Picard - general discussion [spoilers]

[LadyTevar]

Yeah, and Star Trek is usually very forthright to the point of preachiness about its social messaging.

Like remember the Cheronites and how they genocided each other over differences that were silly and imperceptible to humans as an anvil-weight reference to how dumb racism and xenophobia are?

It was subtle as a pallet-load of bricks, and it was the whole driving force of the episode, because that's how Star Trek rolls.

And yet people today are screaming about "Social Justice" in the shows. Or throwing hissy fits because Women aren't sitting back and taking messages at the Communications Station or handing the Captain his food tray or workpad.

[bilateralrope]

I've heard that one of the reasons Uhura's station was behind the captain's chair was because Roddenberry wanted to make it difficult for racist networks to edit her out of the show. Does that count as Star Trek being subtle ?

As for this episode, I'm annoyed that we didn't get to see what happened to that bird of prey. We had some mention of that area of space being a power vacuum, with one faction in power because they got hold of that warship. Which means that it getting blown up would be a big deal to that region. I'm not sure if it would be a good or bad thing, but there would be consequences.

But we didn't get to see it blown up. We just get a shot of having a nacelle sliced off and starting to fall towards the planets trigger happy defense grid. Why didn't we get to see the boom ?

[Batman]

Why is an antiquity like this even a force to be reckoned with in the late 24th century? Once it lost the element surprise the thing wasn't much of a threat back when it first popped up in 'Balance of Terror'. A late TNG era Klingon BoP would've made massively more sense

[bilateralrope]

Why is an antiquity like this even a force to be reckoned with in the late 24th century? Once it lost the element surprise the thing wasn't much of a threat back when it first popped up in 'Balance of Terror'. A late TNG era Klingon BoP would've made massively more sense

I got the feeling that the only people who care about that region of space are the locals, who don't have much in the way of ships. Think WWI/WWII warships vs modern freighters.

It also explains why Seven's ship was so effective against it. She got hold of one with more up to date technology.

[FaxModem1]

Spoilers for episode 5.

I'm really unhappy. Icheb was reintroduced for 2 minutes so that we could see him horrifyingly tortured and killed on-screen, all to serve as Seven's backstory as to why she's vigilante. He may not have been everyone's favorite, but I really enjoyed him, and to have that as the capstone to his character? I'm not in favor of this, at all.

[mr friendly guy]

Spoilers for episode 5.

I'm really unhappy. Icheb was reintroduced for 2 minutes so that we could see him horrifyingly tortured and killed on-screen, all to serve as Seven's backstory as to why she's vigilante. He may not have been everyone's favorite, but I really enjoyed him, and to have that as the capstone to his character? I'm not in favor of this, at all.

What are they going to do next? Fridge Naomi Wildman?

Going to try and catch it later and then give my thoughts on episode 5.

[mr friendly guy]

So...
1. Instead of fancy smancy complicated sounding name for drugs, smuggler types used drugs known to 20th century science like beta blockers and benzodiazepines. Wow, I am so impressed.

2. Seven killed the murderer of Icheb. That was promising.

3. The episode feels slow again. Even though they made progress, ie the extracted Maddox, it felt slow. I think its because we spent time learning about Seven's motivation and it just felt like it dragged the pacing down. Although it was better paced than previous episodes.

4. More cryptic stuff. They better have a good pay off as to why Agnes would kill Maddox her old lover. Its because they showed me. Showed you what exactly? If the pay off isn't anything but amazing, its going to be very disappointing given how they set things up with Romulans knowing of future threat from AI and managing to convince Agnes about it.

[Gandalf]

As is this show is clearly trying to force real world agenda regardless of how stupid it is within the Star Trek

So it's a Star Trek show then?

No Kidding!

You look at any Star Trek series, there are always issues related to that day. Then again, that's the same with most shows, in order to 'speak' to contemporary audiences.

