History Main / HiveMind

A conscious goal of ''Wiki/TVTropes''. (See also [[Administrivia/TipsWorksheet Edit Tip #1]].) On this wiki, you will often see this term used as a nickname for the TV Tropes community, especially our [[CombinedEnergyAttack collective power]] to invoke the Administrivia/WikiMagic.

Related to, but separate, from {{Synchronization}}, where each individual ''experiences'' what the other does without necessarily being in rapport with each other. Contrast both MindHive and ManySpiritsInsideOfOne, both its complete opposites, when multiple minds or SplitPersonalities are sharing one body (differentiated by the level of accord between them and/or their "host"); and PiecesOfGod, where a CosmicEntity is split into several pieces, which may or may not be living entities themselves. May be controlled by a HiveQueen, which serves as the titular keystone of a KeystoneArmy of {{Hive Drone}}s. See also PsychicLink for other connections between minds. A related plot is TheEvilsOfFreeWill. Compare SplitPersonalityMerge, where two or more SplitPersonalities become one. When the person speaks in plural, see IAmLegion. If the hive mind is controlling many smaller creatures that forms the shape of a larger creature, you may be dealing with TheWormThatWalks.

A conscious goal of ''Wiki/TVTropes''. (See also [[Administrivia/TipsWorksheet Edit Tip #1]].) On this wiki, you will often see this term used as a nickname for the TV Tropes community, especially our [[CombinedEnergyAttack collective power]] to invoke the WikiMagic.

Hive minds are not known to exist in reality -- hive insects, upon which the idea is based, communicate intentions and commands through scent and body language. The closest approach to them would be the controversial [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism superorganism]] concept. However, it should be noted that a somewhat rough form of this does occur in humans presently: the advent of the internet in the early 90's not only enabled the instantaneous transfer of global information and knowledge to the point that many people, even swaths of strangers are able to communicate and share their information rather rapidly in modern society and you'd be hard-pressed to find a corner of the Earth connected via the Web that would ignore another group or individual's suffering upon it being posted online, even if that person(s) isn't even remotely or tangentially related to them.

In SciFi or Fantasy series, the connection may actually ''be'' a [[PsychicLink true shared mind]], either with each member contributing to the whole, or the separate bodies being puppets which some central mind controls remotely. It makes sense that usually the first variant is sensitive to losses and avoids overt violence, but in the second, it's only the question of whether lost bodies will be replenished and it's inclined to expand itself. Expect "individuals" in such hives to be considered [[WhatMeasureIsANonUnique very killable]] by everyone else as well. It is not unusual for it to start out as the former and then slip into the latter as a series progresses and the writing staff changes. TheVirus is often a HiveMind (e.g., the Borg) and the EvilMatriarch becomes its HiveQueen.

Hive minds are not known to exist in reality -- hive insects, upon which the idea is based, communicate intentions and commands through scent and body language. The closest approach to them would be the controversial [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism superorganism]] concept. However, it should be noted that a somewhat rough form of this does occur in Humans presently: The advent of the internet in the early 90's not only enabled the instantaneous transfer of global information and knowledge to the point that many people, even swaths of strangers are able to communicate and share their information rather rapidly in modern society and you'd be hard-pressed to find a corner of the Earth connected via the Web that would ignore another group or individual's suffering upon it being posted online, even if that person(s) isn't even remotely or tangentially related to them.

There is a traditional tendency in SF and fantasy shows for Hive Mind species to be xenophobic, aggressive, and evil, even when they aren't a HordeOfAlienLocusts. This may well be due to a perceived metaphorical overlap with DirtyCommunists, or a residual, primal fear relating to eusocial insects, which are the closest thing to Hive Minds in RealLife. It could be justified, however, as it's possible that a truly hive-minded species may literally never encounter another sentient entity until it achieves interstellar travel, and so have a distinct lack of social skills. This trope is particularly common among [[{{Transhuman}} transhumanist]] works, however, where an advanced level of technology is assumed.

Hive minds are not known to exist in reality -- hive insects, upon which the idea is based, communicate intentions and commands through scent and body language. The closest approach to them would be the controversial [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism superorganism]] concept.

In SciFi or Fantasy series, the connection may actually ''be'' a [[PsychicLink true shared mind]], either with each member [[MentalFusion contributing to the whole]], or the separate bodies being puppets which some central mind controls remotely. It makes sense that usually the first variant is sensitive to losses and avoids overt violence, but in the second, it's only the question of whether lost bodies will be replenished and it's inclined to expand itself. Expect "individuals" in such hives to be considered [[WhatMeasureIsANonUnique very killable]] by everyone else as well. It is not unusual for it to start out as the former and then slip into the latter as a series progresses and the writing staff changes. TheVirus is often a HiveMind (e.g., the Borg) and the EvilMatriarch becomes its HiveQueen.

In SciFi or Fantasy series, the connection may actually ''be'' a [[PsychicLink true shared mind]], either with each member contributing to the whole, or the separate bodies being puppets which some central mind controls remotely. It makes sense that usually the first variant is sensitive to losses and avoids overt violence, but in the second, it's only the question of whether lost bodies will be replenished and it's inclined to expand itself. Expect "individuals" in such hives to be considered [[WhatMeasureIsANonUnique very killable]] by everyone else as well. It is not unusual for it to start out as the former and then slip into the latter as a series progresses and the writing staff changes. TheVirus is often a HiveMind (e.g., the Borg) and the EvilMatriarch becomes its HiveQueen.

In SciFi or Fantasy series, the [[PsychicLink connection]] may actually ''be'' a [[MentalFusion true shared mind]], either with each member contributing to the whole, or the separate bodies being puppets which some central mind controls remotely. It makes sense that usually the first variant is sensitive to losses and avoids overt violence, but in the second, it's only the question of whether lost bodies will be replenished and it's inclined to expand itself. Expect "individuals" in such hives to be considered [[WhatMeasureIsANonUnique very killable]] by everyone else as well. It is not unusual for it to start out as the former and then slip into the latter as a series progresses and the writing staff changes. TheVirus is often a HiveMind (e.g., the Borg) and the EvilMatriarch becomes its HiveQueen.

On this wiki, you will often see this term used as a nickname for the TV Tropes community, especially our [[CombinedEnergyAttack collective power]] to invoke the WikiMagic.

