When he...came back...he probably needed some memory reintegration therapy to deal with having memories of paralell lives. Good thing Counselor Troi is there...
Did Picard Truly Live a Second Life in The Inner Light?
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Makes one wonder how different that situation was compared to Picard's assimilation by the Borg.
Hugh said that on a Borg ship there are "thousands of voices with us always".
That could be dangerous to mental health.
On the other hand Picard was Kamin for decades and Borg for days but who knows how being a Borg feels like, does it feel like time is passing by?
As much as I love this episode, I don't find the "living a second lifetime" to be a big deal long term. It's like waking up from a super realistic dream, only on steroids. Captain Picard probably felt extreme disorientation upon first "reawakening" aboard the Enterprise, but his reactions in the next few moments are not those of a man who had just lived a literal lifetime as someone else (I reckon that would lead to a reaction more akin to that of Soran from Generations, and would have completely broken Picard altogether). In fact, it seems as time goes by, he recovers rather quickly, readjusting to his new/old environment with relatively few issues other than just getting used to being "awake" again. This also lines up with the fact that I doubt the Ressikans or Kataanans (whichever you want to call them) meant for there to be any lasting harm, and likely designed the probe to have just enough impact to leave a mark, but not to totally derail the life of the person the probe encountered. They just didn't seem that sinister to me.
Either way, I feel that time would eventually degrade Picard's memories of the event, and he would naturally heal, but I also feel he would write a full report including every memory he could muster regarding the experience while it was still fresh.
Either way, I feel that time would eventually degrade Picard's memories of the event, and he would naturally heal, but I also feel he would write a full report including every memory he could muster regarding the experience while it was still fresh.
I just don't see how they could have aimed so precisely for that, they still must have taken a pretty big gamble.
They were barely spacefaring (early space age technology), yet they must have had quite sophisticated knowledge of how the brain works, given they were able to create such a probe. But even so, they'd probably never seen or studied aliens, so how could they possibly know how brains of other species would work or how their probe would affect them? Even Vulcan brains apparently work quite differently from our own, and things that are relatively harmless to our brains could be devastating to theirs (see what happens to Tuvok in VOY: Flashback for example.) - and probably the other way around too.
Perhaps they should assimilate some mental health care workers, while they're at it.
But now that I think of it, that might be too cruel, even on the Borg. Imagine the collective, slowly driven mad by Troi's 'pedantic psychobabble' (as Q put it). I could easily see entire Cubes spontaneously self destructing to end the torture.
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Ultimately it's just memory implantation. Neurologically, his mind should still be intact. From a 24 the century perspective, some sessions with Troi for the social reintegration aspect & some fancy sci-fi neuro stimulation from Bev to reorient his memory is probably doable for them.
Hell, I'm not sure about O'Brien's situation, (haven't rewatched that one enough lol) but I imagine if they wanted to be jerks about it, they could just Pulaski-wipe all that Kataan crap right out of his head, if they were so inclined. Given the circumstances, Picard probably opted against such a thing, in this specific case
He really had the experience, IMO, even if it was only in his head. Was it a 'second life', though? No.
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