Picard - general discussion [spoilers]

[bilateralrope]

- Riker just leaving after Picard says he can handle it feels odd. Picard is a civilian and there is nothing stopping the Romulans turning around in half an hour and glassing the planet as planned.

War with the Federation is stopping the Romulans here. That's an official protectorate planet, just like Bajor was with the Federation. The Cardassians couldn't come in and invade until Bajor told them to get out. And the Romulans can't invade the Synths until they say that they are no longer under Federation protection.

Good point. Though that still requires the Federation to be certain that the Romulans were the ones that glassed the place, which would be much easier to do if they leave a ship behind to observe.

But it's the diplomatic bits that raise more questions for me. This is a first contact situation, with the added wrinkle of the stolen but regenerating borg cube and its population of XBs. Picard doesn't have the authority to speak for Starfleet here the way that a current captain does, especially since he died shortly after sending Riker away.

[bilateralrope]

How many human cultures have a legend of arriving from somewhere else ?

Add in cultural drift over millennia and I can see a story about travelling across Vulcan morphing to one about travelling across the stars. Especially since the Romulans did that.

Plus it's a legend. It doesn't have to be true, just believed.

I rewatched the scene, but my interpretation of Incest Twin's statement is that stories of the apocalypse to be legend, but the claims about Romulans and Vulcans coming to be Vulcan to be fact. Especially when both Romulans (Incest Twin and male Bene Geserit) argue whether the apocalypse is historical fact vs legend, while they don't dispute the claim that Romulans / Vulcans came from another world to Vulcan.

They are both believers of religions with a shared history. They aren't going to be disagreeing about the parts that their religions agree on, because they both believe those parts.

[NecronLord]

The ending of that really grinds my gears.

I'm a space Sentinel (because they're totally Matrix Sentinels), my function or desire or cause is to unite nascent synthetic life and protect it from enslavement and destruction at the hands of organics. Some synthetics have sent me a signal so I engage my Coaxial Warp Drive to the source of the signal.

Then the signal stops.

In my Space Sentinel mind, why would I reverse course and shut down my drives instead of assuming or guessing that Soji and her people had just been attacked and the signal generator shut down and might even now need my help.

If I was a Space Sentinel, I'd continue and have a good look around; maybe tear all the organics a new one if that's what I actually do.

It would have made so much more sense if the Space Sentinels had just sent down something to talk to talk to Soji (for bonus points, could even have that be a projection of Data) and find out what had happened before fucking off into the unknowable vastness.

It's painfully obvious that whoever wrote it wanted to use the space-portal from Avengers Assemble, instead of thinking about what the signal would actually be.

Additionally, the cut-and-paste fleet was particularly annoying because the whole plot did not need more than one Warbird and one Starship. And Captain Riker being reinstated and put in charge of a ship makes more sense than him being put in charge of over a hundred). One Warbird is more than enough to wipe out a Colony.

[Patroklos]

It would have made so much more sense if the Space Sentinels had just sent down something to talk to talk to Soji (for bonus points, could even have that be a projection of Data) and find out what had happened before fucking off into the unknowable vastness.

No need to to replicate THAT scene from Contact.

[Solauren]

I'd have preferred a 'Super Synth' beamed down, talked to the Synths, the non-Synths, and after monitoring the space situation (with the Federation protecting the Synths), went 'Yeah, you're good', and then sent co-ordinates to the Federation fleet for 'when you reach these parameters, come talk to us'.

And then maybe a message to the Romulan fleet going "we seen evidence you've interacted with one of our data terminals. Based on our medical scans of you, we recommend the following to treat the resulting madness...."

[bilateralrope]

I'd have preferred the super synths show up and Picard has to talk everyone out of shooting. Then deal with the issue of the Soong synths being split between leaving with the super synths or staying.

Another thought comes to mind, but I'm going to check I'm remembering things correctly first: Which godlike beings has Picard interacted with other than Q ?

[Vendetta]

There was the Traveler, who was at least weakly godlike.

