1.06: Star Trek: Picard - The Impossible Box

[ctg]

Picard and the crew track Soji to the Borg cube in Romulan space, resurfacing haunting memories for Picard. Meanwhile, Narek believes he finally found a way to safely exploit Soji for information.

 

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"Borg don't change! They metastases!" Picard shouted. I really get where his anger is coming. The roots are long and all the memories are poisoned by the assimilation. There aren't many who has escaped the Collective. Picard is one of them, and like the rest he shows signs of PTSD. But I do get why he's able to function, even though the whole nightmare is facing him again. There just isn't anyone else. Even the mighty Starfleet is hesitant on dipping their toe in the murky pool that the Artefact has created.

It's interesting that Raffi had pull with the admiralty, but giving a credentials shouldn't be causing an end to a relationship. It's like that last thing friends do each other for something like that in my honest opinion. If your friendship was on the edge already, so be it, but there was nothing in the conversation that suggested that there was an issue. What I don't get is why the Starfleet has become such pussies?

It's like they have lost all their principles and it seems as if the Terra is focusing on maintaining the status quo instead of pushing the boundaries as they used to. Maybe Picard's time in the Starfleet was the golden age, and because of the humanity, we degenerate in the long run and everything becomes corrupt. The ideals, rules, and norms become just words nobody cares about. Not that the rules ever were recognised as in almost all of ST and NG episodes rules were abandoned, when the need arrived.

But you think about Picard going back, finding the treaty and using Raffi to get the cover is like he's trying to fix the whole thing before he passes to the other side. He wants back the olden, golden days even though it might not be possible. The galaxy has moved on.

Well, mostly moved on, because I was totally surprised by Picard's encounter with the Project Leader and him recognising Picard as the Locustus. The Borg didn't wanted him to fall into chasm. They saved him. But is it because the system recognised him through the implant they placed in his brain. And that implant activated as soon as he teleported into the ship and saw the charging stations.

The project leader said: "You are Jean-Luc Picard. Not Locustus." But all the Former Borg recognised him even though they might never have seen his face. Interestingly none of them spoke a word. It was as if the hive mind was still active and there was no need for the archaic language. Then the project leader revealed. "For now our Queen is Romulan."

Why Picard didn't smear his pants as soon as he got into the Queen chamber? I believe it is the ultimate expression of his nightmare. The last place he would ever want to be in, but yet, it solved his problem, even though they could have tried to fight their way out.

It's intriguing and somewhat lovable that the Captain Rios has become the new Riker and all the ladies are falling in love. As if he's the knight is shining armour. The man who cares and loves. The one that can heal broken heart. I do admit that he is charming in all ways. He has that aura of comfort and care surrounding him even though he's a man with an ill reputation. Some could call him a bad boy.

Picard certainly couldn't do what Rios does as it's not in his nature. He's more sort of stoic and bohemic intellectual, who isn't after a romance, but an adventure. And he is driven by his mission even though he could use a shoulder to cry, an ear to listen and a mind that can reflect and solve his problems. But as it has never happened, it's likely that it will never happen, and that is all because of the Borg Queen.

Captain Rios doesn't know the Borg as Picard does and he certainly doesn't have enough of knowledge about where Picard's encounters lead, even though he should have by now a pretty good idea that his ship might get badly damaged. It was clever him to get Raffi sober and find out on his own what's driving his passenger.

Clever girl. Finding out that all her memories were little over three years old was alarming, and super smart. I don't think that Soji realised that all those memories were all possible with accelerated growth. We know that the synths are build, just like Data. They are machines, but in Soji's case, she's complete biomechanoid. An ultimate version of Borg. I could call her a Prime Borg, because of her unique status. In a way she's the ultimate expression of everything that Borg's were able to create.

There is no real need to enhance her, except for the combat. I believe there are Borg technologies that would suit her, and make her even more powerful. But doing that would make her look more like the Borg and it would destroy her image as the Prime Borg.

