Did Holden end up going to the ring station and doing the same thing that Duarte was already doing in hive minding humanity to stop the dark gods?
I remember Holden mentioning the above to Miller. But I am not sure if I missed some other difference (e.g., Duarte making humanity a permanent hive mind, Duarte keeping the gates open instead of destroying them, etc.)
Posted Dec 14, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC
I may need to go back a re read this section but I don’t think Holden exploited the hive mind that Duarte was trying to use. I think there was some power that the main hub in the ring space had to hold back the dark gods and Holden used it as long as possible to help the others escape. His whole purpose was to oppose the hive mind and that’s why the ring space could only be held open so long. If he would have harnessed the hive mind, that would have been doing exactly what his enemy was attempting.
The big difference was Duarte tried to use the collective of all human minds where Holden used himself as a singular beacon to hold back the Goths. He was able to sacrifice himself and collapse the ring space to save humanity while it’s unclear what Duarte would have done if he had succeeded
Holden used the minds of all the humans in the ring at the moment, but didn’t go further than that. And once he repelled the initial attack he encountered after taking over from Duarte, he withdrew from everyone’s minds. He had to fend off a few smaller attacks after that, and it was extremely draining for him, which was why he wanted everyone to evacuate quickly
One theory I’ve seen is that the BFE was using Duarte as a means to resurrect their civilization as they were a hive mind before and once he thwarted the Goths they would use his success to resurrect their entire empire
Yeah, Duarte intended to make the hive-mind the future of humanity; Holden just maintained it long enough to evacuate the ring space.
Holden held back the goths with the hive mind but then everyone had to get back to the system they would stay forever in.