@MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

Space Police III would like a word

It was the test version before the actual Buzzer/Mosquito was released

@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

Space Police III would like a word "

Ooh that's a great theme too.

Oh hey, I actually got this one as a hand-me-down!

...I don't know where it is, though...

@Maxbricks14 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

I can deny it and I will deny it. BLACKTRON FOREVER!"

@WolfpackBricksStudios said:" @MCLegoboy said:"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

Space Police III would like a word "

As some whose sigfig has https://brickset.com/parts/6385283/mini-upper-part-no-5933 I have issues with all of you.

Third day in a row that I've owned the RSotD!
Insectoids is my favorite Space subtheme.

I love this one! :)
I remember taking this to school one day and taking pictures....I don't have them anymore, since that phone broke a while ago.

I passed on Insectoids, no regrets. Also UFO, also no regrets...

I’ve got this one! The colors are great.

@Lego_lord said:
"I passed on Insectoids, no regrets. Also UFO, also no regrets..."

I have to admit the UFO guys with the helmets were cool. That and the fiber optics.

I like insectoids. That said, I only have a Sonic Stinger.

This set is the smallest 'regular' set so it's not as complete. But as a swarm type craft it's good.
Although the laser being offset to one side by a stud bothers me.

That's no Mosquito without a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine!

A Mosquito.....not only the most deadly creature, but worse, also the most annoying in the universe. I hate this set....

@Lego_lord said:
"I passed on Insectoids, no regrets. Also UFO, also no regrets..."

As a huge Star Wars and Lego fan in the 90s (and still am of course), these themes were absolutely incredible before Lego Star Wars was introduced. I loved them.

Rebrickable just did a theme review for Insectoids back on Feb. 5th, including all the lore. See here: https://rebrickable.com/blog/786/insectoids/

Wow that "Story Bible" bit is very interesting!

Never seen that, also funny how Christian Faber was behind all this again :D

Though it did not show up on his website thus far...

Some of this stuff went into production, but others not. It also kind of implies the Rock Raiders-Space connection seen in a lot of concept artwork (Rock Raiders itself being likely heavily influenced by Faber's Cybots theme).
I wonder if Zalam and Lomax are supposed to be the grey and blue aliens respectively...

EDIT:
Despite the link, the Rebrickable review is full of name mis-spelings and little oversights, yikes! Even not realizing the World Club name page did mess up all the names. The Danish/German catalogue is way more accurate on that behalf.

@stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)

It’s only in beta, so there might be some bugs…

@sjr60 said:
"That's no Mosquito without a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine!"

Or better yet, two.

My first Insectoids set... still have a fondness for it, even though I don't have it anymore.

Insectoids was one of those themes that I *just* missed, since I didn't hop on the Lego train until 1999, although I knew about from the Lego Adventures magazine that featured the theme in the comic of its December 1999 issue (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?id=63597). (The theme had also featured in a comic of an earlier issue too, but I had missed that one at the time and only got it later.) I was too new to the world of themed Lego to be critical, I just thought it was cool characters and concept, though of course didn't have any sets to explore it with first-hand.

That was until a couple of years later when we were visiting my grandparents in Scotland, and while idly looking around in the local newsagents' I found that they had this set for sale, despite it being maybe three years old by then! Eager to sample the theme, I got my parents to buy it for me straight away.

I didn't regret it. The Mosquito Scout is a fun little set, a nice sample of the pieces that made Insectoids unique - bubble helmet, wings, voltstone crystal - in a small package, and was fun to zoom around and into the various stories I made up with my Lego characters. My one minor annoyance was that the character was some random who I didn't know, rather than one of the three characters who had been identified in the comic that was at that point my only source of Insectoids lore.

(Later, I found on the website that this guy did indeed have a name - Lieutenant Maverick - which was nice to know. I regrettably didn't save away copies of the character bios from the site, though, and haven't been able to find a trace of them anywhere else on the internet either.)