One of the funnier things about TOS is their episodes which touch on the conflict in Vietnam. They go from "death to pacifists" to "this conflict is wrong and dishonours the US constitution."

Bold messaging in all directions.

[aerius]

Hi, I'm Captain Rios, Imma gonna leave this totally unknown and unproven stranger alone on my ship while everyone beams down for this high stakes mission. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, Nerdy Science Chick is totally spaced out and having a panic attack, or she could've just taken off with the damn ship while everyone was on the ground. At least leave the freakin' holograms on with the overrides disabled. It's like hi, I'm robbing a bank, this kid here that my buddy met the other day is our getaway driver, yeah yeah yeah, no problem he's cool. Yeah.

Oh yeah, and we totally completed this Maddox mission so we know where Soji is, so we can fucking kill him now. I swear, this entire series is like a badly written RPG.

[PREDATOR490]

Thanks to one of the previews...
Spoiler

It shows the scientist lady having an extended scene with the Starfleet Commander which has a very obvious gesture occuring.
I am guessing that the Commander used a Vulcan Mind Meld to extract and convert the scientist to a 'secret agent'

Seven of Nine - I would happily watch a show with her in it like this and ditch Picard. Even a duo act between Picard and Seven would be considerably more entertaining than the past 4 episodes of shit characters the series has produced.

The physical implants on Seven look shit. Especially the hand glove thing she has. The one in Voyager looked much better where as the one in Picard looks like rubber. For all the effort this series has made to make things visually fancy, dropping the ball getting the implants right as Seven is made a prime focus of the episode is glaringly silly.

As far as the character of Seven goes - As feared they completely fucked her over with the way she speaks and interacts. Seven of Nine was on Voyager for years and Picard has been in the Federation of decades. Now, all of a sudden they start speaking like this ?
Did this episode suggest that Seven had a romantic relationship with the shady dealer - I guess the Chakotay relationship got blown out the ass.

I would have liked a lot more clarification on how Seven of Nine actually got to this state. Seven just left the Federation to play vigilante in Romulan space. Seems like a lot more backstory has to happen for the character development to go from Voyager to that.

The interaction with Picard was largely weak as well. They specifically mention they do not know each other but the way they are speaking to each other makes it seem the opposite. We even have the clumsy dialogue about humanity and trying to compare Seven of Nine to Picard as equal in assimilation.
How about... no - Seven of Nine literally grew up in the Collective and has had extensive implants.
Picard was in the collective for days and underwent cosmetic alterations since they got it all out.
Trying to make it seem like Picard and Seven have the same collective experience is extremely lazy.

Icheb - Meh, as a plot device it works but it did feel a bit cheap. I also find the premise somewhat sketchy on the idea of the Federation / Starfleet just letting the ambush of their personnel slide to the point that Seven of Nine has to go rogue.
The entire scene is ultra silly from the perspective of how advanced tech in ST is. Icheb has been tortured and mutilated... but he should / could make a recovery.

Borg / Implants - This was really kinda silly. Borg tech is advanced but... the medical technology in ST is at a decent level that carving drones up for parts should be pointless and nowhere near as big a deal as they are making out.
I also find it a bit sketchy they talk about Seven and Icheb being special because they are 'old' drones that have implants that new drones don't have ?

So the Borg still exist and are making drones that do not have cybernetic implants ?
Are the Borg going to start doing Cylon Skinjob shit now ?
Is this going to be the shows way of being cheap and having 'normal' people being sleeper drones that get activated like Terminators ?
Once again, the technology in ST is advanced enough that we see them scanning people for implants AND the galaxy has just come out of the Dominion War where shapeshifting infiltrators was a real thing.
Sleeper Borg drones - That is going to be an extremely hard sell even if you ignore the blatant nBSG rip off.

