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 Overread wrote:
The Prime Directive has always had a bit of a "them and us" line in it in so far as it separates the advanced from the primitive. The ideal being that the Federation basically follows the Vulcan viewpoint of not to interfere with other races until they show a comparable level of technology, which typically is supposed to appear at Warp Drive.

Of course breaking and bending the Prime Directive is a mandated requirement for all Starfleet captains (or at least all the ones the TV series follow).


That said the Romulans are very much not under Prime Directive protection, they are an "us" group not a "them" group. So getting involved makes sense.

Actually, a better way "to get involved" would have been "acquisition." Doing nothing is only second best. The Klingons have it right, we're in it for the species people!
"Always burn the bridges behind you. You never know who's following"
-Garak the Tailor.

So ep7...

GoatboyBeta wrote:
So ep7...

Spoiler:

Sucks about Hugh. Although I'm guessing Elnor calling the Rangers is foreshadowing him and Seven turning up with a load of ex Borg to save Picard later on.
Oh's mind meld is interesting in regards to the "secret" about syths and her knowledge/experience of it. I'm thinking its either time travel related, where she's a refugee from Treks take on the Terminator(and the Zhat Vash were founded be people who travelled further back). Or its some kind of passed down memory from ancient Vulcan history about a syth uprising.

So lore question, can Romulans mind meld? I don’t recall ever seeing it, but they are supposed to be related to the Vulcans. Or is it another product of Vulcan logic discipline?

 Jadenim wrote:

GoatboyBeta wrote:
So ep7...

Spoiler:

Sucks about Hugh. Although I'm guessing Elnor calling the Rangers is foreshadowing him and Seven turning up with a load of ex Borg to save Picard later on.
Oh's mind meld is interesting in regards to the "secret" about syths and her knowledge/experience of it. I'm thinking its either time travel related, where she's a refugee from Treks take on the Terminator(and the Zhat Vash were founded be people who travelled further back). Or its some kind of passed down memory from ancient Vulcan history about a syth uprising.

So lore question, can Romulans mind meld? I don’t recall ever seeing it, but they are supposed to be related to the Vulcans. Or is it another product of Vulcan logic discipline?

A quick google search tells me no, Romulans can’t mind meld. They killed all their telepaths when they split off.

That was such a good episode.

There has not ben a suggestion that the Commodore is not pure Vulcan - in fact the deeply dodgy sister says she is a ally and not a member of thier organisaition.

Enjoyed episode 7

The previews for next week suggest we'll get to learn what the super mind blowing secret is. I admit, I'm very curious.
Anyway, since Picard is also an xB, I wonder if he'll also do the thing Hugh said needed to be done.

 AduroT wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:

GoatboyBeta wrote:
So ep7...

Spoiler:

Sucks about Hugh. Although I'm guessing Elnor calling the Rangers is foreshadowing him and Seven turning up with a load of ex Borg to save Picard later on.
Oh's mind meld is interesting in regards to the "secret" about syths and her knowledge/experience of it. I'm thinking its either time travel related, where she's a refugee from Treks take on the Terminator(and the Zhat Vash were founded be people who travelled further back). Or its some kind of passed down memory from ancient Vulcan history about a syth uprising.

So lore question, can Romulans mind meld? I don’t recall ever seeing it, but they are supposed to be related to the Vulcans. Or is it another product of Vulcan logic discipline?

A quick google search tells me no, Romulans can’t mind meld. They killed all their telepaths when they split off.

I don't think that's alpha level canon though, so it could well be they can mind meld. although given how intsenly private (translatrion: secretive) romulans are it's certainly not a normal thing

There’s also nothing to say the twins aren’t half Romulan half Vulcan.

I’d argue their lack of the distinct ridged forehead is testament to that?

Lack of the ridged forehead just means that the putative Romulan parent wasn't a "stubborn northerner".

I rather liked that they used just a simple, throw-away line to explain it away as just being a regional difference in the race, just like how humans have different skin colors, eye shapes, etc.

And as we've seen in the movies, the Vulcanoids have more than one skin colour and eye-shape (there were Asiatic looking vulcans in ST3, as well as darker skinned ones and the European/Caucasian looking ones).

There'd be ear size and shape differences, eye shape differences, skin colour, other minor skeletal differences (ridges or not. Even human brow ridges vary across the planet).

They should not all "look alike to me".

Loved this little moment;

So.. am I the only one whose getting SERIOUS mass effect vibes from the info the latest episode gave us?

I've been getting mass effect vibes from this stuff for some time. Not just in writing but in aesthetics. The actual look of the show to me is much more in line with an off shoot of mass effect, including the ship design they've been flying around in. That psycho romulan chick is kinda hot though.

 Thargrim wrote:
I've been getting mass effect vibes from this stuff for some time. Not just in writing but in aesthetics. The actual look of the show to me is much more in line with an off shoot of mass effect, including the ship design they've been flying around in. That psycho romulan chick is kinda hot though.

Dream on. You have no chance unless you're a sensitive hipster... and a close relative.

That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

Agreed!

I was worried about how they'd handle it since its such a huge moment and yet they carried it off great! We even got to see a little of the old Picard back in action, even if just for a few fleeting moments!

Also several of the answers we got are only partial revelations and raised several more questions in their own right. So it left you right on the edge of your seat wanting more.



Also interesting to see the Cube situation unfold. Both seeing that the Romulans were prepared for the worst; but also that Seven manages to pull herself out. There's even a a subtle element there that whilst the Borg are monsters; there's also an element of them not being monsters to their own kind and that, even when separated from the collective, the Borg are still distrusted, feared and hated or just seen as tools/resources.

