Because I would attempt to reason with it. Unlike most of the big bads we typically see in the genre, this one seems most amenable to being reasoned with.

The image above, by Anna Kooris, is courtesy Apple TV+ via a Globe and Mail review.

Spoilers for Pluribus, obviously. Let's say I was called to Carol's meeting as one of the few people immune to the virus. Give me a bit of artistic license as I also incorporate knowledge given elsewhere in the first three episodes.

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So, Zosia, I'll address you since you're speaking on behalf of all (waves hand around at the world) this, and you have come up with no better collective name for yourselves than "us".��

I'm not as hostile as Carol is. I haven't had the shock that she's had, and I can see how a human hive mind would be an interesting new opportunity for the human race.

But I have questions.

I want to say that I appreciate you trying to be understanding of and accommodating to our horror in the face of what's just happened. I do appreciate that you are trying to be nice, as creepy though that is, especially when you speak in unison like grade two students welcoming a guest to the classroom. I have to admit that, in many ways, the world is better now, than what it was. There is no more war. You seem to be working towards eliminating poverty. There's no more disinformation. No conspiracy theorists. There is no more crime. There is no more killing. That seems to be one of your biological imperatives you speak of: you have a deep abiding aversion to killing. As someone who doesn't want to be killed, I appreciate that.

Though, I have to ask, the meat you've served us at this meal: it's not going to be around for much longer, is it? What you've made us comes entirely from the refrigerated supply left behind back before all (waves hand around at the world, again) this. The slaughterhouses are closed, aren't they? The pigs and beef cattle are being allowed to spend the rest of their lives roaming, aren't they? Will there be eggs in our future, though? You don't have to kill the chickens to get those. Dairy? Five-year-old cheddar? Will our coffees have cream? Certainly, there should be honey, since beekeepers do their best to keep their hives alive and healthy. So, it's not going to be an entirely a vegan world, is it? I'll do my best to live without bacon.

I do appreciate that you seem to want to protect and preserve the sum total of all human knowledge. But, speaking to you, as much as you try to speak from Zosia's experience, or from Helen's memory, or from the loved ones of all of us you've brought here, there are times when there are people speaking to us, and there are times when I know the words come from the virus.

You don't want to kill, at all? Commendable. But that's not humans talking. You have in your collective consciousness humans who hunted for sport. I viscerally disagree with them, but I'd be interested in hearing what they're saying in your head, right now. You want us to be happy, and will move heaven and Earth to make us happy, but happy doing what? What is our purpose now? Carol Sturka is never going to publish another book again. The moment a new manuscript gets to her publisher, the entire human race will have read it. Laxmi's son is not going to have to go to school anymore -- no kids do -- because the sum total of all human knowledge is now in their heads.

Are there concerts going on in the world right now? Is there stand-up? Or were they all cancelled? Not that any warning was needed or refunds offered -- everybody already knew, and money means nothing, anymore. And if there are concerts in the future, once we're all part of the happy hive mind, how will we choose who sings, and who listens?

And then there is the fact that, as much as you wanted and still want to help us, and as happy as the people around us seem to be, you still trampled over the consent of well over seven billion people.

You speak of biological imperatives. That's clearly the virus talking, spelling out all creatures' instinctual desires to do everything they can to live and grow. What are the other imperatives? Tell me: is the human race right now setting aside some of its resources and time building a massive communications array to beam out the RNA sequence for other planets to find? That would seem to be a natural progression of your biological imperative to exist and grow. Or is that array going to point back to that star 600 light-years away, telling them, "We got your message. We're here. Come, let us join the galactic consciousness!"

Note, I'm not automatically opposed to joining a galactic consciousness. That's one way to achieve immortality and get through the Great Filter.

Unless you are that great filter.

You're working on figuring out why we're immune to your psychic glue, and once you find a way for us to join you, you will make us join you, whether we agree to or not, because you want us to be happy, and having us join you is the way you think we can be happiest of all. You spoke of your biological imperative to Carol, using the metaphor of seeing someone drowning and throwing them a life preserver. You wouldn't stop to think, you said, you'd just do it.

I respect that. I respect that you want to help. But because you never stopped to think when you saw us drowning, you never thought that we might have gills.

You have the sum total of all human knowledge and living memory inside you, right now, and you want us to be happy. If that's the case, use that knowledge and memory to try to think outside your biological imperatives about what I've told you. When that happens, what do you think we should do?

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