Is Picard Concealing Assimilation Effects?

[Mojochi]

Captain Picard... Have you fully recovered from your experience with The Borg?

Yes. I have fully recovered

Has he though? I mean, by the time this rather unscrupulous line of inquiry took place, I think we were meant to believe he had fully recovered, as it had been some time since his breakdown in Family, & by the time of I Borg, he seems to still be very serious about how it affected him, but it doesn't seem like he suffers effects... prejudices maybe, but not actual lingering effects.

However, First Contact sort of rewrote that, didn't it? He's having nightmares. He seems to still have connection to them, to some degree. Are these supposed to have been developments related to the current situation, or are we meant to think he's been living with it? It's never really made clear is it?

So I mean is Starfleet all that wrong to be a little wary about him? & is that a recent development too, because they certainly didn't seem to have much issue plopping him back in the captain's chair very soon after it happened

 

[F. King Daniel]

25 years later in Star Trek: Picard, it's very clear he's still not over them and has a panic attack upon beaming to the Artifact. But in that show he finally begins to understand what used to annoy me that he never did - that the Borg are victims, just like he was.

 

[Scionz]

As Rob Moore said years ago, Picard spending virtual-decades living as Kamin on Kataan (the Inner Light) should have been the most profound experience of his life. Just because it was a simulation doesn't mean the years of memories and emotions he felt weren't. I'd like to think that at some level, that put more distance between his Borg experience and the rest of his life. But TNG only briefly followed up on both.

 

[Timo]

Did he really live there for decades? All we saw amounted to less than a full-length movie - and we know those can easily span lifetimes, or centuries if need be. Quite possibly, Picard only ever got the highlights, a few snippets of a carefully faked life where even all the things Picard thought were his doing (using the telescope to decide how and when Armageddon comes etc.) were in fact scripted for the fictional Kamin. And while a movie may be an emotional experience, you get over it eventually.

Picard may be concealing how he feels. But the Borg are probably concealing more, so that Crusher is fooled into thinking she got the nanoprobes out, but they are still there, hiding, and ready to emerge and coalesce into a subspace transceiver for the purposes of ST:FC...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Did he really live there for decades? All we saw amounted to less than a full-length movie - and we know those can easily span lifetimes, or centuries if need be. Quite possibly, Picard only ever got the highlights, a few snippets of a carefully faked life where even all the things Picard thought were his doing (using the telescope to decide how and when Armageddon comes etc.) were in fact scripted for the fictional Kamin. And while a movie may be an emotional experience, you get over it eventually.

Kind of a different subject, but I think the flute is meant to imply that he spent legit time developing that skill. Not something you can become skilled at in highlights. It was a daily focus that improved him from totally unskilled, to near professional talent... to where in Lessons a year later, he can freely improvise at a pro level, & in Fistful of Datas can perform Mozart on it. He's clearly retained a lifetime of improvement with it, or at least that's the implication, even if we never saw the whole of the effort

 

[Timo]

Good point about the intent. Then again, speed-learning shouldn't appear an unlikely alternative in the context. Although apparently the Kataati probe does a better job at it than the Controller did... Or at least one with more staying power.

(Apart from that, we can argue "unskilled". If Picard is already familiar with music through some sort of formal education, learning the fingerings of a tin whistle isn't a chore. For all we know, he already had those more or less down pat from the mandatory recorder lessons back at school, and only had to learn the lipwork before he could start doing music with the whistle the way he had done with the recorder.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ragitsu]

So I mean is Starfleet all that wrong to be a little wary about him?

Wary because he may be emotionally unstable/afflicted with trauma or wary that he's sympathetic to the Borg? In any case, I take First Contact with a grain of salt because it is a product of the mid-1990s.

 

[JesterFace]

As Rob Moore said years ago, Picard spending virtual-decades living as Kamin on Kataan (the Inner Light) should have been the most profound experience of his life.

Perhaps the probe was user friendly. First it made Picard feel like he was living another life. After that program ended Picard had some memories from that life but also was able to return to his own life as if nothing massive had happened. Whoever the probe might find could be pretty pissed off if that person learned that yeah, your life was a simulation. Would that person be happy to share knowledge he had learned or be mad and never mention anything to anyone because he would be so pissed off.

 

[Mojochi]

Wary because he may be emotionally unstable/afflicted with trauma or wary that he's sympathetic to the Borg?

Well his own quote was that they were unsure about him being involved in the Borg engagement, which suggests that maybe they don't see him as necessarily sympathetic to the Borg, but at the very least compromised by them. He's still in a kind of contact with them in the movie. It's enough to give pause about how his influence is at best unpredictable, & at worst a catastrophic detriment akin to when he'd been assimilated

Now when he showed up, he actually went the other way, & became like a Borg precog, who knew what they were doing & where to attack as a result, from his sixth sense of them, but there'd be no way anyone in command could assume that outcome, nor the audience or his crew even. It's enough to be reasonably uncertain about him

 

[Timo]

Just to clarify, no previous encounter with the Borg had triggered a "contact mode" in Picard, so Starfleet wouldn't be wary of that one. Their distrust would have to be purely psychological, a doubt on Picard's mental stability or perhaps even his allegiances rather than a concern about his physiological vulnerability to Borg manipulation.

