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Mar 12 '20
Elnor and Seven are everything. His desperate hug. He's such a kid still. And his fear of the queen. Wow. SO GOOD.
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u/MrMallow Mar 13 '20
I love Seven so much, but god damn I would have been scared too.
"A-a-are you going to assimilate me now?"
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u/Lady_borg Mar 14 '20
What did it for with that line, was the perfection of how nervous he sounded and how Australian it felt.
Yes he's Australian, I am too I just felt um real?
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Mar 12 '20
I really enjoyed the Seven of Nine and micro-collective parts. I hope that they continue to keep this a part of the series.
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u/dino101010 Mar 12 '20
I've heard that there is a spin-off series in the works called "Those Wacky Borg!"
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u/FactCheckingThings Mar 12 '20
"You will be assimilated".
"Oh, those wacky borg." laugh track
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u/DarthDread420 Mar 12 '20
I loved the borg elements. 7 of 9 becoming a temporary queen was amazing just wish we got to see more borg killing them filthy romulins
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u/Sparkly1982 Mar 12 '20
The Borg cube bits went from being the boring bits to the best bits this episode IMO.
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u/Maximus1000 Mar 13 '20
I loved that as well, however I wish it lasted longer and/or they did more with it.
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u/WelfOnTheShelf Mar 12 '20
"What's the nearest starbase?"
"Deep Space..." 😀
"...Twelve" 🙁
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u/Zadama Mar 12 '20
To be fair, DS9 is in the Alpha Quadrant whilst Picard & Co are in the Beta Quadrant, so I would have been a little annoyed if they had referenced DS9!
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u/intecknicolour Mar 12 '20
inb4 prophet sisko shows up to whoop some romulan ass.
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Mar 12 '20
This whole series is about reclaiming your identity. Hugh reclaiming his identity and helping the ex-Borg donthebsame. Starfleet and the Federation reclaiming their ideals. Raffi and Rios reclaiming the people they used to be. And Picard, a crabby old man, reclaiming the captain he used to be.
I think the next step is synthesis. Taking who they were and who they became and fusing the two into a whole that is better than its parts.
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u/agent_uno Mar 13 '20
Yeah, and I get the feeling that’s what the intro sequence is supposed to be an allegory for. Rebuilding yourself.
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u/dudeARama2 Mar 13 '20
Did you notice he started acting less old last night? There was a bit more vigor when he talked
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u/MrMallow Mar 13 '20
Seven getting in touch with her borg roots.
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u/synack Mar 13 '20
"Annika still has work to do."
Does this mean that her Borg personality was just allowing her to do human things for a few years, but was still ultimately in control?
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Mar 12 '20
Picard really shook off his cobwebs, didn't he? The crotchety, nearly useless old man, wallowing in his own ego, is mostly gone. Captain Picard is back. When he tells you to set a course for certain destruction, you damn well better make it so.
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u/deagletime1 Mar 12 '20
His voice sounds normal too. If Sir Pat was just emulating an old man's voice as part of his portrayal, well dang... he's really that good.
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u/AndrogynousRain Mar 13 '20
Yeah, he’s really that good. His performance this season is very nuanced.
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u/chchchchandra Mar 13 '20
Right!? The look on his face when Jurati woke up... if I came to seeing that glare on me, I’d take another shot and go right back to “sleep!” Brilliantly terrifying.
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Mar 12 '20
"We have hope, optimism, and spirit of curiosity. All they have is secrecy and fear. And fear is the great destroyer." - Picard
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Mar 13 '20
I've been very critical of the show up until now, but I have to say I'm starting to get hopeful. The last couple of episodes have gotten progressively better and Picard is starting to really seem like Picard again.
The first two seasons of TNG were pretty shaky overall and then that show became legendary. If this continues going the direction it is, I will be glad to have been proven wrong.
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Mar 12 '20
An ancient race left behind a gizmo that implants memories and warns of the dangers of synths.
Captain Picard needs to set a course for the Citadel.
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u/creepyeyes Mar 12 '20
I think a lot of people are glossing over the fact that in this episode it seems like they revealed the synths themselves aren't the danger - it's who shows up once you've made them. They compare it to first contact after Cochran's warp drive. Vulcans came when we built warp drives, something worse than the borg shows up when you make organic synths. (I really want to call them replicants, except DS9 already used that term)
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u/Betancorea Mar 13 '20
Agreed. This felt like Mass Effect come to roost. Galaxy on the cusp of AI evolving into an unstoppable form and an impending destroyer (Ahhh 'Reapers'').
That being said, I love it. So leggo!
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u/RichardYing Mar 12 '20
"WE ARE BORG."
"The Cube is ours again."
