Seemingly absolute power, but at the same time the shop scene imo also drove home how much she relies on other people. Now, but also before the assimilation. So how absolute is it when it relies on external factors out of your control?

If I remember correctly the she says something along the lines of that she is an independent woman, who can do her own shopping. Cue to a fleet of trucks and a large group of people arriving, who are required to make it possible (which ofc doesn’t even include all the production steps before). Not quite as independent as she wants to be, the “real” independent move would have been to immediately start farming