Star Trek: Picard

[DaveSumm]

35 minutes ago, Toth said:

That doesn't sound right to me. The only thing mentioned was that Locutus was supposed to be the collective's voice with the Federation as they thought him saying 'resistance is futile' might make them sound a little more diplomatic as opposed to it being just some other dude. Well, that and getting his knowledge of Federation tactics was a nice boon in dismantling their defenses I guess. I am a bit baffled where this idea comes from that Locutus was any special, given how he didn't act any different from any other drone.

It was in First Contact, I can’t remember the exact line of dialogue but when he remembers the Borg Queen he also remembers that they wanted him to come willingly to the collective. I mean it’s a retcon, of course. But still, there was clearly a distinct manner that Locutus has and Picard doesn’t, which is what bugs me about Seven. She retains her entire personality, memories, skills, from her time as a Borg. Other than looking different, there’s no meaningful way in which she was actually de-assimilated.

[Lord Varys]

33 minutes ago, Toth said:

That doesn't sound right to me. The only thing mentioned was that Locutus was supposed to be the collective's voice with the Federation as they thought him saying 'resistance is futile' might make them sound a little more diplomatic as opposed to it being just some other dude. Well, that and getting his knowledge of Federation tactics was a nice boon in dismantling their defenses I guess. I am a bit baffled where this idea comes from that Locutus was any special, given how he didn't act any different from any other drone.

Well, it has been some time since I last watched TNG, so I really don't remember all those details very well, but I take it that you can either see the fact that Picard still has a name as 'Locutus' as well as the fact that the later drones did not serve as mouthpieces of the collective, etc. as a sign that he was 'special' in this regard. Or one can see this as a proper later retcon - which is fine, I guess, since the Borg were never consistently written, so nothing is really fixed.

33 minutes ago, Toth said:

Yeah, it's a shame that the Borg are a heavy case of an unstoppable force of nature being retconned to oblivion. For fuck's sake, in Voyager they barely counted as a nuisance! That's why in my personal headcanon I excised the Lore stuff and almost anything from Voyager, though a few bits there were still pretty interesting.

Well, one cannot really do that within the framework of either TNG and Voyager - at least not if one cares about them being a single show. I'd have to rewatch the Lore thing to determine whether it is really a given that the episodes want them to be all the Borg that are left.

Because, frankly, if you count Voyager and the Hugh and Lore episodes then there are actually more episodes where the Borg are a joke than episodes/movies where they are a great threat.

33 minutes ago, Toth said:

Though I should note that the Borg were not destroyed through Hugh, I believe they were quite certain in this episode that this handful of drones Hugh gathered were just that, a number of rogue drones forming their own faction. Once again I have to point at Star Trek Online beta-canon: I really loved how the "Borg Cooperative" became an actual political entity allied with the Federation there, even though it is still more or less a tiny resistance group paling in comparison to the Collective. There was still nothing more satisfying than fighting side by side with a friendly Borg cube in their missions.

Oh, I didn't mean that they were destroyed by Hugh, just that the Borg as such were no longer a big threat in Hugh and seemed to be completely gone by the Lore two-parter, no?

Well, since we are going to see Hugh again in Picard I guess we are going to learn what happened to him. I'd not be surprised if he played a considerable in how the Romulans got a hold of and could work within a Borg cube.

33 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well, Seven did show that there is still a lingering longing for the collective there and that the process of disconnecting from the collective is itself already pretty terrifying.

Then again, there was one throw-away line that I personally found very interesting and kinda heavily focus on in my own interpretation of the Borg. Seven at one point says that she takes solace in the fact that she is immortal because as long as the collective remains, a piece of herself will still exist within it. For me that sounded very much like that during the assimilation process your entire self will be uploaded into the collective Borg consciousness and that this one exists unrelated to the Borg drones. Which would explain why drones are just soulless automatons with all higher functions suppressed: The bodies are just tools. Their brains don't matter at all. Which explains why the Borg don't care at all about discarding them as freely as it does as the collective doesn't need them exactly. And which means that whenever people liberated a Borg, all they did was pull out the body, not the mind. Makes you wonder whether one of the myriad of voices within the collective is still a template of Picard doing his thing...

