It is about a secret group of humans who model their lives upon social insects and the unsettling events that unfold after they are discovered by a deep undercover agency of the U.S. government.

Dr. Nils Hellstrom, an entomologist, is a successful film maker and influential scientific advisor with strong political ties.

Living and working with a small staff on a farm in rural Oregon, he attracts the attention of an unnamed government organisation when documents are discovered that hint on cult-like activities and a secret weapon project.

Further operatives are sent and it is revealed that the farm is situated above a vast system of tunnels and caves, hosting a hive-like subterranean society of nearly 50,000 specialized hybrid human-insect workers.

And then I said, 'Now I will make... [the members of that civilization] the heroes of the story, by taking negative elements of the surrounding society and treating them as the villain.'