Spoilers Santiago Cabrera as Captain Cristóbal "Chris" Rios

Why would he need to be treated by the EMH then?
I'm not totally convinced of this.
The little bit of backstory we have on Chris Rios is that he is a Loner.
Having only EH's as company fits that description to a T.

 

Rios: Give me one good reason why I should help you!
Picard: You think the Federation will stop at banning the synths? Your precious holograms are next!
Rios: ... Ok, I'm in.

 

I am not sure if Rio's is a EMH but he might be a synth. I think one of the things we might see on the show is more advanced synths are out their and have been for years. More advanced than the primitive proto-Data types we saw help destroy the Mars shipyards.


Jason

 

I’m leaning towards this theory too. Whatever he is, he’s more dominant than the rest of the holograms and can control them, but death or some kind of integration will give us a more rounded, single Rios personality for Season 2.

 

I find it difficult to believe that Raffi wouldn't know if Rios was a Synth.
They've supposedly known each other for a very long time.
And as angry as Raffi is at Jean-Luc, I'm pretty sure she would have told him by now if it were the case.

Also, there's really no reason for Rios to fake an injury just as Picard comes aboard.
Jean-Luc is the poster-child for endorsing Android/Synth Rights.
A 'Synth' Rios would most certainly know this and realize that Jean-Luc is probably the only one in Federation Space right now that can be trusted.


Also, that whole conversation with the ENH about Picard would really not be necessary.

 

Interesting that the Zhat Vash couldn't care less about the A.I. entities known as EMHs. Must be their wit & charm winning over hearts & minds. Insidious.

 

I think he literally means Starfleet vanished the ship and crew. I think the Ibn Mājid was sort of a testing ground ship almost all crewed by holograms like The Doctor. Only a few humans on board, including Rios’s Captain.

I think the holograms messed up big time, probably by forgetting that non-holograms need INTERNAL DAMPENERS so they don’t get well...turned into bloody heaps of biomatter on the walls.

Rios could only witness this if he was a hologram, that does not need INTERNAL DAMPENERS.

As far back as Prometheus which had holo emitters on all decks right? Starfleet just needed to have the holograms become more capable.
Probably using Voyagers EMH as proof of concept that it could be done long term.

 

He probably my wanted to appear like a tough pirate type with his ship, and also assure the thought in Picards mind that Rios is human.

Rios ship is immaculate. Where would such a large piece of metal come from? The ship clearly has hollow emitters everywhere. They could take out the holographic metal, but a dermal regenerator would not work obvious so he was adamant to EMH-Rios to not do that.

 

What? No, I don't think that is what happened and in all fairness it sounds pretty ridiculous. If Rios's issue stemmed from Holograms being dumb, then why would he have them on his ship? How could he trust them? The implication I got was that Rios failed to protect his Captain from being murdered/executed. I think Rios is probably going to be a Ro Laren like character. The Ibn Majid was on a sensitive mission it went awry, and the Captain died. I think the fact that Rios has holograms that all look like him is supposed to be symbolism that he only trusts himself.

 

They can’t assimilate you.

 

Rios has a conversation with the ENH about repairs to the navigational system - I imagine something went wrong with that, there was an explosion, and that was where the shrapnel came from. The ENH was left to repair it while Rios met with Picard.

For my money, I think Rios is fully human - just another damaged individual in this motley crew of damaged individuals.

 

I love the idea his entire crew are holograms of himself, playing each differently. It's genius.

The real version of him though is a generic Han Solo type, and the scene where he's sitting there with shrapnel in his shoulder was cliche as F. I wonder if they looked up the guy who played Okuna first. Early days yet though.

 

After just watching this weeks READY ROOM, it's very obvious from Wheaton & Hurd's conversation that Rios is NOT a Hologram Character.
Next week Will is interviewing Cabrera, so we'll probably find out for sure then.

 

Thank you, my stupid phone autocorrected the word.

 

From that interview it’s clear they didn’t know each other before their respective traumatic incidents, so it still leaves a lot to be explained about Rios’ past.

 

Santiago Cabrera seemed to have stepped right off the set of Salvation. (As someone else mentioned, he was one of the few good things about that show.)

Great introduction to his character(s) this week. I am already fully on board with both him and Raffi.

 

It would be a tragic mistake to not make Rios himself a hologram. Imagine the writing possibilities

 

Since Wheaton indicated at the end of this weeks READY ROOM that Mr. Cabrera would be his guest next week, I'm thinkin' we are probably going to get a bit more info on his character's background in the next episode.

 

I hope Will pushes hard for spoilers. I doubt he will due to his nature but to would be nice to have him grill Cabrera to reveal some secrets. Will is smart enough to use wordplay to trick people into revealing things.