S02.E08: Mercy

[SnarkShark]

On 4/23/2022 at 7:36 AM, Haleth said:

 

That veiled Borg queen in the first episode?  That's Agnes under that veil, isn't it? ☹️

Oh sure.  But Star Trek has never had to deal with time duplicated people before, so it will be interesting to see if they try to deal with this at all, or just ignore it.  The others all return to the spots they were in, right before kablooey, but Agnes is now missing from her spot. Kind of a dodge.

It's marginally better than the silly "It's Mama Picard" ideas going around before.

I wonder if the ultimate goal is to show a Borg Queen where Agnes regains control, but still has the implants, permanently.  Where they imply the aggression was only coming from the transferred mind of the previous Queen, but she gets purged.  Thus establishing a "peaceful Borg" going forward, although how they reconcile that with population growth either being forced, or zero, is a head scratcher. 

 

[Pallas]

Star Trek has been beating phasers into plowshares since Kirk did his first shoulder roll against the Gorn. Or earlier: really, beginning with the Thalosians. The peacemaking continued into the films and subsequent series. Iconic characters are linked to each of the three major antagonists: Kirk who achieved detente with the Klingons; Spock who forged reunification between Vulcan and Romulus; and now Picard, whose relations with his antagonist, his Other, are the most acute. Trust has been a main theme of this season, and it's fitting that Picard, near his end, should face his monsters, and make peace. 

[paigow]

7 hours ago, Pallas said:

Kirk who achieved detente with the Klingons;

Surprisingly, without sexing any of them up...

[millennium]

16 hours ago, paigow said:

Even Apollo needed a power source

Sylvia and Korob too.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 4/22/2022 at 8:52 PM, chaifan said:

I liked this episode, but not sure why, because I also agree with a lot of the criticism stated above.  But I liked Picard being able to be Picard again, and Guinan finally felt like Guinan to me.  As always, the Rafi & Seven show is the most entertaining part, and throw in a little BQA, and that was a great scene.  And as for Q, I like the aspect of Q dying, but is it the whole Q continuum, or just this particular Q?  I wasn't clear on that.  Also, just to be a bit shallow, John DeLancie plays the silver fox villain in black very nicely.  

Here are the things that don't match up to me...  The Confederation timeline...  how do we get there from here?  Let's say BQA and Soong succeed and tank the Europa mission. Doesn't that just lead to the Borg taking over Earth and our galaxy in 2024?  How does Soong get the upper hand and capture BQA, leaving us with the 1/2 Queen the Confederation had? 

And then there's the Adam Soong bloodline.  He has no children.  How do we get all those other Soongs for the remainder of the Star Trek timeline?  (I posted about this in another episode thread.)  Does Kore survive and then make a Soong clone to continue with the genetics work?  Has Soong already cloned himself, with other versions waiting in the wings to be awakened when he dies? 

One thing that didn't make sense when I started thinking about it: how did the Confederation manage to encounter the Borg in the first place, let alone subdue them? In the original reality, the Borg were in the Delta Quadrant and humanity only encountered them at all because Q forced the Enterprise-D to. In the Confederation reality, Earth is seemingly still fighting with relatively close powers -- the Vulcans, the Cardassians, the Ferengi and the Klingons were all races that Picard had taken trophies from. How did they get to the Delta Quadrant? And how were they able to basically break down the Borg? There could be some sort of predestination paradox thing where the Borg Queen that we saw in the Confederation timeline is Borg-ati, and because she started off as somewhat weak, she could be subdued. 

What makes you think that Adam Soong had no children? I don't think there has been anything established on the show one way or another. Assuming that it is true that he has not had any children as of yet, there are still a number of possibilties:

1. He or Kore could clone Adam, and clone Adam could have biological children carrying on the Soong line

2. Adam or Kore can have biological children and give them the Soong last name. 

3. Adam or Kore could create new clones and give them the Soong name.

4.. Adam or Kore could adopt children and give them the Soong name. 

