"Someone shows up," similar to how the Vulcans showed up to cause First Contact at Cochrane's first warp ship. So is synthetic life the problem, or just the bait that invites the problem?
Elnor seemed a little naive, "Are you going to assimilate me now?" He was curious, and also mostly expecting it. And Seven's black eyes was a cool effect, even if we've never seen it before. I like that they made her character say, "And... I'm not sure I'd want to release them." She knows what
temptation means. (And so did Data... for 0.68 seconds)
Oh, and so, spaced Borg, they'd be able to live for a bit in space, but if you're just floating, you're not really contributing to much. Just more pre-warp-jump ejected trash flotsam (sorry, wrong fandom).
Oh is half-Vulcan, and half-Romulan. What does that even mean...
And why do the Borg just abandon a huge, useful ship?! Do they have so many they just don't care about this one, like a once-used tissue? Eh, I've got a whole box of 'em, half a booger so throw this one away. One freakin' ex-Borg just activates the ship and scares off the **** Rommies with only one minor, unrelated skirmish beforehand. Wish we saw somebody scratching out that sign, "5438 days without an assimilation" before dashing to an escape pod.
Also, the Romulans reported right at the end that they have found the homeworld? Really? Even our characters haven't! They are heading there, which isn't quite the same as "finding" it. Maybe I'm just being pedantic. So while they were saying that, all the Romulan ships were leaving the Artifact. Borg Cubes in the middle of the boot-up sequence ("Please wait... installing updates" must really suck at that scale) are really scary.
I appreciated Picard's not knowing how to operate the ship. He's Starfleet (which is why he wants to depend on a larger group; being a team player is important to the survival of a species like ours), and this ship is not Starfleet, and also customized out the wazoo by Rios. The different psyche components (apologies to Freud's mere 3) in the holos was great.
I like the general backstory, like Rios on his ship, and the poor dude who was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Follow shady orders and [not] live with the guilt, or let your whole crew die. That his back story ties in with $PLOT_OF_THE_DAY is a little disappointing. At least one of these people has a life outside of this plot: Raffi and her estranged son. (Well, she is the estranged one.)
@Gonzo https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/star-trek-picard-1x08-broken-pieces.303359/page-15#post-13309054, she wears sun
glasses because it gives her a sense of Security to wear them.
Picard had some very touching and inspiring statements in his conversation with Soji 3/4 of the way through.
