#lore and soji

[fractalcloning]

Defragmenting and hotfixes.

"Oh--my god--!"

The prybar clatters to the deck as Soji jumps back, startled halfway out of her mind by the contents of this particular box. She's not squeamish, not by a mile, but one has to be prepared to see a disassembled corpse in a box. It's not something you spring on a person. She recovers fast but, holy hell, that was a shock to the system.

"Breathe, Soji--it's fine, this is fine--" she mutters and takes a deep, calming breath.

This is actually ideal. Ideal-ish. She had pulled six boxes out of Data's quantum storage. Spoofing his identity had been a real trick, but she'd pulled it off. She couldn't just leave it alone, not once she was told what his storage contained. Allowing a synth (no, he was technically an android) to molder in storage forever was just unacceptable. She'd hoped she'd find him assembled in stasis, like how Alton generated the fractal clones or his golem, but apparently that was not how things were done back in the day.

Distantly, it does occur to her that it would be a lot more gruesome to do that to any of the synths in her generation. They would also probably not survive the experience. She tries not to think too hard about that as she examines his carefully packed bodyparts. His limbs are all intact, if a little creaky from extended storage. She considers parting the skin-layer to repair the wear on the major joints, her tools would support it, but she can't quite bring herself to start…peeling him. Even with good intentions, it seems like undue torment. His torso has a few deteriorated parts, as well as a few that are seized up from time in storage. It'll take her a while to repair, but no part of it is in poor condition.

His head is in the worst shape of any of it, by far. His scalp has already been drawn back and pinned aside. The underlying mechanicals and circuits are a mess--it looks like something was ripped off the board, there are bent connectors, missing pieces, and a host of shorted components. He suffered some serious cranial trauma and then a power surge.

Soji's inspection feels a little bleak--she isn't sure she can fix this but she's certainly going to try.

"You're lucky I've been doing cybernetic extractions for the last three years," she tells the disembodied head. It's inactive so, unsurprisingly, it doesn't reply. "Alright, let's get you up and running."

It's all the pep talk Soji gives herself before getting up and fetching one of the toolkits she took from the wreckage of the Cube on Coppelius. Her ship isn't impressive or well stocked, not in Soong type mechanical components at least, but she has a portable replicator and all of Alton Soong's notes. Once she has her equipment, she takes the head from the box, turns up the brightness of the overhead lights, and gets to work. @lettherebemonsters

[fractalcloning]

Soji's already typing strings of custom code into the regenerator so when his question lands, the hitch in her movement is abrupt and pronounced. She freezes, looks briefly perplexed and stares, momentarily, into space--did Coppelius count as a homeworld? She had been, sure, and she was born there, for a given value of 'birth'. Something in her, however, rails against calling it her homeworld casually. She still remembers too much about Earth and Seattle to really break the association. It's a very strange bit of cognitive dissonance and it passes all at once as Soji resolves the conflicts. She glances away from the holographic display to see if he's serious--but of course he is. Lore, who was hovering close enough that she could lean on him without asking, had already moved on from his question. He was currrently committed to angry grumbling. She had no idea who the target of his amorphous ire was, but she'd made up strawmen to argue against before, she couldn't judge. "I think technically we just have the one human," Soji replies as she finishes keying the information into the regenerator. Medical devices were always hit or miss with her--this one, thankfully, was a hit and she lets out a puff of a sigh as she starts drawing it over her messed up hand. "We used to have a few, but Jurati wandered off, and Seven rejoined Starfleet, and Picard only visits when the universe is ending, so, we really just end up with the one," Soji sort of explains--she rambles as she patches up her hand. When it is no longer raw and bleeding copiously she seems to fall back into semi-sensible conversation. "I meant more about this sort of thing," Soji clarifies and lifts her repaired hand. There was considerable ichor left over on her sleeve, but she'd get to that if and when she got to it. "I think there are a grand total of three generations that even can bleed. The others would be beside themselves about it, and probably about you." Soji lowers her hand and her limbs move almost unconsciously as a background routine takes over. Call it muscle memory. She doesn't look back down but manages to repair a few scattered lacerations along her arm. "We aren't as modular as you, so they take damage really seriously," Soji tells him, an apologetic grimace dancing across her face. "Only a few of the earliest models were modular, the rest of us are hybrid or, in my case, distributed. We aren't fragile but...given the scattered deaths we've had, it's hardly surprising that they get nervous when things escalate."

In all fairness, he’d been pelted with derogatory remarks and racial slurs that far surpassed Soji’s, but this was neither the place, nor the time to comment on or wallow in such sentiments... He’d rather not reanimate those wistful childhood evocations...

Oh yes, the arm... His chartreuse eyes snapped down to the gruesomely distorted limb, watching it as it hung feebly down his side positioned at a nauseatingly, anatomically incorrect angle. Perhaps being an android had one major advantage; mutilation and partial dismemberment weren’t accompanied by excruciating pain and immediate incapacitation. Luck him...

‘Good,’ he replied, he opted to grin, but his synthetic muscles failed to push his bioplast sheeting into an expression grander than a grimace — perhaps this facial expression was more a more accurate reflection of his present predicament... ‘You have my word,’ he added softly, he would not attempt to assault her again — she might be the only other android out there, along with his brother, wherever he was...

Lore, albeit sceptical and wary, followed his niece. Usually, he was the talkative sort. Contemplative, introspective when in solitary. But now, he was neither. He felt numb, stunned by today’s events, today’s revelations. Their fight, his actions could’ve eventuated in the permanent termination of another android, a relative, his own damn niece. He sincerely doubted he could ever have forgiven himself had he killed her. A shudder ran down his spine, and he tried to eradicate the thought.

The infirmary was vacant — unoccupied biobeds, no personnel. What a relief. Prying eyes and contemptuous glares were the last things his tottering sanity could endure. Soji’s voice diverted his attention from his pondering — her words were met by a frown of confusion.

‘“Worse family revelations”? I can’t imagine a situation worse than that,’ Lore replied, the feeble beginnings of a quip lingered in the air, but was neither brought to life by his monotonous inflection, nor extended to his jaded eyes.

Subconsciously, he stayed close to Soji, in case she required assistance or support when positioning herself on the bed — it was the least he could do after having flung her around the room like a rag doll...

