When most spirits receive deadly stun damage, they are disrupted and go back to their metaplane for some duration. However bug spirits have an anchor to the physical plane.

1. Would they be sent back to the bug metaplane, or would they collapse, unconscious/disrupted but trapped inside their host body?

2. Since they've already established a link to this world, could they get back after their banishment was done?

3. If they are sent back, what happens to their physical component - the host body? Does it collapse and sit there inert now that nothing's animating it, or go through rapid decomposition like a destroyed zombie?

4. Would the answers be different for True forms than for Flesh forms? How about for Queens?

**Correction: changed 'physical damage' to stun damage disrupting a spirit**

A bug spirit poseessing a body cannot be banished like a regular spirit. The link protects them, but they are vulnerable to having their physical body damaged since they can't have their immunity to weapons. So the trick with a possessed human is small arms fire, or long arms, or EX or AP rounds, flamethrowers etc. the body dies as easily as a normal human and that disrupts the spirit which cannot return. Maybe with the help of a queen or shaman but no one's ever reported a reoccourring villain of a particualr bug spirit.

In order to return, I would imagine it would need a new host. Why anyone would want to resummon an insect is beyond me, because there are inumerable insect spirits of all levels on the planes...

So that means that, for all practical purposes, knocking a bug spirit out is equivalent to killing it. It can't get back without summoning from a mother or shaman, who could've summoned a fresh one just as easily.

What about the 'meaty' bits? I would assume that they just fall inert. True forms eat the host as they emerge, so there wouldn't be anything left of them after disrupting, right?

Related question: can free true form bugs go to their metaplane and get back again unhindered?

I wouldn't imagine so. Though they do Eat their host, they still are tied to it's essence, so they still have the physical link, right? Well, I don't know, they are supposed to be naturally Astral, and can manifest physically right? Good question...

Had been thinking about a potential

Better yet: have the queen hide her life in one of the runners

I thought about that, but I'm not quite that evil yet.

I don't think a spirit could use its Hidden Life power on someone who's already dead. And it's hard to imagine a queen doing that with a bug shaman, since there is usually a power struggle between the shaman and the queen (which the queen usually wins). It's hard to imagine a queen doing that with a metahuman, period, actually. Metahumans are food for bug spirits - it would be like imbuing your power in a bologna sandwich.

By the way, insect spirits all have Materialization as one of their listed powers, so they do have Immunity to weapons equal to their Essense - if it were not so, insect spirits would be ridiculously weak, capable of easily being taken down by small arms fire, when the books/adventures all seem to imply that overwhelming firepower is needed to have any chance against them.

True Form bugs would be disrupted when killed, I suppose they could be summoned back but you wouldn't really be too bothered about getting a specific one I wouldn't think.

As for Flesh Forms, as far as I'm aware you can knock them out and treat them just like normal folks without disrupting the spirit. They are essentially inseperable!

a person whose at D damage, but hasn't filled up his overflow boxes, isn't dead, and is therefore fair game for hidden life. and, keep in mind, the queen/shaman doesn't have to show up right away--they're too powerful for your runners now, but maybe 50 or so karma from now...

i don't see anything in MitS that says you can't disrupt a true form.

I thourght that a queen spirit would be allmost impossible to kill.
1) she is a free-spirit (if the sharman has lost control)
2) Free spirits returns after 28 days - force / successes(? can't remember and isn't really important)
3) you can only kill a free spirit on it's homeplane
4) only insect shamans can travel to insect meta planes

I can't remember having found any mentioning of True-form spirits having any physical link to earth, that you can destroy, so I would assume that they are handled like any disrupted spirit, ei. will return after 28 days.

But maybe I'm wrong, haven't looked in my SR books for a long time