As of what we know by episode 3, here’s a theory:
Soji was created by the Borg to infiltrate the cube to find out how the assimilated Romulans brought down the submatrix, because this is an existential threat to the Borg.
The short answer why Soji may be Borg:
=============================
(1) she goes into what seems like a regeneration cycle after contacting her mother (presumably the communicator connects her to a hive or the hive);
(2) Soji’s badge briefly lights up after she touches Ramdha’s hand (which I think indicates the activation of Borg technology.). I think she was accessing Borg info on Ramdha’s history, but she didn’t activate fully.
(3) Maddox could not stabilise the quantum matrix in his robots, yet Dahj & Soji are flesh & blood with working android brains? They are clearly 2nd generation way beyond Data, and Maddox was still playing with tadpoles. He could only have created them with Borg help.
(4) From First Contact, we know the Borg can integrate flesh with machine as they did this with Data, but perhaps they needed Maddox’s help to create a sentient android mind?
(5) Ramdha seemed to know that she couldn’t kill Soji with a pistol, so instead tries to kill herself. Is this to stop the information of how the Romulans brought down the cube getting into Borg hands?
So what was Dahj’s role? Perhaps to infiltrate the Daystrom to retrieve B4 in order to recreate Data, after all the Queen did have a penchant for him.
Here’s the long answer:
=================
Three observations:
(A) The question is who benefits from Soji & Dahj’s hidden agenda research? Answer that and you can work out who made them.
(B) How come the Romulans know so much about the twins? But not just that they’re sentient synths - literally Cy-Borgs but in reverse (machine minds in flesh) - but that they also know about their activation profile and the protocols of how to interface with them to measure it?
(C) If one of the Romulans was Zhat Vash e.g. Ramdha, then their “deadly secret” was assimilated by the Borg cube and the deadly nature of that idea caused the collapse of the submatrix.
Regarding (A) clearly, understanding how the Romulan assimilation collapsed the submatrix exposes an existential Borg weakness, which could be exploited to destroy them. This would benefit the Federation, Romulans, and ironically the Borg Queen (as she could use this information to fix the weakness and strengthen the Borg).
The Borg created the twins?
====================
This fits with points (1) to (4) above. But also consider that Ramdha was talking about her memories as “news” and having seen Soji “tomorrow” and combine this with the ideas that (a) the Borg have time travel technology and (b) the Queen told Picard in First Contact that he was small because he could not conceive of her existing in different times and space (when he thought her blown up on the other ship).
Perhaps it led to a cascade of submatrix collapses within the Borg empire (like a virus) and the future or current Borg realise they need to sent a ‘Terminator’ to learn the secret? that ‘Terminator’ being Soji.
Therefore, perhaps the twins were made in the future by the Borg, and the assimilated Romulans glimpsed the future when connected to the hive, then either with time-travel or telepathy/mind meld passed this information into the past creating the whole anti-synth mythology.
Maddox as creator?
===============
But, everyone’s been assuming Dahj and Soji were built by Maddox, so to what end would he send Soji into the Cube? Seems odd as he’s interested in making sentient synthetics - not destroying the Borg - unless there’s a connection between his failed experiments on B4’s (and therefore Data’s) submatrix and the collapse of the Borg submatrix. Perhaps by understanding the collapse of the Borg cube’s submatrix it gives him another data point to understand the collapse of the submatrix in his experiments to create sentient artificial life (assuming they’re the same kind of thing, but I don’t think they are).
The problem with Maddox as the creator is his experiments to create a sentient robot failed, and clearly the ability to create a flesh and blood host to an artificial brain is a magnitude jump in technology and therefore beyond him. If he created the twins, then he must have had help...perhaps he went to the Borg or they captured him, because although they can integrate flesh with technology perhaps they could not replicate the matrix of his brain without Maddox?
The Federation as creator?
=====================
Returning to the Federation as a beneficiary: this seems unlikely as it seems clueless about the existence of Dahj and Soji, because otherwise it would have had eyes on Dahj and protected her on its home turf. Therefore, although the Federation benefits, it would seem that they aren’t behind Dahj and Soji’s research.
The Romulans as creator?
====================
As for the Romulans, the Zhat Vash understand Soji’s a threat, but they don’t seem to realise her hidden agenda - if they did, then they would have used mind-melds to interrogate the crew of the Shaenor themselves - they wouldn’t need the twins. Therefore, their *sole* goal seems to be keeping their enemy close in order to win the bigger prize of discovering her creator’s lair, which means they didn’t create the twins.
But what’s this secret that potentially took down a Borg cube? That seems to be at the crux of this entire series. We know from Hugh’s episode “I, Borg” that La Forge and Data postulated that an unsolvable problem might act like a virus to bring down the Borg, if correct then this secret might be something equally unsolvable or contradictory?
It seems this secret has something to do with the Romulan hatred for AI, and when the Borg learned the truth behind AI and what it leads to this caused the collective hive mind submatrix to collapse. But what idea could be so devastating to the Borg?
