S01.E08: Broken Pieces

[starri]

11 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Data was considered pretty much unique (Lore notwithstanding).

I don't know why that was though.  There were plenty of androids and artificial intelligence on TOS.

[Wulfsige]

I love the intensity and sheer grimness of this show, and I love the little moments of humanity and humor. Elnor clinging to Seven, for one. Exactly what I would have done.

I'm still not that sold on the fabulousness of the Synths; I liked Data but I'm not sure why Picard still be inconsolable over his loss decades later. He's lost other people, after a certain age we all have. Or why Agnes switched from believing Synths had to be destroyed for the sake of all life to reverence because of …Soji's three moles and a crooked toe? 

I'm beginning to wonder if the issue with the Synths is that everyone else finds them so endearing and captivating that humanity will risk all life and limb and everyone else's life and limb to protect them and somehow everything goes to Hell in the process. 

[jcin617]

Did Picard think to tell the Admiral that Commodore Oh is a Romulan agent?   She was sending the task force for him, but then we never really saw him follow-up with her after Agnes shared the Oh revelation.  (Or did he tell her as part of their conversation?  I don't recall when who knew what... )

Edited March 14, 2020 by jcin617

[Llywela]

3 minutes ago, jcin617 said:

Did Picard think to tell the Admiral that Commodore Oh is a Romulan agent?   She was sending the task force for him, but then we never really saw him follow-up with her after Agnes shared the Oh revelation.  (Or did he tell her as part of their conversation?  I don't recall when who knew what... )

The conversation with Clancy was before Jurati woke up, so before Picard learned about Oh being Zhat Vash. We were quite conspicuously then not told about any follow up with the new information, which means there are two possibilities: either the squadron heading for DS12 have been stood up because no one thought to call Clancy back, or the squadron will come swooping to the rescue in the nick of time, just when we least expect them, and it will turn out there was a follow-up holo-call after all.

3 hours ago, starri said:

I don't know why that was though.  There were plenty of androids and artificial intelligence on TOS.

I'm not familiar enough with TOS to be able to comment on the relative sophistication of any androids seen there, but TNG always made a really big deal about Data being different from any other android, more sophisticated, and the fuss was always about his positronic brain - that was the unique thing about him that was always raved over, the stable positronic brain.

[Joimiaroxeu]

"The freak"? Takes one to know one, Narissa.

OMG, how happy Elnor was to see Seven of Nine. He must've been truly afraid.

Raffi couldn't tell the holograms from the real Rios at first? She must not have been very observant. Or was too into her drugs.

"What is the nature of your hospitality emergency?" Never stops being funny. And that one seemed to be trying to do a Christian Slater doing a bad Jack Nicholson imitation.

Lol, so Ian apparently was speaking gibberish half the time? Ah, a good, old-fashioned brogue can cover a multitude of speech sins.

Quote

I guess that was the last we've seen of Narissa or was she able to beam out?

Either way, it sure was pleasing to me to watch her get a beat down.

Quote

Had to roll my eyes when Narissa was the only one to survive seeing the Admonition. Sure, show, sure.

Heh, apparently the rest of the Zhat Vash were Not. Evil. Enough. 🙄

On a tangential note, people being driven mad after they've learned something their mind can't handle reminded me  of an episode of the 1980s Twilight Zone series called "Need to Know" (YouTube link). It's never revealed what the secret is, just that it's so horrific it immediately drives people mad once they hear it.

[Cthulhudrew]

There was a tremendous amount of exposition dump in this single episode as we speed towards the finale; not uninteresting, or even disliked, mind, but certainly verging on the edge of Retcon Junction, PA.

One thing that seemed to be implied to me in the history of the Zhat Vash, though not explicit, was that perhaps the synth threat that they were so worried about may have been the creation of the Borg by the Romulans? What led me to this theory, aside from the prominence of Borg/Borg cube and Romulans in this series is that- the first time we ever heard a hint of the Borg waaaay back in TNG ("The Neutral Zone") where we learn that several outposts along the Neutral Zone had been destroyed by an as yet unknown/unnamed menace (not to be introduced until the next season). 

That would make some sense to me, then, if the reason the Borg first began attacking Romulan outposts when they first arrived in the Alpha Quadrant was due to an ancient history/animosity between the two groups.

But again, it certainly wasn't explicit here, and I'm not sure if that's where the story is going. Did anyone else make that logical leap or just me?