On 4/23/2022 at 3:35 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

This show has me completely lost. I feel like I shouldn't need PhD-level knowledge of all Star Trek canon across all the TV shows, movies, graphic novels, etc., for me to be able to follow a storyline. At this point I am mainly only watching out of loyalty to Sir Patrick and Jean-Luc.

I dunno. I can't think of much in this season where being steeped in Star Trek is a requirement. Is it kind of neat that whats-her-face seemingly belongs to the same organization as Gary Seven from TOS's Assignment: Earth? Sure, but not knowing that doesn't make the plot any more difficult to follow.

On 4/23/2022 at 3:52 PM, Starchild said:

But how would she cross universes? Queen Agnes is in the alternate Confederation universe, but the Veiled Queen is in our original prime universe. Does Q bring them all back home, including the Borg? 

Borg-ati is in the prime universe currently. The events that lead to the Confederation universe have not happened yet. So it's entirely possible that Borg-ati manages to get next level and travel back to the future once Picard and co. stop the Confederation time branch. It's also possible that she has the ability to jump universes. We've seen ordinary humans figure out how to go between the prime universe and the Mirror Universe quite a bit. So it could be within a Borg Queen's ability to go from a Confederation timeline to the prime one.

Q is not in shape to do much of anything. I kind of hope that he is actually telling the truth and he actually does die. 

On 4/23/2022 at 9:20 PM, ML89 said:

So…Borg-ati takes the cellphone for the lithium…but they don’t have her drain some Teslas after that? I thought she was calling up some Borg with the satellites and then what are they going to do?

The whole Soong stuff was even more tedious, and then he turns up with his own legion. How did he get the money again?

We were shown a bunch of cars that seemed at least partially disassembled in the scene before Borg-ati kicked Seven and Raffi's asses. Presumably that was Borg-ati. 

It seems unlikely that she is going to be able to construct a beacon that can reach all the way to Borg territory with the materials she has at her disposal in L.A. 

Soong is a genius inventor. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to think that someone who could successfully clone a human would be extraordinarily wealthy off of all the patents related to those discoveries. 

On 4/23/2022 at 10:42 PM, millennium said:

Trelane a Q?  His powers were dependent upon a machine.   The Thasians (Charlie X) seemed more Q than Trelane.

One of the few Trek novels I read ages ago, Q-Squared, put forth the notion that Trelane was a Q. It is of course non-canon. It was an enjoyable read from what I remember but I don't retain much of the details about it. I want to say that the novel Trelane basically says "Oh I was just pretending to depend on the machine because it was more fun that way."

11 hours ago, SnarkShark said:

Oh sure.  But Star Trek has never had to deal with time duplicated people before 

 

Depends on what you mean by time duplicated people. Picard encountered a version of himself from a slightly different timeline in a TNG episode, and O'Brien encountered a version of himself from his future in a DS9 episode. As far as I know, there is not a Trek rule that says you can't have the same person be in the same general place and same time

[Hiyo]

Quote

One of the few Trek novels I read ages ago, Q-Squared, put forth the notion that Trelane was a Q. It is of course non-canon. It was an enjoyable read from what I remember but I don't retain much of the details about it.

I liked it. It was written by Peter David, and was a fun story with alternate universes as well.

[ML89]

9 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Soong is a genius inventor. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to think that someone who could successfully clone a human would be extraordinarily wealthy off of all the patents related to those discoveries. 

Well, he'd probably be buying a social media company, not his own legion but then again....

I meant that the cars Borg-ati should be draining should be EVs, not your standard gas engine machine, if she was after lithium. Unless your standard car battery now has lithium too?

[salaydouk]

10 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

One thing that didn't make sense when I started thinking about it: how did the Confederation manage to encounter the Borg in the first place, let alone subdue them? In the original reality, the Borg were in the Delta Quadrant and humanity only encountered them at all because Q forced the Enterprise-D to. In the Confederation reality, Earth is seemingly still fighting with relatively close powers -- the Vulcans, the Cardassians, the Ferengi and the Klingons were all races that Picard had taken trophies from. How did they get to the Delta Quadrant? And how were they able to basically break down the Borg? There could be some sort of predestination paradox thing where the Borg Queen that we saw in the Confederation timeline is Borg-ati, and because she started off as somewhat weak, she could be subdued. 

