Star Trek: Picard

[Werthead]

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I cannot fathom Picard taking a promotion to Admiral and leaving the Enterprise for another vessel...it was the flagship after all

 

Picard's new ship was bigger and more powerful than the Enterprise-E, and for all we know the E was retired or decommissioned after Nemesis.

Also, Picard probably wasn't on that ship full-time. As an admiral he'd have a command posting somewhere else and would only be using that ship (which would have its own captain) for specific missions.

[Toth]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Picard's new ship was bigger and more powerful than the Enterprise-E, and for all we know the E was retired or decommissioned after Nemesis.

Nemesis clearly has the Enterprise in the process of repair and a change of crew for a new mission. If she was was lost during the timeskip it would have to be adressed and I very much doubt that they would decommission such an advanced ship after so little time.

And... well, I must admit you saying Picard's ship was bigger and more powerful had me chuckle. Of course the Verity from the comic would be powerful given that it is a 25th century ship moved 30 years ahead in time. And the Odyssey class is the size of a goddamn Star Destroyer with more than double the crew of the Enterprise-D.^^

But I have to stomp on the ground and insist that good Star Trek never adhered to Abrams' childish "bigger is better" formula. When the Federation builds warships they always tend to scale down, stripping them of all unnecessary extras while at the same time highlighting the fact that it's their multi-purpose exploration vessels that can go toe to toe with dedicated warships of all the other factions. And that goes not only for the Defiant. The more militarized Enterprise-E is noticeably smaller than the Enterprise-D. That the Odyssey class is so crazy huge was always a sign to me that it's a multi-purpose ship with more than enough room for all the science hijinks the Galaxy class did and more. And I guess because of that size it is actually a pretty clever choice to send to an evacuation mission (though I admit that it is reasonable to assume that this flared up the suspicions of the Tal Shiar even further given just how high profile an Odyssey prototype would be at this point).

Ah... I guess I started rambling halfway through that...

18 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The in-universe explanation is credible and convincing imho and we might yet learn that many others imitated Picard and resigned in protest. Some might have even gone further for all we know. 

That's actually what I'm still waiting for the show to say. All this vitriolic hostility towards Picard for resigning and rambling against Starfleet on Fox News strikes me as super odd. Because of that I had expected the backstory for him and the angry drug junkie to be that they stole the Enterprise or launched some kind of rebellion, organizing help against their orders. But no, apparently they all just pissed off home and rammed their heads into the sand like the useless idiots they are.

[RumHam]

My TNG rewatch has highlighted the fact that almost every admiral is somewhat evil or at least callous. Most of the other captains we meet are awful too, or they're old friends of Picard who then explode right after we meet them. 

Insurrection, while not a good movie was also about the idea that the federation was corrupt at it's highest level. 

Voyager (spoilers for that one guy)

was pretty isolated but had the Equinox captain being awful and killing aliens to get home sooner.

DS9 drives the point home with in the pale moonlight and Section 31. Both prequel series establish that Section 31 was a major power within the federation.

So I have no problem with the idea that the Federation sucks. or is great on paper but compromised in practice. 

I hope Discovery season 3 really gets into how they fell to just six(?) systems. But I love that for all Picard my accomplish now, Starfleet is still fucked. 

[DaveSumm]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

Voyager (spoilers for that one guy)

Thanks for thinking of me.  It’s actually my girlfriend who hasn’t seen it, I just wanted to check that Picard didn’t spoil the end before we watched each episode. We’ve finished now anyway (some stats if anyone cares; we gave each episode a mark out of 10 and averaged it for the season, the official season rankings are 4, 7, 5 tied with 3, 6, 2, 1. I always thought Seven saved Voyager but it turns out the writers just upped their game generally, 4 has some solid episodes.)

Back to Picard: I forgot who proposed that the Romulans may have created the Borg a few pages back, it seems like this episode went a bit further down this road? We know the Borg tried to assimilate some Romulans for the first time (there was actually an assimilated Romulan in Voyager but let’s ignore him) and something went very wrong, do they have some kind of inbuilt defense against it? I guess they don’t need to have created them for this, maybe their fear of AI meant that while the Federation were working on weapons and shields to defend against the Borg, the Romulans were more concerned with the AI aspect and have been working on individual defense against assimilation all this time. Janeway, Tuvok and Torres all got intentionally assimilated in Voyager with some kind of suppressant that meant they retained their mental faculties, presumably with Seven’s help. So the technology exists. 

[Werthead]

I believe prior series established that the Borg have existed for millennia, at least, which makes the Romulans creating them not impossible but far less likely. There's also a problematic element that the Borg's home systems are located on the far side of the galaxy from Romulan space, almost unreachable now let alone thousands of years ago. Time travel may be involved, but I think it would be a bad idea. It just takes a very small-seeming galaxy and makes it even feel smaller.

