Amph "Engage!" - Star Trek: Picard Discussion Thread [Paramount+/CraveTV]

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Okay. And imo, calling the mass murder of all intelligent biological life in the entire Galaxy a "side effect" is downplaying it and justifying it in a way our society easily and unambiguously rejects. Mass murder isn't a side effect. It's just mass murder.

To put this in perspective of Star Trek, in TNG, if presented with these circumstances, never in a million years would Data have even considered the mass extermination of life in the Galaxy to save other androids. He would fight like hell to save the other androids, but no he wouldn't have to be begged not to be Hitler on steroids times a trillion.

 

The "Higher Synthetics" are

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kind of like a wrathful - OId Testament-style god - times a million. Call on them to save you from your oppressors - and they will - brutally, and innocents will die.

But "Save us" is not something that becomes evil to say simply because of that.

 

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Yes it does, when "save us" = "murder everyone." You can't erase the "murder everyone" part. It's evil. What Soji did was evil. Murdering everyone certainly would save any murderer from dying by anyone's hand that was murdered. Not self defense. Just murder.

To the above point about Data - I'm sure someone wants to point out Descent, but Data's programming was messed with there. Normal Data wouldn't do those things ever, and Data was only welcomed back because his normal ethical subroutines were turned back on.

 

To be fair,

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Trek always portrays "wiping out innocents along with the aggressor" as Evil - but that doesn't mean the beings responsible, are entirely unsympathetic.

The Douwd, back in Season 3 of TNG (The Survivors), who wiped out all Husnock after his wife was murdered by them - is portrayed as wrong in his act - but sympathetic nonetheless. His extreme remorse and regular self-torment may have had something to do with this.

Soji is like the Douwd - if he'd been talked down from committing his act.

 

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It must be nice to ingore things in the show in order to twist the narrative to suit your own bais, becuse no offense that seems like what your doing here.

The show resolved Anges arc by having her help save a planet (and the peaple living on it) at the risk of her own life and, on top of that, have her help save Picard from death. In addition, according to Chabon, she's going to "put herself in the hands of the law" so, presumably, next season with deal with the legal ramifications of her crime. And she's constantly shown regret - like constantly - since she murdered Maddox; to the point were its become a major part of her charecterization.

Soji is "happyily chilling" with her freinds becuse she did'nt exterminate them and their civilization - she turned back from her mistake before she carried through with it and, along with Agnes, helped save Picard's life. Excepting them to end the season hating them flat-out ingores all the devolopment made over the course of the season with all of their charecters forming bonds and becoming an (albiet disfunctional) family.

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Even though she abandoned said before before going through with it and turned away from wiping out all intelligent life before a single molocule of said life was harmed?

Soji turned back from her evil act before she carried through with it, while the Zhat Vash have carried through with and commited countless other actual crimes - that's the difference between them.

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That's a fair point, but the fact is they did put him in an andriod body and he is an elderly man IRL, so the body is'nt "pointlessly" frail.

When you tell me I'm saying something I'm not saying then yes, you are speaking for me. I'm not minimizing **** and don't go "well, it's my opinion that you are" becuse I've made my actual opinion quite clear.

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The show never sweeped what Anges did under the rug and it never said the vision makes her (or Oh) not responsable for their actions. Anges has shown regret and is guiniunly repentent and haunted by her crime (why you keep ingoring this when the show has repeatidly shown us this is the case in virutally every episode is beyond me) while Oh does'nt give a rats ass about the death she's cuased - both of them committed terrible crimes that they deserve to be condemed for, but there's a huge difference between them in scope and callousness.

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I'm not the one talking about off-screen assumptions - you are, since you seem to assume her crewmates don't have an issue with what she almost did when we have no reason to think that (and every reason to think they do becuse they directly opposed what she did an tried to stop her).

And she is their friend - that you think its stupid does'nt change the fact that she is, and if she was a villian she's not anymore, since she turned away from carrying through with her villainous act and helped save Picards life, both of which actions combine to prove to her freinds that she's worthy of their contiued trust.

