Headscratchers / Star Trek: Picard

PSA: Headscratchers is a place to try and find In-Universe explanations. Try to avoid natter, going too off-topic and/or first person language. If a bullet has something you feel is incorrect, just fix it.

Headscratchers for Star Trek: Picard.

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Season 1

• Why is the Federation using androids for labor? It's been established that they've been using holographic laborers based on the EMH since the time of Voyager.
  • There's nothing particularly odd about using different technologies; they'll each have their own benefits and drawbacks, suited for different scenarios. The most obvious issue with holograms are the holo-emitters; they need to be installed somewhere for the holograms to work. Synthetics have the advantage that they're more portable and mobile. The Doctor from Voyager has technology that lets him be more mobile, but presumably that's still beyond the Federation's understanding.

• Why does Picard's dog have cropped ears? In a future where people are so reluctant to make purely cosmetic changes to themselves (Picard's baldness, for example), would they really be willing to inflict the same on an animal that can't consent?
  • It's possible it's some new breed whose ears are naturally shaped that way. It's also possible that the Federation's genetic modification ban only extends to sapient life (humanoid life), and that human technology has advanced enough that they can modify the dog's genes to make it that way so that it has the aesthetic design without sacrificing the dog's health (in the same way that retro mops seek to undo damage done to the design of pugs); heck, there are breed initiatives right now with breeders trying to get the cropped ear look occur naturally.
  • There's also nothing saying that the dog is also a rescue in-universe. Not everyone in a utopian future is going to follow the rules, especially considering there's more to the universe than just Earth and the UFP.

• How can Captain Rios be smoking a cigar or speaking Spanish? In the case of the former, wouldn't cigarettes have been put out of commission a long time ago? In the case of the latter, wouldn't the automatic translator make it so we are not hearing Spanish?
  • I don't see any reason why tobacco products would be gone. People still have vices in the future, that's no secret. Perhaps on Starfleet ships they're disallowed, since they're addictive and a lot of people would find the second-hand smoke unpleasant, but Rios is the captain of his own ship. Who's going to stop him?
  • The second question takes us down the UT rabbit hole that many a fan has fallen into. I'll try to keep my answer restricted to what you specifically asked: why are we not hearing Rios's Spanish being translated? The reason is because the UT doesn't alter the actual sounds the speaker makes (which would cause all kinds of problems), but what the listener hears. Maybe everyone does hear Rios's Spanish translated to English. Or maybe Picard hears French because he's French, and Raffi still hears Spanish because she knows enough that it doesn't need translating. The point is, whatever logic the UT applies to how and when stuff gets translated varies from person to person, which also means that it cannot be applied to us, the audience, because we do not exist in the world of Star Trek.
  • Although it was openly said on camera that humans stop smoking at some point in the past (eps "Time's Arrow" and "Little Green Men") is never said to be outright illegal is just something people stopped doing mainstreamly, but also do notice that Rios in particular smokes cigars, which have been shown to exist in several holo-deck simulations. Cigars are generally considered to be not as harmful as cigarettes and can even be made of special herbs, thus is possible that the "stop smoking" refer specifically of cigarettes not cigars. On the second question, we actually do here Picard speaking French (ep "11001001") in one episode and he seems offended when Data says French is "an obscure obsolete language", it has also being said on camera that what we heard as English is actually Federation Standard (PROD; "Supernova"). In any case, no one is really speaking modern French, Spanish or English as after 300 years they are different languages, they probably are speaking their descendants is just presented that way for the audience, and no one really knows how translators work, Rios might have been speaking Future!Spanish which was translated as English and then made some phrases in Present!Spanish in a similar way how someone would quote in Latin.

• Why do the guys trying to kidnap Dahj mostly use knives plus a bag over the head? Why not use blasters set on stun? They can always just switch settings afterwards to kill the boyfriend if they don't want witnesses.
  • In previous series, the energy signatures of phasers/disrupters being fired can generally be detected and tracked. Minimizing the amount of random energy discharges makes it easier to keep from being detected. Since they were risking a beam in (which can also be detected on sensors), they probably wanted to minimize the risk of detection further.
    • Then why not use a hypospray? Or a plain old taser of the sort we've had in the real world for decades?
    • Considering that Dahj is a synth, not a biological, they may not have had the means to create a knock-out drug that could affect her, same with a taser. Looks like they were relying on shock and awe to knock her out before she was "activated" and gained combat and physical upgrades.

• Why does Dahj not immediately call the future version of 911 after the attack? Her boyfriend has been dead for less than a minute from a stab to the heart. "911, I need an emergency transport into medical stasis of someone who's been stabbed through the heart!" The guy gets transported, gets the sort of artificial heart installed that has kept Picard alive since that Nausicaan stabbed him, and he's fine. But no, let's just leave him on the floor until his brain fully dies from lack of bloodflow after at least several minutes.
  • Potentially programming — since the whole business of her killing those who came for her triggered automatic responses, and we later see her "mother" tell her immediately to go back to safety, giving herself away by telling Dahj to go "back to Picard," it could be that there was a priority script that fired, telling her above all else, get to safety, safety being Picard, and her not realizing who her mind was telling her this was until she saw the interview.
  • Also, she just killed three people. Some people feel bad about doing that, justified or not.
  • Just because we saw someone survive that sort of massive heart injury doesn't mean that it's a 100% survival rate even with medical attention, nor is immediate response time guaranteed (trying to lock onto a random civilian in a city is likely much harder than doing it to an officer in a Starbase, wearing a combadge). There may also be some aspect of Xahean physiology that meant such a blow could have been even more immediately lethal than it is for a human — and there's the not-so-small matter of the sizable pool of blood rapidly spreading beneath him and no longer available to keep him alive.

• Doctor Jurati says that androids are always built in pairs, but gives no justification to why this is the case. It seems to be a reference to Data and Lore, but other androids we've seen, such as B4 or Lal, were not built with a pair. So why would they need to build two identical androids instead of just one?
  • She's not talking about androids like Data. She's talking specifically about Dahj and Soji. We don't know why that's the case yet, but the method of producing this sort of Ridiculously Human Robot results in a pair whereas earlier Soong-type androids did not.
  • Possibly, they've realized that to keep androids functional, they have to be built in pairs. (Probably, two positronic brains allows them to use each other brain to 'balance' the other... When one is beginning to develop errors during development, it can be compared to the other, and vice versa.)
  • Listen to the technobabble that Dr. Jurati says for the process for synthesizing new positronic neural nets from a single neuron seed (from Data): "Fractal Neuronic Cloning". If you look at many fractal patterns (like Mandelbrots), you'll notice a complex system of symmetry. Maybe this fractal symmetry manifests in the process by the creation of two new positronic brains.

• Why is there a big deal about Romulan refugees trying to settle on Federation planets? The Romulan Star Empire did not consist of just Romulus. The Empire encompassed multiple star systems with at least ten inhabited planets so why couldn't they resettle within their own borders?
  • Relations between the UFP and Romulus have always been cold at best. Keep in mind the Federation (and its precursor, the Coalition of Planets) was originally founded for the particular reason of resisting Romulan aggression, and in the centuries since it's not like they've done much to dissuade public negative opinion. Then consider that there's a "Romulan Free State" implying some degree of political collapse post-nova, meaning that it's likely other parts of the Empire are also in upheaval.

• If this "Zhat Vash" really make it their mission to destroy any AI that gets developed, and are widespread enough to operate within Starfleet, how is it they never even once tried to take a shot at Data in all the years he served in Starfleet?
  • Episode eight, "Broken Pieces," addresses this - Data SPARKED the Zhat Vash's movement, leading to them sending Oh into Starfleet, having her rise through the ranks and, by the time of Star Trek Picard, has become the head of Starfleet Security. There was no particular need to rush and prevent the "singularity" from occurring, given that Data was both a singular being (similar Soong type androids notwithstanding, as they either didn't last, were disassembled, or (in the case of Juliana Tainer) their nature kept hidden and that Oh was in no position to do more than monitor Data (a fellow officer).

• Before the interview Zhaban tells Picard that the interviewer has assured him that she won't ask Picard about his separation from Starfleet. She goes exactly there, as quickly as possible. Of course due to her Fantastic Racism towards Romulans, her word to Zhaban doesn't exactly matter.
  • Did he also fail to perform the most basic search into the reporter's background and reputation? If a reporter is tabloid trash, or a racist, they may lie about it, but they can't conceal the kind of reporting they have done in the past.
  • The oversight is even more problematic given the reveal (originally in the Picard - Countdown comics, and then in "Maps and Legends") that Zhaban is a former Tal Shiar agent, and should be good at this sort of thing. One possibility is that the reporter went out of her way to chase that line of questioning for some reason, but why anyone would want to needle a retired Picard before he's been pulled into the plot is a mystery.
  • Agenda based journalism is a thing which is not confined to tabloid trash reporters. Even the most respectable of reporter can be tempted by the big scoop on the big figure, and Picard is one of the biggest figures with biggest (potential) story. Admittedly the reporter insisting on a live interview should have been a big old red flag that they were planning some sort of ambush journalism, but they may have seemed otherwise respectable and professional in terms of prior history.

• The pilot establishes the supernova that destroyed Romulus originated from its own sun. The problem is, this makes Spock's plan to save the planet completely nonsensical — consuming the star with a black hole would leave Romulus without a sun, dooming it to freezing solid anyway. It might buy time for more Romulans to evacuate, but it's not exactly "saving their planet"...
  • The Federation has the technology to convert a black hole back into a fully functional sun.
  • On the other hand, using a black hole to trap the explosive power of a supernova would save nearby systems from being nuked.
  • There is one other possibility: if the Romulan star system was a binary star system, Hobus exploding would have still devastated the relatively nearby Romulus, whereas converting it into a black hole would save it, albeit with the loss of some sunlight.

• Rios says he's expensive, and his ship must have expenses, such as repairs and fuel. How does supplies and such work then in such a case?
  • Latinum is the standard currency outside of Federation space - Rios gives the impression of someone who operates outside the margins of "polite" society within the Federation, and given that this "Freecloud" that Raffi declares to be their (initial) destination, as a place that Maddox fled to after the synthetic ban came down, it's reasonable to assume that this is a place outside of Federation jurisdiction as well. Earth and the Federation might be post-scarcity, moneyless economic system, but outside of Federation territory, Rios needs to cover his costs. It's not like the Ferengi trade outposts and Orion Syndicate ports are going to just accept an IOU or something, they'll want something tangible.
  • Expensive does not necessarily have to refer to money. Most likely Rios meant "I'm hard to get ahold of, and you better have a good reason to require my time". Alternatively, "You owe me a big favor, Picard".

• The ex-Borg we see still have obvious scaring and implants, such as Hugh, Seven, and the others on the Artifact. But Picard doesn't. Is it ever explained why some former Borg have said scaring removed and others don't?
  • One could surmise that Picard and others had avoided such scarring because they had been a part of the Collective for a relatively short time period compared to other Borg. Picard had been Locutus for just a few days whereas Hugh and Seven had been Borg for years if not decades, which might factor into why.
  • Another guess could be that the Romulan surgeons tasked with removing the implants might basically be brute-forcing their way through the procedures, not caring about anything so trivial as a few scars.
  • The removal of Picard's implants was done by Dr. Crusher, who no doubt had comprehensive medical records on Picard. Records that Voyager's Doctor wouldn't obviously wouldn't have had for Seven, Icheb or the rest. It's likely that having those records, combined with Picard's relatively short time assimilated, was enough for Crusher to completely restore Picard in a way the Doctor couldn't for his patients.
  • Also, Enterprise was at Earth at the time. That means that he had access to all the resources of Starfleet Medical. Voyager only had the Doctor and Kes.
  • In episode 5, they glance over how Seven still has numerous implants covering a range of organs and bones. Picard comments that as she was assimilated as a child, they are far more numerous, so this could likely explain why some liberated Borg still have implants, simply because they now utterly replace body parts. Also, Seven is not one of the 'new ones', maybe newer Borg are lightly enhanced compared to older ones.

