of insects,and space travel. which if right would make it the second century.

[MHoxie]

There was "The Zanti Misfits" from the original Outer Limits...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zanti_Misfits

[Storm Wolf]

Dear old HG, also had Spider swarms and intelligent ant-sized ants 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Also remember Quatermass and the Pit.

[Freddy]

I don't think Lovecraft was a big contributor this time

He wrote about an insectoid race being he next intelligent species on the Earth in the far future, after the time of mankind. This must have been a common surmise in his era of the 1920s- before Hubble telescope and electron microscopes, but already after the discovery of evolution and dinosaurs.

Interesting, the earliest I remember giant insect enemies is the movie "Them!" and Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" book.  Both from the 50s but not seen or read until the 60s/70s.

The first giant insect enemy-movie was Them!, which made a great impression on the Aliens franchise. The Starship Troopers book is mostly about military career and duties, I do not even remember who was the enemy ther, but there was not much focus on them. The films turned far from the book, both in stlye and theme.