[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples of people acting as though they share a mind:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'': Mashiro and Azuki are "on the same wave" as he puts it.
** And Mashiro and Takagi are "one soul in two bodies" as they put it.
* All ''four'' of the parents of Miki and Yuu in ''Manga/MarmaladeBoy'' are so synchronized as to seem at times to be a HiveMind. This is so pronounced through most of the series that the few times when they don't seem to be in harmony (as when they staged a fight to bring Miki around regarding their odd living arrangement) come to seem even creepier than when they are.
* The cheerleaders in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima''; even though there's three of them, they might as well be one character.
* Ryou and Fuu from ''Manga/{{Sketchbook}}'' appear to be ''extremely'' in sync, especially when playing pranks on other students.
* The ''Stand Alone Complex'' in the appropriately named ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex''. Kind of. It's a social phenomenon that happens all the time which involves people enganging in copycat behaviour where there is no original. The people usually have nothing in common except their actions.
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': In yet another unexpected use of a power, [[spoiler:the Misaka "Imouto" clones]] use their [[spoiler:electrical powers]] to maintain [[ElectronicTelepathy constant contact through brain-based telecommunication]], allowing them to share a collective memory. They're an interesting example because while they are very much ''not'' a true HiveMind, they are brainwashed into thinking they are, to the point that they originally put zero weight on individual lives. After Touma convinces them otherwise, they're like a very large family in constant radio contact. [[spoiler:Later novels show that there ''is'' a HiveMind of sorts regardless, the "Will of the Network", which acts as a sort of collective unconscious for the Sisters and has its own will and thoughts.]]
* The zombies of ''Manga/ApocalypseNoToride'' appear to have some kind of Hive Mind and bend to the will of the {{Hive Queen}}, forming large formations out of their bodies.
* ''Anime/StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry'' has a race of alien girls [[spoiler:whom Emily belongs to]] whose HiveMind ignores relativity (in a series where [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness faster-than-light travel is (supposedly) impossible]].) [[spoiler:Hoping to harness this power, humans captured some of them and vivisected them to create Mimics (when ''the entire race'' could feel it.)]]
* Being [[TwinTelepathy Sextuplets]], the ''Anime/OsomatsuSan'' Matsuno brothers are capable of moving and speaking in perfect unison.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In the classic WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck and Uncle Scrooge stories of Creator/CarlBarks, Huey, Dewey and Louie are virtually indistinguishable in appearance and personality, and almost invariably finish each other's sentences. Their ability to pool their intellects (and tap into the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything Junior Woodchuck Guidebook]]) makes them smarter than any of the other characters, including wily, savvy Scrooge himself; they're almost always the ones to solve the mystery/resolve the problem.
* The ''Comicbook/AstroCity'' story "Everyday Life" features the Gorilla Swarm, an army of insect-headed primates with a hive mind. The story even has them being controlled by a villain (The Silver Brain), making this a double instantiation of the trope.
* The UOS in ''ComicBook/{{Atavar}}''.
* [=PSmith=] in the [[ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire Buck Godot]] universe. They did this deliberately to themselves over the course of generations.
** Which, in an interesting way, drives the plot of their introductory story. Buck is repeatedly assaulted by what appears to be a very angry bald man who loudly declares Buck to be his murderer, and seems to come back all the more frenzied each time Buck manages to incapacitate him. It eventually turns out that the bartender was letting people have free drinks while [[LoveMakesYouDumb dazzled by his new girlfriend]]-- and [=PSmith=], unfamiliar with alcoholic beverages, attempted to ''drink one of everything in the bar,'' managing to pass out after 138 of them. Up until this point [=PSmith=] had never experienced unconsciousness as a hive mind, so when one of those brains winked out, he reckoned one of his units had been killed.
*** This story also introduces an interesting look at a possible weakness in any hive mind: if a member of a hive mind is mentally impaired, will it affect the hive mind itself? For the [=PSmiths=]: Yes and no.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', twins Fred and George Weasley often finish each other's sentences and jokes.
* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' is quite possibly the TropeMaker (or at least the TropeCodifier) for science fiction, featuring a race of intelligent Arachnids divided into different castes and all directed by a central "brain" caste.
* The ghosts or psychic echo which may or may not exist in the Overlook Hotel in ''Literature/TheShining'' are said to have a single, collective group intelligence which functions as the hotel's true "manager".
* ''AWrinkleInTime'' has IT as the Hive Mind controlling the entire planet of Camazotz.
* The yrr in Frank Schätzing's ''[[Literature/DerSchwarm The Swarm]]''.
* The Bugs, Baahgs, or Arachnids in David Weber and Steve White's "In Death Ground" and "The Shiva Option."
* The "phoners" in Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Cell}}'' form flocks with apparent shared awareness within the flock and between flocks in the same geographical area.
* ''Literature/TheLightOfOtherDays'' by Creator/ArthurCClarke and Creator/StephenBaxter: direct interfaces between the human mind and computer networks leads to the development of a hive mind. This is not presented as a bad thing, and the hive mind has no interest in doing anything to force anyone to join who doesn't want to, or anything like that.
* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' novel ''Legion'', the Alpha Legion invoke this trope: They use identity, conformity of appearance, and anonymity as a weapon. To the casual (or even acute) observer, every soldier appears identical (the fact that they all call themselves Alpharius doesn't help). Due to their particular doctrine of being incredibly well informed (beyond even the normal Astartes' capacity for knowledge), and each soldier being just as capable of leading each other as their immediate superiors, they could very well be considered a hive mind. Even more appropriately, the twin Primarchs of the Legion (Alpharius and Omegon) are so identical, they even think, breath, blink, talk, etc in EXACTLY the same way as each other.
* The rat pack in the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' book ''Firestar's Quest''. They're all mindless, doing the same thing; it turns out that they're all following the wishes of one leader rat. [[spoiler:Firestar realizes that killing the leader rat is the key to defeating the rats, and once he does so, the rats are much more easily beaten.]]
* In Creator/WenSpencer's Literature/UkiahOregon series the Ontongard are telepathic with each other instance of each other, and think and act as a single entity. Those instances out of telepathic range will act independently, but do not think of themselves as individuals even in this case.
* In both Spider Robinson's Stardance trilogy and his Deathkiller trilogy, Hive Mind = Utopia!
* In the ''Literature/ParadoxTrilogy'', the alien lelgis are believed to have a hive mind. While little is known about them, it is believed that only the queens are sentient individuals and that the rest are mere drones controlled by the queens' minds.
* In ''Literature/AwakeInTheNightLand'' in latter eons humans have evolved to the point of having shared thoughts and emotions, albeit they still retain individuality.
* In ''Serpent's Reach'' by Creator/CJCherryh, the worker/warrior/etc members of the ant-like majat can think simple thoughts on their own. If a thought seems new, important or disturbing it will go to the HiveQueen and share it with her. The queen takes all of the simple thoughts brought to her by the other castes and combines them together into more complex thoughts. Memories are stored in the group of drones that always stay with the queen, which allows for a single hive to maintain a continuous, single consciousness across a span of billions of years.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* The [[Series/TheColbertReport Colbert]] [[StudioAudience Nation]] are [[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/149059/january-31-2008/andrew-napolitano of one mind]]. Overlaps with 'Web Original' below when they act as [[InternetCounterattack Colbert's zombie army]] online.
* The group mind soldiers in ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}''. Normally, all have to reach a consensus, but a particularly strong will can overpower the group. Cue [[MindHive Echo]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Most Wikis, including this one. "Collectively, we know everything. Individually, we're a bunch of idiots".
** But [[http://despair.com/meetings.html be careful]] because, [[JustForFun "None of us is as dumb as all of us."]]
* "Hivemind" is a 4chan meme where people who spend too much time on 4chan internalize certain memes (including hivemind itself) and when given familiar stimulus may respond with very similar answers in rapid succession. To count, the posts have to be made within the same minute. This happens fairly often. This meme has spread across the Internet and is now used by people who have no idea of its origin.
* There's a Website/GaiaOnline achievement called Hive Mind. To get it, 15 people have to post on a single page of a thread with their [[VirtualPaperDoll avatars]] all wearing the same outfit.
* A conscious goal of ''Wiki/TVTropes''. (See also [[Administrivia/TipsWorksheet Edit Tip #1]].)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* [[spoiler:The Joo Dees]] from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' [[spoiler:are {{brainwashed}} to be identical PR representatives of the Dai Li. Nobody (including the Joo Dees themselves) know there are more than one of them; everyone just knows the Joo Dee assigned to them.]]
* The Delightful Children from Down the Lane in ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' speak and act in perfect synchronicity; this is less because of telepathy than because they personify conformity.
** It's never really explained whether they all think the same, whether they all have a mental connection or whether they are just the same person.
*** Later episodes make it pretty clear they are separate people. In the SeasonFinale of the first season, they stop talking in unison briefly when Father yells at them. Later, in Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R., it is proven that one can work separately from the others, at least for a little while. (Four of them even call the fifth an idiot at the end for blowing the plan.) As for the other possibilities...[[WildMassGuessing your guess is as good as any.]]
*** In the movie about Numbah Zero it is revealed that they were originally an elite group from the KND, but captured by Father and turned into their current state by a special personality altering machine. It went haywire and made the transformation permanent, except for a temporary reversion. And when that wears off they are actually drawn to each other by what looks like magnetism.
* The Bebe robots from ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', and possibly Kim's twin brothers.
* The Skraaldians in the ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'' series. After Jay kills one, ALL of them want revenge.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' seem to have a hive mind because Ferb's actions are always in perfect synchrony with Phineas's words. He performs the actions at the same time as Phineas says them aloud. A hive mind would also explain how Ferb knew what Phineas was going to say, before being knocked down with a water balloon, at the end of "Tree to Get Ready".
* In WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries in the episode Unity, Superman and Supergirl and to fight a creature called Unity which is a tentacled monster than grabs people and collectively brainwashed them into becoming part of it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Hive insects such as ants, bees and {{termites}}, who are in a hive but possess individual--tiny--brains simply acting on pre-programmed instincts, that may or may not be triggered by the pheromones of a queen or just a scout that is trying to forage for food. Not a hive mind but generally the more of them that are together, the smarter they become, which is called "hive intelligence" The usage of pheromones for coordination is so [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms optimized]] those not paying close attention may think they are all acting under one mind.
* Sometimes spending extended amounts of time with certain people, such as in a love relationship or during a project or secluded vacation, ends with you being close enough to the person that you can [[FinishingEachOthersSentences finish each other's sentences]] and the like. This can also cause withdrawal during separation, as you've now lost that personality you incorporated into your own.
* Some pairs of twins, and intensely bonded lovers, give this appearance. An extreme example of such twins might be Jennifer and June Gibbons, aka the Silent Twins; an extreme example of such lovers might be certain BDSM Dominant/submissive pairings.
* Marching band can very much be a facade of this. While you do have everyone thinking individually, they're acting like one big mass. It's done via staying in time with the Drum Major (the person conducting) and knowing your sets (locations on the field at certain points).
** Ditto with North Korea's Mass Games. Thousands of people need to act in sync, otherwise it won't work.
* {{Internet Counterattack}}s and {{Internet Backdraft}}s on social media can become this.
[[/folder]]

