Picard - general discussion [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, so its 20 or so years after Nemesis and 10 years after the destruction of Romulus.

So what's happened since Nemesis

1. Around the time of the destruction of Romulus, synthetics (I assume its androids rather than photonics) attack Utopia Planitia and lead to a ban on synthetics. Mars apparently is still on fire.

2. Theoretical "organic" androids.

Around that time people were thinking (at least in theory) about "organic" androids. I am going to assume from the discussion Picard has, that they just reproduce the electronic brain or neural net and transplant it in an organic body. Kind of the reverse of the classic TNG episodes where Data gets possessed by a human scientist trying to transfer his consciousness into an AI so he can live on after death. The character Darj is one of these.

Of course after the ban, this research stops

3. Ban on synthetics is a galactic treaty. Not sure whether its largely the whole galaxy or just the AQ and BQ powers.

4. Power dynamics between the space faring races.

Unknown as so far its episode one. However its not unreasonable to assume the UFP would have replaced the destroyed Utopia Planitia shipyards by now. As far back as the DS9 era, Section 31 predicted it would take the Klingons ten years to recover from the Dominion war, while the UFP and the Romulans will contest for hegemony. So ten years after the attack on the shipyards should give the UFP time to recover.

The Romulans of course can't be in great shape after the supernova disaster.

The status of the Klingons is unknown but presumably they have recovered from the Dominion war by now barring some geopolitical disaster.

5. Borg tech

The Romulans are trying to do research on a Borg cube. I wonder how powerful the Borg ship would be compared to squadrons of ships 20 + years after Nemesis. Most likely still competitive since Miranda's were still being fielded in the Dominion war, but we know from DS9, replacing old systems with modern ones can allow an Excelsior to be competitive against a Defiant. So then again, maybe one Borg ship won't be so devastating now, especially if the Federation learnt how to duplicate those Transphasic torps from Voyager.

6. Picard doesn't have his god mode anymore. For those who read Mike Wong's review on Nemesis, you know what I mean.

[Jon]

Interesting that the interviewer when speaking to Picard referred to the 'Synths' dropping Mars' planetary shields before attacking, can't remember if we've heard explicit references to planetary defense shields before on Trek?

I am also confused about the destruction of the evacuation fleet, they said that 10,000 ships were under construction but the synths destroyed them all and so the rescue effort was abandoned... is the implication that Starfleet was waiting for all 10,000 to be ready before joining the evacuation rather than sending them as they came off the production line?

This screenshot from the 'Coming up on Picard' preview seems to be a flashback showing the evacuation fleet and it sure does seem like all 10,000 are just sat above Mars together, indeed.

Overall I really enjoyed the episode and am very much looking forward to seeing how things are unfolding, I don't have an issue with the Federation becoming a bit more insular and isolationist in the wake of the Dominion War and everything they lost, coupled with the huge crisis the destruction of the Romulan Empire and the attack of Mars and their shipbuilding facilitates seems to have been, but I do hope the series sees them get through that and they don't go totally backwards.

[FaxModem1]

One interesting thing was seeing how Picard seems to have Romulan workers at his vineyard. Presumably a couple of the refugees from the destruction of Romulus. It reminded me a bit of how Ozymandias took in Vietnamese refugees after the alternate history Vietnam war. I wonder what the general feeling about Picard in Romulan circles is considering he rescued a lot of them, but Romulans sent Dahj to find Picard.

[amigocabal]

I am also confused about the destruction of the evacuation fleet, they said that 10,000 ships were under construction but the synths destroyed them all and so the rescue effort was abandoned... is the implication that Starfleet was waiting for all 10,000 to be ready before joining the evacuation rather than sending them as they came off the production line?

If I recall, the synths were alleged to use the existing evacuation ships to destroy the fleet yards, and whatever ships were still under construction.

Ban on synthetics is a galactic treaty. Not sure whether its largely the whole galaxy or just the AQ and BQ powers.