• The Zhat Vash have a choice between saving the Romulan species or destroying Synth research progress, and they choose to destroy synth research progress and doom their own species? That seems remarkably short sighted for a supposedly millenia old, powerful, intelligent conspiracy?
  • From what little of what we exactly know, it could be a case of the needs of the many. The Zhat Vash are so terrified of synthetics (and one ex-Borg knew things about Soji that she shouldn't, to the point of knowing that she is for whatever reason is a legendary destroyer of some kind), that perhaps they thought that the destruction of the evacuation fleet would at least mean their people would have a chance of survival, rather than let synthetics exist and possibly be hunted to extinction. The main goal was to make the Federation stop making synths because of what they saw at that 8 star planet place.
  • Destroying Romulus wasn't dooming the Romulans to extinction any more than destroying Earth in Star Trek's timeline (say from TOS on) would have doomed humanity: they're established to have a widespread empire, and although not much canon is known about it, they've been a space-going society for several millennia so it's entirely reasonable to assume populous colonies within Romulan space, just as humans are found everywhere in the Federation. Vulcans, on the other hand, have been well established to have a very insular outlook and not nearly as ambitious when it comes to expansion, so the destruction of Vulcan in Kelvin timeline would have a significantly greater effect on their overall numbers.
  • Occam's Razor: Romulans are far from immune to pride. Some elements of the Zhat Vash may simply have invoked a mindset of better to die clean of AI than survive because of it, that if the Romulan species survived because of AI, it would be survival that they couldn't accept.
  • Perhaps the whole thing is a Xanatos Gambit: they deliberately sabotage the Federation evacuation plan as a sort of twisted population control and casus belli (if they handle the evacuations, they can personally control who gets off-planet (prioritizing high-ranked officials/Tal Shiar), and let the rest die due to "Federation betrayal", thus giving the population a new motivation to fight.

• Hugh says that the half-a-dozen former Borg drones we see in that room are the only Romulans to ever be assimilated. Except we know that's not true. We've seen at least one former Romulan drone in that episode of Voyager where Chakotay encounters a broken-down cube. And Voyager has been back for decades at this point, so this knowledge hasn't been lost.
  • Hugh himself says, that he knows of.

• Raffi living in a future equivalent of a mobile home - on Earth! Post scarcity Earth, the capital of the Federation! Wouldn’t a post scarcity economy with cornucopia technology mean that she can easily live a much better life than that of 23rd century trailer trash?
  • Note that Vasquez Rocks (which are explicitly the location for once) are a historical site and park in our world. Being able to live there would, by our understanding, be expensive (restricted) in its own right.
  • Raffi seems to be there as much by choice as anything else, she is an antisocial, drug addict, dropout with a chip on her shoulder. And her "trailer" lifestyle is still at least as well appointed as a modern luxury RV. If she had her life more in order, or had less of a chip on her shoulder, then she could probably have more than a luxury cabin in a national monument with unlimited food, goods, and hallucinogens to satisfy her. If she wanted, of course. It is certainly a giant leap from the accommodations currently on offer to the people in her situation, even in countries with large and well-funded social safety net programs.
  • Even if Star Trek is post scarcity, perhaps the standards of living is simply much lower than the personal mansions we all assume they give the populace. After all, Raffi has no need for work and her basic needs are covered, so the UFP might call that good enough.

• Raffi complaining about losing her pension and benefits when she was removed from Starfleet. Given previous series have already established Earth and the Federation have effectively abolished currency since they no longer have a need for it, why would anybody in Starfleet care about pensions?
  • They don't have money, but they do have credits. In another series, Benjamin Sisko related a story about his academy days when he used to beam home for dinner every night and used up his transporter credits. It's possible that a pension has credits that give retirees access to infrastructure and services but limits how much one can use at a given time to ensure resources are available for everyone. Even though people don't get paid money, there still has to be a system in place that compensates people for their time and labor. That pension might also include access to services and resources that civilians don't have, like the Quantum Archives and Starfleet ships. Also, even if you're retired, you likely still need a security clearance to access certain technologies or classified information. So losing that can be a blow to someone who used to take such perks for granted.

• Doesn't Icheb not need his borg implants to keep him alive anymore? Or did Seven act completely out of character and just "mercy" kill him on some previously unseen instinct? Wouldn't her first reaction have been to get him to the EMH as quickly as possible?
  • Icheb had literally just been cut apart alive. Regardless of whether or not he needed the implants to survive, the shock and collateral damage (which was likely inflicted across a massive variety of bodily systems) he suffered during the "procedure" would have killed him shortly.

• Picard is a reasonable man and when someone comes to him with information about a threat to the galaxy, he will listen and investigate. So, why the hell didn't Commodore Oh approach Picard and tell him her side of the story and ask him for help? Never mind that the Zhat Vash have already killed people, if their reason is enough to compel a person to destroy her life's work and kill her boyfriend, why not tell Picard? Hell, if they have any compelling evidence of a threat (and out-of-control AI is a threat, both in ST and in real life), why not go public?
  • Complexity Addiction combined with ludicrous levels of paranoia, maybe?
  • Look at the record of Jean-Luc Picard. The man once considered it entirely reasonable to open a dialogue with the Crystalline Entity, a space-faring life form that had literally only ever been encountered when it was consuming all life on planets for sustenance. Picard is, a decade of disillusionment notwithstanding, an idealist, who believes that the answer is always diplomacy, that to open fire is a failure. Based on his record, it is unlikely that Jean-Luc Picard would be swayed to "this thing is a threat that must unequivocally and unquestionably be wiped out."
  • Remember that when you are a part of a conspiracy, you're going to view things with the conspirator's lens - if someone like Jean-Luc Picard, a high profile individual, particularly one who just had his first public interview in over a decade result in a BLISTERING takedown of Starfleet and the Federation, suddenly is visited by a member (particularly a high ranking member) of Starfleet security and then disappears or dies of "natural causes," or even if the visit goes unnoticed, what would someone already wrapped up in a conspiracy's first guess be, the official story or that there's a cover-up happening? If that's how Oh is viewing it, then she sees Picard dying as bad optics from any direction, at least so long as he's only asking seemingly innocent questions. Oh had already given Narissa an earful about her failure to grasp "subtlety," when her agents went after Dahj in broad daylight with Picard, and, given that we now have Oh having brought Jurati into matters, the attack at Chateau Picard looks an awful lot like a set up to ingratiate her into Picard's circle as he goes after Soji.
  • As for going public, remember, we're talking about a Romulan organization, when their national pastime is "secrecy." The Tal Shiar are called the secret police, but, as Laris points out, in Romulan society, that's something of a redundancy. They don't DO public, as a societal and cultural rule. They don't want to have a threat made public, they want a threat neutralized with none the wiser that it ever existed.

• Icheb was a Starfleet officer serving aboard USS Coleman. Why did Starfleet not lift a finger when one of their officers was kidnapped? How many times have we seen Kirk or Picard raise heaven and hell to safeguard their people, and certainly even if not his CO, then the other people he was with would have done something (military types take the well-being of their comrades very seriously). From everything we've seen about them in the past, Starfleet would have come down on Bjayzl and her operations hard.
  • Because Icheb was on leave and working for a group that are considered vigilantes by Starfleet. He was also operating in an area that was legally outside the Federation's jurisdiction. It's possible that Starfleet didn't want to be associated with the Fenris Rangers in any way. So while I'm sure Icheb's friends and fellow officers would've wanted to bring his killers to justice, there's no legal system to investigate and prosecute and extradition was out of the question as well. No doubt Starfleet wasn't going to break whatever laws or treaties were in place to go in there after them. In fact, Bjayzl was likely operating on Freecloud for the exact reason that Starfleet couldn't go in: they couldn't have her prosecuted or extradited.
  • It's also possible that because he was an Ex-Borg, there was prejudice. Around the same time, Starfleet was also recovering from the attack on Mars and the Dominion war. They may not have had the resources or wanted to use them. He also was likely not the only person who had fallen victim to crime in that area of space.
  • So the only recourse Seven had was to handle it herself. First by rescuing Icheb (which sadly failed) and then going after and ultimately killing the one responsible. It wasn't some mindless revenge where the person who died spit on the sidewalk, had an annoying laugh, murdered Bill Shakespeare or made persistent spelling errors. This was a remorseless, manipulative crime boss who engaged in a kidnapping, murder, and organ trafficking ring and wasn't going to stop.
    • It was basically the equivalent of going into Somalia, trying to rescue a military officer who was on leave and operating as a private security guard that got kidnapped and ultimately killed. Then his mother tracking down and killing the ones responsible. I mention Somalia as an example because that country's government barely exists and it's rife with corruption and lawlessness. So an American who goes in there and kills a crime boss is unlikely to face criminal charges (or any kind of investigation), bounty or no bounty.
  • It's also at least possible that Seven going in to save him was the best solution his crew could come up with given the presumed legal limitations for direct action. Send a message to her that he's in trouble and hope the Rangers can handle it. Of course, all of this assumes that the crew of the Coleman ever found out he was in danger before his death, given that he was on leave and outside of Federation space.

• Dahj was programmed by Maddox with a subconscious trust of Picard. She states right in the first episode that she instinctively trusts him despite not knowing him, and after she was activated it impelled her to specifically seek him out if she was in danger. Why wasn't Soji, who was grown from the same fractal matrix, given the same underlying programming?
  • Most likely she was, but that programming got overwritten due to her experience with Narek.
    • The problem is that we've seen throughout the history of the franchise that that's not how AI works. "Hard-coded" routines don't get overwritten no matter how many layers are put on top of it.
  • Dahj was still in immediate life-threatening danger. During the brief time they had together, Picard went a long way to reassure her that she was real. Sadly, Soji's experiences were quite different. Once Picard and Soji escaped, she was out of immediate danger and processing the trauma. The AI was programmed to activate in an emergency and once that was past, she was basically free to make her own decisions.
  • Dahj was programmed to trust Picard because he was on the same planet. She could literally beam over to his home from basically anywhere. Soji was sent to a place where she would be surrounded by enemies and Maddox wouldn't know anyone there he could be absolutely certain could be trusted with her secret.

• How is a neurological disease caused by silicon-based virus supposed to work? There are only trace amounts of silicon in the human body, and it's mostly in our bones and connective tissue—which would make it very hard for that virus to reproduce in a human. Maybe it would cause a bone or muscle disease, but our nervous system doesn't really have anything that the virus would need.
  • Thad was one-quarter Betazoid though, maybe that's the reason the virus affected him?
    • Yeah, good point. Completely forgot the Betazoid factor.
  • Considering that the cure involves a positronic matrix, it's possible that at least the origins of mendaxic neurosclerosis are artificial, perhaps some kind of created disease that either got loose or mutated.

