There is no reason to believe that integrating alien technology would be easier than creating it ourselves
Yep, it's way harder to use a stolen car than creating new from scratch
My idea is to get a small hive developing advanced technology so that we can make the most of our resources.
Yep, exactly pure tech route. I know that you voted for a tech queen, but let's play the one that got voted
Besides let's sit in a hole until we build galaxyfaring spaceship or fleet that can rival one of bipeds, while sitting inside one small base... It's decades
and if we are forced into operating on a purely subterranean basis then external forces will be free to martial against us and can effectively quarantine us.
Unless we build spaceships undeground. Or turn Mars into one large, kick-ass spaceship, completely changing it with thousands of billions of Kai or find another creative solution
Of cause we'll have diverse castes, having only undeground ones is boring, but castes that can exploit planet up to it's core are quite interesting.
And right now we are more technology dependant than biology dependant
Something I want to change, I want subtype of hive to be able to survive with no tech at all, that will speed our spread rate and make us virtually impossible to destroy with anything but planet destroying weapons
We absolutely cannot afford to engage in aggression without extraplanetary transport,
We can. Because no, humans will not call that ubercivilization instantly. Firstly because they likely never met them, second because nations tend to not call for help unless situation is dire
If we are truly to be utterly committed to the path of the body, then we should spawn an additional body queen, to accelerate our development.
Well, yes and no. One more royal jelly generating plant can be quite nice, but baby making can be done by other methods, like upgrading commanders and nurses, faster solution that will allow is to expand numbers faster.
Besides there are huge amount of castes and subcaste we may create, we will not be committed to one type of queen, maybe we'll indeed make tech queen next, but there are no need to rush to the queen ignoring more tactical needs
__________________________
I dislike upgrade everything route for pollinator
My upgrade pollinator proposal Just upgrade pollinator's intelligence and commanding using exerience gained from vivisecting the LVL1 commander, everything else is secondary. And I am not sure that trying both fertility and upgrade is a good idea.
First priority: Bring it's level of intelligence to intelligent level making it able to do plant related research and commanding up to ten pollinators\drones
Second priority: Upgrade of whatever organs used to communicate with flowers
Third priority: Try to raise it's intelligence to Independent level and ability to command up to 30 pollinators\drones