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But she does change it, and she does fix it.

And the show does'nt pretend she's misunderstood - it flat-out tells us she was wrong. If you judge her moral charecter on her goal of murdering all intelligent life, then surely you should also judge her moral charecter on the fact that she relized what she was doing was wrong and did'nt end up doing it?

I dunno, you seem to think its okay for the Romulans to do it

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And, on top of this, the show reconizes their wrong, deos'nt pretend their any better then the Zhat Vash (Picard specificly says if they do do it then their not) and has Soong and then Soji reconize their mistake and change course.

It don't really see the issue here

Soji is'nt Data, so expecting her to have the same mindset and moral code as him is as ridiculous as expecting Picard to share Kirks.

Soji did'nt actually end up doing anything though - she relized her mistake and corrected it before anything happened.

You seem intent on condeming her for what she *almost* did and ingoring that she reconized that doing that thing was wrong and ultimatly did'nt actually end up doing it.

Man, that was a great episode.

(except for the part were 400 gigawats brings down the E-D's shield)

But yes, this charecter gives "X, if you do Y monsterus thing your no better then Z" speech and then X relizes their mistake and backs down is pretty standard fair for Trek.

It's not a whataboutism - as I already said I'm not using the other show's flaws as an excuse but just saying that the approch you take to analyzing the show seems pretty pointless to me becuse if I did that I can't imagine I would enjoy much of Star Trek in general.

First off Soprano level shows are few and far between. Picard is more on the level of, I would say,The Expanse or even Jessica Jones - a solidly made show that applies to a niche audiance but is'nt really anything truly mind-blowing and does'nt become a huge phenomenon.

Secondly Picard is'nt trying to be like the Sopranos (or Lost, or Breaking Bad, or Game of Thrones or any one of those rare cultural phenomenon shows) so judging it like it is seems pretty strange (especially since those shows were'nt immune to the issues Picard has) - really the only thing that makes Picard any more special then any past Trek show is better effects and more refined filmaking pratices, and it's certainly not trying to be something that it is'nt.

Thirdly that the writing talent in Picard is'nt good is just your opinion (personally I think it's great), and too boot the show just finished its first season, so naturally its going to suffer some minor hickups as it finds its footing.

Factors that you, not I and some others, considered ridiculous. I never considered anything with the EMH to be an issue of bad writing, and really the only things that I can think of off the top of my head that I personally would consider to even approach issues worth criticising is the ships all warping out in the last episode (but even then I don't think its a big deal) and wasting time with everyone mourning Picard even though he gets revived immedatly afterwards.

 

Douwd was a pitiful monster and portrayed that way.

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Soji could have been portrayed that way. It would have been better. Or like Garak. A bad character should be portrayed as bad, even if they have a sympathy card to play.

Picard certainly wasn't going to join a crew with Douwd and give him a hug during the happy ending.

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It's ridiculous that you're being snide with me about twisting the on screen narrative while you cite an interview to make your point. Soji's redemption arc doesn't erase the cold blooded murder and no there was no on screen acknowledgment of any justice for Maddox. Agnes ends the season happy kissing her new boyfriend as Picard's happy crew gets ready to go exploring.

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Okay we don't disagree about what portrayed so why are you arguing? You're fine with Soji chilling happily with the people she just tried really hard to exterminate because *reasons. I'm not, I think it's dumb, because *reasons can't erase the attempt at total extermination of all biological life in the Galaxy.

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We've already established that I award zero brownie points for the choice not to commit premeditated mass murder. That's just the normal, neutral position of everybody in any given time. Picard and everyone else don't owe Soji a thanks for not murdering them.

On the Picard point, a metal excuse for Picard's robot body being frail doesn't change it from being pointlessly frail. Meta explanations are irrelevant to the in story narrative. It's dumb to make Picard a frail robot. Just skip that story. It has no thematic point, and it ruins the franchise anyway by iliminating death for everyone. Or at least, it should.

