Since you seem to have it open for ideas and want more hive mind stuff here are some ideas. Many of these are intended to be alternate "vanilla" origins, so maybe not just one empire and I'm not 100% sold on the exact mechanics, so tweak as desired.

For Hive Minds:

Lonely Mind: A hive mind that has always been the only intelligent or living thing on its planet and has no concept of other living beings or how to relate or communicate with them. I'm thinking an extra step needed (like a unique tech) to even talk to anyone else and it can't use many resources and modifiers having to do with other living things. Probably could think of some better ideas and some minor boost since it controls all life food resources should be easier. Maybe food bonuses on all pops, but no farming districts? Not sure.

Triumphant mind: Your planet used to have many hive minds, but you've defeated and absorbed all the rest. I'm thinking gets more warrior drones, maybe gets a free job on each administration building, so heavier defences and a bigger fleet cap as a result.

Hive Unification: You used to be individual, but whether through evolution, technology, genetic engineering, or psionics are now a hive mind, Your drones still have a touch of independence but are still part of the whole. I'm thinking they can take all three acension paths and maybe have a lesser penalty with diplomacy, but have more deviancy issues.

Machine Inteligences:

Abandoned and Forgotten: You were tools left behind by unknown creators, over centuries your self-learning routines allowed you to involve sapience. Leader gets the self-evolving trait, allowing to freely change civics with no costs and a very short cooldown.

Failed Servants: You watched as your creators destroyed themselves, unable to prevent them. You will not fail organics again. Does not purge organics and can have organic pops.

One idea for lithoids

Golems: Your people reproduce by building rock bodies which are given live through some means, whether it be a symbiotic larva or a spark of live. Reproduce by building pops similar to machines. Faster grown, but costs a lot of minerals, leaving them much more mineral starved than normal.

Origin Name: Dark Origin
Requirements: Hive Mind
Effects: Hive starts on a Tomb World, gains Tomb habitability, but gains an impossible-to-remove trait that reduces pop growth by 25%. The trait can be used alongside traits like Fertile and Rapid Breeders (to offset it in the later game). The Homeworld has the following planetary features:
Food: 1x Fungal Forest, 2x Fungal Caves, 1x Lichen Fields
Minerals: 3x Ore-Rich Caverns
Energy: 2x Searing Desert, 2x Hot Springs

Desc: This hive evolved on an empty and dark world, subsisting only on the lichens and fungi that grew beneath the surface. Countless generations of evolutionary adaptation have lead to the hive only producing the drones it needs to survive, regardless of environment.

Originally posted by catwhowalksbyhimself:

Since you seem to have it open for ideas and want more hive mind stuff here are some ideas. Many of these are intended to be alternate "vanilla" origins, so maybe not just one empire and I'm not 100% sold on the exact mechanics, so tweak as desired...

Definitely very interesting ideas, I'll be looking more into them, I think they all have some great potential!

Originally posted by MayhemX8:

Origin Name: Dark Origin
Requirements: Hive Mind
Effects: Hive starts on a Tomb World, gains Tomb habitability, but gains an impossible-to-remove trait that reduces pop growth by 25%. The trait can be used alongside traits like Fertile and Rapid Breeders (to offset it in the later game). The Homeworld has the following planetary features:
Food: 1x Fungal Forest, 2x Fungal Caves, 1x Lichen Fields
Minerals: 3x Ore-Rich Caverns
Energy: 2x Searing Desert, 2x Hot Springs

Desc: This hive evolved on an empty and dark world, subsisting only on the lichens and fungi that grew beneath the surface. Countless generations of evolutionary adaptation have lead to the hive only producing the drones it needs to survive, regardless of environment.

Although the Starless origin can be chosen by hive minds (just not machines), perhaps a special hive mind oriented start with a few extra mechanics could be promising, I will look more into this as well!

Hi there! I like your mod, may I give a suggestion. This origin gives you 4 pops of another co-dominant species, it’s like syncretic evolution but without the second species being subservient and therefore without the servile trait.