‘Coppelius. Your homeplanet?’ he asked inquisitively, his head slightly tilted back while he granted himself the opportunity to initiate a minute analysis of her. ‘Humans and their pretense... They’ve been waging war since the beginning of time; their quasi-disgust at the sight of a little hand-to-hand combat is utterly repulsive — the hypocrisy...’ Lore growled, thinking the “others” she was referring to were humanoids — humanoids with superiority complexes and delusions of grandeur.

[tonguetiedraven]

So I was cleaning up a few manga panels for my other blog, and darn it, I need to talk about my thoughts on two scenes in the Shimane Illuminati arc (specifically chapters 61 and 62) because Kato deserves all the applause for everything. This post will be for chapter 61 and I'll post 62 later.

TW/CW for character death, medical abuse, and mental health struggles. Content below the cut.

First, in chapter 61 we get this heart breaking page when Tamamo Kamiki dies.

To get into what I'm seeing with this panel, I need to give a brief (or I'll try and make it brief) overview of Tamamo. Tamamo gets introduced to us in chapter 52 and the first panel we get of her is her sobbing into the camera that everyone acts so cold towards her because she is sleeping with the head priest and not married to said high priest.

We are then told that she was an irresponsible and careless woman by Mike. We find out three really important things though.

Tamamo is judged by the people around her and gets a cold shoulder

Tamamo relies heavily on her daughter and the byakko to have the house run at all and has dreams of a fantastic family and house she has shown no ability to actually run.

Tamamo is in love with the (shitty) Chief Priest of Inari and that he isn't married to her.

We then find out:

That Tamamo and her entire line have always managed the terrifying and unruly Nine Tails by assimilating the god and becoming her, and that the town/shrine distrust her because of that, even though she does it to protect them. They ostracize her for the duty her family has and they judge the entire family because she had Soji's children.

Notice Soji isn't in the judged club and that Soji has never seen his daughters. He's never been to her house. It is always her going to him.

This theme of ostracization is something that pops up over and over and over again in Blue Exorcist. Almost all of the main characters had a childhood that was lonely and where they were rejected by their peers--almost always for things outside their direct control and almost always in someway connected to demons, even if they didn't know it, but I'll get to that more in a moment. Suffice to say, at this point we can see that Tamamo is isolated outside of her illicit meetings with Soji (not at all healthy as we'll see later on) her interactions with the demons around her, and her daughters, neither of which are old or mature enough to offer her the type of companionship she's in need of, which leads to everyone in this tangled dynamic having unhealthy relationships with each other.

We see Tamamo seeking connections and affections and largely being rebuffed by it everywhere except Tsukumo and the byakko. Soji's affection has strings attached, and Izumo is too fed up to offer any affection. The other members of the shrine ostracize her and give her a cold shoulder, and I'd bet money that they're vocal about their opinions any time she's around. (And they likely don't care if the kids are around or not.)

What I'm getting at is that Tamamo is lonely and you see that in how desperate she is for approval and connection and it mostly comes out with Soji. She does whatever he wants to keep her connection to him intact. We've also had a few indications thus far in the manga that isolation and depression and poor mental health are things demons take advantage of. We'll get more explanation on that later on, but suffice to say that Tamamo is not at all in a healthy spot to be constantly risking possession against an immensely powerful and evil demon.

I'll be honest and clear up front that I have no love for Soji and think him deplorable and he did not do anything to help Tamamo that we see. Rather, it seems he exclusively used her for his own pleasures without any care for her or the consequences their time together had.

I also think it's important that everyone know that Nine Tails -- at least the Nine Tails in this story -- is based of Tamamo no Mae who is an infamous yokai in Japanese lore. She has a long and complicated history with her origins unknown and a lot of political manipulation, but an important thing to know about her is that she is always depicted as a child eater. She devours women as well, and thrives on seducing men. She's beautiful and powerful and alluring, and she's manipulative.

So generations of women manipulated and regularly partially possessed by Nine Tails down the line, we have a shrine and town that reject Tamamo and her losing her grasp on the one adult who 'likes' her, and we see this moment:

We see her staring at him, enjoying the light atmosphere and gathering her courage (the sweat drop in the panel has me thinking she's nervous about this because it's not the first time this convo has happened.)

She wants him to come to her house and is trying to make it as appealing as possible. She wants a family and the life she's been dreaming up.

Soji rejects the idea entirely and pushes further by saying if she asks for him to interact with the kids in any way he'll dump her. The one adult connection she has will be lost because of her children. (Not actually. It's because he's a dick but she sees it as the children being the problem.)

She then goes immediately to Nine Tails to do the dance of spirit invocation which we're told this about:

So Tamamo--who has been isolated and lonely for at least a large chunk of her adult life is now seeing the one connection she's made with another adult (and an unhealthy one at that) potentially break because of her children-- goes to assimilate the Nine Tails in that unstable and unhealthy emotional and mental state.

It is heavily implied that Nine Tails started to take her over at this point, and you see her become more and more obsessed with Soji and more angry with her children, further isolating herself away from the small amount of support and connection she did have until she's entirely possessed by the vengeful and malevolent spirit of Nine Tails.

She murders Soji and tries to do the same to her children before the Illuminati take her and subject her to years of torture, all while she's still possessed by the Nine Tails.

One more detail and I'll get back to the scene in chapter 61.

When Tamamo was last fully in control of her faculties and saw her daughter, she saw Izumo in the same place she was. Ostracized by her community with no one but their small family to lean on. Her daughter was doomed to follow the same path Tamamo had, and at this point, it looks like this was a cycle that had been going on for at least a few generations. Isolated and connection starved women raising daughters who were isolated and connection starved children. Tamamo became overly touchy and clingy to everyone where Izumo became mistrustful. (And man does she have a lot of reasons for that.)

Now back to chapter 61 and the moment Tamamo dies.

She wakes up amongst the chaos of the zombie hoard going towards possessed Izumo, and she immediately intervenes to get the Nine Tails spirit back inside herself to save her daughter.

That's important to understand for her. She moved before the next moment I'm going to talk about. She saw Izumo possessed and didn't seem to hesitate to save her daughter. She has been tortured for five years and immediately moves to start that horrible possession again.

But while she's dancing to contain Nine Tails in herself, this is going on in the background:

Each of the other teens in the room came to get Izumo and they're shouting their support of her even while they fight an endless hoard of zombies because they came to get her. Tamamo can hear that happening and she can see that they came to help Izumo.

