Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x01 - "The Next Generation"

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The US Army was officially founded before the US existed, so there is precedent.

Well, not exactly.

The United States Army today certainly likes to think of itself as being the same institution as the Continental Army of the United Colonies, and certainly it's descended from it in terms of inherited cultural ethos and history. But by law, the Continental Army disbanded after the Treaty of Paris ended the war. Under the Articles of Confederation, a very small Regular Army was created (due to the then-common distrust of standing armies). It was reorganized into the Legion of the United States in 1791, which was then renamed as the U.S. Army in 1792.

This does at least suggest the possibility that trying to nail down one particular "birthday" for Starfleet might be more complicated than you would think, though.

if Picard and Riker show up, I think anyone (other than Clancy from Season 1 or Shaw) would immediately go with "you know, maybe I should go along with what these multiple universe saving Starfleet heroes are trying to do, in case it ends up saving everyone?" I know I would.

I dunno man. Real life is full of heroic people who subsequently went batshit crazy. Like, yeah, MacArthur probably saved the free world during World War II, but does that mean President Truman was wrong to fire him when he started defying presidential authority and wanted to nuke China during the Korean War? Everyone loved Rudy Giuliani for his leadership in the aftermath of 9/11, but he turned into a fascist lunatic now.

We know that Riker and Picard aren't that, because we're the audience members watching a show and we know how the narrative works. Characters within the narrative do not know they are in a story or who the main characters are.

Fair point, Sci, although I still don’t buy it. To me, it’s even crazier than Tilly being promoted to First Officer because Tilly at least had been through the Academy and had some rather extraordinary experience in the field subsequently.

I mean, yeah, the bit where Tilly is first office of the Discovery was a dumb decision and thank goodness got walked back quickly, but I don't really see the comparison. Seven of Nine clearly has the equivalent knowledge of multiple doctorate-level educations, she served honorably as a civilian senior department head and key part of the command crew aboard the USS Voyager, and then she spent something in the area of at least ten to fifteen years rendering extraordinary service in an anarchic part of space with the Fenris Rangers. She clearly has the command experience of at least a commander, and it makes perfect sense to commission her as such.

I don't miss the Picard cast at all. This is what should have been dine 4 years ago. What a waste of time.

How would you know? You don't pay enough attention to what's happening onscreen to really know what they should have done.

I am surprised Picard didn’t think of the La Sirena instead of taking Will’s suggestion of Starfleet, esp given Bev’s warning.

I assume that he knew La Sirena and Raffi were unavailable, even if he didn't know the details.

If I remember from some of the press/background blurb, Crusher had joined the equivalent of Space Doctors Without Borders. So the Elos being so named is the usual "hint" to that for an audience to do a quick google on.

Works for me.

I'm sorry, did I watch an alternate Picard season 2? La Sirena becaome the core and first ship of the Kinder, Gentler Borgrati and is likely still part of the diamond borg ship's core. She has a similar ship due to its mass production as a Kaplan F-17 Fast Freighter (and naturally a good reuse of the enormous and expensive set) but its definitely not the same ship.

As others have noted, that was the CSS La Sirena from the Confederation of Earth timeline. The S.S. La Sirena of the Prime Timeline was transported to the Federation fleet that joined with the Borg Commonwealth ship to save the quadrant from the space anomaly at the end of Picard S2.

Really like the first episode.

By the way, was District 7, the place with the Rachel Garrett statue, that got portaled a location on Earth? The architecture and the environment looked a lot like that might be the case.

I believe the implication is that it's all M'Talas Prime, and the attack took place against a Starfleet facility located on that planet. I don't think the entire building was just one giant Starfleet recruitment center, though. My hypothesis is that it was a planetary base and that the smaller building attached to the complex was the Federation Embassy to M'Talas.

Another thing about the attack: Is it possible that instead of using the cutting beam in combination with the tractor beam, like it was implied before, the Borg use a similar technology like the portal weapon for planet scooping?

That would explain how they can assimilate ground-based facilities and populations so quickly.

