Pluribus

Feeling drunk and philosophical

Is the hive even trying to procreate?

Based on their hive ethics it seems like the virus might be to destroy the human species in the long run. Nicely.

My kids think it's a third body problem kinda deal. No spoilers

Three Body Problem how? The aliens are completely retarded and didn't realize humans lie until 40+ years into their total and complete observation?

Make humans into non violent sex slaves until alien arrival

Adebisi said:

Make humans into non violent sex slaves until alien arrival

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Remote planet enslavement is what I'm going with too.

genocide on a galactic scale. send an information virus that makes every alien species peaceful so they won't go hunting for you, if they can't harm another living thing the species will effectively die off (or reduce to a tiny non threatening non thriving species) within 200 years as the show has demonstrated.

it could be on purpose, it could be a weird mutation accident, it could be a peaceful intention that was warped by a third party, it could be created by an artificial intelligence to wipe out organic life, a million other options. The core idea is that since space is huge and FTL doesn't exist, there is no point in "going" anywhere (1000+ years to closest star, time dilation issues) but to protect your own empire you make sure no one else exists to come knocking on your door.

I have a feeling Vince Gilligan didn't really think it out all that far, its just an interesting idea and I wouldn't be super shocked if the show never really deals with it. I'm sure from a story telling perspective Its more interesting to keep it mysterious and never find out who the aliens were or why, and just show how humans deal with it. I don't expect this show to turn into 3 Body Problem, you can watch that show/books if you like the dark forest idea.

I mean if the aliens are trying to get all the resources out of earth no better way than to have the entire population helping. The can't hurt anyone/thing being built in as a extremely docile safeguard also makes sense.

If this was a story being told in a different medium, like I was a third of the way through the novel, I would be thinking about all of the high concept stuff and big science fiction themes. I would be thinking about where the story was going. As a television show, as this television show, I am doubtful entertaining any of those ideas is worth the viewer's time. It's not a show about the nuts and bolts questions of how this society works day to day nor the big questions about what it means to be human or an alien invasion. It's about a grumpy and incredibly unlikable lesbian (that some of the writers think is actually great) frowning at things.

Hatorade said:

I mean if the aliens are trying to get all the resources out of earth no better way than to have the entire population helping. The can't hurt anyone/thing being built in as a extremely docile safeguard also makes sense.

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I doubt it is that. My main predictions:

1) Since the transmission signal was (presumably) just the means of producing the virus, in theory the hive mind virus would only know what is in it's base programming. From what we have gleaned from the show: Can't hurt anything living, negative emotions have an adverse effect, is telepathic somehow, and they are driven to create a means of transmitting the signal out into space. The 2nd would mostly fit in with what a virus would do: Replicate itself. The signal is the means to replicate across the galaxy. Being nice to people to get them to join the collective = a means of replicating the virus. The "do not harm" and negative emotions and telepathic thing seems to be the outlier, since typically a virus doesn't care if something is harmed or not. Although ultimately humans will be harmed because they can't eat anything except themselves or extremely limited food options, meaning billions of people are going to die of starvation eventually

2) Given that, I suspect the virus will end up just being a "grey goo" type of situation: A completely unintended outcome of genetic experimentation by an alien civilization that results in the destruction of a civilization. It could be something as banal as "We made a virus that will create world peace!" and the virus takes the instructions too literally and ends up wiping out the planet while simultaneously doing what a virus does and spread itself across space.