[Lord Varys]

On 2/9/2020 at 10:27 AM, DaveSumm said:

Back to Picard: I forgot who proposed that the Romulans may have created the Borg a few pages back, it seems like this episode went a bit further down this road? We know the Borg tried to assimilate some Romulans for the first time (there was actually an assimilated Romulan in Voyager but let’s ignore him) and something went very wrong, do they have some kind of inbuilt defense against it? I guess they don’t need to have created them for this, maybe their fear of AI meant that while the Federation were working on weapons and shields to defend against the Borg, the Romulans were more concerned with the AI aspect and have been working on individual defense against assimilation all this time. Janeway, Tuvok and Torres all got intentionally assimilated in Voyager with some kind of suppressant that meant they retained their mental faculties, presumably with Seven’s help. So the technology exists. 

That was me, and it does indeed seem to me that this got even more likely with the latest episode. Both the anti-synth nonsense as well as the Cube story seem to hint in that direction. There is no rational reason aside from something like that that could explain why the Romulans would be abhorred by artificial lifeforms.

There could be some sort of natural defense, there could be some sort of recognition deep within the Collective about a fundamental lie which, if revealed, would destroy it, etc. It could be something as trivial as a repetition/rifoff of the V'ger plot.

How this would work within the established continuity I don't know ... but who cares, truly? The makes of Star Trek never gave shit about previously established facts, did they? Especially not with the Borg.

On 2/9/2020 at 2:17 PM, Werthead said:

I believe prior series established that the Borg have existed for millennia, at least, which makes the Romulans creating them not impossible but far less likely. There's also a problematic element that the Borg's home systems are located on the far side of the galaxy from Romulan space, almost unreachable now let alone thousands of years ago. Time travel may be involved, but I think it would be a bad idea. It just takes a very small-seeming galaxy and makes it even feel smaller.

If they wanted to take such a route they would likely make the first Borg a Romulan-created hive mind of artificial beings (possibly with some cybernetic Romulans included) who were designed to resolve some sort of great problem - like, say, creating a super warp drive (trans-warp stuff, say). They would have then run amok/gone mad, deciding they were a superior collective mind with their own agenda, etc. Could easily turn out those Romulan proto-Borg were created on/near Romulus and were then dumped in the Delta Quadrant by means of the super technology the Romulans had at that this point due to their own obsession with AI stuff. In their new home the remnants of the original Collective - possibly greatly damaged and very mad - set about repairing itself and ended up developing its own weird identity as 'the Borg'. Afterwards, the Romulans back home destroyed every piece of AI technology in some sort of Butler's Djihad.

This must have taken place at the very beginning of the Romulan Star Empire over two thousand years ago unless they retcon things ... or they make the whole AI thing a Vulcan plot, something the Vulcans abandoned/got over when the Logic philosophy came up while the Romulans retained it.

However, the latter would make little sense in light of the fact that the Borg didn't care one bit about assimilating Vulcans.

Also, it would turn out that the Borg weren't the people who destroyed the bases in the Neutral Zone back in the first season of TNG (which never made much sense, anyway) since they should have been able to assimilate some Romulans this way.

In any case - I'd find such a plot (or something going along those lines) much better than anything having some sort of new AIs being a danger to anyone. It would be very far-fetched to assume some fromer Borg drones knew or cared about (human-created) AIs as some kind of mythological destroyer.

The idea with this plot seems to be that Borg and Romulans share common myths because they have the same root/past.

Why the two artificial girls care about this stuff is another mystery, but the answer to that is likely connected to Maddox and where he is right now - and what he is doing and with whom he working with. The connection to Data could imply that Data's own connection to the Collective (due to his interaction with the Borg Queen in FC, say) could have caused him to ponder the origins of the Borg as an AI hive mind, and he might have talked to Maddox about that before his death. Or Maddox actually has access to a copy of Data's neural network and can *talk* to him in this way, etc.

B4 wouldn't be the only android left, would he? Lore's remains must be somewhere, too, right? Or did they completely destroy him?

[RumHam]

I was so sure that season two of Discovery was telling the Borg origin story with "control." But so far nothing came of it. I wonder if the Romulans encountered Control and made a copy of it or something? 

25 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

B4 wouldn't be the only android left, would he? Lore's remains must be somewhere, too, right? Or did they completely destroy him?

