Well that episode is going to be a tricky one to review in its entirety as it really
does leave off as a part one of two and the finale is going to have to surmise where this
has all been leading. That may reshape me opinion of this episode but until then, let’s
work with what we’ve been given. Unfortunately this part one feels like it literally is half
a book, torn mid paragraph. Hi Ric here with a review of Star Trek Picard
episode 9, “Et in Arcadia Ego. Part one.” I think that name roughly translates to something
like, “And in Paradise, Me.” Further Googling revealed that it was the name of several paintings
centred around “death in a paradise”. So that’s foreboding.
So this episode had a strong start but everything after that was sort of… “meh” for me.
Which doesn’t bode well for a finale, but as I said, this is just part one. That introduction
however, when the Borg cube arrived from transwarp I literally said “Holy Sh…!”, it was
amazing to see as well as the image of that behemoth of a structure hitting the atmosphere
of Coppelius. But um… thing is, thanks for the rescue attempt Seven, but uh… you failed.
Spectacularly. Admittedly she probably didn’t account for a planetary defensive network
of giant energy draining Orchids, but who does?
Those orchids were very strange, but like something weird and wonderful from early TNG.
It’s quickly established that they are artificial in origin, probably made in a similar bio-organic
chemistry kind of way as Soji was. They actually envelope a ship, drain its power and allow
gravity to do the rest, however the Orchids seems to also protect the defenceless vessel
as it renters and crashes. A very peaceful way to deal with intruders. Although the Cube
seems a little bigger than they can manage and the ship still has power, despite now
clearly being stranded on the surface. Seven and Elnor reunite with the crew too,
however Elnor hasn’t really had much to do recently and like I said, Seven’s big
entrance ended with the entrance. But at least all the pieces are together now for the final
part, which must be the only reason. With 218 Romulan ships inbound, there’s going
to be a space battle at the end, and I’m wondering if Starfleet will make an appearance.
Considering Picard’s message doesn’t look like it got through and they are at least
25 lightyears away from the Artefact, the fleet of Starbase 12 might not make an appearance
at all. Better get building those flowers, but the finale is going to need more than
just assplosions. The Android colony was not what I expected,
it was actually more. Again, I’m reminded of early TNG episodes like “Justice” with
the lovely pretty environment and the happy healthy inhabitants. I enjoyed seeing various
stages of androids, those clearly positronic Soong-style, some far more biological like
the Ashers and ,maybe some in-between. I noted that they must all be the product of fractal
neuronic cloning as they were all twins and we meet Jana’s double, Sutra. I was trying
to see if the theme of Data-Lore was present in the naming conventions here, with Jana
Sutra or something, but I couldn’t really find anything, in Sanskrit the words seem
to mean “people” and “texts” so maybe that’s a thing?
Anyway, speaking of Lore, we get to meet another descendent of Soong, played once again by
Brent Spiner, a recurring joke in Star Trek has been Spiner playing most of the Soong
related men, including the progenitor of Noonien Soong, whom this new character, Altan Inigo
Soong, reminds me of most. Thing is, Noonien never had kids and despite my smiles at seeing
Spiner again, part of me was just going… “what? Really?” Emotionally loved it,
logically, hated it. So am I just being paranoid or is there more going on here? Also his initials
spell out A.I Soong and I’m starting to sound like a Romulan now. Moving on.
The Admonition gets some more background added here. Sutra makes the assumption that the
visions are all so jumbled because they were not meant for organic minds, which is why
those who touch the wibbly thing go wibbly-mental themselves. She interprets the vision through
Jurati’s mind using a mind meld. I don’t have an issue with a non-Vulcan performing
a mind meld as it’s theoretically possible she modified her physiology to replicate the
bio-chemical energy that Vulcan’s produce. (See my appropriately timed index on the species
for more, hashtag shameless plug). We learn that this force that will sweep across the
galaxy is in fact a unity of evolved artificial life forms beyond space time that span galaxies,
which now gets me thinking of V’ger and how it ascended in the Motion Picture, maybe
it’s a thing that AI will seek to do. Anyway, it’s not a Warning for organics,
is a Beacon for Synthetics and instructions on how to contact these super-computers if
they need a rescue. All sounds cushy and like the notoriously paranoid Romulans are wrong
right? Well yes but actually, no. Because it sounds like this extra-dimensional coalition’s
idea of “help” is to raze organic civilization to the ground. This is likely what happened
200,000 years ago, and that reminds me, I’m going to make another Mass Effect video soon.
Honestly, borrowing story lines doesn’t bother me that much, but the parallels here
are too big to ignore. Let’s address some elements from last review
and speculation video quickly, which seems to have exploded when compared to my prior
ones so If you’re here of the back of that one, hi welcome and thank you for checking
out my stuff! So apparently Michael Chabon said in an Instagram Q and A, Instagram, really?
Alright, apparently he clarified that the species that forged the Octuary Star System
were the Tkon. The remnants of their Empire are seen in the TNG episode “The Last Outpost”,
which I completely forgot about. However, as this was not confirmed on screen, it’s
not technically canon, but they fit better than any other species we know of and that
was the intention behind the on-screen references. I still like the idea that this galactic threat
that swept through the galaxy also destroyed the Iconians and other species which is now
even more likely given what we learn in episode 9. Second point, someone pointed out the Star
Trek Online depiction of Iconians didn’t begin as villains but became so after their
planet was attacked by jealous races. This is also true and was getting a little carried
away with my theorising blurring their timeline, but that’s getting off topic.