Raffi mentioned tracking items stolen from Daystrom, so I think it was implied the weapon was stolen from them. The Instagram logs appear to hint that a later plot point shown in trailers is also related to Daystrom.

Given that we know from Picard S1 that the other Soong-type androids ended up at the Daystrom Institute, I would theorize that the bad guys not only stole the portal weapon

but also stole and reactivated Lore and stole Moriarty from Daystrom's Self-Aware Megalomaniacal Computer Storage facility.

Like I'm hoping to God Matalas gets his 25th Century series with Seven and Raffi as the leads, because then we have a chance to properly explore the character.

I would love to watch Star Trek: Seven of Nine starring Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd. :bolian:

Looking at things like the aftermath of WW2, things lagged horrifically for the "old" powers in Europe especially while the USA was able to bounce back fairly well with the gold it had taken off of the British before lend-lease. In the UK it would be over a decade before rationing was abolished, in Germany 70% of the housing stock was demolished or bombed flat, France's economy was either bombed flat or past the point of economic viability.

Each power really wouldn't settle properly until the 60s if not the 70s, with ruins in various places lasting a long while during rebuilding.

The Federation would've suffered for quite some time after this for sure, even with new people in the service etc (and a lot might've gone into the service for the garuntees) and while it'd most likely recovered by the 2390s we then had the disaster at Utopia Planitia which resulted in the destruction of The Federations primary shipyards. Couple it with the various problems of the collapse of the Romulan Star Empire and the formation of the rather tenuous looking Romulan Free State... and the Federation has plenty of problems on its hands including a seemingly large scale Romulan Disapora of which a bunch if made up of former members of the Tal Shiar.

Except there was another attack. Plus, with a war as big as the Dominion one, and the terrible toll it took on the foundations of Federation society perhaps enlistment was harder to come by.

I don't think the Dominion War or the Mars Attack took a terrible material toll on the foundations of Federation society. A large segment of Federation worlds to the "west" were hit, but the core worlds of the Federation and the worlds closer to Klingon and Romulan space were untouched. The Mars Attack was a huge psychological blow, but it killed less than 100,000 people in a Federation with a population that probably reaches into the trillions. These are major setbacks, but I don't think they're decline-of-the-British-Empire level setbacks.

Also -- something else to think about is that the Federation no longer has any major rivals capable of projecting power on the same level it can. The Cardassian Union was in complete shambles after the Dominion War, essentially reduced to its home planet even before the Jem'Hadar tried to genocide their population. The Dominion have withdrawn to the Gamma Quadrant. The Breen Confederacy was clearly able to fend off potential invaders but was never able to project power on the scale of the other major powers until its energy-dampening weapon was a thing in 2375, but the Federation overcame that in about three weeks. The Romulan Star Empire has collapsed, and the Romulan Free State is both seemingly less hostile but also clearly less powerful than the Star Empire had been -- and it appears to be in competition with multiple Romulan would-be successor states. DS9's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" established that the Klingon Empire had been so depleted by the Dominion War that it was going to spend the next several decades in recovery mode, and that was before the Klingon Defense Force had to single-handedly protect the Alpha Quadrant from the Breen during those three weeks. And Picard S2 established that Janeway's neurolytic pathogen thing had indeed reduced the Borg Collective to a shell of its former self.

So the Federation doesn't really have great-power competition, at least not in local space.

I'm trying to figure out what the villain ship reminds me of. I don't watch a ton of SciFi, but maybe something from Babylon 5, either the Minbari or vorlon ships? My memory is blurry...

The spines are a bit reminiscent of Vorlon ships, yeah. It's also reminiscent of both the Scimitar and the Narada from Nemesis and ST09.

I'm 50/ 50 on it.
It could obviously just be a cover storys to support her fall from grace narrative. Otoh, when making up a cover story, stick as close to the truth as possible, so maybe it is true.The way she and Seven were written during most of season 2, I wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah, it could go either way. But Seven and Raffi were in a really good place when S2 ended, so I'm more inclined to assume they're still together.