I guess my issue is that I find it too simplified a story to only see this collective mind thing as a threat to all life - which is how the Borg are portrayed as enemies. It is okay that the Federation, etc. do not want to become Borg, of course, but it might not be that bad an idea to take what good the Borg have to offer and integrate that in your own society. The overall Star Trek message with them could have been to show how even such a (seemingly) inhuman other force can, eventually, be brought around to co-exist with others.

I don't know how Borgishness is supposed to work, but on the technological level I'd expect that the drones and their brains are, in fact, a vital part of the hive mind - like many computer chips in a larger system. If you destroyed them all - or a sufficient number of them - the collective would collapse, I assume. Else they could indeed just all be robots.

[The Mother of The Others]

Unimatrix Zero, Pepe!     It was brought in to explain how some few borgs held on to their individuality more than the average drone.   A haven for their subconscious, like a dream state while they regenerated.   This was a secret underground thang not endorsed by the queen, so Uni Zero doesn't explain why Seven was then also tapped by the collective to be voyager's .....special ambassador drone more capable of human style coworker interaction.   Hmmmmm, in an attempt to synthesize these things.....perhaps the collective was aware of some drones retaining more social skills as individuals and marked them for if that skill was ever needed, but the collective didn't yet know the real reason for this rare skill was membership in unimatrix zero, something the collective would later discover and eradicate.

[felice]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

But still, there was clearly a distinct manner that Locutus has and Picard doesn’t, which is what bugs me about Seven. She retains her entire personality, memories, skills, from her time as a Borg. Other than looking different, there’s no meaningful way in which she was actually de-assimilated.

Picard was a Borg for days and was returning to his previous human life afterwards, while Seven was a Borg for nearly two decades and was effectively starting a new life amongst strangers with no meaningful memories of human existence to resume. It's entirely reasonable for them to have very different de-assimilation outcomes!

[karaddin]

 

On 1/28/2020 at 9:28 AM, Lord Varys said:

They also never explore what could be alluring about becoming Borg. What you are becomes part of a larger whole and never completely disappears (if the Borg truly are a collective mind). George wrote a lot of story about the fascination of becoming immortal within some sort of collective hivemind (most notably 'A Song for Lya') and it is a disappointment that aspects like these never come up when the Borg are discussed - which they could have in relation to Seven who could have told humanity more about whatever positive aspects there are in Borg culture. The idea of creating Borg-like collective minds for a limited period of time could be a fascinating idea within the Star Trek setting.

I feel like DS9 actually touched on this a little with The Founders. The ocean of changlings (I'm forgetting what it was called) on the Founders home planet functioned as a collective, and while there was still some component of individuality that remained when an individual split out of it, there was also the ability to pop out brand new individuals - that's where Odo and the others like him came from. Its not reproduction in the usual sense, but spawning a new individual out of a collective.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

I feel like DS9 actually touched on this a little with The Founders. The ocean of changlings (I'm forgetting what it was called) on the Founders home planet functioned as a collective, and while there was still some component of individuality that remained when an individual split out of it, there was also the ability to pop out brand new individuals - that's where Odo and the others like him came from. Its not reproduction in the usual sense, but spawning a new individual out of a collective.

Yeah, that sort of touched on this concept, although it is not *really* clear, I think, that a changeling loses his identity in the *a drop becomes the ocean* and *the ocean becomes a drop* kind of thing - Odo is always the same, no matter how long he joined the great link. Also, one imagines that the 100 young changelings they sent out in the past must have been the product of some reproduction process considering the fact that they didn't have any kind of personality.

But in the end changelings are a very advanced race whose biological processes and nature are not fully understood by our gang. One imagines they are not that far away from Q-like entitities (the various powerful beings we meet in TOS).

