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"The Others" are the main antagonists of the 2025 sci-fi thriller series Pluribus.
They are a decentralized hive mind composed of the majority of the human population of Earth.
History[]
The Others were formed after an alien virus manufactured by SETI researchers from broadcast data broke containment and broke down the "psychic glue" binding human minds together. After initially forming among the lab researchers, the Others would follow an ingrained biological and (what they viewed as) ethical imperative to spread the virus and expand the hivemind, gradually assimilating more individuals over the following month. When the military took notice, the imperative forced them to take some form of more aggressive action that rapidly expanded the hive, assimilating the entire global population overnight save for at least 13 individuals and hundreds of millions of accidental deaths from the rapid conversion.
Post change, the Others are interested in "helping" the remaining humans, providing them whatever they want until they can figure out why they weren't assimilated. They appear to be extreme pacifists unwilling to employ force on living individuals, which mandated them to free all pets and zoo animals, and are vulnerable to the negative emotions of existing humans, which can disrupt the hive if it gets too intense in the vicinity.
Personality[]
They have a pacifist mentality, seeing themselves as a necessary evil. It's in their natural biology to assimilate living beings, and they're willing to do anything to do so. Despite this, they demonstrate their hypocrisy time and again, for they have no limits. They never kill directly, but if someone dies as a result of their assimilation, they see it as a collateral damage and immediately overlook it. Despite this, they're always ready to perform any task to prevent the death of other living beings, and they do everything for their well-being.
Apparently, to make humans happy, they'll even give them weapons that could put them at risk. This demonstrates that despite their enormous knowledge, they're extremely incapable of understanding human emotions and intentions. They're intelligent in some environments, but extremely stupid in others, almost innocent. Their greatest weakness is the negative emotions of some humans, which can cause spasms and mass hysteria, in addition to their innocence, which leads them to believe every request made by an unassimilated human.