Naris was clever to exploit her weaknesses. To be a Prince Brave, just in right time, in right place, even though if he had kept his mouth shut, Soji would not have looked into her past. I applauded on Naris showing purity next in one of Romulan sanctuaries. It was a right move to tie Soji's heart even closer to him and showing him as vulnerable, he also rendered Soji to be in same way.

What I don't get is the hypnosis. How did that happen? And why Naris chose to active Soji in the end? What purpose did it serve?

 

[Vince W]

Are you from the future @ctg? And if so, what flavour crisps are there?

 

[ctg]

And if so, what flavour crisps are there?

BBQ

 

[Pyan]

Not fair! I'm in the UK, watching on Prime, and I don't get to see a new episode until Fridays...

 

[Overread]

I know those cheaters in America getting it a day early!

We saw a lot of interesting development here. We also saw that the the Borg Reclamation progress is far bigger than we might have guessed and it appears a larger portion of them might be released than we earlier saw.

It actually makes me wonder if we'll see Q in this, even if just in the very last parts of the last episode. I say that because he took special interest in the Federation in warning them about the Borg threat. Quite out of character for the Q in general, especially when you consider that they were happy to let other worlds fall to the Borg and, in general, don't really pay any attention to the living world.

I wonder if the special interest in humanity wasn't part of some scheme ot see the Borg not destroyed but freed and that this might be working toward it. Of course having creatures such as "The Destroyer" of all things being hinted at for the synthetics as a threat is also very interesting took. It again filters into that huge galaxy spanning impact that the Q might pay attention too.

 

[Vince W]

I've been expecting this episode for a while. Soji has discovered she's a replicant with implanted memories.

It seems improbable to me that a hungover and possibly stoned Raffi was able to bully a diplomatic certificate from Starfleet. I would have thought Picard could have done that himself. He probably should have done it to Admiral Clancy for a bit of poetic justice. So Raffi has burned yet another bridge for J.L. I will not be surprised if she lays all her problems at Picard's feet before the end.

Narek is able to hold his sister off long enough to get Soji to reveal the supposed replicant synthetic homeworld. At least they think so. Of course Narek has to kill Soji but that uncovers her dormant survival functions. Now she's full on synthetic mode. No more illusions.

After that Picard shows up to 'save' Soji and Hugh leads them to the heart of the cube to the Queen's secret escape transwarp bridge. It turns out Soji knows all about it. So we can speculate that Soji may actually be a Borg research project. Or at least Borg technology was used to build her.

 

[Overread]

In First Contact it was Borg technology that allowed Data to have skin. It wouldn't shock me if further work had used that as a foundation for the new sythentics which have organic skin layers on the surface. Indeed Soji and her sister appear to have very extensive biological development of their bodies. Far beyond what Data ever had.


As for Raffi and Picard I think Picard got his connections burned when he stormed into Starfleet and promptly got thrown out. He's older than Raffi and chances are many of his contacts are either his crew (which he's already said he won't touch) or his own generation, which are all far older and might even have retired themselves. Or are so high that they can't do favours. Heck the person he turned to in Starfleet he outright admitted (to her face) that they did not get along. Picard just hasn't got the contacts in the HQ system. Which also makes sense as for much of his career he was a captain on the fringe exploring; not someone back home fostering contacts through the command structure. Its' something we've seen time and again in TV series where the "Boss" of a division or such has great results, but hasn't played the main office political game.
With Picard outside the system for so long he's not got the weight behind him to push things through.

Raffi clearly has more suitable contacts and perhaps younger ones better placed. It seemed that she didn't so much convince someone to give her permission as knew the person who could give permission and bullied her into compliance with the threat of Picard and a Starfleet ship having "invaded" Romulan space. Basically it was a plaster to cover over what would otherwise easily have blown into a major situation. Considering the lack of love between the Romulans and Starfleet, chances are it wouldn't take much to tip the balance.