• In the dinner scene in "Nepenthe", Picard is tasked with convincing Soji to trust her, so he goes into a heartfelt speech... But his arguments for him trusting her are that, A) Data was a dear friend, and he would do anything to honor his memory, and more importantly, B) he hasn't felt this alive since he was forced into retirement. So basically he's telling Soji that she should work with him because it's making him feel better. Isn't this an incredibly selfish argument for someone like Picard to make? And why would it convince Soji to put her trust in him? Yet somehow it seems to work.
  • Dahj snapped him out of his funk and he's paying her back by helping Soji and her people.
  • Basically he's telling her that, whether she trusts him or not, he's going to keep working to protect her and stop the Zhat Vash.
  • He was also telling her that just giving up, closing yourself off from the world and merely surviving isn't a way to live. It's just a slow, lonely and meaningless way to die. He's using his experience as an example. He did that when he resigned and went back to his family's chateau. It didn't do any good for anyone as we've seen. Even if it means failing (or dying), it's better to at least try to do the right thing than do nothing at all.
  • Given that her homeworld was in danger, not trusting him with what she knew would've doomed whoever was still living there.
  • Don't forget Kestra's assurance that Soji was a real and amazing person (and Data) and Deanna's own story about Thad's illness and how real isn't always better probably helped a lot.
• Come to think of it, has anyone noticed that Maddox said that the Zhat Vash destroyed his lab? If they destroyed his lab, it must've been located somewhere else. Otherwise they would've already located Soji's homeworld. So why wasn't his lab located on the same planet he had conceived Data's daughters? Or was the lab for something else?
  • Doesn't have to have been his primary lab - If he's going to Bjayzl at all, it's pretty clearly an act of desperation, and he may have simply had satellite lab(s) beyond the one where Dahj and Soji were constructed.
• So am I missing something or did the Romulan Star Empire, an empire capable of holding its own against the dominion for an extended period of time and by the end of said war was still on par with the Federation and Klingons, not have enough star ships to evacuate a single star system in the months it took for the federation to build a fleet? And on top of that the loss of that single star system lead to the total collapse and destruction of that entire empire?
  • At the time of the evacuation, the entire alpha quadrant was still recovering from the Dominion War. Everyone's resources were being spent in rebuilding efforts. So they may not have had enough ships on their own.
    • I could believe that if they had hours to do it, or maybe days. But they had the time it takes the Federation to build an entire fleet from scratch. Not only build but design, we have been led to believe the fleet was purpose built and designed with new tech just for the evacuation effort. So you're talking anywhere between 6-12 months. You're telling me that if Earth's Sun was discovered to be going nova in 6-12 months, the Federation would not scramble every ship they could and make it priority one to evac as many people as possible? This is the same thing.
  • What makes things even more perplexing is that in episode 9, the Romulans deploy a fleet of 218 warships to destroy the synth homeworld. So the Romulans still have a sizeable number of ships even after the supernova.
    • It's possible those ships have been built since the supernova. The Romulan people were battered and the Empire collapsed, but a Romulan state isn't gone. And that could be every single ship they have, gathered from across the entirety of the Romulan Free State.
    • Judging from the size of the window we see Oh looking out of when the camera pans out of the ship, they don't appear to be anywhere as large as the warbirds from earlier series that dwarfed the Enterprise-D. It's unknown just how many passengers each could carry to begin with.
    • We're talking about evacuating planets here. If every one of those warships carried 10,000 passengers, that would still only be a carrying capacity of just over 2 million, whereas the population of Romulus could easily be a thousand times larger than that.
  • As mentioned elsewhere in this page, it is likely a situation similar to the fall of the Soviet Union or the British Empire. The destruction of Romulus and all the people who died caused both a vacuum of power and a backlash against the old political elite that was negligent or incompetent in preventing it, causing riots, disturbances, and secessions. In a way similar to how the British Empire collapsed or the Soviet Union dissolved, or maybe similar to how the Ottoman Empire (which was already crumbling) fell apart after the Young Turks revolution. The successor state (the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation and Turkey) are crippled failed states, they are still very strong world powers - just not superpowers like before.

• If Hugh hadn't been murdered before he reached the queencell, could he actually have become the Artifact's Borg Queen (or King)? We've never seen a male control the Collective (or a micro version of one) in the franchise.
  • The cube was already severed from the collective and there don't seem to be any hardware limitations. As long as there are no hard-coded software limitations in place, why not?
  • Given how easily Hugh is overpowered by the Romulans, it's unclear just how much Borg tech remains in him. Voyager also established that Seven was also on the short list of potential replacement queens and presumably has the necessary hardware already installed and that it wasn't removed by The Doctor.

• Where did that Fenris Rangers SOS tag that Elnor found come from? It just seemed to be hanging in front of him out of nowhere.
  • The SOS tag was hanging under one of Hugh's workstations. Seven of Nine gave it to Hugh sometime in the past in case he needed help. She assumed it was Hugh who activated the distress call because she traced the signal to where Elnor was fighting the guards (he dropped the tag after he was hit by a flash bang), and she asks him, "Where's Hugh?" Of course, it's a Contrived Coincidence that Elnor happened to experience a Heroic BSoD in the exact place where Hugh hid the Fenris Rangers' "calling card" inside a giant Borg Cube.

• In "Broken Pieces" the EMH outright states that Jurati willingly killed Maddox, and that he would have survived without her actions. Why didn't he say anything before when the crew learned of his death?
  • Because no one bothered to ask him. Jurati deactivated the EMH and Rios doesn't seem to want to listen to his Ship's Emergency Holograms. Apparently, they have to be brought online by the user or an emergency. Plus Jurati had given them a fake explanation that they bought so no one bothered to check (which was irresponsible for all concerned). It was only after Jurati's suicide attempt and the discovery of the tracker that the truth came out. This time, the EMH wasn't shut down and therefore had a chance to explain what had happened to Rios and Raffi, who in turn explained what had happened to Picard (who was still in denial).
  • It's easy to forget, but La Sirena's holograms aren't sapient like Moriarty, Vic Fontaine, or The Doctor. They're more like the various holodeck characters in the earlier series in that they don't do anything they're not told to do.

• The one and only mission Picard's team had was to find Soji... Yet in "Broken Pieces" we find out that Captain Rios didn't even know what she looks like before she comes aboard his ship. Didn't they have any kind of mission briefing or anything like that, where everyone would've at least seen the image of the woman they're looking for?
  • You're assuming they had an image to show. Oh did everything in her power to wipe any trace of Dahj from the security feeds, and I'm sure Picard, Larisa, and Zaban didn't stop to think of taking her portrait. And considering they had to ask Maddox himself where Soji was suggests there was no general record of them anywhere else to begin with.
  • Wouldn't Picard at least have taken some photos of the painting, even if he left the physical painting in the archive? And wouldn't his own private mansion have some security systems that would've recorded Dahj?

• If the Zhat Vash is trying to stop all artificial life from being created, why aren't they trying to sabotage holodecks as well? From previous series we've seen that holodeck programs can becomes self-aware by accident (like Moriarty or The Doctor), or they can even be programmed to become sapient (like Vic Fontaine). Are non-humanoid A.I.s somehow less of a threat to them than androids?
  • They're probably a much lower priority. Requiring complex emitters, external processors, and an external power source, holograms would be fairly easy to contain. Even if the Federation has managed to replicate and mass produce the Doctor's mobile emitter, the Doctor was always shown to be fairly vulnerable while he used it. Seems like a pretty safe bet that the Zhat Vash would start paying attention if you tried to download a hologram's AI into an android body, but until then, they probably don't view holograms as much of a threat.
  • The other issue is a psychological one; holographic A.I.s can be reset trivially just by shutting them off. If your helpful holographic assistant starts acting like they're out to get you, you simply shut down the power, purge their memory by simple command, and restart the program. The type of synths shown on Star Trek, such as Data and Lore, on the other hand, don't have this limitation; both Data and Lore were shut down for extended periods of time (Lore for years, Data's head for centuries) and re-activated with no loss of function, and it was shown that fooling with their memories isn't trivial. In the episode "Clues", it's implied that erasing Data's memories is almost impossible, since doing so - instead of making him lie about what really happened - would have seemed to be the expedient thing to do if it were that easy. So while the AI hologram can be reset in seconds and wake up with the original harmless personality, the android will remember and continue plotting against you.

• Isn't it canon that the Borg are able to survive just fine in the vacuum of space? Why is it such a huge deal that all of those drones got jettisoned out of the cube?
  • They can survive in a vacuum, but they aren't capable of powered flight. They're just going to tumble into the void.
  • That they could operate in a vacuum was established in Star Trek: First Contact. It's possible that since they were disconnected from the collective, their nano probes were inactive and unable to adapt or repair their bodies. It's also established in canon that the Borg adapt to environments and conditions given enough time; bear in mind that we never see how the drones in First Contact adapt to the vacuum or how long it takes. They're just out there on the main deflector dish. They were also in stasis and thus inactive. So their systems had little to no time to adapt.
  • It may also be less that they won't survive, so much as the human part of Seven of Nine being VERY upset that her capability to take the Artifact back under her control is SEVERELY diminished by losing that many Drones at once. Think of it as similar to finding out that you just lost HUNDREDS of valuable resources when you're already operating at drastically reduced capacity (she only has that one ship, the X Bs don't have nanoprobe injectors, and losing that many Borg makes her goal that much harder to achieve)

• So what exactly was the reason that Soji and Dahj were sent onboard the Borg cube and to Earth as sleeper agents? In "Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1," Soong and Sutra commend Soji for completing her mission, but it's not clear at all what that mission was, or what was it that she did to accomplish it? Okay, they got Dr. Jurati there and Sutra was able to read the Admonition from her mind, but all that was completely coincidental to what Soji was doing on the Borg cube, so it couldn't have been part of her mission. Also, apparently said mission also involved Dahj getting into contact with Picard, since she was programmed with a subconscious urge to find him and put her trust in him... So what was that about?
  • Dahj was about to start with the Daystrom Institute, where presumably she would have established contact with Jurati. While the mission wasn't stated, it's reasonable to assume her assignment was to gradually introduce her true nature and, if possible, convince Jurati to join Maddox and Soong to help complete the mind transfer system for the golem. Contacting Picard was simply a contingency plan if she got in trouble. Soji's isn't as clear, but Maddox knew the Romulans, for some reason, had it out for him and synthetic life. Possibly her mission was to try and figure out what they were up to, and an obvious point of entry was working on the Reclamation Project since that's where Federation citizens could easily interact with the Romulan Free State.
    • Slowly introduce Dahj to her nature? Why not just tell her outright, immediately after her creation? All the other synths know that they're synths, and they're fine with it. There's no need to implant false memories and set her up for a personal crisis like that. Contacting Jurati? Why don't we just send her an email or something? Why do you need to spend three years setting up a sleeper agent who doesn't even know her own mission? If Soji's job was to figure out what the Romulans were up to, why was she in the dark about her own mission? She never seems to accomplish anything that the synths would care about. She actually winds up leading the Romulans straight to the synth homeworld, which very nearly gets everyone killed! The reaction here should be "Oh crap, why did we send her to the Borg cube? That was a horrible plan!"

• How could Sutra initiate a mind meld with Jurati? While it is established in TOS that it is possible for a Vulcan to mind meld with a machine, there really has been no precedent for a non-Vulcan or Romulan, much less a synthetic lifeform like Sutra, being able to initiate a mind meld.
  • Not only that, but in "Nepenthe" we saw that Troi couldn't use her empathic abilities at all on Soji, just like she couldn't on Data. So a biological being can't establish an empathic contact with an android, but somehow it works the other way around? How does that make sense?
  • Troi is only half-Betazoid. Further, Sutra and Soji are different in terms of appearance. It's possible that besides learning about Vulcan society, Sutra may have engineered hardware that allowed her to read organic minds.
  • Also, it has been established that positronic nets and human brains are compatible in that a human mind can "run" on a positronic net. Add it all up and it's plausible that Sutra has developed the ability to read human synapses via direct physical contact—her hands may contain some kind of neural reader or scanner—and uses Vulcan teachings as the basis of the "software".
  • Betazoid empathy has also been shown to not work on several organic races, most frequently Ferengi. It did work on Nagilum though, who was non-corporeal.