No one came to help Tamamo. At no point did anyone ever come to rescue her or fight for her. She was blamed for everything and was left to bear all the consequences for five years. (I am not blaming Izumo for that. She was a child and was not responsible for saving her mother.)

But with "We're here for you!" ringing in Tamamo's ears, she completes the ritualistic dance and frees her daughter from the possession.

Tamamo in her dying moments looks at her daughter and sees a community around her that Tamamo didn't have. She sees people willing to intervene and help and fight even though Izumo is pushing them away and possessed and not easy to get along with.

Tamamo, from everything we saw, was isolated and rejected by her community and had no one to support her. She was manipulated and played by her significant other and left vulnerale to possession by a society that needed her to do the thankless job and hated her for doing the thankless job. She was bubbly and friendly and still pushed away and rejected and ostracized until she succumbed to Nine Tails.

back to chapter 52

Blue Exorcist talks a lot about curses and ostracization. All the main cast suffer from it in some way or another. They've all been called terrible things and most of them have been treated as if they aren't human, and a lot of them have complicated lineages and may not be fully human which just amplifies the amount they're rejected by their peers.

For Tamamo, that curse was literal and figurative. The literal curse was the constant absorption of an insane demon that eventually consumed her until she'd destroyed what little family she had.

It was figurative in that as the head priestess and medium in charge of the rituals, she was rejected by the community she needed to support her. She was left floundering on the outside, always given just a taste of what she could have had if she was born to a different family, and left with a longing for what she would never be given and always wondering why she couldn't have it. (And yes, I'm probably reading into some things and filling in the blanks with hypothesis and assumptions.)

But in that final moment, Tamamo sees that curse of isolation and rejection has been broken by Izumo. That her daughter, who like all the daughters of the Kamiki line was alone, is no longer alone. That she has friends and support. Support that followed her into this hell and reached out to call her back even from a demon like Nine Tails.

I don't know if I've made myself all that clear, but I love the way that Kato has shown this over and over again and keeps showing the rejection of isolation and ostracization as any kind of solution. That she keeps showing through each of these relationships and arcs that it's reaching for and connecting with other people that brings change and healing and hope, and I love how she shows that through moments like this. It's a little moment that's so easy to miss, but it's so immensely huge when looked at in the context of the entirety of Tamamo's life.

I wish she knew that they would have come for her if they'd known she'd been there all this time. I wish she'd have found a community to support her and I wish she'd had someone to tell her Soji was a dick and she could do better.

I wish she could see Izumo now, still connected to her friends and even though it's the end of the world, she's fighting with and beside them. That she's seeking out connections and learned her lesson about not needing to be alone. That she's teased and loved and welcomed.

But I'm pretty sure in that final moment, she saw it all anyway.

As always, check out my tag #raven rambles for more aoex meta and analysis

[the-lavender-clown]

Random Star Trek thought that pops into my head every once in a while.

I have the biggest bone to pick with ST Picard! Now I did enjoy the show but I have a lot of critiques for it too. My biggest one by far is how they made it so that Deanna and therefore probably other Betazoids and telepathic/empathic species can’t sense android’s at all. Like the amount of episodes that recons is something else!!

Remember how Deanna wasn’t there for Datalore? Most likely because she would have been able to sense the difference between Data and Lore. But maybe there was a real life reason for that like scheduling or whatever. Ok fine, then what about the episode where Ira Graves possesses Data’s body? Deanna could feel his ego suppressing Data’s (confirming that to at least some extent she can sense Data as well even if his presence might be so weak sometimes she doesn’t pick it up due to his lack of humanoid emotions). Then the episode Offspring. When Lal went to Deanna to tell her what was happening and how scared she was Deanna didn’t even hesitate to believe her and although I can’t remember the exact words of the conversation I’m pretty sure she said something like “you are scared” and was deeply concerned for Lal.

In conclusion, Data totally has an ego no matter how weak/different it is and therefore so does every other android and Deanna should have been able to sense Soji.

[walkingstackofbooks]

Picard thoughts, now I've finished it:

Season 1 and 2 were really fun, actually! A few things that felt a bit flat, but idk, they did feel very Trek to me at heart. I was gripped throughout, couldn't stop clicking "next epsiode" XD

Season 3.... I got into it by the end, and I was far more okay with the reason for Jack being special than I assumed I was going to be, but still... 🤷‍♀️ definitely not my fav. The first few dragged most definitely.

I was NOT expecting Worf to be my favourite character, like, ever, but I was cheering every time he was on screen tbh, he was fantastic XD

I really like what they did with Seven, though I feel like they could have done more. But seeing that she'd grown into the warmest, most caring human... that was super special 💖💖

(LOVED that even though s2 was highlighting how fucked-up we are in 2024, they never brought in homophobia. Like, it would have been so easy and I'd have understood why they might have, but having that scene where they were pretending to have just got engaged and that just feel so normal, even in the "past" - idk, it was just nice that Raffi and Seven never felt any different from any other couple.)

All the new characters from s1 I really, really loved. Chris, Raffi, Agnes, Soji - ❤️❤️❤️❤️ they were all fantastic.

Most of the time, the callbacks to classic Trek worked very well - possibly a bit much in s3, but only in parts. Overall, there was a hell of a lot of love for Old Trek. Honourable mention to the music cues, cause man, whatever you think about New Trek, they use the themes of TOS, Voy, DS9 etc so well and it's beautiful. The Fleet museum scene - yeaaaa, shivers <3 <3 <3

I do feel like they went a bit too far down the rabbit-hole of "this isn't really a utopia". Idk, I think some of it felt a bit more grimdark-for-the-sake-of-it rather than the DS9 vibe of yes-it's-dark-in-here-but-there's-still-hope

Speaking of DS9 - the changelings and Dominion war legacy.... I honestly *don't* know what to make of that. It was interesting, seeing more of them, and I think some of the new lore might even have some... fun(?) implications to retcon onto what happened in DS9. But also... idk. The fact that Worf was the only DS9 character? I mean I'm sure the Enterprise crew fought in the Dominion war, but it was kind of rough seeing that plot without my guys from DS9.