It can hardly be the whole galaxy, unless there is a functioning Iconian gateway in use, or spore drives were rediscovered, or the Guardian of Forever chose to serve as a portal to facilitate trans-galactic travel and beyond.

[Lonestar]

Dropping Maddox was an interesting decision, and I'm curious when he'll show up again.

Abramsverse seems to be cemented in Canon.

I predict that the state of the Klingons will be more like the future in All Good things..., that is bet they will have conquered the RSE remnant, S31 predictions be damned.

Wonder if Seven is doing this stuff because The Doctor has been banned.

[LadyTevar]

Is there a way to watch the show without buying the streaming?

[Adam Reynolds]

Is there a way to watch the show without buying the streaming?

Discovery is currently available on DVD/Blu-ray or paid Amazon streaming, so probably yes if you're willing to wait.

[ray245]

Is there a way to watch the show without buying the streaming?

Discovery is currently available on DVD/Blu-ray or paid Amazon streaming, so probably yes if you're willing to wait.

Or you can wait till all the episodes are out, buy a month of subscription ( or free trial if it is possible), then unsubscribe once you've seen all the episodes.

[mr friendly guy]

I predict that the state of the Klingons will be more like the future in All Good things..., that is bet they will have conquered the RSE remnant, S31 predictions be damned.

Well the Dominion war ended in 2375. The destruction of Romulus is 2387, so Picard should be set in 2397. That's more than enough times for the Klingons to recover taking into account S31 analysis. It would be interesting if the Klingons did conquer the RSE remnants. Maybe we will see the phaser Lance armed ships first seen in All Good Things.

[bilateralrope]

Notice how Picard and Darj were suddenly on their own just before they were attacked at a Starfleet facility that didn't have any security response to weapons fire. Are Starfleet working with the attackers ?

I predict that the state of the Klingons will be more like the future in All Good things..., that is bet they will have conquered the RSE remnant, S31 predictions be damned.

I'm wondering if we will see them at all. So far, the story they are telling doesn't seem to need them.

Wonder if Seven is doing this stuff because The Doctor has been banned.

I wonder what the full extent of the ban is. There was the hologram at the Starfleet archives and a medical hologram seems far too useful to ban just because a different variety of AI went rogue. Maybe they are just banning synthetics that don't come with an easily accessible off switch.

Though the worst part of the ban is it's the kind of thing that would make smart people think that building synthetics that can pretend to be human is a good idea. Because it's the only way they can continue experimenting.

Is there a way to watch the show without buying the streaming?

Discovery is currently available on DVD/Blu-ray or paid Amazon streaming, so probably yes if you're willing to wait.

Or you can wait till all the episodes are out, buy a month of subscription ( or free trial if it is possible), then unsubscribe once you've seen all the episodes.

Or you could borrow someone else's subscription.

[PREDATOR490]

Interesting Start.

Sad to say that time is finally catching up for Patrick Stewart but with the timeframe it works for him. For Data it does not. Spiner really cannot play the ageless android anymore.
The story itself is fairly contained and so far I think it did rather well.

From the greater ST perspective.
- Multiple references to galactic treaties and broadcasts. Either this is substantial hyperbole or ST tech has increased their FTL capability to allow the galaxy to be traversible.
- Galactic ban on Synths - Not sure I buy that idea. Even if the 'major' powers were to somehow come to a massive agreement and have the capacity to enforce it on a galactic scale... why exactly would they do this ?
So far, we are seeing the Federation having a substantial incident but... the other powers in the galaxy have no reason to give a fuck or suddenly decide to follow the Federation lead. This episode literally tells us the Federation still seems to consider the Romulans as enemies and decided to become insular. They do this and yet still somehow get the entire galaxy to ban synthetics which only the Federation and a few minor one-shots have really developed ?

This kinda of action would make more sense if it was done due to the Borg. A race that actively terrorised the galaxy for centuries and thus would give a reason for the galaxy to unite. A single uprising / incident within the Federation is unlikely to get the same reaction unless this show starts putting more legwork into the premise.