If I was to give the writers some credit, this might be the fruition of the play in Voyager between the Queen and Seven about trying a different assimilation approach. In theory Data and Picard both share a connection to the Borg via First Contact so I could see some writer wannabe hack using that as a way to make some sort of Synth vs Borg narrative.
Borg want to assimilate the Synths to make better skinjobs... or kill them because they do not want the competition ?
The Shitty Romulan Agents want to destroy the synths so the Borg do not assimilate them or.... "shudder" they somehow know the Borg were created from Synths = Insert timetravel bullshit

Romulans - This series really needs to get a grip on establishing the greater picture. We have mention of the neutral zone collapsing but they also mentioned some sort of remaining Romulan Empire and it has 'space' which contains the 'artifact'
Picard and Rios even know of the artifact which would make it seem like a known thing.

So a defunct Romulan Empire has a captured Borg cube somewhere... and the rest of the powers in the galaxy are completely content with that arrangement.

Agnes / Stupid Scientist - The character was behaving sketchy ever since the meeting with Commander Elf-Ears. She magically shows up in time and "accidentally" shoots the death squad with an "oops". Followed by repeatedly buzzing the rest of the cast for information about where they are going.
The rest of the crew are complete idiots. They left her unattended on a ship when she is clearly ill suited to be in those kinds of situations.
Further, she has command access to deactivate the EMH and the EMH cannot / does not have some sort of alert system to the rest of the crew ?
I am also a bit confused about why the EMH did not actually do anything but bitch..,

I assume these holograms can physically interact with things so... what was stopping him from helping Maddox before getting deactivated ?
Even if the EMH can be deactivated, we can see that it is actively monitoring people and can activate itself... so it should be able to turn itself back on and sound an alarm.
However, I fully expect this is going to be handwaved away by Agnes hacking the EMH later and people buying the bullshit story she feeds them.

Elrond - Worthless character. So far, this character has done nothing. If they are trying to turn him into comic relief, it was seriously failing here.

Annoying elements - The Holographic bullshit at the start. That scene dragged on and really makes no sense. The station is able to make holograms appear on the ship like pop ups ?
Even if that were the case, it seems disastorously unwise to do that and a spam filter would be installed to prevent that kind of stuff screwing with the crew while they are at bridge consoles.

[bilateralrope]

4. More cryptic stuff. They better have a good pay off as to why Agnes would kill Maddox her old lover. Its because they showed me. Showed you what exactly? If the pay off isn't anything but amazing, its going to be very disappointing given how they set things up with Romulans knowing of future threat from AI and managing to convince Agnes about it.

I don't think such a payoff is possible. We have a secret so terrible that anyone who learns it is turned against synths. The first question I'm going to ask when they reveal what it is "why the fuck did you keep it secret ?"

I doubt they are going to have an answer. Oh and it raises more questions about the stupidity of the Romulan death squads. Specifically, why use Romulans at all when this secret also works on humans ?

The only explanation I can see working is that some Romulans kept their telepathy when they split from Vulcans and it's involved in sharing the secret. A bit of mind control along with the reveal.

[The Romulan Republic]

Spoilers for episode 5.

I'm really unhappy. Icheb was reintroduced for 2 minutes so that we could see him horrifyingly tortured and killed on-screen, all to serve as Seven's backstory as to why she's vigilante. He may not have been everyone's favorite, but I really enjoyed him, and to have that as the capstone to his character? I'm not in favor of this, at all.

Its been being done to female characters for forever. The only notable thing here is that they did it to a guy.

[aerius]

Remember that episode of TNG where Q shows Picard what his life would be like if he didn't take a Nausicaan dagger through the heart?
This show is about that Picard.

[FaxModem1]

Spoilers for episode 5.

I'm really unhappy. Icheb was reintroduced for 2 minutes so that we could see him horrifyingly tortured and killed on-screen, all to serve as Seven's backstory as to why she's vigilante. He may not have been everyone's favorite, but I really enjoyed him, and to have that as the capstone to his character? I'm not in favor of this, at all.

Its been being done to female characters for forever. The only notable thing here is that they did it to a guy.