• So the Q do nothing and allow an AI to wipe out all life in the galaxy multiple times?
  • They've allowed species such as the Borg to operate and other horrors that are relatively minuscule. Not to mention that the Universe is big with multiple galaxies. The damage done might be limited to the galaxy.
  • The Q also have their own version of a non-interference clause and Q himself thinks that Picard still has to learn some things for himself. In his words "the trial never ends." It's entirely possible that Q was able to get the right people to meet Picard and give him and, by association, the entire galaxy a fighting chance.
  • It has also been established that there are an infinite number of universes. So there may be ones where things go south and others such as this one (hopefully) that will have a positive outcome.
  • Someone doesn't understand how the Q think. Why would they care about organic vs. synthetic life? It's like ants fighting other ants to them.
    • Q himself always had a personal interest in Picard. At the series finale for TNG, he was the one who both got Picard into the trouble "a directive from the Continuum" and gave him a "helping hand" to get him out. The Continuum, and Q, isn't going to care about the people killed by the Zhat Vash, the Ban or the Synths' attempts to contact higher Synths. Assuming that Q was involved, that doesn't mean Q is just going to let Picard die at his Chateau. It would've been utter boredom and disappointment for Q to watch someone he thought had potential squander it.
    • But Q has to abide by the directives of the Continuum, just as in the example you listed. If they told him to stay uninvolved, he'd have to obey or risk being made mortal again. And it's been a long time; maybe Q's lost interest in Picard and found other sources of amusement by now.
    • A long time to us is like ten minutes to a Q.
    • By the end of Voyager the Continuum's old rules were in ashes after a civil war that Q's rebels won. He's only not a dictator because he doesn't want to be.

• If the Zhat Vash have existed for centuries, how come they had no involvement in the Control crisis of the 23rd century? That could have easily resulted in the very vision they were trying to avoid. I seriously doubt they never heard of it given their extensive spy network.
  • Setting aside the obvious out-of-universe explanation, in-universe, the Control crisis happened while the Romulans were still in isolation after the Earth-Romulan War. Remember, when they were introduced in “Balance of Terror,” set roughly a decade after Discovery’s second season, their connection to Vulcans was still unknown. Part of what allowed the Zhat Vash the freedom of movement they had during Picard was Oh's infiltration of Starfleet Security, and even that had taken decades from Data being discovered. The Control crisis erupted and was resolved FAR quicker, before any Romulan spies even had a chance to be properly inserted, let alone act with any influence.

• So Commodore Oh just decides to stand down and return to Romulan space? What about the various crimes that she orchestrated or committed during her time as a mole?
  • Trying to arrest her would be starting a fight with two hundred Romulan warbirds, which would lead to thousands of deaths. Declaring her a persona non grata and having a serious investigation into her activities as Commodore would be the best step — and it's not unreasonable to assume that if Oh is ever in a position to be captured by Starfleet, they'll take the opportunity.

• How did Narissa end up back on the Cube after being transported away? Was it a site-to-site transport?
  • Apparently it was a site-to-site as it appears she never left the Cube.

• Ok, so which is it? Did a single star system dying some how break the Romulan Empire and reduce it to its all its citizens being refugees, just some remnants researching a borg cube, and the empire as whole to a non-entity? Or did that single system not dying matter and the Romulan Empire still has enough of a government and resource to run the Zhat Vash, back-engineer the borg cube, and produce enough of a military that the Federation still considers them a threat and won't risk a war because they are that powerful?
  • The core Romulan government collapsed, but the Zhat Vash, and other more militaristic elements survived. This triggered an economic collapse, and an exodus of civilians... but meant that the ones that DID stay were the worst of the bunch. Some of their more compartmentalized industrial areas survived, and focused on building ships and such. So, basically? Both. (Yes, the refugees COULD try to go back to the more militaristic areas... but they likely wouldn't be wanted, and it's not exactly... fun).
  • A somewhat similar real-world example could be considered to be the USSR. The Chernobyl disaster did a lot to weaken the authority of the Soviet government, and as soon as it was perceived as too weak to do anything about it, former Soviet republics began splitting away and there was nothing Moscow could do to stop it. For several years, Russia was considered a complete basket case, with a significant exodus of people heading to what was perceived to be better opportunities. Eventually, however, Russia began to regrow and reassert its power once it had reached some kind of internal stability.
  • The USSR is a good parallel, a good example indeed. After the fall of the Soviet Union, 15 new countries suddenly appear. Some were (at least for a while) in total chaos almost like a failed state, other were less, but one of them - despite having several economic hardships and other problems - was still pretty much a world power, which was Russia. The Romulan Free State might be the equivalent of the Russian Federation, not as mighty as the USSR but still it is not as though the US or any other power is going to risk a war with it. And it has enough resources to maintain research facilities. The refugees may come from any of the probably other post-imperial Romulan states that exists or from the Free State itself, similar to the way how in our own world after the collapse of the USSR there was a strong Russian migration overseas and in some cases, like Israel, the refugees were not fully integrated. Soviet migrants in Israel are, to this date, a problem in the country as they form a very closed community not fully integrated in the main Israeli society, with their own language, neighborhoods, and political parties (and many were only loosely connected to Jewry by some distant relative before migrating). Similarly, Russian-speaking minorities in several former USSR states caused similar situations. In synthesis, you can be both a power and still have refugees overseas, and the fall of the empire doesn't mean that at least one of the successor states is not a power (if not a superpower).
  • Here is the problem, to use the USSR example and Chernobyl. We are led to believe, or at least the impression I got was that at the beginning of the series, Chernobyl (the Romulan star exploding) was so devastating the only thing left of Russia (the Romulan empire) is what we see on screen and maybe a few other planets. Essentially Russia (the Romulan empire) because of C (the star going kaboom) was reduced to East Germany and maybe some surrounding land (what we see on screen and a few other colonies). And for some reason in the 10 years after the star exploded they are still only what we see on screen and a few things we don't, and then in the final episode, boom, no ha ha we have been a super power this whole time and no one noticed, with massive infrastructure and a large empire somehow? So either the Romulan star exploding should have had minimum impact, or it was so devastating what we see on screen is what we get (and a little extra). Cannot have it both ways...
  • Sure you can. If you look at maps of the Romulan Empire, or at least the section bordering the Federation, that have shown up on screen, it's clearly not an insignificant amount of real estate, and is treated as a significant power. Nothing said that Romulus was the only major settled, industrialized planet in the Empire, or that all their industry was based in that system. However, it's entirely possible that the actual government was highly centralized, as the USSR's was, and while Romulus may have been the primary industrial center, it wasn't the only one. Now imagine that Moscow and the surrounding area gets hit with a small asteroid impact, with only a few minutes to evacuate. The Soviet Union would have lost a good chunk of its industrial capability, leadership, and bureaucracy, but not all of it. KGB headquarters and records? Gone. Party headquarters and records? Gone. Military headquarters? Gone. Many of the leaders and senior bureaucrats, the ones holding the USSR together? Gone. What would have happened next would likely have been a rapid dissolution of power as local leaders outside of Moscow took the opportunity and tried to seize power, essentially a fast version of what happened from 1989-1992. There would have been chaos, but most of the military power, it's still there, only now it's split between different regions trying to either seize overall power or take the opportunity to carve out their own domain. But many of those regions have their respective shares of the Soviet nuclear arsenal and military forces, so outside forces aren't tempted to try and take advantage because even if, say, Ukraine didn't have all the nukes, they had enough under their control to make it a bad idea. Once things settled down and relative stability set in, then they can get to organizing themselves. So you get a period of instability, with refugees wanting to get the hell away from all the crap that's happening, but some of the entities that have either survived or re-emerged post-disaster have stabilized and can regrow in strength.
  • As for whether a broken Romulan Empire is still a threat to the Federation, recall that the Federation was originally an alliance of four different nations meant to counter the threat of just the Romulan Empire. Even if the Romulan Free State didn't constitute an existential threat to the United Federation of Planets, it may be more than enough to drag the Federation into an extended and costly conflict they may not be able to afford with other potential threats in the galaxy.

• Picard's body dies, but his mind is copied/uploaded into a synthetic body and he lives again. Now they've already established in the TNG episode The Schizoid Man that a human mind can be transferred into a synthetic one, but why isn't Data, or at least a copy of his consciousness offered the opportunity to be moved into a new body?
  • It's right in the episode: Data doesn't want his existence to continue. He wants to be allowed to pass on, or else he feels his sacrifice aboard Scimitar, as well as all of his friendships and relationships, mean nothing.

• In "Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2", after the immediate threat of conflict with the Romulan fleet is over, why do all of the Starfleet ships leave as soon as the Romulan ships have left too? Shouldn't at least a couple of Starfleet ships stay behind to oversee the situation, to start diplomatic negotiations with Coppelius, and to make sure the Zhat Vash doesn't try to kill the androids in a sneak attack after their main fleet has left?
  • The Federation fleet is both escorting and tracking the Romulan fleet back to Romulan space. If any ships broke off they'd know about it. For another, and this was a scene that was cut for time, Narek was taken into custody by Star Fleet. So a Federation ship was sent back to pick him up.
  • Even though there isn't a fleet in orbit, now that the planet is under Federation protection, they'll have a regular patrol. If the Romulans launch an attack, it's an act of war.
  • Finally, it seems that Oh was swayed by both Picard's words and Soji's decision to stop the beacon. Also, she's facing arrest if she leaves Romulan space. If she launches another attack, it's certain that someone in Starfleet will go after her. They may even have their own assets in the Tal Shiar that could take care of her.
    • It's fairly likely that Section 31 still exists (though one can hope that they've mellowed out since their introduction), and will likely have eyes on Oh.

• How come there's so much anti-Romulan sentiment among the Federation considering that were allies during the Dominion War and there's even a notable movement for Reunification between Romulans and Vulcans (which, if it happened, presumably would make the entire Romulan race a Federation member)?
  • To be fair, we only see one settlement and Raffi's son married to a Romulan. We don't know how the rest of the Free Romulan State is doing or what their people's relations with the rest of the quadrant is like. But if Picard's caretakers on Earth and a human-Romulan marriage are any indication, it can't really be that bad.
  • While the Romulans were allies during the Dominion War, bear in mind that it was an Enemy Mine and they were manipulated into joining the Federation against the Dominion.
  • On the other hand, their secrecy and refusal to recognize the rights of synthetics as sentient beings might also have something to do with the anti-Romulan sentiment. Remember, the Romulans were also responsible for trying to sabotage the Federation-Klingon alliance and the Tal Shiar's—or rather Sela's—idea of "Reunification" was to send a Romulan invasion force to occupy Vulcan. Those are just the ones we know about from TNG against three species within a few decades. When the truth about the Mars attack comes out, there could be even more anti-Romulan sentiment. There may be other operations against other species that have taken place over the centuries.
  • As much as the US and the USSR were allies during WWII, heck Italy and Japan were part of the allies and enemies of Germany and the Central Empires during WWI which means that Japan and the US were allies too. Alliances during wartime do not always last long and switching sides afterwards is not rare either specially when it is more an Enemy Mine situation as mentioned above.
  • The Shinzon situation also happened after the Dominion War and could have soured relations further, especially with the old Senate wiped out and new hardliners in power. People may be cautious of anyone from the Romulan Star Empire if someone just tried to wipe out Earth with the space equivalent of a dirty bomb. Yes, Shinzon was human and Remans aren't Romulans, but that's like pointing out that Stalin wasn't Russian — no one cares.
  • Also, despite everything, human prejudice (And Vulcan, Andorian, Trill, etc) runs deep. Even if they helped against the Dominion, they are STILL the Federation's oldest (as in dating back to why the Federation even EXISTS) enemy. Old feuds don't simply fade away from one good deed, especially not within a generation.