Whoop Whoop!
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u/thoughtsandairs Mar 12 '20
and then *sad trombone*
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u/thatawesomeguydotcom Mar 12 '20
Something I don't understand about that, Seven had control of the ship, how did the Romulans manage to override control and space them, at the very least could she have not aborted the opening of the cube?
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u/japhygrant Mar 12 '20
In a week the world is falling apart due to our fear, this was THE EPISODE.
Calling it now: Picard’s first classic episode.
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u/dinosaurkiller Mar 13 '20
I don’t know if it’s THE episode but it certainly had one of the finest Star Trek scenes I’ve ever seen. “He loved you”, literally it rendered Picard speechless. My only complaint is they panned the camera away too soon, that was a moment to linger on his reaction.
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u/jmp8910 Mar 12 '20
“We are Borg”. My favorite scene. Gave me some chills that’s for sure. I hope she takes that cube and kicks ass with it.
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Mar 12 '20
I hope she shows up and annihilates the Romulan fleet with it.
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u/tonytown Mar 13 '20
The now virtually empty cube will end up being the synths new, unstoppable, elusive Homeworld.
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u/Sentient_Blade Mar 13 '20
Those. Fucking. Tingles.
I felt like I had the Borg queens' tubes in my spine when I saw that.
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u/AngledLuffa Mar 12 '20
"Where do we begin?"
"On the world the humans call Mars"
"... what do we call it?"
"Mars. What else would we call it?"
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Mar 12 '20
I thought about this as well. It might have seemed a little odd if they just said "Mars" as if everyone knew it. I suppose they should have said "The human world of Mars" in the same way Starfleet would say "The Klingon moon of Praxis".
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Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
After last weeks wonderful nostalgia meditation, this was a nice plot centric exploration of our new crew before the final stretch.
Judging from the previews, I was expecting a more action heavy episode, but instead we got some great development into the motivations of Oh, Narissa, and Jurati, who seem way more complex than was originally inferred.
And a real nice character dive into Rios’ background, with some nice therapy from Auntie Raffi (the sit down with the different holograms was one for the books), who’s basically Riker and Troi wrapped into one highly functional addict package.
Didn’t see Rios’ connection to Soji coming at all and was genuinely surprised The Borg got taken out (sorry, Hugh!).
But this series is doing a great job subverting my expectations, and the fact I don’t know where things are going (how often can you say that about a modern series?), has me psyched for what’s to come.
Finally, I think this episode in particular was basically a mission statement as to why the character of Jean-Luc Picard and the utopian idealism of Gene Roddenbury is still alive and well in Star Trek.
And finally, finally: “He loved you.”
Ah, Chabon and co., you know how to get a guy right in the feels.
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Mar 12 '20
I felt it in my heart ... after 9/11 attack on the USA,I've watched fear transform us
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u/dinosaurkiller Mar 13 '20
Star Trek is at its best when it speaks to our potential.
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Mar 13 '20
Fear has always been the real enemy. Most wars and conflicts have been pointless, just irrational reactionary fears to some fictionary end
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u/SciFiReply Mar 12 '20
I know what is going to happen. They will get to the synth planet, have an encounter with the person following them (Narek) but narrowly survive while Narek dies. Some downtime while Soji gets reacquainted with her friends. The Romulans show up and all hell breaks loose, the Synths are losing and things look grim. Seven and Elnor show up with the cube in the nick of time and turn the tide and the Romulans get fucked. Also Juranti dies in a self sacrificing way that redeems her evil actions. And Oh survives to start shit in season 2.
That’s my theory and I am sticking with it.
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u/keane121 Mar 12 '20
I get the feeling that Data (or an alternative Data with his memories) will be in charge on the synth planet.
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u/HiroJa Mar 12 '20
I think we all know who comes when you make a Sythnic life form and then renderers judgement upon your society.
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Mar 12 '20
I literally shouted "Oh my God they're doing Mass Effect" at the television.
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u/CreepingCoins Mar 12 '20
An alien from outside the universe whose attention is dangerous to draw, you say? Hmm...
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u/BruteSentiment Mar 12 '20
Three of the Queens have now been identified.
Two more to go.
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u/bardbrain Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
There's a reason we didn't see the male synths such as "Beautiful Flower" and that the trailer cut off before they arrive on the planet.
Spiner has played two Generations of Soong and three androids. I'm betting he plays an entire civilization of male androids here.
Either that or the twist is that Data's ideal son is a young Picard.
Although it would make me smile if the males are all modeled on Wesley.
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u/Grease2310 Mar 13 '20
If there’s an entire planet of Wesley Crushers I’m gonna side with the Romulans on this one.