The most similar example that I can think of is Shmi Skywalker, and we didn't see her being violated by the Tuskens onscreen, only the after effects.

[The Romulan Republic]

Double post, please delete .

Okay, maybe not exactly shot-for-shot like what happened to Icheb, but the entire "Stuffed in the fridge" trope is about horrible things being done to female characters to motivate the development of other (typically male) characters.

What you're describing is basically just a textbook fridging with the genders reversed.

[PREDATOR490]

The major problem is that it was completely unneeded.

Seven of Nine had already gone off the rails and was fighting on the fringes. Icheb getting mutilated and then being mercy killed does nothing to actually improve Seven of Nine or really motivate her to do much more than what she appears to have been doing.

They went to extra lengths here to mutilate Icheb on screen and then have Picard whine about losing humanity if Seven kills the person responsible.
I find the attempt at forced relation between Picard and Seven over this to be completely unbelievable.

I also find it hilarious that Seven decided to stick the knife into Picard. So far, it seems this show has a distinct hostility towards males and Picard in particular which Picard is happily sitting and taken without fighting back.

So far the Dave Cullen Reviews have been fairly representative of my views on how this series is going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbuzhdndZOM

[aerius]

The major problem is that it was completely unneeded.

That sums up about 90% of the show. We're 5 episodes in and Picard & crew have only now just figured out what the audience has known since the 1st episode. Nothing in between really fills in any important background or anything, it honestly feels like someone doing a really bad play through on an RPG and hitting up side quests at random that don't advance the plot. It's just a series of pointless info dumps and "plot events" that go nowhere.

Look, we're halfway through the 1st season. Does anyone here give a shit about any of the characters? Would you be upset if Picard, Soji, token black chick or nerdy science chick dropped dead in the next episode? To be honest, I'm more interested in Commodore Oh and Picard's Romulan housekeepers than I am in any of the main cast.

[mr friendly guy]

So..

1. The synthetics have a homeworld. LOL.

Ok, maybe its just a base where Maddox was doing experiments on.

2. The Borg have assimilated some Sikarians. For those who don't remember, the Sikarians were in season one of Voyager which would make their territory waaay away from Borg space by 24th century UFP standards, although with Borg transwarp capability, its most probably not that far.

The Sikarians had some nice technology which allowed them to transport 40,000 LY, which the Borg have now acquired. In comparison, the legendary Iconian gate was capable of at least 70,000 LY.

3. Something sort of happens, with Souj starting to activate, although this would have been better at say, episode 4 instead of 6. I just feel the pacing of Picard is slow, although this might be its simply slow compared to Star Trek standards.

[PREDATOR490]

1. Soji magically reveals the location of A world - It is really speculative to assume that what she is remembering is accurate, what the Spies are looking for AND the vague discription could literally be ANYWHERE.
"A Star, two red moons and a lightning storm" - In an entire galaxy. Really fucking narrows it down guys. From the same series that had the 'scientist' throw out the galaxy having 'over 3 billion stars'.
Of course, I fully expect the plot is going to magically have these details lead to only ONE system in the entire quadrant(s) which is EXTREMELY fortunate to the point of absurdity.


This is kinda tragic because the fuckwit brother was actually coming across as remotely smart and well-reasoned but they completely blew it with the utter stupidity displayed.
Use poison gas on an Android that has an elaborate time to kill her and allow her to scramble around. He seems to have command authority on this place and armed guards at his disposal. SHOOTING her, splashing her with that acid shit or beaming her into space would have been the smart way to go.

If they wanted the dramatic getaway - Trying to shoot her can still result in a dramatic activation getaway. As is, this just turned them all into idiots of the highest order.

2. Queen Chamber - This episode just established every cube has a Queen chamber. This chamber has a magic escape system so... I guess they used the Sphere in First Contact in place of the magic teleporter. That seems like a gigantic renovation change but Picard seems to just recognise the room anyway after the cube he was on was decades ago. Bit of a disconnect in logic for me.
As far as lore goes - It works in theory but I am still not happy with it.