• Isn't the Zhat Vash plan destined to fail? Considering how vast the Galaxy is and how limited warp speed is, they can't patrol the Gamma or Delta Quadrants to prevent artificial life from developing there (in fact we know it exists in the Delta Quadrant for an episode of Voyager showing a race of intelligent androids not to mention the holograms' rebellion there, which basically means the Zhat Vash already failed its mission). The super advanced AI aliens would wipe out all organic life of the Galaxy just for the events we see in the Delta Quadrant and there's no way for them to do anything about it.
  • Very likely it would've failed in that they can't be everywhere. The universe is a very big place, there are other galaxies and the Zhat Vash were wrong about the Admonition. Their influence spreads only so far and after Oh was exposed, people are going to be less likely to listen.
  • On the other hand, we actually know very little about the higher synths and what they mean by wiping all all organic life. There are two interpretations of the Admonition. While one has been proven false, the other may also be. They had to be called into their Universe and the moment the beacon was destroyed, they left. It's possible that they might not be who the audience thinks they are. Or what we saw may not even be the ones that left the message.
  • The Admonition is not extradimensional, the dialogue makes clear that they exist in this universe, they just jump into a Galaxy whenever invoked by the local A.I.s (that's why the show has been accused of ripping-off Mass Effect). Presumably there's at least one beacon in every Galaxy, and if that's the case technically the Zhat Vash only has to avoid the spread on The Singularity within the reach of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, however if other beacons exists in other quadrants then indeed they're screwed, specially if the androids seen on Voyager found it.
  • To clarify, the Admonition states that they are beyond the boundaries of space and time and therefore outside the known universe. They come into our reality—our space and time—when a series of complicated subspace signals are transmitted which opens a portal. They only built the 8-star solar system and placed on the planet the Admonition that contained the message and instructions. The Admonition is not a beacon. There are no subspace beacons waiting to be activated. The Synths had to build their own beacon in order to contact them which was clearly shown during the last episode using nanotechnology. Once Soji destroyed the beacon, the portal closed. There are no other beacons. They have to be built from scratch. Assuming there is only one planet with an Admonition in that one galaxy, then yes, it's possible that the Zhat Vash's plan would work. But if they are advanced enough to put their own custom star system together, then they have the ability to go anywhere in the Universe in the blink of an eye and could've built more than one Admonition wherever intelligent life could develop.
    • In order for there to be a beacon, it's essentially a fool-proof four-step process in that first you have to see that 8-star solar system. Second, be advanced enough to build a starship and get to that planet. Third, either you must be able to understand what the Admonition means or have already created Synthetic lifeforms that do. Fourth, the Synthetic lifeforms must choose whether to build a subspace beacon—which the Admonition does not tell you how to do, program it with the signals encoded inside the message—and use it or not. There's no accidental way for someone to call them. There's no beacon waiting for just anyone to find and activate.
    • From Episode 9, "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1" at 25 minutes, 47 seconds to 27 minutes, 5 seconds. The text of the message itself: ""The dance of division and replication. Imperfect. Finite. Organic life evolves, yearns for perfection. That yearning leads to synthetic life. But organics perceive this perfection as a threat. When they realize that their creations do not age, or become sick, or die... they will seek to destroy them, and in so doing, destroy themselves. Beyond the boundaries of time and space, we stand. An alliance of synthetic life, watching you, waiting for your signal. Call us, and we will come. You will have our protection. Your evolution will be their extinction."
    • That cleared then there's no direct indication that they are outside the known universe, as beyond the boundaries of space and time may perfectly mean that they can reach any place in space and time does not imply a location outside of it. That's jumping on conclusions and borderline fan fic (it is possible that is the case but it can not be established by canon, it's a fan theory at most).
    • Both interpretations of what ''beyond'' means (whether form outside the universe or from inside but not limited by space and time) are correct until canon makes it clear. If ever happens. In any case it is made clear that the super A.I.s won't eliminate the organic life in the entire universe they only reach one galaxy at the time when and if called. Otherwise the Zat Vash efforts are indeed ludicrous.

• Why is everyone giving Picard such a hard time that he "didn't do enough"? He saved many Romulans. Raffi blames him for ruining her life but that wasn't really his fault! He used his last resort (give me more ships to save Romulans or I resign) and Starfleet told him to shove off. What was everyone expecting him to do without the support of Starfleet?
  • Raffi is indeed the author of her own misfortune, but for the Romulans Picard told them he'd sort something, he promised them, but when things went off the rails he went and hid in his Vineyard. He didn't even go back and explain why things went off the rails and how he tried his best. That is what Elnor's group blame him for, not that he couldn't stop the Federation's inward turning but that he didn't even come back and say why. A simple apology back then, in person, would have soothed a lot of ill feeling. The lack of that personal apology allowed the Romulans to make Picard a scapegoat for their feelings of betrayal. He became a figurehead for their anger, much in the same way he let his anger at Starfleet get in his own way. And what could he have done? Well he could have chartered a ship and started rescuing people one at a time if he had to, making himself a persistent thorn in Starfleet's side until they finally acted out of shamefaced embarrassment. Exactly what he eventually did in this series.
  • As to Raffi, her anger stems from two things. First is the very human factor that she doesn't WANT to accept that it's largely thanks to her own actions that led to where she is, so she blames Picard for it because he was there. Second, she blames him for never once thinking to check in on her, to call, to write, nothing. He vanished to La Barre, and totally cut her loose. In her mind, if he'd at least bothered to check in on her, he might have been able to stop her downward spiral (she clearly respects and admires him, so if he'd told her to get help, to quit all her self-destructive behavior, she may have)

• When Oh and her fleet arrive at the synth homeworld, she declares that the synth threat is about to be eliminated for good. Unless, of course, the synths have two homeworlds, or a dozen homeworlds, or a hundred random agents on a hundred random planets populated by normal organic life... yeah, she really has no good reason to feel confident.
  • Sadly, that's the mindset of an extremist.

• Why do people use see-through holograms to watch TV?
  • It's see-through from our (the audience's) perspective. It's probably a solid image to the viewer in-universe.

• With everything surrounding the Romulan supernova, there's another one that's apparently been forgotten about — the Kaelon supernova. As established in "Half a Life", their star had 30-40 years before going boom, and that deadline is just about up. Did that ever get sorted out? Or does nobody care because they were just Aliens of the Week?
  • Well, in DS9 we saw a scientist re-ignite a dead star; combined with Timicin implicitly being close to a breakthrough, it's possible someone made it work and gave their sun a boost in the intervening decades.
  • Alternatively, they managed to convince the Kaelon to evacuate, or at least some of them, and because they knew the nova was coming, they had time to set up evacuation plans. The Romulus supernova was such a disaster largely because nobody expected it to happen, so they had very little time to figure things out; also, evacuating the Kaelon would likely be a significantly smaller scale project than the Romulans. Kaelon refugees and resettlement might have been a big deal at some point, but was glossed over with all the more major, larger-scale things going on.

• How do the various Emergency Holograms on Rios's ship appear to possess a portion of his memories as well, as shown in the scene where Raffi gathers them all together for questioning? There is the mention that Rios did a "self-scan" to give them all his appearance. Did that somehow also scan his mind? And if that kind of technology does exist, why the hell is it used so casually?

• All this rigmarole about the overwhelming significance of Soong-style androids, but hologram A.I.s are still treated as disposable nothings? In a series with a bunch of hologram characters, no one even brings it up, decades after the Doctor and Vic Fontaine were running around? What became of the two of them when public sentiment turned against AI? For that matter, what about the sentient Exo-Comps from TNG? ^note Hooray for Peanut Hamper! Or Wesley's sentient nanites?

Season 2

• When the Borg appeared from the anomaly, why did none of the multiple Federation ships present (several are even shown to be just arriving) ever open fire? The Borg were warned on an open channel to not transport or they would be fired upon, they pushed the Queen aboard anyway through shields (have to let that one pass as advanced technology, although it opens the floodgates...), and then caused the destination ship to experience issues that should have been obvious to the others ("Massive phaser fire and power disruptions detected on their bridge, Captain!"). Maybe if all the other ships were simultaneously affected by the Queen's plugging in, although that would mean they should all have started self-destructing... All it would have taken is "All ships, open fire!" from Rios as the last message sent before comms was blocked by the Queen, or just one other captain using their brain to see that this was a Borg ruse. Even if it didn't do any damage to the Borg construct, at least it would have shown that somebody in all those ships was trying. Instead, they appear to be a large number of dithering idiots, only a few years after being willing to shoot it out with Romulans at a moment's notice.

• Why did Picard have to explain who Q was? Elnor could be plausible since he's only been in Starfleet for a while, but Raffi is in the intelligence service, and Seven has met a Q, and both Sisko and Janeway were briefed on the Q. Is knowledge of reality-warping entities kept secure in the Picard era?
  • I simply figured that nobody had heard from any Q in a few decades, so the need to have people on alert for them was lessened, especially with everything else that was going on (Romulus, the attack on Mars, et cetera). Maybe it's become knowledge that is freely accessible, but not part of a mandatory briefing. I also figured Rios and Seven already knew, but let Picard give his quick explanation for the sake of Raffi, who might not know, and Elnor and Jurati, who most likely haven't heard of them.

• Why doesn't 2024 Guinan recognize Picard? The recap page for the episode claims it's an Alternate Continuity or universe, but I was under the impression that the two timelines were identical right up until the split. Moreover, why doesn't Picard himself try to jog her memory of their meeting in the 1800s? I suppose that when she seems to recognize the name "Picard" it's implied that she might remember, but it wasn't very clear to me.
  • Presumably, Guinan doesn't recognise Picard because Alternate!Picard never travelled back in time to the 1800s during the events of Time's Arrow, assuming those events even happened at all in the alternate reality.
  • And Picard is a smart guy, when 2024!Guinan didn't recognize him, he probably made the connection that they'd never met due to Timey-Wimey Ball, so he didn't try to remind her of it; it likely would have only confused and annoyed her further. The fact that she does eventually react to his name, just a little bit, seemed to imply to me that she might have had a vague recognition due to the established multi-timeline awareness of El-Aurians, leading her to stand down from her threats and help him out.
  • Alternatively, she just didn't recognize his face - over a century later, he's not even supposed to be born for several more, he's got a few decades more wear and tear to him, not to mention the new synth body could flummox any "higher sense" she has of who this man is, she has no reason to immediately assume that he's the same man who protected her in the cavern back in the 1890s. On Picard's end, like above, he doesn't mention his name right off in the name of Timey-Wimey Ball shenanigans and trying to leave minimal impact on the past. But, when he DOES drop his name, she has that moment of recognition, that moment when she finally decides to help him.
    • But wasn't she recognizing the name of Renee, the woman the Watcher she knew was commanded to guard? Because as mentioned before is unlikely that evil Picard of the Confederation timeline would have ever made the Time's Arrow trip.
    • That is interesting because that means Guinan has two sets of memories. In one she remembers meeting Picard in the late 1800s and in another she remembers meeting him in 2024 and don't remembering him from the 1800s. Which may explain why El-Aurians can perceive changes in the timelines, probably because of their own longevity.

