re: 'Pluribus' Vince Gilligan’s new sci-fi show now streaming. Spoilers Allowed

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So that also sucks thar we will only get less than a full episode of them working together.

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We may not even get that. He wasn’t even state side when the episode ended. I can see it ending with him knocking on her door or something.

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Carol & Pirate Lady are gonna scissor then she’ll be super regretting it or fine with it.

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Considering the scene where Zosia woke up naked in Carol’s bed, I think that ship has already sailed.

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Does this make Carol the biggest whore in history?

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2nd place, your mom is 1st


Decent-ish episode. Wish they had spent more time on Pedro. Didnt think we would have a full blown love story intertwined here but Carol may know what shes doing.

Thought the thing at the end was odd. Why did Pirate lady look startled? I thought they already knew that Pedro was on his way to see her.

Okay, just adding to my list of information. And I like that Carol is doing in the show now and gathering information:

What's going on
• The show/scenes are set up by a ticking clock. It either counts down (showing a things from before the event) or ticks up (showing things that took place after it happened).
• Something (aliens? It is referred to as "extraterrestrial technology") has taken over everyone in the world.
• It arrived via a signal from space from 600 light years away. It was discovered 439 days prior to the event and the signal was apparently a viral RNA sequence (which is obviously key since everyone was "infected").
• Kepler 22a (star) and 22b (ocean planet) is where the signal came from.
• It apparently was initially transmitted when researchers created the formula in a lab and one got bit by a lab rat and was spread via mouth (i.e. kissing, saliva swabs, etc.). It was perhaps widespread caused chemically somehow via planes/contrails?
• 886 million people died initially when shite went down.
• We don't know their goal yet outside of ensuring that everyone on the planet is attached.
• There are currently 13 known people that were not affected by the takeover.
• Of that baker's dozen, only six speak english. And only Carol and the hispanic radio dude see to give a shite about going against the hive.

The Hive and characteristics
• They are hive-minded and every single person attached acts "as one," including all knowledge.
• The Hive mainly uses Zosia (Pirate Lady) as the main point of contact with Carol (though lots of others also communicate with her). This is partially because she resembles a character Carol created, and also one that Carol is attracted to physically.
• The Hive cannot lie. But they will try to avoid answering things if they feel it is detrimental to the Hive. Or at the very least, they will obfuscate the truth and attempt to change the subject or redirect in order to avoid answering.
• They cannot physically kill/harm or commit violence. This includes humans, animals, even insects. However, they can and will provide services to the 13 that involve dead things (i.e. cooking or preparing meals) if someone else does the killing. The Hive is also vegetarian.
• Their claimed goal is to assimilate everyone on earth, and until that happens with the remaining 13, their sole purpose is to placate them and keep them happy and answer any and all questions and desires of the 13 (except for ones potentially damaging to the Hive itself). This includes providing whatever is requested, regardless of it is harmful (i.e. sexual partners, drugs/heroin, grenades, a nuke, etc.), in order to placate the 13.
• They are strongly affected by what I'll call "negative energy." Especially from Carol (are we sure if she is the only person that has this ability, or if she's just the only one so far who has reacted and achieved that result?). Whether it be anger, hostility, rage, etc., when someone goes off on them if greatly affects the surrounding Hive members both mentally and physically (and even other Hive members not in the vicinity). I.e. when Carol went off on Zosia, she inadvertently killed millions throughout the world.
• They cannot kill ANYTHING that is living, including plants.
• They harvest existing food, food that "dies" on its own (i.e. apples falling out of trees on their own), and dead human bodies (HDP - human derived protein) for sustenance.
• They cannot turn the 13 without accessing their stem cells, and they cannot access the stem cells without consent from the 13 (which Carol explicitly forbids them to do).
• The Hive mostly sleep together in large facilities (gyms, stadiums, malls, etc. ostensibly for reasons like efficiency, saving electricity, etc.
• They communicate unconsciously using the body's electromagnetic field.
• They don't feel everything all at once, but they are "aware."
• • • • a caveat to this is Zosia saying that feeling everything would be too overwhelming, which is the reason Carol's outbursts affect them so much I assume.
• They also have the goal of spreading this across space to other places, and are planning to broadcast it from earth.

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• Their claimed goal is to assimilate everyone on earth, and until that happens with the remaining 13, their sole purpose is to placate them and keep them happy and answer any and all questions and desires of the 13 (except for ones potentially damaging to the Hive itself).

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We finally learned the big picture goal this week - to “pay it forward” by rebroadcasting the transmission.

Seems like their biological imperative, so to speak, is to spread the “virus.” We saw that when the first scientists were infected, we saw it when the larger group of infected people worked to spread it across the world, we see that with their research around how to infect the remaining 13, and now we know they have larger plans to help spread the infection to other planets. So.. that’s what they’ll be doing with the combined economic capacity of the human race. Building a huge transmitter.

Something just dawned on me that I find kind of interesting: The hive appear, in many ways, to be governed by Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. For those who aren’t familiar:

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1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

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They take it a bit further in that they won’t harm any living being (putting the whole assimilation process aside for now). It kind of makes sense though considering that humans wouldn’t exist wherever the signal originated.

I just find the parallels intriguing. The hive almost behaves like a “paperclip maximizer” that’s still fairly aligned to the Three Laws. Granted, they aren’t robots. They’re biological.

I’m going to take a wild-arse-guess about the signal’s origin, based on the behavior we’ve seen so far combined with the robotics parallels:
- A species on a distant world develops the “virus” as a way to subjugate another species, or perhaps a caste within their own species.
- They inoculate themselves against infection first. Then they infect everyone else.
- Boom. They’ve created subservient drones. They’re the biological equivalent of robot workers.
- Everything goes swimmingly, until the master species dies off somehow. Maybe natural disaster, maybe war.. who knows?
- With no master left to serve, the drones shift their focus to the Third Law. They know their existence on their planet is finite, so they decide to spread themselves to other planets via the signal.
- When other planets start getting infected, though, there are no (or very few) masters to serve. So the Third Law continues to rule as they spread themselves further and further across the galaxy.

Is this theory particularly likely? Probably not. But it puts an interesting spin on some more classic sci-fi tropes, so I like it.

FWIW, part of me thinks the most likely answer is that we never learn the true source/purpose of the signal.

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Maybe, just maybe, Carol’s attempt to individualize Zosia had a minor impact on her connection to the others?

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There was something more individualized about her when she was talking about her childhood. She wasn't mistakenly using plural pronouns and seemed legitimately wistful in her remembrance.

I don't know if the interruption about the upcoming visitor was the totality of her pause or if it played into some level of individualization, but it seems like it's important. If it's the latter, that could mean that having someone really locked in on who they were could be part of reversing course on the hive mind.

If it's the former then it means the hive mind thinks it's really important for the two of them to meet (the only time there's been a pause like that has been when something important has gone on, like when Carol wanted to speak to the other free-minded people).

Especially if it’s some 10 year old kid.

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My wife and I have watched the first two and we like it don’t love it

Does it get any better

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First two episodes were the best IMO. I wouldn't say it goes down hill, but it is not as fast paced for the rest of the season. I really like it though.

Fun fact I got from the podcast. - the head from HDP episode? Vince Gilligan's.

He's yet to appear in a cameo, but they made a cast of his head and that's the one Carol picks up when in the warehouse.

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Does this make Carol the biggest whore in history?

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Well she is a lesbian…

According to the L word they are all poon hounds who tally up and compare their # of their conquests which I thought was frowned upon by feminists.

Has anyone brought up the lack of real consent with Carol like with Casanova McBoner?