I wondered the same thing.  They I started speculating on those Transwarp conduits/hubs that the Borg seem to have developed during Voyager. If memory serves the Borg developed that technology to the point where they were able to jump to any quadrant of the galaxy that they wanted.  So perhaps they simply jumped to the Alpha quadrant randomly and the war with the Confederation began?  Although it doesn't explain how the Confederation could have conquered the Borg completely since the Borg would still have their entrenched positions in the Delta Quadrant.   There are simply not enough provide details to even speculate there.

Edited April 25, 2022 by salaydouk

[Joimiaroxeu]

Quote

I dunno. I can't think of much in this season where being steeped in Star Trek is a requirement. Is it kind of neat that whats-her-face seemingly belongs to the same organization as Gary Seven from TOS's Assignment: Earth? Sure, but not knowing that doesn't make the plot any more difficult to follow.

I think that might be easier for someone who appears to be fairly steeped in Star Trek history and trivia to say.

For example, when I see Brent Spiner on a Star Trek show, my immediate thought is Data. So I go googling and into Wikipedia and it turns out there's an array of characters across several ST productions which connect Data to Adam Soong and explain the physical resemblance. His presence on ST:P has a significance that isn't readily apparent. (Not yet, anyway.)

It's great for the fans that the producers of the ST shows and movies keep finding ways to bring back actors from previous series and films. But it becomes a problem IMO if the actors are playing multiple characters or their characters are building histories across different media/sequels/prequels. That's the reason I've pretty much given up on the MCU film and TV franchise.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Joimiaroxeu

[marinw]

Wouldn't a person die of poisoning  after eating a lot of lithium? (The metal, not the drug).

Edited April 26, 2022 by marinw

[ML89]

11 minutes ago, marinw said:

Wouldn't a person dire of poisining after eating a lot of lithium? (The metal, not the drug).

I would think so...Maybe the combat boots have mysterious powers.

I am finding it hilarious how, on one hand they're zipping around via transporter (that works and doesn't) and on the other, dropping their communicators and being baffled by smartphones. I was shocked when Borg-ati FINALLY got into using the satellites, instead of doing that back when, I don't know, they couldn't get a fix or find their teammates they'd beamed to LA? Either lean into fish out of water or make them competent, this see sawing is making me crazy.

FauxMulder was annoying as hell, and a lousy interrogator. Seriously, that's all you got? Any random L&O cop is much scarier.

I'm in this for Seven and Rios, at this point (I couldn't take him last year and this year, I really like him).

[marinw]

3 minutes ago, ML89 said:

Maybe the combat boots have mysterious powers.

 

Those are the greatest pair of combat boots since those worn by Jack Bauer in a lot of seasons of 24.

[salaydouk]

4 hours ago, ML89 said:

I'm in this for Seven and Rios, at this point (I couldn't take him last year and this year, I really like him).

Right there with you... and yeah i am finding really funny that I like Rios this time around.  But I would also add that I like the Buddy Cop vibe from Seven and Raffi. 

 

4 hours ago, marinw said:

Wouldn't a person die of poisining after eating a lot of lithium? (The metal, not the drug).

Yes... I really don't know what having BQ in her head that would prevent her from dying from being poisoned.  But honestly, I was just rolling with that topic because regardless of the BQ being in her head or not there is no way that Agnes should have been able to break free from the handcuffs a few episodes ago or be able to raise Raffi off the ground while strangling her to death.  So what's a little bit of lithium?   Because wasn't it Borg mechanical implants that changed the physical abilities of a drone and not the nanoprobes?  Or has that not ever been confirmed in canon? 