Wait, if this is 2401, are we attributing the age of Raffi's granddaughter to, uh, Romulan growth rates? Shouldn't that be slower rather than quicker, as they have longer lifespans?

We have no idea if Vulcan/Romulan children age at a slower rate or faster rate than Human children. Also, it's possible Gabe and Pel had an older daughter that we just didn't hear about in "Stardust City Rag."

Which is ridiculous. They clearly wanted it to be Riker's old ship and yet a completely new one at the same time, while also being a retro Constitution class.

Yeah. And they did the same thing with the Stargazer last season. It's weird.

If they wanted it to be Riker's vessel, then take the Luna class vessel as it appeared in Lower Decks. Then it is his vessel.

I would have much preferred this.

Not big on Riker's apparent marital problems either, though that is probably related to real world reasons regarding filming opportunities for Marina Sirtis

Yeah, I don't really like the idea that Will Riker would have done something to drive a wedge in his marriage. That seems... not like him. Will always struck me as the kind of guy who, once he was ready to marry, was ready to marry, 100% committed. But we'll see where this goes -- it might be done well yet.

(and probably the wish to not have to contract and pay Kestra's actress :sigh:).

Oh, I'm sure it has nothing to do with not wanting to pay Lulu Wilson. She gave a wonderful performance in S1 and she has a really bright career going. It's probably more just that the Kestra character doesn't really lend herself to the narrative they're putting together.

"Some real world-ending shit".
- this is an actual line of dialogue in this episode (by undercover Raffi).

And there is nothing wrong with that dialogue.

What I do not like is how "fake-drama/fake-conflict" everything is. It is very weird that this is produced by the same people as the excellent SNW. And I'm not talking about the lighting. I'm talking about how real, grown up people talk with each other and have disagreements.

"Picard" is actively anti-discourse. People don't discuss or exchange arguments. It's all in-your-face insults, disrespecting orders, shoving guns into people's faces as welcome, kill-shotting evil mooks on the ground, and all conflict is "world-ending shit". It just feels so... manufactured.

Well, we explicitly saw Seven and Jean-Luc and Will talk and resolve their conflict. We saw Jean-Luc and Laris talk and resolve the tension between their desire to stay together and Jean-Luc's desire to save his friend. We saw Raffi talk with her handler and resolve the tension between them. We saw Jean-Luc and Will talk with Jack and realize they're all on the same side. I agree that the bit where Will punches him was overkill though. And there's a plot reason Jean-Luc and Will don't do more to resolve their conflict with Shaw -- they have been advised that there is a potential conspiracy or leak within Starfleet linked to the people attacking Beverly. So, I can't say that I think "The Next Generation" lacked for scenes of adults resolving their conflicts by talking to one-another, although I do agree the bit where Will punched Jack went a bit too far and didn't serve a necessary plot function.


Okay, that makes a bit more sense. Given the example of how there are like four different dates in real-life you could cite as the "birthday" of the U.S. Army, and given the historic importance of the NX-01 in bringing Earth, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar together, I can imagine the launch of the NX-01 being considered the unofficially "birthday" of Starfleet.

I just don’t understand how people are complaining about this show. This season seems to be what everyone wanted from the start. I’m really loving it so far…

I mean, it's not what I wanted from the start. I wanted what was originally promised -- a show focusing on Jean-Luc Picard that wasn't just a TNG reunion. I still contend that "Remembrance" is one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek ever produced. But I do concede that even though I fundamentally disagree with the premise behind S3, so far it is a well-executed version of that premise.

Ok. What if someone decided to change their name to Adolph Hitler?

Not the same thing at all. A comparable situation would be if someone grew up in Germany, was brought to the U.S., and then was told they weren't allowed to use the name they grew up with anymore because it was German. Like, yeah, it's fine to say that nobody should be calling themselves "Adolf Hitler," but are you gonna tell Christoph Waltz he's not allowed to use his name?

It took something like 50 years for Garrett to get a statue in her honor? It's not like her death lead to an alliance between the Federation and Klingons.

