Pluribus episode 6 led me to a disturbing new theory about Apple’s sci-fi show

What’s the level of the hivemind in Pluribus? To date, the present hasn’t supplied a lot of a solution past merely “Hivemind good.” In the meantime, protagonist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) is far more interested by undoing “the Becoming a member of” than determining why it occurred within the first place.

It’s virtually as if we’re probably not alleged to care what the hivemind’s finish aim is — if it even has one. (Gilligan has additionally confirmed he doesn’t know precisely the place the present is in the end headed, so he could also be leaving issues deliberately obscure.) Nevertheless, one element from Pluribus episode 6 has me pondering the sequence’ endgame could possibly be a lot darker than I ever imagined…

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for Pluribus episode 6.]

To rapidly recap a few of Pluribus’ latest surprising reveals: On the finish of episode 5, Carol discovers the hivemind is storing lifeless human corpses in a manufacturing facility, the place they’re being processed and consumed. In episode 6, she takes the data to her fellow non-hivemind survivors, solely to study that they already know. Seems, the hivemind is so peaceable they will’t even harvest fruits, greens, or grains, not to mention kill animals. In order that they’ve taken to consuming any nutrient sources which can be already accessible to them — together with the roughly 900 million people who died in the course of the chaos of the preliminary mass Becoming a member of.

This information is delivered with yet one more twist: Even with all these corpses on the menu, a lot of the hivemind will nonetheless die of hunger inside a decade if it may possibly’t provide you with an answer. (Is lab-grown meat not an possibility?)

This looks as if an enormous oversight! In spite of everything, if some alien intelligence created the hivemind within the first place, then beamed its recipe throughout the universe, shouldn’t they’ve taken the entire hunger factor into consideration? Why unfold the hivemind program if it’s solely going to wipe out whoever receives it?

Except that was the aim all alongside…

Picture: Apple

Give it some thought. What is the purpose of the hivemind, anyway? Possibly the hivemind recipe isn’t a present from outer area in any respect, however a weapon. Possibly some alien species determined humanity poses a risk to the remainder of the universe and determined to do one thing about it. Reworking humankind right into a hivemind that starves itself to loss of life is a fairly intelligent approach to just do that.

To be truthful, there are some holes in my idea. For one factor, it’s not like everybody on Earth goes to die, simply “most” of humanity. It’s additionally attainable that the alien hivemind behind the unique sign doesn’t even take into account non-hiveminds to be clever, which means it wouldn’t care about what occurs to humankind. Or that the aim isn’t to wipe out humanity however to save lots of the dolphins or another endangered species. And even when this idea is true, what’s subsequent? A full-scale invasion of Earth? Or will the aliens transfer on to their subsequent goal and go away any surviving people to scrape by on their very own?

The very best level of comparability right here could also be one other science fiction story: The Three Physique Drawback, a trilogy of books written by Liu Cixin and adapted into a Netflix series by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Within the second e-book, The Darkish Forest, humanity figures out that the universe is definitely chock filled with clever civilizations all consistently hiding from one another and attempting to wipe one another out. This idea, additionally known as Darkish Forest, helps clarify why alien life has by no means visited Earth.

Picture: Apple

Within the books, Darkish Forest idea is in the end used as deterrence towards an alien invasion; an armed system threatens to show the placement of each of their residence planets to all the universe if the invaders don’t completely retreat. Nevertheless, when that system is ultimately triggered in a last-ditch try to save lots of the Earth, it in the end dooms humanity, resulting in our destruction by a third-unnamed extraterrestrial civilization that sends a weapon to destroy a few years later.

Is that what’s taking place in Pluribus? It would seem to be a stretch, however in the meanwhile, the Darkish Forest idea makes about as a lot sense to me as another rationalization of the hivemind’s final aim.

Pluribus episodes 1-6 are streaming on Apple TV. New episodes air weekly every Friday.