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u/ckwongau Mar 12 '20
Borg can survive in Vacuum space , i find the clip from Star Trek First Contact below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ljpC9DYPo
I will be very angry if Seven doesn't try to rescue at least some of the Borg ( jettisoned into space )
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u/GrayscaleUnicorn Mar 12 '20
Hopefully, it really felt like they missed a beat with her not attempting any sort of rescue.
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u/sometimeswriter32 Mar 12 '20
These borg can't survive in space. Also whenever you notice something like that a wizard did it.
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Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
We don't know the actual procedure Borg go through to be space-worthy; we shouldn't assume it's automatic. Much like their adaptation to phasers and weapons, it might require some kind of nano-probe adaptation to kick in before they can be exposed to space. And becauce the Borg from Picard were still in stasis* they may not have been given the ability to survive vacuum.
edit: stasis not status
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u/SleepWouldBeNice Mar 12 '20
Ok, I'm calling it now: Last episode of the season, there's going to be a battle for the Synth's homeworld. Romulans on one side, La Sirena and maybe the Borg cube on the other. Things will look dire at one point, and then that Starfleet squadron is going to come in like the cavalry to save the day and I'll be damned if it isn't lead by the Enterprise. I'm fully expecting Raffi to say "There's another starship coming in. It's the Enterprise!"
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Mar 12 '20
If it's the Enterprise, who's the Captain? :)
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u/SleepWouldBeNice Mar 12 '20
I’m hoping Geordi. He was seen in the Countdown comics and mentioned already this season.
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u/Zadama Mar 12 '20
I certainly hope we get to see some new Starfleet vessels before the end of the series, and this would be a great way to do it. Considering the use of the Odyssey class for the U.S.S. Verity in the Picard Countdown comics, I wonder if they're going to use more ships from Star Trek Online or use original designs instead.
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u/BruteSentiment Mar 12 '20
So Maddox made a male synth. Not surprised....
But he didn’t give it a real name? “Beautiful Flower?”
Weird. That has to mean something, too.
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u/CreepingCoins Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
Remember Dahj talking about her father naming an orchid species after her?
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u/SleepWouldBeNice Mar 12 '20
It's either going to be based on Maddox or Data. Beautiful Flower and no physical description, or flashback, was suspicious.
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u/bardbrain Mar 12 '20
It could be based on Picard, Geordi, or Wesley. I do lean towards it being Spiner and him playing multiples.
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u/foobarney Mar 12 '20
The sketch did seem contrived to provide a physical way to show the audience that Rios was right with a built-in excuse for why "Beautiful Flower" wasn't shown.
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Mar 12 '20
Both Soji and Dahj referenced their father's orchids. It must be related to that, but you'd think Maddox would have used a more subtle name.
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u/nonrosknroskno Mar 13 '20
I swear during the visions when the romulans are on the planet, there looks like some kind red spikey flower for a split second. And later that robot face totally morphs into Data/Lore/B4s face.
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u/dinosaurkiller Mar 13 '20
And he was the mentor to the girl, an older model. The other question is, how did Starfleet security know they were synthetic if they appeared human? Perhaps one of them looked like Data/Dr. Soong.
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u/creepyeyes Mar 12 '20
I also thought it was interesting that "Beautiful Flower" and B4 are at least in the same ball-park sound-wise
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u/bigsh0wbc Mar 12 '20
An epic episode, anyone sad they aren't going to the starbase? I wanted to see some ships!
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u/SleepWouldBeNice Mar 12 '20
$5 says they'll arrive in a cavalry charge in the last episode in a battle for the synth homeworld against the Romulans led by the Enterprise who's captained by a familiar face.
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u/CreepingCoins Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
I really hope episodes 9 or 10 reveal who/what it is that notices when synthetic life becomes sufficiently advanced. I'm enjoying the show, but I'm also sick to death of series that string you along with false promises to explain a myth arc that the writers haven't even come up with an explanation for themselves.
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u/Flyingwheelbarrow Mar 12 '20
Maybe discovery comes back in time to nuke them all. The whole series was based around rouge A.I., that and space fungus.
