How sci-fi triggered my christian trauma: Pluribus

Love that requires change isn’t love aimed at you. It’s love aimed past you.

This writing was published on my Substack

I didn’t expect a sci-fi tv finale to bring up some lore from my religious past. Thanks a lot AppleTV+.

A moment in Pluribus landed so harshly that my body reacted before my brain did.

Where do love and control intersect?

The finale of Pluribus dragged me straight into my own history with Christianity.

The show centers on a virus that turns everyone in the world into a joyful hive mind. A few people stay immune. Carol is one of them.

For most of the season, the hive felt calm and gentle. The ending exposed what they actually do.

They can’t lie, but they choose what to withhold. They wait. They omit. Hoping you’ll become one of them.

In one scene, a hive representative named Zosia tells Carol she loves her and Manousos equally. Manousos is also uninfected, but he’s actively avoided the hive and wants nothing to do with them.

Carol’s relationship with Zosia runs deeper. Shared history of romantic intimacy, fracture and repair.

When love gets flattened into something abstract and coldly interchangeable, Carol breaks.

I recognized it immediately.

I grew up hearing the familiar lines. “We love you. God loves you. You’re welcome here. There’s no sin worse than another.”

Beneath that language lived a quieter expectation.

That I would eventually change.

When I came out, people in my church said supportive things. I felt something else beneath them. A belief that I’d make the “right” decision. That I’d return to God. That being gay was a phase with an expiration date.

The hive mind speaks in a similar register.

“We love you as you are. We respect consent. We won’t change you unless you want to.”

They hold a steady hope that you’ll choose to become them.

In Pluribus, that hope becomes deadly, even when it’s relentless kindness.

It’s disappointing that the kindness carried a directive.

I had my own Carol moment years ago. I was gardening when a Filipino woman walked by. That alone felt rare where I live. I felt genuinely excited to talk to her. We exchanged numbers. We went on a walk. We opened up.

It felt like connection. I felt hopeful about having another Filipino person in my neighborhood.

Then she invited me to dinner with her friends. She was cooking Filipino food, so obviously I said yes without hesitation.

Something felt off early on. These people didn’t have an edge. Everyone felt eerily polished. I ignored the feeling because I know I write people off quickly.

Then we prayed before eating.

Everything clicked. Christian group. Missionaries, as it turned out. Sent here to do what they called “service.”

I shut down. I recognized that structure immediately. Each person in that house had once been someone else’s invitation. Someone else’s hopeful project.

They were kind. They were welcoming. They believed deeply in what they were doing.

And that belief complicates everything.

They genuinely felt love toward me. Scripture supported them. Inside their framework, their care was sincere. I couldn’t puncture that belief because it was ironclad.

That’s the mental architecture of evangelical culture. Intention becomes evidence, and sincerity becomes justification.

What really nailed it for me came a few days later.

She invited me to her speech about her experience of the city. The talk was held at …her church.

There it was.

She had built enough relationship with me that I’d want to root for her. That I’d show up. That I’d sit through the presentation. That I might still be there when an altar call happened.

I’d experienced that kind of overtness before. I just wasn’t prepared for it anymore.

I felt annoyed. I felt disappointed. I had spent energy building something real, only to realize there had been an undercurrent the entire time. That undercurrent ran counter to how I’ve built my life now.

I’m still learning that I don’t have to like everyone. I don’t have to invite everyone into my life. Recognizing that I remain vulnerable to that softness hurt more than I expected.

That’s why the Pluribus finale felt so real.

When Carol says, “If you loved me, you wouldn’t do this,” and Zosia, hoping to convert her, answers, “It’s because we love you that we have to do this.”

I felt my stomach drop.

I’ve heard that sentence before.

That’s evangelism. Love shaped by outcome. Care in hopes of transformation.

Christianity is exceptional at building community. It’s one of the things I miss about it. Built-in opportunities for friendship.

The Pluribus hive mind mirrors that efficiency. One-minded action. Total unity. It’s powerful, and it’s frightening.

Christianity always has an answer. A way to fold doubt back into certainty. Even now, writing this, I can feel the reflex activate as I reflect on it.

Love that requires your transformation isn’t love aimed at you. It’s love aimed past you.

It values harmony over truth. It considers consent sacred while betting on your eventual disappearance.

What Pluribus understands, and what took me years to name, is that control doesn’t always arrive as force. Sometimes it arrives as patience. Sometimes it arrives smiling, certain, and convinced it knows who you’ll be once you finally let go.

I didn’t leave to be difficult. I left to stay intact. Any love that requires my erasure asks too much, no matter how gently it asks.