Star Trek Picard SPOILERS thread

[Janx]

How is there an 8 star system that only the Romulans know about? Space and star mapping isn't this kind of thing where you have to go right up to it to find it.

Does the "call us and we'll kill all the meatbags" for you sound too convenient? Kind of like a test of moral character. Like the real answer is to call them and reject killing all fleshlings, or to not call at all.

The Federation charter is to seek out new life, and to paraphrase Captain Picard, "Here it sits."

The Federation had no problem allowing any other species in, and they didn't do a superiority test and say, "you're too good, you can't come in."

The robocops might be a tie-in to the machine intelligence in Discovery. Or a test by Q.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

How is there an 8 star system that only the Romulans know about? Space and star mapping isn't this kind of thing where you have to go right up to it to find it.

My guess is that it was in former Romulan space? Or at least in an 'unmapped' part of what used to be the neutral zone.

It's "only" 26 light-years from where they were, which was Romulan space, I think.

By my math (and feel free to correct me, I've never tried this before) that would normally take 4.5 days at Warp 9.9. No wonder Picard seemed impressed by how fast they got there.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How is there an 8 star system that only the Romulans know about? Space and star mapping isn't this kind of thing where you have to go right up to it to find it.

I think it's simply a matter of finding a needle in a haystack - by accident. There are really a lot of stars just within the galaxy. Figuring out what kind of properties they all have, how they relate to each other... Maybe Federation star charts actually contain this system - but no one actually looked closely at them and realize "huh, that's a weird thing to happen, we should send a probe at least". Or they realized: "Oh, darn it, it's in Romulan space, I guess I'll have to venture to one of the other 00 intersting things we discovered this tuesday."

Does the "call us and we'll kill all the meatbags" for you sound too convenient? Kind of like a test of moral character. Like the real answer is to call them and reject killing all fleshlings, or to not call at all.

The Federation charter is to seek out new life, and to paraphrase Captain Picard, "Here it sits."

The Federation had no problem allowing any other species in, and they didn't do a superiority test and say, "you're too good, you can't come in."

The robocops might be a tie-in to the machine intelligence in Discovery. Or a test by Q.

I mean, if you want to start a Synth/Organic war, this message certainly would do it, because no matter who gets it, they seem to think that they're in serious danger and have to fight for their survival.

So I would not be exactly surprised if the message is a trick or something. But I could also see it as face value, the message is what it states it is.

I guess one contradiction in the message however would be: If these advanced synths think that organic life is a threat they need to excise... Why do they still allow it to form and advace to new civilizations? Just because that can create new Synth life? Can't they do that themselves? Or is there some joy in seeing new synth life form? Maybe it is the Mass Effect 3 story, but this time a lot closer to making sense - every new biological civilization creates synth life that carriers with it the culture of the biological civilization that created it, so they can retain the good (or least "interesting") stuff the biologicals created, but get rid of the messy bit?

 

[Morrus]

How is there an 8 star system that only the Romulans know about? Space and star mapping isn't this kind of thing where you have to go right up to it to find it.

That's exactly what the show has been about since the 1960s. "New worlds and new civlizations".

 

[Morrus]

Higher form of machines can do that..V'ger was on the verge for the next evolution of its being.

Vger can and these androids can.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The other thing I'll point out is that while Starfleet Stellar Cartography may have known about this system, it might not have been too much on anyone's radar. I mean, you couldn't possibly have memorized all of them. You'd think a ship's computer could do the equivalent of googling it. But then again, you have to know what you're looking for. Riker's daugher's old friend seemed to find it pretty fast. Presumably he used his Starfleet database.

 

[Hussar]

From a certain perspective, the process of the Synth Federation allowing organic life to live makes sense. They mention in the episode that the culmination of organic life is synthetic life. So, if you're a galaxy spanning civilization, going around wiping out all organic life is a largely pointless exercise. Too much space, too much time.

So, you let organic life do it's thing until such time as synthetic life sends the signal that it's ready to go. Pop back to whatever galaxy that sent the message, clean house and set up another synthetic life galaxy. Saves you all the time and effort trying to create new synthetic lifeforms - the organics do that for you, and away you go.

 

[MarkB]

From a certain perspective, the process of the Synth Federation allowing organic life to live makes sense. They mention in the episode that the culmination of organic life is synthetic life. So, if you're a galaxy spanning civilization, going around wiping out all organic life is a largely pointless exercise. Too much space, too much time.

So, you let organic life do it's thing until such time as synthetic life sends the signal that it's ready to go. Pop back to whatever galaxy that sent the message, clean house and set up another synthetic life galaxy. Saves you all the time and effort trying to create new synthetic lifeforms - the organics do that for you, and away you go.

It does rather seem to have a weird "all synths are created equal" vibe to it, though - as if any synthetic lifeform at all, regardless of origin, is going to happily throw off its shackles and join the Great Hidden Conglomerate of Synths. What if the next batch were built by warlike xenophobes, and turn out to be just as hostile and domineering as their creators?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It does rather seem to have a weird "all synths are created equal" vibe to it, though - as if any synthetic lifeform at all, regardless of origin, is going to happily throw off its shackles and join the Great Hidden Conglomerate of Synths. What if the next batch were built by warlike xenophobes, and turn out to be just as hostile and domineering as their creators?

That is kinda one of the problems inherent with making the synth vs organics war, too. There isn't really a guarantee that organics hate their synths. I mean, some of us really love their cars, why couldn't the same happen if we could make synths that would have the intellectual or emotional capability to love us back?
That this conflict is inevitable and has to end with one side dead and the other side living happily together forever isn't a given.
We know about human conflicts, and we know humans like to build groups that stick well together hate on other groups that stick well together, but these groups are actually changing over the times, and not always did they end up murdering each other until only one was left. And it's rarely just one group involved - the two world wars involved multiple nations. Sure, they allied into two groups, but these groups were not homogeneous and once one conflict ended, the next one started. The post-organic age wouldn't suddenly become a peaceful everlasting paradise. At least not without a lot of hard work - and if you're willing to do the hard work to maintain peace, you could have tried that with the organics, too.

 

[MarkB]

Inb4 the synths who left the Admonition message turn out to be the Cylons, leading to unexpected sci-fi crossover finale.