I didn't get that impression at the time. Hmm. Time for a rewatch!
La Sirena
- Thread starter Mondragon
- Start date
Fair enough, although given how efficiently the holograms operate there's still the question of how much that can be attributed to Rios (other than 1 day or week of making sure they were programmed to do things efficiently) and how much after Rios' initial involvement in programming things was just left to the holograms on their own.
Keep in mind he didn't even seem to be getting continuous reports from his holograms otherwise his EMH would have immediately told him about his deactivation by Agnes prior to Maddox's death. Giving the impression he just let them handle things without much "Captain's input/involvement" as it were.
In Season 2 they should show the EMH waving a lung regenerator on Raffi and Rios saying, "If this were the 21st century your lungs would be crisp by now," to address all the smoking criticism in Picard.
Bear in mind that La Sirena is not a Starfleet vessel, nor has she ever been. Non-canon evidence from the showrunners says that she wasn't even a Federation vessel, originally, therefore would not have a 'default Starfleet setting'. If the holos are maintaining her to a Starfleet standard, Rios has to have specifically programmed them to do so.
Bear in mind also that we saw very little evidence of the holos running routine daily maintenance in the background; they were mostly activated only if there was a specific task requiring their support (and sometimes not even then).
While my "default Starfleet setting" joke may have been a bit much, even though La Sirena is a civilian vessel it still has "internet"/subspace access. It seems very possible that a "Starfleet style" basic hologram maintenance routine was no harder to download than a copy of the game "America's Army", and such a thing probably would be popular among pilots who want to appear "cool". Rios' "programming" the holos to do so could literally be one instance of him saying "Computer: Set Basic emgergency hologram installation to downloaded maintenance routine 'Starfleet style', continue until told otherwise." Computer says "Acknowledged" and that's literally all Rios has to do.
And yes, we do see holos going around maintaining things on their own. Raffi caught them doing exactly that and gathered them all around for interrogation about Rios' dark past remember?
Picard may be attributing to Rios what is really the holograms' work because he's been hiding in a vineyard for 14 years and not knowing how far holographic help has advanced--back in his time holoprojectors weren't everywhere on starships, note the EMH doctor was stuck to sickbay for Voyager's early seasons until he got a mobile emitter.
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We were specifically told that he'd activated all the holos deliberately that day, to keep the ship running while he took himself off to his quarters to drink and brood. There was no evidence that he keeps them running all the time otherwise - in fact I could point to a couple of occasions when they should have been activated but weren't.
I think we were meant to understand from the context of the show that Picard had Rios dead to rights in his assessment. Rios might have tried to sell himself as a devil-may-care rogue in his introductory scene, but every aspect of his character thereafter showed clearly that Picard was right, he remained Starfleet at heart. I'm not sure why anyone would want to try to prove otherwise. I could clearly see in his character the good starship first officer he once was.
(Voyager's Doctor in fact started to escape sickbay within the first half of the very first season, albeit only as far as the holodeck.)
Fair enough, I completely missed that line. I assumed from that episode that holos running around maintaining things was the norm.
Rios himself wants to prove otherwise. And even if his specific grievances against Starfleet were all Oh's doing the fact of the matter is that Starfleet has had these issues for so long (evil admirals are a thing in Trek going back decades, and for centuries in-universe) that at some point being a decent competent person isn't something Starfleet has a monopoly on, and if anything being described as Starfleet doesn't mean what it should mean. The question probably should be why Picard was using Starfleet as a compliment when he in a live interview very much made it clear he hasn't been a fan of Starfleet for some time.
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...because Picard is completely out of touch? I mean, that was his entire character arc for the season: that he has been living as a recluse for years and is completely out of touch with what's going on in the outside universe, and his prolonged insularity combined with his stubborn pride (and, yes, hubris) caused him to misread (and thus inadvertently offend) multiple people through the season. Picard has always believed he knew best, and back when he was a starship captain in the throes of the action he was often proved right, leaving him unprepared for how to handle a time in his life when, having fallen both out of touch and out of practice, he finds himself getting things wrong.
That said, I still feel that the show itself supported Picard's assertion about Rios, even if it was less than tactfully made. Rios might have very complex feelings toward Starfleet, he might have tried to distance himself emotionally from his past career, he might try to present himself as a devil-may-care rogue, but honestly, everything we saw of his personality through the entire season said 'Starfleet', loud and clear. Starfleet has left its stamp on him and he can't get away from that - nor, I think, does he really want to. He believed in Starfleet, he believed in Starfleet's ideals, that's why the events on the ibn Majid gave him such intense cognitive dissonance, because how could the institution with such lofty ideals be responsible for something so appalling? Rios distanced himself from Starfleet not because he'd stopped believing in Starfleet's ideals but because, like Picard, he saw that Starfleet itself had failed to live up to those ideals, and saw also that no one else seemed to recognise that fall.
But I think the show demonstrated that Picard was right to see the best of Starfleet in Rios still. And if Picard felt he saw Starfleet in the way Rios runs his ship, one captain to another, who am I to argue?
I have a strange way of viewing Picard. Basically, it's Captain Jean Luc Picard attempting to deal with a post Deep Space Nine world and all the ambiguities thereof.
I think that's an appropriate way to look at it.
The single most defining moment of the series is, for me, Picard pulling his trump card and speech only for it to fail. I almost feel like the series should have began 15 years ago and had Picard react to all this and his life crumble.
I mean, it'd be a helluva time jump but these are some pretty interesting events.
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Picard's life didn't crumble, he was fine as Raffi rather succinctly put it in her first appearance. Picard is used to having things go his way, but even when they didn't here nothing was stopping him from retiring on the Ba'ku world with Anij or working on whatever Spock was doing. It's a bit odd that every Trek captain is shown to have completely no life outside of Starfleet, and one of the benefits of this show is showing you don't need to be in Starfleet to get things done (back to the La Sirena, it's hard to believe it's taken over 50 years to get any civilian ship featured in-depth).
I think Raffi is projecting given that Captain Picard is suffering survivor's guilt, feels responsible for the deaths of almost a billion people, has no family, and feels personally betrayed by the organization he dedicated his entire life to.
So, vineyard or not, his life sucks.
While he seemed to be sad in Generations about their loss, Jean-Luc was on very bad terms with his brother Robert (to put it mildly) and this was only somewhat alleviated in the episode Family.
Again I see no reason why the Mars attack would prevent Picard from getting together with Beverly or Anij. Or that woman he played the flute with in that one episode.
Picard wouldn't have felt that he deserved it.
He had MACHINES plucking the family grapes. I bet every bottle of Chateau Picard after 2487 is shit.
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