[Ed. note: significant spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard through episode 3.]
When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987, the authors wanted to replace the Klingons that had actually afflicted Captain Kirk in the series’ initial 1960 s run with a brand-new risk to the United Federation of Planets. They at first presented the profit-obsessed Ferengi, however found their look and inspirations made them much better fit to comic relief. They were far more effective with their next excellent risk: the cyborg hive mind the Borg.
While TNG and Star Trek: Voyager considerably broadened on the folklore of the Borg, and the method they take in other types while spreading out throughout the galaxy, the authors have actually never ever described where the Borg in fact originate from. Now Star Trek: Picard appears poised to address that concern, in addition to other concerns postured when the alien race was first presented.
The Borg were initially meant to be introduced in TNG’s season 1 ending, “The Neutral Zone,” which sees Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the team of the USS Business examining the damage of numerous Federation stations in Romulan-controlledspace A plot where the Federation and Romulans team approximately beat the Borg was ditched due to apending Writers Guild of America strike Rather, the following episode has the near-omnipotent alien being Q (John de Lancie) taking the Business throughout the galaxy to present Picard to the Borg, making it clear that he and the Federation aren’t gotten ready for the risk they represent.
Picture: Trae Patton/CBS Interactive.
That alter raised a plot concern: If the Borg were currently close adequate to Federation space to start eliminating its stations in “The Neutral Zone,” why didn’t they push the attack? Picard’s 3rd episode, “Completion Is the Start,” presumes that the Romulans might be the response. The Romulans were first revealed harvesting technology from a partly ruined Borg cube in Picard’s best, “Remembrance,” however this episode shows how the very devastating huge spacecraft came under their control.
The Cube experienced a Romulan ship and absorbed the team into the Cumulative. In some way, that triggered a systems collapse in the Cube, and the Cumulative severed all links to it. While the majority of people who are absorbed by the Borg, like Picard himself once was, can be physically and psychologically brought back to their former states, the Romulans who were absorbed are now psychologically unsteady. These “Disordered” are kept in a sort of psychiatric ward aboard the ship.
Romulans are infamously deceptive, and they never ever exposed in “The Neutral Zone” what was taking place in their own areas. It’s possible that the Borg efforts to take in the Romulans had comparable results– stopping their intrusion in its tracks till it launched once again after Picard’s encounter with the Cumulative. The concern is why the Borg would have such a problem absorbing Romulans.
That might link back to Picard’s main plot: Picard’s mission to safeguard the android Soji (Isa Briones), the child of his buddy and associate Information (Brent Spiner). Soji is being hunted by the Zhat Vash, a secret Romulan company stated to have actually existed for thousands of years “to keep a secret horrible and so extensive, simply discovering it can break an individual’s mind.” The company has an unusual extensive hatred and revulsion for all types of artificial life, which has actually triggered Romulans to avoid all types of AI, androids, and cybernetics. They see Soji as a legendary force of damage.
Picture: Trae Patton/CBS Interactive.
They may be ideal to be scared. Soji does not understand she’s an android, and does not comprehend her abilities and programs. She consistently bothered the director of the Cube improvement project to let her interview Ramdha (Rebecca Wisocky), a specialist in Romulan folklore who is amongst the Disordered, by declaring that she wishes to utilize folklore to assist recover the minds of the took in Romulans. As soon as Soji begins speaking to Ramdha, she exposes that she understands about the event that triggered the Cube to collapse, even though she later on can’t remember how she got that details.
Soji was obviously produced by Bruce Maddox, an extremely amoral Federation cybernetics scientist who argued in TNG that Information should not have rights, and must be dismantled and studied. Despite the fact that Soji, like Information, is plainly sentient, Maddox most likely views her as a method to an end. He isn’t the first to have an interest in integrating androids and Borg technology: the Borg Queen attempted to get Information to sign up with the Collective in Star Trek: First Contact. A version of the Borg that didn’t need natural hosts, or cyborgs with the Borg’s versatility and coordination would be genuinely frightening.
However where does this Romulan worry of synthetic life originated from? It’s possible that the Romulans experienced the Borg millennia earlier. While they were spared from assimilation due to some peculiarity of their biology, the event provided a strong hostility to dealing with any similartechnology Hiding that understanding even in the face of the Borg intrusion of Federation space would be horrible, however it does not feel like a secret that would “break an individual’s mind.”
For that, perhaps the problem the Borg have absorbing Romulans isn’t random, however deliberate. If the Borg were produced by the Romulans, or some progenitor race of the citizens of Romulus, the ill results might have been part of the preliminary programs that continues now. The Delta Quadrant may be the center of the Borg’s understood power, however considered that the world of Star Trek is full of wormholes and cosmic beings that can transport ships across the galaxy, that does not need to be where they came from.
It’s likewise possible that Q’s function in notifying Picard about the risk of the Borg isn’t over. In the first episode of Picard, Picard dreams he’s playing a game of poker versus Information, who has a hand of 5 Queens of Hearts. This makes Picard conscious that he’s dreaming, however it might likewise be a mean who lags thedream Q frequently appeared to Picard in obnoxiously apparent methods, however at other times, he worked more discreetly. It’s uncertain whether he in fact assisted Picard challenge his past and endure a near-fatal injury in the renowned TNG episode “Tapestry,” however he does guide Picard through a trial in the series finale “All Advantages …” through visions that some characters fast to cross out as signs of a degenerative neurological illness.
When Picard is identified with the very same illness referenced in “All Advantages …” in the second episode of Picard, his physician recommends his odd dreams are likely a sign. the dreams are assisting Picard’s mind to Information and his child at a crucial time, stiring him from retirement to take action and battle for the future of the Federation. Q put Picard and humankind on trial throughout TNG to see whether the types had the capability to believe outside regular understandings and comprehend the huge possibilities the universe needs to provide. He alerted Picard, “the trial never ever ends.” It’s possible Q has actually returned for the next stage, screening Picard’s capability to decipher one of Star Trek’s biggest mysteries, and possibly lastly beat one of its biggest hazards.
