Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x09 - "Võx"

[Quantum21]

This episode broke me. I was full on board of the Picard hype train when EP8 moved me to tears (I am glad I have my friend back.) and ready to overlook all the minor stuff that wasnt perfect. But then, it happened. Picard told Jack what is actually wrong with him, and a bit of dialogue pulled me right ot of the episode.

Jack: "So how much of me is me? Oh, funny! I've always known the world was imperfect. Broken systems, wars, suffering, violence, poverty, bigotry. And I always thought, if people could only see each other, hear each other, speak in one voice, act in one mind together...Who knew a little cybernetic authoritarianism was the answer?"

Who ever thought it was a good idea to write this bit of dialogue must either be totally unaware of the political and social climate, or be a massive troll. Oh watch out folks...its the authoritarians again and they sound like Bernie Sanders. Better dont open the red door.

This actually is a great line. I think you may have taken it differently than intended.

The rest of it is just reading into things that aren't there.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

This episode broke me. I was full on board of the Picard hype train when EP8 moved me to tears (I am glad I have my friend back.) and ready to overlook all the minor stuff that wasnt perfect. But then, it happened. Picard told Jack what is actually wrong with him, and a bit of dialogue pulled me right ot of the episode.

Jack: "So how much of me is me? Oh, funny! I've always known the world was imperfect. Broken systems, wars, suffering, violence, poverty, bigotry. And I always thought, if people could only see each other, hear each other, speak in one voice, act in one mind together...Who knew a little cybernetic authoritarianism was the answer?"

Who ever thought it was a good idea to write this bit of dialogue must either be totally unaware of the political and social climate, or be a massive troll. Oh watch out folks...its the authoritarians again and they sound like Bernie Sanders. Better dont open the red door.

From then on my brain was set on cynicism. And the next funny bit came along. Conveniently everybody under 25 is now controlled by the Borg. (Geordi should have never sent his daughter to college..) Damn millenials useless as always. But there was still one problem. One person who dared to question the best generation and their ways. Few moments later Shaw lies dead on the ground. Shot. ("If only he had more guns he could have stopped the bad guy" my brain chuckles and immediately follows up with "why did they have to make it political" decending into madness.)

Should have called the show Boomer saves the universe.

I think this is a real reach, to be honest. (Under 25s are not really millenials as the term is normally used btw. Millennials are older.) I do think the political message is a bit muddled, but I don't see the relevance of Bernie Sanders, who has been a marginal political figure in one country, not really an important voice since 2016. The 'techno authoritarianism' could just as easily be a critique of eg Facebook and big tech, and more generally how seductive fascism is.

 

[Bay17]

The ship display shows the Oberon, Gilgamesh, Okuda, Sutherland, Ganymede, Callisto, Venture, Drexler, Huygens, Akira

Resnik, Excelsior, Clark, Ross, Magellan, Appalachia, Gagarin, Reliant, Tourangeau, Reliant, Thunderchild, Harlan, another Clark?, John Kelly, Forrest, Zheng He, Helios, Shackleton, Christopher

And the USS Hikaru Sulu

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

And the USS Hikaru Sulu

All the human names... it's making me think either this is just some kind of Sol home fleet, or Star Trek is starting to get a bit honest about how the Federation is basically a Human Empire. A homo sapiens only club, as someone once put it.

 

[Romulan_spy]

... ok, so what is the deal with old Borg and future Borg? ... enlighten me between season 2 and 3 storyline flow.

There are now 2 Borg groups. There is the OG Borg Collective from the DQ. They were decimated by Janeway in Endgame. As we see in this ep, the Queen is in bad shape. She cooks up this plan with the changelings to get revenge on Starfleet. Then there is the alt-Borg Cooperative as we see in S2. They are Borg who through the time travel shenannigans in S2 reject authoritarianism and decide to only accept new drones voluntarily and ultimately become allies of the Federation. Jurati becomes their Queen and they are guarding that spatial rift at the end of S2.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

There are now 2 Borg groups. There is the OG Borg Collective from the DQ. They were decimated by Janeway in Endgame. As we see in this ep, the Queen is in bad shape. She cooks up this plan with the changelings to get revenge on Starfleet. Then there is the alt-Borg Cooperative as we see in S2. They are Borg who through the time travel shenannigans in S2 reject authoritarianism and decide to only accept new drones voluntarily and ultimately become allies of the Federation. Jurati becomes their Queen and they are guarding that spatial rift at the end of S2.

One thing I don't understand, maybe just forgotten ... the creation of the new friendly borg happened in the Confederation timeline. How come they now exist in the main timeline too?