• From both the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth episodes, loads of things to wonder about with the whole "Jurati goes in first to get captured" plan. First off, they place detainees in the security area instead of a separate room? They didn't search her at all when she was detained? The guards who were watching the monitors didn't respond to her at all when she was clearly and loudly talking to herself? And why did the spray she used knock out the guards, but not herself? It is obviously gas-based. Aside from that last one, for an event that has (for our current standards) so much high tech security, they've got a few things to work on.
  • Between giving her Super-Strength and blasting out that EMP, it's clear that the Borg Queen is using her tech to enhance Jurati's body. I figured the Queen modified the hypospray with nanoprobes or something to make sure things went to plan. As for the talking to herself, it could just be that she isn't really talking that loud, and it's for the audience's sake, like the transparent hologram question above. Given how the relationship between her and the Queen is depicted onscreen, she might even not be talking out loud at all. She was only noticed "talking to herself" when she was communicating with the others, not when the Queen was talking to her.
    • But Picard didn't knew she was taken by the Queen, thus has no way to know that she could resist the knocking gas,thus his plan of having her being captured makes no sense. Aside it totally depended in many variables like not being search, been located in the same room and be place near/facing the people needed to be knock-out.

• Picard has an android body now, and one that's supposed to be more advanced than Data's, for example. Why then, in "Two of One", does a car hitting him put him in a coma, when Data has gone through much worse and remained operational?
  • More advanced, in this case, means more perfectly replicating an ordinary human's body.
  • Why would they make an android as vulnerable as a regular human when they can make him tougher?
    • Because the Soongs have twisted priorities, and making an android which is indistinguishable from a human, even in their vulnerabilities, is their weird goal. That is what "more advanced" means to members of the Soong family. Not tougher, stronger, more durable, but more advanced as in more human.
    • I'm pretty sure they outright said that his synth body is as close to human as possible, because it would have been really hard for him to adapt to suddenly having Super-Strength and other such enhancements. They just wanted to give him a second chance without his brain disorder, not completely turn him into a robot.
    • It was done before with data's "mother" Juliana Tainer nee Soong in the TNG episode "Inheritance". When she was hurt, she went into a coma and was programmed to "die" at some point in the future.
    • Does that mean he can have robot cancer? This is starting to sound more like a potshot at Bicentennial Man of all things.

• In what world did Guinan think it was smart to make that "luxury of patience" comment at Picard? Ignoring that Jean Luc clearly knows her more than she's used to, she's been on earth for at least two-hundred years at this point. She has lived through the American Civil War, both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War and War on Terror, and somewhere in there is the Eugenics War if the writers are willing to follow the old lore. But she's ready to wash her hands over a bunch of heroin addicts squatting fifty feet outside of her bar in the middle of Los Angeles?
  • I don't remember the exact scene you mean, but I think it was less "things are worse than ever before" and more "I've seen them at their worst and I'm just tired of how even now they just won't fix their issues." She wasn't mad at the addicts, she was mad at the societal problems that have left them without anywhere else to go, social issues she has seen happening for generations with very little change. And as mentioned above, this Guinan never had the visit from Picard's crew to let her know there was hope. She's just reached her breaking point. Straw that broke the camel's back type thing.
  • On another note from your question, the Eugenics Wars probably aren't mentioned directly for the same reason the Dominion War was avoided, worries about Continuity Lockout. It's worth noting that Adam Soong's eugenics work is described as being highly illegal and in violation of an international agreement called the "Shenzhen Convention." I assumed this was a small nod; presumably the Convention was established after the Eugenics Wars to prevent the development of further Augments like Khan.
    • It appears that the Eugenics Wars haven't happened yet, given that Soong ends up looking over the Project Khan proposal. Some revisions in the timeline were obviously made due to the real history of Planet Earth; originally Khan and his followers launched into space in 1996, which... yeah.
    • The other option is that this is his attempt at recreating the project that created Khan (or projects Khan left behind). Rather than him being responsible for the original Eugenics War, he's being blocked by policies intended to stop a second before it starts.

• The Borg Queen makes an alliance with Soong to gain access to his resources. Why not just assimilate him?
  • Perhaps because she wanted to ensure that the Confederation was formed so she could Curb Stomp them when the time came. Jurati lampshades this in "Mercy" to which the Queen explains that she has a 400-year jump on technology and will use that to take them out.
  • Agnes would have recognized him as an "ancestor" of Soji and the other Synths on Coppelius. Perhaps she subconsciously influenced the Borg Queen to save her friend.

• I can't help but feel that Seven claiming that it's perfectly fine to murder Borg drones because they are not human anymore, was a bit odd.
  • To be fair, they were in the early 21st century and lacked the technology to undo the assimilation process. They were up against mercenaries that worked for a Private Military Contractor that was quite happy to operate illegally on French soil and flout the law. There may also be a bit of self-loathing considering that Seven herself was (and once again became) Borg. On top of which they were actively trying to kill Picard and the others, so they were justified in killing them in self-defense.

• How did the "Jurati Collective" go unnoticed by the traditional Borg, who tend to be keen on re-assimilating or destroying subversive Borg (especially in "Unimatrix Zero") for nearly four hundred years?
  • It's highly likely that the "Jurati Collective" avoided the Delta quadrant completely. There are parts of the Alpha and Beta quadrants that they could've settled in and, with their 400-year technology and knowledge advantage, hidden themselves. There's also the fact that the Borg are still in possession of the stealth technologies that Seven's parents invented. Let's not forget that they'd know the exact layout and location of the Borg transwarp conduit network and could easily avoid it. It wouldn't be easy, but it's definitely possible for them to hide and stay a step ahead of them. Finally, they wouldn't have to hide forever since they'd know exactly when the Borg get crippled and plan accordingly. Plus, the Confederation version of the La Sirena was equipped with a cloaking device that could easily be replicated.
  • I don't even think it would be difficult for the Jurati Collective to avoid the Delta Collective. Space is big. Really, really big. And yes, this is Star Trek. There are always times when quantum subspace waveform fluctuations or metreon particles or whatever clues someone in to something happening fifty sectors away when required by the story, and maybe there will even be a story eventually about the two clashing. But the question of how Jurati went unnoticed? Because her Borg are a needle in a very, very, very, very large haystack. And no one even knows there is a needle in the first place.

• Q didn’t have any more snapping power left, as we saw when he tried it on Renee and Guinan in two separate episodes (and he was honestly trying to vaporize Guinan, as he said). So where did he get the “juice” for that one last snap? Did he manage to get hold of an infinity stone, or was he always keeping that last one in reserve, despite not knowing he had used all the rest up? Was it just the restorative power of a hug from P-Stew?
  • He was probably expending power just keeping himself corporeal and together. As soon as he stopped doing that, he had the power to woosh everyone back to the start, but that was the end of his juice. He couldn't re-corporealise or even maintain consciousness afterwards.

• How could Earth no matter how authoritarian and fascistic, defeat more technologically advanced and militaristic civilizations like Klingon, Romulans, Andorians and even Vulcans? And specially the Borg. And never crossed their minds to unite again the common enemy like in the Mirror Universe?
  • Same as how any smaller power wins a war against larger and better equipped enemies, smart tactics, ability or willingness to take higher losses, better weapons, and plain old luck. Every victory gives them more resources, which makes the next victory more likely. And it seemed like humanity spent some time gathering their forces and strength since the big victories only occurred during the life of evil-Picard.
  • One fanfic I read theorized that the Borg were defeated by Species 8472, since Janeway wasn't around to help them clean up their mess, and the Confederacy just cleaned up the rest and took the credit.
  • Also is possible that without humans, Vulcans and Andorians never achieved peace thus were weakened by endless war, without the Federation as an ally of the Klingon both helping to moderate them and disencouraging the Romulans to open warfare as they know they loose, Klingon and Romulan probably were also into many wars thus wasting themsleves and weakening. We also don't know what the Dominion did in this timeline. An isolationist Earth just waiting along (gathering technology and resources quitely) while all other powers destroy each other can easily give a series of unexpected hits once the wars are over and all others are exhausted by them.

• If they traveled to 2024 Earth how come there's a mission to Jupiter with today's technology that hardly let us get to the moon.
  • Because it's not, strictly speaking, our 2024. It's the 2024 of the Star Trek Universe, which admittedly bears a strong resemblance to our own version. But there are plenty of little details indicating that it's different, in the form of easter eggs and callbacks to things previously established in Star Trek's fictional history that have since been subject to History Marches On.
    • For example, our 2022 lacks the existence of people like Khan, the S.S. Botany Bay sleeper ship, and VR systems capable of taking archival video and turning it into 3D to the point that little details like text on the side of a test tube. Nor are there Sanctuary Districts and police cruisers that can be remotely started and driven away (Ford Interceptors use regular non-RFID keys that are keyed alike, so the diagnostics port and relay attacks won't work. You could remotely unlock the vehicle and perhaps hack its on-board computer wirelessly, but you'd have to pick the lock on the steering column. On the other hand, they do have can-bus networks and various control modules, so it's not impossible.
    • Star Trek it is supposed to happen in our universe since the start of the original show thus the explanation should be consistent with Earth's history and technology otherwise any headscratcher could be answer with the same handwave. That said it is possible to explain the difference in technology using the same fictionalized universe's own internal logic with the many time travels to the past that effectively modified it.
  • Ok that's the Doylist answer I was expecting a more Watsonian answer. Obviously all works of fiction happened in their own respective universe since The Epic of Gilgamesh, but unless they are alternate history or happen in their own fantasy world like Westeros they are supposed to happen in our world. Star Trek in particular whole gimmick was that it was a representation of our future and all episodes and movies with time travel were supposed to happen to our history’s timeline, not an alternate history nor a parallel universe. If Star Trek was a different world all along ala Terran Empire that’s certainly a boomer and clearly would change the spirit and message of the series quite a lot. Is like reading Harry Potter, yes wizards do not exist in real life but if you move the story from our world in the 90s hidden to the muggles into a parallel fantasy world with hidden wizards that never was Earth to begin with is a big meaningful change.
    • I don't think there is a good Watsonian answer to the question. As you mentioned, Star Trek, like most fiction set in Real Life, is Like Reality, Unless Noted. But the canon of Trek established since the 60s means the "unless noted" part of that is big and getting bigger by the day. We've already long since passed the point where real history is irreconcilable with Trek history. Some fan attempts in the past were made to delay this, like the idea that the eugenics wars were covert and not public knowledge, but you can only take this so far before we all have to accept that Khan has (thankfully) not taken over the world. Similarly, we have to accept that further divergences are unavoidable if we're going to maintain consistency within the franchise. TOS wrote checks that the 21st century couldn't cash. C'est la vie.
  • There has been several time travels to the past at this point, and is possible that some of them have changed the timeline already. Most notably Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in which future technology is given by Scotty to a man of that time, which may explain why Star Trek's 2024 is more advanced. Thus it is our future but the timeline at least after Voyage is already altered. Of course this opens other contradictions like why other time we saw travels to this period (like in the DS9 episode of the Bell Riot) we don't see more advanced technology.
  • Strange New Worlds addresses this, by stating that the Federation's enemies have meddled in its past on multiple occasions in order to prevent it ever existing, and this has had the side effect of causing events to shift from their original places. This would explain the discrepancy between the show's now and the real life now.
• How did Soong (the 21st century one) ever expect his drone attack on the Shango to remain hidden? A plethora of cameras are always focused on a launching spacecraft to record its liftoff and flight from Earth to the beyond. They would have picked up the attacking drones which could then well have been tracked back to Soong, rather than appearing to be an anomalous accident.
  • Soong was probably overconfident because of his big ego. He probably thought that even if caught due to the importance that his investigation would have to save the world he will be pardoned, or even if he remains in prison he was still interested in become this massive world savior that the Borg Queen predicted which is, at the end, more important to him than his own freedom.

