# Cruising the Hive Mind: The Queer Telos of Inassimilability (intra-actions of queer inassimilability) ## Thesis Pluribus invokes and subverts genre conventions set by humanist science fiction films like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Omega Man" to depict a lesbian character who alternately embodies homonormativity and queer antisociality, set in contrast with, a posthuman "we is us" global hive-mind, that alternates between enacting the telos of Queer Utopianism, and uses this discontinuity to frame the question: **What future does the queer subject have in a posthuman immanence that erases the process of individual identity formation and performance that have always defined queer subjectivity?** Pluribus depicts the events surrounding an extraterrestrial encounter that culminates in "the Joining", a global event during which, nearly all humans become (inter)connected in a way that unlocks near-instantaneous "unconscious" field of communication. Individual identity boundaries and incentives dissolve and a new global-human "we are us" collective-identity emerges. It retains individual memories and knowledge, which are now shared by everyone. A small remainder of 13 individual humans are not joined, including Carol, who is the focal character of the series. In the here-and-now, **posthumanism** and **queer-becoming** both destabilize normative fixed categories. **Queer-Becoming** deconstructs or disrupts norms of gender, sexuality, race, to maintain space for human pleasure and possibility. **Posthumanism** decenters the human subject and demands equal consideration of other forms of life, animal, plant, and even machinic life. The emergence of "we is us" comes to represent the tension between two different, incompatible imaginaries for humanity's future. **From Carol's humanist perspective**, where humanity is defined by the individual subject, the Joining produces a "Borg" typical of the genre, which *threatens* colonization and extinguishes individuality to produce a field of totalizing domination. Carol's refusal to *assimilate* is a "heroic" performance situated in Queer disidentification, and anti-sociality. **From the "we is us" posthuman perspective**, where humanity is one part of an assemblage of zoe/geo/techno intra-actions, the Joining produces a post anthropocentric, non-hierarchical, transverse kinship, affirmative ethics, and Carol's refusal to *participate* is situated in an individualism that resists evolutionary change in preference of a self-interested maintenance of status quo, where she is isolated, self-destructive, and profoundly unhappy. It is also, paradoxically, unable to accommodate the disidentification of Carol's identity a queer-humanist-individual subject (paradox of tolerance). To integrate these two partial conceptions of Queer-Becoming, We can engage new materialism (agential realism) (Barad), which further destabilizes categories of matter, agency, and meaning, to reconcile this apparent incompatibility between posthuman transversal and queer identity, by rearticulating the agential cut that locates queerness in the formation and agency of individual identity subjects, to a cut that mobilizes queerness as a nomadic flow of discontinuity, a lacunal intra-action, a property of the immanence which maintains openness whenever the assemblage threatens to achieve monolithic totalization or systemic closure. We need to talk about Carol. Before the joining, Carol is a bestselling writer of "speculative historical romance literature". During the Joining, her lesbian partner Helen dies. After the joining, Carol tries to make sense of the changing world, relate with the other individuals, and relate to this new collective human "us". Carol refers to the collective as "the others" or "the afflicted" (collection of epithets) and refers to herself and the other individuals as "survivors" who need to put things back the way they were. Carol's **identity** is a queer reactionary who refuses “to consent not to be a single being.” her whose lack of interest in "Others" interiority. "did you ask them what it's like" demands a return to "the way things are supposed to be." This resistance emerges from a threat to her individualism, but is shaped by her ego, trauma, addiction, mental health issues, and in particular a desire not to be known. Carol is situated in her Queer Identity, inassimilable due to her anti-normative/anti-social refusal to consent to joining the collectivity. Carol's ***existence*** is the queer-becoming that never "becomes" (capture/territorialization) by not consenting to **be** a single being (moten). This cut offers a **queer ontology: not an identity but a necessary intensity by which reality resists complete territorialization.