I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that there will be at least one person separated from the hive mind in future episodes (considering they almost did so in the first season).
And I predict that that person will be in anguish and probably kill themself.
But everyone else will know what that person is feeling and considering. So couldn’t they prevent it?
Well, not if they are separated.
I think it will be Zosia (who else?), and she won’t be despondent from the separation. What’s the drama, and good storytelling, if it turns out the Plurbs are right, and everyone really is happier and would prefer to be part of the hive? Maybe she won’t be ecstatic – maybe she’ll be damaged and have very mixed feelings. But for storytelling purposes, a separation adds a lot of drama and potential storylines, but only if there’s some sort of conflict – presumably that the separated doesn’t want to return to the hive.
There is also drama in having to take away everyone’s happiness, knowing that even when separated all they want is to be as one with everyone else, but that human survival as a species, possibly sentient life as a possibility in the universe, requires it.
The call back to when Spock was happy with the infection on that planet.
Anyway. 100 % this:
The Agent Infectious, AI for short, is selected to spread copies of itself as wide and far as possible. Host species can thrive or die off or hobble along as a tiny starving population after transmitting to at least one or more hosts, and the AI spreads. It may be better for it to keep the hosts alive and spreading longer, and it may eventually mutate to allow for that, but it is not required.
Individual units of the host meta-organism are happy and have no individual wants, any more than any of our individual cells care.
We don’t know this for sure, at least not the details. Maybe the individual minds (i.e. desires, wants, and dreams) are still in there somewhere, but suppressed. Maybe they’re functionally comatose. Or maybe they’re aware, in some way, of what’s going on, but can’t do anything about it. Maybe once they’re separated (by a Faraday cage or whatever) they regain control, and can express their own desires. I presume we’ll find out.
I don’t know that separation alone would bring the original person back. It seems like there would need to be a reversal of whatever changes the virus created in the person. When the first person was infected, they weren’t in communication with anyone else. They immediately began their mission to infect others. As such, I would expect that someone removed from the hive would revert back to that base directive to infect others.
With regards to the nuke, I really wish they hadn’t put that in. I feel the reveal is going to be a huge disappointment. I don’t think it’s going to live up to all the speculation. Either it’s not a nuke at all or else it is a nuke and the use of it will be something contrived and full of plot holes. One thing I enjoyed about the show was that it was pretty much realistic to how I might imagine someone like Carol being in this situation. She didn’t flip into superhero mode where she saves the world. We get to see real struggles of how a real person might react. But now they literally plop down a deus ex machina plot device from the sky. I really hope that they somehow pull it off in a way that’s true to the tone of the show, but I’m setting my expectations pretty low.
There’s still plenty of drama there. Carol selfishly deciding that preserving her individuality over the benefit of the entire human race who are better off as the hive would be pretty rich for drama and make her the villain. And there’s still drama of - is it just the unit of the hive trying to get back to what it knows, or biologically driven to be reconnected, or is disconnected Zosia an individual who actually would choose to go back? Or even if they do go back, is erasing an entire race of billions of people to create one super-entity ethical? It’s a very philosophical show and there’s tons of philosophical territory to mine even if the hive is being honest and separated individuals would choose to reconnect.
Minimally we know that while part of of the whole they have no individual wants.
We are told, and they allegedly can’t lie, that the individual minds are there, aware. There was the conversation during the massage. But the wants, the needs, served are of The One, the multi-individualar organism.
Will we see what happens when the individual is cut off from whole? Not sure that we didn’t already.
Sure… but that’s not factions within the hive, it’s individuals being separated from the hive. And I suspect (hope) not according to their own individual will and determination (because there is no individual will or determination within the hive), but according to some accident or influence of Carol and/or Manousos.
This will sound very silly given that we watched a whole season of this show, but I’m not sure we even know what this show is about yet and what direction it will go. There’s potential for things to go in very different directions.
I agree. We do know a lot about VG’s style and based on past shows he doesn’t even really know.
I see a use of the nuke that is neither contrived nor full of plot holes: as an ever present reminder to Carol of how incredibly alien Pluribus is. Why she must be committed to the task of (as she sees it) freeing humanity from Pluribus.
I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but there is tremendous symbolic importance to the nuke. Even if it really is a nuke, it is not just a nuke. It stands for something.
Except it’s not the human race, even if its constituent elements are (less infection) biologically human. It’s Pluribus. It has coopted humanity, and Carol will even allow that it is sentient and worthy of being seen as an intelligent lifeform, but it is not human.
They simply do not have a choice. They are basically a computer program following core directives. Spread the virus, do no harm to any living being. Those are non negotiables, they did not reason themselves into this positions, those are simply imperatives they have to abide with.
Because they aren’t billions, they are just one. As far as happiness goes, keeping someone happy is only a matter of releasing the right chemicals into their body. Could the hive simply flood the hosts with endorphins or dopamine or whatever happy chemicals we need? it seems very probable. Kusimayu walked away with a contented smile. Maybe everyone IS happy simply because they are being kept that way.
I was making two separate comments.
- I’m pretty confident that at least one person will get separated from the hive mind (and not die immediately afterwards).
- I have a vague hunch (based on other sci-fi stories) that the hive mind might split into two separate hive minds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t happen.
What if the Hive truly couldn’t come to a consensus on something? That could lead to a split or maybe a split isn’t possible and that leads to them being immobilized.
There is just one hive, they don’t need consensus any more than you do.
Yeah, you’re right.
I think the key is the specific frequency that seems to shut them down.