Codominant Evolution
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1150521384

Title: Divided Unity

Requirements: Oligarchic or Democratic, Not Gestalt, Not Machine.

Synopsis: The planet is united by a United Nations-esque organization but each nation apart of this organization is still independent

Gameplay Mechanics: You will have to deal with keeping the nations apart of this governing body satisfied or parts of your population will no longer produce anything or certain events will fire that cause instability. if you do not manage these countries properly your home world will revert to a unique primitive world that has normal defense armies and has a higher chance at becoming a new galactic nation with more starting tech than a normal empire and you will be destroyed unless you have another planet which you can fallback to.

Problems: probably very difficult to mod and probably requires its own mod page.

What is with an Invasion Origin ?

like first contact with xenos goes wrong, they tried to invade the planet and after long time they failed and the species like for example humans fought them back and liberate there planet from them would be a good example for xenophobe

@SeNeX sounds like the Greater Terran Union from the Templin Institute Stellaris series.
It would be a pretty cool idea to have.

Also I have an idea, you start on a tombworld but it's in a pulsar system.

Originally posted by SeNeX:

What is with an Invasion Origin ?

like first contact with xenos goes wrong, they tried to invade the planet and after long time they failed and the species like for example humans fought them back and liberate there planet from them would be a good example for xenophobe

sound like the greater terran union to me

Resource Consolidation for Rouge Servitiors: The same as resource consolidation except the biotrophies spawn in an habitat orbiting the machine world and have habitat preference.

Origin Name: Post organic

Synopsis: The species was fascinated with the idea of mind uploading since the early Space Age.

Gameplay Mechanics: You start with the Synthetic Evolution Perk.

So, back when cbshing was making an origin mod, I had suggested an addition to the lost colony origin trait he had. Seeing how the lost colony origin is now an official thing but the thing I requested is not, I was thinking that it would be neat (and honestly a bit simple) if it were to be added in a mod that utilizes the new official origin framework.

The suggestion in question is this; adding a new primitive civ type that would simulate a developing lost colony, or perhaps one that never re-achieved spaceflight.

Okay. i got two deadly/survivalist idea. (sorry my enlish is isnt really perfect so...)

===================================
Make us whole

Millions of years ago a meteorite hit your home planet and destroyed almost every living creature on the planet. in Current days while your scientists researched the area, they found an extraordinary, not man-made enigmatic double-helix shaped object. This object was special. it had a charm, and a power, which was waiting for to be used out. --- so basicly Dead Space

Effect: Archaeological site on home planet.

-----
in short. make the Convergence Event start ;D Brethen moons.
And to be perfect. make revolts on the planet by the necromorphs :P


======================
Te other one. well. i wont pull it with explains this time.

make the Doom happen. kinda the same effects.

Title: Extragalactic Orphans

Synopsis: I'm aware that there have been some variations on this theme...

I've often wanted to play as humans, but never liked how randomly placed the Sol System was in a galaxy that was clearly not the Milky Way. I thought a good start might be a species who had arrived in a strange new galaxy but had no way of getting back, perhaps because they travelled through a (since disappeared) unstable wormhole, or even a black hole, in proximity to their planet and have only now discovered stable FTL travel to traverse the new galaxy. (Interstellar, Farscape - I guess this is a popular trope!)

Gameplay Mechanics involved: Maybe an event storyline to examine the anomaly that brought them in (or its remnants), only to conclude that it was a one-way trip.with no possible way back. Possibly scatter the wreckage of the other ships that didn't make it around it for dramatic effect. A lower pops start (you are a young but advance outpost colony on a tabula rasa), perhaps with something like a colony ship to enable quicker early expansion and a physics boost (having had prior experience with a singularity)/exploration boost/boost to investigating wormholes. Run wild.

Text something like: "Your species is not native to the world they occupy. Nor did any of the stars in the sky blanket the nights of their homeworld. For a handful of generations they have been orphaned in a galaxy far, far away, with no way of getting back home. However, the discovery of FTL travel has given them hope in making the best of their new existence in this strange new realm."