!!Examples of actual shared consciousness:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The Invid of ''Anime/{{Robotech}}''. At least, until the Regis decides humanity's individuality is evolutionarily superior, and starts artificially creating her own children as {{Half Human Hybrid}}s.
** The only change with the {{Half Human Hybrid}}s is that they can shut down the link, and aren't ruled by it. By and large, they're still part of it.
* ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' has the Vajra, who are one mind distributed over thousands of individually stupid drones, administered by a HiveQueen hub. Also, the BigBad [[spoiler:Grace O'Connor]]'s conspiracy hive-mind is quite different. The HiveMind isn't so much a collective as it is [[spoiler:a network of implanted people with Grace as an "admin" node, effectively overwriting every connected member's personal desires with whatever Grace wants. (However, it's not made clear if she is the ''sole'' node, or whether the Executive Council of the Galaxy Fleet has administrative command as well. The latter is more likely, as she is seen communing with other members of her conspiracy over details.) Her grand scheme was to use the fold quartz and Vajra to spread this network over the entire galaxy, in order to incorporate all of humanity, and surpass the [[{{Precursors}} Protoculture]].]]
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', this is ''probably'' the intended final result of {{Instrumentality}} [[spoiler:since breaking down individual minds and merging them into one being at the very least happens at one point]]. [[GainaxEnding Since the ending does not make it clear]], it might be more accurate to label it above as a literal Hive Mind...or as [[MindScrew something different altogether]].
* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha''
** The Mariage from ''AudioPlay/StrikerSSoundStageX''. This is the reason why they are [[TakingYouWithMe quick to pull a kamikaze]] [[CyanidePill upon capture]], as any information that one has is shared by every other Mariage. Their battle tactics are even commented by Quattro as being similar to those of insects.
** The [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Raptors]] of ''Manga/MagicalRecordLyricalNanohaForce'', who describes themselves as a unit that shares knowledge and cognizance in real time, and do not possess individual conscience. As Isis sums it up for [[TheDitz Lily]], "Basically, they have a lot of bodies, but one mind".
* The insects from ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', though this is only stated outright in the manga.
* The Galactic mooks of ''PokemonSpecial''. Not only do they all look alike, they all move as if one entity.
* The [[StarfishAlien Festum]] from ''Anime/FafnerInTheAzureDeadAggressor'' are a {{deconstruction}} of this; because they are all controlled by a single mind, they have no concept of life, death, emotion, or even ''information''. The [[BishonenLine Master-type Festum]] are their version of a HiveQueen, as they can greatly influence the whole ([[spoiler:Idun]]) or [[spoiler:become entirely separate entities]] ([[spoiler:Mjolnir/Akane Makabe, Kouyou]]). They also demonstrate the ability to learn, especially in the case of [[spoiler:Idun]]; it learning hatred and wrath was what provoked their ferocious attacks.
* Heavily implied to be true of [[spoiler: Kyubey]] in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=3564265&postcount=1882 Later confirmed]] by WordOfGod.
* Saika's "children" in ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}''. A particularly strong-willed individual can become HiveQueen, but usually this just means becoming the voice of the HiveMind. [[spoiler:Anri Sonohara]] is the only one capable of actually controlling it.
* This appears to be the case for the Anti-Spiral in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann''. Though we only ever see the one, he doesn't appear as though he has a fixed physical form, and always refers to himself in the plural, or refers to himself ''as'' the Anti-Spiral race. It's thought that the Anti-Spiral shown is a psychic manifestation of the combined wills and minds of the entire species.
* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', second season, the ''Individual Eleven'', [[spoiler:which are actually all controlled by the same virus that infected their brain implants]].
* The [[spoiler: Pict aliens]] in the ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' movie. They all say the exact same things at the exact same time, and are [[spoiler: trying to get all humans to join them.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In the UltimateMarvel Universe, one of the variant Skrull races are the Chitauri, who see individuality as a disease, and themselves as the "[[ScaryDogmaticAliens immune system of the universe]]". In order to operate among humans, they create an "officer" caste who have a limited degree of individual personality, presumably absorbed (along with physical form) from those they devour.
* The Poppupians, the alien race that Marvel's resident prankster the Impossible Man belonged to, were like this. (And they were likely ''much'' friendlier than most examples of this trope.)
* The [[TheStepfordWives Stepford]] [[Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos Cuckoos]] of ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}''.
* ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'' has [[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070804 PSmIth]]. (Unusual, in that [=PSmIth=] is a population of genetically-engineered humans, and friendly to normal humans.)
* [[http://ps238.nodwick.com/?p=456 The Commonality]] from ''ComicBook/{{PS 238}}''. Although presented as a benign entity, this is probably not much of a consolation for the one individual human left on the planet when everyone else is adjoined in it.
** Especially since he was the one who accidentally created it.
* The [[GreenLantern Orange Lantern Corps]] are beings made of an orange energy that resembles fire. They recruit new members by consuming them. Their [[HiveQueen Hive... uh, King]] is a comically hoggish alien named Larfleeze.
* One of ''{{Spiderman}}'''s lesser villains is Swarm, a swarm of bees whose individual members are each part of a (former) human consciousness.
* The Phalanx in {{Marvel}} Comics, a race of mechanical beings that generate a nanovirus that infects beings that it contacts, turning them into phalanx. The Phalanx all seem to be connected by a sort of hive mind, or at least a general motivation.
* The Zylons from the ''ComicBook/StarRaiders'' graphic novel are a galaxy-ruling Hive Mind species.
* In ''Night of the Living SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}}'', Wade attempts to cure the zombie plague by spreading his HealingFactor power amongst them, and does so by coating himself in the chemical that gave it to him and [[HeroicSacrifice letting a bunch of zombies eat him]]. While it works, it also causes his ''consciousness'' to spread along with it.
-->'''Deadpool, narrating:''' And as awareness spread from one undead body to the next, I could only think one, unified thought.
-->'''Zombie, speaking:''' [[AGodAmI Omnipotence won't be all that bad.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* The female characters in ''FanFic/DumbledoresArmyAndTheYearOfDarkness'', who are capable of communicating on a 'frequency only other girls could understand'. [[MundaneUtility This is mostly used for facilitating the rapid spread of gossip.]]
* ''Fanfic/ThousandShinji'': The [[{{Robeast}} MP]] [[{{EldritchAbomination}} Evas]] are explicitly said to have this.
* A lot of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfics portray Changelings this way, with Chrysalis as either the entire race's HiveQueen or one of many.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienSwarm'' - The live action movie based off the cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce''. The main antagonist is a swarm of alien nanotechnology chips dominated by a hive mind intelligence aiming to take over the planet. To make the villain easier to defeat, they also introduced a queen controlling the hive.
* Both the Squeeze Toy Aliens from the ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' series films and the Moonfish from ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo''. (Those ones were actually rather cute.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' uses this trope to a huge extent, even stating that the aliens in the film are a hivemind.
* In the 2007 film, ''Film/TheHive'', a colony of ants living on an island in South America develops a collective consciousness, possibly through the help of aliens. This eventually goes to the extreme of them being able to act as one entity, and [[spoiler: build an enormous supercomputer underground, made up entirely of ''[[Literature/{{Discworld}} ants]]'']].
* ''Film/TheCityOfLostChildren'' features "The Octopus," conjoined twins who speak in tandem, scratch each others' itches, taste what the other is eating, and generally behave as a single organism with eight limbs and two heads.
* The alien in ''Film/TheFaculty'' is a parasitic HiveQueen that infects host bodies to spread itself out. The infected lose their senses of self and become part of the collective conciousness.
** "All of you were just like the others. So, I thought I would give you a taste of my world."
* The alien in ''Film/{{Slither}}'' is a parasitic HiveQueen that [[TheVirus infects]] host bodies to make drones that it inhabits with its own consciousness.
* "Eight" in ''Film/TheSpecials'' is a superhero that inhabits eight separate human bodies, gaining the ability to to take a tropical vacation while simultaneously dispensing wisdom to teammates at the base.
* The Arachnids (or Bugs) from the ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' films. The series expanded on them having a caste system, with each subspecies filling a specific role. The Brain Bugs and Behemacoatyl (from the third film, ''[[Film/StarshipTroopers3Marauder Marauder]]''; the largest Bug seen so far - its body engulfed almost a planet) have extreme psychic abilities that can be used to control all bugs in the colony. In the second movie, ''[[Film/StarshipTroopers2HeroOfTheFederation Hero of the Federation]]'', the General (who's been infected by a mind-control bug) uses this as a justification for exterminating humanity:
--> '''[[GeneralRipper General]] Jack Gordon Shephard:''' "[[HumansThroughAlienEyes Poor creatures]]. Why must we destroy you? I'll tell you why. Order is the tide of creation. But yours is a species that worships...the one over the many. You ''glorify'' your intelligence... because it allows you to believe '''anything'''. That you have a destiny. That you have a right. That you have a cause. That you are [[HumansAreSpecial special]]. That you are [[HumanityIsSuperior great]]. But in truth, you are ''born'' '''[[HumanityIsInsane insane]]'''. And such ''misery''... cannot be allowed... to spread!"
%%* The [[Film/HiveMind film sharing the name of this trope]] has a feminist version of this.
* Nestor, one of the aliens in ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'', is a hive-mind race. They/he/it are very bored and lonely, leading to some of its component-drones joining the eponymous battle because it potentially provides the new experience of fighting for a doomed cause. At one point, a captured drone's arm is cut off and attached to the film's [[SerialProstheses body-part-replacing]] villain, wherein it is revealed that the Nestor-mind is still able to [[OrganAutonomy control the appendage]], almost killing its new host before getting hacked back off.
* The Strangers in ''Film/DarkCity''. They're on the search for human individuality.
* In ''Film/TheWorldsEnd'', the human robots are linked and controlled through a hive mind. [[spoiler:Once the HiveMind leaves Earth, the robots left behind are allowed to think for themselves, ''actually'' acting like the people they were meant to replace.]]
* In ''Film/EdgeOfTomorrow'', the aliens operate via Hive Mind, which the hero accidentally enters by killing an Alpha and being splashed with its blood. Eventually he kills the HiveQueen which stops all the aliens.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Plays a big part in ''Literature/AncillaryJustice''. The main character, Breq, is the last remaining part of the hive mind that controlled the starship ''Justice of Toren''. In addition to all the other AIs, TheEmperor also has a mind shared across thousands or millions of cloned bodies so he can oversee his empire personally.
* The [[StarfishAliens Primes]] from Creator/PeterFHamilton's Literature/CommonwealthSaga are a textbook example of a superorganism. They evolved as mindless, animal-like "motiles" that had the ability to merge with each other into a more intelligent, sentient "immotile", which would then spawn and direct other motiles by sharing neural impulses with specialized tentacles. Since each immotile can transfer [[BodySurf its]] [[BrainUploading mind]] from one body to another, they are all essentially immortal (and most immotile collectives are actually clusters of hundreds of linked bodies), and also [[AbsoluteXenophobe insanely hostile]] to any life form that is not under their control, including other immotiles. Once they discover radio, they each become a true HiveMind, singular consciousnesses inhabiting armies of motile soldiers and immotile clusters. Then they proceed to [[KillEmAll attack each-other and everything else]]. The first thing one of them did when it discovered [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormhole]] [[PortalNetwork portals]] was to nuke ''every other'' immotile into kingdom-come and take over their armies, essentially becoming the ''entire species''.
** Their xenophobia and expansionist imperative extends to the entire Universe. An immotile ''cannot'' envision a Universe containing anything other than [[ItsAllAboutMe itself]].
-->'''[=MorningLightMountain=]:''' There is only one Universe and it can contain only one life.
** The sequel to the Commonwealth Saga, the ''Literature/VoidTrilogy'', introduces Multiples - humans who spread their minds through multiple cloned bodies, with thoughts and emotions distributed through [[BioAugmentation gaia motes]] and cybernetics. They got the idea from the Primes.
* Ygramul the Many from Creator/MichaelEnde's ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'' is a giant swarm of arachnids that share a collective/hive mind and together appear like a giant spider. This secret is revealed [[spoiler:only to its poisoned victims who Ygramul is convinced will certainly die. Atreyu doesn't, due to a fortunate or destined encounter.]]
* In [[Literature/RepairmanJack Hosts]], this combines with TheVirus. The "Unity" takes over the minds of infected individuals, killing their personality, free will, etc. and inhabiting their body. They all share thoughts, try to expand the Unity and infect everyone to take over the world, and are quite willing to sacrifice individual members to meet that goal.
* The Taurans in ''Literature/TheForeverWar''. It is only after the creation of Man, a group intellect derived from humans, that the human race learns what a mistake the war was.
** As well, in ''Forever Peace'' (also by Haldeman but unrelated to ''The Forever War''), small groups of soldiers have neural implants that allow them to act briefly as a shared consciousness for perfect coordination in the field. It turns out if a group stays linked for long enough (over several days), they come out with sufficiently heightened empathy from the experience that they can't bear hurting others, becoming useless as soldiers.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' has the Howlers, a race of genocidal super soldiers who serve GodOfEvil Crayak. They all remember every battle they've ever fought, making them highly efficient killers. Crayak carefully edits this shared memory, preventing them from remembering any defeats [[spoiler: or realizing that they're not playing a game.]]
** The Taxxons are individuals spawned from a Living Hive. Some are loyal to it, others not. Unusually enough, it's a good hive.
** At one point, the Animorphs morph into termites. When they morph into a species of animal for the first time, the Animorphs have to contend with the animal's instincts. In this case, they ended up locked into the termite hivemind, and very nearly got stuck in it. For good. The only way they escaped was when Cassie managed to force herself to believe the queen was an ant for long enough to kill her, breaking the connections, at which point everyone got a hold of themselves and demorphed (through a ''wooden floor'' - yes, it hurt). The Animorphs almost never took hive-insect forms again, save for Marco, who morphed a bee once-however, he said it wasn't nearly as bad as the others.
* The Buggers/Formics of ''Literature/EndersGame'' are the ur-example of the 'controlled by a central mind' variety. One of the causes of the war stemmed from their believing we had those too.
** They also have multiple {{Hive Queen}}s, and it wasn't entirely clear at first if the queens share their consciousness. They have since been confirmed to be separate beings; each Hive Queen had a separate Hive Mind before they all formed the great alliance. There used to be only one Queen, though, with her killing her daughters as they were born to prevent rivalry, until they learned to coexist.
* The [[BeePeople human hive]] living beneath Rome in Stephen Baxter's ''[[Literature/XeeleeSequence Coalescent]]''. An example of a scientist [[ShownTheirWork working out]] how an actual human hive might develop over the course of centuries, by means of strict isolation, divergent genetic makeup, social conformity, and pheremonal cues. Turns way creepy with a [[TimeSkip multi-millennia jump]] into the future, when future humans rediscover the evolved, highly hive-ified human subspecies.
* A character in Creator/SpiderRobinson's ''[[Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon Lady Slings The Booze]]'' is one person with two bodies. Apparently she started out as identical twins, but her parents treated them as one person and eventually she stuck that way. [[spoiler: Sadly, Arethusa loses one of her bodies at the end of the book.]]
** The two bodies share a telepathic connection, which helped reinforce the "one mind, two bodies" thing. It also plays with muscle memory a bit: Only one body can play piano, while the other is much better at their other job. (hint: they work in a brothel (though it's not sleazy, and it's implied that Jesus might be a member)).
* A similar case appears in ''Whispers'', by Creator/DeanKoontz. [[spoiler:Bruno Frye is a pair of twins born of father-on-daughter rape, and is a SerialKiller before one of his bodies is killed. This totally breaks what little sanity the survivor had to begin with.]]
* Spider Robinson seems fascinated with this concept, as many of his later novels form a sort of continuity, with two different takes on the Hive Mind concept.
** The first is the ''Stardance'' series, where the Hive Mind is created by living alien {{phlebotinum}} that grants telepathy along with a lot of other things.
** The second is in the series of books started by ''Mindkiller'' and extended in ''Time Pressure'', where the Hive Mind is just that - The Mind, created by humans linked up through a computer network that turned sentient.
* Might be the case with the Grotesqueries in ''Literature/{{Drakengard}}''.
* The [=XCabs=] in Jeff Noon's ''Pollen'' are a fleet of [[MundaneUtility taxicabs]] whose drivers are connected into a hivemind, forming (and sharing) a map of the city as drive, receiving their orders from the [=XCab=] Hive. They have their memories erased when they join, and return to the Hive every night.
* Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' universe contains the Conjoiners, who have a fairly high degree of independence - more so since they figured out how creepy they were to other humans.
* In the ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' trilogy, dæmons are the [[OurSoulsAreDifferent the manifestation of humans' souls in animal form]]; therefore a human ''does'' share a mind with their dæmon - though sometimes they can conceal secrets from one another.
* Legion of the WildCards novels is a single individual who can grow and inhabit multiple custom-made bodies.
