Picard - general discussion [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

So....

1. The UFP measures data in gigabytes now? What happened to the made up unit of teraquads?

2. Male Bene Gesseritt takes out a bunch of Romulans. That was kind of cool.

3. I am so convinced about synthetic apocalypse due to Vulcan mind meld? Ok. No obvious question as to like, how do you know this vision comes to pass and its not just your imagination. Nope, mind meld, sounds totally legit to me. I am now going to betray my associates and kill the man I love. Okaaaay.

4. Don't the Romulan scout ship have cloaking devices? I know its small and all that, but so was Ambassador Vreenak's ship when he visited DS9 in the episode a In the Pale Moonlight.

5. We see Wil Riker and Deanna Troi with their kid. Yeah this is fan service. I guess it was ok, but it didn't really contribute much to the episode. If Picard had to seek refuge from a character we the viewers have never even heard of, this episode would just be largely filler. It only "works" and I say that loosely because the bring back old TNG characters.

6. It looks like they might have killed Hugh the ex Borg drone. Yeah, lets kill a few more characters. It worked for Game of Thrones.

I get the feeling this episode was more of set up for next few episodes.

[PREDATOR490]

This episode was another fantastic waste of time.

1. The Mind Meld - A blatant attempt to 'download' the plot imperative into their character and create cheap suspense. They have wasted so much time on complete bullshit which they could have used to develop and SHOW us what is so compelling to commit murder. However, I suspect that this suspense is going to lead to another let down.
That said, it seems that Agnes is fully complicit in her actions. No 'forced' or 'mind control' clause to get her out of this one.

2. Borg cube - Complete load of bullshit that once again renders every character involved as idiots.
They had an easy out when Incest-Sister stated they were tracking them and she was waiting for the 'excuse' to take out the 'protected' Federation / Hugh - I would have actually given them some credit for pulling off a credible amount of intelligence / strategy from the Sister but they quickly shat over that with the following scenes. We have the villan suffering from tragic aiming problems that are just laughable and the insanely stupid fight.
This Ninja is a moron, the order he comes from is stupid and this episode demonstrated exactly why.
Guns > Swords - The only reason that ninja is still alive is because of the most overt plot shield.
The silly 'honour duel' was blatantly silly. I suppose I should give them points for not having the Sister pull out a sword but those points go to shit when the entire outcome of that fight was telegraphed before it started. It was obvious she had no intention of fighting 'honourably' and she had no way to actually fight 'honourably' since she does not have a sword.
Good Ninja is going to fight with a sword against an unarmed villan and have that play out like it logically would - Yeah, right.
Good Ninja decides to fight unarmed, against an enemy that is blatantly devious and I find it highly questionable this order exists if they engage in 'honour' duels against enemies that will not play by the 'rules'
Instead, she has a kill shot at the ninja ( who just forgets about her even when she is holding a blade on him and runs with his back towards her ) and somehow has a psychic transporter that can beam her out as the ninja is throwing the dagger. This entire scene was disgustingly lacking for any kind of sense.

3. Hugh - Sorry, you deserved better than this even for a one note character.
For a brief moment I was hopeful they were going to have Hugh deliver on rallying the Borg Cube but... instead we just got more stupid.
That said, they appear to have dropped an obvious flag towards ANOTHER ex-borg doing this. Since we have no other 'known' Borg drones...
The Ninja activates a Fenris S.O.S - So I guess Seven of Nine is going to return with a Borg Cube.

On the one hand - Its nice for Seven to return and I would happily see that Borg cube dishing out some serious pain but I find it likely this is going to be another one of those 'fuck you' subverted expectations that has become insanely popular. I.E Seven of Nine and Co. are going to cause the event that leads to the mind meld events.

Incidentally, awfully fucking lucky for the Ninja to magically find one of those S.O.S things just lying around. Where the hell did that thing come from ?

3. The Romulans have cloaking devices, tailing a ship should be fantastically easy. Not to mention the guy was practically flying up their tail pipe.
ST lore could have provided the show with ample means to create the kind of situation they were going for but the one they have created is stupid.

4. Rios - Is a complete idiot. It took him that long to figure out they were being tracked and for some reason he thought dropping out of warp would magically make the pursuer 'miss' them ?

5. Ship Holograms - At first it seemed like the holograms were 'offline' since Drug Lady called for one and it did not appear.
Agnes could have disabled them - Complete bullshit but as an eye-rollingly predictable 'sabotage' suspense plot it would have worked.
Instead, we see that the emergency doctor hologram literally comes on of his own accord as Agnes is poisoning himself AND he calls for assistance.
Where the fuck was this capability when Agnes was murdering Madox ?

Evidently the hologram can even interact with patients since it moves her onto the bed so, this episode demonstrates how fantastically lazy this entire show has been.

6. Riker / Troi / Picard / Android whatever - Blatant attempt at a nostalgia trip which is ruined spectacularily by the stupidity of the rest of the epiosde and the forced contrivances of the plot making things 'happen'

Android Plot device - She does the Data head tilt out of nowhere just so we can have Riker magically pull out the 'insightful' deduction that she is Data's daughter. They could have left it at Troi's telepathy but they just had to add the stupid aspect to it.
Although, Picard could have just fucking told them... and so far the show has failed at making Picard justify why he wont.
'I dont want to endanger you' - So its okay to endanger the others... or endanger them by going to them for shelter but not telling them why so they could actually be prepared for when the trouble comes knocking ?
Once again we have a character lecturing / going off at Picard and it is Troi. Although, in this situation Picard did deserve it but the writing to make that situation is once again atrociously bad.

This could have been a touching renunion trip but it is very clear the episode was doing everything it could to shelve Riker and Troi so they cannot get pulled into the show. They only really serve to exposition dump why they cannot get involved, plus Picard is intentionally not even telling them anything for no logical reason other than... it would actually involve Riker and Troi potentially being able to help.
Instead, the episode delivers a sliver of plot relevance in the laziest of ways.

Really, the daughter is able to magically find the planet mentioned in the last episode using the most obscure description possible on her mobile phone ?

3 episodes left.
This entire series is a collection of extremely bad writing that even Patrick Stewart and the blatant nostalgia trips are not saving.

[bilateralrope]

Oh look, the idiot who thought it was a good idea to send kill squads on a capture mission proves once again that she has no clue what she is doing. Not only did she once again fail to get the information she was after, she once again managed to screw up and make the situation worse.

[aerius]

I give up, this show is just too stupid for words. Rios & crew are on a actual starship that's getting chased by a glorified 1-man shuttlecraft. Just blow the damn thing out of space for fuck's sake, they're goddamn mercenaries so it's not like it's going to start a Federation Romulan war.

I'm not even joking when I say this will greatly improve the show.

[bilateralrope]

I give up, this show is just too stupid for words. Rios & crew are on a actual starship that's getting chased by a glorified 1-man shuttlecraft. Just blow the damn thing out of space for fuck's sake, they're goddamn mercenaries so it's not like it's going to start a Federation Romulan war.

- Rios' ship was outgunned by a TOS era warship. Likely because Rios flys a passenger/cargo ship, not a military vessel.
- That TOS era warship was outgunned by the tiny ship Seven was flying. And she belongs to some private vigilante group that's short on funds.
- This Romulan ship looked to be about the same size as Seven's ship. Likely benefiting from having funding that Seven's group doesn't have.

Forcing a fight seems like a bad idea just from what they have shown us on screen.

[aerius]

- Rios' ship was outgunned by a TOS era warship. Likely because Rios flys a passenger/cargo ship, not a military vessel.
- That TOS era warship was outgunned by the tiny ship Seven was flying. And she belongs to some private vigilante group that's short on funds.
- This Romulan ship looked to be about the same size as Seven's ship. Likely benefiting from having funding that Seven's group doesn't have.

Forcing a fight seems like a bad idea just from what they have shown us on screen.

The Warbird didn't go down until it was double teamed by Rios and Seven's ships.

Also, if an armed merchant ship like the one Rios has is about the same in combat power as a dinky little personal craft run by some 3rd rate organization (one of the Rios holograms comments on how crappy Seven's ship is), it just makes the story even more broken and unbelievable. It's like putting guns on an armed merchant raider that can't even sink a rubber dingy.

[Solauren]

Officially, that ship has diplomatic credits due to what was done to get Picard onto the cube.

it blows up a Romulan craft, that's an act of war.

[PREDATOR490]

Rios does mention the that Incest Brother's ship has a lot of firepower for it's size.
I would assume between that bit of exposition dump and their subsequent actions indicate Rios has no chance against it.

Overall, the entire premise is a wash for sense or reason. The Romulans have stealth tech that would make tailing someone fantastically easy.
I suppose the handwave would be: The ship they used was all they had and it is not equipped with Stealth Tech by defaut... kinda plausible but it still reflects poorly on the Incest Siblings covert abilities.
The guy is tailing them by literally flying behind them as if he needs to physically have eyes on them to track them. Then he 'loses' them by Rios dropping out of warp. I would have expected the Romulan agent to slam into the back of Rios given he was tailgating them.

I find it fantastically stupid this series forgot ST has sensors that would allow the Romulan to follow from distance and likely remain undetected.

The Incest Siblings seem to have some sort of rank within the Romulan Empire since they can just order people around, secure ships and summon minions. It is unfathomable this secret police has an organisational structure that has given them that power when everything they have done has been abysmal.
Incest Sister deciding to take out Hugh - Even if you give her credit for showing some 'restraint' in not killing Hugh because he was 'protected'. No difference really exists killing him later.
She was waiting for an 'excuse' but how exactly is she going to spin that excuse to the Federation ?
I would expect the Federation is not going to take the word of the Romulans so she would have to provide some evidence. The only way she could justify her action would be to provide recordings and those recordings would damn the Romulans in what they reveal.
The alternative is she is looking for an 'excuse' that can be sold to her "superiors" - Who I would hope are going to be a bit pissed off at the complete mess these pair of idiots have created.

Next Week: Seven of Nine returns.
Predictions: Seven of Nine is going to die leading a Borg revolt.

[aerius]

Next Week: Seven of Nine returns.
Predictions: Seven of Nine is going to die leading a Borg revolt.

I'm thinking Riker & Troi get killed, because reasons.

Logically Seven should be next to die since she's headed towards Homicidal Romulan Dominatrix, but the writers of this show are so fucking dumb that I don't expect them to maintain consistency. They'll probably have Romulan bro end up on Riker's planet to find out that Picard was there & gone, then flip out and kill everyone.

[PREDATOR490]

Next Week: Seven of Nine returns.
Predictions: Seven of Nine is going to die leading a Borg revolt.

I'm thinking Riker & Troi get killed, because reasons.

Logically Seven should be next to die since she's headed towards Homicidal Romulan Dominatrix, but the writers of this show are so fucking dumb that I don't expect them to maintain consistency. They'll probably have Romulan bro end up on Riker's planet to find out that Picard was there & gone, then flip out and kill everyone.

I really doubt they will kill Riker and Troi. Killing them would cause an uproar and it would be narrative suicide.
Icheb getting killed - You can get away with that because he is a backdrop character and they handwaved the situation that got him in that place
Hugh getting killed - They did it really poorly but his death is fairly consistent. He fucked over the Romulans in a Romulan controlled 'base'. It would have been more surprising if they did NOT kill him.
Seven of Nine - The last 'ex-borg' that can 'unite' the cube in a revolt and die trying in a blaze of glory because she is a 'strong female' that gets to swoop in and clean up Picard's mess - From the tone and direction this series has taken, this would be the kind of action the writers would go for.
The preview clip for the next episode has already dropped a massive spoiler in this regard.

I expect they will just write off Riker and Troi for 'future need' - Riker already dropped the open door saying he was on reserve but it would take something major to pull him back. The only question is will they pull him in this season for the final showdown or wait until later. This could end up being where they kill them.

The biggest problem this series has for me. They want to go into the grimdark / brutal territory like they are trying to emulate Game of Thrones but even that series had gaps between the back to back brutality. This series is just an on-going murder-fest interlaced with extremely bad dialogue, drama and jarring nostalgia trips.
This episode serves as the best example of this. We have the nostalgia trip with a reunion that is trying to go for a strange melachony feel being interlaced with multiple 'tense' chase scenes.

[The Romulan Republic]

Your whining about how the show is persecuting men by having strong females aside, I'm gonna be fucking pissed if they kill Seven.

Then again, since when was death permanent in Star Trek?

[NecronLord]

Since Kirk died. No one has ever come back after the credits roll.

[The Romulan Republic]

No one has ever come back after the credits roll.

I have just four words for you:

The Search For Spock.

Yeah, yeah, pre-Kirk, but the precedent is there, even for a post-credits resurrection.

[NecronLord]

However before release they made many edits to WoK to make it plain that Spock would be back and IIRC had even announced the next film would be called "The Search for Spock" so I don't really consider that one a post-credits surprise return.

[aerius]

Your whining about how the show is persecuting men by having strong females aside, I'm gonna be fucking pissed if they kill Seven.

Then again, since when was death permanent in Star Trek?

The problem isn't the strong female leads. The problem is that every man in the show is a pussified dickless wonder who only exists to take it up the ass and get yelled at & abused by the females. If I wanted to watch a shitty soap opera I'd go turn on my TV between 1 and 3pm.

You want strong female characters? No problem. This is First Contact.
That one scene absolutely slays the shit out of the entire Picard series.

[mr friendly guy]

So....

1. Zhat Vash or whatever they are called get their certainty about killer synths from a left over artefact from some ancient race who we don't even know their names. Sounds legit. And I am secretly a Nigerian prince with a bridge to nowhere to see you guys. Who is interested?

2. The Romulans captured that Borg ship because the Borg tried to assimilate a Zhat Vash who is already mad and her madness caused the cube to malfunction. Not sure if I completely buy it. We see from Voyager various viruses that can affect the Borg, so I guess this madness acts like a virus.

3. Seven saves male Bene Gesseritt, because of course she does. She just happens to turn up at that moment when stupid Romulans engage in HtH with male Bene Gesseritt instead of using disruptors. Don't they have a stun setting?

4. Only now do they talk to the EMH and find out Agnes deactivated him? Like WTF? In an episode of Star Trek they would have got this clue within five minutes.

5. Rios has met a synth who looks like Souji.

6. Addendum to point 5. Starfleet officer followers orders to commit cold blooded murder. Fuck this. Section 31 worked because they did it themselves while Starfleet remained squeaky cleaned. Now the higher ups at Starfeelt get Starfleet officers to murder and if they don't, their whole ship goes. This would work in an alternative Star Trek universe, or another original sci fi show. But when you do this in a show with already established norms, you run the risk of alienating your original fan base who might feel, this isn't Star Trek.

7. Romulan guns suck. They get broken after firing a few shots. Was there any point to this scene?

8. So let me get this straight. If you have synthetics up to a certain level, something bad happens and its implied its not necessarily due to synthetics you created? Its some other force comes, which we don't know whether they are synthetics or organics or what? Like hurry up and reveal goddamn it.

[aerius]

[PREDATOR490]

This episode was pretty much just a massive exposition dump of people talking.
While it is finally nice to get some answers... did they really need to wait this long to actually give them ?

We finally get some attempt at characterisation which... I kinda like but it is too little to late.

Commander Oh - Half Romulan / Half Vulcan - Uh, what ? How does that work ?
Even if we assume they are biologically compatible, is she hiding the Romulan part ?
Romulans and Vulcans have always been extremely distinct so it seems a bit of a stretch for a Romulan to pose as a Vulcan for decades.
Commander Oh appears to have been the Matriach of the new batch that was made 15 years ago. They claim she was imbedded in Starfleet and rose through the ranks.
A Half Romulan / Half Vulcan individual that was working for the Romulans was in place... around Nemesis.
Going from nothing to Commander of Starfleet Intelligence within 5 years... that is a rather impressive 'rise' through the ranks without any kind of background checks.

Attack on Mars - Commander Oh look, it was an inside job. The Jad Vash deliberately caused an attack to cause a ban on Synths that were building the fleet that would save the Romulans. Instead, the Romulan Empire got nuked. Points for being so dedicated to the cause you literally let your entire Empire get obliterated.

Romulans / Jad Vash - Oh look, all of them are women as a parrallel to the all women warrior monks. Is the Incest Brother part of the Jad Vash... just like Ninja Monk boy is a 'member' of the monks ?
Apparantly the Jad Vash can command entire fleets of Romulan ships... because the Romulans have a fleet and would be answerable to a 'secret police' that's only purpose is to stop the development of Synthetic life. Going so far as to doom millions of their own people and their Empire to destroy the army of Synths that are building the rescue effort.
How exactly are the Jad Vash 'secret' with this much power but they behave in such overt ways ?

Borg Cube - This was really a fantastic waste that included a particularily offensively stupid scene.
Seven of Nine became the 'Queen' of the Cube - Okay, I can buy that. Not a fan of how they physically depict it or how it just got handwaved away at the end but... whatever.
Seven of Nine sent drones after Incest Sister - These drones did a fantastic entry by taking out her guard. For a brief moment I was actually impressed and had hope this was going to be a cool scene... I should have known better.
These drones then proceed to ineffectively man handle the Sister like impotent zombies... what the actual fuck are you doing ?
I would have given this scene immense praise if the drones had 'adapted' to being shot and then Incest Sister 'beamed' out. That would have accomplished what they were going for.
Instead, the drones spend a fantastic amount of time trying to mob pin her to the ground... what was the objective here, Assimilate her, Kill her ?

Flushing the drones into space - Gold star for effort and I will grudgingly give them a nod to working with the setting.
Borg Cubes can apparantly just 'open' to space by reconfiguring the hull which causes EVERY drone to flush into space. That might get rid of a sizeable amount of them but it should only flush out drones near those sections.
It seems implausible it would flush them ALL out because its not like the entire cube is turning inside out. Seven of Nine's compartment is unaffected and seemingly the Romulan sections are shielded.
Could Seven of Nine not have done this 'back' to the Romulans and flush THEM into space ?

Borg Drones - Even if the drones are flushed into space. They should be fine. We have seen Borg Drones operating in space without any protection and the collective connection would extend beyond the cube. So... you have lots of floating drones outside that could be brought back in. If they had shown the Romulans 'shooting' the drones then it would solve that problem.

Borg - We have a timeframe for when this cube got messed up. Less than 15 years ago, thus the Borg are still active post-Nemesis.
The Cube got messed up by assimilating a 'Jad Vash'.
Borg Transwarp - Located nearby the Borg Cube somewhere and Soji knows how to use it... whatever.

Elrond - Waste of space. I simply do not understand what is going on with this character.
Picard recruited him... then dumped him so now he appears to be jumping onto whatever character is nearby. Seven of Nine saves his worthless ass while he just sits in a corner doing fuck all ?
I actually want to see this character die... is this the modern version of Weasly ?

Naturally, the Ninja is hiding out on the Borg cube by cowering in Hugh's office... the Romulans know where he is... and send a completely ineffective team that decide to go hand to hand with a guy with a sword. We could just use our guns... or gas. They specifcally fucking mention gas when thinking about dealing with the Borg Drones so...
All of this so Seven of Nine can magically appear and save his ass... fantastic.

Seven of Nine - How did Seven get to the cube ?
The Cube is surrounded by defenses and getting near it requires clearance. Somehow Seven of Nine was able to get past all of this and just save Elrond.
As a character, Seven of Nine is easily the highlight of this entire show. Seven just dominates this series and she has barely been in two episodes.
Not even Stewart has been as compelling or interesting.
This is especially sad because, Seven is basically a plot device. They have done nothing to really give her a character, develop or do much. Ryan seems to be TRYING but outside of looks and a few lines, she does not even really feel like Seven of Nine.

Overall,
My biggest annoyance - I wanted to see a Borg cube wrecking everything. I would have settled for some decent Borg drone action. Instead the entire scene was pretty much wasted.
I still feel like Seven of Nine is going to die, the ending with 'Anika' still has to do something is hardly subtle in the foreshadowing element.

The main part of this episode is really just the Stewart stuff and the Borg stuff was window dressing to cover up the exceptionally long exposition dumps between Stewart and co.

---------

Rios - Gets some backstory. I have found the character a bit interesting so I am not too fussed about the focus and the story was reasonable from HIS side of it. I am NOT happy or buying the narrative - Starfleet orders a captain to execute passengers or they will destroy the Federation ship. I'm sorry, but that is bullshit and the implications of it make a further demonstration of how utterly loathsome ST:Picard is towards the value of life.

Rafi - Jesus christ... I hate this character. The show made it blatantly obvious her paranoid conspiracy bullshit was going to be 'true' but even when we have the inevitable 'I was right' lead up, they managed to not only make it predictable, they dragged it out into an entire episode worth of dancing around.
All I can really say is "Fuck you very much" for that epic fest of dancing around a "reveal" endlessly. Am I supposed to be impressed at the investigative skills of Rafi ?
The holograms keep telling her to go speak to Rios to get the answer she is looking for but instead she plays talking games with the hologram versions that keep telling her the same thing.
Oh but we get a funny joke about not understanding the engineering Scotsman... fuck you.

Agnes - What the hell was this ?
She admits to committing muder and the episode seems to be trying to make her appear contrite. However, it really comes across as Agnes playing the rest of the crew for idiots while everyone else just seems to give her a 'pass'
It really sounds like Agnes was trying to spin doctor the shit out of Picard by saying she got mentally coerced by Commander Oh into committing murder.
Agnes admits to murdering Maddox
The Medical Hologram literally describes her actions and how she did it - Massive bunch of problems with this
The rest of the crew just seem to shrug and do not seem to give a shit... - Just don't do it again m'kay ?

Soji - Still a worthless character.
It is obvious they have finally tried to give this character some development and talking with Picard about Data is an attempt to build some nostalgia / emotional investment. However, all this episode really does is give a bit of an emotional nostalgia trip for Picard / Data.
Soji still has no character and I get the impression they never had any idea for what her character is really meant to be.

Overall, any emotional or character development here was too little and far too late.

The 'EXPOSITION FORESHADOWING DIALOGUE'

Mysterious race created an entire solar system with 8 stars and a single planet so it would attract other races.
This planet then has a 'warning' about the development of Synthetic Life.
This planet was found by the Romulans and led to the creation of the Jad Vash
This planet has supposedly been around for 200,000 -300,000 years
This warning suggests that if Synthetic life reaches a 'Thresold', it will trigger SOMETHING which is VERY BAD because 'SOMETHING' will come.

I.E Rafi states the planet was X years old - How the fuck did she know that ?
Rafi did not even know the planet or system even existed until she started asking about it in this very episode and her source was the holograms that stated creating a star system would be possible. Nowhere in this episode did Rafi get told or look up the actual system... christ, the holograms said it was a Romulan myth.
Agnes... sorta suggested that from her downloaded narrative device from Commander Oh but she never spoke to Rafi.

Overall, the characters seem to have magically learned everything but are now painstakingly explaining it to the audience err... Soji. Nevermind the stuff they have learned has not been verified and some of it is just mind numbingly stupid.

The Jad Vash were sent to exterminate Synths.
Rafi suggests the Jad Vash sent Commander Oh to infiltrate Starfleet because of Soong and him 'Turning out' Synthetics life. - Did Rafi just suggest Commander Oh has been in Starfleet for 30 - 40 years ?
The Jad Vash sent an infiltrator who sat around for decades rather than eliminate Data ?
The Jad Vash command entire fleets of Romulan ships but were happy to let Shinzon fuck around with B4 ?
The Jad Vash have such an important mission to kill Synthetic life that had them sit on their ass while Data was active ?
It is stupid enough Rafi suggests Soong was 'turning out' androids as if it was a production line but the Jad Vash seem to have magical infiltration abilities, abilities to command fleets in their super-important mission but they kinda did not do it.

All of this shit is sounding really similar to another rather popular story...

[mr friendly guy]

Commander Oh - Half Romulan / Half Vulcan - Uh, what ? How does that work ?
Even if we assume they are biologically compatible, is she hiding the Romulan part ?
Romulans and Vulcans have always been extremely distinct so it seems a bit of a stretch for a Romulan to pose as a Vulcan for decades.
Commander Oh appears to have been the Matriach of the new batch that was made 15 years ago. They claim she was imbedded in Starfleet and rose through the ranks.
A Half Romulan / Half Vulcan individual that was working for the Romulans was in place... around Nemesis.
Going from nothing to Commander of Starfleet Intelligence within 5 years... that is a rather impressive 'rise' through the ranks without any kind of background checks.

Romulans are offshoots of Vulcans and still are biologically compatible.

Notable cases include Saavik (Star Trek 2 and 3) who was mentioned in the novelisation to be half vulcan and half romulan. Another one was that "Vulcan" accused of being a spy for the Romulans in the TNG episode "Drumhead."

[bilateralrope]

So....

1. Zhat Vash or whatever they are called get their certainty about killer synths from a left over artefact from some ancient race who we don't even know their names. Sounds legit. And I am secretly a Nigerian prince with a bridge to nowhere to see you guys. Who is interested?

2. The Romulans captured that Borg ship because the Borg tried to assimilate a Zhat Vash who is already mad and her madness caused the cube to malfunction. Not sure if I completely buy it. We see from Voyager various viruses that can affect the Borg, so I guess this madness acts like a virus.

At least we get to see why they keep it a secret: If they talk openly about it, they let people like Picard go "we won't make the same mistake"*. Well, that and I think it drives them all a little mad.


*Except they did make the same mistake. They allowed the synths to be built with the Federations standard for computer security. Which led to Mars burning.

3. Seven saves male Bene Gesseritt, because of course she does. She just happens to turn up at that moment when stupid Romulans engage in HtH with male Bene Gesseritt instead of using disruptors. Don't they have a stun setting?

They made a point of saying in the first few episodes that Romulan disruptors don't have stun. Which seems like a major limitation.

6. Addendum to point 5. Starfleet officer followers orders to commit cold blooded murder. Fuck this. Section 31 worked because they did it themselves while Starfleet remained squeaky cleaned. Now the higher ups at Starfeelt get Starfleet officers to murder and if they don't, their whole ship goes. This would work in an alternative Star Trek universe, or another original sci fi show. But when you do this in a show with already established norms, you run the risk of alienating your original fan base who might feel, this isn't Star Trek.

At least they showed that he couldn't handle it afterwards.

8. So let me get this straight. If you have synthetics up to a certain level, something bad happens and its implied its not necessarily due to synthetics you created? Its some other force comes, which we don't know whether they are synthetics or organics or what? Like hurry up and reveal goddamn it.

I wonder if this ancient race really was wiped out by synths. If you take the everything in the Admonishment as true, that means they built it and moved the stars around after synths ruined their civilization. The whole thing smells like a lie.

Commander Oh - Half Romulan / Half Vulcan - Uh, what ? How does that work ?
Even if we assume they are biologically compatible, is she hiding the Romulan part ?

Romulans are descended from a group of Vulcans who split of several millennia ago. So far more compatible than Vulcans and Humans.

Romulans and Vulcans have always been extremely distinct so it seems a bit of a stretch for a Romulan to pose as a Vulcan for decades.

Everything about her behaviour says Vulcan.

Commander Oh appears to have been the Matriach of the new batch that was made 15 years ago. They claim she was imbedded in Starfleet and rose through the ranks.
A Half Romulan / Half Vulcan individual that was working for the Romulans was in place... around Nemesis.
Going from nothing to Commander of Starfleet Intelligence within 5 years... that is a rather impressive 'rise' through the ranks without any kind of background checks.

I can see her passing them all. After all, the Jad Vash are unknown and not doing anything at the time.

Attack on Mars - Commander Oh look, it was an inside job. The Jad Vash deliberately caused an attack to cause a ban on Synths that were building the fleet that would save the Romulans. Instead, the Romulan Empire got nuked. Points for being so dedicated to the cause you literally let your entire Empire get obliterated.

Clearly the Admonishment makes them all mad.

These drones then proceed to ineffectively man handle the Sister like impotent zombies... what the actual fuck are you doing ?

Behaving like borg drones.

[Darth Lucifer]

Romulans and Vulcans have always been extremely distinct so it seems a bit of a stretch for a Romulan to pose as a Vulcan for decades.

Everything about her behaviour says Vulcan.

There was mention of physiology above too...I wanted to add that there was once a Romulan spy who posed as a Vulcan ambassador and Captain Picard unwittingly delivered her back into the hands of the enemy (TNG: "Data's Day"). He was later grilled on this by Admiral Nora Satie; She mentioned that Ambassador T'Pel had "...carried Federation secrets that she'd been accumulating for years." (TNG: "The Drumhead")

We also know that there are ways to beat Starfleet medical scans; Data's mom off the top of my head is an example (TNG: "Inheritance"). Romulan physiology still has some distinct differences than Vulcan, so any spy would need to fool Federation doctors.

[Solauren]

I can imagine being a Romulan spy as a Vulcan would be easy.

Just always act professionally, if aloof, socially private, and slightly distanful. Occasionally socialize, but be cool and withdrawn over it, and obviously not in your skill set.

Perfect cover for a spy, and sounds like a stereotypical Vulcan to me.

[bilateralrope]

Did anyone notice if the competent brother was at the Admonishment site ?
Because I don't recall seeing him there.

Then there is the issue of Maddox's lab. He said that it had been destroyed. Was it somewhere other than the synth "homeworld" ?
Or are we going to find that it's far too late to warn them because somebody else hates synths that badly ?

Romulans and Vulcans have always been extremely distinct so it seems a bit of a stretch for a Romulan to pose as a Vulcan for decades.

Everything about her behaviour says Vulcan.

There was mention of physiology above too...I wanted to add that there was once a Romulan spy who posed as a Vulcan ambassador and Captain Picard unwittingly delivered her back into the hands of the enemy (TNG: "Data's Day"). He was later grilled on this by Admiral Nora Satie; She mentioned that Ambassador T'Pel had "...carried Federation secrets that she'd been accumulating for years." (TNG: "The Drumhead")

We also know that there are ways to beat Starfleet medical scans; Data's mom off the top of my head is an example (TNG: "Inheritance"). Romulan physiology still has some distinct differences than Vulcan, so any spy would need to fool Federation doctors.

Thing is, Commodore O doesn't need to fool any scans if she's open about being half-Vulcan. It's not like Starfleet would turn away a child when one of their parents is from a Federation species.

I can imagine being a Romulan spy as a Vulcan would be easy.

Just always act professionally, if aloof, socially private, and slightly distanful. Occasionally socialize, but be cool and withdrawn over it, and obviously not in your skill set.

Perfect cover for a spy, and sounds like a stereotypical Vulcan to me.

Better plan: Get raised as a Vulcan. Get training in behaving like one and using telepathy as well as a deep cover

Worst case, the cover gets blown and this spy has to go back to Romulan space to help train others to resist telepathy.

[mr friendly guy]

Hmm.

1. Romulan scout ship trailing Picard has a functioning cloaking device? Why the hell didn't he use it earlier?

2. Zhat Vash can pull out 218 warbirds. Ok that's the size of some fleets thrown around during the Dominion War.

3. A synthetic can learn the Vulcan Mind meld? WTF?

4. SPOILERS.....

The admonition was meant for synthetic life, but Agnes couldn't figure this out even though it outright asks Synthetic life to summon "them," to protect synthetic life from organics and wipe out organics. Them refers to an alliance of synthetic life "beyond the boundaries of time and space."


So the device was most likely built by synthetics to warn other synthetics against organics.

5. The synthetics was most likely created by Dr Soong (played by Brent Spiner) and Bruce Maddox. Dr Soong makes the body, Maddox was the expert in mind transfer. Note in TNG a human figured out how to transfer his mind into synthetic life, so its just rediscovering the technology.

6. This sort of feels more like a ST episode. Most probably the pacing, we got a problem, we see Picard's argument and we see the synthetics who disagree.

7. Next episode better not be a let down and Picard magically rolls a d20 on diplomatic checks and saves the day, but I am not sure how they can write themselves out of what they have done short of bullshit hand waving, which some TNG episodes did.

[PREDATOR490]

This episode was abysmal.

The Synth planet is 25 light years from the Borg Cube starting position

How the fuck did Seven of Nine manage to guide a Borg Cube to this planet. They had no idea where Picard and Co were let alone know the location of the Synth Planet.
Seven bullshits about getting the information from the Incest Sister but once again... HOW THE FUCK DOES EVERYONE SUDDENLY KNOW WHERE IT IS !
The utter stupidity of this entire series is mind boggling and any attempt at suspense or build up has been pissed away in the most infuriating ways.

The Synths have some sort of space plants... because... why not ?
Once again, for a few seconds the arrival of the Borg cube had the potential to be an interesting scene but the show just wrecked it for no reason. Somehow plants that are barely the size of the hero ship is able to bring down a Borg Cube... who wrote this shit ?

It is also hilarious to think about how badly this episode fucked up the scaling of a Borg Cube. Your trying to tell me that a ship the size of a Borg Cube 'crashed' into the planet and did not cause fantastic levels of destruction ?
From the dialogue, it seems that 5 of those things were sent up, one was used on the hero ship... so four of them were able to overwhelm a Cube and stop if from hitting the ground hard enough to end all life on the planet ?
The scenes of the cube on the ground seem vastly out of scale as well.

Brent Spiner... gets to play an old man that is the secret child of Dr Soong that was never mentioned in the entire run of TNG. He just happens to look exactly like Data. Is he a clone... ?

Romulans - Able to throw around a fleet that has over 200+ ships on short notice. Its nice to see Star Trek embrace some sense of scale but once again it is done in a stupid way. The Secret Police Commander... who is also a covert spy within Starfleet Security is able to summon this fleet and just leave Earth to command it without anyone noticing ?
This series is suffering from the same kind of bullshit that came from Game of Thrones Season 8. Distances and journey travel times are being skipped with jump cuts and characters effectively teleporting.

However, the Romulan Fleet appears to be going to the Synth Planet via normal warp... ?
The busted up Borg Cube is able to detect them approaching from 25 Light Years... ?

Seven of Nine - Barely worth mentioning. This series has done a fantastic job of wasting that character in the most offensively worthless manner.

Elrond - Waste of Space. Still a waste of space...

Raufi - Waste of Space. Talking about 'Loving Picard'... please god no. Do not go there. Even if they meant it in the non-romantic way... they have absolutely no chemistry, commraderie or even development to make any sense of relationship between the two work.

Agnes - Horrifically killed a guy and noone really gives a fuck except old man Soong. Even that scene felt hilariously weak. Once again we get a spin doctoring as if she was being 'forced' into doing it rather than making a direct choice to murder someone she was supposedly in love with.

Synths - Can learn to use Vulcan Mind Melds... we have seen non-Vulcans use the nerve pinch and Data managed it but... this is egregious to the point of absurdity. Vulcans are telepathic, you do not just 'learn' to be telepathic or did this show just retcon the Mind Meld into being a 'skill' ?

Incest Brother - Waste of space and turns out he is a whiny asshole. Behold the mighty Romulan Super Spies.
I am also calling fantastic stupid on the 'escape'. They have a Borg Cube and sensors that can detect a fleet approaching from Light Years away. Finding the ONLY ROMULAN on the planet should be fantastically easy, especially since he is running straight for the Borg cube.
Naturally, I expect he is going to get inside and find some stashed Romulan equipment.

THE BIG MESSAGE - An entire series building up to a reveal that was underwhelming and never going to justify the road taken to get here. Not impressed and they turned an already annoying premise into an unbearable dumpsterfire that will linger for years.

Pacing - This episode does a lot of cutting and jumping. It feels very much like things got messed up badly and they have been put back as best they could with what they have. We have obvious time jumps where characters have been downloading the plot or doing things off-screen while at the same time they are talking about an impending attack that will arrive with a set time limit.
I am especially annoyed at the arrival of the Borg cube. That entire scene seems like someone needed to get Seven of Nine and Elrond to the planet and they did it in the laziest way.
We do not even really get to see what happened to the cube or the impending 'activation' of the weapons before they just jump cut and 'boom' everyone is on the planet.

I have all but given up hope of this series being anything more than a pile of shit. The only thing worth watching is if they get some decent on screen ship action.
200+ Ships, a Borg Cube and a Federation Fleet. The next episode should have some space action... I will be sufficiently satisfied if they actually showed a Borg Cube in full glory fighting the Romulan Fleet but... I suspect this is going to be another lame drawn out affair.

The pitiful attempt at a fight at the start of this episode was appalling. For some reason Incest Brother was shooting at them with a projection... which they disable so he can wait and shoot them again.
I especially liked the line about him getting ready to fire the "disruptors" - What the hell was being fired at you before ?