On another note, I thought the Seven-of-Nine decision to become new Borg Queen was a really great dramatic moment, but that the rest of the episode really undercut the tension- first with the jettisoning of most of the Borg, then with the sudden and abrupt disconnect of her from the Collective. I really think that moment should have been allowed to play out more, and can't help but think they might have had some time if they'd have- say- condensed the first two episodes instead.

Also- a little too convenient that Picard and Raffi happened to pick the one pilot who had a previous encounter with the Soji/Jana Synth factory before, but I'll not pick on that too much, since we did get some really cool Rios/Hologram scenes in this ep.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Cthulhudrew

[Delphi]

@Cthulhudrew I don't know if that's what their doing,  but it's such an interesting idea that could actually work out. 

I definitely agree that Elnor and Seven deserved more time.   I just read an interview with JdA and apparently him and Jeri took the offer before Stewart even signed on and the show might have just been ExBorg.  That reads to me that they still wanted to show what they planned to do with Seven but couldn't be bothered to find the time to put it in,  which is frankly disappointing considering how much I respect these writers. 

[wanderingstar]

On 3/13/2020 at 5:34 PM, Llywela said:

That was how he envisaged it, and I can easily imagine how beautifully and richly it would be described as part of a novel...but on TV, all we get is a few seconds worth of images.

That's interesting to read. I get the sense watching the show that there's much more to some of the story. I'd love to read a novelization of this first season.

[Florinaldo]

1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

It's never revealed what the secret is, just that it's so horrific it immediately drives people mad once they hear it.

Another precedent is Monty Python's "The Funniest Joke in the World" sketch.

I also found the coincidence of Rios having met Soji's other sister several years back a bit of a stretch, but that is the type of writing shortcuts we see all the time on TV shows, genre or not @Cthulhudrew.

And what is the matter with that Rangers recall medallion; why do people keep dropping it only for it to be found by another character? Perhaps it gets hot very fast.

 

 

[ahisma]

Rios deleted random information from his holograms. So, what he deleted from the hospitality hologram was the understanding of personal space? Poor Raffi was bent over backwards, leaning away from him! Making people uncomfortable is a pretty big faux pas on the hospitality front. 😄

[Llywela]

6 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Raffi couldn't tell the holograms from the real Rios at first? She must not have been very observant. Or was too into her drugs.

"What is the nature of your hospitality emergency?" Never stops being funny. And that one seemed to be trying to do a Christian Slater doing a bad Jack Nicholson imitation.

Lol, so Ian apparently was speaking gibberish half the time? Ah, a good, old-fashioned brogue can cover a multitude of speech sins.

Ian wasn't speaking gibberish. He was speaking Scots. That one line that Raffi said 'it isn't even a language' actually was a language. just a very thick regional dialect! He said:

“sae fou as a piper” = “very, very drunk”

“off his fang” = “incapable of functioning right now”

With a minor Celtic fringe joke thrown in for good measure, in that Enoch the Irish ENH could understand him when no one else could, since Scots and Irish dialects are distantly related.

However, according to native Chilean speakers on Tumblr, most of what Emmet mumbled actually was just post-nap gibberish!

Also, yes, I was surprised she didn't clock Enoch as a holo the moment he spoke. I mean, the accent, the hair...it took her three whole sentences before she figured it out! Shows how distracted she was by the Soji mystery, I guess.

6 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

Also- a little too convenient that Picard and Raffi happened to pick the one pilot who had a previous encounter with the Soji/Jana Synth factory before, but I'll not pick on that too much, since we did get some really cool Rios/Hologram scenes in this ep.

But was it actually that convenient or contrived? I mean, Picard didn't just wander into a bar and hire the first pilot he found. Rios was recommended to him by Raffi, the two of them having found one another years before and bonded strongly as ex-Starfleet lost souls. There probably aren't that many ex-Starfleet freelance pilots floating around, certainly not ones that Raffi would trust with JL. So really, the link was already there, even if they didn't know it.

And as with Thad Troi-Riker's story last week, Rios's story here demonstrates just how far-reaching the ripple effects of a thing can be. Once upon a time, a bunch of Romulans stumbled across the Admonition and founded the Zhat Vash, and because of that they saw Data as a warning sign and decided to infiltrate Starfleet to prevent even more sophisticated androids from ever being created, and because of that countless lives have been destroyed or changed forever, in a myriad of different ways.

6 hours ago, Gillian Rosh said:

That's interesting to read. I get the sense watching the show that there's much more to some of the story. I'd love to read a novelization of this first season.

Me too! But only if Chabon were to write it, and I get the sense he has no intention of doing any such thing. His Instagram answers to fan questions are fascinating.