My guess is that it could be something to do with the only reason for creatures to exist is to struggle with life, thus if the Borg became all powerful then there would be no struggle no purpose and existence would be futile. Ultimately, it is the struggle that gives purpose and this is expressed most aptly by our individuality, because we are weakest on our own and at our strongest in a collective. Not that a collective is bad - there’s a balance.
This works with the theory that the Zhat Vash reprogrammed the synths to destroy Mars in order to stop/undermine synth/AI research in the Federation, because the secret they keep is more important than the survival of the Romulan species.
(B) How come the Romulans know so much about Dahj & Soji?
================================================
I think this better explains where Maddox fits in. The Romulans clearly have a prophecy about the twins, so it would make sense that the Zhat Vash were preparing for their coming. Dr Jurati said Maddox was coming so close with his research, which may have attracted Zhat Vash attention leading to them kidnapping or persuading him to work on technology to profile the twins (the headset used on Dahj in episode 1).
PROBLEMS WITH THIS THEORY
==========================
If the Borg created the twins, then why did their creator (via their hologram mother) tell Dahj to contact Picard in her time of peril? Surely he’s the enemy?
Two ideas come to mind:
Firstly, it seems too coincidental that Picard used to be Locutus of Borg and is currently suffering from hallucinations and a brain abnormality. Is this brain abnormality a requirement for telepathic communication in the collective? And if so, does are his dreams more than hallucinations but external contact? If so from whom? Could he be a Borg sleeper agent and potential handler? Would make a great plot twist, but it would ruin Picard’s memory as a trek hero, so unlikely. They wouldn’t do that...or? No they wouldn’t, but what about Kurtzman?
Secondly, Dahj’s mother telling her to contact Picard seems more likely to be a directive coming from Data. If they are Data’s daughters, then he doesn’t have DNA to pass on - only his programming/experiences from his brain would make them his daughters compared to any other synth.
If they were created using remnants of Data’s matrix, this means part of his programming might be activated in the background - part of his consciousness may be running in their subconscience and at times “activates” to augment/take over their actions. This would explain how they suddenly gain access to new knowledge and skills? Perhaps their mother is an hallucination of their “Data subconscience” invoked by him as a self-protection mechanism for his daughters?
We don’t have enough information right now, which makes it all the more exciting. The great thing with the story so far is that we have no idea which side Soji is on. Perhaps she’s the Destroyer, but of the Borg or the Federation? We don’t just know.
Soji was created by the Borg to infiltrate the cube to find out how the assimilated Romulans brought down the submatrix, because this is an existential threat to the Borg.
The short answer why Soji may be Borg:
=============================
(1) she goes into what seems like a regeneration cycle after contacting her mother (presumably the communicator connects her to a hive or the hive);
(2) Soji’s badge briefly lights up after she touches Ramdha’s hand (which I think indicates the activation of Borg technology.). I think she was accessing Borg info on Ramdha’s history, but she didn’t activate fully.
(3) Maddox could not stabilise the quantum matrix in his robots, yet Dahj & Soji are flesh & blood with working android brains? They are clearly 2nd generation way beyond Data, and Maddox was still playing with tadpoles. He could only have created them with Borg help.
(4) From First Contact, we know the Borg can integrate flesh with machine as they did this with Data, but perhaps they needed Maddox’s help to create a sentient android mind?
(5) Ramdha seemed to know that she couldn’t kill Soji with a pistol, so instead tries to kill herself. Is this to stop the information of how the Romulans brought down the cube getting into Borg hands?
So what was Dahj’s role? Perhaps to infiltrate the Daystrom to retrieve B4 in order to recreate Data, after all the Queen did have a penchant for him.
Here’s the long answer:
=================
Three observations:
(A) The question is who benefits from Soji & Dahj’s hidden agenda research? Answer that and you can work out who made them.
(B) How come the Romulans know so much about the twins? But not just that they’re sentient synths - literally Cy-Borgs but in reverse (machine minds in flesh) - but that they also know about their activation profile and the protocols of how to interface with them to measure it?
(C) If one of the Romulans was Zhat Vash e.g. Ramdha, then their “deadly secret” was assimilated by the Borg cube and the deadly nature of that idea caused the collapse of the submatrix.
Regarding (A) clearly, understanding how the Romulan assimilation collapsed the submatrix exposes an existential Borg weakness, which could be exploited to destroy them. This would benefit the Federation, Romulans, and ironically the Borg Queen (as she could use this information to fix the weakness and strengthen the Borg).
The Borg created the twins?
====================
This fits with points (1) to (4) above. But also consider that Ramdha was talking about her memories as “news” and having seen Soji “tomorrow” and combine this with the ideas that (a) the Borg have time travel technology and (b) the Queen told Picard in First Contact that he was small because he could not conceive of her existing in different times and space (when he thought her blown up on the other ship).
