Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x08 - "Broken Pieces"

[Timo]

Which brings us back to a continuity point on TNG...that nobody knew Soong had created Data for something like 18 years before "Datalore," even though Data had been created in Soong's image. Soong's face must not have been very well known, that even cyberneticists, who would surely have been interested in Data, didn't recognize him.

Or, conversely, cyberneticists were immediately convinced that a tin man with the face of Soong was a prank, what with all the stars aligning: Soong was the ideal butt for jokes like that, faces to tin men were easy to do, and as far as anybody knew, Data actually being a Soong creation was the least likely of the possible explanations. After all, it would be the very cyberneticists who specifically would know Soong couldn't put a sapient android together to save his life.

Did we ever know computers to do this in Trek?

To the contrary, computers seem wary with likenesses, probably because looks can be trivially forged. See for example Kodos/Karidian.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RPOW0614]

I've only read the last couple of pages but here is my take.
I most certainly think that BF is a Data clone\copy.
He could have changed his appearance in numerous ways to be unrecognizable as a Data copy\clone.
Or a much younger version of Data, or much older.

If I can change the shape\length\size and location of the eyebrows, among numerous other options, on my avatar in ST: Online why can't super advanced, sentient robots do the same in a fictional story?

 

[Noname Given]

Maybe, but you'd think senior officers would be briefed on Data's history, which would include Soong-- who is old Data without makeup. Plus which, any new arrivals on the ship would be scanned and you'd think the computer would flag such an odd similarity in appearance. It seems a bit of a stretch.

Why would Data be such a big deal to your average starfleet officer. If Rios was the science officer; and an expert in cybernetics, maybe.

Other than that Data was just another Star Fleet officer. To think that Star Fleet would brief every officer after the situation shown in the film "Star Trek: Nemesis" is (imo) ridiculous.

Also given the fact that Rios was in a red uniform, I doubt he had anything to do with the Science division. To try and claim that he had any interest in cybernetics isn't shown by anything on screen. None of the mementos he still had were shown to be cybernetics related; and if he were a cybernetics expert; he should have recognized Dr. Jurati as soon as she beamed on board his ship.

And to be honest, in the Grand scheme of things, sorry but Data didn't do anything that was all that extraordinary WRT Starfleet. The one person who believes it was extraordinary, Jean-Luc Picard, is doing all this out of a sense of duty to Data's personal sacrifice; and because he wants to pay him back in a way.

 

[Timo]

Well, everybody Worf ever meets knows Worf. He's that big, basically solely by virtue of being unique.

Data was unique, too. And he occupied the very same position as Worf, the bridge of the UFP Flagship that poked her nose in every galactic incident and was known to all.

It really isn't a question of whether Data was known. It's a question of whether he has been forgotten. Picard was, sort of - as per the scene at the reception desk of SF HQ. In 2375, nobody would have failed to notice if a Picard copy boarded their ship. In 2399, Picard can waltz in on places wearing just a silly eyepatch and remain incognito. But of course Picard looks different from how he did in 2375. And the point here would be that Data doesn't, that Data somehow is recognizable to the audience as soon as we see him under the alias of Beautiful Flower.

I'm not sure I could see that happening. It's wrong from both ends: making Data anonymous in-universe while still keeping him Data, and making Spiner convince us that he's still Data, beyond two and a half seconds of heavily retouched close-up. But perhaps the plot can work with 2½ s of close-ups again?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Search4]

So why would Starfleet order "Beautiful Flower" killed ASAP if he looked like Data--

and not order the same for Data in the 20 years they had that chance?

 

[Midquest]

I assume Beautiful Flower is a flesh and blood android, which crosses the dividing line that seems to really freak people out. Data obviously wasn't that.

 

[Timo]

So why would Starfleet order "Beautiful Flower" killed ASAP if he looked like Data-- and not order the same for Data in the 20 years they had that chance?

In that scenario, we'd need to assume that the "14 years ago" Zhat Vash initiation scene marked a new development of some sort: the first-ever initiation in which the specific threat posed by Soongian androids was associated with the more generic ancient holy mission.

I fear the nature of the threat will be the one weak point of the story: it won't be severe enough to motivate even a group of zealots, it won't make sense in closer analysis, it won't cover the established bases. Star Trek is great with limited-scope concepts. With really big ones, it's likely to stumble.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Llywela]

So why would Starfleet order "Beautiful Flower" killed ASAP if he looked like Data--

and not order the same for Data in the 20 years they had that chance?

