One theory I'm willing to bet never comes to fruition

I don't think there's any way in hell we're getting aliens in this show. Unless it's some crazy Contact-like ending in the final episode.

If you're going to make an alien contact show (with 2 way contact, which we don't know if this is) you have to decide from the outset. Because you're overruling one of nature's almost statistical certainties: that it's certain we'll never actually make contact with an alien species because of how vast the universe is and how difficult traversing it is. The amount of technological advancement required to scan the universe for intelligent life and visit it at will is an order of magnitude beyond anything we've seen in sci-fi. They literally have to invent magical technology in sci-fi to make it work or hard sci-fi will have to use incredibly large scales of time and put the magical burden on evolution.

So far the show is not giving off the vibe you get from shows about 2-way contact with aliens. This feels like it's going to be exploring concepts related to the self, soul, humanity, etc. All issues within or internal to our species. It's a look at us, not others.

That being said, if there's some way to do more and bring in that concept later, it could be fun and entertaining. It depends on the vibe of the show and where they choose to go.

Now, if there's no aliens in the show, the idea that the virus is intentionally neutering us to be defenseless and vulnerable to an invasion also goes out the window.

So all we've got so far and will continue to get is the drama surrounding how humans, Carol especially, deal with "humanity". And with that being said, I do hope they trust the audience and try to take it further than that. People are very smart. If "humanity" has lost its killer survival instinct, well, 12 people still got it.

There's 13 people in the world. 12 individuals and then a human hivemind consciousness comprised of billions of bodies/minds. That 13th one (not a coincidence I think they chose 13) is the dangerous one. If I were one of the 12, I'd immediately ask the hivemind to relinquish some bodies voluntarily as a show of good faith. If it claims it can not bring back their "souls", I'd ask it to relinquish their bodies as automatons that I can control. It's not fair that it gets 8 billion and I have 1. That's a monopoly and inherently unfair and therefore, harmful. Think of it like making an antitrust law to force a telecom company to lease space on its lines to competitors. It would also be inarguable that one giant hivemind consciousness + more individuals is better than just the one consciousness because objectively having more individual perspectives to tackle problems is a good thing. And problems will arise because the objectively best vision for humanity is to become a spacefaring multiplanetary species and that is a tall order (but now attainable). If the hivemind doesn't cooperate, especially since with its great power comes great responsibility to our species' development, then it's violating its "do no harm" principle. I want to see these kinds of problems/arguments on the show eventually.