6 hours ago, Delphi said:

@Cthulhudrew I don't know if that's what their doing,  but it's such an interesting idea that could actually work out. 

I definitely agree that Elnor and Seven deserved more time.   I just read an interview with JdA and apparently him and Jeri took the offer before Stewart even signed on and the show might have just been ExBorg.  That reads to me that they still wanted to show what they planned to do with Seven but couldn't be bothered to find the time to put it in,  which is frankly disappointing considering how much I respect these writers. 

Do you have a source for that? I'd always heard that it was always intended as a Picard show, that getting Patrick Stewart on board was the very first step in the process and if he hadn't agreed, there wouldn't have been a show at all, everything else stemmed from Stewart's agreement. Every interview I've seen with all the writers involved has supported that. So I'm dubious and would like to see for myself what Del Arco said.

ETA Del Arco and Ryan were interviewed together on Wil Wheaton's Ready Room this week, and during that interview they joked about the possibility of doing an ex-Borg prequel show together. Could the article you saw have been misconstruing that interview or one like it?

Edited March 15, 2020 by Llywela

[Delphi]

https://www.queerty.com/star-treks-jonathan-del-arco-fate-hugh-borg-life-actor-showbiz-peril-20200312

 

From what I understood I thought Alex kurtzman was hired to develop several Star Trek shows and he really wanted to use Picard, but wasn't sure Patrick Stewart would agree. 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Delphi

[AnimeMania]

11 hours ago, ahisma said:

Rios deleted random information from his holograms. So, what he deleted from the hospitality hologram was the understanding of personal space? Poor Raffi was bent over backwards, leaning away from him! Making people uncomfortable is a pretty big faux pas on the hospitality front. 😄

I am sure Rios programmed him to do that to other people while remaining exempt himself. It is probably fun for him to watch.

Seven of Nine becomes a Borg Queen and with the remaining Borg swoops in to save the day at the last second.

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

I am sure Rios programmed him to do that to other people while remaining exempt himself. It is probably fun for him to watch.

😄

Although, it doesn't seem like Rios actually did that much fiddling with the base personalities of the holograms, he just overlaid himself on top by 'accidentally' selecting the self-scan option (and then deleted a few bits and pieces along the way). And I'm not sure how often he's had passengers, up till now, to amuse himself watching Mr Hospitality interacting with them. Plus, he hates Mr Hospitality - probably because he has no sense of personal space and is such a persnickety suck-up!

But your version is funnier 🙂

[Chaos Theory]

I got a bit behind on the show and watched a bunch of episodes in one sitting.   I had extremely high hopes for this show and so far it has been meeting all of them.  One of the things I disliked about TNG was the episodic nature of the show and its magic wand endings.  Even when the show had a darker theme you pretty much knew all the main characters would be fine.   Riker would fall madly in love with a woman in one episode and then the very next a new woman would be on the ship that he would fall madly in love with.   I actually really like the darker nature of this show and that things are gonna end badly for some characters.  But I also like the show at least trying to show where some of the characters have been over the last decade or so.   

 

On 3/14/2020 at 11:21 AM, Prower said:

So let me get this straight. The Zhat Vash decided, that, after having watched the federation build Androids for decades, the right time to destroy all of Mars and cause the federation to be isolationist, was when a magically big super nova was destroying their whole star empire and killing billions of their fellow Romulans? They couldn't have waited a month? It was that important to do it there and now?

For a group whose major mandate is anti-android to see the Federation continue to give the designation of sentience to people like Data and most likely the Doctor on Voyager must have been terrifying for them.  So for a group of spies to infiltrate the Federation and Star Fleet and then cause a major catesrophe and cast sinths as the villains is actually a good plan.  You get enough people in power to swing public opinion your way and then create a disaster is a quick and dirty way to force public opinion the way you want it.

 

On 3/13/2020 at 3:16 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Definitely felt like Picard was more like his TNG self here.  Patrick Stewart can make any speech sound grand and spectacular!

I think that is intentional.   During the pilot episode Picard was the shell of the man he had once been.  Bitter and angry.  Hiding away.   The more he interacts with the universe the more he is in space.  The more he sees his friends again.  The more he becomes the man that the Federation once lauded and that they need again.  

[paigow]

On 3/14/2020 at 11:32 AM, tennisgurl said:

. Then he gave Soji waffles and ice cream! 

Also loved the Star Fleet women Picard yelled at shutting him down to be like "Shut up Picard you already convinced me, we`re on it! Stop with the speech!"

Allison Pill had a good episode too, and while I still dont fully know if I trust Agnes

French fries & ice cream

Clancy deserved I told you so....reminded me of him walking around the bridge, ignoring the Shelliac hail.