Also how is this for a nitpick... How the heck did either the BQ or Agnes know where to find lithium  or any of the other  "components" necessary to fully "birth a Borg Queen"?  I mean I know the that BQ has now Agnes knowledge/memories and Agnes knows "old school coding."  But how the heck would Agnes know what was in a car battery? I mean I seriously doubt she was an expert on 21st century Earth.  Also further nitpick, she was eating car batteries from good ole gas guzzling cars not hybrid/electric cars - so good luck getting lithium out of those suckers. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by salaydouk

[MissLucas]

9 hours ago, salaydouk said:

Also how is this for a nitpick... How the heck did either the BQ or Agnes know where to find lithium  or any of the other  "components" necessary to fully "birth a Borg Queen"?  

Google?

[marinw]

On 4/24/2022 at 2:22 AM, Frozendiva said:

Soong reminded me of Flint from Requiem for Methuselah and the various versions of Rayna. Maybe he too does not age and only does so superficially.

Good comparison. Building your perfect girfriend is super creepy and problematic in retrospect. One could argue that what this Soong is doing isn't much better.

[salaydouk]

3 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Google?

True... but again how would Agnes know about Google for the BQ to know about Google to look?  Unless of course Agnes was able to attempt to seduce the guy she picked up at the bar while at the same time asking him questions about search engines?  Now there is a scene I would love to have seen. 😂 

Edited April 26, 2022 by salaydouk

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 4/25/2022 at 1:48 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

I think that might be easier for someone who appears to be fairly steeped in Star Trek history and trivia to say.

For example, when I see Brent Spiner on a Star Trek show, my immediate thought is Data. So I go googling and into Wikipedia and it turns out there's an array of characters across several ST productions which connect Data to Adam Soong and explain the physical resemblance. His presence on ST:P has a significance that isn't readily apparent. (Not yet, anyway.)

It's great for the fans that the producers of the ST shows and movies keep finding ways to bring back actors from previous series and films. But it becomes a problem IMO if the actors are playing multiple characters or their characters are building histories across different media/sequels/prequels. That's the reason I've pretty much given up on the MCU film and TV franchise.

But Data and the history of the Soong family aren't really details that one needs to follow what is going on. It may bring me more enjoyment/interest/insight that it's Adam Soong rather than Lex Luthor or whatever who is behind it, but the basics are the same: there's an amoral genius who has made some genetic breakthroughs but still has his desired perfection out of reach who is being manipulated by Q, a once-all-powerful being who has crossed paths with Picard many times, and now the Borg Queen. The show establishes all this on its own terms.

Someone not familiar with Star Trek wouldn't really know about the physical resemblance between Data and the various Soongs. Or they could simply write it off as a genre thing. I don't need to have read every issue of Archie comics to get that when Riverdale casts the actors who play current cast members as their parents or grandparents there's not really some deeper significance there. 

On 4/25/2022 at 4:42 PM, marinw said:

Wouldn't a person die of poisining after eating a lot of lithium? (The metal, not the drug).

Since the Borg are cyborgs, presumably there is a lot of stuff in their systems that would kill ordinary humans without having machines/genetic modification to help deal with those things. As with all things Borg, it's probably best to say "Nanoprobes did it" and move on.

On 4/25/2022 at 9:29 PM, salaydouk said:

Yes... I really don't know what having BQ in her head that would prevent her from dying from being poisoned.  But honestly, I was just rolling with that topic because regardless of the BQ being in her head or not there is no way that Agnes should have been able to break free from the handcuffs a few episodes ago or be able to raise Raffi off the ground while strangling her to death.  So what's a little bit of lithium?   Because wasn't it Borg mechanical implants that changed the physical abilities of a drone and not the nanoprobes?  Or has that not ever been confirmed in canon? 

Also how is this for a nitpick... How the heck did either the BQ or Agnes know where to find lithium  or any of the other  "components" necessary to fully "birth a Borg Queen"?  I mean I know the that BQ has now Agnes knowledge/memories and Agnes knows "old school coding."  But how the heck would Agnes know what was in a car battery? I mean I seriously doubt she was an expert on 21st century Earth.  Also further nitpick, she was eating car batteries from good ole gas guzzling cars not hybrid/electric cars - so good luck getting lithium out of those suckers. 