No reason to think there aren't plenty of other states commemorating Captain Garrett on other planets. This statue was apparently new to M'Talas Prime, is all.

I always have my headphones in to listen to my music as I walk, and for several months the soundtrack to Star Trek Insurrection as composed by Jerry Goldsmith was my personal favorite pick to listen to. More often than not I have lamented how much I miss the days when Star Trek had the benefit of Goldsmith's scores to elevate their stories to new heights, and I often feel like I am the only person who still listens to his music.

For whatever it's worth, you're not. In fact, when we got married last October, I was able to work with the organist at our church to adapt the sheet music so that my wife could walk down the aisle to the theme from Star Trek: First Contact. :adore:

Looks like it's common in kurtzman trek.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, we found out or saw that the characters all suffered the following forms of trauma:
  • Jean-Luc was the victim of emotional abuse from his father and brother
  • Jean-Luc was abducted and assimilated by the Borg into Locutus
  • Jean-Luc was forced to experience the last twenty-some-odd years and subsequent death and extinction of Kamin and the people of Kataan
  • Jean-Luc was captured and tortured by the Cardassian Guard
  • Will's mother died when he was young and he was estranged from his father
  • Deanna's father died at a young age
  • Geordi lost his mother
  • Beverly's parents died when she was very young
  • Beverly lost her husband Jack aboard the Stargazer under Jean-Luc's command
  • Beverly's son Wesley left the mortal realm when he was still in his early 20s
  • Worf lost his parents, his family, and his entire world during the Khitomer Massacre
  • Worf lost the woman he loved and the mother of his child, K'Ehleyr
  • Worf suddenly had to raise a child alone whom he hadn't known existed about five minutes after meeting him
  • Tasha was the survivor of a planet full of rape gangs
.... Like, the Next Generation characters were full of trauma!

As for the Borg, well, since Queen Jurati took off with the La Sirena and started the new, kinder Borg, shouldn't most of the Federation (as well as every other species) NOT have had any negative encounter with the Borg?

Jurati's Borg didn't re-write the history that had previously occurred between 2365 and 2401. Her Borg Commonwealth was off in another region of space, waiting for 2401 to roll around so they could arrive, trigger the line of time-travel dominoes that constituted Picard S2's journey to 2024, and then re-introduce herself to Jean-Luc, protect the Federation, and apply for Membership (since they knew what was going to happen). The events of Star Trek: First Contact, "Regeneration" (ENT), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, "Let Sleeping Borg Lie" (PROD), and Star Trek: Picard all unfolded as we had previously seen them, no re-writing of time.

The argument that because a name that's a Borg designation might make someone uncomfortable that justifies Shaw being a dick doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Does O'Brien or any of the survivors of the Setlik III massacre get to discriminate against being around any potential Cardassian members of Starfleet? Do they get to rename them or avoid having to serve around them because of the potential of past scars being triggered? The Klingons have murdered and conquered countless peoples in their history. If Worf makes someone uncomfortable because it triggers past memories, would that justify not allowing to wear his baldric or show any pride in his culture?

Seven of Nine has been the character's name for pretty much the entire history of what we've seen of her. To claim that Starfleet is justified in forcing her to go by a name she doesn't identify with and hasn't known for most of her life is kind of ... well, Orwellian.

Although, it arguably fits with Quark's argument (and the Klingons' in The Undiscovered Country) that Starfleet and the Federation are a "utopian" organization that claims to value "tolerance" but only practices it with those that remind them of themselves. That at a certain point for Starfleet, their tolerance for personal autonomy goes out the window if they're either icked out by the alien nature of it or can't wrap their heads around it. For example, Starfleet was ready to order Data to surrender his child (Lal) to the state, even while claiming to acknowledge his sentience. It was just a Starfleet Admiral didn't give a damn about what Data or Lal wanted.

In the same way, Shaw doesn't give a damn what Seven of Nine believes to be her own identity. And before someone says it's just Shaw being a prick, and not Starfleet as a whole, we were told all the way back in season 1 that even with Janeway going to bat for Seven, that it wasn't enough to get her into Starfleet because of the prejudice against her Borg past.