That said, I am not a fan with the direction of the Borg being somehow defeated / destroyed. I can accept the idea of the Borg being crippled severely by Voyager but even in the shambles of a state they were left in, they deserve a better resoultion than having an Empire that spanned across the Delta Quadrant and dimensions (S8472 / Fuidic Space) being handwaved into non-existance.

- Data's Daughter
Meh, I am not a fan of this kinda of story. Least of all because even from a brief first episode. The exposition is already sounding like it is going to get into a lot of contrived nonsense.
I wonder if they are going to bother bringing up Lahl or Data's / Soongs Wife / android who literally thought she was human.

I am also of the impression that this series is already starting to do a rather substantial amount of wanking over Data being special. I like Data as a character and he achieved a great deal but... come on. Data is somehow the shinning messiah standard that all synthetic life should be aiming for ?


- Fun notes
Picard survived an explosion that sent him ragdoll - Even if that explosion did not kill him. At his age, the impact from getting knocked around like that would kill him.
Rather annoyed they completely gloss over the aftermath of that entire fight and the way it was portrayed was really strange.

Picard wakes up, no explanation of how he got back. Whatever passes for security had no interest in questioning Picard about what happened ?
They throw out the 'security feeds' showed nothing... execept Picard 'running' ? - That is beyond implausible. Are we supposed to accept that the explosion left no scorch marks, the bodies never showed up and noone gives a shit about a bomb going off ?
Covering it up seems really silly as well. It would require a rather incredible amount of extra work to go about covering that kind of incident up and what for ?

Some of the bodies were getting beamed away as they died - Kinda funny to think about how that works. They can keep beaming people in to die rather than just beam the target into a holding cell ?
Not to mention they literally beamed someone away mid-fall so... it is pushing sense for them to be unable to beam the target out.

-

[bilateralrope]

- Galactic ban on Synths - Not sure I buy that idea. Even if the 'major' powers were to somehow come to a massive agreement and have the capacity to enforce it on a galactic scale... why exactly would they do this ?
So far, we are seeing the Federation having a substantial incident but... the other powers in the galaxy have no reason to give a fuck or suddenly decide to follow the Federation lead. This episode literally tells us the Federation still seems to consider the Romulans as enemies and decided to become insular. They do this and yet still somehow get the entire galaxy to ban synthetics which only the Federation and a few minor one-shots have really developed ?

My best guess is that it's a Dominion plot. If the Federation figured out how to mass produce synthetic soldiers, they could produce soldiers faster than the Dominion could produce Jem'Hadar. That potential military disadvantage probably scared them. So they send in a few changeling infiltrators. Cause the synths to go rogue and attack mars. Use the infiltrators to shift public opinion of everyone against synthetics, maybe with the argument that if the Federation can't stop them going rogue, nobody else has much of a chance either.

[PREDATOR490]

The show is clearly trying to create an ST equivilent of modern politics with Refugees, isolationism and xenophobia. While ST has done this many times, this particular example seems extremely forced because they have decided to jump straight into whatever political narrative they want without any indication of the evolution how ST got to this state.

The attack on mars appears to be the attempt to create a 9/11 which has drastically altered the Federation mindset - I can maybe buy that if a similar incident had not already been established with the battle of Wolf 359. Between that incident and the Dominion War, I could see the Federation becoming more militant which the evolution of their ships does have some indication of.
However, if the Dominon War and Wolf 359 were unable to break the spirit of the Federation then an attack on a shipyard seems unlikely to be the magic event that would do it unless more backstory exists.

It is even more silly for the Federation to sit back and essentially allow the Romulans to die because Synths attacked them. No indications exist that the Romulans caused this attack or had anything to do with it.
So the Federation decided to lash out in a petty trantrum at their own fuck up with Synthetics they made ?