Data shoots him and then they take him apart and Data takes his emotion chip. (which I never really got cause Lore seemed emotional even before he stole the chip intended for Data.) So he should be in a drawer like B4. Presumably Maddox made the girls from him, possibly in conjunction with whatever bits of Data were left in B4. I would imagine Maddox gaining possession of Lore was what allowed him to make the lesser synths that rebelled / were hacked. 

Also because of this "they have to be made in pairs" retcon B4 should have a brother. Really Data and Lore should each have previously unseen brothers too, as it's clearly established in TNG that Lore came first, was disassembled and then Soong built Data. But as you say they have never really cared about continuity. 

Edit: There's also Data's uuuh mother? Who didn't know she was an android? Wonder what happened to her. 

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

I was so sure that season two of Discovery was telling the Borg origin story with "control." But so far nothing came of it. I wonder if the Romulans encountered Control and made a copy of it or something? 

I really don't like them using real world fear of the singularity/AI stuff to make Stark Trek plots. They should be way, way beyond stuff like that there.

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Data shoots him and then they take him apart and Data takes his emotion chip. (which I never really got cause Lore seemed emotional even before he stole the chip intended for Data.) So he should be in a drawer like B4. Presumably Maddox made the girls from him, possibly in conjunction with whatever bits of Data were left in B4. I would imagine Maddox gaining possession of Lore was what allowed him to make the lesser synths that rebelled / were hacked.

That could make sense, although I interpreted it the way that a restoration/resurrection of Data could work using so much as a single of his positronic neurons (i.e. a tiny bit of his physical artificial brain) - and that Maddox used such pieces of Data (possibly given to Maddox by Data before his death) to make the twins.

B4 seems to have had a lesser positronic brain and thus wouldn't have the hardware necessary to create the twins - although he certainly could become the body of a new Data if they somehow restore his brain at the end of the first season.

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Also because of this "they have to be made in pairs" retcon B4 should have a brother. Really Data and Lore should each have previously unseen brothers too, as it's clearly established in TNG that Lore came first, was disassembled and then Soong built Data. But as you say they have never really cared about continuity. 

Oh, I thought that referred only to the new 'biological androids', not the Data-type ones. Data wasn't part of a twin set, either. Soong just tried again and again and again until he got to Data.

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Edit: There's also Data's uuuh mother? Who didn't know she was an android? Wonder what happened to her. 

Wasn't that a reconstruction of Soong's wife, sort of like in that Robert Bloch episode from TOS, with Chapel's old fiancée as robot?

[RumHam]

49 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I thought that referred only to the new 'biological androids', not the Data-type ones. Data wasn't part of a twin set, either. Soong just tried again and again and again until he got to Data.

I thought the new biological androids were crazy tech that shouldn't exist for years, so why would that scientist know they and not the artificial models had to be made in pairs? As I said I just took it as another retcon so Picard would know she had a sister out there.

53 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Wasn't that a reconstruction of Soong's wife, sort of like in that Robert Block episode from TOS, with Chapel's old fiancée as robot?

Yup.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

"The Singularity" is crap.  It's nothing more than the "Nerd Rapture".  A simulation of me, no matter how authentic and complex, will ever be me.

[Jaxom 1974]

Here's where I jump in and mention that David Mack did a post Nemesis trilogy of Novels (with other lead up stories by other authors) dealing with the Borg origins and how they were ultimately dealt with... linking a previously unknown super advanced civilization, the Columbia NX-02, time travel, and genocide...needless to say, it was humanity's fault... 

(Non canon of course!)

[Mindwalker]

Ragarding Data's resurrection/ reconstruction: AFAIK, Brent Spiner only agreed to reprise his role if Data was not resurrected.

[red snow]

32 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

"The Singularity" is crap.  It's nothing more than the "Nerd Rapture".  A simulation of me, no matter how authentic and complex, will ever be me.

Does that mean everyone who teleports is essentially a different person/copy of the original? It would be interesting to have a character/religion/philosophy that avoids beaming on those grounds

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, red snow said:

Does that mean everyone who teleports is essentially a different person/copy of the original? It would be interesting to have a character/religion/philosophy that avoids beaming on those grounds

Yes.  That is what that means.  The reason no one talks about it is that there isn't another version of you.  You are destroyed every time.

[red snow]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yes.  That is what that means.  The reason no one talks about it is that there isn't another version of you.  You are destroyed every time.

I can see why no-one wants to talk about it! It makes me want to revisit the episodes with riker's double as essentially both have equal claim in the sense both are duplicates. I can't remember if it was that nuanced as i only remember one being "bad"

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I just started a new thread in GC to discuss "The Singularity":

 

[The Mother of The Others]

Re: lord varys' #409 post wondering how to make sense of romulan origin for the borg,

Youtube title for this would be Romulan Borg Connection Explained!