* The BugWar novels ''[[Literature/{{Starfire}} In Death Ground]]'' and ''The Shiva Option'' have aliens which are telepathically linked. The latter novel's titular Option involves rendering lifeless all planets on which the Bugs have established bases, in order to both exterminate the beachhead and disorient the survivors.
* Like Spider Robinson, Creator/TerryPratchett uses this concept in ''Discworld/AHatFullOfSky'' where Miss Level is one person, in two bodies. [[spoiler:Also like Robinson, one of the Miss Levels gets killed. However, the surviving one learns how to ''act'' like she still has two bodies, becoming de facto telekinetic.]]
** Also in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', Granny Weatherwax is able to "[[MindControl borrow]]" animals, and at one point she does this to a beehive.
** Spider the Rat King, the BigBad of ''Discworld/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'', was eight blind rats tied together by their tails. The only way to survive was for them to think as one, and the resulting hive mind was strong enough to control a town's rat population.
** He also inverts the idea with Miss Pointer/Mrs. Pickles in Thud. [[MindHive Two people living in one body]].
** [[MagicalComputer Hex]], which is a ''literal'' hive mind.
* A recurring theme in Creator/FrankHerbert's books.
** ''Hellstrom's Hive'' works both as a [[BeePeople strange way to live]] ''and'' as a supersystem entity with its own goals. It's interesting that at the beginning of the story even some of ''its own components'' used in such "anomal" activity are unaware and some can't believe this.
** In ''The Santaroga Barrier'' the hive-mind is [[spoiler: composed of linked unconscious parts of participants' brains]], and does not show great intellectual capability. Though not actively hostile, it's ''very'' dangerous as it's prone to paranoid overreaction in self-protection. Even despite the fact that its own components don't like this at all.
** In the ''Dune'' series, a rite of the Bene Gesserit gives them access to the memories of their ancestors. If a mind that isn't strong enough undergoes the rite, then the personalities bleed over involuntarily.
* Christopher Hinz's ''Paratwa'' series uses this as a main theme. The aliens' evolution stressed cooperation (instead of competition as on Earth) as the key to survival. Alien/human hybrids were telepathically connected, and ''usually'' went fatally insane if their twin died.
* The Vord from Jim Butcher's ''Literature/CodexAlera'' are referred to as one of these, but in practice what they actually have is a series of {{Hive Queen}}s, which control the hordes around them directly. Without the queens, the Vord revert to individuals and threaten each other as much as non-Vord.
* In Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'', the Tines are individually nonsapient, but form into collectively intelligent packs (of about four to six members) by means of constant subconscious communication through high-frequency sound. This presumably helped them establish a simple technological civilization -- the Tines are dog-like quadrupeds, and usually can only operate machines through close cooperation of two members. Each such pack considers itself a single individual, who nevertheless can freely draw upon the memories of individual members from before they became integrated.
* Interesting subversion in Creator/StephenKing 's ''Literature/TheTommyknockers'', where the transformed humans/aliens grow increasingly mentally linked--but they not only retain their individuality, they increasingly despise one another as they become aware of each other's secret thoughts.
* In Asimov's ''[[Literature/{{Foundation}} Foundation and Earth]]'', there is an entity called Gaia that includes every man, woman, animal, and every plant and inanimate object on the eponymous planet. This is of the MentalFusion variant, as individual Gaians possess names, personalities and even prestige based on individual accomplishments. However, important decisions are made via an ultimate form of direct democracy where everyone and every''thing'' on Gaia contributes at least some input to superorganism's decision-making. [[PronounTrouble Their/Gaia's]] ultimate desire is to convert the entire galaxy into a group mind, called Galaxia.
* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' has the Killiks in the Literature/DarkNestTrilogy. One aspect of the Killiks which other species found disturbing was how any person engaging in extended contact with them found themselves losing their individuality and becoming a "Joiner" - essentially becoming part of the Colony and fighting their old people, feeling, at the most, regret if they couldn't convert their friends. However, there were several colonies, each with Killiks that had different appearances and specializations, and Joiners who were converted by one colony, if sent to assist another, actually found the Joiner bond weakening, something which they found horrifying.
** ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' has Spore, an unsettling individual which takes over peoples' bodies and adds them to itself.
* Creator/TheodoreSturgeon's novel ''The Cosmic Rape'' details a galactic hive-mind coming to Earth.
* The Gargantius Effect-equipped armies in ''Literature/TheCyberiad''. This makes them pacifistic over time.
* Zaphod Beeblebrox's two heads seem to have this in the first three books in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. Not so much in ''Literature/AndAnotherThing''.
* ''Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos'', which was adapted onto film [[Film/VillageOfTheDamned1995 twice]] as ''[[Film/VillageOfTheDamned1960 Village of the Damned]]''. The alien "Children" (30 boys and 30 girls) have two distinct group minds. They protect themselves (and cause havoc along the way), both use telepathy to control others' actions, organs, and other parts of the body.
* The cho-ja from Raymond E. Feist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Empire Trilogy]]'' share conciousness amongst the [[HiveQueen hive queens]] who have reached maturity.
** From the same universe, [[spoiler: the Dread]] are also revealed to have this. [[spoiler: There's actually only one Dread, a near-omnipotent emobodiment of the concept of nonexistence. The Dread that generally appear are all manifestations of the same will. Dreadmasters, Dreadlords, and the eventually-encountered Dreadking are not, therefore, actually the rulers of the Dread, just the most powerful manifestations]].
* In the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse, the Tholians are part way there. While all individuals (and indeed possessing just as many dreamers, dissenters, seditionists and individualists as any other Trek culture), they have a version of this on the instinctive level. The Tholian lattice connects the minds of all Tholians, distributing basic race-knowledge to all and allowing individuals to commune with one another. The lattice is regulated carefully, with different castes having different degrees of access. On occasion, it can indeed cause the entirety of the Tholian race to share an experience, as was the case with the telepathic assaults of the Shedai. See Literature/StarTrekVanguard and Literature/StarTrekTheLostEra in particular.
* As a result of their [[BondCreatures mental bond]], [[Literature/InheritanceCycle Eragon and Saphira]] share a consciousness.
* D'ivers of the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' are [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifters]] who split into several identical shapes (they can't choose), but maintain a single mind. This can be anything from a dozen to thousands of individual bodies, and so long as one survives so does the D'ivers.
* Sedmon of the Six Lives in ''The Wizard of Karres'' and ''The Sorceress of Karres'', EricFlint, Dave Freer, and Creator/MercedesLackey's {{Tie In Novel}}s to ''Literature/TheWitchesOfKarres''.
* The short-story "Missile Gap" by Creator/CharlesStross has humanity being wiped out by WorldWarThree started by {{Puppeteer Parasite}}s who are members of a hive mind destroying potential rival species. They distrust the "paranoid individualism" of humanity and lament the fact that humans haven't evolved a more efficient means of survival and evolution like their own.
* Creator/TimothyZahn's ''Literature/QuadrailSeries'' has a hive mind constituted of millions of tiny polyps, which normally live in underwater corals. By themselves they're practically insignificant, but in large numbers they become a telepathic, and rather malevolent, all-conquering mind - which even speaks of itself in the singular. The creepiest part is, they can infect normal people and create colonies - "walkers" - that will then obey them; they can offer subtle suggestions to drive the infected to do something on its own accord, or they can take over the body entirely - and suicide it when no longer needed.
* The Tyr of ''Literature/TheMadnessSeason''. Their hive mind is what allows them to dominate space travel and maintain a vast interstellar empire.
** Though when [[spoiler:one of them gets given the name Frederick, it [[HumanityIsInfectious learns about individuality]] and acts to preserve it.]]
* Clare Bell's ''[[TheBookOfTheNamed Clan Ground]]'' series has a group of cats that are a hive mind. They are led by a group leader called True Of Voice and the one cat who does get pulled away from the mindlink has a hard time knowing what to do on his own. Eventually, he ends up somewhere between, able to think somewhat on his own, but still with definite qualities of the hive mind cats.
* The Swarm (or Roy) in Creator/VladimirVasilyev's ''Death or Glory''. When the alien [[TheAlliance Alliance]] sends representatives to the human Volga colonists (having previously ignored humanity as a backward race of over-evolved apes), there are several insect-like creatures among them. Unlike the other Alliance races, who send official representatives, the Swarm merely sends random drones. After all, each drone is the same as any other.
* The Insects in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series are partly this, although it's still possible for them to retain their individuality. Their hive can, though, force a number of its members to undergo a "de-evolution" of sorts, turning them into mindless drones, usually to accomplish some enormous task or for use in the "WeHaveReserves" type of warfare. When there is no longer need for the drones, the hive reverses the process, returning the Insects their individuality. Because they have a virtually unlimited workforce, the Insects, while quite advanced in other areas, have never developed nor done any research in cybernetics. As such, they are well aware that the humans (who are millions of years younger than them) can quickly bring to bear awesome and precise firepower through their [[AMechByAnyOtherName serv-machines]] operated by a fusion of human and AI.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/TheStarsAreColdToys'', the [[spoiler:Kualkua]] are revealed to be a single consciousness with billions of bodies (which can [[spoiler:split into even more bodies on demand]]). Another race of peaceful hive-minded insects is mentioned to have existed in the past, until their homeworld was [[EarthShatteringExplosion destroyed]] by the Conclave, who view any "useless" race (the insects couldn't handle spaceflight) as a waste of resources.
* In Eric Nylund's ''{{The Resisters}}'' series, humans become a part of the alien Cha'zar hive mind at puberty. The titular kids and a handful of adults are the only ones who've escaped thus far.
* The Fain and The Ix from [[Literature/{{Dragons}} The Last Dragon Chronicles]].
* In ''Literature/ThoseThatWake'''s sequel, ''What We Become'', the neuropleth is a hive mind of mental energy.
* In ''Literature/ThreePartsDead,'' part of the Literature/CraftSequence, justice is administered by Justice-- an (all-volunteer!) corps of part-time [[HumanoidAbomination humanoid monstrosities]]. When their GameFace is on they have extreme strength and endurance, [[TheBlank no distinguishing features]], and a single incorruptible, implacable mind. Said mind [[spoiler:turns out to be that of a dead goddess, and her original followers aren't happy about it.]]
* The Fire Vampires in Creator/AugustDerleth's ''Flame Creatures of Cthugha'' and DonaldWandrei's ''Fire Vampires of Fthaggua'' have a hive mind. All knowledge gleaned from a slain victim (they gain sustenance by draining energy from intelligent beings) is shared by every member of the specie.
* The E'clei in ''Literature/WhatZombiesFear'' are a hive-minded race of corpse-inhabiting parasites.
* ''Literature/AngelStation'' has The Beloved who are basically [[Main/LivingShip Living Ships]] with crews.
* The bees in ''Literature/TheBees'' have one although not all drones can actually hear it and it only pops up when there is an emergency, otherwise it's just expected that everybody is working together to the good the the hive.
* ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'': This is apparently how Shaeönanra has escaped death: he appears as a half-dozen decrepit and crippled men. The sorcerer speaks through the husks, with each saying a few words at a time.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* In ''Series/DarkAngel'' transgenics of X7 series (children having disturbing pure black eyes). "The X7s are stronger and faster than the X5 series. They were designed with hive minds and are capable of communicating through sound waves, much like bats, but do so without opening their mouths. Their communications are inaudible to non-X7s. They never speak. "
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has the Ood, the Sensorites, the Daleks (with their psychic "Pathweb" network), and the Time Lords, among others. (The Time Lords used to completely lack individuality. After genetically enhancing their own species, they gained individual personalities, but still retained the hivemind.)
* A very weak version of this exists in ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'' with the [[EnergyBeing Taelons]], whose minds are joined in the Commonality. However, they are full individuals and don't share each other's thoughts. The Commonality mainly serves to keep the Taelons from reverting into the savage Atavus state. A human jacked into the Commonality experiences the greatest high possible, and a few seconds can feel like hours.
* Legion in ''Series/RedDwarf'' is a variation, in that he is essentially a composite gestalt entity formed from the consciousness of those around him; they retain their individuality completely, but he needs them to remain in his space station in order to have any kind of existence that isn't that of a mindless essence. His first incarnation was the sum mental abilities of some of the finest minds and geniuses of their generation. His second was that of the [[SurroundedByIdiots Red Dwarf crew]].
* An episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' has the heroes travel to three remarkably similar worlds, all of which had invented a miracle cure of sorts that consists of bacteria that quickly repair any damage to the human body. The problem is, the bacteria communicate via pulses of light, which are not limited to just within the body. Thus, all those with the bacteria sense each other, although they still retain a measure of individuality. On one world, this has resulted in an Inquisition of sorts that hunts down any "Believers", as they're called. On another, the Believers are a peaceful commune living in tents and meditating. On the third world, the cure was destroyed years before once the authorities realized the problem, although Quinn re-introduces it from his own blood. The sliders also find a way to shut off the bacteria (without removing the effects of what has already been "fixed" in the body) using an oversized flashlight pulsing a coded shutdown signal. This immediately disconnects the individual from the hive mind and leaves them feeling empty and nostalgic.
* The Borg in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.
* ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'':
** The androids in the episode "I, Mudd" were all psychically connected, communing with a central computer during moments of uncertainty or confusion. Many of the androids had identical forms and spoke in unison.
** Another episode had an omniscient computer named Landru which controlled and psychically linked the humans of its planet after they had undergone a process called "absorption."
* The changelings of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' spend most of their time in a liquid state on their home planet (the entire species essentially resembles a vast ocean). While in this state, they share a collective consciousness, which they refer to as "the Great Link", while still retaining their individuality. It is also possible for ''any'' number of changelings to link in this way.
* An episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' involved a trio of ex-Borg drones who still formed a small, personal "collective". Problem was, they were hearing each others' thoughts every second, including while they were asleep, and the LossOfIdentity was driving them insane. Once this is fixed, they find no longer knowing what the others are about to say a huge relief.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'', the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of the Throne]] have access to a group of servants referred to as "Hive-Souled"; essentially, a single mind/soul born in multiple bodies (generally twins or triplets, although modern science has allowed them to greatly increase the potential numbers). Each individual body of a Hive-Soul is essentially just a single component of their collective mind, having no individual personality, and being able to share experience and memory instantly (if one becomes aware of something, the rest are also immediately aware of it) and it can be difficult for any of them to act in a non-synchronised manner unless they are skilled at multi-tasking (although magic can help with this). For the purpose of magic, they also count as a single target; any spell cast on one of them affects all of them equally. This also extends to any kind of physical alteration (including, unfortunately for them, injuries).
** The ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' had Drones, people possessed by a Weaver spirit. (Comparable with the Fomori, Wyrm spirit possessed and Gorgons, Wyld spirit possessed.) Although they possessed functional individuality by themselves, whenever two or more Drones were sufficiently close by, they could share each others' minds and senses. One illustration shows a Drone observing from a high point while one on the ground "sees" an enemy sneaking up behind him.
** Similarly, [[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion Spectres]] are all connected to a hive mind that serves as an extension of the consciousness of their dread god-like entities, the Neverborn. This hive mind allows them to, depending on Caste, observe through another's senses, borrow knowledge, call out for aid, or boss around lesser Spectres.
* In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', the Malkavian clan was eventually revealed to be a giant conduit for the mind of their founder, Malkav. He had his childer diablerize him en masse, and now exists in the Madness Network in their heads. It's a relatively neutral arrangement for the most part, because a hive mind of crazy people is ''still'' a large number of crazy people, but when he manages to focus them...