Learning of the Admonition, Sutra, Soong and Jurati all seem to want to build the device
to call out for help against the incoming Romulans, but Picard is willing to place his
trust in Starfleet and try to evacuate the colony and reverse the artificial ban. Had
we not seen Commodore Oh’s manipulations I would have agreed with Soong that it was
naïve of Jean-Luc to expect the Federation to listen to him, but now? I’ve been hoping
since episode one that one of the end goals was to have the Federation begin to right
its course once again and I hope that this is where we’re headed.
Some smaller things now, When I said Jurati remains redeemable, I didn’t mean redeemed.
She’s not off the hook yet and the way people are treating her as if nothing happened is
a little strange. We get a little bit of admonishment from some, but not quite there yet. I believe
Narek genuinely cares for Soji, but it’s in a very unhealthy way. I also believe that
Sutra orchestrated his escape and killed the guard in order to further justify the summoning
of the Reapers. And finally, I don’t think Raffi’s admittance of loving Picard was
romantic, I didn’t get that feel, more akin to Picard’s affection for Data in the last
episode. A little fact too, that the planet’s name
of Coppelius is from a story of Dr. Coppelius who created a lifelike clockwork mannequin
for a shop display that Franz, a passer-by falls in love with because he thinks it’s
real. Finally, who’s mind is going in that Golem?
Picard is dying so it could be him, but I don’t think I like the idea of a robo-Picard.
It could be a Maddox 2.0, but there’s nothing to support that idea. Was Soong building it
for himself then? We know mind transfer is possible, see TNG, “The Schizoid Man”
for that, or is it for a new Data? At this point, who knows, but will we see a Picard
transfer into that android and ascend with the extra-dimensional race to teach them of
compassion and simultaneously explore the infinite galaxy and possibility of creation
just as Q promised him humanity would in its future? That would certainly be a dramatic
exit for such an iconic character. Despite all the good I have to say about this
episode, it left me feeling rather underwhelmed. Something about the pacing and jumbled nature
of reveals took me back to the early episodes of Picard and I wouldn’t be surprised to
learn that the ending was shot ahead of the previous episodes. I can’t put my finger
on just what was different, maybe a culmination of things, but Star Trek Picard has been on
a ramping up roll with every episode doing better than before, in my opinion, and it
stalls here, the finale will tell if it slides back to the bottom of that hill.
So as for a bit of in universe lore, I thought we could explore the history of the Soongs,
to see if this new biological son could fit in anywhere. Chronologically in the timeline,
the first Soong we encounter is Arik Soong, a 22nd century geneticist who didn’t see
a problem tampering with the human genome to create super soldiers and considered Khan
Noonien Sign a marvel of what could be achieved. When we meet him, he is in prison for stealing
super-human embryos left over from the Eugenics Wars and raising them in hiding.
Anyway, these augments go on to cause all sorts of trouble and Arik realises that he
has indeed lost control of them as they no longer respect him. Superior ability breeds
superior ambition after all. After helping to reign them in again, he is returned to
confinement to serve the rest of his sentence, but begins to study cybernetics, now his faith
in eugenics is lost. He speculates that his work will have to continue by a later generations.
It should be noted that not all his work was about creating super soldiers, he theorised
augmentations that would eliminate certain diseases, but Starfleet’s ban an augmentation
prevented much of his work from ever going public.
During TNG, we get to meet Noonien Soong, the creator of Data and the culmination of
Arik’s cybernetics work. He was part of the Federation cybernetics divisions where
he was a pioneer of the positronic brain. However, after repeated failures to get his
ideas working, his colleagues lost faith in him and he was effectively shamed out of the
scientific community. He went into hiding. It’s possible that he had a child before
heading into hiding and left for Omicron Theta without him, but the kid would have been very
young. It was on Omicron Theta where he met Juliana O’Donnell and she and Noonien fell
in love, marrying in secret in 2328 when she was 25 and he a fair bit older. They were
unable to have children and they dedicated their time to perfecting the positronic brain,
eventually creating B4, Lore then Data. Eventually the Crystalline Entity attacked
and the pair fled, leaving Data inactive, to be discovered years later by Starfleet,
but Juliana was put into a coma during the attack. Before she died, Soong constructed
a new Juliana android, his most realistic yet, copied her memories into the unit before
her death and the new Juliana activated, assuming that she had awoken from the coma. He did
not transfer her mind directly as this was something even beyond him, the closest he
ever got was Synaptic Scanning, which only duplicated memories. Ira Graves, an associate
of Soong’s was the one who developed a true transfer. Eventually Juliana left Noonien
and he remained on Terlina III where he eventually succumbed to old age and… Lore.
So as we see, either Soong had a child with Juliana, which I doubt as she never mentions
or seems even remotely aware of the prospect, or he had a child before he fled to Omicron
Theta and was too ashamed about abandoning him to ever mention it. A possibility at least,
but still a bit of a messy retcon and as Noonien married Juliana in 2328, Altan would have
to be over 71 at least by now, which is Spiner’s age…actually…
I will say that Altan Inigo Soong, seems to have inherited his father’s work and gone
into hiding, before the ban was even a thing as I’m sure Picard would have been aware
of another living Dr Soong before now otherwise. Of course, after the synth ban went into effect,
Altan would have no reason to reveal himself and every reason to remain hidden, considering
he had elected to continue his father’s work. One thing that does well for me however,
is that he talks about his time working with Bruce Maddox, saying that it was Bruce who
really understood the positronic brain side of things and that Altan simply constructed
the bodies, which as these have included organic ones, sort of merges Arik’s work with Noonien’s.
That is if all is as it seems. Still thank you for listening to my review
and lore dive on Star Trek Picard episode 9, and I’ll be delving into the final episode
with optimism, though I genuinely have no idea what to expect now. One final question
though, who do you think is going in the Golem? Until then, thanks again for watching, I’ve
Been Ric. Goodbye!