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u/CuteDivide1 Mar 12 '20
I think it's very obviously the crystalline Entity's species. Appeared where soong androids were first created. Destroys and feeds on ALL biological life. Can form alliances with positronic life-forms. Is (presumably) silicon-based. The silicon based virus mentioned in Nepenthe required a positronic matrix to cure, further establishing this connection between positronic synths and silicon life-forms. The crystalline entity's species isn't the only silicon life-form in Star trek obviously, but we can presume it is the one that destroyed whoever created the admonition. And I believe that's why troi explaining the silicon virus felt so weird and forced in- the writers wanted to reveal their intention a bit
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u/RichardYing Mar 12 '20
"Admiral Picard, with all due respect and at long last: shut the fuck up!" - Fleet admiral Kirsten Clancy
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u/dino101010 Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 13 '20
Picard is getting just no respect from anyone in this series 😥. People are telling him to shut the F up, telling him about his supposedly monstrous ego and just ragging on him in general. WTF? Isn't he the guy who literally saved humanity several times already? I mean if it weren't for him they'd all be living in Borg regeneration cubbies (which btw are somewhat bigger than my apartment right now) so maybe they should cut this bald mofo a little slack you think??
Next time Picard gets any shit he should remind them about how he saved their and all their loved one's asses back in the day and so they can just stick their Earl Gray where the sun don't shine. Also he should give them the middle finger and tell them to just eat one of that dicks the he saved from assimilation.
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u/lambdaknight Mar 13 '20
So, the race warning of synths... it’s the Iconians, right? Extremely technologically advanced civilization whose homeworld was absolutely devastated about 200,000 years ago? Iconians were certainly extremely technologically advanced. They were destroyed 200,000 years ago. Their homeworld was located near Romulan territory.
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u/donbagert Mar 15 '20
What I haven't seen addressed is: these ancient Romulans must actually be Vulcans, since Surak's teachings and the subsequent split between Vulcans and Romulans only occurred a few thousand years ago!
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u/stufisch Mar 13 '20
OOPS ... probably should have posted in this thread, not my own.
HOW HAS EVERYONE MISSED THE FOLLOWING?:
If there was a 3rd match android on the Majid ... and the Data-daughters must be made in PAIRS ... Doesn’t that mean there is AT LEAST ONE MORE CLONE (Data daughter) OUT THERE ?!?!?!
I’m guessing that the 4th clone is ... THE DESTROYER ... and, she’s PISSED at the Federation for killing her sister!
There’s your “broken pieces” for ya!
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u/JasonJD48 Mar 12 '20
One thing that is interesting is that Soji may not be the destroyer after all. Rhamda states that one dies and the other becomes the destroyer. Presumably Jana also had a twin, and that twin could be the destroyer.
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u/BenTVNerd21 Mar 13 '20
Lol did Ravi call the record player a "Walkman"?
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Mar 14 '20
Yes, it was an example of the trope where characters get the names of things from the past hilariously wrong.
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u/atcrestriction Mar 12 '20
Who picked up Martha Betanidez.... from Tapestry (one of my all time favourites from TNG). Chabon on definitely knows how to appeal to my inner geek.
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u/Sparkly1982 Mar 12 '20
I missed that one. Apparently she's been featured in lots of novels, etc. Seems like the writers of Picard really know their trek, which makes a change.
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u/Nori_BB Mar 12 '20
So there is a male model as well as a female model (Asha sisters)?
The scene with all the different holograms was hilarious! Such a gifted actor! I had to come up with nicknames for them (for now):
- The Doctor
- The Scotty
- The (Jason) Momoa
etc.
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Mar 12 '20
Calling it now, Clancy's squadron is to bring Picard in, not help
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u/ayamrik Mar 13 '20
I see her as a person like "I don't like you. So if you tell me bogus, I will cut you down to size as best as I can." As soon as there is evidence that Picard had spoken the truth and needs help, she will change to "I still don't like you and will cut you down to size because of the way you handled all of this. But only AFTER we have taken care of these Romulans and the rogue cube."
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u/wumpuslord Mar 13 '20
So, we know Whoopi Goldberg is coming for season 2 to reprise Guinan. As we have learned, the el-Arians are a very long lived race, who scattered when their home world fell to the borg. They have some major umph, given that even Q gets put on guard by her.
We also know that a big bad tbd is being set up as a longer antagonist, that comes along when synthetic life reaches a threshold, and that the warning was put in place a 200kish years prior to Picard.
It’s plausible that guinan is going to return to drop some lore about the mysterious antagonist to come.
The weird ai sphere in discovery was at least 100k years old at the end of its lifespan, it might also be a tie in between the two series.
The iconians were wiped out 200k ish years ago, and had advanced tech capabilities, and they figure in heavily to the star trek online game which has been introducing content based on discovery and presumably will be doing the same with Picard. They also used probe weapons designed to destroy computers.
Far out theory - the iconians left the warning, and their civilization was destroyed by ai gone amok. We may find out the ai sphere from discovery is somehow involved, perhaps a bad guy finding remorse at the end of its life. Guinan has some intel from her people’s history, and she gives us the 401 on something that’s coming for everything once it detects ai at the threshold.