** The Blood Brothers bloodline can form hive minds known as "circles", each group of Brothers forming their own circle. With it active, they can share their senses and capabilities, as well as communicate telepathically. However, the process of their creation erases their creativity, individuality and personality.
** In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'', the Melissidae bloodline slowly destroy the will of their ghouls, essentially making them into a HiveMind with the Melissidae in question as the PuppetMaster. This is obviously a massive {{Masquerade}} breach, as a legion of slack-jawed ghouls walking down the street gets people asking uncomfortable questions. The covenants banded together to eradicate the Melissidae, but they missed three of them. The Melissidae, wisely, have chosen to hide themselves a bit better this time around; they pass themselves off as the ''extremely'' reclusive type of cult, for example.
** For another ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'' example, it's mentioned that particularly radical members of the Carthian Movement (vampiric modernists and political experimenters) will attempt to form a hive mind amongst the members of a coterie, using telepathic powers, identical patterns of speech and uniforms to present the image of an unified front. There's even a Devotion (combo power), Hive Nexus Gestalt, that allows the true formation of a hive mind amongst coterie members.
* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'''s Lorwyn setting, the kithkin are a race of halflings with a hive-mind referred to as the ''thoughtweft''. Each kithkin has an individual mind and personality, but groups of kithkin have access to each other's thoughts and feelings that goes beyond mere [[TheEmpath empathy]]. In [[MirrorUniverse Shadowmoor]], this makes the kithkin incredibly xenophobic and hateful toward any creature that isn't "one of us."
** A somewhat more frightening example would be the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&name=+%5Bsliver%5D slivers]]: each sliver is connected together via a psychic gestalt that ''was'' controlled by the ''[[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking enormous]]'' [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5233 queen]], when she was gone, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=45166 a new leader]] was created. Now that they're ''both'' gone, the hivemind ''itself'' is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136146 gaining self-awareness]]. On top of that, the individual varieties of sliver [[AdaptiveAbility instill instant mutations]] in their brethren when nearby ([[NoOntologicalInertia which fade when they're gone]]), meaning that [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=4746 if one sliver can fly]], they all can. [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=42017 If one sliver has armor-plated skin, they all do]]. [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=42029 If one sliver can move at speeds approaching the relativistic]] or [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=5134 shrug off magic like water off a duck's back]], they all will...
** The [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chorus%20of%20the%20Conclave Selesnya]] [[http://www.wizards.com/magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mc7 Conclave]]
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=190556 Hive Mind]] does this to players. When someone plays a card, everyone plays that card.[[note]]This is particularly handy when you play a card that would be near-lethal to you, but suicidal for everyone else.[[/note]]
* The Tyranids of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' embody this trope to a T. They are a HordeOfAlienLocusts that do not have independent minds at all, instead being one giant cosmic superorganism. But it's not just their physical weapons you have to worry about, as [[EldritchAbomination cosmically-frightening]] as some of them are; they even have an invasive impact on [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]], the alternate dimension where psychic powers and FTL-drives tap into. The swirling energies, dark gods and daemons that inhabit the Warp make individual contact with said plane extremely dangerous (often fatal), but the sheer size of the Tyranid Hive Mind brushes them aside with little effort. A Hive Fleet's mere presence swamps and occupies the Warp so fully that technologies that use psychic powers (including interstellar travel and communication) are rendered useless, and people attempting to psychically communicate with this strange hive mind are [[GoMadFromTheRevelation instantly driven insane]]. In other words, Tyranids can suck up all the interstellar bandwidth and [=DDoS=] all FTL-communication into and out of an area.
** The Hive Mind's only weakness is that it does not have unlimited range. Rank-and-file 'nids will lose contact with orbiting Hive Ships unless they stay in range of synaptic repeater organisms such as Hive Tyrants, lest they revert to their animalistic instincts and wander off, becoming no better than exceptionally deadly animals. [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong Genestealers]], who operate tens of light years in advance of a Hive Fleet, have their own limited consciousness as a result.
** With the Chaos gods as Warp manifestations of a galaxyful of individual and chaotic emotions and desires of other races, the presence of the Tyranid Hive Mind in the Warp could be said to be a god of Order. [[CosmicHorrorStory Not that the thought is much of a comfort...]]
** The only person in the galaxy who has survived some form of espionage / eavesdropping / communication on the HiveMind is Tigerius, a SuperSoldier who is the most powerful [[{{Transhuman}} "human"]] psyker in the galaxy. [[RunningGag And Eldrad]].
** As a result, a Tyranid player is sometimes jokingly referred to as a "hive consciousness".
** ''I can feel them - scratching at the back of my head. They're coming for us, '''mind, body and soul!'''''
* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', there are a few species with a Hive Mind. One of these is the Abeil. Cranium rats are one of the most ''annoying''. Illithids have a borderline example -- a network (they are [[PsychicPowers all telepathic]]) centered on the city's Elder Brain, a fused mass of dead mindflayers' still living brains continuing to assimilate the brains of every dying mindflayer of the city. Illithids obey these master minds and depend on their advice, but are individuals enough to trade, compete, have disagreeing factions and so on.
** A 2nd Edition adventure called ''Dawn of the Overmind'' is about the illithids creating the titular Overmind, a super-HiveMind made from and at the direction of their Elder Brains, which gives them the power to restore their ancient empire (or arrange so it never fell). As well, the illithid goddess Ilsensine is thought to manifest physically as an impossibly huge Elder Brain, who has nerve tendrils stretching throughout the planes. She is the mistress of the cranium rat hive, and anyone who attempts to enter her realm will have their brains burned out and turned into a drone subordinate to her great will.
** Formians, the ant-like race from the [[AnotherWorld plane]] of Mechanus, are somewhat close to the Borg. Formian taskmasters have the ability to dominate others to bring them into the hive mind.
* One [[TheVirus viral]] example of this trope exists in the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting, in the form of Toben the Many. They are a HiveMind composed of grinning, plague-carrying zombies.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' setting had the Clockwork Horrors, a race of robots that were supposedly responsible for destroying entire worlds (desipte the fact that the most powerful type, a unique one that created the race, only had an XP Value of 6,000, which is kind of pathetic when compared to most [[EvilOverlord Evil Overlords]]).
* One sample artifact from ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies'' is nothing more than a few words on an old wax audio recording, called the Alter Tongue. Hearing a conversation in the Tongue runs a Mind check, and failing that test imprints the Tongue into the listener's mind. There's no PsychicLink, unless the GM wants there to be, but new words in the Tongue appear out of nowhere and those afflicted with the Tongue isolate themselves from or even attack others that can't speak it, and have better-than-typical success conversing with other speakers of the Tongue, even finishing sentences for anyone who's talking in the strange, chittering language. Oh, and knowing the language starts breaking down the local fabric of the universe, too.
* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'' has the Kyriotates, angels with the ability to possess multiple bodies at the same time. More powerful ones can possess up to 3 humans (or a larger number of animals) at once, and those that work for Jordi (Archangel of Animals) can even possess multiple ''swarms'' of insects at the same time (and Jordi himself, being a Kyriotate Archangel, can basically possess as many animals and/or swarms as he likes). This does not involve doing anything weird to the host consciousness; the host's mind essentially goes to sleep for the duration of the possession.
* The snakelike Naga from ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' have a sort of communal consciousness called the "Akasha", though they do have individual minds and personalities.
* One published adventure from the ''Paragons'' setting for ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' has to do with someone accidentally creating one of these while ''in a coma''.
* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' there's Synergy, a LostColony that when contact was re-established turned out to have networked their NeuralInterface implants so that they practically formed a shared consciousness. Though they insist that they are not a hive mind, they share memories and teleoperate one another but they supposedly retain their own personalities. Player characters can use implants based on their tech to work together more efficiently. Players can also distribute their Ego across a swarm of robotic insects.
* The teodozjia, a breed of demon from ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', all share a collective mind and memory. Kill one, and they're going to remember you.
* ''Battlelords of the 23rd Century''. In the ''Shadis'' magazine #23 adventure "Bug Hunt" the {{PC}}s have to fight the Spiders of the planet Driscoll VII. All of the Spiders are part of a group mind that allows them to communicate with each other and call for help from their comrades in their battles against the {{PC}}s.
* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' Hive Node implants allow characters to form temporary or permanent hive minds. While linked the members of the hive share memories and use anyone's Mind and proficiency to roll checks. It's not generally suggested that player characters form permanent hives and in fact its' stated that any hive with less than 25 members can't engage in combat while hived. Unfortunately, for transitory hivers the sensation is addictive and they need to confine their linkages to a rigid schedule to avoid withdrawal after breaking the link.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* The Bohrok from ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}''. Originally it was implied they were merely the drones of the Bahrag Queens, but Bohrok continued to operate as a Hive after the Bahrag's defeat.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The Coremind from ''{{Achron}}'' fits this trope. [[spoiler: Another hive mind emerges in the third campaign as well]]
* The Zerg in ''{{Starcraft}}''. They are led by a mind called the Overmind, "the eternal will of the Swarm". The Overmind is an odd one since, in essence, it is simply the HiveMind itself, but it can create intelligent Cerebrates as leaders of individual broods. The Cerebrates have a certain amount of individuality, but they are still incapable of betrayal. If either the Overmind or the Cerebrates are killed, the Overmind can simply resurrect them in a new body (since they are, essentially, simply minds), unless they are killed by a dark templar. In ''that'' case, the individual Cerebrate is KilledOffForReal. However, the Overmind can create a brand new Cerebrate, and if the Overmind is killed by a dark templar the surviving Cerebrates can fuse together and create a new one.
** The Hive Mind concept is explored in more detail in ''Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm'', which reveals that it is not a natural feature of the zerg (who are sapient individuals and have an extreme SocialDarwinist philosophy); it was forced upon them by [[spoiler: Amon aka the Dark Voice, who is quite possibly [[PhysicalGod a god]] and/or [[{{Precursor}} Xel'naga]]]]. Among the Swarm, the hive mind is in full effect. Most zerg are non-sapient creatures, and the exceptions (Overlords, Cerebrates, Brood Queens, and a few specialists like [[EvilutionaryBiologist Abathur]]) are still infallibly loyal to the wishes of the current leader of the Swarm; they can disagree with the leader, but not act against them. The major exception is that a sentient being taken into the Swarm (such as Kerrigan or [[spoiler: Stukov]]) remains capable of independent action. [[spoiler: This is an important part of the Overmind's long-term plan to free the Swarm from Amon's influence]].
** In ''Legacy of The Void'' the Khalai Protoss act in this manner due to [[spoiler:Amon existing through the Khala, their PsychicLink. As a result, this causes them to embody the will and consciousness of Amon, and the only way to release them is to cut their nerve cords]].
* The Many from ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'' - and let's not go into when they try to recruit '''[[PlayerCharacter you]]''' into their fold.
* The [[ZombieApocalypse Infected]] in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' have a hivemind, connected back to their leader, a woman/[[spoiler:{{Plaguemaster}}]] named Elizabeth Greene. Eventually, the protagonist is able to hack into this through consuming a Leader Hunter and see people carrying the infection who are not yet aware of their illness. He does this to get the trail of the Leader Hunter which took [[spoiler: his sister]] from him, and to find it and Elizabeth Greene. In the sequel Alex takes her place as the leader of the Infected and becomes the new BigBad.
* The Mindhome in ''TabletopGame/DarkSun: Shattered Lands'' (not surprising, as Athas is a psionic-rich world, someone has to try). It's of communal (as opposed to fused) variety and is not aggressive. {{PC}}s can pick (from ''both'' sides) side-quest to resolve the issue causing disagreement enough to split Mindhome in two (and demise of some participants).
* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'':[[spoiler: Everyone wearing a Red Skull Pin. [[{{Instrumentality}} To right the countless wrongs our day...]]]]
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** The Flood. While an early stage infestation lacks a hivemind and thus behaves in a mostly non-sentient manner, later stages will be coordinated by a highly-intelligent "Gravemind" once enough sentients are assimilated. Said Gravemind has access to every single bit of knowledge from every single sentient ever consumed by the Flood, even if said consumption happened 100,000 years ago.
** The Hunters are a gestalt organism composed of worms called Lekgolo. When a colony gets too big for one suit, it splits into a bonded pair with a shared consciousness, which is why they are encountered mostly in pairs during the games. Even bigger Lekgolo colonies also exist, like [[SpiderTank Scarabs]].
** The insectoid Drones live in a eusocial hivelike society; their ability to coordinate with each other makes them a lethal foe. However, there are occasionally "Unmutual" Drones who are incapable of socializing with the rest of the hive; these are usually exiled to distant labor camps, as Unmutuals tend to be highly psychopathic.
* The Aparoids in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'' think collectively; further proven when the Aparoid Queen starts speaking weirdly.
* The Bacterians from the ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' series. They are usually led by Bacterion, the EldritchAbomination BigBad that uses smaller Hive Minds like Gofer and Venom to command his fleets. If a Bacterian Hive Mind gets killed, the pieces of the Hive Mind will regenerate to become a new Hive Mind.
* Ermac from ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' is a fusion of hundreds of souls which all operate under one mind (referring to himself in the plural form). However, his ending in ''Mortal Kombat Armageddon'' shows a godlike power separating the many souls contained within him. These souls soon become new bodies and eventually Ermac becomes an army linked by collective consciousness.
* In ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion 2'', one of the government types is "Unification" compared in description to beehive. It is one of the most expensive variants, and has hefty food, industry and counter-espionage bonuses; advanced form becomes a species-wide "collective consciousnes", and production bonuses skyrocket.
* The Voxai in ''VideoGame/SonicChronicles: The Dark Brotherhood'' are also run by an overmind. The BigBad's influence turns this Overmind hostile, changing its messages from suggestions to commands.
* The Mantis of ''VideoGame/ConquestFrontierWars'' are described as 'narrowly hive minded' and the Celareons seem to have a central brain.
* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' has a weird version: a planet-sized gestalt consciousness formed from the fungus that covers most of the planet, along with its mind worm guardians. Also notable for being an essentially benign entity and force as long as you play nice with the environment. If you don't, Planet is just as dangerous, if not more so, than the other human factions.
** Even if they don't start as a true example (you can research tech to correct this), the Hive civilization holds this as an ideal.
** One of the ways to end the game is to achieve [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Transcendence]], at which point the minds of all humans on Planet are absorbed into the consciousness. The faction that does this first gets to keep most of their individuality, while the rest simply become part of the whole. The final interlude reveals that humans (as extensions of Planet) make it back to the ruined Earth and manage to restore it, also turning it into a planet-wide consciousness.
* The Kha'ak from ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X2: The Threat]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Reunion/Terran Conflict]]'' are a form of this, centered around the massive Hive Queen ship.
* The HiveMind controlling the Necromorphs in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' is called... the [[CaptainObvious Hive Mind]]. Who'd've guessed? Later games suggest that the Hive Mind was in fact the larval form of a true Necromorph, which are moon-sized creatures known as the Brethren Moons that can control Necromorphs like a HiveQueen.
* The 666 creatures making up [[{{Tsukihime}} Nrvnqsr Chaos]] are all part of his mind. As he appears to talk to pieces of himself from time to time (such as getting irritated at one of his dog bodies when Shiki kills it) it seems more of a hive mind than a single mind controlling lots of bodies. Would that be worthy of a distinction anyway?
* The Vortigaunts from the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series [[JigsawPuzzlePlot may]] be an example. The aliens are connected to each other through something they call the Vortessence, which apparently spans time and space, life and death. When two or more communicate, they are able to talk simultaneously (a process they call "flux-shifting"), and it is hinted that if one Vortigaunt allows itself to be captured, the rest of the race is able to gather information through it. With one exception, Vortigaunts don't seem to have names, and just refer to themselves as "this one." Then again, they start all names with "the" (where it makes sense "The free-man" and where it doesn't "The Eli Vance"), so it is possible because they're all linked none of them ever had a need for names, they were after all psychically enslaved by the Nihilanth for an undefined period...
* The Omar from ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' do this through replacing parts of their brain with transmitters. The [[spoiler:Helios Ending of the game has an interesting subversion of the trope. While like the Omar, it has all humans connected, instead of assimilating them into one mind, it merely brings together all their thoughts and desires through a highly advanced human-computer hybrid, which makes decisions for the world, creating a perfect direct democracy.]]