What came to mind was the romulan engines use singularities, in that TNG episode where time got wonky and frozen in the area around the warbird whose engines had been infested by eggs of extradimensionals.....  that one.     Well, .......

This clears the way for Recent Romulan Science to have created the first borg.  This would be an Unrecognizable Infant Collective, sans the glowing green tech they'd assimilate "later."     1) The romulan AI project gets out of control, 2) they dump it into one of their singularities as an emergency flush mechanism, a failsafe in case the AI got too aggressive.  3) The singularity then exhibits its own quirky personality by sending the collective back in time to when the borg historically began their empire building.   Ta- da.  Like when you flush your dump but don't really know where the city pipes take it to after that, only with a black hole in space.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I thought the new biological androids were crazy tech that shouldn't exist for years, so why would that scientist know they and not the artificial models had to be made in pairs? As I said I just took it as another retcon so Picard would know she had a sister out there.

The way I understood the info dump scene on the biological androids is that if they existed they would be created in pairs because - I assume - whatever the creation process involves necessitates that you create two of them at the same time.

This wasn't established about normal Soong-type androids nor for the robots working on Mars (which I assume were 'less than Data', more designed to be artificial workers than to really be artificial lifeforms like the kind of being Soong tried to create and eventually did create.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

"The Singularity" is crap.  It's nothing more than the "Nerd Rapture".  A simulation of me, no matter how authentic and complex, will ever be me.

I was not referring to that. I meant singularity as the term used for an AI taking over civilization because it was doing things much better than biological entitites.

This kind of SF cliché plot comes back again and again as we in our day and age get closer to an era where AI (or variations of it) get ever more closer to become a reality.

ST should be centuries beyond the fear of an AI taking over or messing with their society and civilization - meaning that Discovery's second season's villain was a pretty cheap plot device.

1 hour ago, Mindwalker said:

Ragarding Data's resurrection/ reconstruction: AFAIK, Brent Spiner only agreed to reprise his role if Data was not resurrected.

That's a pity.

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yes.  That is what that means.  The reason no one talks about it is that there isn't another version of you.  You are destroyed every time.

That is one interpretation. The other one is that your material structure is transferred into energy, beamed across space, and then reassembled the way you were.

And with weird and unscientific nonsense like telepathy, souls, spirits, energy lifeforms, deities, and omnipotent beings running around in the Star Trek universe such an essentialistic interpretation of the beaming thing would fit perfectly well with the other esoteric stuff.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yes.  That is what that means.  The reason no one talks about it is that there isn't another version of you.  You are destroyed every time.

I believe the transporter doesn't just destroy and recreate bodies, it also transports the disembodied consciousness of people.
In other words a transporter transmits both one's consciousness and the data necessary to reconstruct a new body for you. There are a few episodes when the two are seen as separate (TNG's "Lonely Among Us") and Barclay remains conscious during transport in "Realm of Fear."
The consciousness supposedly travels thanks to something called "quantum entanglement" which isn't real science of course. But basically the "neural signatures" still exist within the transporter beam rather than being destroyed and reconstructed (these "neural signatures" are mentioned a few times).
That would be my take.
However, Voyager's "Tuvix" apparently goes one step further by having cellular contamination within the transporter beam... So arguably even the body isn't actually destroyed... Not sure what to make of that.

Anyway, bottom line is that transporters don't "destroy" you before transport ; a more accurate view of it would be that they "reduce" you to some sort of energy-like quantum state so that you can be transported.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I believe the transporter doesn't just destroy and recreate bodies, it also transports the disembodied consciousness of people.
In other words a transporter transmits both one's consciousness and the data necessary to reconstruct a new body for you. There are a few episodes when the two are seen as separate (TNG's "Lonely Among Us") and Barclay remains conscious during transport in "Realm of Fear."
The consciousness supposedly travels thanks to something called "quantum entanglement" which isn't real science of course. But basically the "neural signatures" still exist within the transporter beam rather than being destroyed and reconstructed (these "neural signatures" are mentioned a few times).
That would be my take.
However, Voyager's "Tuvix" apparently goes one step further by having cellular contamination within the transporter beam... So arguably even the body isn't actually destroyed... Not sure what to make of that.

Anyway, bottom line is that transporters don't "destroy" you before transport ; a more accurate view of it would be that they "reduce" you to some sort of energy-like quantum state so that you can be transported.

Ripp,

Quantum Entanglement is quite real even if it isn't for the purpose it is put to in this context.  In fact Quantum Entanglement is why we thing we might be able to pull off a "transporter" eventually.  However, the byproduct of "quantum teleportation" is that the original physical body is utterly destroyed.  They dodge this in Star Trek.