Thoughts on Pluribus S1

So I spent the last two days binging the entire season with my partner in one go, and I have Thoughts rattling around my mind that I need to share.

The Hive's bullshitting

Already at the end of the second episode I was calling bullshit on the "the virus is just psychic glue", because if that were true, the first person to be infected would just be the same as she was before, except she could now communicate mentally with a bunch of rats. But the first thing she did was starting to infect everyone around her, which is not normal human behavior. So, clearly, there is Something More.

What has been lost

I am extremely fascinated by the fact that the Hive said they'd "love to have something new to read" to Carol. All the writers in the world, and they can no longer write a single new thing. The Hive, along individuality, has also clearly lost creativity. They kinda go hand in hand, honestly, so it's not hard to see why. However, I'm unsure of what the Hive meant when saying they'd love to have something new to read. Did they genuinely find the idea of new, unexplored content that exciting, or they'd just "love" to read something new because they figured it'd make Carol happy, and they just love making Carol happy? They did seem excited when discussing potential plot points for Raban's genderbending, but they can put up a convincing act when they put themselves to it. Thinking back to Kusimayu's Joining scene, too.

They had a very convincing act of a loving village doing Quechua traditions, but the moment Kusimayu got infected they instantly dropped the act and didn't waste one second longer than needed. This means that the Joining effectively kills all culture on Earth. Yes, even the American one. lmao

Hive blind spots

Clearly, the Hive is motivated by efficiency and practicality. They don't cater to any individual's food taste preferences, for example (at least on their own, and unless Carol asks.) And they wouldn't give a massage to themselves, even if it still feels nice to the individuals receiving it.

But I wonder where the line is drawn. Like, I've seen how they sleep. A bunch of blankets and sleeping bags on a gym's hard floor can't exactly be the best quality sleep ever. It's functional, sure. But it's not like taste, where taste preference just makes you happier while eating but has no further impact on your body (there's no change in nutrient intake, for example.) But sleep quality directly affects your performance on the next day. Sure, mental performance is not affected since they can offload the mental workload across all the Hive, but what about physical performance? They sure seem to use a lot of individuals for whatever physical work needs to be done nearby. If they can rebuild a whole cafeteria, why can't they put a bunch of bed frames in the gym and gather some mattresses?

(I am willing to chalk that one up to meta reasons though, like it being harder to fill a gym with beds to record that one scene, than it is to put a bunch of blankets on the floor, which gets the idea across almost as well.)

This also makes me wonder, would the Hive feel the need to exercise some of the less physically fit individuals? It would improve efficiency long term, but it would be inefficient short term. Is that where the Hive draws the line?

It wouldn't be out of "character". They clearly draw some fucked up arbitrary lines as to what they consider "good" or "bad". Releasing all animals in a zoo is overall objectively bad both for the animals involved as well as the people, but the Hive clearly didn't mind about releasing the animals in an environment they're not ready for and will surely die in after some time, nor the people who would die after releasing some of the predators in zoos. They "respected" the animal's "freedom" and that's enough for them. Or, sorry, they prevented "hurting" the animals further, I guess. Like, this line of thinking is so stupid it has to be intentional by the writers, right? I refuse to believe there's nobody smart enough in the writers' room to realize how stupid it is to release the animals wherever.

It comes up again with the "can't pick an apple" from a tree. Which, to the tree, is akin to removing a nail, instead of letting it "naturally" get filed against rough surfaces in day to day life (the apple falling on itself). Even further, by not picking the apple, they're hurting the tree, because picking the apple and then throwing the seeds elsewhere is the primary reproduction cycle of a tree. They NEED animals to eat the fruits and shit the seeds far away, that's WHY they developed sweet fruits in the first place. And humans ARE animals. The best seed vectors there have ever been.

But the Hive would rather let thousands of individuals starve than bother a single tree. I guess the Hive would stay alive anyway, so it doesn't matter, it's not really a "life" lost, for them.

"Something More", or the biological imperative

I have to say that I love the way Pluribus is answering the question "what if a virus gained sentience". Like, every living being has the biological imperative to ensure their DNA's persistence, through reproduction. And the nonliving, nondead beings^1 that are viruses also share that imperative. With the difference that they need a host to reproduce themselves.

A cell infected by a virus is "still" technically the same cell, just with a new imperative of creating as many copies of the virus as the highest priority task, infecting the cells nearby. Much like the Hive's imperative to infect as many humans as possible, all of them if they can.

It's also interesting that the question isn't "what if a virus was sentient". The virus had no preexisting sentience before infecting humanity. The Hive is not "the virus's mind". The show is just extrapolating a cell's change of behavior after being infected with a virus to the collective human consciousness. Also, the desire to build a big antenna and forward the signal is that same thing, but on a galactic scale. Just very delicious characterization all around. 10/10.

I guess you could say infecting someone, for the Hive, is akin to having a child, and that's why they insist they "have" to do it because they "love you". Even though forcing a child onto someone else would be incredibly fucked up. Which I think is the point, and reinforces how fucked up the arbitrary lines of the Hive's morality are.

Also, it's interesting that they only respect the freedoms of other lives only as long as they can't infect them (non-human animals - except for rats, I guess?), because that clearly goes out of the window for the 12 survivors. Well, I guess it's not the freedom they value per se, it's "hurting" the animals by a side effect of removing freedoms. And I guess they don't think forcing someone to Join is hurting them, so it's all dandy.

Sidenote: the rat being infected at the beginning of the series clearly means that rats could get infected, even if it's, idk, harder for the virus to infect than humans, and also the only animal (other than humans) to be able to be infected. It seems that the show wants to forget that fact since the Hive insists the animals are not part of them, but I think it would be really funny if at some point in the future of the series there was a scene of the Hive commanding a horde of rats for some reason.

1. I don't know if there has been any recent research or consensus that could have changed the virus' classification as "non-living".