Give her a Kylo redemption death...soon

 

[benteen]

The fact that Rios, hired by Raffi only because he was an off-the-books pilot, is now connected to the whole Soji/synth storyline isn't just contrived but it's bad writing as well.  Rios was hired by Raffi before she even know about Rios past and Rios just happens to have met this Soji of the Synths?  Just terrible.

Definitely not as strong as the last three weeks though I still enjoyed it.  Picard and Rios had a strong scene at the end of the episode and Seven continues to have a good storyline.  Peyton List gets a back story but that doesn't help her over-the-top portrayal.  

Edited March 16, 2020 by benteen

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, benteen said:

The fact that Rios, hired by Raffi only because he was an off-the-books pilot, is now connected to the whole Soji/synth storyline isn't just contrived but it's bad writing as well.  Rios was hired by Raffi before she even know about Rios past and Rios just happens to have met this Soji of the Synths?  Just terrible. 

Rios wasn't hired by Raffi only because he was an off-the-books pilot. He was hired by Picard, and he wasn't hired at random - it's not like JL wandered into a spaceport bar and hired the first pilot he found. Rios was hired on Raffi's specific recommendation. And Raffi would have recommended him not just because he is a freelance pilot with an unregistered ship but also because he is someone she trusts with JL - how many people do you imagine fall into that category, Raffi being the paranoid conspiracy freak that she is? She recommended Rios as someone she knows and trusts and has bonded with as ex-Starfleet lost souls - and I am pretty sure the ex-Starfleet angle was an important part of the equation, because of it needing to be someone Raffi could trust with Picard. It's a coincidence, sure, but that coincidence is nowhere near as big as you suggest, because once Raffi's recommendation comes into play, the pool of possible candidates for the job would actually have been vanishingly small.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Llywela

[benteen]

It's contrived and terrible writing.  The one pilot they are able to hire (paranoid Raffi didn't even know this had happened to Rios) just happens to have a past that's connected this completely the main storyline of the season?  He's met a Soji before and has a drawing of her in his locker? It's contrived even more than Riker and Troi having a kid who died because of the synth ban.  Shoehorning all of this into the main plot shows some bad writing on the part of the Picard staff.  It reminds me of how JJ Abrams writes but it might be even worse.

Edited March 16, 2020 by benteen

[xfuse]

On 3/12/2020 at 8:43 AM, marieYOTZ said:

Unfortunately, I am struggling to believe in a vision of synth-takeover so terrible that it makes you claw your face off, or beat your head in with a rock.

I just found it a little lack luster. It has been done so many times. I'm disappointed in you Star Trek.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, benteen said:

It's contrived and terrible writing.  The one pilot they are able to hire (paranoid Raffi didn't even know this had happened to Rios) just happens to have a past that's connected this completely the main storyline of the season?  He's met a Soji before and has a drawing of her in his locker? It's contrived even more than Riker and Troi having a kid who died because of the synth ban.  Shoehorning all of this into the main plot shows some bad writing on the part of the Picard staff.  It reminds me of how JJ Abrams writes but it might be even worse.

He wasn't the 'one pilot they were able to hire'. He was the only pilot Raffi suggested, Picard didn't try for anyone else. Picard wanted a pilot - from his point of view, any freelance pilot willing to bend the rules would have done and he could, as I said, have just gone to a bar near a spaceport and shopped around. But he asked Raffi to recommend someone, and Raffi wouldn't have suggested just anyone, not where Picard's safety was concerned. So she specifically suggested the one freelance pilot she knew and trusted who was also ex-Starfleet. And I doubt there are many ex-Starfleet officers out there with unregistered ships of their own willing to partake in slightly dodgy missions yet also upstanding enough to be trusted with JL's safety, and that very small pool of candidates is what reduces the unlikeliness of the coincidence.

If Picard had chosen any random pilot out of all the freelance pilots in the entire Federation and he happened to be linked to the Soji plotline, that would be horribly contrived, for sure. But Raffi recommending the one freelance pilot she knows who is ex-Starfleet and maintains Starfleet standards and can be trusted with Picard's secret mission, but has also been burned by Starfleet badly enough to be willing to bend the rules if need be? I don't find it all that contrived that one jaded ex-Starfleet officer knows another jaded ex-Starfleet officer, or that the thing that burned him so badly turns out to be linked to the same thing that burned the rest of them that badly. I mean, Starfleet has high standards, it doesn't make a habit of destroying its officers, so it figures that all that damage would turn out to be linked to the same root cause: a Zhat Vash infiltrator.