It's also quite possible Picard was being shunned simply because his colleagues and bosses still hated him, for what he did at Wolf 359. They couldn't act on that in normal circumstances, but anything involving the Borg would be the perfect excuse.

A grudge would be a more logical explanation for the witnessed sidelining of Picard than any educated medical or strategic analysis. After all, Starfleet ended up shunning an entire starship in the process, something a medical or strategic concern would never warrant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

But doesn't all of it kind of fall under the same umbrella? A grudge doesn't maybe, & that could certainly be a part of it. There's plenty of reasons for people to have grudges against Picard & Co. in general, & the Borg stuff is certainly a tool they could use to effect some retaliation, but apart from that, what's the difference between doubts about Picard's mental state or allegiances, versus open manipulation, as far as they're concerned?

It's the Borg after all, & for all intents & purposes they'd all be kind of connected, from a Starfleet point of view. Allegiance to the Borg, or having a mental state compromised in some way by the Borg are potentially as paramount as direct influence, & could in fact be directly connected, because of the nature of Borg influence.

We've never seen other "Contact mode" moments until the 1st Contact events, & it's fair to assume that Starfleet mightn't even be privy to the ones he has had anyhow, as a basis for their suspicions, (You'd want to keep that to yourself) but that doesn't mean there hasn't been others, & it isn't really the likely basis for any suspicions anyhow.

For example, he only got a dressing down from Nechayev, about letting Hugh go, but you have to assume that conversation amongst Starfleet command doesn't end at "He was wrong to do it". There is no doubt people bringing up the conspicuous implications that the once assimilated guy, who caused catastrophic loss, was the guy who happened let a captured Borg go.

He's probably passing all his psych evals, & not giving anyone any reason to take action about their suspicions... but those suspicions are probably still there... & they would extend to anyone who HE holds influence over too, like his crew, because... it's the big baddie & much like the conspiratorial precursor to the Borg, the Neural Parasites, it has the same dynamic of not knowing who you can trust with the Ex-Borg too... suspect by association

Besides, it's his ship. You kind of have to shelve the whole ship, if you're shelving the captain... unless you want to strip him of command... or reassign him... yet again, purely based on your unprovable suspicions

 

[DonIago]

What the Borg did to Picard (and others they've assimilated) is so invasive at so fundamental a level, and at a technological level so far beyond Federation tech, that I can't blame Starfleet for acknowledging that they simply don't know whether Picard is compromised and attempting to err on the side of caution.

We've witnessed numerous occasions where people were given clean bills of health after encounters with alien biological or technological items only for symptoms to later manifest.

Heck, after Data hijacked the ship in "Brothers" it's probably a minor miracle that he was allowed to continue serving.

 

[Mojochi]

Heck, after Data hijacked the ship in "Brothers" it's probably a minor miracle that he was allowed to continue serving.

I envision a HUGE amount of protocol changes, & security measures taking place after that... on top of a whole lot of assurances that the only way it could've happened in the 1st place was by actions of the architect himself, who is now dead, but even that would've been a whole lot of briefings, consults, & maybe even hearings, where their concerns must have been assuaged somehow. After all, Picard once again probably went to bat for Data, & as we know, he's one hell of a negotiator

But yeah, a miracle, given how easily they've been known to strip him of liberties

 

[DonIago]

One wonders whether it might have panned out differently if the little boy had died. Not directly Data or Soong's fault, but creating a homing beacon for Data that would seemingly override almost all other considerations...we didn't see him directly injure or kill anyone...was incredibly reckless.

 

[Mojochi]

One wonders whether it might have panned out differently if the little boy had died. Not directly Data or Soong's fault, but creating a homing beacon for Data that would seemingly override almost all other considerations...we didn't see him directly injure or kill anyone...was incredibly reckless.

Well, Soong is imho not the most responsible or scrupulous party to begin with. He's kind of a mad scientist, consumed by one goal above all other concerns in general, his family, the scientific community, & the autonomy of his creations, This is a guy who created one of his sentient lifeforms, & chose to conceal its true nature from it, & let it believe it was his wife. If he had a failing in his research or designs, he abandoned the model & just moved on, with little regard for them, despite his claims to the contrary. Lore in reality has some legit reasons to object to how he handled things, & even some consideration that a lot of what's wrong with him is not his own doing

Considering that, that he could never have anticipated Data achieving the level of responsibility of a Starfleet officer, who'd have countless lives depending on him, seems almost forgivable in context. Imagine if he'd been recalled during ANY of the much more dire circumstances we've seen Data in, like the Borg invasion of Earth, mere days/weeks earlier. The entire quadrant could've fallen to the Borg, if Soong had pushed himself ahead of schedule a tad by skipping a few night's sleep.