I have an opinion on what I feel is the inevitable consequence of your point. Disagree all you want. It's still my opinion of what you're saying.

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Okay I disagree with you. I think the show did. The only person that cared about Maddox's life being stolen from him by her was a guy that was willing to mass murder all biological life in the Galaxy. Agnes herself didn't see that broken up to me. Her trauma was more rated to the vision when she spoke about how bad she felt.

We don't know if Oh felt bad about killing peoe but felt it was necessary anyways. Actual, that's pretty logical to assume, given her goal of preserving biological life. She clearly cares about life.

No I judge what was presented with no assumptions about anything off screen. On screen, they're all cool with Soji. And you agree because you call her a friend to them anyway so I don't know why you're arguing this point. All we disagree about is I think it's dumb that they're presented as friends and you think it makes sense. And I agree to disagree with you on that because there's nowhere else to take the discussion.

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She can't change that she wanted to murder everyone on purpose in the entire Galaxy. No redemption can alter that. You keep giving her credit for saving everyone - from herself. She's the one let reason all life in the Galaxy was threatened at all, because she wanted to exterminate everyone.

The show tells us Soji was an innocent victim of the Zhat Vash that almost did something bad one time. That's why everyone immediately went back to being besties with the little cutie pie that now wants to explore the Galaxy. She should have been presented as a unstable lunatic that needs serious help or reprogramming or something.

Nope. I already said I'm cool with them being portrayed as villains. I'm not cool with hypocrisy and double standards for Picard's friends.

 

The difference is:

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Soji was convinced to stop before anybody had actually been killed by the "Higher Synthetics" .

 

You think that's a compelling difference. When it comes to Soji's moral culpability and whether she's deserving of everyone's faith, it's not a compelling difference to me. Good people, good friends, don't make their friends beg to not be exterminated along with all other biological life.

And I didn't bring that dude up. You did. I guess he wasn't a good parallel if you're now emphasizing how they're different.

 

Regarding the whole:

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"is it ever OK to commit genocide in order to prevent genocide" question, let's try a parallel.

A villain with innocent human shields is attacking you. Your only way to survive is to kill the villain with a weapon that will kill them and their shields.

A good case can be made that killing the villain and their shields with them, is morally correct behaviour.

So, does it really matter if their "shields" include all life besides them? Stopping an aggressor, is arguably always moral regardless of how many innocents die. At least, in some moral codes.

 

We are talking about all biological life in the Galaxy, not a finite number of human shields. That itself is a super tricky question, but it's wholly irrelevant here, where the question isn't tricky at all.

 

If that's above the upper limit, then what's the lower limit?

How far can one go in self-defence against an aggressor, when innocents will die if you defend yourself against an aggressor?

 

You want to get technical? Okay.

I've highlighted the most important part for this discussion. Obviously murdering everybody is beyond the threshold for an objectively reasonable degree of force.

The upper limit? Taking out the Zhat Vash would have been self defense. If a few Federation ships died in the process, that could reasonably be written off as collateral damage in the war. The discussion is totally irrelevant though. We are talking about premeditated genocide of all life. Obviously that is not self defense. We don't need to look at statutes to intuitively understand that.

 

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I did'nt cite the interview as evidence (as I've said before, interviews are'nt evidence in and of themselves) I just mearly brought it up becuse it seemingly indicates what might be in store for her next season. I also brought up multipule other things relating to her charecter that are in the show.

And of course her redemption arc does'nt erase the murder - nothing can erase that and Anges herself reconizes that; the point is she's actually trying to make up for what she did.

I never said they did.

Becuse you'd know what I'm saying soooo much better then I do, right?

No. I've made my position quite clear, and my position is one that does'nt include minimizing the actions of Soji and Anges. Your entitled to your opinions but please stop subsituting your opinions for my opinions, you don't have that right and, as I've made quite clear, I find it super annoying (not to mention it makes it very hard to have discussions to you).

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I mean, sure, I suppose she would - if you skipped literally every single episode between Stardust City Rag and the finale

Dahj and the entire population of Mars would probobly disagree with that assesment.