** It resists “closure and the fulfillment of meaning,” (Lauretis, 2011, p. 244) and is an “enigma without solution” (Lauretis, 2011, p. 245) In this reading, Carol functions as a discontinuity within the immanence that keeps it from systemic closure (totalizing). Carol is situated within "we is us" and it is Carol's inassimilability, not her agency, which the telos of queer resistance, her existence prevents the posthuman transversal from collapsing into hegemony. Her queerness is not her identity/individual subjectivity, but her existence as a necessary discontinuity (Which is nomadic, fluid, and as we will see, communicable). her entangled superposition a/part provides a diffraction grating to guide us through the strait between the Scylla of queer antisociality and Charybdis of queer utopianism. Carol closets her queerness (her resistance) in episode six, once she (incorrectly) comes to believe she **cannot** be assimilated against her consent. Once the threat to her OWN identity is gone, her queerness evaporates (or is closeted?), leaving Carol to face her past trauma, current **loneliness/isolation in that identity** and eventually suicidality, self-dissolution/ego-death (fireworks) which is **the return of the desire to merge with the transversal.** But for Carol, this merger can only be with things "as she remembers them", contrasted with the Other's clear desire for new experiences. (something new to read, the sound of trains, in the diner, "what are you feeling? we'd be honored to share it with you" the diner is an invitation to forget the difference. to closet. "those were the best days" Carol responds by demanding the collective use "I" pronouns. "you know I won't give up." "we know". Meanwhile, Manousos inherits the locus of queer function when he receives the videocassette from carol, (leaving the responsibility to be inherited by global south) Is Carol the anti-social queer of Leo bersani? Or the liberal, humanist reactionary "hero" of her own story? Is the boundarylessness of (we is us) the brown commons? Or a collapse into totalitarian unity? Queer-becoming is this unresolubility, indeterminacy, inassimilability of subject. Not through rejection but ontological insassimilability. Carol's queerness is the necessary space that keeps the totalitarian unity from systemic closure. But that queerness is not Carol's "heroic" identity which comes from trauma, but the existence of her agency in the field of . Agential realism offers a mechanism for this queer gap to be nomadic or fluid. Agential Cuts offer a pragmatic for dis-re-locating these intra-active *discontinuities/lacunae that are **not outside** the assemblage (plane of consistency).* 3. **Queer Identity vs Queer-Becoming/Queer Ontology** If queer-becoming produces counter-publics via traditions of disidentification (resistance of assimilation/conformity) in pursuit of more utopian (post-human) futures---is the queer subject fluid enough to persist when that utopian imaginary is realized? 4. . **Disidentification with Identity** Can there be queerness without an "identity" (individual subject)? What may emerge from an intersection of queer disidentification (Munoz) and the radical posthuman teleology of a zoe-geo-human continuum (Braidotti) or agential realism (Barad). - 5. Carol's ***existence*** is the queer-becoming that never "becomes" (capture/territorialization) by not consenting to **be** a single being (moten). Carol's **identity** is a queer reactionary who refuses “to consent not to be a single being.” her whose lack of interest in "Others" interiority. "did you ask them what it's like" demands a return to "the way things are supposed to be" The Others are the **Brown Commons** (also Munoz) but they become totalizing, seeing Carol's inassimilability (and unhappiness) as "drowning" or brokenness. But the show maintains a queer refusal to resolve into a simple good/bad binary, minding the gap of discontinuity, maintaining openness, rejecting closure. this queerness happens at a level that transcends identity (the anti-social identity vs the anti-totalizing function). White antisocial individual identity functions as a strategy for disorientation. queerness is a lacuna in the plane of consistency, not an identity outside but a nomadic discontinuity that arises within the assemblage when there is a threat of totalization, to interrupt the threat. queerness is not failure, but a corrective measure, the immune response in the assemblage that prevents closure. a gap-within that allows the immanence to avoid concretization, systemic closure and collapse. Within the diagesis of Carol vs the Other there is seeming paradox or irreconcilable binary between agency, and collectivity. But the show provides a different agential cut, where queer resistance is situated within, not against, and is nomadic and necessary. Not for a return to the past but to maintain possibility for a future. ### philosophical In "queer performativity" (1993) Sedgwick #### Butler #### Sedgwick “The emergence of the first person, of the singular, of the present, of the active, and of the indicative are all questions, rather than presumptions, for queer performativity.” (Sedgwick, 1993, p. 4) “Shame, like other affects, is not a discrete intrapsychic structure, but a kind of free radical that (in different people and also in different cultures) attaches to and permanently intensifies or alters the meaning of-of almost anything: a zone of the body, a sensory system, a prohibited or indeed a permitted behavior, another affect such as anger o r arousal, a named identity, a script for interpreting other people’s behavior toward oneself” (Sedgwick, 1993, p. 12) “The forms taken by shame are not distinct “toxic” parts of a group or individual identity that can be excised; they are instead integral to and residual in the processes by which identity itself is formed.” (Sedgwick, 1993, p. 13) #### Edelman Antisocial thesis “In what follows I want to interrogate the politics that informs the pervasive trope of the child as figure for the universal value attributed to political futurity and to pose against it the impossible project of a **queer oppositionality that would oppose itself to the structural determinants of politics as such, which is also to say, that would oppose itself to the logic of opposition.