Pluribus (New Vince Gilligan show on AppleTV)

Well the show runner did say it took him 3 years to come up with the title, and they had hundreds of candidates. Pluribus is just latin for “many”.

I can’t believe it took three years for that. Hell, E Pluribus Unum was just sitting there. I just automatically assumed that’s what they meant the whole time.

He said the worst name they came up with was “Be kind, Remind”. So at least its not THAT.

Not a coincidence since using 1 for “i” is not the regular. But you might also say “plu” is plus is more… More are 1, b us. These things can always be taken further than is warranted.

I binged the three episodes yesterday, so I’m now caught up. When Carol first turned on the TV, none of the channels were showing anything but later she was watching Golden Girls reruns. So do the members of the hive mind watch television for entertainment? Do they go to the movies? Eat food for pleasure? The airport in Bilbao seemed to be deserted so is tourism no longer a thing? Just wondering what life is like for them.

You know, this all sounds a bit like the 1960s TV series A for Andromeda by the great (but sometimes mistaken) Fred Hoyle. Sending complex instructions by radio message over interstellar distances is an intriguing strategy. The results may vary, though.

She was watching a DVD

OK, so those in the hive mind don’t watch television or movies, there’s no war, no crime and no conflict. That leaves a lot of time and resources unused.

Which means most of the world economy will become obsolete, which would lead to complete uniformity of all human culture, including uniformity of dress, a uniform language, and eventually uniform morphology. I would expect this will also lead to uniform (and minimally functional) housing. Shades of The Lathe of Heaven and The Matrix!

Well, with a telepathic hivemind, there would be no language at all.

The only thing they care about is their biological imperative to spread the “virus”. Currently to the immune, I assume after that come the satellite dishes. Or they might be doing both at once, we haven’t really seen them do anything other than clean up and consolidate at this point.

I doubt we’re going to see much of what the joined (those in the hive mind) are up to; the show seems to be mostly about how Carol responds to this situation. I think one of the other unaffected people she met in Bilbao asked her what was wrong with the situation; no war, no crime. But humanity will stagnate if it remains in this state. (The tagline on the Apple TV website, “The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.”)

Is there really any evidence of that yet?

Yes, that is assuming a lot. They say they have a biological imperative to spread the virus, but not that that’s the only desire or point to their existence. They may want a hive mind of many billions of people over several worlds. They may enjoy being alive. You guys are assuming they’re content to spread to a new host and all die off as though that’s their only goal, but that’s absolutely not in evidence. They claim to be enjoying their current existing, maintaining that could very well be a priority for them.

I never said die off, just spread to as many people/beings as possible. The way the collective works I actually think they’d go out of their way to keep as many people part of it as possible.

DVDs. You can see the pong-style DVD screenaver, not to mention the DVD box and whatnot on the table.

Actually, now that you mention it, I remember seeing that DVD logo screensaver.

I gotta say though - I wouldn’t have pegged Carol or even Helen as people to have the DVD collections of The Golden Girls? Are they trying to tell us something about her character that that’s her go-to apocalyptic times show, specifically focusing on Betty White’s clueless but happy Rose telling stories?

I was surprised that the grocery store had been emptied. People still have to eat. Grocery stores would be the perfect distribution centers for that. And they cut off electricity. I guess maybe everyone will just sleep when it’s dark but they would still need some heat/air conditioning. Of course, it’s only been a few days so I guess they are still figuring out the logistics of keeping the Joining alive. And the ones staying with an immune family member (or Cassanova McBoner) will keep living “normal” lives for now.

Maybe it was pretty cheap to get rights to use. It beats most shows, which when they have somebody watching something it is old public domain cartoons.