These days, the Celestial Stinger 6969 is the only Insectoids set I have after finding it 85% complete in a charity shop lot, since when I was downsizing my collection I decided that if I was keeping that set I didn't need the smaller Insectoids ships. Not a bad call, all in all, but this was still definitely a cool little set in my eyes ^^

On a different note, I was reading through the old US Lego Mania magazines online a little while ago; and I really can't get my head around the idea they presented that the Insectoids were "evil alien invaders trying to take over earth". It just doesn't match up with anything in the lore that I grew up with (and the fact that the comic about the theme randomly focused on *Scooby Doo* and his group thwarting the Insectoids, as part of a cross-promotion, rather than on the Lego characters themselves, didn't help...!).

(Issue found here; scans aren't mine, credit to the person who uploaded them: https://index.maskofdestiny.com/LEGO/gfx/LegoManiaMagazine/1998/5%20September/)

Admittedly, Adventures did have a comic where the Insectoids ended up on Earth too; but in that case they came in peace, crash-landed, were swarmed by real insects, and immediately fled. And as GSR said, additional lore had them on the run from a cruel leader and having to outwit giant evil space bugs (hence disguising their ships as insects) so that they could harvest the voltstone rocks that they needed to survive. Basically every piece of lore I'd seen presented them as a generally peaceful group - even their appearance in Lego Racers neither confirmed nor denied that assumption - so it was really weird to me to see them presented as the exact opposite to that.

I know Lego lore was often different on different sides of the pond back then, but changing the entire moral alignment of everything in the theme seems like a more extreme case than normal...

@Lego_lord said:
"I passed on Insectoids, no regrets. Also UFO, also no regrets..."

I passed on Insectoids at the time, but there are some sets that I'd like to have now. I got a number of UFO sets, however, and loved them.

@sjr60 said:"That's no Mosquito without a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine!"

It's also not made of wood. Imposter!

@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"On a different note, I was reading through the old US Lego Mania magazines online a little while ago; and I really can't get my head around the idea they presented that the Insectoids were "evil alien invaders trying to take over earth". It just doesn't match up with anything in the lore that I grew up with (and the fact that the comic about the theme randomly focused on *Scooby Doo* and his group thwarting the Insectoids, as part of a cross-promotion, rather than on the Lego characters themselves, didn't help...!).

(Issue found here; scans aren't mine, credit to the person who uploaded them: https://index.maskofdestiny.com/LEGO/gfx/LegoManiaMagazine/1998/5%20September/)

Admittedly, Adventures did have a comic where the Insectoids ended up on Earth too; but in that case they came in peace, crash-landed, were swarmed by real insects, and immediately fled. And as GSR said, additional lore had them on the run from a cruel leader and having to outwit giant evil space bugs (hence disguising their ships as insects) so that they could harvest the voltstone rocks that they needed to survive. Basically every piece of lore I'd seen presented them as a generally peaceful group - even their appearance in Lego Racers neither confirmed nor denied that assumption - so it was really weird to me to see them presented as the exact opposite to that.

I know Lego lore was often different on different sides of the pond back then, but changing the entire moral alignment of everything in the theme seems like a more extreme case than normal..."

There seems to be a bit of a thing going on there in the US around the time, with TLG not wanting certain factions be associated with a "hero" label.

The entire advertising for Pirates reads very differently in the NA market (except for set 6255, but I guess it was too expensive to adapt that).

In the original EU plot, the Pirates were the "good" guys, whilst the Imperial Soldiers and their leaders Broadside & DeMartinet being greedy slave traders and tyrants.
I assume portraying pirates as heroes didn't bode well with American parents?

Same how they turned UFO into full bad guy invaders, despite other material have them a bit more ambiguous.

@Atuin said:
"Also one of the few sets to come with Lt. Maverick."

But still no Goose.

Too soon?

@MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

Okay, I won't!

On a wholly unrelated note... I feel like reminding everyone that Exploriens is LEGO's best original Space theme. Dunno why, maybe it's just an Exploriens reminder kind of day.

@Atuin said:
" @ThatBionicleGuy said:
"On a different note, I was reading through the old US Lego Mania magazines online a little while ago; and I really can't get my head around the idea they presented that the Insectoids were "evil alien invaders trying to take over earth". It just doesn't match up with anything in the lore that I grew up with (and the fact that the comic about the theme randomly focused on *Scooby Doo* and his group thwarting the Insectoids, as part of a cross-promotion, rather than on the Lego characters themselves, didn't help...!).

