Spoilers Episode 7 "Nepenthe"

True.

 

Why hunt AI? Why kill Maddox if it's not to prevent something that hasn't happened yet?

 

Two responses come to mind:

1. Because all this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

2.

Actually, although I was just trying to be funny with the Nero scene, it does beg the question: perhaps Commodore Oh is from the future?

 

Who knows, but please not from Discovery's future

 

Also...why didn’t the Zhat Vash ever try to kill Data? Or Lore? Or B-4? Or Juliana Tainer? Or Noonien Soong, for that matter?

 

I think this is actually a reasonably sized plothole if the story indeed is that it is an ancient cabal that has been active practically forever and their goal is unambiguously eliminating all artificial intelligence.

 

Unpopular opinion time: If Oh references both Discovery and the Temporal Cold War I will be very intrigued.

 

A great, classic Riker line; it was awesome to hear him shout it again.

I actually tried it with Alexa -- said "Alexa: shields up!". She responded with something about setting her up to protect the house (an actual function). I was amused.

 

No one knew Juliana Tainer was an android except for her husband and a handful of the Enterprise crew. The Tal-Shiar had B-4 in their possession. Lore was in pieces hidden away, and later in bits in some Starfleet vault. Soong was in hiding, presumed dead. And Data was pretty well protected on the Federation flagship.

 

I will be positively giddy if Oh references some bearded guy named Lazarus in a bubble-shaped timeship.

Kor

 

Seems like none of that should be a problem for a spy organization with unlimited resources whole sole purpose is to eliminate synthetic life.

 

Unless they haven't always had unlimited resources until this point in time.

 

If they predate the Romulan Empire, I'm pretty sure they always had anything they wanted.

 

And nobody knew Dahj and Soji were synthetic, but someone found out.

The Tal Shiar never had B-4. Shinzon did. And he hid B-4 on a planet right near the Neutral Zone which emitted positronic signatures. So the Zhat Vash could have found him as easily as the Enterprise did.

But between those times, he was active. And we don’t actually know what became of Lore.

Not when he was actively building his androids.

The Romulans successfully had a spy aboard the Enterprise in the guise of a Vulcan ambassador. Surely the Zhat Vash could have just as easily infiltrated it.

 

Maybe other elements within the Romulan Empire have suppressed the Zhat Vash for centuries, but now with everything in disarray, this is finally their time to rise up and do their thing.

Kor

 

Not necessarily. It can be an ancient cabal comprised of handful of lunatics.

 

Something this episode does remarkably well is be sensitive to Soji's situation. This is, perhaps, the most interesting the character has been during the series. I don't think it coincidental that there has not been a flurry of posts calling out her behavior toward Picard or describing her as impetuous.

 

I don't see how one tracks with the other.

 

Maybe that was the POINT of the Zaht Vash orchestrating the Mars attack. They weren't concerned about the situation with Romulus (it wasn't even a consideration one way or the other). They saw it as a way to make the Federation abandon synthetic life research, shut down or destroy any existing Androids, and make it easier for them to go after any rogue researchers in Federation space.