Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x09 - "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"

It's hard to punish her if they don't know that she did it.

 

An entire ship was classified. That requires a lot of people. People who didn't ask enough questions.

 

These are are very different from what we've seen before and clearly more organic. What they can and can not do isn't limited by what came before.

 

Sutra reminds me of Lore.

 

Not to mention that Spock mindmelded with a probe--the process could be reversible.

 

When Soong said something like, "My father had me, but he still built Data!", that sounded very much like Lore.

 

Shit happens. TV shows aren't meant to be realistic.

 

"Yes, I'm thinking of calling this next one, Infodump. Whaddya think? It's either that or Basil Exposition."

 

Until Daystrom started to agree with it, which makes me question is that a malfunction?

Logic only works based upon information inputted.

Yes, it is possible to justify those horrible things based upon logic. Logical fallacies exist, and can lead to horrible outcomes.
Logic is not some protective perfect decision making process. It is based upon information and can be just a fallible as emotional reasoning. It concerns me that there is a view logic is somehow some safe haven that is completely perfect.

 

I thought the same thing. I'm pretty sure Chabon said in one of his Instagram Q&As that Lore wouldn't be making an appearance this season, but that could have been misdirection.

 

You made a mistake trying to gotcha me with semantics. Don't try to rationalize it.

What info are the Soong robots/Robot Gods missing? They seem to be pretty well educated.

Fallacies are the opposite of logic usually made without any logic at all but rather with emotion and/or in an attempt to illicit an emotional response that feels true but isn't. "In reasoning to argue a claim, a fallacy is reasoning that is evaluated as logically incorrect and that undermines the logical validity of the argument and permits its recognition as unsound."
Again, you've made a mistake. What's the point in pushing it to a conclusion that I'm sure you don't believe?

 

Even the whales had a better plan than that.

 

I don't believe that logic cannot be used to justify horrible things? O_o

Yeah, I made a mistake with the M5. But, I know that logic can cause problems for thinking. Logic alone is not the solution.

 

I'm trying to free my thoughts from the fact that this one ended on a cliffhanger. So yes, obviously, things will go horribly wrong at the last hour before the finale resolves everything, so I don't think it will just conclude with the Zhat Vash proven right and Picard joining forces with Oh to carpet-bomb Coppelius or something. Still, I'm quite anxious to see how it will all end, but I'm confident that Chabon is a good enough writer not to undermine his own message.

Given what the series argued for in previous episodes, I feel the synths will turn out to be misguided, not villainous, and most of the blame will be put on Sutra for drawing the wrong conclusions from the Admonition... not at all unlike the Zhat Vash, how ironic. She had no reason to believe the ancient synths, and I think we might be headed for something like the Berserker Probe from Babylon 5 (A Day in the Strife, Season 3) that sought out civilizations to assess their level of technological development and eliminated any that was advanced enough to be a threat to its creators. Thinking of how the crew floated the warp drive as a convenient benchmark, maybe the development of sapient synthetic life is just another indicator of an advanced civilization, and there's no synthetic Federation at all, maybe it's just a rogue AI that doesn't really care about the synths it reaches out to, and that realization will convince them to refuse its offer. Alright, I'm not really talking about what happened in the episode, but I think after such a cliffhanger it's just natural, after all it really felt like it was just Act I of a whole story. Maybe seen together with Part 2 and with the whole picture, the ratings would be far different.

Right now, the situation feels like the beginning of The Battle of the Five Armies, with the synths, especially Sutra and Soong Jr. basically standing in for Thorin suffering from the Dragon Sickness, only looking out for themselves and not caring if Morgoth's allies consume everything outside... the free races of Middle-Earth staring each other down anxiously until it all erupts in a free-for-all, then in the end it will coalesce around two clear sides fighting for good and evil. So right now, we have the remainder of Picard's crew, the Borg, the Synths, the Romulans, Starfleet cavalry which is obviously coming to the rescue at the climax next week and of course the creators of the Admonition if they're actually summoned. Six armies to narrow down, but who is Smaug? (It's Khan, naturally).

Coppelius Station reminded me of those secluded utopian communes from TNG with an aesthetics straight out of Voyager (or maybe just 90s television with its tendency to film everything on location in the LA area), so ultimately I shouldn't have been surprised that it turned out to be not at all perfect. Especially now that we met Sutra who's basically the Lore to Soji's Data, even killing one of her own just to get what she wants. At least they don't look the same.

Observations:

• The whole opening sequence was just HOLY SHIT. No words. The Borg transwarp corridor, the battle against Narek, the orchids, everything.
• Btw, the transwarp corridor's aperture looked really like the red matter wormhole from ST09. It's probably just a coincidence.
• "Puta madre!" - finally we hear a curse whose literal translation is also used in my native Hungarian! Seriously though, we need an Emergency Hungarian Hologram yelling constant streams of cifrakáromkodás ("flashy swearing") while drinking home-made pálinka.
  
• "What just happened?" - I always love when you directly quote my goddess Sylvia Tilly, Jean-Luc.
• I'm glad the La Sirena has different phasers than Starfleet. I always love worldbuilding with random props.
• I was wondering at first if Soong Jr. is actually a Tainer-type synth, given that his name is literally A.I. Soong. Given that he's convinced he's dying of old age, he probably isn't... which means Soong really was a monomaniac.
• The emotional scenes with Picard meeting and saying goodbye to Elnor as well as his last scene with Raffi were beautiful. Seriously, Elnor is so cute, I can't help but adore him.
• And as an extension of what he said, seeing Seven casually toss Romulan corpses to the floor fills me with joy .
• Speaking of adorable, Spot II

 

Seems like a BIG theme these days....Westworld, ST, X-Men comics....

I still enjoy it. But maybe 'evil Sahj' should be played more sympatheticly...unless we find she was made with Lore's engrams maybe?? And the rest were made with B4?? I dunno. Again, i want to say it would be better if she were played with sympathy (her sister murdered and all). And as i realize fully she MURDERED that one girl just to convince her people organics are evil....im more convinced she was made with Lore.

As for Short Treks....ugh...that tribble episode. Am i supposed to believe the captain there was supposed to be the good guy?

 

Nomad did read Uhura's mind before wiping it. That would indicate some level of telepathic mind-reading.

 

No, you also made a mistake in what a "logical fallacy" is. In the end no machine has ever slaughtered millions of people of its own will. People do that with their selfishness, emotionality, and fallacious arguments. Speculating that robots with pure logic would just go on a murder spree is a complete passing of the buck when we all know who the real problem is. Even from an appeal to Trek tradition it doesn't float. The logical teachings of Surak don't even allow animals to be slaughtered for food. You don't really believe that genocide can be a rational, logical action. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on that.

 

Oh's not a Changeling who replaced an existing admiral. She rose in the ranks and commands an official position in the Starfleet hierarchy. She ordered a Starfleet captain to murder two synths, and a Federation citizen to kill one of their creators, and both obeyed. Starfleet's hands are bloody here, and at best you're arguing negligence.

 

I just want to say it’s positively wild how I was just reading random pages about that particular Babylon 5 episode as well as The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies last night before bed and now here you are cleverly referencing both!

 

Ok.