I never got into Insectoids, but this one is cute.

Another set never available in Australia.

As much as I was still collecting Lego in the late 90s, I think this Insectoid line was a step too far, for me. I didn't buy very many of them at all (not even the ones that were available in Australia), and years in the future, I do regret that.

Ah yes, Insectoids. Those transparent blue wings (and others like it) are easy to snap, in my experience. Still great parts and loads of fun, though.

I definitely never had this set. I own several of the robot minifig, but never associated it with Insectoids.

@Phoenixio:
I liked the minifigs, and the trans-blue wings, but absolutely hated the giant insect legs. They really killed the theme for me. But I did make this using the larger wings:

https://www.maskofdestiny.com/0002241

The insectoids theme was so hard to build into anything other than giant bugs. I had several of the sets but of a childhood collecting Lego space themes, this was my least favorite.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Phoenixio:
I liked the minifigs, and the trans-blue wings, but absolutely hated the giant insect legs. They really killed the theme for me. But I did make this using the larger wings:

https://www.maskofdestiny.com/0002241"

That was around the time they were pushing Technic with all the contraction type stuff like Bionicle, which came shortly after. I'm not super surprised that they made bigger dedicated pieces for that. They're not the most fantastic pieces, for sure, but for me it worked and gave the desired robot-insect spookiness.

@TheOtherMike:
I think it was the trans-blue Ruru that got me thinking about making a dragonfly. That and probably having a 3-4” long dragonfly land on my hand.

It was intended to be a Rahi, back when I built it, but it wasn’t based on anything official.

No proboscis. Dragonflies are insectivores. They have chompy bits.

Also, Nicole Kidman seems nicer. So does Yvonne Strahovski, but she got her start doing stunt work, so she might have some unarmed combat training.

Only by chance was I at the right time at the right place: I'm not sure why I was at Tchibo then (likely one of the dreaded cloth-shopping saturdays), a store that I never liked much, but buying this and 2964 was a no-brainer impulse. My little brother got this and I got the buggy =D

The design of insectoids was too colorful and unusual for me. Change may please some folks but not me. I'm still looking for oldschool designs. Space Police 3 gave us a taste of the classic designs but sadly had a very short life span. I liked the helmets and the shoulderpads in Insectoids though.

Normally it’s the Insectoid themself doing the driving while their little drone guys get the side vehicles and add ons, I guess in this one Gypsy Moth is too busy doing science stuff in the back and needs to be chauffeured around!

@Brickalili said:
"Normally it’s the Insectoid themself doing the driving while their little drone guys get the side vehicles and add ons, I guess in this one Gypsy Moth is too busy doing science stuff in the back and needs to be chauffeured around!"

The front and back can split off into a land space vehicle, hence the two-person setup.

Insectoids are a weird theme - but I do like them and think they are underrated. Only vehicles and flying things - no bases. It missed having "bad guys" in the theme - imagine what they would look like!
I've managed to collect all this theme - some of the minifigs are fantastic designs, as are the sets themselves.

@Binnekamp said:
" @Brickalili said:
"Normally it’s the Insectoid themself doing the driving while their little drone guys get the side vehicles and add ons, I guess in this one Gypsy Moth is too busy doing science stuff in the back and needs to be chauffeured around!"

The front and back can split off into a land space vehicle, hence the two-person setup."

Many Insectoid vehicles could split up, just normally you have the Insectoid in the main part and the drones in the parts that split off. I guess these two splitting fairly evenly in half means it’s not so obvious what the “main” bit is but it’s still weird seeing the drone given screen time over the Insectoid. They were normally the main event

On another note, @Atuin, thanks so much for the lore explanation yesterday! :D It's so interesting to finally find out the background to themes that I was aware of as a kid but didn't know the details of ^^

My one and only Insectoids set. It is actually two vehicles in one: The section with wings splits off from the section with legs, which is pretty nifty. Queen Gypsy Moth--who is the sixth boss in the first LEGO Racers video game--is included.

Never had this one but really looks similar to a mix of 6817: Beta Buzzer and 2964: Space Spider which I do have.

Insectoids was very good, nice transparent parts, fantastic figures with metallic silver and bronze prints.

Only downside I would say are those old wing hinges , click hinges would work a lot better nowadays as especially the wings on my 6907: Sonic Stinger start to hang from weight/looseness.

The Light and sound part also was very good, you could hold 1 button to rev up a jet engine sound, and the other sounds would be like mechanical cricket chirp or sci-fi laser gun sounds.

@chris38911 said:
"Insectoids are a weird theme - but I do like them and think they are underrated. Only vehicles and flying things - no bases. It missed having "bad guys" in the theme - imagine what they would look like!
I've managed to collect all this theme - some of the minifigs are fantastic designs, as are the sets themselves."