Not a fan of the continued found-family-is-fine-(but-actually-biological-family-is-Everything) vibes. I had a problem with this in Voyager, wasn't expecting it to show up here ngl :/

Also what the hell was the whole Laris thing?? I mean I liked her as a character, but the romance was absolutely pointless. But also, even though I hated the romance, it felt super disrepectful to not even mention her at the end, given how 'important' she'd been previously?? Like, why was it even needed if they weren't going to do anything with it? (not that i wanted them to do anythign with it but yeah. gahhh)

**Q** however???? Omg, was not expecting it to be quite that gay 😅😅 I was SOBBING at the end of s2 and I've never been /that/ invested in Qcard but it is so real actually. Yeah, that rocked.

I'm sure there's more but overall: FAR better than I expected! I'd heard bad things about it, and TNG is not my favourite Trek at all, so I wasn't looking forward to watching it, but it was, genuinely, quite good. Definitely more than a few bits to be frustrated by, but I guess that's every Trek to be honest, so... yeah. Pleasantly surprised. Thanks, Picard.

[stereogeekspodcast]

Transcript] Season 3, Episode 7. Star Trek: Picard Series Review

Rewatching Star Trek: Picard changed how the Stereo Geeks felt about the show. We reviewed the series and shared our thoughts on it.

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks, and the very first of 2024.

This time, we've been rewatching Star Trek Picard.

I'm Ron.

And I'm Mon.

As big fans of Star Trek, the announcement that Picard was going to get his own little spinoff was exciting, but also a little bit worrying for us.

Well, there's definitely a spate of reprisals, revivals of old stuff, especially 80s, 90s things.

A lot of people who grew up at the time are currently executives and producers of Hollywood.

So obviously, they want to bring back the nostalgia factor.

And let's be honest, nostalgia sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, but it definitely sells.

Let's dig into that a little bit because season one of Picard doesn't actually work with nostalgia as much.

That's true.

There are, of course, moments.

There are cameos, reprisals, et cetera.

There is a through line, however, of Picard and his relationship with Data, his need to get closure for what happened to Data.

So that's the nostalgia factor.

The main storyline, however, even though it is tied to that, doesn't have that nostalgia feeling.

Because when you look at the main storyline, it's actually several different stories.

So we start off with the fact that Picard misses Data.

That's literally the first scene.

And you get the feeling that this is what the season is going to be about.

But then it turns out that Data has android children who are unmistakable from humans, but they don't know their true identity.

Also, we find out the Romulan sun went supernova, leading to a refugee crisis that Picard and Raffi Musiker had to fix.

Then Utopia Planitia and all of Mars was blown up by synths, leading to not only a synth ban, but the end of the refugee resettlement.

And then the Tal Shiar made it into Starfleet somehow.

But also there's a hidden sect of the Tal Shiar called the Zhat Vash and they are trying to fight the return of the synths.

Also, Raffi is now plagued by Romulan conspiracies, but nobody believes her.

Everything that went down on the Ibn Majid never got explained.

Also, who even is Soji and who is Narek?

Oh, and did we mention that Picard misses Data?

When you put it like that, that seems like a lot, but I'm gonna say something very controversial here. Well, at least it's controversial on this podcast.

From the three seasons of Star Trek Picard, I have to say season one is the most cohesive and best made.

Season two is a mess.

Season three is a nostalgia fest that is not always well-written, but that doesn't mean that I don't love season two, adore season three and still can't stand season one.

The first time I watched season one, I didn't like it. Straight up didn't like it.

First time I watched season two, I loved it except for the last episode.

First time I watched season three, I adored everything.

When we rewatched it, I liked what season one was doing. I liked the concepts. I liked all the lore that it had.

It was really digging into the Star Trek universe, but it was not long enough.

10 episodes and all that was there.

And I'm not even touching on all the interconnected parts.

Like there was a whole thing about Agnes Jurati, Bruce Maddox, Seven of Nine and her history.

All that was in there.

It should have been at least 15-16 episodes.

That would have given us enough time to actually understand how all these things are interconnected.

And it would have given the characters a bit more time to shine.

Season 2, perfectly compact.

10 episodes, every episode mattered.

It gave the characters their spotlight.

Picard got an entire wonderful arc that honestly has been waiting for quite a while to be resolved.

And season 3, 10 episodes, nostalgia.

That's it.

But yes, I agree that season 1 was the most cohesive because it felt like real science fiction.

But it was just too muddled and way too many plot points just got dropped at the end.

I think my biggest issue with season 1, and I feel like this even on the rewatch, is that there are a bunch of characters who are just so annoying that you hate it whenever they're on screen.

And every time it cut away to their stories, if you would call it that, I would just be switching off.

Mostly the Romulans.

Narek, Narissa, Commodore Oh.

I agree with you that that was the part which was muddled.

Who are they?

What are their motivations?

Because it's not signposted or elucidated at the beginning, they just seem like these very caricatured old school baddies who don't make any sense.

There's also a sort of old fashioned way of how they're presented, how they interact and the things that they do.

So that really annoyed me.

The crew of La Sirena themselves, they were great.

They were really interesting.

But yeah, it was just every time they had to interact.

And there was that entire plot line with Narek, for example, which sort of we never came back to that.

He sort of disappears in the final episode.

And then it's like, oh, okay, what happened with this guy?

That's a really good point, because Soji and Narek, that whole relationship, if you can call it that, it just felt shoehorned in, like, we have to make these characters interact.

So let them just have a love affair.

Soji just felt so very born sexy yesterday, that kind of thing.

It didn't do her any justice.

The biggest mistake the first season made was making Soji and Picard's meeting happen only in episode seven.

That's way too late.

These are the two main characters of this season.

They should be meeting way earlier.

I feel like Soji as a character, she really became more of a catalyst and a plot point.

Well, she gets dropped first episode of season two.

So she was never really supposed to be, I guess, part of the actual crew, which is sad because, I mean, Issa Briones is really good.

I mean, you reminded me that she was like 19 or 20 when she did this.

She holds her own and she plays so many different characters in the first season as well.

But I agree because there are so many fleshed out points for the other characters, especially, with Cristobal Rios, the captain of La Sirena.

I know there's an entire book, so we've read that book, but I just felt like they had a plan or a hope or something that this character who is so complicated and so emotionally needy, there was just so much that we could have explored with this person, especially in his capacity as someone who knows Picard, who looks up to Picard, who becomes trapped in Picard's spell, if you would.

I really felt like there was a lot going on there.

So there's a character like him where you know so much about his background.