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The show does'nt tell us she was an innocent - it flat-out tells us what she was doing was wrong. She's also not an unstable lunatic becuse if she was'nt they would'nt have been able reason with her and she would'nt have relized that she was making a mistake (she also would'nt have been hestitant about the plan to begin with like she was and the entire first part of the episode would have had her just immedatly agree with Sutra rather then show her rationalizing the act up until literally the end of the last act).

And I'm not giving her credit for saving everyone from herself - I'm giving her credit for reconzing her mistake and doing the right thing.

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No double standards are at play here; I have never once argued that Soji or Anges are morally justifed in what they did.

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You (or I) don't get to decided what makes someone worthy of anouther persons faith - only the person showing the faith can decide that. And we also don't get to decide what consitutes a good freind for anyone but ourselves.

And Iron brought the Douwd up as an anology to show that their different - the Douwd wiped the Husnock out, while Soji was in a similar situation but did'nt wipe out the life forms she was targeting.

And, to add to this, if the Zhat Vash are apparently justified in premitivly wiping out all synthetic life becuse of what *might* happen at some indeterminate point in the future, then surely the androids are justifed in defensivly wiping out all organic life becuse of what is *definatly* about to happen in the immedate present?

As you said earlier it's not black and white, it's gray and gray - the show presents both as being in the wrong but shows that Soji and her ilk are better becuse they ultimate relize what their doing is wrong and decide not to give into their fear.

The androids did not belive the Federation was coming and did not trust them do protect them, and them showing up was one of the things that helped convince Soji to stand down.

Before Riker's fleet showed up they androids saw no other way to fight the Zhat Vash other then summoning the ancient robots - they did'nt think the Federation would help them and, thanks to Sutra, they no longer trusted Picard and his crew to evacuate them (if they ever really trusted him to begin with).

 

@K2771991 -

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I feel that your point inevitably downplays something, whether that's your intent or not. That's not me replacing your opinions with my own. That's me explaining my disagreement with your opinion. I will continue to say I disagree with your argument because I feel it inevitably downplays both Agnes's murder of Maddox and Soji's behavior as a whole. I recognize that you don't feel you're doing that. That's fine. I feel you are.

I'm not justifying the Zhat Vash. I said they're villains and that's cool. But you cannot at the same time condemn them and defend Soji and Agnes without employing blatant double standards. I feel those double standards are exploding out of this discussion. The Zhat Vash are bad and did bad things. That's my position. It's also my position that Soji and Agnes are bad and did bad things. And as long Picard and Co are cool with Soji and Agnes like nothing happened, suddenly the Zhat Vash don't seem like credible villains in the narrative anymore. The show wants to present attempted genocide as a cutesy mistake, fine. The Zhat Vash were adorably misguided by a vision that 100% understandably drove them insane.

And by the way, I do get to decide my opinion on whether the show is written well in portraying everyone as besties with Soji after what she did. I have no idea why you seem to be taking it personally that I think the show treating her like anything but a monster is lousy and shallow writing, but I'm gonna keep thinking it regardless. Don't write a character willing to wipe out all biological life in the galaxy if you don't want to treat that goal with the full consequences it deserves. Soji's friends should reasonably be apprehensive about how her mind works. The threat of total annihilation of all life should, I dunno, be treated as a pretty freaky threat. It's the kind of threat that might drive otherwise good people totally insane after all.

Whether the androids thought the federation was there to defend them is irrelevant to that point. I was asked what type of response would qualify as self defense and I answered. Justifying why the androids might have felt it necessary to mass murder everyone in the Galaxy over a misunderstanding with the federation is a terrible point. Still not a reasonable response to an imminent threat. Believe it or not, blowing up the world isn't justified because of a conflict on an island. And this isn't a close point at all so I can't believe we are still going back and forth on it.