With the Borg it is just sad that they were just the big boogie man. Instead of making them into a joke they could have explored what it means to be Borg and continued some sort of story of mutual understanding, etc. The whole Voyager show with them actually exploring Borg space could have very much helped with that.

[TrueMetis]

Hmm, potentially unpopular opinion but I kind of hope they get Garrett Wang to guest star in a few episodes. Give Harry the promotions and development he damn well earned on that show. Also have him direct and episode since he got screwed out of directing one on Voyager.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Given that the Borg are a collective consciousness, the majority of which is made up of consciousnesses who didn’t want to be Borg, shouldn’t the Borg as a  whole just stop attacking people?

[The Mother of The Others]

There is a hypocrisy in them.  "We will add your distinctiveness to our own."   Then, as soon as you're assimilated you are polarized into lock step with a Collective that is set in its ways and you don't get to vote.  So why seek out new distinctiveness?   I suppose they're looking for a real juicy new idea from our minds, something big enough to change their strategic understanding of how to procede.  Then the collective would change its mind.   For cool stuff, they'll adapt.   It's not cool to let everyone vote to end the collective though.

[Mindwalker]

Well, this one was a bit clunky. Lots of setup still. Some observations:

• Spoiler

   

  • Some Trekkies are clutching their pearls beause that Admiral "Bitchejev" dared talk to Picard "like that." I bet they wouldn't have bat an eyelash had she been a man. Of course I'm on Picard's side, but her view makes sense, and let's face it, our beloved captain DOES have a bit of a hubris. He has flaws, which make him all the more likeable for me. He basically waltzes in, after having resigned in righteous anger many years ago, he only recently criticized Starfleet publicly, and now demands a ship and a recommission because of a wild story. And the Admiral is obviously clueless his story is true.
  • I still think the 5 QofH of his Data dream mean something. As of now I'm going with: There are 5 daughters of Data. or 5 children, so the other set of twins may be men. But I suspect they will all be played by the same actress. (WAIT, Narek and his sister...?) The 5th one was either the one he created back when, and who died. Or maybe it's a spare? Let's hope that the others won't get fridged like Dahj.
  • Narek is "turn to the good side at the last minute" material.
  • Love the Romulan couple.
  • What did Picard do to piss Raffi off?
  • So there are at least 2 Romulan factions. The secret dudes who want to destroy all AI. And the others who are trying to 'save' Borg people. And probably want to create new and improved synths? That seems to be a joint human/ Romulan project. And would be illegal.
  • So Picard is terminally ill, and I somehow doubt he will be healed in typical Star Trek fashion. Well, I hope it will take years. I won't be watching Picard without Picard.
  • It could be interesting if Picard (and maybe the viewers) have to question what is really happening and what perceptions/ ideas may be caused by his illness.

   

   

[Red Tiger]

Starfleet abandoning the Romulans. Is this an "Undiscovered Country" thing where a renegade part of Starfleet decides to execute a secret plot to destroy an enemy race?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I don't know if I should spoiler tag this but I will anyway.

 

 

In light of what they revealed on the new episode is it possible that the attack on Mars was a false flag operation by Starfleet to provide justification for not proceeding with the Romulan rescue mission? And if it is possible, is it likely?

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I don't know if I should spoiler tag this but I will anyway.

 

  Hide contents

In light of what they revealed on the new episode is it possible that the attack on Mars was a false flag operation by Starfleet to provide justification for not proceeding with the Romulan rescue mission? And if it is possible, is it likely?

Seems more and more likely, especially with the commodore clearly having her own agenda.

[Mindwalker]

You know, the fact that the Romulan couple is so sweet, combined with Picard mentioning that the dog is his (only?) defense at the chateau, makes me fear for their safety.