 

[.matthew.]

Everything already said, but seriously, that transwarp (or whatever they called it) escape for the Borg queen... really???

So the Borg have the technology of that ancient race from Star Trek that let them open portals up to forty thousand light years away, but then they restricted it's use for anything other than letting their queen escape if needed...

You know, instead of opening portal after portal and disgorging thousands of Borg across hundreds of worlds, with absolute no defense possible...

I hate the writers so much.

And during that miraculous escape, the fact that Picard's assassin guy just beamed in to WHERE THEY WERE doesn't raise any flags? If he could beam in, they could have beamed out... and neatly avoided the whole stupid illogical portal exit.

And then he has to sacrifice himself instead of just leaving through the portal. I'm fairly sure they could have just overloaded Hugh's phaser (which we've seen in the past makes a nasty grenade) on the control panel as they ALL stepped through and had the room explode after they left...

Still, despite that utterly stupid final scene, better than episode five (by a factor of ten).

 

[Narkalui]

So we know that Mr and Mrs Riker will appear, is that next week while they wait for the rest of the crew to turn up?

 

[Overread]

Matthew we've no idea on the technical limitations. That it was reserved for the/a queen within the Hive and limited to one portal per cube (at best) it suggests that:

1) It might require technology or resources of limited supply that can't be faithfully recreated by replicators.

2) It might have a huge power drain or other requirement that makes it unsuitable for mass transit of large numbers of bodies

3) It might have aiming issues. Ergo yes you can send an army but it might appear all over the place.

4) There might be localised teleportation end issues which could arise. A bit like how Warpdrive was found to cause problems much like a boat causes a wake on the shoreline. I think this was established in TNG and resulted in a mandatory cap on warpspeeds which you could only exceed on special situations. The teleporter might be fine sending a few bodies, but sending a whole army could result in huge instabilities.

5) Detection at the other and and interruption. Both could be high issues. Making it impractical for "sneak attacks" against any superior technology race/foe and pointless against any without the technology (you can just fly a cube into orbit).

6) It might be so new that the Borg aren't yet fully cognisant with its use (and have not assimilated all the info that they can from the race who had it - who might in turn have not known its full capabilities). So it could be experimental in the extreme. Worth the risk for a last-ditch escape, but not for general use.

 

[.matthew.]

1) They had at least that one, which if the case was limited to only that, it wouldn't be risked on an attack fleet.

2) I considered power drain yet it was activated in that episode on essentially a dead cube, operating on little of it's full power.

3) We'll see in the next episode where Picard ends up, but it's apparently accurate enough to target a specific planet which would suffice, and a Borg army scattered across a whole planet would actually be more dangerous.

4) Even getting a handful of Borg onto a far off target would be worth it's use (it's been shown that a single Borg can begin the assimilation process).

5) The Borg are constantly shown as the superior technological race, but the run a cube at the Federation seems to fail every time.

6) That's possible, but at the same time the Borg actively experiment on their own kind, so throwing a few drones through it isn't something that would bother them.

It seems like the same gateway technology as seen previously in the lore, which would in fact allow armies to move through it, and would probably be unblockable (at least considering the technology would be unknown to most and thus countermeasures wouldn't be employed against it).

The main point was that as a plot point it felt just plain dumb. As I said, the assassin guy beamed in so they could have just beamed out at any time, without the need to go to a secret portal that Picard didn't even know about. So Picard just went "Hugh, I know I can beam us off, but have you got a way of getting us off the artifact anyway?" The whole thing just felt like a device to split up the crew for episode 7, with no other purpose.

