Picard was actually killed off and replaced with a clone. So Picard and Data are officially dead. I think that a major character on Picard needs to be killed off, rather grisly. Something like Scotty's nephew dying in ST:II. Killing off second and third line characters really doesn't create an impact like killing off a major line character.
Transferring consciousness has been a thing since the Original Series. By Star Trek rules (as I understand them) Picard's still alive and he's still Picard... more or less. Unless he died back in Lonely Among Us and was replaced by a transporter clone then.
"Return to Tomorrow" (TOS) to be exact. One of the best episodes of the series. Here's a trailer to jog people's memories.
Technically speaking, Picard is an artificial life form now. As you can read below, Picard's new body was 'designed', that makes Picard artificial lifeform. Even if Picard's consciousness were transferred into the 'designed body', the consciousness would not connect to create a natural and living being. Picard is the galaxy's most sophisticated artificial life. The actions and thoughts of Picard are not his own and are merely synaptic recordings of Picard playing across artificially designed synapses. However, using Bruce Maddox’s consciousness transfer technology, Alton Soong and Dr. Jurati captured Picard’s consciousness as he was dying and downloaded him into a new organic synth ‘golem’ body. Picard’s new body was designed to be the same as his organic one, with the exception of being cured of Irumodic Syndrome. It is even designed to age and die. Unless anyone can explain how the center of Picard's consciousness and sub-consciousness both were able to adapt to the unfamiliar and new body of Picard, then Picard is an artificial lifeform.
Picard as character isn't dead as long as his Synth body is functioning. There's this thing called writer's intent. It's the intent of the writers that Picard is still alive, just in a new body. He's the same character he always was, he will act the same way as he would have as an organic being. His body is artificial, but the essence that is Picard is still alive in the body. There's no need for explanation, it just is. He is Picard in every way that matters. The same way when Ira Graves and Data swapped bodies in TNG.
Personally, I am very ok with some older characters being killed off on the show when it works for the story. Its something I always found to be weak sauce is that Valeris in Star Trek 6 wasn't Saavik. Saavik has a long history with the Enterprise crew and her betrayal would have had an emotional impact that we probably wouldn't have seen coming. Valeris is essentially "random crewmember" who is suddenly introduced as having a special connection to Spock simply for the purpose of betraying him. When she turns out to be the turncoat, it wasn't particularly interesting or surprising. Similarly, we could have had 7 of 9 deeply impacted by the death of her good friend Frank. However, since nobody knows Frank, nobody really cares. Given the reactions, I think it's clear that many people were impacted by the death of Icheb. As far as Data is concerned, his death in Picard felt way more personal and overall more satisfying than the one in Nemesis. That death felt more like closure to me than the blink and you miss it death and mourning with a glass of wine moment. Finally, I agree with the posters indicating that based upon the long history of consciousness transfers in Star Trek, that the intent was for Picard to live on. I wouldn't consider that a "death" in any real sense of the word.
I have to admit that I haven't seen the episodes of Voyager with Icheb in yet so his death was a real "Who's this guy and why are they pulling his eye out?" moment for me. Maybe it would've worked better (for me) if they had introduced Frank Borg, made us care about him in flashbacks (while also filling out a bit of Seven's post-Voyager backstory), then revealed his shocking death at an appropriate point in the story. Sure that wouldn't have been as much of a gut punch for Voyager fans, but why were they giving Voyager fans a gut punch just to set up a one-episode villain anyway?
As a voyager fan (not a huge one, it's my least favourite of all the series) I really didn't think it was a gut punch. He was a minor character, appeared in like 11 episodes. He was an interesting character, but his death serves as fuel for Seven's character in PIC. I'm not bothered by that. At least he got to live his dream and joined Starfleet.
I was sad when Optimus Prime died in the 1986 Transformers Movie, but not devastated. And I got by just fine when The Joker killed Jason Todd in the Batman Comics in 1988. And I was a kid, not a grown man. If the death of Icheb bothers so many, then they can't handle as adults what I could handle as a kid with characters who were far more prominent when they were killed off. Icheb was a supporting character, not a main character. Seven is a main character, who they brought back. And they had to explain why PIC Seven was in a such a different mental place than VOY Seven. "Show don't tell." They showed. And when I see it, I totally believe how Seven of Nine can be where she is now. The purpose of supporting characters is to help get the main characters where they need to be in the narrative.
Not this crap again. Scotty's nephew is a major character? He was never mentioned before, and literally introduced in that movie only to be killed off. And as I recall (maybe incorrectly), he wasn't even identified as his nephew on screen until the TV edit of the film when the exchange between Scotty and Kirk was restored.
Scottie's nephew was a major character because hid nephew was related to Scotty directly. Killing off the son of a very good friend of Scotties however would be a third line character based on the emotions involved or the emotions that were trying to be portrayed. Now if Scotty had brought his sister aboard and hid had been killed instead of his nephew, that would have left a life long stitch of emotions that can be played on by threat force characters.
Scotty's nephew was NOT a major character. He was a supporting character with a few lines to give Scotty a bit of an emotional arc and to show what Khan's initial attack cost Kirk for being unprepared, with the blood on his uniform. I get that you don't like PIC, but you don't have to distort TWOK to make your point.
Kirk's brother was killed off in TOS and this is barely remembered even by a lot of hardcore Trek fans.
That is not the definition of a major character. Precisely so. It's amazing to me the twists and turns in logic that are utilize to justify personal antipathy towards a show.
Heck, the theatrical release of the film cut the scenes that said he was Scotty's Newphew. They were readded in a 1985 ABC TV airing and the later director's cut DVD/Blu-ray versions of the film.
It just occurred to me that Picard seemed more broken up about his brother's death, even though they were on extremely bad terms, than Kirk was about his brother, who by all accounts he was on good terms with (although I might be misremembering)
Thank you for confirming this! I was pretty certain this is what happened (see my quote above from my earlier post), but... it's been 40 years since TWOK hit theatres!