3. Maddox death - What in the actual fuck stupidity is going on here ?
I suppose I should give them credit for not showing a single one of those holograms because it would highlight the obvious issue with the last episode EMH being a direct witness to MURDER.
However, not showing one does not change the fact. THE EMH SAW AGNES MURDERING MADDOX !
It is beyond reason for Agnes to be able to bullshit them with a story that even sounds silly. Agnes was literally turning shit off, but his 'heart' gave out. They went out of the way to demonstrate these Holograms everywhere but suddenly they all vanish for the episode...

4. Picard / Borg / Hugh - The nostalgia element was actually nicely done to an extent. I do not like the 'update' interior to the Borg cube. Specifically, the bottomless walkway with no railings across a chasm that is tiny. We have seen the interiors of Borg cubes before and they are massive. This did a poor job of actually conveying the size of a cube.

I am not happy with the direction they are going with 'reclamation' - Picard and Seven were both 'mutilated' by the Borg. Both of them were able to bounce back physically which indicates medical technology is quite capable of fixing a lot of the damage. It seems a bit circumspect for the drones to be so physically disfigured.
One possible avenue could have been mentioning the Borg altered their tech to make removal harder - I could buy that.
Another avenue could be mentioning the Romulans / Project are only really interested in salavaging the technology. They do not really care about the fleshy bits underneath. - However, Picard seems impressed by what is going on and accepts the horrific 'reclamation' efforts rather than asking why these people are not getting better medical care.

Overall, this needed to be better thought out and developed. Maybe instead of spending 5 episodes going at a glacial pace over nothing... they could have actually used that time to do this.

5. Greater Universe - The Romulans have a treaty that lets them have the Borg cube. If the Federation tries to do anything the Romulans will 'go to war'

6. Incest Siblings - Not as bad as before but the interactions were still pretty lame. Neither of them are able to play a convincing Romulan or even seem to generate a character wtih depth. All we got is bitchy, incest Sister and whiny, emotional brother.

7. Ninja Boy - Wut ?
They idiotic Ninja is able to beam aboard the Borg cube without anyone noticing and magically find Picard in the 'secret' area in record time ?
Sacrificing yourself = What the hell are you doing ? The kid is literally staying for no reason and has the potential to make things worse by staying since he will obviously be captured and interogated. They established this could lead to a war with the Romulans so... leaving the Ninja is fantastically stupid.
Either this episode is being extremely egregious with a character that literally breaks the fourth wall by knowing he has plot armor or they decided to kill him in the most pointless way possible.

8. Romulans - Possibly have a Queen / Empress now. Sela, Donnatra ?

9. Agnes - Is obviously a spy / secret agent. I get the impression Agnes has been brain-washed / controlled. The interaction with the Captain seemed like she was fighting with herself. It could be wishful thinking to hope they actually intended it to come across as some element of nuance and depth rather than a really shitty dialogue exchange.
I fully expect that Agnes is going to pull the 'I was coerced / I am a victim' so she can be redeemed. The way this show is going, I do not seem them committing to making her truely 'evil' / 'bad guy'. Same with the Incest Brother with his 'feelings'.

10. Raufi - Sorry, I still do not give a fuck about you. You are a worthless waste of screentime and no amount of calling Picard 'JL' is going to convince me otherwise.


Overall, the episode finally seems to have MOVED but it was still glacial. I also feel that the Soji stuff could literally have been cut into a single episode which would be delivered as a flashback to set the scene as Picard finally gets there.
As is, the audience has been ahead of Picard since the first episode which completely killed any suspense and what Soji / Borg Cube actually does is irrelevant for most of it.

This is really the problem with the entire series. They have stretched what should be a two parter episode into a 10 episode series and all they seem to have done is appeal to nostalgia and excessive time wasting to make up the runtime.