 

[jackoverfull]

You're not supposed to ask perfectly reasonable questions like "how is Jean-Luc going to explain to his girlfriend who he spent the whole last season agonizing over and was just about to start a new life with elsewhere that he has a son with his ex and that he wants to be a part of his son's life now that he knows the son exists

sounds pretty easy to explain, especially as he already told Laris about Beverly. And I don’t get the feeling JL and Beverly are getting back together, there are plenty of couples where one of the partners has kids with previous lovers, even today.

how come he hasn't mentioned that oh-so-important-last-season girlfriend even once ever since she conveniently disappeared from both the show and the plot

it’s not like he had much time to tell her what he’s been up to in the last twenty years.

despite being the perfect person to take with on his 'trust no one' mission, given how she's a former Tal'Shiar agent... etc... etc..."

Didn’t she have something else to do?

I'd really like to believe this is the last we'll see of them (please!), but I reckon it's more likely they'll be around forever, like the damned Daleks. I'd be okay with both of them going away forever. One can but hope.

weren’t the Borg mentioned in season 4 if discovery? They surely still existed in some form in “the far future” on Lower Decks.

OH how I would've loved to have seen the modified Galaxy-class ships from the future part of "All Good Things...." amongst the fleet of Starfleet ships gathered near earth in this episode. Hey, just because we saw it in a future that never came to be doesn't mean that Starfleet wasn't going to make them anyway in the Prime timeline

especially as lower decks showed an Olympic class ship already!

I know a lot of Trekkies hated this design because it looked like a kitbash but I'm ngl, it has grown on

I was never a big fan of the design, but it grew on me watching Hidden Frontier. And the added bulk of the third nacelle surely helps to make her more balanced.

I had no problems with SF adding 2 more phaser strips on top of the original nacelles because it increased the coverage

I think the Galaxy ships we see on later seasons of DS9 had those anyway.

The Queen's Borg cube seemed different to the "Artifact" cube, still in ruins and understaffed - I have a feeling there's no real Collective anymore and the Borg has split up into different "Collectives" (likely helped along by the other Queen from S2). Makes the S3 Queen seem more of a petty, bitter loner that wants to tear down the Federation.

got the same feeling.

 

[MisterD]

I think this is a real reach, to be honest. (Under 25s are not really millenials as the term is normally used btw. Millennials are older.) I do think the political message is a bit muddled, but I don't see the relevance of Bernie Sanders, who has been a marginal political figure in one country, not really an important voice since 2016. The 'techno authoritarianism' could just as easily be a critique of eg Facebook and big tech, and more generally how seductive fascism is.

Oh fair enough. Of course whatever we interpret right into it is subjective. I might have watched one or two insane outbursts of Ben Shapiro type goons to much to not be remindet in this crap.

(of course I know that millenial is inacurate. It was kind of a joke since many people use "millenial" synonymous with "young person I dont like")

 

[Quantum21]

Ironically, one thing I always thought was wrong with the Borg was that there was no other side to the story. Sharing a connection, understanding other people and working in unison can certainly have its plus side. So where were the "good" networked cyborgs!?

Jack may be right, but he was being facetious with the last part. It's interesting because he had a deep feeling considering his experiences that connection is the way forward. But how it's done makes all the difference.

TNG made the Borg a good villain but simplistic.

 

[SG-17]

This episode broke me. I was full on board of the Picard hype train when EP8 moved me to tears (I am glad I have my friend back.) and ready to overlook all the minor stuff that wasnt perfect. But then, it happened. Picard told Jack what is actually wrong with him, and a bit of dialogue pulled me right ot of the episode.

Jack: "So how much of me is me? Oh, funny! I've always known the world was imperfect. Broken systems, wars, suffering, violence, poverty, bigotry. And I always thought, if people could only see each other, hear each other, speak in one voice, act in one mind together...Who knew a little cybernetic authoritarianism was the answer?"

Who ever thought it was a good idea to write this bit of dialogue must either be totally unaware of the political and social climate, or be a massive troll. Oh watch out folks...its the authoritarians again and they sound like Bernie Sanders. Better dont open the red door.

From then on my brain was set on cynicism. And the next funny bit came along. Conveniently everybody under 25 is now controlled by the Borg. (Geordi should have never sent his daughter to college..) Damn millenials useless as always. But there was still one problem. One person who dared to question the best generation and their ways. Few moments later Shaw lies dead on the ground. Shot. ("If only he had more guns he could have stopped the bad guy" my brain chuckles and immediately follows up with "why did they have to make it political" decending into madness.)

Should have called the show Boomer saves the universe.

You're reading like 5000% too much into this.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

@Cortez
I agree with a few of the critiques you've written about this season. I think Terry Matalas is being credited for things that really aren't true. Like Discovery's season 1, Picard 3 has been dark, lit dark, with lots of main characters starting off at odds with, if not disaffected from, one another. There are superficial borrowings from past episodes and lots of ship porn. Etc, etc., etc.

In the end, the season is a big fuzzy blanket. And that's OK. I think there is room for cozy science fiction in Star Trek, and I think it would have been better embracing a lower stakes story in order to achieve that coziness. Nothing is innovative. All the people who are suddenly in love have gone back to trashing the next iteration of the franchise (I'm looking at you, Robert Meyer Burnett). In the end, it's just a bunch of comfort food, and that appears to be what the audience wants,

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I liked most of it. I need to process.

