Do negative wanderers recapitulate negative philosophy in 3rd density?

[APeacefulWarrior]

Do you really think STS isn't collectivist? Ghengis Khan's mongel hordes were total collectivists. Both STS and STO culminate in social memory complexes. BOTH are collectivists just of different structures (one hierarchical and the other distributive). This is why you should not blindly follow collectivist leaders. You have to be aware of their methods.

Sure. And in fact, one of the more amusing elements of Atlas Shrugged (amusing from a certain 'high level' view anyway) is watching Rand struggle with the problem of how to depict a group of people, her ostensible individualist heroes, who are all acting towards a common goal without actually being a collective. She certainly is walking a tightrope and it's debatable at many points whether the in-book reality of the Strikers' behavior even lives up to their own propaganda.

Like, supposedly, every member of the Strikers is equal and they all live in a sort of anarcho-capitalist retreat where they mutually sustain each other, but buffered through the purely voluntary activity of free trade amongst themselves. Since each is the Ultimate Best at whatever they do (Rand very strongly believed in pyramid-style talent distribution with a "best" and then "all the rest") there's no competition to speak of. There's just one Best Banker, one Best Baker, one Best Railroad Engineer, etc etc. However, the man who organized the whole thing - John Galt - is also the man who invented the sci-fi zero-point energy plants which power the whole thing. So while Galt's Gulch could function without a baker, railroad, etc... if Galt walked away, everything would crumble due to the universal need for his power system. Which makes him the defacto Alpha/leader in a society which claims not to have any, since he's the one with the ability to destroy the whole system if he wanted to.

Was this an accident? Was Rand aware of this contradiction? Was it a "gnostic" hint to particularly advanced readers about aspects of her philosophy she didn't want to state outright? Was it just her latent belief in master\servant relationships leaking in?

It's almost impossible to be certain.