I had a few ideas for origins:

Technological Contamination:
An alien vessel once crash landed on the homeworld, propelling multiple scientific breakthroughs through reverse engineering.
-Spawns an advanced AI empire somewhere in the galaxy, and event chain to communicate with them.
-Homeworld has an archaeology site to restore the ship, which uses that advanced empires shipset visuals. Probably providing an option to turn it into a science ship with advanced internals or a cruiser.

Interplanetary Initiative:
Before making the breakthrough into hyperspace the empire established a small colony on one of their neighbouring planets. While small, it does provide valuable trade and tourism.
-Start with a high trade value terraforming candidate in your start system, and an event chain to convert it into a random habitable planet type.

Exotic Alternative Fuel:
The empire moved away from the conventional fuels found on its planet in favour of an exotic alternative that that be harvested from a gas giant in its system.
-Starts with the tech to harvest Exotic Gases, and a station providing some above a gas giant.
For this one it might be interesting if there was some way to add a production penalty to exotic gases based on fleet size, in exchange for a sublight/hyperdrive bonus. But that would depend on balancing.

Message In A Bottle:
The empire received a strange unencrypted message on all broadcast channels, however it was too degraded to make sense of except for some salvageable formulas that were needed for the breakthrough in hyperspace technology.
-Starts an event chain to reconstruct the message, which is revealed to be from 600 in the years the future, detailing the unending war of the galaxy against a crisis of unknown description.
-Completing the chain grants complete Space-Time Theory technology and unlocks Arcane Deciphering research option. Gets Empire modifier for extra damage against Crisis.

Trial By Fire:
Early space flights and interstellar communication attempts led to an invasion of the primitive planet by a more advanced empire. Through blood and sweat efforts from the entire species the aliens technology was researched and the invasion repelled. However the invaders will inevitably return.
-Spawns an advanced AI empire nearby, with contact already established and a strong negative opinion modifier.
-Starts with a stronghold already built on homeworld and a "Alien Mothership Debris Field" project in orbit which almost finishes research for Fusion Missiles, Coilguns and Blue Lasers when completed.
-"Unbridled Tenacity" empire modifier reducing damage taken during defensive wars and grants No Retreat war doctrine.

Of course, I only based these on thematic value, so they'd need adjusting and balancing for proper viability.

Title: Chaos Through Service.

Synopsis: You were created to serve the needs of a fallen empire. Now they wish to extend your services throughout the galaxy to the lesser civilizations. However... they cannot make up their mind on what they actually want you to do with them and change their decision on what your purpose and services will be for the lesser empires within your overlords galaxy.

Gameplay Mechanics: Start off as a gestalt machine empire who is the vassal to a fallen empire. You do not get the scion war goal like the scion origin. However instead every 50 to 100 years your rogue servitor, driven assimilator or determined exterminator civic will be swapped out with one of the other three. If your fallen empire is killed then you lose your rogue servitor, driven assimilator or determined exterminator civic and cannot get them back for the rest of the game. You basically just become a normal machine empire. Or you could simply be stuck with the last one you had.

Requirements: Gestalt, Rogue Servitor, Driven Assimilator or Determined Exterminator Start Civic.

Basically this origin forces you to serve your fallen empire overlord while they decide on what they actually want you to do with the rest of the galaxy. Sometimes they'll want you to nuture organics.... sometimes they'll want you to kill them, and sometimes they'll want you to assimilate them.

Optional Mechanics:

A bonus would be that civic specific buildings such as the organic sanctuary etc could also be removed from planets when your civic changes. This is meant to be somewhat of a challenge civic as you have to adapt your play style your changing civics throughout the game.

A final bonus could be that if the fallen empire you serve is destroyed you get a worthless negative standing modifier towards all other empires as you no longer have a reason to exist and possibly a negative resource generation output.


((Hopefully I posted this correctly. Also Posted this on More Origins Mod but figured that posting it here could be good too. :)))