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Abstract Identifying possible microscopic mechanisms underlying superfluidity has been the goal of various studies since the introduction of the original BCS theory. Recently a series of papers have proposed microscopic dynamics based on normal modes to describe superfluidity without the use of real-space Cooper pairs. Multiple properties were determined with excellent agreement with experimental data. The group theoretic basis of this generalN-body approach has allowed the microscopic behavior underlying these results to be analyzed in detail. This reimagination is now used to reinterpret several interrelated phenomena including Cooper pairs, the Fermi sea, and Pauli blocking. This approach adheres closely to the early tenets of superconductivity/superfluidity which assumed pairing only in momentum space, not in real space. The Pauli principle is used, in its recently revealed role in collective motion, to select the allowed normal modes. The expected properties of superfluidity including the rigidity of the wave function, interactions between the fermions in different pairs, convergence of the momentum and the gap in the excitation spectrum are discussed.