 

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If I reconize and acknowladge that what Anges did and what Soji almost did are bad things then how am I downplaying it, though? I'm not saying they were justified or should be forgiven, and I don't think either of their crimes are made any lesser by what they did and I'm not interest in downplaying anything. It's just that, in addition to judging them for their crimes, I'm also judging them based on their positive actions and actions and intentions since their crimes.

In fact, personally speaking I think Jurati should be at least tried for Maddox's murder* and, if I was on the Li Sirena crew and did'nt have the benefit of being an audiance member who was privy to Soji's POV and the facts of the narrative, I would'nt trust her one bit (although at the same time I do reconize and accept that her actual crewmates do trust her becuse everyone is entitled to their own worldview, standerds and ability to trust)

*"A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward."

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I can't think of a single point where the show presents Soji's actions as being a "cutesy mistake" or tells us that Picard and his crew are cool with what Soji and Anges did (in fact in both cases the show shows us that they implicitly aren't)

And there are no double standerds - the Zhat Vash do bad things, while Anges did a bad thing and Soji almost did a bad thing, nobody here is denying that and the show makes the point crystal clear. But, as has been said before and is very importent to the narrative, both of them relized what they did/were going to do was wrong and are trying to make up for it/stopped themselves from actually doing it - to her credit Oh apparently does as well, though her decision to not attack no more makes up for her earlier crimes then does Anges's remorse and, unlike Soji and Anges, we have no reason to think she actually reconizes that her past actions were morally wrong

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I was'nt arguing that you don't get to decide what consitutes good or bad writing; that's subjective and, your correctly point out, completly up to you.

What I was doing was arguing from the perspective of as if Picard and the Li Sirena crew were real peaple* - in that sense they, not you (or me or anyone else) get to decide who they consider a freind and whether or not that person is worthy of their trust and faith, irregardless of if other peaple think their making a mistake or being stupid.

I tend to take a Watsonian view when analyzing fiction, approching the characters and their motivations, actions and choices as if they were real peaple, and likewise viewing events and objects in the story the same way

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Of course its not, I agree with you on that and so does the show.

The androids took the only choice that saw as being open to them, but the narrative makes it clear that its the wrong choice irregardless.

 

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You have made the argument to me expressly that what really matters about what Soji did was her choice not to kill everyone. I disagree that that is what matters. I think it matters more that she tried really really really hard to exterminate all life in the galaxy and came thisclose to succeeding. To me, your emphasis on the neutral choice not commit galaxy-wide genocide overriding the intent to commit galaxy-wide genocide downplays it.

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Then on this point we agree. I simply feel this conclusion needed to be in the episode. It needed on screen resolution that Agnes was absolutely on her way to face deserved justice, and I think it would have been better to have her talk in an emotionally substantive way about Maddox and that crime specifically. I think the narrative missed that to an extent that it felt heartless on the subject.

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I can think of a single point that presents Soji's actions as a cutesy mistake - the very end where adorable Soji is super excited about exploring the galaxy and the crew of people she tried to exterminate are happy to have her along for the ride.

Soji expressed zero on screen regret for her morally repugnant actions. You have no more reason to assume she regrets them than Oh. They both stopped what they were doing. Meanwhile, Oh's goal was literally the preservation of life in the galaxy, so that goal proves that she cares about life. Soji's goal was the extinction of biologic life, so I'm not granting her the assumption that you are.

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The Li Sirena crew are fictional characters and the audience is supposed to be sharing the adventure with them. They're the pov characters into this adventure. When I watch them hanging out with their bestie pal Soji, I'm rolling my eyes at the show portraying this diverse cast of intelligent life as universally down to chill with Hitler on steroids times a trillion. That's bad writing to me. It's not realistic or understandable, it's ridiculous. It doesn't pass my laugh test.

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Mass murder was never a valid choice, period, let alone the "only" choice. Trying to do that makes the Androids and Soong evil. It's not wrong. It's not a mistake. It's evil.

 

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In terms of her narrative charecter devolopment and making neutral analysis of her charecter, it does matter though (and it also matters in a narrative sense - her decision to do the right thing does'nt change the fact that she did the wrong thing, but her bad actions don't exist in a vacuum from her good decisions.