My biggest concern is with the dropping of the 'Planet shields were sabotaged / dropped' angle they are going to start pushing 'inside job' for the attack which will turn out to be the Romulans. A slightly more interesting turn would be for this to be a stunt from the Borg.
I seriously doubt the Dominion will be mentioned at all let alone have any relevance to the story. It would be a shock for them to even bring up anything from DS9. So far, it comes across as banking on nostalgia and fan appeal of seeing scraps of iconic ST elements which are from TNG.

I would really like to seem them come out with an explanation of what the fuck actually happened with the Romulan Empire collapse. Are they going to finally explain how the hell a single supernova took out an entire Empire that spanned multiple systems or how it became a galactic threat ?

Another situation where they will come out with it being an inside job / somehow done on purpose.

[mr friendly guy]

At around the time of Voyager, Reg Barclay and the UFP were already working on hypersubspace communication or whatever it was called. Perhaps with 20 + years and with the rudimentary knowledge of slipstream and Borg transwarp knowledge, maybe a lot of races have FTL capable of going to other quadrants easily. This would however open up a whole host of geopolitical implications, especially if the Dominion can also has this capability, they can bypass the Bajoran wormhole. I am hoping they flesh out the FTL bit. I think Trek could benefit with just that extra world building detail.

[PREDATOR490]

It is rather unlikely that the ENTIRE galaxy magically developed FTL that allows a galactic congress to form. The amount of time that would take and the upheaval from doing it should take centuries let alone 20 years.

The Federation developing FTL to go across the galaxy - That could be feasible but being able to cross the entire galaxy extends their reach but they would also have to expand the infrastructure as well. I would expect the other powers in the galaxy to get a bit pissed off at the Federation expanding in such a manner and the Dominion War is a severe example of what happens when you start playing around in other people's back yards.

The Federation randomly handed out this technology to everyone as a gesture of good will / peace - In the old days of Star Trek I could actually see that being fielded. However, with the trend towards making ST more gritty and less optimistic. It is going to be a hard pill to swallow for the Feds to hand out that kind of tech while at the same time turning into xenophobic racists.

It is already hilarious to think of the Federation becoming xenophobes when the Federation is literally made up of hundreds of races that have been working together for hundreds of years.

I would find it more compelling if they had went with an increasingly militant / aggressive Starfleet that refused to help the Romulans until the Romulans joined the Federation and / or at least demanded some concessions. If the Romulans turn around and rightly tell the Feds to go fuck themselves out of pride etc. then... that would be fairly reasonable on both sides and have a bit of a grey area to work with.
Incidentally, if they actually ran with this into a full concept then you could provide insights with the Federation turning into the Dominion with the direction they are going.
Bonus points if you have a reformed Dominion appear inorder to remind the Federation what they are turning into and where it went.

[ray245]

In Voyager, Janeway altered the timeline in 2404 to save her crew. That's five years after Picard. So if the Federation collapses in five years time, or in the Picard timeline things are far worse off than the original timeline of Janeway, doesn't that mean Janeway essentially fuck up the federation in her attempt to save her crew members?

[The Romulan Republic]

In Voyager, Janeway altered the timeline in 2404 to save her crew. That's five years after Picard. So if the Federation collapses in five years time, or in the Picard timeline things are far worse off than the original timeline of Janeway, doesn't that mean Janeway essentially fuck up the federation in her attempt to save her crew members?

Or that the Federation was fucked up in that timeline (albeit maybe not in exactly the same way), and we just never saw that much of it.

The destruction of the Romulan Star Empire alone, plus the aftermath of the Dominion War, would seriously destabilize things. And we saw hints of a brewing conflict over synthetic rights, and signs of growing corruption and rogue agencies, all through the TNG era.

Arguably Picard fucked it all up, actually- and it would be damn brilliant, I think, and potentially very powerful, if they actually acknowledged that possibility in-show. Remember that future timeline he was shown in "All Good Things"? That didn't seem so bad. But how might his knowledge of that timeline subtly altered his actions over the years? What might the ripple effects of that have been? Hell, the very next story we saw Picard in was Generations- where he makes a choice to alter the timeline in order to stop Soran and the Nexus.