As to Starfleet's forgiveness of both Data & Picard, one has to wonder if seeing how easily any human could be hijacked just as readily, after recently seeing Picard assimilated, weighed in how they began looking at Data's hijacking. In fact, Star Trek characters of all varieties get possessed, hijacked, brainwashed, or otherwise taken over ALL the time lol, & when you're being objective about it, does Data's hold any more significance than those others?

 

[Timo]

But doesn't all of it kind of fall under the same umbrella? A grudge doesn't maybe, & that could certainly be a part of it. There's plenty of reasons for people to have grudges against Picard & Co. in general, & the Borg stuff is certainly a tool they could use to effect some retaliation, but apart from that, what's the difference between doubts about Picard's mental state or allegiances, versus open manipulation, as far as they're concerned?

I gather it's the remote control aspect. If Picard's putative traitorous leaning and intent was his own doing, Starfleet could dig it out of him with procedures mental and physical, and then definitively declare him cleared, cured, or forever incurable and untrustworthy. But if he is physically and mentally fine till the moment the Collective makes contact... That's the worst sort of sleeper agent imaginable, because they know he is one, yet they don't; they can never pin anything on him in court.

We've never seen other "Contact mode" moments until the 1st Contact events, & it's fair to assume that Starfleet mightn't even be privy to the ones he has had anyhow, as a basis for their suspicions, (You'd want to keep that to yourself) but that doesn't mean there hasn't been others, & it isn't really the likely basis for any suspicions anyhow.

He's damned either way. If he has been caught contacting and Starfleet can't figure out how and why it happens physically (Beverly did seem to believe in the successful extraction of the nanoprobes), the only proof they can get is interrogation of memories, telepathically or otherwise. And we know that for some unknown reason, this is not eligible in court, or at least sees zero use. (Even the psychotricorder is either a bluff, or then merely replays the person's psychopathological history rather than his memories.) A known but untouchable sleeper agent is not going to enjoy much of a career, even if he were the first to admit that such treatment would only be fair and logical. But if previous contact can be proven... Spies and traitors still are treated fairly conventionally, such as in "Drumhead" before the Spanish inquisition mode kicks in.

But I want to believe in ST:FC having been the, uh, first contact, seeing how it shocks Picard here, vs. his relative calm throughout the various TNG episodes and, say, "The Emissary". So I agree Starfleet suspects him on some other, far more general basis, and thus isn't able to take more effective containment measures in ST:FC.

Besides, it's his ship. You kind of have to shelve the whole ship, if you're shelving the captain...

Huh? No, it's not his ship. It's very much Starfleet's, and Starfleet can always send him fly a desk somewhere, or give him a science vessel that won't be missed in any big anti-Borg fights. This they could do while keeping the reasons implicit, or by stating them at his face with appropriate spittle. Few organizations are known for their timidity in HR matters, and the UFP's de facto combat arm shouldn't be one of those.

(That they don't in ST:FC only goes to show that Starfleet distrusts the whole ensemble cast, and considers the worthless E-E a fitting gaol for them for the duration of anti-Borg action. Although why nobody sabotaged the warp engines, nor was given orders to stun the top officers at the crucial hour, remains unexplained. Might be Nechayev turned that down when Raner proposed it, or vice versa.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

If you think about TNG series there wasn't much to conceal about the Borg from Picard. He wasn't happy when they found Hugh but over time he got to talk to him and even offered an asylum.

Then the movies went completely different way. Picard was in contact with them and there was the completely out of character moment when he yelled at Lily and started breaking stuff.

 

[fireproof78]

Then the movies went completely different way. Picard was in contact with them and there was the completely out of character moment when he yelled at Lily and started breaking stuff.

It's in character if one realizes that he is experiencing a flashback to a very personal trauma, something Hugh was not a part of. Trauma triggers are not always generic. They can be, but not always. Also, Picard had his full support system in subsequent encounters while in First Contact he did not.

 

[Ragitsu]

Then the movies went completely different way. Picard was in contact with them and there was the completely out of character moment when he yelled at Lily and started breaking stuff.

The mid 90s: edgy and dramatic. Even paragons of virtue were made "hard".

 

[JesterFace]

It's in character if one realizes that he is experiencing a flashback to a very personal trauma, something Hugh was not a part of. Trauma triggers are not always generic. They can be, but not always. Also, Picard had his full support system in subsequent encounters while in First Contact he did not.

Who knows if Hugh was in the collective while Picard was assimilated. Hugh did call him Locutus and believed what Picard told him while pretending to be Locutus.