Agnes doesn't just have the BQ in her head. Before "dying," the BQ clearly transferred some kind of nanoprobes to Agnes, as shown by a physical reaction with part of Agnes' face lighting up. Nanoprobes can basically do whatever the plot needs them to. I would say that in the implants vs. nanoprobes debate, I would lead to nanoprobes having a more profound influence. For instance, we know in First Contact the movie, none of the new Borg got mechanical implants. They were purely assimilated via nanoprobes and yet they had full-on Borg abilities. In any case, one could reason that these are super-special nanoprobes that work differently from others because they are directly from a queen and because she was affected by her ordeal in the Confederation.

As to how Borg-ati knew how to find lithium, a few things. It's a fair presumption IMO that they have a tricorder, which would be able to scan for lithium. Also, the Borg Queen has not just Agnes's knowledge but the knowledge of everyone assimilated by the Borg EVER.  Surely that would enable her to do some deduction to see what might power various devices and if it would be useful to gain more control. And yes, finally, she can access the Internet and satellites .

On 4/26/2022 at 10:43 AM, salaydouk said:

True... but again how would Agnes know about Google for the BQ to know about Google to look?  Unless of course Agnes was able to attempt to seduce the guy she picked up at the bar while at the same time asking him questions about search engines?  Now there is a scene I would love to have seen. 😂 

The BQ was monitoring stuff while on La Sirena still and she again has some level of knowledge of every person ever assimilated. Pretty sure somewhere in there, there would be knowledge that in the 2020s, people used the Internet and search engines to find information. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Chicago Redshirt

[MissLucas]

On 4/26/2022 at 5:43 PM, salaydouk said:

True... but again how would Agnes know about Google for the BQ to know about Google to look?  Unless of course Agnes was able to attempt to seduce the guy she picked up at the bar while at the same time asking him questions about search engines?  Now there is a scene I would love to have seen. 😂 

Agnes already managed to create and upload fake identities to a 21th century computer system, the idea that she would not know how to handle a smartphone (even without the help of the Borg Queen) is not the nitpicking hill worth to die on.

Edited April 28, 2022 by MissLucas

[Frozendiva]

10 hours ago, marinw said:

Good comparison. Building your perfect girfriend is super creepy and problematic in retrospect. One could argue that what this Soong is doing isn't much better.

I did have compassion for Flint. It may have been creepy to build a companion, but I could understand his loneliness and despair. He was deemed immortal and was already close to being 7000 years old. The staggering amount of love and loss, having to move on and possibly pretend to die, and then moving to new settlements, towns, and cities. Being DaVinci, being Brahms, and more. A very heavy load. A robot companion was not going to age, not going to die, etc.

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Frozendiva said:

Being DaVinci...

He should have been able to build a more durable emotion chip...

[Zonk]

Did the Borg queen just ingest "Lithium" by eating lead-acid batteries out of cars? I just can't with these writers. That's a whole new level of stupid.

On 4/24/2022 at 8:20 PM, paigow said:

Surprisingly, without sexing any of them up...

I'm sure that was just off-screen. Probably had to sex a bunch of male Klingons and that didn't make it past the censor. ;)

On 4/26/2022 at 10:50 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

As to how Borg-ati knew how to find lithium, a few things. It's a fair presumption IMO that they have a tricorder, which would be able to scan for lithium.

Well, then that tricorder is seriously defective, because she just ate a bunch of lead. There is no lithium in those batteries.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Zonk

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Zonk said:

Well, then that tricorder is seriously defective, because she just ate a bunch of lead. There is no lithium in those batteries.

I didn't pay attention to what was shown and am not great with cars, but it seems at least some electric cars have lithium batteries,

Also, what was discussed was "stabilizing metals." not necessarily lithium. I don't know anything about what a "stabilizing metal" is or if it can be found in conventional car batteries. Maybe you do.

[Zonk]

1 minute ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I didn't pay attention to what was shown and am not great with cars, but it seems at least some electric cars have lithium batteries,

They sure do. And they are in California, so the queen should have flipped a Tesla, ripped off the bottom plate and ate some NMC or LFP batteries out of it (both have lithium in them). But she didn't. She ate some lead-acid-batteries out of the engine compartment of a few gas-guzzlers.