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u/Scoxxicoccus Mar 12 '20 edited Mar 12 '20
Data's capacity for expressing and processing emotion was limited.
I suppose we had that in common.
- Jean-Luc Picard
JL has described his position on the spectrum. Rightly, I think.
I love how almost everyone on this show is broken in ways that will not be fixed by the end of the season, much less the end of an episode. Instead, if they live long enough, they learn to accept the physical cracks, emotional chasms and crooked pinkie toes.
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u/NightlinerSGS Mar 12 '20
Being broken is the entire theme of this show. See also the shattered glass in the intro.
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u/djcj88 Mar 12 '20
Why is it suddenly so easy to kill borg? Why didn't she just beam them all back? Why didn't Hugh regenerate? WHY
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u/BruteSentiment Mar 12 '20
Well, the Borg don’t need air. We know this from First Contact. Maybe the Cube’s transporters weren’t ready yet, but she may still recover them now that the Romulans are gone.
(Note, while acting as Queen, she called herself Annika. Nice touch.)
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u/FluffyDoomPatrol Mar 12 '20
Hugh is an exB, presumably regenerative ability were disabled. Also borg were always relatively easy to kill, they relied on adaptation and an endless supply of drones.
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u/Reggie_Barclay Mar 12 '20
I think it's really plot driven. I also wondered why she didn't start beaming them all back.
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u/japhygrant Mar 12 '20
Because the show is giving us Picard and crew’s season 2 ship - a rogue cube Uber their control with a mini collective under Seven’s direction
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u/MrMallow Mar 13 '20
Why is it suddenly so easy to kill borg?
I mean, they have been dormant for like what... over a decade?
The cube is in disrepair and was under romulan control. She just started repairing it. I am sure we will see some badassery from the cube in the next few episodes.
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Mar 12 '20
Maybe she will bring Hugh and the others back, since she said Annika still had work to do, but she didn't need to be attached as the queen to do it. She wouldn't want to stay attached to the cube any longer than she absolutely had to.
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u/daedalus19876 Mar 12 '20
"I'm done murdering people, so, uh, that's a good thing."
God, I love Jurati. She reacts exactly like I would to all this.
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u/MrMallow Mar 13 '20
Yea I like her inclusion in the show. For the most part we only really see trained persons in Star Trek shows, its refreshing to get a civilian thrown into the mix that reacts like anyone would.
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u/jamiepkemp Mar 13 '20
So is this why the Borg stay a mix of both organic and synthetic and don't go full on synthetic? Maybe they know what happens. Just a thought..
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Mar 13 '20
I think i cracked it...... The destroyer is the AI from discovery.... bet they do a tie in... i would put latinum on it.
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Mar 14 '20
I was beaming when Picard gave the little speech to Rios about the 'powerful tools' they have, i.e. openness, optimism and curiousity. This is turning out to be what I hoped which is a story about how we find our way back to these things when everything is messed up. WOW. This show is surprisingly good and it keeps getting better.
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u/Evildanish Mar 12 '20
I enjoyed it, but some things just make me wonder.
How did Seven get to the cube so fast AND without getting atomized by all of those ships around the cube?
Soji knows where home is. Great. It’s far away enough that she hacks into a Borg trans warp network to get there. Convenient, but plausible. Why would Maddox settle all the way out there and how did he (or at least the synths) get there to begin with?
Rahmda broke the cube with the power of overwhelming existential dread? Maybe add a neuralytic pathogen like those aliens did to Icheb and this works. Gives the Tal Shiar a nice toy to play with too (the cube). But that’s not what we see and hear.
Having Raffi break down the Zhat Vash now as opposed to four or five episodes ago when she’s had 13 years to stew in her conspiracy brew felt iffy too.
Everything about Maddox/Data/synth world stinks of red herring. Maddox was smart but not in Soong’s league. He had help. Help that’s used to tricking people with Data’s mannerisms. Help that hasn’t been mentioned at all. Help like Lore.
Really digging this show.
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u/SleepWouldBeNice Mar 12 '20
Why would Maddox settle all the way out there and how did he (or at least the synths) get there to begin with?
To get outside of the Federation and it's synth ban?
Rahmda broke the cube with the power of overwhelming existential dread?
Well considering the reaction of most of the Romulans to what they saw was immediate suicide, some by smashing their own head in with a rock, something like that rippling through the organic side of the borg cube like a virus or power surge could have been enough for the collective to cut off the cube and leave it floating.
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u/sometimeswriter32 Mar 12 '20
Maddox had help. Maddox said he couldn't have done it without Dr. JERATI's research.
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u/chimp_spanner Mar 13 '20
So the biggest question for me is...what was Data doing in a vision of the apocalypse created by a type 2 or 3 civilisation 2-300k years ago?
