The nature of Insect consciousness
Well, I don’t see the LEXX as being a true ‘Insect’, at least in the sense of being a member of the ‘Insect Civilization.’
My own vision is that the ‘Insect Civilization’ was composed of a dominant species similar to the Gigashadow, which were ecologically the equivalent of space going whales.
They were asteroid sized creatures travelling in huge pods from one planetary system to the next, stripping it down to bedrock and moving on. Perhaps leaving surviving fragments to rebuild the ecologies in time for their next feeding, a thousand or ten thousand years later.
Apparently, their essence could be transmitted from one individual to another. It was necessary to animate them. So, I assume that essence was divisible. Otherwise, Insects who animated their children would lose their own animation.
In the case of LEXX. The Insect essence was passed into humans, into Divine Shadows and from one to another. In each, after the departure, there was always a residue of Insect Essence left behind. The Gigashadow, when it destroyed the Predecessors said it was taking back its essence from them. Also, the essence was able to divide to hide in both Kai and Yottskry. The residue of essence explains why the Divine Shadow bodies were venerated and kept on Ruma.
The Insect Essence appears to have been able to overwhelm and dominate a human personality, this occurs with Yottskry and Kai. But it was probably easier to damage or destroy the human mind with electroshock, which would keep the human mind from resisting the insect consciousness.
The insect essence probably shaped what was left of the brain patterns, so that after a while, even without the essence, the brain would have gone on thinking of in the same way.
But clearly, some trace of the Insect Essence did survive. The Predecessors exhibited powers. They could transmit memories among themselves and to humans, and they could summon and under some circumstances control humans. The fact that they were even able to function suggests that they were far more than ordinary brains, which would have obviously died.
I assume from its behaviour in humans that
Shadow essence behaved similarly in Insects and was probably an essential part of their reproductive cycle (given from what we know of Kai and the Gigashadow larvae in Mantrid), and part of their communication and social structure (not an unreasonable speculation).
The essence, or fragments of essence were probably passed from adults to larvae or juveniles. It may have also been exchanged among adults, either as romance, social, kinship or for dominance. The transfer of essence may have been roughly equivalent to whale songs in some ways. It probably formed the basis of their civilization, since they were probably not technological in ways that we understand (assuming the Gigashadow was representative of the species).