Though really, there's been so much mucking with the timeline that at this point, trying to figure out who's timey-wimey ball destroyed which timeline is probably pointless.

[Solauren]

I'm going to point out we've seen exactly shit all to show the Federation as being 'fucked up'. (One episode)

All we know for sure is...
#1 - Synthetic lifeforms (i.e Androids) became a thing after Nemesis.
#2 - Everyone figures out the Romulan primary start was going to explode.
#3 - The Federation was on good enough terms with the Romulans to give aid to a solar system level evacuation.
#4 - Synthetic lifeforms are blamed/took credit for dropping Mar's defenses and setting the planet on fire.
#5 - The evacuation was called off as a result.
#6 - Spock failed to stop the Supernova after the evacuation was called off.
#7 - Picard left Starfleet
#8 - Synthetic lifeforms were outlawed. What happened to existing Synthetic lifeforms that were not part of the Mars incident was not detailed.
Note, going that was 10 years prior, and 'Data's daughters' appear older (mid 20s) so they probably predate Data's death and might not actually be illegal.
#9 - The Romulans have at least 1 Borg cube under their command. (Not a surprise, since Nero's ship from this timeline apparently incorporated Borg tech).

I agree, that the entire attack on Picard and the handling it seems odd.
However, I'm going to point out
- that our only source of information on that, as of right now, are a pair of Romulans, and it was a Romulan operation.
(meaning they could be lying).

- Romulans also have excellent cloaking technology. It's possible the entire area was under a cloaking effect of somekind, which prevented detection. It would then be simple to clean up, and fake a video of Picard using holograms.

[FaxModem1]

So, Anti-cybernetic/Synthetic Romulan intelligence organization. Okay...then.

[Solauren]

So, Anti-cybernetic/Synthetic Romulan intelligence organization. Okay...then.

aka the Tal'shair.

[tezunegari]

So, Anti-cybernetic/Synthetic Romulan intelligence organization. Okay...then.

aka the Tal'shair.

Not the Tal'Shiar.
Something that the Tal'Shiar considers a bogeyman... and barely has any information about.

Also, Picard's housekeepers appear to both be former Tal'Shiar.

[Solauren]

So, Anti-cybernetic/Synthetic Romulan intelligence organization. Okay...then.

aka the Tal'shair.

Not the Tal'Shiar.
Something that the Tal'Shiar considers a bogeyman... and barely has any information about.

Also, Picard's housekeepers appear to both be former Tal'Shiar.

So the Romulan version of S.31?

[Solauren]

Saw second episode (Canada eh!)

So, intel op. Undercover operatives within Starfleet explains the clean up nicely.

[aerius]

So let me see if I understand this right.
Picard's housekeepers are like Garak, except they're a Romulan team and not nearly as funny.
Starfleet is infiltrated so hard by Romulans that they might as well be running the whole show.
Putting a positronic brain in a human turns them into a super soldier with superhuman strength & abilities
Romulan hit squads are the new red shirts
Romulan Zhat Vash operatives already know where the twin is, but instead of kidnapping her and turning the thumbscrews, they send a pointy eared Lothario to seduce the info out of her instead

Like what the fuck. Let's send hit teams after the twin on Earth because reasons, but the one that's on a Borg cube under Romulan control? We'll have our agent make contact and charm her pants off. Really? Because having a few dozen hitmen and cleanup crew running around on Earth and shooting the shit out of everything is a great way for a supposed double top secret intelligence agency to keep a low profile.

I mean, it's not quite naked T-Pol rubbing lotion on herself levels of lazy writing, but it's definitely up there.

[mr friendly guy]

Going to catch episode 2 later, but could Romulan infiltration in Star fleet explain the UFP new insular attitude. Overton window and all that. Also how did Romulans infiltrate things on section 31 watch.