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u/cjalas Mar 13 '20
I think it's Lore. He went back in time somehow 300k years and created some sort of apocalyptic universe ending thing or being or collective. Then some civilization made the warning beacon planet warning of the AI and that's why data / lores face shows up in there. The warning being if you reach a certain threshold of synthetic life, then a dormant synth being will come to wipe out all organic life.
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u/wonkey_monkey Mar 13 '20
"viridium tracker"
Nice reference to Undiscovered Country and the viridium patch that Spock slaps on Kirk's shoulder.
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Mar 14 '20
People that made Picard.... This is a great show. Thank you all for reigniting Trek magic.
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u/expired_paintbrush Mar 12 '20
I'm somewhat confused about the ibn Majid. So the operation was a success, and the ship wasn't destroyed? The ship is still somewhere, possibly under a new name?
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Mar 13 '20
I don't think we've been given the whole story of what happened on the Ibn Majid yet. The deletions within the holos memories were strangely selective and Rios knew too much about Soji for someone who'd only known Jana for a few hours. Captain Vandemoor's reaction suggests that Oh found a way to share the Admonition with him in an attempt to get him to comply or to keep him silent. Rios may have seen it too, then wiped some of his own memories, along with the holos. The ENH has astronavigation deletions.
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u/steve-1864 Mar 13 '20
find it stupid how they all of a sudden they are just cool with jurati and tell her all the plans like she didnt just murder maddox and is a romulan spy....
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u/Qiu-Shiang Mar 13 '20
Fantastic episode, one nitpick.
If an ancient civilization pulls stars together into a stable Octonary and plunks a planet in the place able to resist the gravitational forces, with a dire warning not to cross the AI threshold (singularity anyone?) or else nasty Reapers would arrive to do bad things to sentient life ...
Is it arrogance, ignorance, Insanity, or dementia that Picard reassures Rios that it’s not going to happen this time because we are caring and loving and the future is wide open in front of us?
I mean, I get the Admonition is in Zhat Vash hands which makes the warning suspect, but given their fanaticism I don’t think they fabricated the Admonition and take it very, very seriously.
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u/butt_collector Mar 13 '20
The admonition is supposed to be "a secret so terrible it can break your mind," or something to that effect. It has to be more than merely a warning about what happened before and could happen again. I think it's going to end up being some kind of grand revelation about the very nature of life itself.
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Mar 13 '20
Brainwashed mole: I promise not to murder anymore, starting right now!
Rest of crew: okiedoke
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Mar 12 '20
The death of Narissa's lieutenant, whom she calls "Centurion" is a tad absurd. The XBs that come in from the sides aren't coming from a place of cover, they're out in the open. Hidden to the camera, but should not have been hidden to the Romulans. There's plenty of places to hide on a Borg cube, but out on the catwalk didn't appear to be one of them.
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Mar 12 '20
It depends.
A cube seems like a honeycomb with plenty of branching passageways and niches.
They could have come out of passageways flanking the one Narissa and the centurion were entering.
It would only have taken a step or two on the catwalk to get to them.
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u/GrayManTheory Mar 12 '20
Just a warning to people. I would advise against watching the opening credits to next week's episode to avoid any potential spoilers in guest stars.
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u/NerdTalkDan Mar 13 '20
Holy crap that was a tense episode. At the end it felt like a real return to form with Picard doing a classic speech about doing the right thing in the face of adversity.
Learning that Picard was once on the Reliant was a nice little bit of lore.
Really had fun this episode.
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Mar 13 '20
I dislike how they cut away from the dialogue I wanted to hear, like Seven hearing about and reacting to Hugh's death and the question of whether Jurati thinks Soji is a person. This happens in a lot of TV, though. Seems like Seven and Hugh may have met before, anyway.
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u/Super_Fuzzy_Cat Mar 13 '20
Jerry Ryan is really good in the small amount of screen time she's received this far. I hope her role is expanded in the future.
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u/SamSejavka Mar 14 '20 edited Mar 14 '20
The way they started winding everything together, and ramping it up to cosmic scales was fantastic. Picard really did seem sad and pathetic at the outset, to the point where it was hard to see how he could believably achieve anything. Now he has a Star Fleet squadron at his back, a universe to save, and some very hard core gravitas. Bravo!
And what's more (I know this is extreme) I came away feeling that in a lot of ways it may have been the best Star Trek I've seen (movie or film). It had a modern sophistication that in no way dented that underlying Trek corniness. They knew exactly what they were doing with it. Narratively, it can't have been easy to pull off so many major reveals and accelerations. The new characters seemed to jell all of a sudden and jell really well. Raffi became real. Rios, too. And the Big Bad? Mouth-watering! (Someone get me a new weapon!)