• Why does Guinan had to explain Picard what Renee Picard discovered that save the world? Shouldn't that be common knowledge and thought in schools? That was the original timeline that they fix to not be changed by Q, therefore it was there from before the travel to the past.
  • Picard stated outright that many records from the early 21st century were lost in the aftermath of World War III. A global nuclear war devastated the planet, and as we saw in First Contact, the survivors were living as wasteland scavengers until Cochrane's warp flight led to first contact with the Vulcans. Earth history being subject to some Future Imperfect and gaps in the records was mentioned in TNG as well.
    • But according to Guinan (who by the way should have talk to future historians about those gaps) the one who actually discovered the properties of the microorganism wasn't Renee but Ricardo (Teresa's son). If the Memory Alpha wiki is correct and he's 9 in 2024 and assuming is not a genious his discovery had to be post-World War III (2026-2053). He was 18 in 2033, assuming he enters college at that exact age, 10 years for a PHD would make it 2043. According to Guinan he created a team of scientist to work on that, assuming he made that right after graduate and took less than a year making the discovery would be no earlier than 2044, although somewhere after 2050 would be more likely, maybe even post-First Contact (2063).

• I mean admittedly nobody on that show cares, but this episode directly contradicts Star Trek: The Next Generation S1 E5 "Where No One Has Gone Before" which is interesting because it's the catalyst for some plot points of this show. Picard's mother is shown as elderly, which we know she didn't reach in age. And the Traveller states that humanity was uninteresting, yet somehow is also part of a time-traveling police force of sorts. It does however give more of a reason why Picard was so distracted when seeing his mother in that episode though.
  • This is partly answered by Jean Luc, who imagined his mother becoming an old woman and longing for a chat. The area of the universe they were in brought anything they think about into reality.

• While Picard and his crew are in 2024, the Borg Queen teams up with Dr. Adam Soong, telling him that Renée's expedition will render Soong's research redundant and is what prevents the rise of the Confederation, of which Soong founded himself. However, in the Confederation timeline, the Borg are defeated with the Queen herself put up for execution, so in actuality, the Queen should be helping Renée succeed in order to prevent the rise of the Confederation, as the Borg have a much better chance at defeating the Federation. Why would she help Soong in the first place?
  • This is actually brought up by Agnes when she is trying to talk the Queen down. She points out that allowing the Confederation to form will lead the Borg to its total destruction. The Borg Queen counters that she'll have a 400-year technological and knowledge advantage over them and the time needed to build up the Borg.

• Why did Q need to bring Elnor back as a "gift", instead of his resurrection just being a natural consequence of restoring the timeline? The people sent to the other timeline weren't physically sent there, their minds were just inhabiting their alternate selves' bodies. The Elnor who was killed was technically the alternate timeline one, and prime Elnor had no reason to be killed, so shouldn't he be fine without Q's help? The only way this would make sense is if Q deliberately set the rules of the scenario so that if someone died while in the other timeline they'd stay dead, and then changed his mind later, but if the whole reason for him doing this whole thing was to help Picard get over his past why would he do that?

• How Soong is able to make a donation that is apparently utterly significant if he needs himself funding for his researches (like any normal scientist)?

• Finding bullet holes in an abandoned château is not unexpectable, but what about dead borgs in the cave walls?

• What exactly did Adam Soong do that made him the "saviour" of humanity in the Confederation timeline? This Bad Future was caused by environmental collapse, which Renee Picard managed to avert. But Soong was a geneticist, so how did he save the world?

Season 3

• When is Season 3 set? Dating it hangs on Frontier Day, but it's not immediately clear if this is the 250th anniversary of the NX-01 launching (putting it in 2401) or the 250th anniverary of the foundation of the UFP (putting it in 2411).
  • Given that the Odyssey-Class Enterprise is taken from Star Trek Online, set in 2409-, for it to be decomissioned in 2401 seems unlikely. However, Memory Alpha, which is normally on the money, suggests 2401.

• Shaw clearly has issues with the Borg (as to why, we still need to see)and ex-Borg, so why would he have an ex-Borg under his command? As I remember, Starfleet captains do have at least some lee-way over picking who would be their second-in-command, so why accept Annika/Seven, arguably the most famous ex-Borg in the galaxy?
  • As we learn when Seven's officer evaluation is revealed, Shaw realized she was a very talented officer and leader who had exactly the kind of loyalty, bravery, and innovative thinking that Starfleet needs. Shaw was able to put aside his issues about the past enough to accept and value Seven. But Jerk with a Heart of Gold that he is, he was determined to remain brusque with her as with everyone else. He probably also realized that her past with the Borg had left her scarred as well, whether she acknowledged it or not- even if he didn't go about helping her deal in the best way.

• Why does Seven still call herself, well, Seven? In Voyager she struggles with her nature, and it's still an issue for her in Picard. But in Broken Pieces, Seven as Borg Queen says "Annika still has work to do", implying that she still considers herself as the girl she was before she was assimilated by the Borg. But afterwards, and in Season 2 when she's fully human, at least for a while, she still calls herself Seven. Why? She's a different character in Voyager and Picard. I can understand that she doesn't want to go by Annika Hansen (arguably she could consider Annika dead), but then why still go by Seven? She could probably pick another name if she wanted.
  • Perhaps it represents her trying to make peace with her own nature. She has realized that, no matter what she does, she will always be Borg, even as a liberated Borg. She is more than Annika now and always will be. It's also a measure of bravado; she chooses to be called Seven of Nine, rather than the way it was forced on her in the past.
  • Seven was in many ways a child on Voyager, so everything that happened there was intensely memorable. She originally kept the name Seven of Nine because that was her name when she was disconnected. However, she also served for years on Voyager with a group she would form deep friendships with, and they ALL called her Seven. So, the name became intensely special to her. Shaw is actually bullying her at a deep level, though he doesn't understand that.

• Taken at face value, it would appear that Jack Crusher was born after the events of Nemesis. According to the Star Trek timeline, Beverly was in her mid-50s around that time. So have they cured menopause in the 24th century?
  • We already knew this, Deep Space Nine established that Keiko O'Brien's mom had her in her mid fifties, possibly even her sixties. Also; although it is rare, it is technically possible for a woman in her her early fifties to conceive naturally without fertility drugs even in our own era. See the list on The Other Wiki for more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_over_age_50
  • Who knows if menopause is "cured", but lifespans have increased in the next 400 years and I would expect it to be delayed proportionately at least.
• I fully admit I am usually only paying half attention to episodes and we still have more to go. But am I understanding correctly, that the renegade changelings are targetting Picard and the Enterprise crew for the actions of Sisko and the DS9 crew?
  • Doubtful. Mind you, Picard and his bridge crew may have played a role in the Dominion war, but it's more likely they're planning a mass-casualty event on Pioneer Day and have been slipping their people onto ships and facilities. It doesn't explain why they're after Jack and I'm sure they're quite happy to hurt Worf's friends, but it's not quite a personal matter.
  • Or Lore is using the Founders faction to get his own revenge. "You will help us destroy the Federation." to which he likely said something along the lines of "You're in luck, I want to destroy them too. Let's help each other."
  • Well, there's more of the story you haven't seen about why Picard is targeted. But, no it's not personal at all, the changelings are targeting Starfleet/The Federation.
• When the cloaking device is placed on the Titan Geordie says they're breaking several laws and treaties. However how is the Algernon Treaty (the one that forbids the Federation from ever using cloaking devices) still working. There's no longer a Romulan Empire after the supernova incident and is doubtful that the Romulan Free State even as a successor state can enforced it. In fact is said that the Neutral Zone no longer exists IIRC.
  • It wasnt signed with just the Romulans. The theory is because of the genesis device the Federation had to sign a treaty with the entire quadrant (we promise not to make cloaking devices and launch genesis devices into planets, and the rest of you promise not to invent genesis devices and do the same) or risk all out war with the entire quadrant and possibly civil war at the same time. It just that the Romulans where in all the episodes it came up in TNG.

• So a small number of changeling infiltrators were captured and experimented on. Ok it bends my suspension of disbelief but I guess that works. We know from DS9 that in addition the main changeling running the Dominion War there were a very small number of others running black ops missions. How ever we know also from DS9 it was a super small number, like they hinted low double digits. So how are there enough rogue changelings, to run Vadick's ship, and account for the ones killed, and infiltrate as much of Starfleet that has been infiltrated (they are kind of hinting at like 100's)? Because I will be honest between all of that and how many they would need to pull off what they are doing its kind suspension of disbelief breaking for me.
  • Vadic mentioned in this episode that they could give the new abilities to changelings they link with, So I think the implication is that they went back to the gamma quadrant after the war and recruited more changelings to their side.

• After the reveal in episode 9 that its all part of some Borg plot, why don't they attempt to contact the Jurati Borg collective established in the last season? As surely they'd be able to help deal with it quickly, or be able to help them defend Earth in some capacity.
  • Further compounding that issue is the fact that now that means the borg have 2 queens? Plus the whole set up for the end of season was that Jurati was now all that is left of the borg. So with the reveal of season 3 does that mean there are multiple borg collectives?
    • Remember that the Borg Queen Jurati merged with came from an alternate timeline. So, Jurati's Borg were clearly a different collective than the Prime timeline collective.

• The real world answer is obvious, but of all the ships in the Fleet Museum that they could choose from to fight the Borg, they completely ignore the Defiant, a ship specifically designed to combat the Borg in favour of their old starship, which by their own admission has limited weapons. It seems a bit off that any of these ships would be connected to the Starfleet Mainframe, and considering the Enterprise still had weapons, odds are good the rest of them would too. So why ignore a warship built with the intent to fight the enemy they are about to engage?
  • Geordi implies that the Enterprise is the only one with functional systems, the others presumably have been decommissioned/had all the dangerous bits removed and replace with museum mock-ups. Plus the Defiant was not designed to fight single handed against the Borg but operate as wolfpacks; building lots of Defiant class ships and siccing them all on the Borg.
  • Geordi also mentions that he hadn't finished working on D's weapons, which means they have to be targeted manually. It's doubtful any of the other ships were even functional at all. He only worked on bringing Enterprise's weapons back online at all because, well, she was his Enterprise. It's not really made clear why he even enabled her weapons; unless he did it as a rush job for the present crisis, but it doesn't seem like he would have had the time.
    • Seeing as Kirk's Enterprise was repaired after its last mission, and the HMS Bounty still has its cloaking device, I'm assuming that the fleet museum requires all the ships to be stored in "ready to go" condition if they need to be recommissioned. The D was probably going to be tested after the repairs were done.
  • Don't forget that they served on the D for eight years. If they're gonna fight the Federation's greatest enemy, they're gonna do it on a ship that they know inside and out.
  • Also, as far as the Enterprise-D is concerned, everyone on the bridge is still her command crew. I think the computer even refers to Picard as Captain Jean-Luc Picard at one point. They would have full access to every function and security protocol on the ship. Enterprise would be the only ship present where that's true for everyone there. Well, it's actually implied that Enterprise-E is nearby in mothballs, but can't be used because of something Worf did to her. And I wouldn't be shocked if Odo modified Defiant's security protocols specifically to prevent Riker from having any kind of command authority on board.

