Look, I’ll throw out a Pluribus theory, sure why not:
The virus is used to create planetary workforces of willing slaves.
Once a species has been completely infected, they become a hive mind working in perfect unison and happy to do whatever anyone outside the hive mind says. Everyone knows what anyone knows, so there’s no question of training or skills (and even if there’s something the hive doesn’t know, you train one person and you’ve trained the hive). And since the hive mind no longer has any desire for conflict or killing, it’ll simply perpetuate itself indefinitely until you arrive.
(Or will it? Does the hive even care about sex anymore? Well, for the purposes of my theory, it does. And will do it extremely responsibly.)
Transmitting the signal as a coded message means whoever sent it will only entrap species that have the technological capabilities to receive the signal, decode it, and produce RNA to synthesize the virus. This pre-filters for a level of sophistication that makes your new slave race start out on a strong footing. It’s one thing to train up modern humans, another to train up a planet full of pre-industrial humans.
I know that theorizing about tv shows after two episodes is where dreams go to die, but hey. It’s still fun.
I agree with this. As soon as the Hive said they couldn't kill, I thought that this "virus" would be the perfect way to take over a planet without bloodshed on the invaders' side. You contaminate the planet and then later arrive and take over, by either enslaving or eliminating the now harmless population.
I wonder if this is the route Vince is going to take or if he's going to stick with examining the consequences of the Hive population simply existing.