I didn't think the death of Thad Troi-Riker was overly contrived, either. To me, it demonstrated clearly just how far-reaching the ripple effect of an incident can be. As for him catching this very rare illness - he was living on a starship exploring the far-flung regions of space. People on the Enterprise used to have weird and unique things happen to them all the time on their missions, it's part of the risk all Starfleet officers accept when they sign up, both for themselves and their families.

But, you know, mileage varies on where we each draw the line re: suspension of disbelief.

[Wouter]

On 3/14/2020 at 3:53 AM, Gillian Rosh said:

Had to roll my eyes when Narissa was the only one to survive seeing the Admonition. S

Dr. Ramdha also survived the admonition, minus bits of hair and maybe a part of her sanity. Apparently she later was responsible (or the chief responsible) for crashing the Borg cube known as the artefact, and she's also close family of Narissa and Narek.

Something which gives a new vibe to the interactions between Soji and Ramdha, earlier in the show, and especially in the scene in which Narek and Sojji discuss the unconscious Ramdha "I see you too". Sure, as both her and him saw the destroyer (even if it isn't 100% clear if Narek may not have secretly hoped Sojji would somehow survive his assassination attempt)

I wonder if Narek, who seems to be relatively low ranking among the Zhat Vash (might not have seen the admonition, apparenly females-only, unless there is an equivalent ceremony for males), might offer more insights in their motivation at his next personal confrontation with Sojji or with anybody else of the La Sirena group. I wouldn't mind a confrontation with Laris and/or Zhaban either, considering this cabal left them out to dry.

[Delphi]

I think it's bold as fuck of the romulans to think a spirit quest vision was enough to break the Borg.   To me, that seems weak at best.   

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, Delphi said:

I think it's bold as fuck of the romulans to think a spirit quest vision was enough to break the Borg.   To me, that seems weak at best.   

I dunno. The Borg have a track record of disconnecting from Cubes that have been compromised in some way - heck, Hugh returning to the Collective as an individual rather than a mindless drone was enough for his Cube to be spat out. So perhaps it isn't so surprising that Ramdha's experience of the Admonition would be enough to break a Cube. To the Borg, everything is disposable, even Cubes. Protecting the larger Collective is what matters.

[Notwisconsin]

So this is inspired by "Westworld" eh?

[shrewd.buddha]

So, ST:Picard is turning out to be your typical sci-fi show .. which is good in an entertaining,  mindless fun kind of way. But the 'mindless fun' part is starting to show up more frequently now. 
Rios'  and Ryker's direct connection to the main plot of this Synthetic story are more of the ham-fisted plot points that are starting to add up. 

Of course the team is going to head straight for Soji's home world - because that's what you do in this type of show - despite knowing a Romulan kill quad (maybe fleet) is on the way there. It is about as smart as deciding to try to put out a forest fire with bucket of water, but sure ..

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by shrewd.buddha

[Prower]

On 3/14/2020 at 6:59 PM, Llywela said:

A month wouldn't have made any difference. The supernova would have been known about for years beforehand, and the evacuation would have taken most of those years. The supernova didn't happen for two or three years after the Mars attack.

With a real Supernova you'd know billions of years in advance. And before a star goes nova it is a red giant for hundrets of millions of years at least. The romulan sun however, went from a small main series star into a supernova basically instantly and wiped out a whole quadrant instead of just a system (radiation from a real supernova could destroy life in systems further away, but in ST they have planetary shielding for that).

So you have to remember: This is a magical supernova, made by space wizards, because otherwise none of this makes sense.

Where did they say that it was a matter of years? I'm not going to rewatch Star Trek 09 for this, because fuck that, but I seems to recall that it was a matter of months at most. If it had been longer the romulan star empire would have had enough time to evacuate it's own citizens. They have a massive fleet and warp drives.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/14/2020 at 1:13 PM, starri said:

I don't know why that was though.  There were plenty of androids and artificial intelligence on TOS.

But the androids and artificial intelligence we saw in TOS rarely crossed over into what one could consider sentience.

To rattle off a few examples, Norman and the rest of the androids from "I, Mudd," the Roger Corby from "What Little Girls Are Made Of," the creations from "Shore Leave," and so on and so forth were severely limited. They could act human for a little bit, but could basically be talked into self-destructing  by Kirk and Co. The ones in I, Mudd, which I happened to randomly just watched looking for something to laugh about in these coronavirus times, were controlled by a central computer on whatever-planet, acted robotic, were not programmed to respond in certain areas, etc.