** The basic idea is sharing understanding. Unlike the Omar which eradicates individuality Helios is supposed to make people understand each others' opinions through a highly advanced form of technological empathy and telepathy. It allows a callous bigot to feel his victims' pain as well as the sense of tolerance and empathy from kinder people in theory removing all prejudice and hatred. It's also supposed to let them share knowledge so no one misunderstands one another.
* The Zoni from ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank''. As revealed and explicitly stated in ''A Crack in Time'', they become like ADHD-afflicted children when separated from a group. It appears that two or more are required for the creatures to exhibit any semblance of sanity; however (as far as the storyline is concerned), they are never shown in any less than a group of three.
* From ''Franchise/DragonAge'', The Darkspawn, [[TheCorruption tainted]] creatures that dwell in the underground caverns of the Deep Roads. Whenever an Archdemon (old gods manifested in the forms of powerful dragons) awaken, the darkspawn function in a sort of hive-mind. Otherwise they war amongst each other as much as against the other races.
** They wage war against the Dwarves between Blights. [[HopelessWar One that the Dwarves are slowly losing when the game starts]]. Blights are actually a brief ''respite'' for the Dwarves since most of the Darkspawn go off to attack the surface instead. While Darkspawn do fight against each other, being AlwaysChaoticEvil [[spoiler: most of them anyway]], their taint drives them to focus on attacking anything that isn't a darkspawn [[spoiler: or a completely tainted being like a ghoul]] which helps spread the taint even further.
*** They also work together to find, dig up, and taint the Old Gods in the first place, which is how Blights get started. They are driven to this by the "song" of the Old Gods.
* The Silithids from ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' probably are such. Their HiveQueen (King rather) appears to be [[EldritchAbomination C'thun]].
* [[WillOTheWisp The Wisps]] in the ''Franchise/{{Ultima}}'' games all share a single mind, which calls itself Xorinia and claims to be an interdimensional information broker. It/they are quite puzzled by the fact that humans are individuals, and don't quite understand why they have to repeat everything from scratch every time they speak to the human race.
* ''VideoGame/EmperorBattleForDune'' - The House of Ordos is led by the Executrix, four beings that share a single mind and communicate only through a creature known as the "Speaker".
* An obscure game called "The Adventurer's club" had a possible subversion. There was a telepathic. hive minded species called the T'hlang, but in that, each individual T'hlang was trying to break out of the hive mind, and the hive couldn't control all the guys, so you constantly had "rogues" breaking away from the hive mind, and sometimes getting re-absorbed.
* The NPC [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elf race]] in ''VideoGame/{{Mabinogi}}'', although individuals, share a collective memory via a central "memory bank"; and aquire all of their knowledge and skills from this collective memory. Player characters, being spirits from outside Erinn, do not share in this collective memory; a fact which is pointedly imparted to the player during the introduction.
** A repeatable quest for Elf characters is to recover "lost elves" who have been severed from the collective, and reunite them with the racial consciousness.
* The cranium rats from tabletop ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' appear in ''TabletopGame/PlanescapeTorment''. A group of rats in one place will form a hive mind, and the more rats there are, the more intelligent the mind will be. The mysterious Many-As-One turns out to be [[spoiler:the hive mind of an ''enormous'' number of rats]].
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has a few rather unorthodox examples:
** The Feros colony in the first game is psychically enslaved by an alien plant thing called the Thorian. If Shepard is able to kill the Thorian without also killing the colonists, later games note that the colonists' minds were altered by the experience: they can share sensory data and even basic thoughts. Not quite a full hive mind, but it makes them a ''very'' interesting study group for a number of organizations in-universe. In ''Mass Effect 3'', the Feros colony is singled out as one that's doing better fighting against the Reapers than most others: their pseudo-hive mind is giving them a tactical advantage in battle.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'''s [[spoiler:Control]] [[MultipleEndings ending]], [[spoiler:Shepard's mind is uploaded in such a way that s/he becomes all Reapers.]]
** The Rachni in the backstory were an insectoid race with a telepathic hive mind controlled by the queens. It's eventually revealed that the war with them was due to the HiveMind being hijacked by a third party, probably the Reapers.
** Subverted with the geth, a race of artificially intelligent computer programs. They can't share sensory data like Rachni can, but geth programs that work with other programs share processing power and become more intelligent than the sum of each individual program.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Darkspore}}'', the titular villains became this after [[{{Precursors}} the Crogenitors]] created them using E-Dna.
* The Brotherhood of Shadow from the KnightsOfTheOldRepublic GameMod of the same name were a Sith (the species, not the sect) order of warriors who considered themselves a single being, an extension of the Sith King's will. Once the lot of them are imprisoned in an ArtifactOfDoom, they slowly ''become'' a single mind - one looking for a proper host...
* The Shivans in ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' are hypothesized to be this in the second game because after the lead ship, the Lucifer, is destroyed, the remained units become uncoordinated and easily finished off, like it was the brain of the fleet.
* The Orz in ''VideoGame/StarControl'' are hinted (and confirmed by WordOfGod) to be the extensions of an EldritchAbomination which calls itself "Orz". As such, the "*fingers*" (as Orz's extensions refer to themselves) all have the same mind, which is currently staying in whatever dimension Orz calls home (it refers to ''our'' dimension as "*the middle*").
* The Zuul from ''SwordOfTheStars'' have two variants of this trope: Male Zuul can create coteries with nearby females: He becomes a HiveQueen that directs the females as easy as he would command his own limbs, and all parts of the coterie share a single consciousness. The males themselves have a higher-level hive mind that allow them to share their thoughts and information freely with each other over a long distance while remaining their own individuals. The novelization implies that this sharing of information does funny things with the Zuul psyche as they find the notion of having information other don't have, and things like a name, to be highly unusual.
** In something of a departure from common uses of this trope the game's BeePeople, called "the Hivers", have no HiveMind (they're not even psychic) and use pheromones instead, much like real-life insects.
* [[spoiler:The Aurum]] in ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' is said to be one of these. They are controlled by a central "brain".
* The aliens in ''VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense'' are completely controlled by an alien brain on Mars. In the [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown remake]], [[spoiler: this is subverted. At first it certainly ''seems'' like the the aliens are all being controlled by one powerful alien, and Dr. Shen even hypothesizes that this is the case, but in the end, the aliens are just slave races controlled by the Ethereals.]]
** In ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'', the Outsiders are all connected to a telepathic network called Mosaic, allowing Origin to control the entire empire with the help of [[spoiler:an [[EnergyBeing Ethereal]] named Shamash]].
* From the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series, [[BigBad Sigma]]'s true form is of a virus that can infect other reploids to make them extensions of his will. This comes to a head in ''X5'', where, through a BatmanGambit, he gets X and Zero to spread him all over the world in order to infect almost every Reploid on the planet.
* The Advent from VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire are a race of hive-minded, psychic transhumans.
* [[VideoGame/ThomasWasAlone Team Jump]] are five identical squares that speak and think in unison.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'' has X, in his first chronological physical appearance (the rest were pre-existent spirit forms or time-travellers. Or Alternates. Or future alternate spirit forms. Or a pair of kumquats, hiding in the shape of X. Something along those lines.) go omnicidal (in a way) when no one would be his friend, and then proceeds to link up every robot to his mind. And then picks up a cyborg. And then through that cyborg the entire human race.
* Mars, in the webcomic ''AMiracleOfScience''. One of the few examples of large-scale HiveMind that ''aren't evil''. It exists as a superstructure over implanted FTLRadio network and mostly inobtrusive, "possessing" its members only when it wants to say or do something directly. It also [[http://www.project-apollo.net/mos/mos042.html has a good sense of humor]].
* In the comic ''MSFHigh'', the Legion are a Hive Mind which maintains individuality amongst Legions. Their society is very in-depth, and they are surprisingly friendly. Now.
* ''Webcomic/SequentialArt'' has "Think Tank" - four squirrel girls with implanted link chips. At a short range they can [[http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=493 get in synk talking on Faxmodemish]] with each other, think together and act as a single entity at will. [[MegaCorp Quinten]] used them as a WetwareCPU network to check a [[AIIsACrapshoot buggy AI]], but before that they were in R&D. Consequently, one of them alone is a hyperactive and hyperperceptive GeniusDitz who can build a beam weapon she knows [[http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=199 from a souvenir blaster and spare parts]] is she isn't distracted by something shiny or moving, but four together go into all-out MadScience and [[http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=542 turn]] a lawnmower {{FTL}}-capable when trying to upgrade it.
* Gavotte from ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'' is an actual hive of bees, and the Project's boss. And then there's a couple of their clients, such as Cypress, a sentient swamp comprising some twelve million organisms in New Orleans. Or [=WhimsyCorp=], a corporation founded by a MadScientist that slowly became complex enough to achieve self-awareness independent of her employees and executives.
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''
** The Partnership Collective is a Hive Mind of {{Amoral Attorney}}s. Composed of mass-cloned [[PettingZooPeople snakelike]] lawyers linked by [[SubspaceAnsible Hypernet implants]], the Collective has a near-monopoly on legal advising and [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-07-01 sees no conflict of interest in working for both sides]]. (The comic lampshaded having the Partnership drones talking to each other because of the Rules of [[RuleOfDrama Drama]] and [[RuleOfComedy Comedy]].)
** A Fleetmind is comprised of numerous starship AIs, each already more intelligent than most meatbrains by several orders of magnitude, networked into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. They're portrayed as a more powerful version of one of its components, with other components appearing as "conversation partners" because of the RuleOfDrama (or, again, the RuleOfComedy). Three Fleetminds play significant roles in the plot, all revolving around Petey, the AI of the the former Ob'enn superfortress that became the protagonists' second warship. The first Fleetmind is formed in the second book to coordinate a massive rescue operation, and disbands peacefully once its objective is complete. The second was composed entirely of hundreds of copies of "Petey", and employed the mercs who used to own him while establishing itself as a galactic power. The most long-lasting Fleetmind was formed when Petey joined with the AIs of several million other ships in a rag-tag coalition to stop the destruction of the galaxy. This Fleetmind refused to disband when the immediate threat ended, and decided to declare itself the protector and [[DeusExMachina near-God]] of the Milky Way; other galactic powers refer to it as the "Plenipotent Dominion".
** The ancient Oafa had a symbiotic relationship with a sentient insectoid swarm called [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2015-01-09 Utchi-Skafatka]] who stored backups of their memories.
* In DeepRise [[StarfishAlien The Nobles]] have between 10 and 20 neural centres for each individual, collectively referred to as "Congress".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'', the [[EnergyBeings Dwellers]] have a hivemind which calls itself the Essence. Essentially every Dweller is just an extension of the Essence's will, and thus killing one Dweller (even a powerful, evolved one) doesn't harm the Essence itself.
* Los Hermanos of the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' combines this with MesACrowd, as not only can he create thousands of copies of himself, he shares his consciousness between them. (He is somehow capable of dealing with all the conflicting sensory input, and is capable of handling multiple tasks at once, multiple conversations at once, and so on). At any given moment, he's likely got a dozen duplicates active around the world working in as many different occupations. Anything one duplicate learns, all the duplicates know how to do. And at least two of his constantly active duplicates are married. But only one is an active superhero.
** Aryan Nation is a controversial white supremacist ''superhero'' (yes, you read that right) who shares Los Hermanos's powers. His powers are so similar to Los Hermanos that the Global Guardian once hypothesized that maybe Aryan Nation was one of his dupes who managed to gain a separate consciousness. (He found out later this wasn't true.)
** The Seven Brothers is a super-strong Chinese hero who can split into seven bodies, all of whom share a consciousness.
** Mob Rule, a South African supervillain from the same setting, has a similar power. His copies, however, are independent individuals.
** Saba Devatao, an Indonesia supervillain, creates eight duplicates and like Los Hermanos is a HiveMind. She's an expert martial artist who can flawlessly coordinate her bodies in attack routines that baffle most of her opponents.
** The mutant supervillain known as The Swarm can transform into a seemingly numberless horde of cockroaches, each of whom she can somehow control.
*** Hive is a heroic example of the same power, only he transforms into wasps and isn't a cannibal serial killer.
* If [[TribeTwelve The Observer]] is to be believed, he is part of "[[YouWillBeAssimilated The Collective]]." Interestingly, he seems to contradict himself, saying "I love you all" to the people asking him questions on Formspring and later stating that he feels no emotion.
* ''OrionsArm'' has, in increasing levels of individuality, hiveminds, groupminds and tribeminds.
* ''SMBCTheater'' explores [[http://www.smbc-theater.com/?id=205 hive mind dating]].
* Website/{{Akinator}} is sort of a real-life example of this--he's a program who knows, in intricate detail, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of characters both real and fictional, assembled from the contributions of millions of players worldwide.
* In ''Podcast/MetamorCity'' the Psi Collective isn't continually linked together but groups of "teeps" will temporarily form a gestalt for various reasons. Such as the local Hive when making decisions, or a breeding cell during sex.
* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''
** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-171 SCP-171 ("Collective Brain Foam")]] is a gigantic foam-looking colony of microscopic organisms that incorporates any organism into its mass, resulting in a collective consciousness.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-253 SCP-253 ("The Cancer Plague")]] and [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-408 SCP-408 ("Illusory Butterflies")]] are examples of this.
** After 10 minutes of exposure, [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-427 SCP-427 ("Lovecraftian Locket")]] mutates its participants into "Flesh Beasts", shapeless masses of tissue apparently controlled by a hive mind as seen in the transcript between Dr. [DATA EXPUNGED] and a D-class personnel - "Our biology yearns to join with yours. We welcome you to our mass. Shake the tyranny of the individual."
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-428 SCP-428 ("The Crowd")]]. The various members of the "crowd" can think as one, which allows SCP-428 to move quickly in a way that a crowd of normal human beings attached together cannot. It retains some of the talents, skills and memories of the people it absorbs and can use these abilities to add new members or attempt to escape.
** [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-906 SCP-906 ("Scouring Hive")]]. SCP-906 is a TheWormThatWalks that shapes its body into humanoid form to move around. The individual worms don't appear to have any intelligence when separated from the body.
** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1249 SCP-1249 ("Pestilence")]]. The individual invertebrate animals that make up SCP-1249 have human-level mental ability when they're together but normal intelligence if removed from it.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1657 SCP-1657 ("MAN EGG")]]. Instances of SCP-1657 have a collective memory. Anything that one of them experiences is known and remembered by all of them.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1888 SCP-1888 ("Terraforming Temple")]]. Plants and animals exposed to SCP-1888-2 develop a group intelligence that they use to efficiently eliminate intruders.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' (specifically "Revenge of the Reach"), the Green Lantern Corps is attacked by an alien enemy called the Reach. Judging by their simultaneous dialogue and referencing themselves as "The Collective", they must have some form of hive mind.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'' - In the episode "Ghost Town", Ben Ten is forced to team up with his arch nemesis, Vilgax, to battle one of his rogue alien forms, Ghost Freak. Vilgax released Ghost Freak from prison on the condition he defeat Ben, but Ghost Freak betrays him and possesses his planet, Vilgaxia. The planet's citizens are turned into Ghost Freak's minions (who look like his original less hideous, unmasked form in the first Ben Ten series) dominated by a hive mind.
* The [[LittleGreenMen LGMs]] in ''BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand''; all of them in the universe are connected, and their ability to cooperate makes them excellent at all the technical work [[SpacePolice Star Command]] needs done (think about it; [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist they share all knowledge]] and can work in perfect synch). They do have distinct and individual personalities even when disconnected, though said personalities are almost entirely homogeneous. In the pilot movie, it's revealed that this is made possible by the 'Unimind' on their home planet, and they go into disarray when Zurg steals it (PlayedForLaughs ''and'' PlayedForDrama at different points, and it factors into the origin of one major character).
** They do, however, have the occasional one who isn't part of the LGM collective.
** Getting to the topic of Zurg stealing the 'Unimind' in 'The Adventure Begins', he uses it in a plot to link everyone in the universe to him after infecting it with his evil.
* The ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "Auto Erotic Assimilation" has Unity, a hive-minded being who was in a relationship with Rick.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Krista and Tatiana Hogan, conjoined twins from Vernon, Canada, share parts of their brain which have never before been investigated in conjoined twins. It is believed that they share many aspects of consciousness, including vision and sensation - for example, if one is tickled, both react.
[[/folder]]

