I don’t really think people understand what “The Hive” is in terms of it being a forced assimilation of the human population at once. It’s not even that humanity itself has joined together into one collective consciousness.
It’s that there is no “humanity” anymore besides 11 immune people. So there is no collective humanity.
The scariest thing about that understanding is that it’s not that every human is just not there anymore or even that they’re dead. It’s more so that because they’re an immediate forced assimilation of so many people, they can’t be any one individual person anymore. The “I Am” does not exist because literally everybody is “We Are”.
Think about that for a moment. Really think about it. Because it doesn’t mean the human is no longer there. It means that humanity as a whole is something else all of a sudden but all the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, ideas. memories of humanity is shared out between this Hive.
There’s not a single thing that is unique or original or personal anymore because there is no individual “I” to experience it. It’s absolutely fucking terrifying when you understand that literally no one “I” exists because everybody is we. Everybody is suddenly of a uniformed singularity with no variance or diversification between.
You can’t even call it possession because that implies the human has been taken over by one solitary entity.
See the only thing I can compare this to if I were to talk about it being “possession” is what happened to Emily Rose. She had 6 demons inside of her. Possessing her. But she somehow still had a personhood. Which made the experience even more horrifying because she felt everything that those demons did to her. She was still “Emily Rose” even through a collective possession of 6 different demons - including Satan himself. Now think about that on the “Pluribus” level. 7 billion entities all with their own individual body but not consciousness.
You wouldn’t have a personhood left at all because you’re not a “you” anymore. You’re an “us”. Trying to communicate the gravity of this fact is very difficult.
But this is why it’s not just a drama. It is a horror too.
And fortunately for Gilligan and Co it is a very effective one because people have fallen for it regarding how to perceive and understand The Hive. Whether they’re a good thing or a bad thing. Are they a hero or a villain?
My take is that they are neither. They’re just a virus planted on Earth to infect its population and the only reason why they have any consciousness is because they have penetrated into the incredibly complex and intelligent biosystems that make up the human being.
But that doesn’t mean I regard them as a good thing.
While it’s true that not all viruses are bad things. I would say one that only exists to knock all of humanity out is.
And I haven’t seen anyone really talk about what might be the higher powers behind this viral overtake of Earth. I mean that RNA signal didn’t just manifest itself out of thin air. There are forces behind operation ‘PLUR1BUS’.
Because I doubt this virus is the be all end all of it. If it is, then that’s pretty pointless because viruses die out when they no longer have any biological hosts to infect.
No, I definitely think Pluribus is part of a larger process but whether Gilligan will turn it into an alien apocalypse will be the question of Season 2. He might think that’s too hammy or it’s been done too many times already. But I have to say it is a creative idea to start off with a virus sent from space before an invasion takes place so I quite like the thought of it evolving into an alien story.
I mean it’s going to have to be explained somehow just exactly what this virus has been planted on Earth for. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say an invasion given how much the metaphors line up with colonialism and conversion therapy. It’s just this one is not human. Which makes it far more interesting to watch than that of humans knocking out other humans for their wealth.
