The thing about the Hive is that I don't think it's hiding any sinister intentions - I think that its "good" intentions ARE its sinister intentions. The Hive has taken the "good" intention of never killing and made it so cartoonishly literal and shallow that it has lost any legitimacy as a truly moral imperative. Like, a definition of killing that includes picking apples is not morally coherent. Their "thou shalt not kill" ethos is leading to mass death, but who really gives a shit about people dying? Not the Hive! The important thing is that everyone agrees that killing is wrong and that everyone avoids doing the wrong thing. If that indirectly leads to a lot of people dying - oh well. 🤷♀️ Isn't the breaking of a few billion eggs worth it to have such a beautiful and moral Consensus? It's true that people will starve, but they'll do it with a smile on their face! Isn't an existence without conflict so wonderful, so correct?
The only thing that the Hive finds genuinely distressing is the existence of voices outside of the beautifully perfect Consensus. The fact that Carol disagrees with their premise is so highly distressful that the Hive starts self-destructing whenever she gets too forceful about it. The Hive can pretty easily bear the cost of mass death, but what it can't bear at ALL is criticism. The Hive thinks it solved the trolley problem when it's actually just refusing to engage in any meaningful way in issues of ethics and reframing its refusal as evidence of its inherent goodness. Because conflict = evil, therefore avoidance of conflict = good