1 minute ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Also, what was discussed was "stabilizing metals." not necessarily lithium. I don't know anything about what a "stabilizing metal" is or if it can be found in conventional car batteries. Maybe you do.

They were talking specifically about lithium. That whole "stabilising metal"-thing the writers pulled out of their behinds anyway. The metal that stabilises NMC batteries is Cobalt, not Lithium. The Lithium ions are what stores the charge. They are about as opposite to stabilising as you can get.

[paigow]

2 minutes ago, Zonk said:

They are about as opposite to stabilising as you can get.

Maybe Borg Queen will find some of those super combustible phone batteries from several years ago and end up with indigestion / heartburn

[Chicago Redshirt]

20 minutes ago, Zonk said:

They were talking specifically about lithium. That whole "stabilising metal"-thing the writers pulled out of their behinds anyway. The metal that stabilises NMC batteries is Cobalt, not Lithium. The Lithium ions are what stores the charge. They are about as opposite to stabilising as you can get.

The scene went something like:

R/7 find the guy's cell phone. 

7 asks what powers cell phone batteries.

R says: Lithium ions. They're a stabilizing metal

7 freaks out and explains: when you're assimilated, the Borg inject you with stabilizing metals so your body can handle nanoprobes. I can still taste them.

Not: the Borg inject you with lithium to help your body handle nanoprobes. 

So Borg-ati was not necessarily looking for lithium. But whatever "stabilizing metals" are supposed to be, of which lithium is one. 

If they just made up the term stabilizing metals, then bad on them. Same with if they botched what really is a stabilizing metal in batteries.

[catsitter]

If that little boy watches "Rick and Morty", he already knows all the swear words.

[Lebanna]

22 hours ago, catsitter said:

If that little boy watches "Rick and Morty", he already knows all the swear words.

And I just realised that now Ricardo will think that Ríos is his Rick Sánchez as he’s the crazy guy who whisks the kid away to a spaceship and terrifying adventures. Except that Ricardo is literally Rick Ramírez. Is this a BIG REVEAL? Find out next…

[Ottis]

On 4/21/2022 at 7:29 PM, marinw said:

Allison Pill is killing it in more ways than one. She even has Annie Weschang's vioce down as the BQ.

Her and the Borg queen's role is pretty much the only thing of interest in this entire season. You could cut Rios, Raffi, Seven and most of Picard himself out and you would have the basic plot. What Q's issue is remains to be seen, but if it is yet another scifi study on the formerly immortal waxing poetic about death, blah.

[RedHawk]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:52 PM, chaifan said:

I liked this episode, but not sure why, because I also agree with a lot of the criticism stated above.  But I liked Picard being able to be Picard again, and Guinan finally felt like Guinan to me.  As always, the Rafi & Seven show is the most entertaining part, and throw in a little BQA, and that was a great scene.  And as for Q, I like the aspect of Q dying, but is it the whole Q continuum, or just this particular Q?  I wasn't clear on that.  Also, just to be a bit shallow, John DeLancie plays the silver fox villain in black very nicely.  

Guinan did finally feel like Guinan here and Ito Aghayere does a good job in the role but I would have preferred Whoopie for a feeling of immediate connection to Guinan. I don't mind the CGI de-aging.

Yes, John DeLancie is well worth watching, even when I'm not enjoying other things going on. Sir Pat is still a pleasure and has at least one strong scene each episode. Jeri Ryan is awesome as Seven. Glad the writers did a good job expanding her character because they have failed in a lot of other ways. I'm not working to follow the plot(s) closely anymore because it does seem to me that it requires knowledge of series/episodes and films I have never seen or haven't seen in many years. That said, I'm still in and will watch S3.

Edited May 8, 2022 by RedHawk
More thoughts

[Tachi Rocinante]

On 4/23/2022 at 3:03 PM, MissLucas said:

It's either Eva Longoria or Elrond for me 🤷‍♀️

Ha. I see Evan Longoria (baseball player for the Giants)