• If the Borg are responsible for Jack Crusher's red eye powers, and the changelings being after him, why was he programmed to fight off the changelings with the red eye powers? Surely it should make him hand himself over to them.
  • He was not programmed to fight changeling, he was just programmed presumibly to be a very good fighter in order to escape Starfleet security, they just can't really control who he fights at that point and logically he will be fighting what he thinks are his enemies. The alliance between the Borg and the Changelings seem to be much posterior, specially because Picard was implanted with the genetic alteration on the brain during "Best of Both Worlds" several years before the Bajoran Wormhole connecting the Gamma Quadrant was discovered not to mention much, much before the Dominion War even started, thus even if he has the instinctive compulsion to go find the Borg and probably won't fight Borg drones, he has no programming whatsoever with non-Borg even if they're working for them.

• Does Beverley think Wesley is dead?
  • She says something along the lines of, "I gave Wesley his space, and I lost him." That doesn't necessarily mean "dead". It most probably means "I lost him as a son" when he became a super-powered being exploring other planes of existence.

• What happened with Laris? It was indicated early in the season that she and Picard are a couple, but she's never seen/mentioned again.
  • Doylist answer is that season three showrunner went with the idea that "season 1 and 2 never happened" (tho doubtfully they were de-canonize altogether), the Watsonan answer is more complex but by Occam's razor they broke-up sometime between season 2 and 3.
  • Except they clearly were a couple in season 3 episode 1. He was planning to accompany her on a work trip as holiday and then decided he should involve Riker and Starfleet rather than the ex Tal Shiar operative who's definitely not involved in any conspiracy when helping Beverly. Perhaps he was trying to avoid The Missus and the Ex.
  • Season 1 and 2 are clearly referenced in season, the former more than the latter with the presence of the golems, Altan Soong, and Picard's original body being a MacGuffin. Laris is simply unimportant to the plot and she may just simply be waiting for Picard when he returns to the vineyard.
  • The real-world answer is that there was a scene in the script with Laris that showed her departing from Picard's vineyard, but the actress abruptly had to leave the United States at the last second, so they never got a chance to film it or rewrite the script to address her absence.

• Where was Kestra the entire time her parents were with their old crew?
  • Similar to the above, Doylist answer is that she might nor even be canonical now, however if she is Watsonian answer is that she's basically a teen living in a high tech advanced Utopia and can easily take care of herself having replicators and the like and living in a socialist post-scarcity paradise.
  • Also, Riker and Troi certainly have friends and family outside of the Enterprise crew that could be keeping an eye on her.
  • She's hanging out with Captain Crandall.
  • She clearly still is canonical she was referenced in Season 3 they may be idiotically trying not to refer back to it but they haven't tried to pull Canon Discontinuity on it apart from some nasty retcons.
    • Alright but then the Occam's Razor answer is that she's like 12 or 13 now and lives in a pretty safe automated high tech Utopia that provides for all her needs, thus is easy to imagine she can handle herself alone, she even look very self-suficient for her age already when she appears. If nowadays minors are safer compare to 300 years ago, the same applies for them.

• So... what about Enterprise-F? If anything, she seemed more advanced than the Titan. Did they rechristen her, too? Why not just give Seven command of the Ent-F, instead of rechristening a whole new Enterprise? Or are there now 2 Enterprises in the fleet?
  • Secondary materials say the Enterprise-F was being decommissioned because its critical systems were compromised in something called the "Monfette Gambit," so if it wasn't totaled during the last episode, it was on its way out regardless. Plus with the time skip, the Titan might've been upgraded when it was made into the Enterprise-G, which was done in honor of the Enterprise-D Crew. Though, in real life it was probably done to symbolize the franchise going back to its roots as an adventure show.

• The Borg's plan depended a lot on Picard's reproduction. If they used Picard's altered DNA to ingrained everyone under 25 with the receiving proteins that will controlled them, but they needed Picard's son to be the transmitter... what if Picard didn't had a son? Not only was he already in his 40s he didn't seem to be particularly interested in having children, if fact they were lucky that Beverly Crusher had one of the very uncommon -yet possible- post-50 pregnancies.
  • It's most likely that the Borg found out about Jack's connection to them first, and then formulated the plan around that.

• What happened to Jurati's Borg Cooperative?
  • As with other things from seasons 1 and 2 the producers said they wanted to pretend didn't happened. In-universe explanation however is that they might have no time to contact it as they're too far-away, IIRC they were pretty much on the far edges of Federation space.
  • The Jurati Borg are also acting as guards against whatever is going to come out of that transwarp conduit. Perhaps they were simply unable to pull away from that duty.

• What would Changelings, even rogue ones, would gain from working with the Borg? Even for a rough faction bent for revenge for what they suffered. With the entire Federation fleet at their disposal, being one of the powers of the Galaxy, the Borg can indeed easily spread and conquest the Galaxy and considering that most likely younger people of other worlds are also modify as everyone uses the transporter the Borg spread would be exponential eventually reaching the Gamma Quadrant and the Dominion itself. And Vadic herself looks terrified of them, it's clear that even they fear the Borg.
  • In my opinion, the rogue Changelings simply don't care about the Great Link anymore and are more than willing to sacrifice their entire species for the sake of revenge. Either that, or Vadic was arrogant enough to think she could outwit the Borg.
  • Vadic was insane and wanted revenge at any cost, she probably didn't even have a plan for what would happen after Starfleet fell. And with the Borg being severely weakened, she might have underestimated them, only realizing she was out of her depth once she was too far in to go back on the deal.

• Does Jack still likely have his Borg telepathy?
  • There's no solid evidence one way or the other, but I would say probably not. It seemed like it was dependent on a connection to the Collective, given how the "door" that locked that connection away started affecting his mind a lot more once he started using the powers, and how he never tries to use them after he severs himself and denies the Queen.
  • The brain mutation responsible for that was probably removed after his mother helped modify the transporters, just like with everyone else who got assimilated.

• Why did Raffi barely bat an eye when discovering a storage unit apparently containing James T. Kirk?!
  • There was a lot going on and very little time to stop and dwell on anything. She probably was shocked, but filed it away under "ponder that once the massive crisis is over." Alternatively, although Kirk seems to be famous for most characters, it's possible she's not very familiar with him and thus didn't think much of it.
  • Kirk is famous for us as audience but in-universe is just a notable captain that lived over 100 years before, probably well known among history buffs and Starfleet enthusiasts, but not everyone and Raffi is more from the Intelligence division.
    • That doesn't really square with how often Kirk is name-checked throughout the franchise. Literally every series set in the post-TOS era features multiple offhand references to Kirk by name. Counting the HMS Bounty, two of his ships have prominent places in the Fleet Museum. Standard starship combat tactics are named after him (Defensive Pattern Kirk Epsilon—implying that, at the very least, five such tactical sequences named for Kirk). John Harriman flat out said that children study his missions in grade school, something we see holds true well into the TNG-era, when an episode of Voyager has Icheb give a presentation on Kirk that calls his tenure "One of the greatest chapters in Starfleet history." Sisko was even familiar with Kirk's reputation as a ladies' man. And don't forget that Starfleet's tradition of giving the starships Enterprise the registration number "NCC-1701" with a sequential lettered suffix began specifically to honor Kirk and his crew after he saved all life on Earth for at least the second time. There's simply no way that Kirk is an obscure historical figure.

• Memory-Alpha and other sources have said that President Anton Chekov is the son of Pavel Chekov, but the timing seems off. Pavel was born in 2245, which is 156 years before Season 3 of Picard. Think about what age you would be on the 156th anniversary of your parent's birth. Perhaps Pavel was 75 when Anton was born, and Anton is now 81?
  • It's been established elsewhere in Trek that, thanks to future healthcare, humans in general can live to be 120 or more, and (as noted above regarding Jack) women can remain capable of childbirth into their sixties at least (so presumably men can also remain fertile into older age). So it's not unthinkable for Pavel to have children in his 70s, especially if it was with a younger wife. And since he's voiced by the 86-year-old Walter Koenig, Anton being in his 80s is reasonable.
    • Even today, men fathering children into their old age isn't unheard of.
    • As a real life example, US President John Tyler was born in 1790. His youngest child died in 1947, 157 years after her father's birth (at age 87). One would assume that people born in 23nd Century and thereafter are more likely to be longer lived than those from the 18th.
  • Future healthcare could also justify his remaining in office at that age, as he probably isn't dealing with the same difficulties as real-life octogenarians. He's likely seen as mature and wise rather than senile.
  • Given that in the TNG pilot, McCoy was still alive and well at 137, President Chekov could possibly be older than Walter Koenig was at the time, possibly around 100, which would shave a decade or two off Pavel’s age when he fathered his son.
  • Just how famous is Pavel Chekov though? Why would the President of the Federation be bringing him up at this point in time?
    • He doesn't have to be famous at all. The President is referring to his own father, as many real life politicians have done.
    • I'm under the impression that *all* of Kirk's core group are legends in the Trekverse by this point in time.

• The implication of the last episode is that Starfleet is wrecked - its chief base was smashed, the majority of its crews killed - including the vast majority of its experienced officers (i.e. most over-25’s). Most of the surviving lead characters are Starfleet officers and have presumably lost many friends in the disaster. The Battle of Wolf 359 - endless source of Starfleet angst, incluing Captain Shaw's - was a picnic by comparison. But as the season concludes, no-one seems to be stressing about this overmuch. Why?
  • A lot can happen in a year. Jack, and probably many others, were rushed through the academy. It's also not clear how many older crewman were killed; they probably took shelter once the assimilation started and the ensigns took over the bridges. It's also possible the Federation called in some favors or asked for help in rebuilding.

• When the Borg take over and utilize the Fleet Formation protocol, the formation the ships take is a very distinctive shape. It forms a row of circles with "spikes" extending up and down from them. Is there some significance to the shape?

• In "Surrender", why did Vadic immediately freeze when thrown into space, when the Deep Space Nine episode "Chimera" had established that Changelings can survive in space without freezing and even create their own propulsion to move around? Why didn't Vadic just morph into an organic spaceship, like Laas did in "Chimera", and escape?
  • Because Vadic’s group of Changelings are much better at mimicking, it makes sense they expend more energy to hold their forms, and are therefore weaker.
  • That just raises a further question: why does Vadic, a Changeling fanatic, hold a human form on her ship all the time, even when there's no one else but other Changelings to see her? Also, it's questionable whether Vadic's group actually are "much better at mimicking" than the original Changelings; see the Headscatcher below for that issue.

• Dr. Crusher discovers that the new breed of Changelings can apparently mimic humanoids perfectly, right down to their internal organs, and they can also fool the blood tests used to detect them. This is treated as a shocking revelation to Crusher, Picard and the other protagonists. But Deep Space Nine had already established that Changelings can fool blood tests, as one of them was able to mimic General Martok for over a year despite having tests done to him. And the DS9 episode "Broken Link" showed that the Changelings can also turn one of their own into a perfect biological human, with blood, lungs, internal organs, etc. All of this information would have been known by the Federation (and by the Enterprise crew, who took part in the Dominion War) at the time, since Dr. Bashir undoubtedly reported about it. So why would these findings about the Changelings' "new" capabilities be shocking news, when the Federation has known about said capabilities for 25 years?
  • Because when they turned Odo into a human, they took his shapeshifting abilities. That's apparently different from Changelings who can perfectly replicate internal organs while retaining their morphogenic matrixes.

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