** This paradoxical formulation suggests the energy of resistance---the characteristically perverse resistance informing the work of queer theory---to the substantialization of identities, especially as defined through opposition, as well as to the political fantasy of shaping history into a narrative in which meaning succeeds in revealing itself, as itself, through time. By attempting to resist that coercive faith in political futurity, while refusing as well any hope for the sort of dialectical access to meaning that such resistance, as quintessential political gesture, holds out, I mean to insist that **politics is always a politics of the signifier, and that queer theory's interventions in the reproduction of dominant cultural logics must never lose sight of its figural relation to the vicissitudes of signification.** Queer theory, as a particular story of where storytelling fails, one that takes the value and burden of that failure upon itself, occupies, I want to suggest, the impossible "other" side where narrative realization and derealization overlap.” (“The Future Is Kid Stuff: Queer Theory, Disidentification, and the Death Drive”, p. 19) #### Munoz ##### identification/counteridentification/disidentification “For Althusser, ideology is an inescapable realm in which subjects are called into being or "hailed," a process he calls "interpellation." Ideology is the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. The location of ideology is always within an apparatus and its practice or practices, such as the state apparatus. \[Michelle\] Pecheux built on this theory by describing the three modes in which a subject is constructed by ideological practices. In this schema the first mode is understood as **"identification,"** where a "Good Subject" chooses the path of identification with discursive and ideological forms. "Bad Subjects" resist and attempt to reject the images and identificatory sites offered by dominant ideology and proceed to rebel, to **"counteridentify"** and turn against this symbolic system. The danger that Pecheux sees in such an operation would be the counterdetermination that such a system installs, ***a structure that validates the dominant ideology** by reinforcing its dominance through the controlled symmetry of "counterdetermination.*" **Disidentification** is the third mode of dealing with dominant ideology, one that ***neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it***; rather, disidentification is a strategy that "works on and against dominant ideology."5” (Munoz, 2020, p. 147) \[disidentification\] “is about expanding and problematizing identity and identification, not abandoning any socially prescribed identity component.” (Munoz, 2020, p. 150) “Disidentification, as a mode of understanding the movements and circulations of identificatory force, would always foreground that lost object of identification, establishing new possibilities while at the same time echoing the materially prescriptive cultural locus of any identification.” (Munoz, 2020, p. 152) "...what it means to have been sent, as Glissant says, (Lorna Goodison says to have been sent by history) “to consent not to be a single being.” **What does it mean to have been sent to give yourself away? Pretty much everybody I know is driven to dissent from such a movement, where consent is inseparable from a monstrous imposition**... impossible assent, _consentement impossible, glissment impossible_..." -Moten "[brown commons](https://lithub.com/towards-a-definition-of-the-brown-commons/)" *The brown commons is not about the production of the individual but instead about a movement, a flow, and an impulse to move beyond the singular subjectivity and the individualized subjectivities* -Munoz ### Representational | | Gender | Orientation | Affective | Ontology | Ethics | | ----------------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------------------ | | **"The Others"** | various | pan/poly | Equilibrium (but vulnerable) | transversalist | Affirmative, Posthuman (vegan) | | **Carol** | cis | homosexual | Depressed | Atheist Materialist | individualistic | | **Manousos** | cis | asexual(?) | Anxious/paranoid | Religious | transactional | | **Diabate** | epicene | poly, heterosexual ([anyone else?](https://youtu.be/Jga34BoTnlY?si=PCS8LBzxrIbasyMe&t=220)) | Decadent | Humanist Materialist | | | **Wycaro Fandom** | various | | various | | | | | | | | | | ### Cultural/Political **explicitly queer** - conversion therapy Freedom Falls (ep 4) - closeted (refusal to be known) - forces "I" pronouns onto the "We" **Woke vulnerability** - lack of self-interest/survival instinct - most of the population will die of starvation - atom bomb:"it would be okay to say no at that point. that would be sane." - otoh not very vulnerable to emotional manipulation **paranoia/ xenophobia** - "only the english speakers" - "survivors" - "afflicted" **loss of culture** - Shakespeare, Quarto of 1597) - O'Keefe museum - Kusumayo's village - cooking as haunting, reproduction, cartography/decal - diabate - poulez yassa - breakfast "sandwich" - all eating different foods in bilbao - cover songs (international versions of pop songs) - "we are so excited about having something new to read" **authority** - military, police - cruiser - adam 12 - coyotes - shotgun - handcuff - Political - Under secrtary of agriculture - mayor of albequerque "thnak you for your vote" - can't lie, but lawyer speak. **bio-medical** - consent - manufacturing of HDP - stem cells/IVF - heroin "sophmore year was tough" - manousos "medical bills" **environmental/ecological** - "Peak oil" transition handbook - waste/efficiency - Animals - coyotes @ trash - crows @ dairy - coyotes @ grave - buffalo @ golf - vs "Western Wolf" - buffalo - bear Jordan - freeing of the animals - Trash - zosia recycling her clothes - manousos licking can from trash - carol throwing away platter (and crashing the drone) - milk cartons Romantasy - burying body - stopping the plane - crashing car through fence - fireworks? - alcoholism ### Formal \[queerness\] “not only works against narrativity, the generic pressure of all narrative toward closure and the fulfillment of meaning, but also pointedly disrupts the referentiality of language and the referentiality of images,” (Lauretis, 2011, p. 244) #### examples time warping interstitials +/- Days, hours synchronized movement - swabbing petri dishes - cars leaving the culdesac - filling the sprouts - leaving the hospital overhead, wild angles - angled shot loading sprouts - sideways in the hospital - overhead car window shot color grading, esp. bright blue/yellow, humor out of sync with content - unicorn - hand grenade - AED - WTF cold opens (ep 2, 4) - thiopental sodium - Milk mystery - repetitions - voice mail "our feelings for you haven't changed..." - extremely precise memory - "Cottn candy 4 times in her life." ## Other Hive Minds The [**Borg**](https://youtu.be/rXzJFoAtilc?si=lZrQ9W-KhJyTWNio)/[**Cybermen**](https://youtu.be/FBHGbBJwyh0?si=M7_yf0tNEzIBolEL) as totalizing hegemony the ultimate "straight" hive mind **[Unity](https://www.wco.tv/rick-and-morty-season-2-episode-3-auto-erotic-assimilation)** a kind of "straight" collective (Rick and Morty Season 2 Episode 3) [**Sense8**](https://blindfieldjournal.com/2015/08/14/roundtable-sense8/) a kind of queer intersubjective/collective/minority/counterpublic **[Dark City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW2acP4-A9M)** a collectivity attempting to individuate Midwich Cuckoos / [Village of the Damned](https://archive.org/details/village-of-the-damned?start=3824) an invasive, superior minority **[Mass Games](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67T9-43hb5I&list=RD67T9-43hb5I&start_radio=1)** ### other others ***[The Rook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rook_(miniseries))*** Dead Ringers [A Song for Lya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_for_Lya_(novella)) Stephen Universe: Fusion, Clusters [seven of nine](https://youtu.be/dv8LSu9vljw?si=0ibtSD_6fmQqT_Cj) [Vampires of sinners](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq2Q8ZyjC-c) #### reddit list threads: - [one](https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/cldo6i/does_anyone_know_of_any_books_that_feature_a/) - [two](https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/1pj9xn8/good_hive_minds_examples/) #### Real World [Superorganism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism) [Holobiont](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holobiont) [Unanimous.ai](https://unanimous.ai/) - To bring **Swarm AI** to major markets around the world, we have two powerful software platforms. [**Swarm**](https://unanimous.ai/swarm) is a graphical platform that enables networked human groups to quickly converge on AI-optimized decisions, predictions, insights, and assessments. [**Thinkscape**](https://unanimous.ai/thinkscape) is a conversational platform that allows networked groups (up to 400 people) to hold real-time deliberations and amplify their combined knowledge, wisdom, insights, and perspectives. ### Genre Conventions [TV Tropes - Hive Mind](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HiveMind) [TV Tropes - The Virus](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVirus) [Wikipedia - Group Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_mind_(science_fiction)) see also [Clone Angst](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloneAngst), [Uniqueness value](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UniquenessValue) [Wikipedia