You know, with Raffi, there is so much that we are learning about her and we continue to learn about her throughout the three seasons.

And then there's Soji who is signposted as this very important character.

We don't really know much about her.

Her importance is really her connection to Data and how Picard deals with that.

She's just a plot point.

It's really disappointing.

And in the end, it's not even about Soji's heritage.

Bruce Maddox apparently used a painting that Data made as the blueprint to make these androids with Alton Soong.

Data wasn't even involved at all, so that through line doesn't even work, which is a bit unfair on the character of Soji.

I think one of the problems with the entire show has been it keeps leaning on these historical moments which don't take place on screen.

The Romulan Supernova, for example.

I think the show about that would have been far more interesting.

We do get a lot of that in the books.

So I highly recommend reading The Last Best Hope, Second Self, et cetera, that entire series.

I'm okay with that being off the screen, but stuff like Data's painting of his daughters.

I'm sorry, we never saw him paint that.

There's a lot of stuff in the third season especially, where they talk about this happened and Beverly's talking about Myriad and this and that.

And we're Googling to see, did we miss something from the original TNG series, from the movies, et cetera?

It's all made up.

I mean, I get it, it's all made up.

But not having that sort of through line, that connection, it just doesn't make sense because it's so important.

These people know about it.

And at the same time, we never saw it.

So I really did worry about the writing in a lot of the show, especially on the rewatch when you realize, yeah, it wasn't you forgetting stuff, it just doesn't exist.

Because what is the point of referencing something that hasn't happened in a previous show or any of the tie-in books, comics, whatever, when you know that nobody is really coming into Star Trek Picard as a non-Star Trek watcher?

You can't get into this series without some prior knowledge.

The first season and the extreme focus on Data, it won't make sense to you.

If you already know that people are coming in, having seen TNG and all the TNG related movies, just reference things that have already been in TNG.

People are gonna know it or they are going to Google it.

So the first season, though complicated and overly convoluted with the focus on a lot of weird Romulan people, I really loved the Picard and data connection.

What I missed about the first season, aside from the Picard and Data part, was feeling some emotional connection or just being totally emotional about it.

I got that in season two.

The return of Q, who is unhinged and scary, but the season, the way it ends with Picard and Q, it was surprisingly emotional, wasn't it?

I really liked season two.

It's about time travel, so obviously I'm gonna like it.

And I think it was really compact, not just the storyline, but also the setting.

They went back to 2024 LA and they stayed there for quite a long time.

I love watching fish out of water, Rios, Raffi and Seven trying to interact with the world in the past.

Hilarious.

That whole scene where Seven and Raffi are driving and trying to escape the police, one of the best of the entire show, not just that season.

I really loved it.

And also speaking of the 2024 timeline, the best part of it was season two deals with the real problem of ICE raids and how several communities, especially in the US, well, they live in fear and they don't have access to simple human benefits, like medicines, et cetera.

And it really worked the way they included that, how Rios, who happens to be played by a Chilean actor and he speaks a lot of Spanish, so how that works into it, he doesn't have papers, so what does that mean?

That's probably why, when we first watched the second season, it just blew us away because it went back to the roots of Star Trek.

It's talking about the real world in this fictional, majestic, futuristic world through this lens of utopia.

Well, you go back and it wasn't always utopia and one tiny change in our history could make it worse or better, which is something that is explored in that season.

I really, really like that.

I didn't understand the Borg stuff.

Even on my third rewatch of this series, I don't necessarily think the whole Borg angle needed to be there.

That's really interesting because I like the fact that Picard leans into his experience as Locutus.

I felt like in TNG, they didn't really handle that very well.

This man was taken, assimilated.

He was the mouthpiece of the Borg as they slaughtered so many Starfleet officers at Wolf 359.

We see the impact of that in DS9.

It's the reason why Sisko can't stand Picard.

Starfleet just moves on.

But the show coming back to that over and over again, not just about the impact that it had on the people who died or survived, but on Picard himself.

No, I agree with you.

I like the through line of the Borg being there in all three seasons.

I just don't know if it was handled as well, especially on the third rewatch.

I can have a little bit more distance and a bit more critical thinking.

And I do think it was confused.

Because what does it all mean?

We now have a new faction of the Borg who are good guys, who assimilate after consent.

What are they doing?

Where are they?

How have we not met them in all these years?

I feel like that was a plotline that padded up the story.

This goes back to what I was saying about how season one was the most cohesive.

When you're watching the recaps of season two, and it's so long, it's like two, three minutes long, because they have to pack in all this information.

And it's simply because there are disparate storylines.

They're not interconnected.

So that's my biggest issue.

The Borg stuff, while there is the through line, in hindsight, I just feel like it was too much.

And I think the reason for that is that each season has a different type of Borg.

If it had just been one kind, it would have made a bit more sense.

It would have flowed better from what we've seen before in TNG, in First Contact, but nothing that happens in season one affects season two or season three.

And I feel like the events in season two were primarily a way to phase out the new characters.

So Rios stays back in 2024.

Jurati becomes this other Borg Queen.

Elnor, after being killed, Q brings him back.

So now he's part of Starfleet.

Raffi's the only one who stays on and comes back in season three.

Yeah, and that's also an issue which we talked about probably because we just really love these new characters.

It's not like Rios and Elnor, even Dr. Jurati, who I didn't like in the beginning, but honestly on the rewatch, she was a lot of fun.

They're compelling characters and there's a lot of complicated feelings which we didn't actually get to discuss on the show.

How Picard treats them, how they feel about him.

It's a squandered opportunity.

I say that a lot about this show.

I get it because of what season three becomes.

And when you're watching season three, you don't actually feel the absence because we'll get to that in a moment.

But I do feel like if you introduce these characters and there's so much rich history alluded to, I would have loved to see a little bit more of them.

There was something else that you had written about and that's Picard's very bad attempts at being a father figure to people.

And there is a throughline in each season of Picard just thinking that Starfleet is the answer to everybody's problems.

He gets Raffi back into Starfleet.

He gets Seven back into Starfleet.

He gets Rios back into Starfleet.

He gets Elnor into Starfleet.

He gets Jack into Starfleet.

That's a lot of people.

That's his answer for everything.

Try being a dad for once.

That was something that you pointed out and I was like, surely you're not right.

And then at the end of season three, when Jack Crusher, Picard's unknown long lost son, he turns up and he's suddenly part of the Enterprise.