* The aliens in ''[[VideoGame/{{XCom}} XCom UFO Defense]]'' are completely controlled by an alien brain on Mars. In the [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown remake]], [[spoiler: this is subverted. At first it certainly ''seems'' like the the aliens are all being controlled by one powerful alien, and Dr. Shen even hypothesizes that this is the case, but in the end, the aliens are just slave races controlled by the Ethereals.]]

* The Flood. While an early stage infestation lacks a hivemind and thus behaves in a mostly non-sentient manner, later stages will be coordinated by a highly-intelligent "Gravemind" once enough sentients are assimilated. Said Gravemind has access to every single bit of knowledge from every single sentient ever consumed by the Flood, even if said consumption happened 100,000 years ago.

* The Flood from ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''. While an early stage Flood infestation lacks a hivemind and thus behaves in a mostly non-sentient manner, later stages will be coordinated by a highly-intelligent "Gravemind" once enough sentients are assimilated. Said Gravemind has access to every single bit of knowledge from every single sentient ever consumed by the Flood, even if said consumption happened 100,000 years ago.
** The Hunters are a gestalt organism composed of worms called Lekgolo. When a colony gets too big for one suit, it splits into a bonded pair with a shared consciousness, which is why they are encountered mostly in pairs during the game.
** The insectoid Drones also share a hivemind, which makes them a lethal foe.