Perhaps it led to a cascade of submatrix collapses within the Borg empire (like a virus) and the future or current Borg realise they need to sent a ‘Terminator’ to learn the secret? that ‘Terminator’ being Soji.
Therefore, perhaps the twins were made in the future by the Borg, and the assimilated Romulans glimpsed the future when connected to the hive, then either with time-travel or telepathy/mind meld passed this information into the past creating the whole anti-synth mythology.
Maddox as creator?
===============
But, everyone’s been assuming Dahj and Soji were built by Maddox, so to what end would he send Soji into the Cube? Seems odd as he’s interested in making sentient synthetics - not destroying the Borg - unless there’s a connection between his failed experiments on B4’s (and therefore Data’s) submatrix and the collapse of the Borg submatrix. Perhaps by understanding the collapse of the Borg cube’s submatrix it gives him another data point to understand the collapse of the submatrix in his experiments to create sentient artificial life (assuming they’re the same kind of thing, but I don’t think they are).
The problem with Maddox as the creator is his experiments to create a sentient robot failed, and clearly the ability to create a flesh and blood host to an artificial brain is a magnitude jump in technology and therefore beyond him. If he created the twins, then he must have had help...perhaps he went to the Borg or they captured him, because although they can integrate flesh with technology perhaps they could not replicate the matrix of his brain without Maddox?
The Federation as creator?
=====================
Returning to the Federation as a beneficiary: this seems unlikely as it seems clueless about the existence of Dahj and Soji, because otherwise it would have had eyes on Dahj and protected her on its home turf. Therefore, although the Federation benefits, it would seem that they aren’t behind Dahj and Soji’s research.
The Romulans as creator?
====================
As for the Romulans, the Zhat Vash understand Soji’s a threat, but they don’t seem to realise her hidden agenda - if they did, then they would have used mind-melds to interrogate the crew of the Shaenor themselves - they wouldn’t need the twins. Therefore, their *sole* goal seems to be keeping their enemy close in order to win the bigger prize of discovering her creator’s lair, which means they didn’t create the twins.
But what’s this secret that potentially took down a Borg cube? That seems to be at the crux of this entire series. We know from Hugh’s episode “I, Borg” that La Forge and Data postulated that an unsolvable problem might act like a virus to bring down the Borg, if correct then this secret might be something equally unsolvable or contradictory?
It seems this secret has something to do with the Romulan hatred for AI, and when the Borg learned the truth behind AI and what it leads to this caused the collective hive mind submatrix to collapse. But what idea could be so devastating to the Borg?
My guess is that it could be something to do with the only reason for creatures to exist is to struggle with life, thus if the Borg became all powerful then there would be no struggle no purpose and existence would be futile. Ultimately, it is the struggle that gives purpose and this is expressed most aptly by our individuality, because we are weakest on our own and at our strongest in a collective. Not that a collective is bad - there’s a balance.
This works with the theory that the Zhat Vash reprogrammed the synths to destroy Mars in order to stop/undermine synth/AI research in the Federation, because the secret they keep is more important than the survival of the Romulan species.
(B) How come the Romulans know so much about Dahj & Soji?
================================================
I think this better explains where Maddox fits in. The Romulans clearly have a prophecy about the twins, so it would make sense that the Zhat Vash were preparing for their coming. Dr Jurati said Maddox was coming so close with his research, which may have attracted Zhat Vash attention leading to them kidnapping or persuading him to work on technology to profile the twins (the headset used on Dahj in episode 1).
PROBLEMS WITH THIS THEORY
==========================
If the Borg created the twins, then why did their creator (via their hologram mother) tell Dahj to contact Picard in her time of peril? Surely he’s the enemy?
Two ideas come to mind:
Firstly, it seems too coincidental that Picard used to be Locutus of Borg and is currently suffering from hallucinations and a brain abnormality. Is this brain abnormality a requirement for telepathic communication in the collective? And if so, does are his dreams more than hallucinations but external contact? If so from whom? Could he be a Borg sleeper agent and potential handler? Would make a great plot twist, but it would ruin Picard’s memory as a trek hero, so unlikely. They wouldn’t do that...or? No they wouldn’t, but what about Kurtzman?
Secondly, Dahj’s mother telling her to contact Picard seems more likely to be a directive coming from Data. If they are Data’s daughters, then he doesn’t have DNA to pass on - only his programming/experiences from his brain would make them his daughters compared to any other synth.
If they were created using remnants of Data’s matrix, this means part of his programming might be activated in the background - part of his consciousness may be running in their subconscience and at times “activates” to augment/take over their actions. This would explain how they suddenly gain access to new knowledge and skills? Perhaps their mother is an hallucination of their “Data subconscience” invoked by him as a self-protection mechanism for his daughters?
We don’t have enough information right now, which makes it all the more exciting. The great thing with the story so far is that we have no idea which side Soji is on. Perhaps she’s the Destroyer, but of the Borg or the Federation? We don’t just know.
