Did someone on the team take his Mom out to a nice seafood dinner and never call her again? Feels like an unprecedented heel turn, and way more personal than Brenen Thompson and Casey Thonpson.
Says who? They have a "biological imperative" to propagate the pathogen. Part of that has got to be maintaining the species so that it can continue to work towards that goal. I'd imagine that the collective will engage in some pretty hardcore eugenics and preferential breeding to evolve humanity in a way that supports the "biological imperative." They can't violate the physical autonomy of a living organism. They can eat animals that die naturally. They can also eat produce that falls from living plants. They just can't kill or remove produce from a living thing. There are plenty of varieties of food crops that die naturally every year. They can harvest seaweed that washes ashore. Does their respect for life prevent them from planting seeds or husbanding species for the express purpose of dying for sustenance of the collective? We don't know yet. If not, they could breed short lifespan insects and replace HDP with IDP. Or they could plant annual varieties of food crops that naturally die and shed grain/produce each year. They just haven't had time to do it yet. The village was an inefficient use of resources and a liability for survival of the species, so they left it once it was no longer needed. Every move they are making is for the survival of the collective.