6d ago

Does the hive procreate?

With the matter of starvation and the dubious aim of the virus (its target may be to cancel mankind according to some theories), how do you think the hive manages procreation? I think at least for now they would avoid it to keep the load on food resources as low as possible. What’s your take?

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I don't think they procreate. If they were interested in continuing humanity they wouldn't be so strict about their philosophy. They would "pick the fucking apple" as Carol puts it. It's a feature, not a bug.
IMO all they want is enough time and bodies to send a new signal before humanity goes extinct.
Whether it's a prelude to invasion or just a rogue virus still trying to spread itself is anyone's guess.
i don’t think they’re procreating right now since they know they don’t even have the resources for the current population. feels kinda like a critique on overpopulation. if they actually needed to reproduce to achieve some goal, they’d probably do it in the least invasive way possible.
Im hoping some kind of 3D human printing comes into the plot at some point and Carol has to something something against an army of Carol's.
Maybe they will procreate once majority of old host bodies die. There are many young people outside America and Europe.
- Yeah I also think that they would control the population, maybe letting it decline to a more sustainable level over some decades and have a steady state of new babies in some years time. But what if a baby is immune? :D I’ll let this overspeculation sit for a while…
  
  Such baby would be groomed to join the Hive in future. If everything goes right few years later they would happily get plurbed.
I think it depends on what their ultimate goal is.
At the moment the only goal were aware of is infecting everyone not currently infected. That could possibly take a long enough time that the hive would need to reproduce.
A secondary task we've seen is serving those not part of the hive. But it doesn't seem like they need to do this. So if they all die off, that's fine.
I do think it's not something that will come up anytime soon. We're only 10 days removed from almost everyone joining the hive, so we likely have more people than we'll need for a while.
Plus, as you noted, food is a problem currently. I think for very small populations the hive could probably survive under their rules. Especially if the uninfected do the tasks the infected can't. The hive can only eat apples that have fallen, but an uninfected could pick the apples for them.
I was wondering this also; but I'd bet it's probably a No given the whole "don't cause harm" proscription, in light of how pregnancy can cause harm and isn't a sure thing.
- They perform activities where the risk is not zero. They are indeed illogical with the food thing, but they are not entirely risk averse. That being said, I hope, if they address it, that's not going to be a big part of the story.

9 comments