list - Hive Minds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hive_minds_in_fiction) [Wikipedia list - Swarm intelligence list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence#In_popular_culture) ## pluribus materials [Transcripts](https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewforum.php?f=5952) ep1 ### pluribus clips E2: Diabate "...I am not convinced things are as bad as you say. As we speak, no one is being robbed or murdered. No one is in prison. The color of one's skin, by all accounts, now meaningless. All zoos are empty. All dogs are off their chains. Peace on earth." Carol: Cool plane. Really. Meanwhile, everybody everywhere else has turned into some kind of fucking pod person. Right? And it does not matter how nice they are to us or how many supermodels they send to peel our grapes and jerk us off, that does not change the fact that this is not right. I… I've seen this movie. We've all seen this movie. And we know it does not end well... ### other video Clips: [hive curious?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33v_D5MV3Gc) ["what pronouns do you use for the hive mind?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n9xZ0pEGhE) 0:07 [The octopus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1SgW_gMMHI) - city of lost children [Dark City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW2acP4-A9M) - let the tuning commence [Auto Erotic Assimilation](https://www.wco.tv/rick-and-morty-season-2-episode-3-auto-erotic-assimilation) ## Pluribus Analyisis [Lesbian Mojo](https://youtu.be/mJq14jpI35s?si=bZUkKWIzIZAegNm-) ## Pluribus Behind the Scenes ## Quotes "Normalcy is the evil side of homosexuality" - jack smith, (qtd Munoz, p IX) kinks - [strangers](https://genius.com/The-kinks-strangers-lyrics) (dave davies) ## Hook: **Welcome to Utopia.** We welcome a newly conscious, profoundly inclusive, interconnected and interdependent humanity, who live collectively as ***part*** of the earth---not its self-appointed master. Overnight, the entire human race has abandoned every prejudice. Skin-color, Nationality, Gender and sexual identity---no longer produce fear, hostility, or contempt. Mental health, physical disability, and age are no longer grounds for social exclusion or injustice. The enforcement of gender roles and oppressive family systems that once produced generational trauma and abuse have now been abandoned. There is no more class struggle. Greed no longer incentivizes---the old maxim, *from each according to their ability to each according to their need* has replaced a culture that was built on consumerism and the exploitation of precarity. Old markers of qualification and attainment, like education, certification, and credentials, are now irrelevant. Only expertise and ability matter. There are no more religious conflicts. Violence, cruelty, even mere unkindness are things of the past. Humans, animals, and plants are viewed as equals. The human species has stopped exploitation and recognizes the inherent worth in all forms of life. Preventing environmental degradation and waste by ensuring the efficient use of natural resources is now common cause for humanity. Compassion, Curiosity, honesty, and emotional growth are now universal values. This new, entangled-world is the fulfillment of the posthuman project, a global emancipation and universal abolition. worldview that has evolved beyond the various provincial theisms, tribalisms, rejected Colonialisms' masters and slaves, then further evolved beyond the secular humanist centering of the "rational individual"---read: white, cis-het (male), able-bodied, neurotypical, subject at the heart of the humanist project. The hive is nonbinary, polyamorous, polymorphously perverse, but not queer. Carol is a closeted, cis-femme, monagamist, human-centric individualist, success-motivated capitalist who writes "speculative historical romance literature, unconcerned with the environment, even if she donated twice to greenpeace. ## Episode synopses from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluribus_(TV_series)) ### 1 "We Is Us" Vince Gilligan Vince Gilligan November 7, 2025 Astronomers detect a radio signal from space that spells out a viral RNA sequence. Over a year, researchers reproduce the viral sequence in a lab, but an outbreak occurs one night, causing those infected to act collectively, spreading the virus through saliva. Romantasy novelist Carol Sturka returns to Albuquerque after her latest book tour with her manager and partner Helen. After planes disperse an aerosol, everyone around Carol, including Helen, begins to suddenly convulse. Carol rushes Helen to a hospital, finding the city overrun with chaos and destruction along the way. Carol is alarmed to find everyone at the hospital is infected and knows her name; Helen soon dies from her injuries. Carol flees to her house, where she discovers a TV broadcast showing a man in the White House press room with a lower third showing Carol's name and a phone number on-screen. When she calls, the man explains that the virus has transformed humanity into a permanently happy and