The Initiation is the standard right-of-passage into the Hive Clan created by Matriarch cz1420 during his reign. This process is a normal special round, and thus is fought as a duel against a subleader of the Clan; it is also known for being the easiest of all Hive special rounds, and the only one of two normal rounds that does not distribute rankups. It is also the only special round that has an unlimited amount of time for completion. Prior to the creation of this round, all Hive members simply joined the Hive via vocal acceptance by the incoming initiate. To be initiated into the Hive, one must first seek the Matriarch, Monarchs, Queens, Deacons, Kings, or Empresses to get initiated. (This is the only one of two special rounds a Deacon in Hivebloods can host.) From there, the member must do one of the initiations, in AvP, Warframe, or ACM. During this round, members are the unofficial "Egg" rank. Completing this round with make the gamer the very first rank of the Hive, the "Facehugger" rank. Before, during, or after the initiation is when the Matriarch will introduce all the information of the Hive to the player, unless the player has already been told of everything or already knows everything of the Hive.
The Lecture
A part of this special round is listening to the Lecture first, which the host of the match tells. After a person has proclaimed themselves an initiate at Egg rank, this will be told to them. It takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on the interruptions done. The Lecture tells all the basics of the clan, so the initiate knows the simple things. The first things are "superbasics," which tell the Egg what the clan is, where it is in, how many members it has, that it has a wiki, a YouTube Channel (The Hive Clan is the name of the channel), and how they can go to Matriarch for any extra help. Next is the ranking system, where the 15 natural ranks, 5 unnatural ranks, and the prestige system are introduced. After that, the Five Methods on how to rank up are introduced (optional). Finally, a list of the Hive's games, specials rounds, and activities are given. Nowadays, however, the host usually only tells the Egg initiate the superbasics because the original Lecture took too long. If this shorter path is taken, then the initiate must then read the Ranks page, which basically reveals most of the Lecture anyway (except the superbasics). This reduces the Lecture's time down to 5 minutes, but the Egg must read the page on his own time. The Egg then goes on to do the Initiation round.
AvP Version
The AvP one is simple. One member will be brought to a map (usually Gateway) and will have to kill the Matriarch or Empress 3 times in a row with melee kills. There is an exception, though, which lies with the marine. This match is the only speical round that the Matriarch permits the playing of all 3 species. When playing as alien or predator, the player may use melee attacks ONLY. When playing as marine, the initiate can only use the pistol and melee attacks, so not many players get initiated by the marine. This is the only special round in which the Matriarch goes easier on a member, for other special rounds require much more skill in melee. The Matriarch evalutes a players skill during the first fight, and from there he goes on by going on a set skill against the initiate. Or the Matriarch will go easy on the player upon request. If the player fails an Initiation, they merely just have to retry again until they make it. The only way to fail this match is to give up completely. The objective is to kill the Matriarch 3 times in A ROW. Upon winning, the player is congradulated and becomes a "Facehugger" rank.
Aliens: Colonial Marines Version
This version of Initiation has been adapted to ACM. It is harder and requires more time. Because of the 2-round match setup of ACM, an initiate but do an AvP initiation nearly twice. In the first round, one must play as an alien against the Matriarch as the marine. Here, they must kill the Matriarch 3 times in a row as the alien, while the Matriarch may only use pistol, flamethrower, and grenades. Here, the Matriarch will go easy after analyzing, or upon request, just like AvP. If they lose, they have inifinite tries in both rounds. For the second half, one must do the match the other way around. They must play as a marine and kill the Matriarch as alien 3 times in a row. When playing as a marine, and Initiate must only use pistol and any grenades. Upon beating both halves, an Initiate becomes a member of the Hive as a "Facehugger" rank.
Automatic Initiation
There is a way to be automatically initiated. This is referred to as the Initiation Failsafe, as doing this will automatically make a person in the clan at Facehugger rank. To do the failsafe, an Egg initiate who has not yet been initiated but has heard the Lecture can introduce a glitch to the Matriarch or whoever is hosting the round. If the glitch is unknown to the Hive, that person is automatically in the Clan, although this is rarely done. Those who do this must still listen to the Lecture, though. Members Londynn9999 and Amature99, DeadlyShadoWolf (Xbox Sector) have done the Initiation Failsafe.
Those initiated into a subclan of the Hive also have the automatic ability to receive the failsafe as well, as once a player is in a Hive subclan they are automatically denoted as Hive allies, and at their request, a full-fledged Hive member (albeit the Lecture must still be stated).
This is a Facehugger from 4 of the Alien movies, and both of the AvP movies. This rank awaits new initiates in the "Mixblood" level.