Bugearth - The lore of Lustful Bugs #2 - Antiquity and the Origin of Bugs

Much of the period before prehistory is unknown and filled with myths. But the existence of the Ancestral Golems suggests that at some point there was an advanced civilization living on Bugearth. Their disappearance is mysterious, some suggest the fall of a meteor that swept the planet and gave the Bugs the opportunity to reign supreme in a brand new world.

During antiquity, the Bugs were much more like grotesque animals, with large complex eyes, multiple limbs, mouths made of chitinous plates and were tiny in size. As they evolved they increased in size drastically, but not enough to outnumber their predators: lizards (later called dragons), amphibians, mole rats, anteaters and ancestral Bugs such as Centipedragons and Pillbugosaurus.

The Bugs had clutches of hundreds of eggs because danger was always lurking and there was never any certainty that their lineage would survive to see tomorrow, which contributed to the common culture focused on the importance of sex and reproduction. For the same reason, they ended up creating the ability to reason, to build safe homes and weapons and traps capable of defending themselves against their natural oppressors.

It has never been known for sure which species created a civilization first. Some point to crabs because it makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective. But not even they know their origins because for many ages, hidden in the depths of the ocean, they were at the mercy of the mind control of their former masters: the mystical mollusks Scylla, which drastically affected their memory and reasoning.

There is evidence that the Scorpions of the Great Desert were already creating skiffs guided by sails and complex weapons to hunt large desert beasts even before writing was created. At the same time, parts of the structure and forgotten chambers of the Coleoptera Coliseum date back to before the first known scorpion clans were created.

Bees will never admit their existence as a late society compared to their rivals, ants and termites, who, since before the age of copper and iron, have been fighting for territory and resources since the cave paintings of the deep chambers of their oldest anthills and termite mounds have recorded them. Mantises and Moths have more supernatural myths to explain their origin, from being created by the moth goddess, the Great Light, to being sculpted by the Floran dryads from flowers from the depths of the mega forests.

There are also records of the now nearly extinct fireflies that point to the divine myth shared by moths, that Bugs are the fruit of the Aether pantheon, created by the Great Light, the moth deity said to be as bright as L'os itself. But their temples and scrolls are more recent than records of other species already mentioned, dating back to the medieval era of Bugearth.

According to the research of Shakir Redsting, the famous archaeologist of the Museum of the Fallen Scarab on Arthropocity, the origin of the Bugs may be linked to species originating from the underground and the bottom of the ocean. Arthropods as ancient and mysterious as Pillbugosaurus, Centipedragons and Stone-Eaters, in addition to the myths about the Wyrm, a deity represented as a large worm born from the entrails of Bugearth, are proof that their theories may be correct.

Currently, technology has been able to, if not completely extinguish, drastically reduce the population of natural predators of Bugs. This has triggered a faster evolution, with less bestial traits and a decline in the number of eggs in their clutches and an ovoviviparous gestation.