[Jub]

If it weren't for the fact that most of the posts in here mention that Picard's pacing sucks I might actually consider watching it as so bad it's good style fun.

[Solauren]

2. Queen Chamber - This episode just established every cube has a Queen chamber. This chamber has a magic escape system so... I guess they used the Sphere in First Contact in place of the magic teleporter. That seems like a gigantic renovation change but Picard seems to just recognise the room anyway after the cube he was on was decades ago. Bit of a disconnect in logic for me.
As far as lore goes - It works in theory but I am still not happy with it.

First, Hugh even said the projector was from AFTER Pichard's time. Probably after Hugh's time.

In fact, more then likely, we can blame Voyager for the Borg getting it. Either the Borg didn't know about it, and assimilated it as a side effect of recovery/rebuilding efforts after 'End Game', OR, the Borg learned about it from data scanned/recorded from Voyager (possibly assimilated from Admiral Janeway).

This also does mean this is a 'newer' cube. Odds are, it's so different because of all the tech upgrading the Borg did after Voyager took down THE Borg Queen, a Transwarp Hub, a Unimatrix, and helped a Borg Civil War get off the ground.

[aerius]

9. Agnes - Is obviously a spy / secret agent. I get the impression Agnes has been brain-washed / controlled. The interaction with the Captain seemed like she was fighting with herself. It could be wishful thinking to hope they actually intended it to come across as some element of nuance and depth rather than a really shitty dialogue exchange.
I fully expect that Agnes is going to pull the 'I was coerced / I am a victim' so she can be redeemed. The way this show is going, I do not seem them committing to making her truely 'evil' / 'bad guy'. Same with the Incest Brother with his 'feelings'.

It's been pretty clear since episode 3 that she's a plant. But that's not important. She goes from not knowing who Picard is to fangirling over him by the end of the 3rd episode. Did you notice her anticipating and smiling as the audience would before Picard even said "engage"? Like she knew he was going to do it all along and was waiting her whole life to see him do it? You met him a few days before, never seen him command a ship, and you're just waiting there for him to say "engage" like a stupid fangirl. I hate her already and hope they kill her soon.

10. Raufi - Sorry, I still do not give a fuck about you. You are a worthless waste of screentime and no amount of calling Picard 'JL' is going to convince me otherwise.

Raffi's only purpose in the show is to get criminal shit done when the writers write themselves into a corner. Picard's blown all his goodwill with the Federation and he needs a ship? Raffi will hook him up a ship using her underground contacts. Need some last minute diplomatic passes? Raffi knows someone in Federation HQ who can hook it up behind everyone's back. Then the twat runs off to have a soap opera scene with her estranged son while the rest of the team is on a critical mission on Freecloud, but I guess it's important to show Dr. Agnes having a nervous flakeout. You could replace Raffi with a random Ferengi and it would be more logically consistent and improve the show.

And don't even get me started on Romulegolus. Grows up on a backwoods planet with little modern tech in sight, magically learns how to use human transporters and beam himself through interference/shielding into a secret part of the Borg cube. I mean, I could believe it if he were a Tal Shiar agent or something like that who was trained in those things, but as far as we know he isn't. Just get rid of him and replace him with Snake Eyes from GI Joe, it would actually make more sense and improve the story.

The show needs a full re-write. If I were doing it, 1st episode is all flashbacks to 14 years ago when the robots blew up Utopia Planetia and all that shit with Picard & the Romulans went down. Flesh out the background a bit so we get an idea of the relations between the key races and the reason why Picard is sulking on his farm. 2nd episode introduces Dahj and Soji, and I'd have Dahj live so she can tell everyone where her sister is, then Picard does his shit and is on a ship and underway by the end of the episode. Skip the Romulegolus and Freecloud shit and I'm at the Borg cube by the start of episode 3 to hook up with Hugh and rescue Soji.

And finally Romulan Dominatrix and her brother need to get down and fuck already.