(Issue found here; scans aren't mine, credit to the person who uploaded them: https://index.maskofdestiny.com/LEGO/gfx/LegoManiaMagazine/1998/5%20September/)

Admittedly, Adventures did have a comic where the Insectoids ended up on Earth too; but in that case they came in peace, crash-landed, were swarmed by real insects, and immediately fled. And as GSR said, additional lore had them on the run from a cruel leader and having to outwit giant evil space bugs (hence disguising their ships as insects) so that they could harvest the voltstone rocks that they needed to survive. Basically every piece of lore I'd seen presented them as a generally peaceful group - even their appearance in Lego Racers neither confirmed nor denied that assumption - so it was really weird to me to see them presented as the exact opposite to that.

I know Lego lore was often different on different sides of the pond back then, but changing the entire moral alignment of everything in the theme seems like a more extreme case than normal..."

There seems to be a bit of a thing going on there in the US around the time, with TLG not wanting certain factions be associated with a "hero" label.

The entire advertising for Pirates reads very differently in the NA market (except for set 6255, but I guess it was too expensive to adapt that).

In the original EU plot, the Pirates were the "good" guys, whilst the Imperial Soldiers and their leaders Broadside & DeMartinet being greedy slave traders and tyrants.
I assume portraying pirates as heroes didn't bode well with American parents?

Same how they turned UFO into full bad guy invaders, despite other material have them a bit more ambiguous."

Mask of Destiny?! Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time.

Isn't that @PurpleDave 's old creation?

@StyleCounselor said:
"Mask of Destiny?! Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time.

Isn't that @PurpleDave 's old creation?"

Yeah, but I drop a link on occasion when I want to reference old articles I posted.

@tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures.

@TheOtherMike said:
" @tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures."

Abandoned camp, one dog standing in the middle, and even the penguins won’t come near.

@PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures."

Abandoned camp, one dog standing in the middle, and even the penguins won’t come near."

Eaten by polar bears?

@StyleCounselor said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures."

Abandoned camp, one dog standing in the middle, and even the penguins won’t come near."

Eaten by polar bears?"

Polar Bears are not found where penguins are. (Unless we're talking about a zoo, of course!)

@Murdoch17 said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures."

Abandoned camp, one dog standing in the middle, and even the penguins won’t come near."

Eaten by polar bears?"

Polar Bears are not found where penguins are. (Unless we're talking about a zoo, of course!)"

Polar bears are found in the Arctic, Lil' Plum.

@Murdoch17 said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @tne328 said:
" @stevild3 said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Insectoids is the best original LEGO Space theme, don't deny it."

So good, they attempted a second helping with galaxy squad

(I'll leave it to those more experienced than me to determine the success of that attempt)"

It's been 12 years and there hasn't been a dedicated unlicensed space theme since. You tell me.

(Cross-theme branding last year was nice. Maybe it'll recur every few years like Arctic, Jungle, and Harbor.)"

Do you know how much I'd love to see the Arctic subtheme of Technic come back? https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Technic/subtheme-Arctic Of course, it wouldn't be nearly the same without the Technic figures."

Abandoned camp, one dog standing in the middle, and even the penguins won’t come near."

Eaten by polar bears?"

Polar Bears are not found where penguins are. (Unless we're talking about a zoo, of course!)"

And one Far Side cartoon, which Gary Larson admitted he'd made a mistake on.

@StyleCounselor said:
"Eaten by polar bears?"

Relocated to the _Ant_arctic, where they ran into some...Thing.

@Murdoch17 said:
"Polar Bears are not found where penguins are. (Unless we're talking about a zoo, of course!)"

There is actually one species of penguin that lives north of the equator. The Galapagos Penguin, endemic to (shock of shocks) the Galapagos Islands, live mostly south of the equator. However, because Isabella Island (the main island) straddles the equator, a small portion of their breeding grounds lies just north of the equator. It's still a bit of a swim for a polar bear, but Hawaii did have to cull a Great Snowy Owl that somehow managed to wind up there.