Great balance of humour and high stakes and general Trekiness. 'We are Borg!' That was a moment, don't you think? 'He loved you.' That was another. I'm so glad STP exists. Compare it to Discovery and it's easy to see why people complained that series didn't capture the essence of the franchise.
p.s. Elnor's straight man routine. Excellent work. 'Are you going to assimilate me now?' or 'She just spent a lot of time here?'.
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u/svenjacobs3 Mar 12 '20
Based on this episode...
I theorize that the Borg were created to pass the synth threshold. All their assimilating was to learn to create the perfect synth. That would explain why Soji was on the Artifact - to learn more about the Borg’s purpose. She learned about the spatial trajector and the transwarp hub as a side effect. Someone wanted to surpass this threshold, and so created simple cyborgs that would evolve through assimilation until it occurred. This also explains why the Queen was so interested in Data in First Contact.
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u/Frodojj Mar 12 '20
Otoh Locutus called Data "primitive" and "obsolete in the new order."
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u/YYZYYC Mar 12 '20
Definitely a better episode and more of the old Picard
-A “starfleet squadron”....ugh why do I think this doesn’t mean a dozen of so Starships. I’m worried this will be another Kurtzman Nu-trek whirley noise spiny little fighter ship things...please stop it what that crap ugh.
-Cool story about about Rios and his former ship. I feel it’s a bit of a stretch to believe a Starfleet Captain would turn to suicide after doing that. I also find it a bit of a stretch that Starfleet managed to cover up the very existence of that starship and keep all the former crew quiet...like you want us to erase all evidence that our ship ever existed and have several hundred Starfleet officers just never talk about it...all because our boss killed himself ???
-So basically, Cylons and Battlestar Galactica and ancient warnings about “all this has happened before and all this will happen again” ....man Ron Moore must be pissed or flattered lol
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u/cothomps Mar 12 '20
The “warning” left me there too. Who would have been capable of moving eight stars?
I’m relieved that it doesn’t involve some bizarre Romulan time travel - it’s something they discovered and the Romulans handled it like everything else: as a secret.
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u/bardbrain Mar 12 '20
He turned to suicide because he upset Rios so badly, I think. It wasn't the orders.
It was that the captain loved Rios like a son.
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u/RalphtheCheese Mar 12 '20
So... Are those Borg really dead because there are huge consistency issues I'm seeing here if they're supposed to be dead. Plus, couldn't Seven and the collective mind just thought of immediately transporting everyone back into the cube?
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u/svenjacobs3 Mar 13 '20
It's interesting that Raffi is the one who explains the conspiracy to everyone else at the end of the episode, especially given the fact that literally anyone else around the table is more equipped. Narratively, are we supposed to believe that Raffi talked to everyone individually, and is now summarizing everything for everyone? Or did I miss something?
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u/TheToyBox Mar 13 '20
She has the most info given that she's been an obsessive conspiracy nut about the whole Mars-was-an-inside-job thing for years when everyone else immediately dismissed it. She's earned it.
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u/Emanuelo Mar 13 '20
So, it's seem now sure that the origins of the Borgs will not be explained in this season. And I'm so much grateful for that!
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Mar 13 '20
Anyone notice how the synth morphed into Data? Methinks Soon found an original and back engineered it.
(In the Admonition)
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u/dudeARama2 Mar 13 '20
Did anyone else get a Rick and Morty vibe when the Romulans are bashing their skulls in and trying to kill themselves after seeing the vision? ( There was a very similar scene in that show )
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u/ItsTribeTimeNow Mar 13 '20
Gone full circle... Seven taking control of the "wrecked Borg cube in the Beta Quadrant" where the temporal transmitter was found... (VOY: Timeless)
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u/AndrewZabar Mar 13 '20
So given that we find out that Romulan order has the mandate of eliminating synthetic life, and especially because they pointed out that Soong’s successes had drawn attention... why did nobody ever attempt to eliminate Data? Like an assassin of some kind? In-story, it leaves a bit of a flaw.
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u/fwinzor Mar 15 '20
so when species create hard AI something comes to reset the clock? isn't that the plot to Mass Effect?
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u/Dark_Tzitzimine Mar 16 '20
Wasn't expecting the Zhat Vash to be a sisterhood
Oh hey, it's freakout lady... and it looks like freakouts are just what she does
Should have made it a real grenade instead of a flashbang, now you're all fucked
Especially when Seven shows up
Just use The Picard Voice- yeah, there you go
No Picard, use your brain
I will never like the accepted pronunciation of quixotic, it should be pronounced like the name it's derived from
"shut the fuck up" lul
And then within the modern footage of the cube regenerating we toss in a quick shot of the plastic model being unmelted from TNG (or was that some 80s CGI, I'm not up to speed on all the behind the scenes details)
Of course he made his engineering hologram Scottish
Hahaha he just keeps leaning in like he's Tour Guide Strong Bad
What have we got in there, two lieutenant commanders, a captain and an ensign?