And Soji never wanted to kill all organic life as you seem to be presenting the situation, she just felt that she had no choice but to summon the ancient robots becuse her own race was being targeted for extinction. She was acting out of self-defense and fear, not hatred or malice - if she had been she would have never had to convince herself to do what she almost did and would hot stood down

While I feel am content to wait until the next season for further devolopments. My life does'nt resolve around Star Trek and I have plenty of other things to pass the time while I wait

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A major point of the episode was that if she carried through with what she was attempting to do she was no better the Zhat Vash and would just be proving them right - it was not presented as a "cutesy mistake" by the narrative, it was presented as a drastic mistake of immese proportions and a moral event horizon which, if crossed, there would be no turning back from.

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Agian, I'm sure the entire population on Mars would agree 100 percent with that assesment. I mean, Oh cares sooo much about life that she wiped out what was presumably the second most heavily-populated planet in the Sol system. Yep, champion of the living that one is!

Soji, unlike Oh, has been shown that she relized what she did was wrong (the first part of the episode, along with her discussion with Picard in the second part, makes that clear, as does her ultimate choice to listen to reason) - so far we hav'nt seen that from Oh and we don't even know if her retreat was becuse she had a change of heart or becuse she just withdrew to fight anouther day. And on top of that Soji did'nt actually end up going through with her genocide, while Oh has already done such a deed - at the end of the day Soji has'nt actually killed anyone, while Oh is reponsable for wiping out an entire planet, and personally I consider peaple who did commit mass murder worse then peaple who almost, but ultimatly did'nt, commit mass murder

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Soji did'nt do what she tried to do out of hate or racism and she did'nt go through with her actions, so comparing her to Hitler is a false equiviliancy at best and an attempt to color the argument at worse.

The Li Sirena crew also have an established realtionship with Soji that goes behind their brief period as enemies - they've seen the good she's capable of, they've seen that, when she was faced with the choice between the right and the wrong thing she chose the former and they know that she helped bring Picard back to life. Them trusting her is competly in charecter for them as they've all been built up and devoloped.

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They did'nt do it becuse they were evil, though, they did it to survive - the action in itself may be evil, but the intent was not; the intent was survival (kill or be killed) and, yes, from their perspective it was the only valid choice they had; the only other option presented was to leave on the Li Sirena and, thanks to Sutra, they did not trust Picard and his crew.

 

They actually look realllly good when you get a good look at them (though I can tell for looking at that and looking at screencaps the former models are just slightly off).

 

Riker Rikering.

Raise your hand if you wanted Riker to kick some treacherous Tal Shiar ass.

 

I just want him to make me a pizza.


(relevent to the ongoing "all the ships warped away" conversation that's been going on in her but as they warp away we're not actually shown the entire fleet, just a corner portion of it with a zoom in on the Li Sirena - also, those uniforms are really starting to grow on me)

 

Riker warped away cuz Troi called him up with another red alert burnt tomato.

 

Telapathicly, I would assume, becuse after two decades of marriage I would hope they had gotten comfortable enough to start doing that again...if not, gesh, guys come on*...

And clearly if Deanna was cooking it would red alert burnt chocolate fudge or something

*if being half-Betazoid means Deanna can only telepathicly comminicate with those she has close bonds with and is otherwise limited to empathic abilities, what about Kesta? Does she get further limited so she loses the telepathy altogether and is limited to those she has close bonds with when it comes to being able to use her empathic abilitites, or does she have no abilities whatsoever?

 

Kesta would be a quarter Betazoid, maybe her emphatic abilities boil down to not even sensing if someone is hiding something. She might unintentionally be a better poker player than her parents though.

 

As I was thinking about it I remembered Ral (or Rall, whatever is name was) in The Price was a quarter-Betazoid, was'nt he? And he had empathic powers (though I think in the episode it was stated that he was the only one of his parents children born with them, so it could be that whether or not Kestra (and Thad) ended up with any abilities was just up in the air)