I think it's very clear that Picard accepts the idea that Starfleet and the Federation are flawed institutions, but that those flaws are not intrinsic to them. I have no doubt that by the end of the season, we'll be hearing the Titan crew address her as Commander Nine.
 
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I turned it off when Crusher vaporised an injured man in the floor with her pump action phaser rifle.
 
I thought about Shaw. I think he clearly just hates 'Starfleet Celebrities'. There's probably more than a few people in Starfleet who do.

I can imagine that having probably had to slowly climb the ladder towards captaincy himself that he'd resent having just such a celebrity retired admiral foist a celebrity friend (barely out of the academy) onto him as an XO.

I think he's just not impressed by all the adventuring bullshit and doesn't want any part of it. I see deadnaming, but equally I see someone who just wants a first officer, not 'the legendary X-B who rode back in Voyager all the way from the Delta Quadrant'. Hence Commander Hansen instead of Commander Seven.

No, he hates Picard for a very specific reason which is hinted at via the constellation class USS Constance in the end credits. Shaw dislikes Riker most likely because of his association with Picard.

As for Seven, Matalas hinted in an interview that Shaw actually chose Seven to be his first officer for a specific reason. So clearly he saw something within Seven that would make him trust her enough to be his second in Command.

For me it was clear that Shaw was acting from a place of trauma when he met with Picard. It was very much like when Sisko met Picard for the first time after Wolf 359
 
I'd just wish we dropped this damn "XBs using Borg designations is a trauma trigger for survivors" thing. Because it is eerily similar to the exact argument used by trans-exclusionary radical feminists to attempt to justify the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces. We constantly have to listen to how our "male bodies" are trauma triggers for survivors of sexual assault, how recognizing "male-bodied" people as women would be a slap in the face of "actual" women who all have to live under a constant threat of being harmed by male-bodied predators, and that the "selfish desires" of "male-bodied" and "male-socialized" people who "possess male privilege" should never be made more important than the safety of women. We have to listen to arguments all the time about how deadnaming us and referring to us with masculine pronouns is a moral imperative for all women so that they could warn each other that a potential predator is walking in their midst. As if we aren't under a constant threat of harm ourselves. As if we chose to be assigned male at birth.
 
I think there is a good reason for this, beyond just modern "cool" factor. At first, I too dismissed it as stupid for the same reason.

Anthony and Laurie from TrekMovie surmised that: given Matalas has said there will be fallout from the Dominion War, plus Beverly saying to trust no one, and her kid saying that the attackers have different faces, and Riker making a special point about the ash left behind - maybe the attackers are shapeshifters in some way (don't know why they seem to be wearing masks though). As we saw in DS9, shapeshifters are very hard to kill with conventional phasers or Klingon disruptors, so maybe Beverly retrofitted a more powerful "shotgun" style phaser rifle out of other parts. This would also explain why the phaser discharges so quickly after a limited number of "shots". It combines the output of many normal phaser beam emissions into one powerful shot.

I think this is a plausible explanation, and if true argues to me that i should maybe lend Matalas a little slack when I see things initially that seem a little "off" - maybe there is a good explanation beyond just that "it looks cool".
Maybe... But then why would you make a gun that screams "OUT OF AMMO, PLEASE COME SHOOT ME"? lol


Because as far as he's concerned, the situation is handled. Picard and Riker have no authority to issue orders to him, and he's issued a direct order to his executive officer.

Who said he hates or distrusts her? He's an asshole to her, but that doesn't mean he suspects she would disobey a direct order from her commanding officer and willingly get herself court-martialed.
Ultimately, I've seen two scenes with him and the reading of someone else's writing is always going to be subjective. I think anything other than "nap time" would have worked better for me as an excuse for why he wasn't around.