 

[Trek123]

After watching episode 6, I came up with this theory. I think Agnes Jurati is the contributor of Soji because if you remove the makeup and color her mom's hair she could be that image. Dahj and Soji do not have the same mom, I noticed this in episodes 1 and 3. Agnes shows all the signs of being a Synth herself. 1. She constantly references information like Data, Soji, and Dahj. 2. Her contributions were referenced in Episode 5 when she killed Maddox. 3. She and Soji were both constructed with Borg memory engrams but deliberately made imperfect by Maddox who said on his death bed perfectly imperfect. I also think that Commodore Oh planted the memories in Jurati to aid in the scheme of the Romulans to travel back in time to change the history of the destruction of Romulus with the help of Borg technology. Also when Soji was interviewing Ramada, she remembered Soji from tomorrow which means she reference future events. With time travel it's happened before and the plans were foiled by Soji who is named the Destroyer, remember this is Star Trek and that's why the Romulans have hated synthetics for centuries and their plans are to eliminate all of them before attempting to travel back in time again.

 

[Narkalui]

Heavy!

 

[Overread]

Don't forget the Assassin beamed in during a time of low security. By the time they are on the run the alarm is up and thus chances are the transporters are being monitored and blocked. Even if they weren't its such a standard practice that Picard and the others aren't even considering the transporters as an option to escape.

As for the Borg, despite being advanced and highly militant, they are also quite slow to expand. The Federation is about the only target they seem to attack, otherwise they are far more passive in general than, say, the Dominion. We see this passive nature when Starfleet studies Cubes as well, whereby you can walk right past Borg on their cube and so long as you're not a threat they mostly ignore you. Heck that was how Seven's parents were captured as they were studying a cube when things went wrong.

The other point to consider is that the main body of the Borg are a long way from the Federation, a very long way. I think most of their encounters are loan ships mostly from the Borg exploring, data gathering and also sending cubes to destabilise the Federation. I think their intent being if they can win its great, but if not they will at least chip away and stop the Federation growing ever bigger and more powerful. Of course the Queen in First Contact also seems to show some personal interests, though we've never fully understood how she fits into the Borg properly. Indeed considering that the Borg are clearly very capable of building fast, agile and high end tech ;the vast body of their drones are actually very slow.

For a race that apparently aspires to be cybernetic they don't actually replace as much of the organics in a body as they could. Clearly they are not as perfect as they advertise.

 

[reiver33]

My take was that Picard and Soji couldn’t return as the transport could be traced and draw seven shades of sh*t down upon the ship.

 

[.matthew.]

My take was that Picard and Soji couldn’t return as the transport could be traced and draw seven shades of sh*t down upon the ship.

Which means the great strategist Picard's plan was 'hope' that Hugh had a secret way off a Romulan base

 

[Overread]

Which means the great strategist Picard's plan was 'hope' that Hugh had a secret way off a Romulan base

Don't forget his original plan was to go onto the Cube, find the girl and teleport off. All done without any alarms being raised or security checks or anything. He wasn't even confiding in Hugh the full seriousness of the situation when he arrived, plus he had to work through some of his own demons upon entering the Cube.

His plan fell apart through the circumstance that when he arrived the Romulans were already trying to kill her when she "activated" and tore through the floor. At which point up go shields; up go teleport blockers and suddenly a lot of potential avenues shut down


The only real mystery is how his pet assassin made it onto the cube without detection from either side. That suggests a possible level of technical understanding that his "country boy" persona would contest with. Though both those fit well with an ancient warriors order in a futuristic setting. Cultivate an outward image of being less technologically competent, when in actuality being very well versed in such things.

 

[.matthew.]

His plan fell apart through the circumstance that when he arrived the Romulans were already trying to kill her when she "activated" and tore through the floor. At which point up go shields; up go teleport blockers and suddenly a lot of potential avenues shut down

Just rewatched that section, the assassin guy is still on the ship after the alarm goes up, after Picard asks Hugh to get him off.

 

[ctg]

Which means the great strategist Picard's plan was 'hope' that Hugh had a secret way off a Romulan base

No, Picard is a diplomat. His hope was to be able to use his mouth, his skills and knowledge to be able to walk Soji out and not end in a battle. That's why he left the assassin in the ship. Fighting is last resort.