I was like, oh, okay, you have a point, Ron.

But it's true.

Picard says often, Starfleet was his life, Starfleet was his family.

His best friends, his family, literally are from Starfleet.

So I get why he's sort of mesmerized and he feels like, well, Starfleet fixed his life, gave him what he wanted, which was a family.

And that's what he thinks the people he loves most will also get.

And in a way we find that, well, Starfleet is different for different people.

Starfleet is also different at this time.

And it's something that is somewhat explored in the third season.

Seven, for example, Seven of Nine, she was a Borg, she was rescued, if you could say, by Voyager.

Voyager became her family, her collective.

And the one goal for Voyager, a ship that was stranded in the Delta Quadrant, was to get back to the Alpha Quadrant.

But Seven had no connection to the Alpha Quadrant.

And what happens when she comes back?

Well, that's what we find out.

We find out that she tried to get into Starfleet, but because she's an ex-B, a former Borg, they refused to include her.

I mean, Picard obviously has a lot of influence because in season three, she's the first officer of the Titan, which was Riker's previous ship, but she's not happy because the Starfleet ship that she was on was Voyager, which had nothing to do with Starfleet.

In fact, there are moments in Voyager when Starfleet is able to connect to them once again.

And Captain Janeway does struggle a little bit with the way they speak about some of her crew, with some of the decisions that they make.

It's not fully there because we are talking about 90s TV shows which were a little bit more utopian in their outlook about authority, et cetera.

But we do see that the struggle is real in the newer shows.

Even on Star Trek Prodigy, Vice Admiral Janeway has problems with Starfleet.

They have rules that really don't make sense sometimes.

So we see that with Seven as well.

Picard and Captain Janeway, or rather Admiral Janeway in this timeline, they've convinced her to join Starfleet.

And she's got this chance, but she hates it.

She absolutely hates it.

And I did write about it after the first episode, I think.

She doesn't belong.

She's not doing what she wants.

She's stuck using protocols and rules that don't make sense to her.

And I'm almost a little bit disappointed that in the end, she still has a commission, she's still with Starfleet, and it's supposed to be a big, yay, you know, all our favorite characters are still with Starfleet.

It's like Picard is on a recruitment drive.

He's very good at recruiting people, but is that really the right thing for them?

I find it interesting that the show doesn't hold back from criticizing Picard because his experiences are wildly different from everyone else's.

Raffi especially takes him to task when Elnor is killed.

But the show is still reluctant to call Starfleet out on their nonsense, which is kind of weird, because as you said, the ending is very much a rah-rah happiness.

Seven and Raffi and Jack are now leading the new enterprise, and that's a good thing.

Is it though?

Like Seven was literally resigning until Tuvok showed her Captain Shaw's last message.

One message and that's enough for all the xenophobia that she received from that man?

That doesn't make any sense.

It's funny because one of the last things that Raffi says is, it's weird to her that Starfleet has given a thief, a pirate and a spy a ship of their own, and not just any ship, the Enterprise is still the flagship of Starfleet.

And I do wonder if something like that heralds a change in Starfleet.

Even Captain Liam Shaw, in his recommendation for Seven to become captain, says that she doesn't follow protocols, but she has ideas and she has methods which are different and which do suggest a change, a new way of leading.

And also Gates McFadden, who plays Dr. Beverly Crusher.

Now, I can't remember if she wrote this in a tweet or she talked about this at Fan Expo Canada at the panel that you and I went to.

She talked about how Beverly and her son Jack, they're part of Mariposa, which was the organization that was created by Rios and his partner, Teresa, back in 2024.

They are sort of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders in the galactic sense.

Now, Beverly and Jack being part of that, helping worlds and peoples who have been forgotten by the Federation and Starfleet.

Gates McFadden mentioned that she wants to explore how Beverly can do that work, even though now she is head of Starfleet Medical.

So it seems to me, behind the scenes and also perhaps through the writing, they're trying to suggest that these people are in Starfleet, but that doesn't mean that Starfleet stays the same.

Considering the sort of world ending stuff that happened, I would like to think that Starfleet will not be the same forever.

That being said, when you read the books about the supernova, it doesn't really show Starfleet and the Federation in very good light.

So I don't know, I just do wonder that are the writers trying to say that, yes, Picard is on a recruitment drive, but maybe for the better?

Well, that's an interesting point.

I hadn't really thought of it like that because the final season, it does seem to be about change, even though it's primarily about the TNG crew who we've seen for many, many years.

That's honestly one of the best parts of it, just seeing that entire group together, the chemistry is just, it's just there.

I remember when we saw Jonathan Frakes at Toronto Comic Con and he was talking about how worried he was when he was coming back and he was like, Sir Patrick Stewart is just on his game, such high quality acting and Frakes was so worried that he wouldn't be able to match up.

And I was like, what is this guy talking about?

He was the best part of that show.

He's so funny, he's so sweet, he's just effortlessly Riker, no matter how many years have passed by.

Yeah, I have to say these characters, you don't even realize you miss them till you see them and you're like, oh wow, I really miss these people.

And we don't even have that kind of connection with TNG, the way we do with Voyager.

And despite that, seeing these actors step back into these roles and the kind of love that they seem to have for these characters, absolutely seamless.

It's brilliant.

And I understand why a lot of people, they can't see beyond how wonderful it is to see these people together.

And that's why it's like the best season ever, this is the best Trek.

Well, we have to be measured in how we approach our entertainment media.

Something can be exactly what we want and it also can have its flaws.

Watching season three, especially we just finished watching it, honestly, I'm like, are there any flaws?

I love this so much.

I'm like tearing up at the TNG theme every time.

Every time these people interact with each other, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is like the best thing.

Geordie telling Data exactly how he feels about him, I'm like tearing up just thinking about it.

And it's so sweet.

And at the same time, I'm like, okay, do we lose a lot because we focus so much on this reunion?

Is that a bad thing?

Is that a good thing?

I don't know.

I just know that, well, the show ends on a high because you're watching this poker game between this family of characters and these actors who have also become a family.

And you can't argue with that.

You can't argue with that feeling.

In so many ways, I just think that this season, I really, really did forget that there were issues with it.

Especially in the beginning part when they're not all together, you're like, oh, okay, I can nitpick a little bit here and there and then buy this penultimate episode when they're all standing on the old enterprise deck.

