Spoilers Pluribus

[Morrus]

There’s certainly a laundry list of questions that I look forward to seeing answered. As it’s a Vince Gillian show, we know that won’t happen quickly. But I’m confident from his track record that it will happen.

 

[Zaukrie]

It's hard to imagine such a collective doing art or books or movies or anything like that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't see anything to indicate they don't experience pain. But if that were the case, a "mostly painless" way take them out is therefore redundant. Why not just make it a lethal virus?

A virus host needs to be able long enough to propagate the virus. After that it’s no longer needed.

 

[Morrus]

A virus host needs to be able long enough to propagate the virus. After that it’s no longer needed.

Correct.

 

[Necropolitan]

Maybe the aliens view this as a more 'humane' extermination method.

Or they'll show up to collect the billions of slaves at some point since the hive mind obeys any outsiders.

Or the virus itself is the aliens and like normal viruses the survival of the host doesn't matter as much as reproduction so even if all humans die it's fine as long as the virus finds new hosts.

Or humans messed up when creating the virus and doing it correctly wouldn't result in this situation.

And beyond starving to death nature itself is going to quickly kill humanity.

Fast-producing animals will explode in population now that humans aren't doing pest control, cities will fall to roaches and rodents and farmlands will allow for massive swarms.

And depending on if the hive mind views viruses and bacteria as living things they can't harm plagues are going to ravage humanity, and that's not even getting into parasites.

 

[plecostomus]

The main issue with replication is, we really have no way to know how to build the virus for the next species.

To do what this virus does would require intricate knowledge of a species genetic code to allow for engineering.

I guess you could assume that the virus is so incredibly well made that it just adapts to whatever species it encounters…but the issue is that the message we got were earth based nucleic acids. So that means the signal was tailored to our biology…how did they know?

We may not get an answer to that which is honestly fine…the virus is already fully in crazy sci fi territory so if you accept the basic premise these kind of details are pretty minor

I'm not sure technical hurdles in genetic engineering are going to be a focus in the series, yeah. But I think it's extremely reasonable to believe there might be aliens or something else going on based on the simple fact that the showrunners have claimed multiple seasons are on the way! So from there, yes absolutely, explore and invite whatever weird possibilities are out there.

 

[Clint_L]

So is that mysterious signal Ecuador is picking up connected to how the Hive Mind is linked together, and a key to defeating it?

 

[Zaukrie]

So is that mysterious signal Ecuador is picking up connected to how the Hive Mind is linked together, and a key to defeating it?

That was my guess.

 

[Older Beholder]

Funny. I found that scene utterly boring.

Boring? I found that scene utterly funny.
Here’s just some of the things I found interesting about the scene:

The scene opened to a long take that weaves through a party of beautiful people, all dressed up and acting independently. To me this is already interesting as it’s in stark contrast to the other plotlines of Carol being more and more isolated, and the guy in Paraguay eating dogfood. It’s interesting because we see the depth of the charade the hive is willing to go to for one person’s amusement.

Then we get a Jame Bond parody scene by way of the Truman Show (it also made me think of Holodeck scenes in Star Trek). I found it both funny and interesting that the guy playing the villain starts to clap along, despite losing, as it’s still hard for the hive to keep up the illusion of individuality.

It’s also interesting that this is all taking place in the hotel room where Elvis was controlled by his minders in the later years of his life, which mirrors what’s happening to Koumba. And makes me wonder if he’s manipulating the hive, or is this just an elaborate prison built out of one’s own vanity?

Then, when the game is over the hive quickly drop the act and silently go about cleaning up, exposing the darkness of the reality compared to the fun and lighthearted nature only moments earlier.

Maybe my favourite scene of the ep was Koumba watching the way Carol ate her breakfast and then mimicking her.