Technically the base was 6977: Arachnoid Star Base , which also has a radar tower structure.
UFO could serve as the rival faction from the similar era on shelves.

@HOBBES said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"While I know I'm in the minority here, Insectoids is my favorite Space subtheme. The blue cybernetic characters were a delight, and the big green "eyes" used for windscreens were awesome. In fact, my Minecraft skin is a Zotaxian (the dudes who built the Insectoids.) Or at least... what 12 year old me was capable of drawing in pixel art adjacent to an Zotaxian.

Oh right, I'm the lore guy. Insectoids lore varied from region to region, but the gist of it was there was a tyrannical ruler of the Zotaxian race (that most fans believe was Alpha Draconis) who's harsh method's caused members of his cybernetic society to rebel. Led by queen Gypsy Moth, the escapees hid away on the far off planet Holox.

Holox's surface was a harsh and barren desert, however deep inside the planet was a hollowed out core with an "inner sun" in which a vast jungle flourished. The inner sun was an excellent source of power that the Zotaxians could use to rebuild their civilization, however the inner world was filled with massive monsters known as Bilgen Bugs.

The Zotaxians hatched a scheme to plant fake antenna, legs, and wings onto their spacecraft, creating the Insectoids. They'd use these disguised craft to travel to the inner sun and plant batteries shaped like the Bilgen Bugs' eggs to collect electricity. "

I don't know where you get/got all that but it's brilliant. Even if I have limited interest in some themes, I always eagerly read your 'lore' stories. Surprisingly, many of these stories are somewhat 'fresh' and not just a rehash of same old same old.

Knowing that these ships are 'disguised' makes the theme much more 'understandable'.

@Huw, maybe you can create a space on your site to preserve the 'Lego Lore' for posterity!

I don't know of many toy companies that spend the time to develop such back stories."

The same storyline gives this set's robot the name 'Gigabot' with oddly enough is the only Insectoids character to have the same name internationally.

Another character named in the US version is 'Danny Longlegs', the gray-skinned guy with the large eye implant (?) and a large 'X' shaped structure on his torso.

The continental European version of the lore still makes them originate from the planet Zotax, which is also the home of the UFO aliens in the European version. This is a bit odd, since it might imply, that the Insectoids Zotaxians and the UFO aliens were the same species, which they really don't look like. Anyways no conflict is implied here between the 2 factions, most likely because UFO was portrayed much less hostile (sometimes even heroic) in the EU storyline. The Insectoids were explorers from Zotax who discovered a valuable energy source on the planet 'Armeron', or more specifically in it's hollow core. Energy storms inside Armeron's inner surface turned regular rocks into so called 'Volt-O-Lyth Stones' (sometimes called simply 'Volt-Stones'), that the Insectoids would harvest. However their activities would anger the giant insects, that inhabitated Armeron, so they camouflaged their ships as giant insects, so the native creatures would leave them alone.

Awkwardly enough, the Time Cruisers comic sets the world of Aquazone inside an ocean located in Armeron core, so to create a connection between Insectoids and Hydronauts/Stingrays. I heard the same idea was taken up by an activity book released in 1998, however I can not confirm this. There also exists concept art, that would put the Rock Raiders inside this very world, as the were originally meant to be a Space theme, before Star Wars was to take over that role.

The EU version would have Professor Webb (dark green/gray, ground forces) and Captain Wizer (neon green/blue, air forces) as the Insectoids leaders (both guys are the ones with the printed legs). However not much bio is given for them except their names.

List of Insectoids characters:
1) Insectoid Queen Gypsy Moth/Navigator Sharp/Insector II (sets 2965, 6907, 3073)
2) Danny Longlegs/Corp. Steel (6837, 6977, 2964)
3) (Locust)/Professor Webb/Webb (6977, 3070

4) Captain Wizer/Zec (6969, 3072)
5) Lt. Maverick (6817, 6905)
6) Techno Leon/Insector Leon (6903, 6919)
7) Gigabot (3071, 2965, 6919, 6969, 6977)

Both this set and 2964 are said to be promotional exclusives to German Tchibo stores in 1998, but I do not recall ever seeing them available back then. However I did get both a couple years later off of Ebay in MISB condition and they are clearly not the US Shop at Home version (no pcs. count or set name).

Regarding the section on this site for lore, you should check out https://brickset.com/library. It's filled with what you could consider "primary sources."

God these were the worse sets. Never saw so many discounted Lego sets at Walmart/TRU with this theme.

There's a term for a single-use-part. This one is full of them.