The concept of the group or hive mind is an intelligent version of real-life superorganisms such as a beehive or an ant colony.
[citation needed] The first alien hive society was depicted in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901) while the use of human hive minds in literature goes back at least as far as David H. Keller's The Human Termites (published in Wonder Stories in 1929) and Olaf Stapledon's science-fiction novel Last and First Men (1930),[5][6] which is the first known use of the term "group mind" in science fiction.
[7][2] The phrase "hive mind" in science fiction has been traced to Edmond Hamilton's novel The Face of the Deep (published in Captain Future in 1942) referring to the hive mind of bees as a simile,[8][9] then James H. Schmitz's Second Night of Summer (1950).
[11] The packs of Tines in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and The Children of the Sky are an example of such decentralized group minds.
[5][13] As conceived in speculative fiction, hive minds often imply (almost) complete loss (or lack) of individuality, identity, and personhood.