It could be programming from Maddox. It makes sense that if he raised her like a daughter, he would program her to seek help from the one person he knows will do anything to defend her rights. Her mother confirms this, as if she knows that Picard is the person she would seek.
It was badly written, though. It felt very phony and the reporter jumped from topic to topic randomly. If nothing else, it was bad journalistic technique and made for some forced drama.
We don't know how many people live on Romulus and Remus. Yes, one would presume that the Romulan Star Empire is home to billions, maybe even trillions, of individuals, just like the Federation. But the homeworlds themselves could only support a considerably smaller number. A supernova isn't going to wipe out the whole Empire, only a single star system. (It may threaten others with gamma rays, provided they are within a few lightyears, but there may not be any systems that close to Romulus.) So all of this seems perfectly reconcilable with canon.
Maybe, but unless Picard actually stood in front of Data like that and looked at him, it looked like something inserted into her memory.
Not even sure I'd go that far. Journalistic technique changes from country to country, and decade to decade. I agree that this reporter seemed very determine from the start to steer the conversation to a certain goal, but that doesn't make her a bad reporter. It just means she's determined to get the story she thinks the public wants. We view it negatively, since we like JL. On the other hand, if this was a reporter who was interviewing Trump and insisted on talking about the fact that he's a Russian puppet instead of only about the fact that he's a genius as he would prefer, I would praise her for it.
I am not suggesting that the supernova would destroy the entire Romulan empire. But the population of the Earth today is over 7 billion. Considering that Romulus is the homeworld of the empire, it is not unreasonable to assume it could have at least 1 billion. So even if the supernova just destroyed Romulus, it would probably threaten more than millions.
That's what I was addressing, though. We have no idea how many people live on Romulus. We assume it's comparable to Earth, but there's really no reason for it. It could be that Romulus is 90% water, and that Remus is so polluted it's largely uninhabited. Then it very well could be that only some 900 million live on the two worlds combined.
Reading through the thread and I'm glad to see plenty of optimism. I feel bad for some of you, though. I've caught myself saying, "Yikes" a few times reading through this bad boy.
Sorry if I've missed this. Do we have a spelling of Dahj's sister's name? I wonder how their personalities will differ (if at all). I very much liked Dahj.
Dunno about you, but I thought a year or two on Rura Penthe might just be the ticket for Picard's interviewer. She'd feel right at home in all that cold...
She saw current Picard though, not Picard before Nemesis. However, it remains to be seen whether or not she has Data's actual memories, as she was only just 'activated'. After Soji is activated and lives a while longer, we'll see if that's the intent. I still think the idea of one neuron containing all that was Data is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy level science by way of using a piece of cupcake to extrapolate the entire universe.
I would imagine the Romulans themselves, and maybe other allies they had, were already evacuating huge numbers from Romulus and other colonies at risk - Starfleet was only going to be responsible for 'millions' (900 million, to be exact). It's also not clear if Starfleet abandoned their plans to help before ferrying a single soul out or not (doesn't the countdown comic imply they've been helping for years already? Surely they weren't waiting until 10,000 ships were ready to begin the evacuation but sending them as and when they came off the production line?)
It's worth noting that Romulus was only settled by the Vulcan separatists some time on or after the 4th century CE. If the Romulans started from a very small population or had a relatively low birth rate, there might never have been that many of them. For example, a founding population of 1,000 and 0.5% annual population growth rate only leads to 21.4 million people 2,000 years later.
Indeed, that's another great explanation. We covered this theory last week. (Seems like a lifetime ago.) The Romulans are a huge and powerful Empire, with thousands of ships of their own. It's entirely possible they evacuated billions and billions of their own people themselves.