The office: Hive Mind series

May 10, 2026  |  mtxvp

... An excerpt ...

For generations humanity toyed with the concept of hive mind. This idea was explored in a number of Sci-Fi books: The Expanse, Nexus, The Forever War, The Invincible to name a few.

In our modern life we also have attempts to build hive minds. One of the relatively modern and successful so far has been The Office: group of people getting together in a Company, devising office etiquette and organizing themselves towards a common goal by sharing intelligence and workload.

The entrance to the modern North American office is usually through the garage. The worker unit parks their transportation device and as they approach the station the mind already tunes in into the work and all the connections they are planning to execute through the day.

Office door - pretty unremarkable by itself, until unit realizes that 1/3 or 1/2 of their life (depending on commute) is spent behind this door. What if one day the dreams of "leadership" units come true in a great rapture, and this will be the last time the "worker" units enter this door - staying there for the rest of their organic life?

Typical workplace - unit plugs in their brain through all their senses into the common platform, usually via computer terminal.

Lunch room & water cooler: mostly "worker" units are exploring alternative connection paths and ways to reorganize themselves outside of officially prescribed channels.

Meeting room: "worker" units go through carefully choreographed motions of exchanging information, comparing, replacing their intentions with those prescribed by "leadership" units. In this phase etiquette prescribes all units to put aside any personal ambitions and external matters for the group to be able to successfully culminate on a path beneficial for the Company as a whole. Most successful units are able to demonstrate successful separation of personal and business, act out a cheerful enthusiasm and help "leadership" units to execute on their agenda.