Create a new collective, what could go wrong
Hah, I must have missed the Centurion being referred to as such before, that's nice
Well, we WERE the Borg, now we're space dust
Skynet shows up, that's who
"strange new world" cut that out
Hey it's just like the old days when every year Data would go haywire and hijack the ship
Boo she got away. I'm not surprised, but still disappointed.
Ah, that's some nice TNG idealism
Nice music fakeout too
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u/Tomb55 Mar 12 '20
Interesting episode. Not my favourite of the series so far but the Rios revelations were nice.
Also a very very minor Undiscovered Country reference in this bad boy. Nice.
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u/Zadama Mar 12 '20
That was absolutely brilliant. I'm so excited to see where this will go! It's been interesting to see all of the parts set out, and now that they're coming together it's a joy. I'm left wondering what the conclusion will be - and how this season will leave the door open for the next, and possibly more adventures in the late 24th Century.
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Mar 12 '20
Did anyone notice that one shot of the cube showed what looked to be an embedded escape sphere? The shot when the Romulan fleet warps in. Do all cubes have this? I thought it was unique to the one that attacked Earth in First Contact. The cube looked a little different in that shot too and it made me wonder if it's a re-used visual asset from that movie.
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u/AngledLuffa Mar 13 '20
Why did they roll a stun grenade at Elnor, instead of either the blow off your junk kind or the gas kind?
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u/xxshaneharxx Mar 13 '20
Who thinks the event that admonition reveals is that the artificial life from hundreds of thousands of years ago is the generation event that created the borg and that is why the romulans are so interested in the cube as well as why they refer to it as the artifact.
7 has stated that the collectives memories are fragmented from around
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Mar 13 '20
This episode had a low point that I almost can't get past
The "shut the fuck up" was just... shitty, shock writing. In that moment I wanted to slap the writers into the sun
But then "he loved you" was a real pull on the heart strings. First actual emotion I've felt in this series so far
This episode was very up and down for me. I disliked how they once again cut some scenes abruptly short and then started the next one but it seems like several seconds of film have been cut on either end of every scene. It's awkward as hell.
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u/ohsojayadeva Mar 13 '20
“When synths pass a certain threshold, another group shows up and things get bad” doesn’t scream “new big bad alien race” to me but then I never played Mass Effect. It sounds a lot like the what we saw in this episode- the Romulan fleet making its way to the synth home world. It’d be ironic if they misunderstood what the admonition represents and the Zhat Vash are the very threat the warning represents. Maybe that’s why most of the people who get the vision kill them selves; the ones that aren’t immediately driven mad received an incomplete/corrupted version.
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u/profjake Mar 14 '20
Picard’s description about what Data would say about him is such a touching aspirational goal.
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u/RelativelyItSucks2 Mar 14 '20
I'm completely disapppinted in the reasoning for the Zhat Vash existence. Just a warning from paranoid aliens from the past? That's some weak sauce.
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u/Thyriel81 Mar 14 '20
Would have been so great at the dinner when Soji and Picard discussed how she felt, if Picard would have put out a little flute and said something like "I know how it feels to live a wrong life"
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u/silent_obsever Mar 15 '20
Why are they turning this into battlerstar galactica with the evil cylons (I mean synths) going to becoming sentient? Or when Skynet comes online.
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u/fluxxis Mar 16 '20
Until now I was quite annoyed by the series. This was the first episode I actually really enjoyed. Finally some real progress to the story without the ongoing need to introduce new characters one by one. It was about time.
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u/pallytank Mar 12 '20
Really the old admiral can't use technology? That was so out of place. I don't understand the need to constantly undermine Picard.
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u/sovi3t00 Mar 12 '20
Who knows what type of shit the sirena is. It doesn’t look like the typical LCARS tech that federation ships use. And if he’s been out of starfleet for 14 years making wine he may a little tech illiterate. Imagine if you used a 486 computer in 1994, moved to the country and then 14 years later someone handed you an iPhone. You might be a little confused
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u/BruteSentiment Mar 12 '20
In real life, I just finished taking a voice class on accents (albeit American Accents). It’s made me really, really enjoy all the Emergency Holograms, and especially in this episode.
And of course, the Engineering hologram has that accent. That’s so blatant you can’t even call it an Easter Egg.