There were no androids like Data that not only could act independently of a home base, but had vast amounts of processing power, strength etc. 

And with Androids: the Next Generation being about to seem 100 percent human, that represents a dangerous evolution.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[mledawn]

On 3/12/2020 at 7:13 AM, marieYOTZ said:

I enjoyed seeing Picard give a good Picardian speech about how we are armed with curiosity and hope and sugar and spice and everything nice, and all they have is trickery and deceipt. 

I did love this.

[Mom x 3]

On 3/14/2020 at 9:13 AM, Florinaldo said:

Yes, it does point to them dying. Otherwise she could simply have beamed back on board all those she could track and they would revive.

Perhaps Vandemeer is one of those captains who keep historic keepsakes, like a Magnum, in their ready room. Although I think there might be a Starfleet regulation about a loaded weapon of that sort lying around. Stun setting at close range is a good possible explanation.

My take on that was:  Seven reactivated the Nanites to fix the cube, but the borg people (citizens?) implants/devices had not been repaired yet, therefore they would only have their organic bodies to support them in space, so they would have died.  

 

On 3/21/2020 at 5:59 PM, Wouter said:

Dr. Ramdha also survived the admonition, minus bits of hair and maybe a part of her sanity. Apparently she later was responsible (or the chief responsible) for crashing the Borg cube known as the artefact, and she's also close family of Narissa and Narek.

I thought this was pretty cool.  Jurati called what she saw poison, so it made sense that whatever Dr. Ramdha saw was the same, and when she was assimilated the borg detected that poison and severed that cube's connection for the good of the collective, much like severing a gangrenous toe.  

I also totally took the Admonition scene as Narissa being a total sociopath.  A warped, twisted mind able to process a horrific occurrence and not go mad.

Jeri Ryan as Seven currently reminds me a great deal of her character in Leverage.  

More of Elnor, please.

I think it would have been hilarious if the vision they had shown for the admonition was the same as in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  

[blueray]

Quote

Jeri Ryan as Seven currently reminds me a great deal of her character in Leverage.

She really does. I'm glad they didn't keep her as a borg queen as I feel like that would undue one of the few things Voyager did and would negate half the show. I rather see her as a badass and an individual ;). That being said I like her stuff with Elnor and his " are you going to assimilate me now?".

I surprising still like all the holograms of Rios and fine it entertaining that they all have different accents. What I don't get is why did it take Ralfie (sp) so long to realize they are all "part of him" as this was obvious as soon as there was more then one. I'm sure the scene with them and her in the holodeck was interesting to shoot. That probably was fun for the actor to shoot as he probably had to do multiple takes as each one.

As for the whole he meant one of the android's before, that made no sense. She wouldn't have looked like Soji as she wasn't made until three years ago. Unless they keep using the same pattern which has been done in so many shows. As for them being related to Data starts to make less and less sense as if they have a home planet. Data wouldn't have enough emizines to support a race lol. 

And I was confused about the story so his past ship encounted them and only talked for two hours before killing them? I must have misheard that because Rios seemed to have a relationship with Jena (which is why he was so upset when the captain killed her) and knew personal stuff about her. Also if they were "twin" then why does it seem like the male one was her superior when they were first beamed on? As wouldn't they appear the same age?

I still hate (and not in a good way) that creepy sister. I do hope the ex-borgs killed her, I'm not sure about this. Her ship left and I think they got her? She is annoying and needs to go fast.

Edited April 30, 2020 by blueray

[Llywela]

3 hours ago, blueray said:

She really does. I'm glad they didn't keep her as a borg queen as I feel like that would undue one of the few things Voyager did and would negate half the show. I rather see her as a badass and an individual ;). That being said I like her stuff with Elnor and his " are you going to assimilate me now?".

I surprising still like all the holograms of Rios and fine it entertaining that they all have different accents. What I don't get is why did it take Ralfie (sp) so long to realize they are all "part of him" as this was obvious as soon as there was more then one. I'm sure the scene with them and her in the holodeck was interesting to shoot. That probably was fun for the actor to shoot as he probably had to do multiple takes as each one.

As for the whole he meant one of the android's before, that made no sense. She wouldn't have looked like Soji as she wasn't made until three years ago. Unless they keep using the same pattern which has been done in so many shows. As for them being related to Data starts to make less and less sense as if they have a home planet. Data wouldn't have enough emizines to support a race lol. 

And I was confused about the story so his past ship encounted them and only talked for two hours before killing them? I must have misheard that because Rios seemed to have a relationship with Jena (which is why he was so upset when the captain killed her) and knew personal stuff about her. Also if they were "twin" then why does it seem like the male one was her superior when they were first beamed on? As wouldn't they appear the same age?