Because Starfleet didn't issue the kill order. Oh did - using her Starfleet credentials, to be sure, but she is in a high enough position to be able to do that. Rios and Vandermeer both thought the order came from Starfleet, because to them Oh was speaking on behalf of Starfleet, but she was actually acting on behalf of the Zhat Vash. And if she could cover up everything that happened on the ibn Majid, she could also give that order without reference to anyone else in Starfleet Command and then cover up having done so.

20 years ago when Data was serving she had not yet infiltrated Starfleet to a position of power that would enable her to take that kind of action against him.

 

[Timo]

Sort of works against those claims of an ancient and just vendetta. If they only lash out when they can, and leave things be the rest of the time, and still nothing bad ever happens...

Timo Saloniem

 

[Llywela]

Sort of works against those claims of an ancient and just vendetta. If they only lash out when they can, and leave things be the rest of the time, and still nothing bad ever happens...

In fairness to the Zhat Vash - not that we should be fair to them, since they are terrible, but in their own minds at least they are heroes, and anyway, in fairness to them, Agnes said that they didn't see Data as the dangerous tipping point himself but rather as a warning. I've no doubt they'd have taken him out if they'd ever got close enough, just to be on the safe side, but he was the reason they infiltrated Starfleet in the first place - probably in part to get close enough to him to destroy him, but since he got himself destroyed anyway without their help, the main objective was to prevent synthetic development from advancing any further, having recognised Data as a sign that the tipping point was close at hand.

It makes some sort of sense anyway, inasmuch as their entire credo was developed from a millennia-old vision received from ancient technology left behind by a dead people and crammed into a mere handful of seconds, and then left for them to interpret however they choose.

 

[fireproof78]

It makes some sort of sense anyway, inasmuch as their entire credo was developed from a millennia-old vision received from ancient technology left behind by a dead people and crammed into a mere handful of seconds, and then left for them to interpret however they choose.

Which explains the inconsistency. Much like a lot of doomsday cults throughout human history.

 

[Kilana2]

I can see almost all the different Rios personalities assembled here - including my Avatar.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'm sure that Data was a noteworthy figure, but I doubt he's so famous in-setting that he'd be as recognizable to the average Federation citizen or Starfleet officer as he is to people who watched him on TV and in the movies for years.

 

[Timo]

Nor should Worf have been, but there you have him.

And Worf isn't even uniquely distinct: the in-universe audiences probably can't tell Klingons apart anyway. Data has no peers in the pale-faced, yellow-eyed, back-combed category.

I wonder what public infotainment is like in the Trek future. Would Data be famous for his important achievements or not? Is it kosher to promote Starfleet figures in the first place, or are they considered baby murderers the whole lot, and kept out of sight even when they save the galaxy? Is it tactically convenient never to name the people who stopped Armageddon, and never to reveal quite how they did it, or how close the universe came to ending?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kpnuts]

I know this is CBS/Secret Hideout Trek, but did the Zhat Vash really have to be exclusively women?

 

[Timo]

There might be something to it plotwise, really, what with this Five Queens of Hearts thing and the twins or triplets or quintuplets of female bio-androids.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Midquest]

Seeing as we're sixty pages in, this seemed like a good point to jump in and offer my two main thoughts after this episode:

1. Santiago Cabrera is a delight. (See avatar, which is wearing the Enoch persona today.)
2. I was afraid that the revelation about the Zhat Vash would be underwhelming; I mean, how often do big revelations in fiction end up being less interesting than their build up? And maybe I'd have felt underwhelmed except that they wrapped the revelation in a bigger mystery. Good move, I think. I want to know more about the ancient octonary-builders, and I want to know what phantom species has been presiding over the galaxy for millennia, watching, ready to intervene if artificial life advances too far.

Great stuff. I am loving this series so much.

 

[Kilana2]

Seeing as we're sixty pages in, this seemed like a good point to jump in and offer my two main thoughts after this episode:

1. Santiago Cabrera is a delight. (See avatar, which is wearing the Enoch persona today.)

Great stuff. I am loving this series so much.

I couldn't agree more. The hologram stuff is hilarious. I hope Cabrera doesn't shave off his beard in the form of another hologram.

Other than that I want to know more about the Android stuff.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I know this is CBS/Secret Hideout Trek, but did the Zhat Vash really have to be exclusively women?

Narek isn't a woman.

 

[Llywela]

I couldn't agree more. The hologram stuff is hilarious. I hope Cabrera doesn't shave off his beard in the form of another hologram.

It would make filming continuity difficult, so unlikely

I know this is CBS/Secret Hideout Trek, but did the Zhat Vash really have to be exclusively women?

Is there any particular reason why they shouldn't be?