Is it just me or is the quality of this CGI of the 7o9 connecting to the cube relatively substandard for a high budget 2020 scifi show?

I didn’t notice to be honest?

Very, very excited to see the Federation Ships. Surely we’ll see them in the next two?

Updated Romulan ones are very.....sleek. Not unpleasantly so, just not quite Trekkish?

Are we going to see any Fed ships, though? They were supposed to meet up at DS12 but instead went straight to Soji's homeworld.
Instead, I think we're going to see a Borg cube show up and save the day, and that would certainly be amusingly different.

I don't think a friendly fleet was going to meet them at DS12, just going by the story told about the last time Starfleet was contacted and it concerned synths.

my guess is a starfleet squadron'll show up at the 11th hour of the season finalle to save the day.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

I’m not overly fond of the whole 90%+ of people who learn the secret go insane/suicide on the spot, because nothing they can tell us will live up to that.

 AduroT wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

I’m not overly fond of the whole 90%+ of people who learn the secret go insane/suicide on the spot, because nothing they can tell us will live up to that.

I get what you mean, but I think that there’s a difference between being told / shown on a TV show that “200,000 years ago AI wiped out organic life in a brutal genocide” and psychically experience the entire (?) thing as if you were actually there. The show has even established that experiencing it second hand in the mind meld from O isn’t as potent, which would also explain why the induction had to take place using the original “beacon” (and boy, the Mass Effect similarities are strong at the moment!)

 AduroT wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

I’m not overly fond of the whole 90%+ of people who learn the secret go insane/suicide on the spot, because nothing they can tell us will live up to that.

I'm fine with the whole power of the not-Prothean Beacon doing weird things to people. In Mass Effect, it always seemed to be more than just a video recording that got stuck in your head. As far as the Beacon on Eden Prime implanting its stuff, there were only two test subjects of presumably high mental fortitude before it went pop. Having the vision doing a number on the Borg cube was fine with me, too.

Speaking of Mass Effect, I did catch strains of the main ME2 music in this episode.

It's very Trek and actually reminds me of the film Undiscovered Country, which had a similar "mind meld" influence being used. That this impacts the Romulans is a welcome change and also speaks of their long past history with the Vulcans in a little way.


Also don't forget the vast majority of Romulans are not affected by this. In fact if they learned that the rescue fleet had been destroyed by this groups actions I'm sure there'd be a huge backlash against them internally. However at present they are clearly in positions of great influence and power.



It also means that the story is left wide open as to what might happen. The warning is so old it might be nothing or it could be any one of a number of huge revelations.

 Jadenim wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

I’m not overly fond of the whole 90%+ of people who learn the secret go insane/suicide on the spot, because nothing they can tell us will live up to that.

I get what you mean, but I think that there’s a difference between being told / shown on a TV show that “200,000 years ago AI wiped out organic life in a brutal genocide” and psychically experience the entire (?) thing as if you were actually there. The show has even established that experiencing it second hand in the mind meld from O isn’t as potent, which would also explain why the induction had to take place using the original “beacon” (and boy, the Mass Effect similarities are strong at the moment!)

Yeah, it's like the difference between watching Saving Private Ryan versus being someone who actually lived through D-Day. Knowledge vs. Experience.
That, and having what could have been years of horrible memories crammed into your mind in the space of seconds probably doesn't have a good effect on your brain.

I am curious, though, as to what the threshold they're afraid of is. What is the line that can't be crossed? My guess would be self-replicating synthetics.

Self replicating might be one barrier, but by their very nature once you've got one synthetic you've got the capacity to produce more because by their very design they are created in the first place.

I'd go one stage further and say not just self replicating; but the capacity to reproduce with organic species. Ergo synthetic and non-synthetic relations. That would rather nicely tie into why the male romulan spy was rather interested in bedding her. Hhe appears more rebellious and the fact that we only saw women take the test; might mean that whilst he's part of their organisation he's not been exposed to that level of testing - perhaps giving him a slight sense of disbelief and a desire to test the boundaries of it.


The capacity for synethetic life to reproduce more of their own has appeared before in ST; however the capacity for blending synthetic and organic is fairly new I think. Or at least exceptionally rare.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That was an excellent episode!

Lots and lots of answers, none of which felt trite.

I’m not overly fond of the whole 90%+ of people who learn the secret go insane/suicide on the spot, because nothing they can tell us will live up to that.

I get what you mean, but I think that there’s a difference between being told / shown on a TV show that “200,000 years ago AI wiped out organic life in a brutal genocide” and psychically experience the entire (?) thing as if you were actually there. The show has even established that experiencing it second hand in the mind meld from O isn’t as potent, which would also explain why the induction had to take place using the original “beacon” (and boy, the Mass Effect similarities are strong at the moment!)

Yeah, it's like the difference between watching Saving Private Ryan versus being someone who actually lived through D-Day. Knowledge vs. Experience.
That, and having what could have been years of horrible memories crammed into your mind in the space of seconds probably doesn't have a good effect on your brain.

I am curious, though, as to what the threshold they're afraid of is. What is the line that can't be crossed? My guess would be self-replicating synthetics.

There’s also the inherent weirdness of having someone else’s experience in your mind.

Would you have taken the same action? Made the same mistakes? With experience, probably not. But because that experience is now a memory forcibly implanted in your mind, you can’t. What’s done is done, and there’s no changing it.

What makes Admonition interesting here is the Romulan Condition. They’re not Carey Sharey. One could even describe their culture as paranoid.

Had mankind found Admonition first? The message could be more ‘this is where and how we effed up.

That changes the lesson from ‘don’t ever’ to ‘be aware’.