* The Mindhome in ''DarkSun: Shattered Lands'' (not surprising, as Athas is a psionic-rich world, someone has to try). It's of communal (as opposed to fused) variety and is not aggressive. {{PC}}s can pick (from ''both'' sides) side-quest to resolve the issue causing disagreement enough to split Mindhome in two (and demise of some participants).

* In the classic DonaldDuck and Uncle Scrooge stories of CarlBarks, Huey, Dewey and Louie are virtually indistinguishable in appearance and personality, and almost invariably finish each other's sentences. Their ability to pool their intellects (and tap into the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything Junior Woodchuck Guidebook]]) makes them smarter than any of the other characters, including wily, savvy Scrooge himself; they're almost always the ones to solve the mystery/resolve the problem.

* The Tyranids of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' embody this trope to a T. They are a HordeOfAlienLocusts that do not have independent minds at all, instead being one giant cosmic superorganism. But it's not just they're physical weapons you have to worry about, as [[EldritchAbomination cosmically-frightening]] as some of them are; they even have an invasive impact on [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]], the alternate dimension where psychic powers and FTL-drives tap into. The swirling energies, dark gods and daemons that inhabit the Warp make individual contact with said plane extremely dangerous (often fatal), but the sheer size of the Tyranid Hive Mind brushes them aside with little effort. A Hive Fleet's mere presence swamps and occupies the Warp so fully that technologies that use psychic powers (including interstellar travel and communication) are rendered useless, and people attempting to psychically communicate with this strange hive mind are [[GoMadFromTheRevelation instantly driven insane]]. In other words, Tyranids can suck up all the interstellar bandwidth and [=DDoS=] all FTL-communication into and out of an area.

* The Bohrok from ''{{Bionicle}}''. Originally it was implied they were merely the drones of the Bahrag Queens, but Bohrok continued to operate as a Hive after the Bahrag's defeat.

* The [[Film/HiveMind film sharing the name of this trope]] has a feminist version of this.

** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-171 SCP-171 ("Collective Brain Foam")]] also counts as a hive mind, a gigantic foam-looking colony of microscopic organisms that incorporates any organism into its mass, resulting in a collective consciousness.

** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-171 SCP-171 ("Collective Brain Foam")]] also counts as a hive mind, a gigantic foam-looking colony of microscopic organisms that incorporates any organism into its mass, resulting in a collective consciousness.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation

There is a traditional tendency in SF and fantasy shows for Hive Mind species to be xenophobic, aggressive, and evil, even when they aren't a HordeOfAlienLocusts. This may well be due to a perceived metaphorical overlap with DirtyCommunists, or a residual, primal fear relating to eusocial insects, which are our only known examples of Hive Minds in RealLife. It could be justified, however, as it's possible that a truly hive-minded species may literally never encounter another sentient entity until it achieves interstellar travel, and so have a distinct lack of social skills. This trope is particularly common among [[{{Transhuman}} transhumanist]] works, however, where an advanced level of technology is assumed.

Related to, but separate from {{Synchronization}}, where each individual ''experiences'' what the other does without necessarily being in rapport with each other. Contrast both MindHive and ManySpiritsInsideOfOne, both its complete opposites, when multiple minds or SplitPersonalities are sharing one body (differentiated by the level of accord between them and/or their "host"); and PiecesOfGod, where a CosmicEntity is split into several pieces, which may or may not be living entities themselves. May be controlled by a HiveQueen, which serves as the titular keystone of a KeystoneArmy of {{Hive Drone}}s. See also PsychicLink for other connections between minds. A related plot is TheEvilsOfFreeWill. Compare SplitPersonalityMerge, where two or more SplitPersonalities become one. When the person speaks in plural, see IAmLegion. If the hive mind is controlling many smaller creatures that forms the shape of a larger creature, you may be dealing with TheWormThatWalks.

* In the Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse, the Tholians are part way there. While all individuals (and indeed possessing just as many dreamers, dissenters, seditionists and individualists as any other Trek culture), they have a version of this on the instinctive level. The Tholian lattice connects the minds of all Tholians, distributing basic race-knowledge to all and allowing individuals to commune with one another. The lattice is regulated carefully, with different castes having different degrees of access. On occasion, it can indeed cause the entirety of the Tholian race to share an experience, as was the case with the telepathic assaults of the Shedai. See Literature/StarTrekVanguard and Literature/StarTrekTheLostEra in particular.

* The Aparoids in ''[[VideoGame/StarFox Star Fox: Assault]]'' think collectively; further proven when the Aparoid Queen starts speaking weirdly.
* The Bacterians from the ''Gradius'' series. They are usually led by Bacterion, the EldritchAbomination BigBad that uses smaller Hive Minds like Gofer and Venom to command his fleets. If a Bacterian Hive Mind gets killed, the pieces of the Hive Mind will regenerate to become a new Hive Mind.
* Ermac from ''MortalKombat'' is a fusion of hundreds of souls which all operate under one mind (referring to himself in the plural form). However, his ending in ''Mortal Kombat Armageddon'' shows a godlike power separating the many souls contained within him. These souls soon become new bodies and eventually Ermac becomes an army linked by collective consciousness.

* The Voxai in ''SonicChronicles: The Dark Brotherhood'' are also run by an overmind. The BigBad's influence turns this Overmind hostile, changing its messages from suggestions to commands.

* ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' has a weird version: a planet-sized gestalt consciousness formed from the fungus that covers most of the planet, along with its mind worm guardians. Also notable for being an essentially benign entity and force as long as you play nice with the environment. If you don't, Planet is just as dangerous, if not more so, than the other human factions.