You're like, this is what I've wanted on my life apparently.

Yeah, and the other thing is that you still got those moments where like, Worf and Raffi, their bond.

There is no preamble to it.

It just happened so quickly, but organically, like that last scene with the two of them together when she's got that message from her family.

And I'm just like, oh my gosh, like the father-daughter bond is just so strong.

I would have loved to see that with other people.

Like there was that scene earlier on when Liam Shaw first meets Geordi and he's like struggling to speak because he's like such a fanboy and he's just like stuttering.

He can't, and Geordi's just standing there like, oh, I'm so used to this.

And you just love those moments, you know?

I would have loved to see more of that with Rios, with Jurati.

I mean, imagine Jurati meeting Data, Jurati meeting Beverly.

Oh my God, those would have been amazing moments.

Like Rios and Riker together.

Why didn't we get that?

I really wish we had, because then that would have made the show feel like it was one continuous story.

I think you've hit upon a very good note, which is that all three seasons feel like three different stories.

And there's a reason for that, because all three seasons had three different showrunners.

Even though Terry Matalas took over for season two, he inherited the previous creators' stories and storylines.

It's like watching an anthology series.

When you have that caliber of acting on your screen, honestly, nothing else matters.

Some things just transcend writing and cohesiveness, honestly.

But the show ends, like the final ending, is a bit of a cliffhanger.

Like it seems like the Enterprise crew is going to go off on these new adventures while their previous Enterprise crew goes off on their old adventures.

And now nothing.

What is that all about?

So the final scene of the show is Q apparently returning, but as he reminds us all, humans think so linearly.

That's not how the continuum works.

He might be dead, but this is another version or a previous version of him.

And he's come to torment Picard's son, Jack Crusher.

I do think that the showrunners, Paramount Plus, whoever is behind these things, included that to gauge if there was any interest in continuing the stories of these characters.

So one has to ask, are we interested in seeing Captain Seven of Nine, Commander Raffi Musiker, consultant to the captain, Ensign Jack Crusher, as well as the LaForge sisters and the rest of the Enterprise crew, maybe some new characters, Admiral Beverly Crusher?

Are we interested in seeing all these people continue in a new show?

Well, for me, the answer is yes, because I want to see more of Seven, I want to see more of Raffi, I want to see their relationship actually on screen instead of, you know, they've broken up, they're together, they're very far apart from each other.

Don't give us two amazing bisexual characters and then be like, yeah, they're not together.

What?

That's the only reason why I need this show.

True, but we need to talk about Jack Crusher.

We can't not talk about this man.

He's sort of the catalyst and the reason all of season three happens.

Unlike Soji, this man is very fleshed out.

He is a personality, a character, a human being, and he evokes complicated feelings in a lot of us.

I just don't know how I feel about this person who creates so much damage, chaos, most likely death.

And at the same time, well, he is Beverly and Picard's son.

And I'm like, you know, he's really cool and he can do all these things and he knows all these things and he has this sort of avant-garde experience and knowledge.

He would be very interesting to follow, alongside, of course, the most important people, Seven and Raffi.

Well, I'm not 100% sold on Ed Speelers as the son of Beverly Crusher and Picard.

I mean, he has the hair.

He has Beverly's hair.

Listen, when I first saw him, I thought, oh, wow, somehow Beverly had another child with Jack Crusher.

And she obviously named him Jack.

But I was like, oh, he's Picard's son?

I don't see the connection, like physically or anything.

He's got the accent, which the bizarre explanation for his accent.

He went to England for a little bit and he came back with the accent.

Really?

Really?

Considering I still say presentation instead of presentation, because I heard Tom Paris say it the one time on Voyager, I forgive him.

But like, he's not supposed to be like Picard.

He has no connection to this man.

He's more like Beverly if she hadn't been stuck on Starfleet, if she hadn't faced loss so early on in her life, if she wasn't a mom who had to keep taking care of her son.

I think, you know, that sort of effervescent, ne'er-do-well, nonchalant sort of personality that he has is very much like how Beverly may have been.

So I feel that.

I just don't understand how we are supposed to like root for a character who's caused all this untold loss and suffering for a lot of people.

In a way, I keep thinking back to Captain Michael Burnham and how she wanted to make something better and ended up causing the Klingon War.

So many people's lives were changed, not just death.

People's lives were changed and she has to reckon with that when she comes back to Starfleet.

And I'm like, how do I feel about that?

We've forgotten about it because she has redeemed herself in so many ways.

She suffered herself as well, but people have made a lot of sacrifices to make sure that she keeps saving the world, basically.

Does Jack deserve that?

I don't know.

If we get a show about the new Enterprise G, we would have to contend with Jack being there.

But also, I think if Jack wasn't Beverly and Picard's son, I don't think that many people would have been allowed to die for him.

That's something to reckon with as well.

He actually says the only reason why he got fast-tracked to Ensign level at Starfleet was because of nepotism.

His parents aren't going to believe that, but Beverly has always had a blind spot for her kids.

When Wesley was part of the team, the Nova Squad, and their teammate died, she refused to believe that Wesley had done anything wrong.

Obviously, she's going to be the same way with Jack, and Picard, he can't see anything wrong with people he loves.

So this kid is going to have to have other people call him out on his nonsense because his parents are not going to do it.

Yeah, I completely agree with you on that because the only way this is going to work if they were to have a show, and I do really want one because I think we just need more Star Trek.

Especially now that Star Trek Discovery is coming to an end, we're going to have the animated properties, Lower Decks is still doing well, Prodigy, I don't know what's going to happen after season two, and we have Strange New Worlds as the only live action.

So yeah, Star Trek Legacy would be great.

Especially a show which brings in the Deep Space Nine characters, characters from other Star Trek properties, their descendants, et cetera.

That would be awesome.

Listen, I need a show where Jake Sisko is a journalist. I need this. It's very important to me.

Very true.

So yeah, I mean, I think we've been really critical about Star Trek Picard, but honestly, on rewatching it, I just fell back in love with the show, even the first season, which I did not like.

I love these characters, the new ones, the old ones.

Love the world that they've created.

I love being back in the Star Trek universe.

And I just wanted to continue.

In a way, I am trying to continue it by reading the books so that I can just hang out with these characters and this world, because we didn't have Star Trek for a really, really long time.

And we tried to fill that void with other stuff.