[Patroklos]

There was that "guy" living on a postage stamp lot with his recreated human wife on a devastated world that winked the aggressor species out of existence with a thought. I don't remember the episode.

[Redleader34]

I'd have preferred the super synths show up and Picard has to talk everyone out of shooting. Then deal with the issue of the Soong synths being split between leaving with the super synths or staying.

Another thought comes to mind, but I'm going to check I'm remembering things correctly first: Which godlike beings has Picard interacted with other than Q ?

Cytheriums as well

[Darth Lucifer]

There was that "guy" living on a postage stamp lot with his recreated human wife on a devastated world that winked the aggressor species out of existence with a thought. I don't remember the episode.

The Douwd from TNG: The Survivors.

Arguably, you can throw onto the list Armus from Season 1 "Skin of Evil," but I think he only claimed to be a god of evil; he never did anything particularly "godlike."

Nagilum from Season 2 "Where Silence Has Lease" was a strange one and it's been forever since I've seen it, so I'm not sure how to classify that entity.

[aerius]

Better than the entire Picard series.

[amigocabal]

There was that "guy" living on a postage stamp lot with his recreated human wife on a devastated world that winked the aggressor species out of existence with a thought. I don't remember the episode.

The Douwd from TNG: The Survivors.

Arguably, you can throw onto the list Armus from Season 1 "Skin of Evil," but I think he only claimed to be a god of evil; he never did anything particularly "godlike."

Nagilum from Season 2 "Where Silence Has Lease" was a strange one and it's been forever since I've seen it, so I'm not sure how to classify that entity.

I remember :"thwe sxur4viv ors"

What happened on that species' homeworld must have resembled Life After People.

Here is a thought. there is suddenly at least dozens of habitable planets and moons with the infrastructure mostly intact. Imagine the attempts to colonize these worlds...

[GuppyShark]

New season has kicked off, so I hope this isn't technically considered necrophilia.

I am dealing with some personal shit so the premiere episode feels like it is aimed at me, specifically.

My take is

Everyone needs therapy

[Crazedwraith]

Huh, I didn't talk about picard here last season? Must have been before i fell off the no sdn wagon.

First season I thought ended strong with the peaceful resolution with the androids (aside from another song out of nowhere and the picard death/being an android now thing) but Seven was underused and there was a lot of unnecessary deaths and grimdark to get there. I hope this series manages to improve in a similar fashion to Disco.


I'll have to sign up to prime again to see it though *sigh*

[bilateralrope]

That opening bit really ruined all the mystery of the rest of the episode.

How did Raffi get back into Starfleet ?
When Picard resigned, she knew that they were going to fire her. Which told me that she knew that Picard was the only thing standing in the way of Starfleet firing her for a good reason. Also we don't know when her substance abuse started so I think that's related.

Rios was the victim of a conspiracy caused by enemy agents. His firing wasn't his fault, so Starfleet offering him his job back makes sense.

[Lord Revan]

That opening bit really ruined all the mystery of the rest of the episode.

How did Raffi get back into Starfleet ?
When Picard resigned, she knew that they were going to fire her. Which told me that she knew that Picard was the only thing standing in the way of Starfleet firing her for a good reason. Also we don't know when her substance abuse started so I think that's related.

Rios was the victim of a conspiracy caused by enemy agents. His firing wasn't his fault, so Starfleet offering him his job back makes sense.

IIRC the "good reason" Raffi was about to get hired was that she was digging things too deep and was getting too close to finding out about the Romulan infiltrators in Starfleet and the real reason for the synth attack on Mars.

With Oh exposed that no longer wouldn't be an issue, also there's a 1 year time gap so it's possible Picard used his influence to get her back into Starfleet.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, I'm only on Prime occasionally so I won't be seeing them as they arrive, though I just saw the second episode, so far it's a big improvement on season 1. Episode one they lampshaded how Guinan and Q looked 30 years older, but anyway. Episode 2 I'd bet dollars to donuts the Borg Queen's connection to the ship's computer is going to be the key to the gang escaping their current situation. I am a little disappointed they didn't use Alice Krige (or at least her voice) for the role, she did it for Lower Decks after all although you could tell her voice had changed a bit although still recognisable in the last 20 years. Interestingly they were initially playing it as though they were in the mirror universe in the place of their evil counterparts thanks to Q, only to reveal it's the same universe but a different timeline.

The Borg Queen mentioned the divergence happening in 2024 in LA, if that's where they're going how much do you want to bet they're going to be revisiting the Bell Riots? Something that I'm certain would have happened for real had Trump won re-election. I hope that means we'll see some of the DS9 cast if they do go down that route!

[Crazedwraith]

Okay, Only seen the first episode. Seems to have it's head up it's own arse a bit with the pontificating at length about Picard's character. At least people are being a bit nicer when they call out his BS this season.

But what is the point of catching up with all the main cast from last season if we're immediately going to jump to a new time line?

I did like the new Stargazer in fact did we see Soveriegns and the souped up supersized Excelsiors from Lower Decks in the fleet shots?

Seven being rabidly anti-borg while Picard was not felt very very odd to me. And yeah the 48 hours earlier stuff is really stupid and ruins the suspense of the episode. Starfleet security being stupid easily to hack is a time honoured and stupid Star Trek tradition.

The Borg queen is going to turn out to be his mother somehow with the 'look up' thing.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

According to Dave Blass, the production designer, the fleet consisted of Sovereigns and Inquirys (like the Zheng He from last season), an "Excelsior II class" called Excelsior (Raffi's ship I guess), a couple Luna class ships (same class as the Titan but she didn't show up) and a couple of ship classes from ST: Online.

Some other released set designs revealed some other cool info: one of the ship plaques at the Academy there was a USS Leondegrance (Lancelot class) captained by Uhura. According to one of the props from PIC season 1 Picard was a cadet on this ship when he achieved the "Speed of Light Club" membership.

The ship name of course hails to Patrick Stewart's role in "Excalibur".

[EnterpriseSovereign]

From episode 2 I did realise something- exactly how did the (Con)Federation manage to defeat the Borg in the first place? I can buy that the events of Endgame could have seriously weakened the Collective, however to finish them off would still require travelling to the Delta Quadrant. Unless the STO Borg-based transwarp network and/or widespread Quantum-slipstream became a thing, the Feds would still be stuck on their side of the Milky Way.

[GuppyShark]

Probably by Making Tough Choices (TM).

[Crazedwraith]

I feel like we've seen fascist alternative timelines before. I don't like the concept, I didn't like the Q scene.

I do like the scenes with Seven. Rios and Jurati figuring it out what happened and finding each other without blowing each other's cover and doing quite well at infiltration despite being dropped into much more urgent situations than Picard.

The references to DS9 and TOS were quite good. (Though, poor Martok )There still seems to be a lack of Seven referencing Voyager though which is odd, she's met Q before and plenty of time travel adventures as well yet they go unsaid.


eta: Q name dropping Yesterday's Enterprise was half way between cute and distracting to me. He aslo said something about going through a Mirror Darkly, which could be a coincidence or could be a nod to the non-canon TNG Mirrorverse novel.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

He aslo said something about going through a Mirror Darkly, which could be a coincidence or could be a nod to the non-canon TNG Mirrorverse novel.

Not exactly.

[Crazedwraith]

He aslo said something about going through a Mirror Darkly, which could be a coincidence or could be a nod to the non-canon TNG Mirrorverse novel.

Not exactly.

Ah! The TNG Novel was just 'Dark Mirror' Now I looked it up.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

He aslo said something about going through a Mirror Darkly, which could be a coincidence or could be a nod to the non-canon TNG Mirrorverse novel.

Not exactly.

Ah! The TNG Novel was just 'Dark Mirror' Now I looked it up.

The first half of the episode certainly made it look like Q had sent them to the mirror universe, only for the reveal that it was the same universe with a different timeline. They even made reference to the slingshot effect as used by Kirk as their proposed method while using the Borg Queen to perform the calculations.