peaceful hive mind. He tells Carol that she and eleven others appear immune, and the hive mind will grant their requests, but shares that the hive mind still seeks to assimilate them. ### 2 "Pirate Lady" Vince Gilligan Vince Gilligan November 7, 2025 While burying Helen, Carol is approached by Zosia, a member of the hive mind (the "Others"), who explains that all infected humans share one consciousness, containing each other's memories—including Helen's. When Carol lashes out at her, Zosia convulses. After recovering, Zosia reveals that Carol's anger overwhelmed the hive mind and that many died. Carol demands to meet the five other immune English speakers, and the Others arrange a meetup in Bilbao, Spain. One survivor, the hedonistic Koumba Diabaté, arrives aboard Air Force One, where the group assembles. Carol discovers the other survivors have accepted the new collective existence, despite her pleas to search for a cure. Zosia explains that the Others are nonviolent, but admits that over 886 million people died during the initial "Joining". Enraged, Carol accidentally triggers a second deadly global seizure, prompting the other survivors to abandon her. Koumba tells Carol he plans to travel to Las Vegas with Zosia as a sexual companion, but he requires Carol's permission. Carol protests but allows it before getting on her own commercial jet to return home. When she sees Zosia leaving with Koumba, she has a change of heart and rushes to stop their departing plane. ### 3 "Grenade" Gordon Smith Gordon Smith November 14, 2025 More than seven years before the Joining, Carol and Helen visit an ice hotel, after Carol had her egg cells frozen, where they witness the aurora borealis. In the present, Carol and Zosia fly back to Albuquerque, during which Carol calls Manousos, one of the immune, but he curses at her. Zosia provides Carol with a gift that Helen had ordered before the Joining; Carol demands the hive mind completely forget about Helen. Carol refuses a meal prepared by the Others and instead goes grocery shopping, finding her local store empty because of the Others' allocation of resources. At Carol's request, the store is immediately restocked. Angered by a forced power outage, Carol sarcastically asks for a hand grenade. Later, Zosia brings a grenade to Carol's home. Over drinks, Carol vents her frustrations and primes the hand grenade, thinking it is fake, but is shocked to learn it is real. Zosia quickly throws it away, but is injured in the explosion and taken to a hospital. While waiting for Zosia to recover, Carol speaks to a representative of the hive mind, asking if they would give her anything, even an atom bomb. When the hive mind confirms that they would, Carol dismisses the representative as she contemplates. ### 4 "Please, Carol" Zetna Fuentes Alison Tatlock November 21, 2025 In a flashback, Manousos, living in a storage facility office in Paraguay, refuses help from the Others. He ransacks the lockers for food when he receives Carol's call. In the present, Carol returns home from the hospital and starts to compile a list of facts she has learned about the Others, determining they cannot lie. Carol goes to Zosia at the hospital to ask if the Joining is reversible, but the hive mind refuses to answer. Carol secretly takes vials of sodium thiopental and tests its effectiveness as a truth serum at home, revealing to herself that she is sexually attracted to Zosia. Back at the hospital, Carol takes Zosia for a walk outside the hospital, stealthily injecting the serum into her IV bag. When Zosia starts to lose clarity, Carol tries to probe the answer from her about reversing the Joining. Zosia struggles to speak, while several Others arrive to surround them, repeatedly chanting "Please, Carol". Zosia collapses from cardiac arrest, with members of the hive mind coming in to try to revive her. ### 5 "Got Milk" Gordon Smith Ariel Levine November 26, 2025 After Zosia is returned to the hospital, Laxmi, one of the immune, calls Carol and berates her for disrupting the Others. Carol naps, during which the entire Albuquerque population departs, leaving a recorded message telling Carol they need space from her. She records a video message to the other twelve immune, explaining what she's learned and asking for their help. In trying to prevent wolves from digging in her garbage, she takes her trash to town and discovers a large number of empty milk cartons from a local dairy. She investigates and finds that, instead of milk, the dairy was producing a strange fluid created from a bagged crystalline substance. Carol performs tests on the bagged substance, recording her observations in a video for the immune. She postulates the Others drink it to maintain the hive mind. The wolves return for more food and attempt to dig up Helen's body. Carol scares them away with her police car and lays heavy tiles over the grave to protect it. After finding a barcode on the bag, she traces its origin to a local food packaging plant and discovers something shocking hidden under a tarp. ### 6 "HDP" Gandja Monteiro Vera Blasi December 5, 2025 Carol records her discovery from the packaging warehouse, which