I still hate (and not in a good way) that creepy sister. I do hope the ex-borgs killed her, I'm not sure about this. Her ship left and I think they got her? She is annoying and needs to go fast.

Rios wasn't in a relationship with Jana, he only met her briefly. He was upset because his captain, who he idolised as a father figure, committed an apparently senseless act of cold-blooded murder of two visitors aboard his ship, who had been welcomed as guests and who Rios had got to know just well enough to know that they were complete innocents - and because when he confronted the man about it, Vandermeer (who, again, he idolised as a father-figure) committed suicide in an apparently rather gruesome fashion right in front of him. So you've got a heady mix of anger, betrayal, disbelief, incomprehension, grief, horror and guilt all wrapped up in the one traumatic incident.

The male synth (Beautiful Flower) wasn't Jana's twin - which tells us something about where they come from (i.e. that there are quite a number of synths in the mix, since if they come in pairs we now know of at least six). That Soji looks like Jana also tells us something - that she and Dahj weren't unique, that the design used to create them had been used before.  We were told in earlier episodes that it was theoretically possible to use a single neuron from Data to create more synthetic lifeforms using a process called neural fractal cloning - we were not told that there was any limit on the number of synths that could be created from that single neuron. It certainly wasn't suggested that the process could only be used once per neuron.

As for Raffi (short for Raffaella, we learned back at Freecloud) not realising at first that Enoch wasn't Rios, she was behind him, so didn't get a good look, and was quite preoccupied with chewing over the mystery. It isn't usual for Rios to disappear off and leave the holos running the ship, so when she saw the back of his head she just took for granted that it was Rios without bothering to look properly.

[blueray]

28 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Rios wasn't in a relationship with Jana, he only met her briefly. He was upset because his captain, who he idolised as a father figure, committed an apparently senseless act of cold-blooded murder of two visitors aboard his ship, who had been welcomed as guests and who Rios had got to know just well enough to know that they were complete innocents - and because when he confronted the man about it, Vandermeer (who, again, he idolised as a father-figure) committed suicide in an apparently rather gruesome fashion right in front of him. So you've got a heady mix of anger, betrayal, disbelief, incomprehension, grief, horror and guilt all wrapped up in the one traumatic incident.

That make's more sense. It does make me wonder why she likes ice cream and french fries would come up during a first contact interaction.

[Llywela]

10 hours ago, blueray said:

That make's more sense. It does make me wonder why she likes ice cream and french fries would come up during a first contact interaction.

He told us they had at least one meal together - similar to the captain's dinners Picard used to throw for guests aboard the Enterprise. It was during dinner that Beautiful Flower made the sketch of Rios and Jana sitting together at the table opposite. So if the captain asked his guests what they wanted to eat, I guess Jana in her naivety simply asked for what she liked best rather than sticking to any formal menu!

And that tiny detail helps flesh out our understanding of what happened on the ibn Majid and why it affected Rios so deeply. That Jana at a formal captain's dinner asked for ice cream and French fries speaks volumes for her childlike innocence - which is why her murder hit Rios so hard. She was no threat to anyone. She and her companion represented first contact with a whole new species, exploring the wider universe for the first time, full of childlike wonder - and they were murdered in cold blood by the man he respected most in the world, for no good reason, on the apparent orders of Starfleet command, with the lives of the entire ship's complement held to ransom if the order wasn't obeyed. No wonder it broke him - and no wonder he harbours such bitterness toward Starfleet.

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Llywela

[Affogato]

On 3/30/2020 at 5:54 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

But the androids and artificial intelligence we saw in TOS rarely crossed over into what one could consider sentience.

To rattle off a few examples, Norman and the rest of the androids from "I, Mudd," the Roger Corby from "What Little Girls Are Made Of," the creations from "Shore Leave," and so on and so forth were severely limited. They could act human for a little bit, but could basically be talked into self-destructing  by Kirk and Co. The ones in I, Mudd, which I happened to randomly just watched looking for something to laugh about in these coronavirus times, were controlled by a central computer on whatever-planet, acted robotic, were not programmed to respond in certain areas, etc.

There were no androids like Data that not only could act independently of a home base, but had vast amounts of processing power, strength etc. 

And with Androids: the Next Generation being about to seem 100 percent human, that represents a dangerous evolution.

Rayna kapec showed the potential to learn human emotions and self determination, although she needed more ram. 