[RumHam]

Gonna start this soon, but I wanted to watch at least a few TNG episodes and Nemesis first. I watched The Measure of a Man last night since Maddox is apparently a factor in this. I know it's a classic episode but it's still very much early-TNG bad. Riker's whole point is basically "he's a machine I can take him apart and turn him off" which was never in question. and Maddox doesn't seem to have bothered considering if Data meets his three criteria for sentience (Intelligence, self-awareness and consciousness) until Picard brings it up at the hearing. 

It's also pretty weird how Picard trots out the hologram of Yar and their sexual encounter* as evidence. He has no emotions. They humped once, cause she was all high on an alien spore or something. As I recall Data wasn't the only one she fooled around with that day either, and afterwards she's like "never speak of this again."

*and lets take a minute to appreciate that Data was programmed to fuck for some reason I'd rather not think about. 

[RumHam]

I'm not sure if this is available outside the US, but you can watch the first episode for free at cbs.com

[Lord Varys]

That one was a little bit odd:

Spoiler

Would have been good for them to mention the Dominion War and the losses that came with that to explain the trouble with resources for the rescue mission (after all, Betazed was invaded by the Dominion and Earth attacked by the Breen). Focusing so much on the Romulans being enemies doesn't fly that well due to their alliance during the Dominion War - the Shinzon episode aside they weren't enemies at least since the end of the war.

The way they did it made the Federation look more shitty than they had to in the overall context of the historical era.

Would have been great if they had gotten Kate Mulgrew or Natalia Nogulich to play the part of the Admiral. That would have added more depth to the whole thing.

Not that keen about this 'wheels within wheels' plot. The Commodore is supposed to be Vulcan, right? And a part of this secret-secret Tal Shiar thing, too, right? Combined with the claim that this dirty secret goes back a very long time (thousands of years) we would have to assume it is a dirty secret the Vulcans and Romulans share, right? Romulan society is pretty old but not that old...

Why could Romulans (and thus, perhaps, also Vulcans) hate AI? Might it turn out they created the Borg somehow? That would be more intriguing than them being afraid of some AI dictator or being replaced by synthetic lifeforms.

This could also play together with Section 31 somehow - the way this secret Tal Shiar thingy is supposed to operate is reminiscent of Section 31 operations all across the Alpha Quadrant (and possibly elsewhere, too).

The Borg cube Romulans are called the Romulan Free State, possibly the official remnant/successor of the Star Empire. They seem to be pretty nice guys, especially since they invite many different species to do research at that cube. Doesn't seem like they are up to something ugly ugly at that site - which is odd if the Tal Shiar guys are aware of that and apparently do not stop it. Might it turn out that some ancient Borg drones on the cube turn out to be Romulans who reveal surprising stuff about the Borg?

Since they will definitely make a second season of this I expect Picard's health problem is going to be dealt with somehow, possibly by means of Borg technology or something a restored Data or the androids might be able to pull off. In fact, since it seems to be some sort of brain issue chances are not bad that it might turn out that this is connected to the Locutus thing.

 

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I don't know if I should spoiler tag this but I will anyway.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

In light of what they revealed on the new episode is it possible that the attack on Mars was a false flag operation by Starfleet to provide justification for not proceeding with the Romulan rescue mission? And if it is possible, is it likely?

I don't think that's very likely unless

Spoiler

the Romulan secret Tal Shiar thingy and internal Federation guys (Section 31, for instance) really are on the same page in this whole AI thing. One assumes that a Federation cabal would have no interest in banning the synthetics their own scientist were creating, right?

But it seems clear that those synthetics were hacked somehow, possibly/likely by those Romulans who would have pursued both their 'super secret agenda' as well as preventing the Federation from 'invading Romulan space'.

 

[Lord Varys]

Not sure about the Mars stuff in the teaser. No issue with the Federation using sythetics as a work force - the issue is that there actually are people who apparently have to still do shitty stuff. They should be past that at that point.

[Datepalm]

Michael Chabon is writing Star Trek now? The 2020s are so random.