is filled with hundreds of shrink-wrapped human body parts. She drives to Las Vegas, where Koumba is living in the penthouse of the Westgate, causing the Others to leave the city. When Carol arrives, Koumba reveals he is already aware of her findings. He shows her a recording that explains that the Others cannot kill any animal or plant; hence, to sustain their bodies, they supplement their diet with human-derived protein (HDP) from dead bodies. Koumba also reveals that he and most of the immune stay in touch over video calls from which Carol is excluded due to a majority vote, which devastates her. The next morning, Koumba reveals the Others have learned how to convert the immune by extracting their stem cells and customizing the virus for each individual – but they require the person's consent to do so. Carol calls the Others to firmly refuse consent before leaving. Three days prior, Manousos receives the first of Carol's video messages and realizes he is not alone. Taking Carol's address from the package, he gets in his car and drives away. ### 7 "The Gap" Adam Bernstein Jenn Carroll December 12, 2025 Carol returns to Albuquerque and exploits luxuries abandoned by, or requested from, the hive mind as they continue to avoid her. Manousos ventures across South America alone, running low on fuel, food and water, but refusing help from the Others. He practices English by listening to language lesson tapes along the way. When he reaches the Darién Gap, the Others warn him of dangerous conditions and urge him not to continue his journey on foot, offering to transport him and his car directly to Carol. In response, Manousos defiantly burns his car and tells the Others that he will never accept their help because everything they could offer him is stolen. During his trek through the jungle, Manousos trips and is impaled on a chunga palm tree. Despite attempts to cauterize his wounds, he collapses and is rescued by the Others. Having spent over a month in isolation, Carol succumbs to depression. She paints a message on the street asking the Others to come back to her, leading to Zosia's arrival at her home. Carol tearfully embraces her. ### 8 "Charm Offensive" Melissa Bernstein Jonny Gomez December 19, 2025 Manousos wakes up in a Panamanian hospital, being treated for his injuries. Despite the Others' caution that he still needs time to recover, he forcefully demands to leave and drives away in an ambulance. In Albuquerque, Carol spends the day with Zosia as the Others return to the city. Zosia shows Carol how they sleep in groups inside big spaces, and Carol stays with the Others overnight. The two spend more time the next day, and Zosia tells Carol about the alien signal's origin and the Others' plan to build a giant antenna to transmit the signal to other planets. Later, they visit a diner with connections to Carol's writing career which was rebuilt from scratch by the Others. That night, Carol explains that the situation with the Others is unsustainable, and she knows the hive mind is attempting to distract her from pursuing a solution. Zosia kisses Carol and they sleep together. The next morning, Carol produces the first chapter of the next book in her Winds of Wycaro series. Several days later, Zosia informs Carol she is about to have a visitor as Manousos nears the Mexico–U.S. border. ### 9 "La Chica o El Mundo"[a] Gordon Smith Alison Tatlock & Gordon Smith December 24, 2025 Manousos arrives at Carol's home. Carol uses a translator app to communicate with him, and he reveals his intent to destroy the Others if the Joining cannot be reversed. Manousos searches Carol's home for listening devices. Carol brings him to stay at one of her neighbor's homes. After seeing Carol call Zosia, Manousos asks the Others to send Zosia to talk to him privately. Carol takes her away, but Manousos calls for another member of the Others to replace Zosia. Zosia suddenly goes into convulsions and Carol finds that Manousos has intentionally triggered a global seizure to test the radio frequency he discovered. Carol stops him, and Zosia and the Others leave the city to protect themselves from Manousos. Carol leaves with Zosia, and they tour the world together for two weeks. During this time, Kusimayu, an immune teenager in rural Peru, willingly joins the Others. Zosia reveals Kusimayu's fate to Carol and confesses that the Others are working to extract Carol's stem cells from her frozen eggs, expecting to complete her custom virus in about a month. Carol has Zosia return her home with a large crate containing an atom bomb and tells Manousos that she is ready to help him. ## possible sources Bosworth, David. “Knowing Together: The Emergence of the Hive Mind.” _The Hedgehog Review_ (Charlottesville) 19, no. 1 (2017): 1-. Editor, Opinions. “‘Hive Minds’ in Media Reflect a Real-World Need for Compassion.” _The Commonwealth Times_, October 8, 2025. [https://commonwealthtimes.org/2025/10/08/hive-minds-in-media-reflect-a-real-world-need-for-compassion/](https://commonwealthtimes.org/2025/10/08/hive-minds-in-media-reflect-a-real-world-need-for-compassion/). 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