It was a difference in kind. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Affogato

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 5/23/2020 at 11:33 AM, Affogato said:

Rayna kapec showed the potential to learn human emotions and self determination, although she needed more ram. 

It was a difference in kind. 

Rayna died as a result of not being able to handle the emotional strain of Kirk and her creator fighting over her, right? She had a childlike understanding of things? And she was watched over by a genius and there were a whole bunch of Raynas who either were failed experiments or waiting on deck for the failure of the current Rayna (or both)?

That sounds like a difference from an android like Data or the sunths where they can live autonomously (as far as we have seen) for years and do not malfunction when presented with basic life choices.

[Affogato]

On 5/25/2020 at 9:08 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Rayna died as a result of not being able to handle the emotional strain of Kirk and her creator fighting over her, right? She had a childlike understanding of things? And she was watched over by a genius and there were a whole bunch of Raynas who either were failed experiments or waiting on deck for the failure of the current Rayna (or both)?

That sounds like a difference from an android like Data or the sunths where they can live autonomously (as far as we have seen) for years and do not malfunction when presented with basic life choices.

I continue, even now, to be somewhat irritated that Rayna's story was a romance novel set up. Speaking as a woman. Although there was some indication that she was also interested in expanding her horizons and Kirk  presented himself as the way into a larger life, as well as a romantic interest.  Or so I remember it. I could be wrong.

I also remember any number of clearly sentient planet sized computers and, I believe, Data  caught in the logical paradox trap in Star Trek. Pretty common. Impossible choice, caught in loop. I forget how data gets out of it, I think he reprograms himself but he gets some help from others. 

However, moving on.

Rayna's 'dad' had infantilized her because he knew her wetware wouldn't be able to handle the leap to emotional integration that she would achieve if she was allowed to develop normally. 

Data became a Starfleet officer, interacted with any number of people, worked on starships and by the time he hit the Enterprise he had the opportunity to learn a good deal, and a lot more freedom than Rayna was permitted to learn it. Still he struggled with sneezing, it apparently never occurred to him (even after Lore) that relaxing his way of talking would make him more approachable,  and never achieved that emotional threshold that Rayan achieved naturally until he got hold of an 'emotion chip.' 

Yes, the positronic matrix in Data was much more advanced and was capable of making many more connections and growing, I assume, far beyond Rayna. It is quite possible that the 'emotion chip' was a thing because making that leap towards being a real boy too early caused problems (turning evil, in Lore's case?). 

But I'm pretty sure that Rayna qualified as a sentient creature capable of learning and growing. So, yes, maybe not learning and growing as much as Data. But a difference of degree, not a difference in kind. Neither Rayna or Data were simply machines, even sophisticated ones.

Disclaimer: it has been a long time since I have watched either TOS or TNG and I could be remember things wrong. I'm mostly remember what I thought was happening at the time. 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Affogato
disclaimer

[7kstar]

I just watched the entire series on a binge watch and when you don't have to wait between eps, it works a little better and you see some of the set ups. 

Santiago Cabrera talents keep growing.  I loved the all the Holo's, and he does do a great job of making them unique. I was late to the show Musketeers, but he still has a bit of Aramis in Rios.  Several stand out moments.  When I watched this ep the second time, you catch more details.  But he makes it clear how he felt about the Captain only to watch himself commit suicide and he had to clean up the mess.

If you look at Soji dream, it may be that they had one pattern that they kept trying to perfect.  It does tie back to the nightmare, so I didn't have a problem with Rios having a prior experience with a synth.  Raffi didn't know him that well in some ways as he didn't know about her grown son.  It wasn't a story he shared.  But Picard needed a pilot willing to break rules and I like this part of his character.

I like how they have given Seven more depth.  She isn't the 7 of 9 from Voyager. 

If the season was a bit longer, they could have expanded on some parts.  But any show will have weak points.  I'm not really buying the dangers of the synths but I find the show fun to watch and certain parts I wouldn't have a problem watching again.

[sugarbaker design]

On 3/15/2020 at 2:37 AM, Llywela said:

With a minor Celtic fringe joke thrown in for good measure, in that Enoch the Irish ENH could understand him when no one else could, since Scots and Irish dialects are distantly related.

My heart grew a size bigger when I heard Enoch belt out "The poor ting!"  It reminded me so of my Irish parents.

[rmontro]

On 3/13/2020 at 10:53 PM, wanderingstar said:

I really like Allison Pill on this show. She's doing a great job showing Agnes' struggle.

She's an attractive actress, but somehow she looks like she always has a cold and is about ready to blow some snot out of her nose.  Probably because her character on this show is always about two minutes away from having an emotional breakdown.