Not bad at all though.

 

[vulcancicada]

Trek has regularly been a champion of individuality, and individuals working together, versus individual personality being subsumed under cultural or physiological uniformity.
At the same time, it has always had a kind of antagonistic relationship with many elements of transhumanism, or changing biology in many ways — genetic, cybernetic, and arguably even ideological (you do not leave the federation nor abandon its ideals, and species tend to stick to homogenous patterns within it) with few exceptions.
These Changelings are heretics twice over essentially, they have rejected their Dominion status, and not even to come closer to the federation, and they have adjusted their physiology. To be fair, that was initially something done to them, by elements in the federation. Later they did it to themselves as others joined. But that makes them into something pitied essentially.
This is on top of the thing that Odo, and presumably other shapeshifters have had to deal with — explaining why many other shapeshifting races keep it secret, and even the Trill keep what amounts to personality shapeshifting mostly secretive for a long time— which is a sort of uncanny valley effect when dealing with non-malleable races.
I do not think their status as shapeshifters this season was commentary — except in a very traditional ‘reds under the bed’ way — but their status as changelings were. They are the soldiers of the last war, mistreated by the victors, rejected by their own society. Led by zealotry, and given to brutality. I’ve said it before, but these guys are basically Isis or Daesh Changelings. Radicalised, and now buddied up with the other ‘old enemy’.
You could even argue the Borg Queen is Putin, I suspect.

Yeah definitely, I don't think they went out of their way to portray it this way, I just think it is just indicative of a broader human tendency to prefer fixed, static identities, ideals, etc. to the idea that these 'structures' are not structures at all and are constantly in flux as we age and have experience, whether we have awareness of it or not. But I guess it might be too much to hope for STU to apply post-structural commentary...maybe on discovery!

 

[MisterD]

You're reading like 5000% too much into this.

Yes. Thats why I wrote that my brain was set on cynicism. Its more of a commentary than an actual analysis.

In the end this series is (also) a piece of art in the tradition of a franchise that claims to be thoughtful and about social issues and philosophy and stuff. Its only fair to poke it with a stick and to explore what can be found in it.

 

[eschaton]

I've actually gotten the impression that Matalas, like Manny Coto, may actually be one of those rare right-wing Star Trek writers, considering some of the "fan" channels he's willing to go on.

That said, I don't interpret that line from Jack as being a political dig.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

This episode was a convoluted mess and quite frankly if this had been an episode of Discovery, there's no way people would be praising this writing and this plot as 10 out of 10 stuff. Like no fucking way. There is no way that Discovery would get away with Starfleet being portrayed as so blatantly stupid and negligent, the Borg assimilating everyone under 25, the sheer amount of plot contrivances, and setting the fanwank to post no-nut november levels. Hypocrisy thy name is Trekkie.

I swear to god the finale better be two hours long for all this shit to make sense.

Nostalgia covers a multitude of sins.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I've actually gotten the impression that Matalas, like Manny Coto, may actually be one of those rare right-wing Star Trek writers, considering some of the "fan" channels he's willing to go on.

That said, I don't interpret that line from Jack as being a political dig.

Maybe. To his credit, he has been granting access in a way no producer has done before.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

No: they’re going there for a good reason, not just for nostalgia’s sake

Well they are doing it for a reason.
I don't agree it's a good one.

 

[gweeps]

Sssh, you're not supposed to remember Laris. You're supposed to be all over the massively toxic 'we tried five times to be together' Picard/Crusher shipper stuff and the Enterprise-D bridge and the general nostalgia overload this season is throwing at you (which is now reaching its peak with an overall plot that puts even the most extreme and nonsensical TNG reunion fan fic to shame).

You're not supposed to ask perfectly reasonable questions like "how is Jean-Luc going to explain to his girlfriend who he spent the whole last season agonizing over and was just about to start a new life with elsewhere that he has a son with his ex and that he wants to be a part of his son's life now that he knows the son exists and how come he hasn't mentioned that oh-so-important-last-season girlfriend even once ever since she conveniently disappeared from both the show and the plot despite being the perfect person to take with on his 'trust no one' mission, given how she's a former Tal'Shiar agent... etc... etc..."

Ssssssh.

Pretty much this.

I wish Stewart had kept to his guns. Picard wouldn't be as massively talked about right now, but there'd be more deserved respect for its attempts at different things. Imagine a third season where Picard, Raffi, Elnor, Soji, Seven and Laris head out on a spy mission or something. They still could run across a few of the TNG folks.

But no...

 

[LongHauler]

a) Don't argue with a moderator in the thread. Take it to private message if you must.

Then a moderator shouldn't single out one poster BY QUOTING THEM if they want to keep things 'private'.

b) Don't call him Hoss.

Hoss is the polite way of saying what I was thinking. But by all means, if you'd rather the impolite was used instead...