Pluribus: The Story So Far
The Beast with Many I’s, Part 2
(Audio at the end)
The Joining
I will now sum up the storyline of Pluribus, so those who haven’t seen it (and don’t want to), don’t have to. If you do want to watch it, skip this summation to avoid the spoilers.
A bunch of scientists pick up a radio signal from space, coming from 600 light years away. It is soon recognized as an intelligent transmission, spelling out a viral RNA sequence.
The creation of the virus leads to an outbreak that spreads super-rapidly, initially through saliva-based contact (mouth-kissing is the first means by which it is transmitted). The effect of the virus is to link up all infected human beings to a single consciousness. Once enough humans have been taken over, planes are used to spray the planet. Everybody in the world is taken over and “joined” in a matter of hours.
We later find out that the “Joining” caused the death of 800 million people. The rest—not counting thirteen immune people—survived physically, but their individuality was subsumed into the group mind.
It’s not explained, or even discussed, in what ways the virus changes the consciousness of the individuals, besides joining them, i.e., whether there is also an alien consciousness directing the whole herd, and if so, what it is thinking. We have to suppose that, when the first individual (a female lab worker) was taken over by the virus, she was directed by something other than the human group mind, since she wouldn’t yet have been connected to any other humans.
This means there was an initial agenda that had nothing to do with human beings. Of course, by definition, since it’s an alien virus. Yet this isn’t really discussed by the characters at any time. It’s implicit that, when the group mind communicates with Carol, when it says “We want this” and “We want that,” it’s an alien virus talking through human beings, that has access to all the shared memories, and to any residual consciousness, of those human beings, without itself being human.
Another question that isn’t raised—more philosophical than plot-related—is the difference between human consciousness and human memories. Do the Joined human bodies have access to a kind of living consciousness of all the bodies possessed, or is some alien consciousness simply taking over the bodies and assuming all the memories that come with those bodies? What happens to the conscious self that once inhabited the bodies?
This question is central to the show’s meanings, but it’s never really answered, or even directly addressed (yet). It’s kept ambiguous, so far as whether this is a happy event or a terrible event for humanity. At least, this seems to be the intention of Gilligan and the other show writers, even though it’s all happening within the familiar template of “alien invasion,” in which there really isn’t room for such ambiguity.
This is central to the appeal of the premise, it is an almost self-generating creative scenario: what would the world be like after the invasion of the body snatchers was completed? As seen through the eyes of an old-world human?
Saving Humanity from Itself
The positive spin which the hive-mind of the Joining offers is that the alien virus is saving humanity from itself—from its internal violence and destructiveness—and bringing about peace on Earth. Now all the human bodies are joined together into one consciousness, no further conflict is possible. We don’t actually know what the joined human bodies are doing most of the time, however—or what the hive-mind is thinking—because we don’t ever get to see it, in more than glimpses.
One thing they’re not doing is farming. Why? Because they can’t. One of the first things we learn about them—or at least, what they claim—is that they cannot harm another living thing by so much as picking an apple (which they believe would harm the tree). This extends to not being able to use pesticides, though that’s a moot point, since presumably they wouldn’t be able to harvest the crops anyway.
As a plot detail, this is a bit contrived, and somewhat unbelievable. Would not such logic also extend to not being able to walk anywhere, because of treading on bugs? Or even to not breathing? Perhaps it has something to do with intentionality, and we are meant to infer that they can’t intentionally harm another living being, while if they do it unintentionally, that’s alright (intentionality is a blurry line in itself).
Another essential thing we learn about the Joined is that they can’t lie. This could of course be a lie; but so far, the evidence seems to support it. When Carol asks them questions about things they don’t want to reveal (such as whether the Joining is reversible), they simply don’t answer, from which Carol can deduce the answer.
The Joined are cooperative to an extreme degree: anything Carol asks for, they give her (and of course, they own the world). This is something she finds this out when she sarcastically asks for a grenade and they give her one. She assumes it can’t be a real grenade, but finds out the hard way that it is. Even though they have this primary inhibition about causing harm, they also have the opposite kind of inhibition when it comes to preventing it. They are so obliging they will even give Carol an atom bomb if she asks for it (which in the end she does).
About halfway through the first season, Carol finds out that the Others are subsisting on human remains, among other things. Since they can’t harvest any kind of crops, and they can’t kill animals, they are currently surviving on residual foods, which includes processing all the deceased human bodies (all 800 million of them) into a kind of mineral drink. Soylent Green.
The Twelve
The main subplot is the twelve other non-joined human beings, whom Carol meets on request. Much to her dismay, she discovers that none of them share her point of view that the Joining is a bad thing (the destruction of human individuality). Despite for whatever reason being resistant to the virus, they all seem to be okay with it. Some of them are even volunteering to be “turned.” All the other non-joined human beings are brown, for some reason; there are no white people among them.
The hive-mind claims it needs human beings to consent to the Joining, even though it didn’t need it at the beginning (another blurry line). Now there are these left over, immune human beings, it has to design a special virus for each one of them. The specific reason the hive-mind needs their consent is that it needs each individual’s stem cells, and getting them requires a painful injection (i.e., causes harm). Of course, this leaves a pretty blurry area, which the hive-mind might eventually be able to get around, as we discover is the case with Carol (they have access to her frozen eggs).
Another key element in the story is that the Others are extremely sensitive to negativity. Just like “woke” types of people, they can’t bear intense adverse feelings, and when Carol freaks out in front of one of them, screaming and raging, they go into convulsions, across the planet. Carol later finds out that 11 million human bodies died because of her tantrum, and as a result of it happening more than once, the Others withdraw from Carol, leaving her alone in her New Mexico home, abandoning the cities and towns around that area. Carol eventually caves, however, and asks them to come back.
Carol’s Achilles’ heel is the woman Zosia, a Polish woman the hive-mind knows Carol will be attracted to, because she resembles Carol’s mental image for the protagonist of her novels (a male character originally conceived as female; Carol of course is in the closet about her lesbianism, though God knows why since, a) it certainly wouldn’t hurt her career; b) since she has an oppositional identity, she would hardly care about being ostracized anyway).
Zosia is Carol’s “gateway drug” to the hive-mind, and eventually she succumbs to the temptation of her loneliness and sexual desire. Firstly, she gives in to the pressure of isolation by calling them back; shortly after, she abandons her efforts to reverse the Joining, to “save the world,” and opts for a life of luxury and comfort with her new sex doll.