And now that we do, it's really hard to let go.

I'm currently listening to the entire score of Picard, all three seasons in a playlist.

I can't get out of this mode.

Yeah, I'm not even gonna think about what'll happen once Discovery finishes.

I just don't wanna deal with that right now.

You know, that's a problem for future me.

But yeah, I surprisingly really enjoyed rewatching Star Trek Picard.

I loved it a lot more this time.

I'm going to just feel like it's an anthology series and not like a show that's three consecutive seasons because that might help the enjoyment a little bit more.

But you know what?

It ends on a really happy note.

All our beloved characters are safe.

Some of them are in 2024, but it's okay.

But yeah, it was really fun.

And I really like Star Trek.

Yeah, I mean, you know what?

I would honestly probably make this an annual rewatch.

I'm not even ashamed to say it.

All three seasons annually rewatched.

So that's us talking about our very complicated, sometimes disparate views on Star Trek Picard.

Let us know how you felt about the show.

We are Stereo Geeks and we'll see you at the next episode.

[fractalcloning]

At some point during his calm account of current events, Dahj's posture shifted unconsciously from obstinate to afraid--arms crossed defiantly over her chest became a way to surreptitiously hold onto herself. Suspicious glowering became more worry than anger. Despite her insistence that she be allowed to go with Picard, that she be on hand to defend him, Dahj was terrified. To herself, she could admit wanting to trail along after him, because he seemed to know what he was doing, seemed stable and kind--but she really, really didn't want to fight anyone, death squad cultists or otherwise. Still--she was furious at being denied and was ready to let him know all about that when he gave her assurances about Picard's safety. They were sending three people down with him? Wait--

"Wait, you aren't going with him?" Dahj asked, her fury wholly undercut by surprise and confusion. "Aren't you like…I don't know…friends?"

From the way Picard had waxed nostalgic about him, it sounded like they were almost family. The old Admiral had pledged himself to her, come hell or high water, based on nothing else but his guess that they were related. The idea that Data would let Picard go into--what did the doctor call it? A den of iniquity? Without accompanying him--? Dahj couldn't quite wrap her head around that.

Then again, if his invitation to play games while they waited was any indication, his priority must have been making sure she didn't pull anything while Picard was away. The suspicion stung, however implied, but it made a sort of pragmatic sense to Dahj. He didn't know her. Why would he leave her on his ship unaccompanied?

Dahj was silent as she considered him but, weirdly, his caution made him more trustworthy and not less. She wouldn't trust herself either. After a long moment Dahj heaved a frustrated sigh and uncrossed her arms. She held up her hands up in a casual sort of mock surrender before dropping them to her sides.

"Fine," Dahj agreed and it pained her dearly to make that concession. There was a beat of silence after she capitulated and, because she couldn't abide people being incorrect, she had to add:

"I'm not--" She drew a deep breath and let it out through her nose, tried to let it carry the rest of her frustration and worry. It mostly worked. "I'm not dangerous, not usually anyway. I'm not really into…jeapordizing lives. I'm a grad student, was a grad student I guess, before the two death squads." Matching his previous inflection was a petty bit of sass but she felt it was not out of line.

"And I am spectacularly bad at chess," Dahj told him. "So we can play but don't expect a challenge."

A preliminary observation pertaining to Dahj's comportment informed him that the present circumstances still confounded her, and that she, regardless of his efforts to ensure her that he was a trustworthy and amicable individual, still administered a significant dose of scepticism and reservation. Perhaps if they could sequester themselves from external stimuli, they could establish a more comprehensive understanding of what motivated the other, become better acquainted with the other's personality... However, the android extrapolated that it might take a considerable amount of time before Dahj would be willing to discuss such matters with a perfect stranger.

For now, Data could do nothing but offer her his undivided attention, and he listened attentively, maintaining his equilibrium throughout the duration of her rampage of falsifications and anxiety. He did not interfere while she verbalised her concerns regarding the Captain. The latter received a minimal ascend of the android's light eyebrows — he sincerely doubted Picard required protection, he had survived many decades in interstellar space, and the crew that accompanied him, was sufficiently competent and could haul him through every situation that would arise.

Data remained irresponsive, contemplating the most adequate avenue to explain to her that they had, in all likelihood, already been transported down to the planet. And even if they had not departed the Warbird yet, he would still forestall her affiliating herself with the team in any way — there were simply too many risks involved. Besides, he had promised Picard to keep her safe, and he could only guarantee her safety when she was with him, on the cloaked Romulan Warbird.

'I understand your eagerness to accompany the Captain and your concern about his wellbeing during this mission however misplaced your concerns may be... In addition, the Zhat Vash regard you as a threat, presumably of the highest category seeing that they deployed a death squad and have assaulted you. Twice. Therefore, I cannot permit you to transport down to the surface — request denied,' he said pragmatically, his euphonious voice was gentle yet pertinacious. 'Perhaps I could placate your perturbed mind by informing you that this is not a solo mission — he is in the company of three competent individuals. I trust they will deliver him back to the ship, his physical integrity wholly conserved,' he reassured Dahj.

Then, his optical units traced the boundaries of the forcefield and he was of opinion that the initiation of the safety measure had been imperative in preventing her from running rampant on the ship, in search of Picard. However, he was cognisant that prolonging her incarceration would not accomplish anything — if anything, it would render her more suspicious of their intentions, and probably more antagonistic.

'I see no further reason to restrict you to the infirmary — we could relocate to the observation lounge, if you would like? However, I am afraid this change of scenes entails being in my presence, indefinitely. Alternatively, I could allocate you to your own personal quarters, but then, I would be obligated to lock the doors lest you break free and accidentally end up jeopardising the lives of everyone we have rescued these last several decades. I cannot allow that, I hope you understand,' Data said composedly, his eyes analysing her countenance inquisitively. 'Personally, I would be... thrilled to get to know you better. Perhaps we could play a game of poker, or three dimensional chess.'

[ladyloresoong]

I had a dream I wanted to share. You remember the old Data in Picard? Well, somehow dying Q brings Tasha Yar back to life from where her body was kept in Section 8 where Picard and James T. Kirk are. However, Q (in his marvous snarky way) makes it interesting for our senior crew and our children to find where Tasha, as Tasha lost her memory, she reverts back to her ptst past life from Turkana IV. She meets Soji somehow, and the two end up being best friends. