Information we have that may be relevant:
1) Elden's native language is not English. It's probably not French, either, unless Genex speaks a very different form than Celandine's Hive does - Amber or Morton probably would have recognized it, even if they couldn't understand the words.
2) He tells young Amber that his name is Elden, but he could be lying - he's trying to kidnap a three-year-old girl from a very public place, and if she gets suspicious then he's in a world of trouble, so if his name would stand out as unusual for Hive England, he might have given her a fake name to blend in better. If that is his real name, it's actually an old English name, which is no help at all since we've already established he doesn't speak English natively.
3) It's across the water from England. We don't know which side he came in from, so this could be either mainland Europe or the America (or theoretically Africa, although it'd be a very long flight). He's theorized to have come ashore near the sea farm in Telepath, and since the sea farm seems to face towards mainland Europe that would imply that he's also originally from there, but too much extrapolation is involved to say for certain.
4) Unlike "England", which is of course a real modern location, "Genex" is not a recognizable place name. It is the name of a vast number of businesses and companies, ranging from physical therapy clinics to shipping companies, one of which could have created a Hive and named it after the company. (There is also a building in Serbia called "Genex Tower", after a former corporate resident.)
- Based on these points, I'm guessing that Hive Genex is somewhere in continental Europe; more specifically, I like the idea of Switzerland, although I don't have anything specific to point to. Geneva, the obvious seed based on the names, mostly speaks French, but it's possible that changed in the years before the Hive and/or the centuries of separation have pushed Genex's French far enough from Celandine's Hive's French that neither Amber nor Morton recognized it. Alternately, he could be from elsewhere; Zurich could probably support a Hive, and they mostly speak German.
- Borderline marks Genex as being part of "the genetics group" that practiced more-extensive eugenics than the other hives; the name is presumably related to that. That gives no information on its location, however.
- We know they don't speak French, which presumably rules out other Romance languages such as Spanish or Italian. That seems to rule out most of Western Europe as a location.
- We also know that at least some of their population is Caucasian: the cover art for the upcoming Adversary depicts a blonde woman, named as Adversary Aura of Hive Genex. This troper's best guesses are either Germany or Russia, as both those languages' words for "genetic" are consistent with "Genex".
- French isn’t impossible. Amber only learns briefly about French in Hurricane, two books, and 2/3rds of a year after she reads Eldens mind, plus his mind is fragmenting so is very hard for her to get any proper reading on. Morton read Celandines mind nearly 40 years ago, then has her imprinted with English so she can communicate properly with him, and he doesn’t ever properly read Eldens mind either. Since neither speak French, it’s also likely they wouldn’t recognise it if they read a French speaking/thinking mind again - Amber says that she can understand technical things more when reading someone’s mind who understands it, or understand things like the layout of the sea farm better when reading the Admirals mind but that knowledge fades very quickly after she leaves their minds, most likely as she herself doesn’t learn it the ‘regular’ way nor is imprinted with it.
NOTE: Borderline spoilers below.
Given that Borderline says they kidnapped three other people, all before they were imprinted, why would they attempt to grab Amber? It seems unlikely that they would know she would become a full telepath. Kidnapping a full telepath would be absolutely certain to draw attention to their scheme, given their rarity. However, that doesn't mean Amber wasn't of interest to them.
Amber was, if not the oldest of Claire's great-grandchildren, certainly one of the oldest. She also may have been the first one to be born below Level 20, where she'd be much easier to get to. Her father was a duty child of Claire's oldest child, and was raised on Level 14, but Amber grew up on Level 27. Level 20, the Law Enforcement level, appears to be the line between the Hive's elite and the middle class, so security above that line is presumably more attentive, and the smaller number of people would make a stranger like Elden stand out.
Theory: Hive Genex attempted to kidnap Amber, not because she was a telepath, but because she was the first descendant of Claire that they could safely make the attempt on. If Elden had had more leeway in his actions, he might have backed off from attempting to complete the abduction on Amber because she was too dangerous. However, his oversized imprints didn't give him any choice.
- They theorise in the first book that Elden/hive genex have a way to test for telepaths at age 3. Megan points out that the brain undergoes lots of changes at that age, so it’s possible that this is when a telepaths abilities first appear/emerge, and there’s a way to detect this before they instinctively raise barriers to protect themselves from all the telepathic chatter before they’re old enough to control it. Megan says their hive tried to spot telepaths at aged 12, but the experiments were stopped when it was made clear that they weren’t getting anywhere due to this shielding being too strong. Genex appears to have less scruples about experimenting on their citizens, and were desperate enough after the hives nearly collapsed from all the disease that ran rampant, to continue what we would consider unethical experiments. Also, when Amber later asks about her paternal family, she has to pass extra security checks, and it’s confirmed in the first book Elden wasn’t able to access anything more than their basic computer systems, he wasn’t able to access any secure areas, making it unlikely he/genex were able to find out Claire’s family tree.
- Hypothesis on how Genex was able to find Amber despite the secure access requirements: if you have access to the full 'open' data set, finding Claire's descendants won't be as difficult as you'd think. The mother's medical records will say something like 'gave birth to male child at 8:23PM on day 112, year 2483 in Blue Zone Maternity Center'. Then you search the records for a male child born at that time on that day in that place.
- Confirmed in Adversary that Amber was targeted as a descendant of Claire who was not clearly linked to her because Amber's father was an adopted duty child.
- They theorise in the first book that Elden/hive genex have a way to test for telepaths at age 3. Megan points out that the brain undergoes lots of changes at that age, so it’s possible that this is when a telepaths abilities first appear/emerge, and there’s a way to detect this before they instinctively raise barriers to protect themselves from all the telepathic chatter before they’re old enough to control it. Megan says their hive tried to spot telepaths at aged 12, but the experiments were stopped when it was made clear that they weren’t getting anywhere due to this shielding being too strong. Genex appears to have less scruples about experimenting on their citizens, and were desperate enough after the hives nearly collapsed from all the disease that ran rampant, to continue what we would consider unethical experiments. Also, when Amber later asks about her paternal family, she has to pass extra security checks, and it’s confirmed in the first book Elden wasn’t able to access anything more than their basic computer systems, he wasn’t able to access any secure areas, making it unlikely he/genex were able to find out Claire’s family tree.
Theory: In the past, there was an attempt at global weather control that went horribly wrong. Global weather patterns were broken, leading to storms that were significantly worse than had ever been seen before. This may have been part of what led to the creation of the Hives in the first place.
- Or they’ve just changed the classification system or use a completely different one. This is set 500 years in our future. Given the events of the population plummet shortly after the wholesale adoption of the hive system and then the implementation of the hive treaty, its very possible that they created a new standardised system. That way they can know for sure when they give sea farms storm warnings everyone is working from the same information, so no sea farm/hive can refuse save harbour and claim “oh we thought it was a class X storm in our way of reckonings so we thought they’d be fine out in the storm!”
- Don’t forget Olivia. We aren’t told how long Olivia is an active telepath before she succumbs to fragmentation (and even now she does the occasional check run as her telepathy still works), and it’s long enough for Keith to develop a friendship with her. Plus, we don’t know how long Morton has had health problems, and had to lessen his work load.
- Confirmed in Adversary. Nishant died just before Olivia's lottery, and Blake died a few years later as Olivia's fragmentation was completely overwhelming her. Nishant was fairly old but Blake was only 48.
