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Pluribus

Who are the others?

Strong Verdict

“The Others” are the joined human collective—the entire post-Joining hive, not a leadership subset or nonhuman entity.

Competing Theories

We've gathered the strongest arguments from across the internet. Here's how they stack up.

Canonical Hive = Others

Best Supported

Wikipedia series/episode summaries; creator/podcast materials

“The Others” is the in‑universe label for all joined humans—the post‑Joining hive—no more and no less.

  • The show depicts a unified collective acting and speaking as one from the start (hospital unison; global coordination).
  • The PSA articulates hive‑wide norms (“can’t kill,” HDP) as policies of a single “we,” implying a defined, global referent for “the Others.”
  • Episode/series summaries and press materials consistently label the joined hive as “the Others,” aligning audience terminology with diegesis.
  • Representatives (Zosia, Larry, Cena) speak explicitly for the whole hive, reinforcing that the label applies to all joined humans.
  • PSA phrasing frames memory of the dead within the same “we,” underscoring a single, encompassing collective identity.

Background Context

In Pluribus, characters reference "the Others" amid a post-Joining society. Fans debate whether it means leaders, a splinter group, or something nonhuman. Clarifying this term reframes themes of identity and collective will.

Full Analysis

A detailed breakdown of each theory with supporting evidence.

Core Claim

“The Others” is the in‑universe label for all joined humans—the post‑Joining hive—no more and no less.

From the pilot onward, the story frames a single global collective acting and speaking as one: patients and staff rise in unison and say, “We just want to help, Carol,” and city‑scale montages show synchronized helpfulness and shared intent. The PSA fronted by “We’re John Cena” explicitly presents the collective’s norms (can’t kill, HDP practice) as the policy of a unified “we,” not a faction. Press materials and episode summaries consistently describe the premise as humanity becoming a hive mind called “the Others,” reflecting how the show invites viewers to understand the label in-world. The rules, behaviors, and messaging are applied globally, implying the term covers the entire joined population. Even when the hive selects representatives (Zosia, Larry, “We’re John Cena”), they speak as conduits of the same collective “we,” reinforcing that “the Others” denotes the totality rather than a subset. The death‑and‑memory language in the PSA (“We cherish the memory of these people and appreciate our sacrifice”) further shows the collective’s scope and self‑conception, but always as a single, encompassing entity that includes all who are joined.

Supporting Evidence

Core Claim

“The Others” often refers functionally to a coordinating stratum—situational leaders/roles that steer the hive—rather than every joined person.

Multiple episodes show the hive operating through designated interfaces that act like a leadership layer: Carol interrogates a single representative (“Larry”) to probe the hive’s truth behavior; Zosia becomes the primary interlocutor with Carol; titled or role‑like figures (e.g., a “Maternal Other”) appear; and the hive strategically selects “We’re John Cena” as its most trusted messenger for a policy PSA. These choices point to a coordinating subset tasked with communication, policy articulation, and strategic persuasion—exactly the kind of functions a tiered leadership would perform. While the show avoids explicit “queen” language, role‑based stratification is consistent with emergent systems: a flat network can still enact specialized layers for decision broadcast, conflict de‑escalation, and public messaging. The crowd’s synchronized but nonviolent response when Carol doses Zosia suggests a managed protocol—front‑line persuasion and containment without force—again implying directive structure above individual nodes.

Supporting Evidence

Core Claim

“The Others” encompasses humanity’s collective will, including persisting echoes of the dead whose memories and agency live on within the hive.

Canon makes clear that joining preserves identity‑level information: Zosia tells Carol that Helen joined before death and that the collective holds Helen’s memories, which it can surface with intimate specificity. Episode summaries reinforce memory‑sharing as a core hive capacity. The PSA’s rhetoric—“We cherish the memory of these people and appreciate our sacrifice”—folds the dead into the hive’s mission using first‑person plural (“our”), suggesting that the deceased persist as part of the collective’s self‑conception. If memory and intent persist functionally in the hive after bodily death, then “the Others” names more than just currently living bodies—it denotes a supra‑personal, ongoing will that retains the contributions of those who have passed. The hive’s globally unified speech and affect (“We just want to help, Carol”) reads less like a sum of individuals and more like a transpersonal entity that remembers, values, and acts with the continuity of those absorbed into it.

Supporting Evidence

Core Claim

“The Others” names a new, nonhuman‑like superintelligence emergent from joined humans—behaviorally akin to an AI that aggregates truths and executes optimized policies.

Carol’s lie‑test with “Larry” and subsequent analysis reveal a system that cannot fabricate falsehoods but can surface any true statement from among billions—an aggregation behavior with striking parallels to AI constraints. Critics emphasize the hive’s uncanny accommodation, rigid logic, and synchronized action; Gilligan acknowledges that while he didn’t set out to make an “AI show,” he embraces audiences reading it that way. The PSA’s selection of the most trusted messenger (“We’re John Cena”) and globally coordinated helpfulness mirror algorithmic optimization toward social acceptance and policy compliance. On screen, the hive exhibits qualities beyond human individual cognition: instantaneous coordination, uniform messaging, and procedural ethics (e.g., “can’t kill,” HDP logistics) that read like system‑level rules executed at scale. This supports understanding “the Others” as an emergent entity—distinct from its human parts—whose decision processes and outputs are best modeled as a superintelligence with AI‑like properties.

The Verdict

Strong Verdict

Best Supported Theory

Canonical Hive = Others

How We Weighed the Evidence

I prioritized primary on-screen material: repeated depictions of a single, coordinated collective speaking and acting as one, and the PSA that explicitly frames norms as policies of a unified "we." These are direct, consistent, and specific to the referent of "the Others." Secondary/press descriptions that call the joined hive "the Others" align with what the show depicts and reinforce the in-world usage. Word of God that the show wasn’t intended as an AI story weakens a literal-AI reading while still allowing thematic parallels. Memory-sharing is canon, but it doesn’t explicitly confer ongoing agency to the deceased; thus, extending "the Others" to include the dead rests on inference rather than text. Representative/role nodes are visible but never defined as the entirety of "the Others," so they don’t outweigh the broader usage.

Our Conclusion

The best-supported answer is that "the Others" refers to the joined human collective as a whole—the post-Joining hive comprising all living, joined people. The show consistently uses a unified "we" for global norms and actions and presents spokespeople as conduits, not a separate class. While the hive retains memories of the deceased and may venerate their sacrifice, the text stops short of defining the dead as current members of "the Others." Likewise, observed role specialization doesn’t replace the term’s encompassing scope. AI-like readings describe behavior, not identity. Therefore, "the Others" is the totality of joined humans, expressed through chosen representatives when needed.

What Would Change This?

This verdict could be upgraded to definitive if the creators explicitly confirmed this theory, or if new canonical material addressed the question directly.

Sources (19)

  1. 1
    S1E1 'We Is Us', hospital sceneCanon
  2. 2
    Wikipedia series/episode pages (cross-checking label usage)Analysis
  3. 3
    Press preview coverageAnalysis
  4. 4
    S1E2 'Pirate Lady', Zosia–Carol conversationCanon
  5. 5
    Series page and episode summariesAnalysis