As a point of characterization, the only way it makes sense to me is that he abused and degraded Seven so much that he thinks he has absolute power over her as his victim. He doesn't respect her enough to believe that she would do anything on her own or of her own initiative, which is why he insists on dead naming her. This is supported by Seven's visceral reaction to explaining her situation to Picard when she thinks she made a mistake joining Starfleet.

But I dunno, this is all the information I have and how I read the character... I could be totally wrong, but at least that would make sense to me.
 
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You mean the armed man who still had a weapon and still posed a threat to her life and the life of her son?


Even Riker was shocked and said it wasn't the Beverly he knew when he saw the ashes. She didn't shoot him because he was just armed. There's some other danger the aliens pose beyond being just armed. The alien was already down and hadn't raised his weapon. I suspect there is more to the story than that he was just armed.
 
Does Shaw really "force," her to go by Hansen? Seven just tells Riker & Picard that Shaw "prefers that I use Hansen". Shaw may have pressured her into using her birth name but I don't think she would have been court martialled if she refused. Presumably Shaw had some say in Seven's transfer to the Titan and could have vetoed it. Shaw might be commited to developing Seven into a Starfleet officer that is capable of following orders and has taken a hard taskmaster approach. Tbh, the rudeness towards Riker and Picard wasn't completely unjustified. He might have felt insulted that A. Riker and Picard expected him to be idiotic enough to fall for their plan/ruse and B. That Seven appeared to be sympathetic towards them despite their presence being highly suspicious. Shaw's irritation at Seven might be due to disappointment in what appears to be her poor judgement.

Matalas has said that Shaw has a reason to why he treated picard and Riker the way he did. Part is that he is a by the book officer. That could be part of the reason why he wants birth names on duty used instead of what he might consider a nickname. Also from the end credits and the previous discussion at dinner he has a has a psst with the borg and may have been on the constance during the borgs destruction at wolf 359. You're right he did most likely have a say in Sevens posting to the titan. He could easily had asked for a transfer or even resigned his commission. The way some are carrying on here its like they feel this guy deserves a court-martial for the name thing. So ridiculous. It Ms not a big deal in my opinion.
 
You mean the armed man who still had a weapon and still posed a threat to her life and the life of her son?

The man that could be stunned and disarmed since he was injured on the floor, yes. TNG Crusher wouldn’t do that.
 
Even Riker was shocked and said it wasn't the Beverly he knew when he saw the ashes.

I didn’t take Riker’s comments as he was shocked she had killed someone while defending herself. I don’t think this is the first time, she’s on screen killed Borg at least and was selected as part of a Spec Ops deployment in Chain of Command so was likely prepared to.

I took Riker’s surprise to be more about how professional it had been, more like a soldier than someone who just found themselves in that situation.
 
Matalas has said that Shaw has a reason to why he treated picard and Riker the way he did. Part is that he is a by the book officer. That could be part of the reason why he wants birth names on duty used instead of what he might consider a nickname. Also from the end credits and the previous discussion at dinner he has a has a psst with the borg and may have been on the constance during the borgs destruction at wolf 359. You're right he did most likely have a say in Sevens posting to the titan. He could easily had asked for a transfer or even resigned his commission. The way some are carrying on here its like they feel this guy deserves a court-martial for the name thing. So ridiculous. It Ms not a big deal in my opinion.

Now I kind of want this to be a commentary on how people aren't allowed to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender in certain parts of the world.
 
Now I kind of want this to be a commentary on how people aren't allowed to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender in certain parts of the world.
She obviously hasn't changed her legal name. He's a by the book captain. Matalas has already stated that. Her legal name is Hansen so he's using it when she's on duty. What if everyone wanted to be called by a nickname instead of their legal name and rank in starfleet? If you want to make it about gender issues that's your business. As far as I can see sevens pronoun is female.
 
Under what name did Seven join Starfleet? Her Borg designation or Annika Hansen? I do understand why Seven had insisted upon using her Borg designation when the Voyager crew first disconnected her from the Collective. It was a name more familiar to her. But it was also a name that had been forced upon her by the Borg, following her assimilation. Why would she still want to keep it or even use it as her official name after all these years?
 
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