[PREDATOR490]

2. Queen Chamber - This episode just established every cube has a Queen chamber. This chamber has a magic escape system so... I guess they used the Sphere in First Contact in place of the magic teleporter. That seems like a gigantic renovation change but Picard seems to just recognise the room anyway after the cube he was on was decades ago. Bit of a disconnect in logic for me.
As far as lore goes - It works in theory but I am still not happy with it.

First, Hugh even said the projector was from AFTER Pichard's time. Probably after Hugh's time.

In fact, more then likely, we can blame Voyager for the Borg getting it. Either the Borg didn't know about it, and assimilated it as a side effect of recovery/rebuilding efforts after 'End Game', OR, the Borg learned about it from data scanned/recorded from Voyager (possibly assimilated from Admiral Janeway).

This also does mean this is a 'newer' cube. Odds are, it's so different because of all the tech upgrading the Borg did after Voyager took down THE Borg Queen, a Transwarp Hub, a Unimatrix, and helped a Borg Civil War get off the ground.

I have no issue with the assimilation of the techno gimmick from Voyager - That I can actually accept and give bit of a lore nod for bringing it up. The irony is that it is clear this show has people that can come up with these little lore pieces but they simply have no ability to put them together properly or even correctly.

The issue is: Picard is reacting as if he has been in this room before. This would imply that the BOBW had a similar arrangement which is essentially trying to retcon Borg Cubes as always being like this. It also suggests that the Queen has a physical representation needing an 'escape hatch'
First Contact hinted at this aspect as well with Picard suggesting the Queen was on the BOBW cube AND she should have been destroyed.
The pathetic handwave is 'Picard was thinking in 3D terms'

Is the Queen actually a singular entity with a physical body or do multiple Queens exist across the collective and have some sort of downloaded / backup storage system ?
Evidence for both of these exists across ST which ultimately leads to a major black hole in figuring out what the actual state of the Borg is. Voyager could have inflicted terminal damage on the Borg or it might have been a bump in the road. Once again, Picard is doing a really shitty job of painting a decent background of the universal picture even with elements that seem to be integral to the narrative they are pitching.
I.E The Romulan Empire seems to still exist with enough power to make threats about going to war but we have heard the Neutral Zone 'collapsed' and all indications the Romulans got completely decimated to the point the Federation is getting blamed for leaving them.

Incidentally, RLM made a valid point about the disconnect in the Romulan situation. The Romulans are not part of the Federation and were always antagonistic / reclusive. It seems hilariously bi-polar for the Romulans to be pissed off the Federation did not help them while the Romulan Senator also got pissed because the Federation WERE trying to help them.
Not only has this series done a shitty job of trying to force a real world analogy, it has done it in a way that breaks the franchise, breaks it's own narrative and seems like even the people behind it have no idea what message they are really trying to convey.

I have heard one 'Theory' that Soji is going to become the 'new' Borg Queen. I hope to fuck that is not true.
The stuff the Romulan nutcase was shouting about the Destroyer was essentially Soji was going to free the chained and lead them.

We just saw a Borg cube that has drones being chained up to serve as Romulan slaves that cannot leave. Soji coming along and leading them into the birth of a new Borg Collective after the previous Borg queen tried to assimilate Data AND Picard seems like the kinda unimaginative 'irony' this show would love to play with.

[Jub]

[bilateralrope]

5. Greater Universe - The Romulans have a treaty that lets them have the Borg cube. If the Federation tries to do anything the Romulans will 'go to war'

I took it as more that a Federation ship entering Romulan space without permission would trigger the war. Sure, we know that Picard is operating on his own. But the Romulans probably wouldn't believe that.

8. Romulans - Possibly have a Queen / Empress now. Sela, Donnatra ?

Or refering to the Romulans as a Queen was just a figure of speech.

If it weren't for the fact that most of the posts in here mention that Picard's pacing sucks I might actually consider watching it as so bad it's good style fun.

It would probably work better if you binge the season once it's all released.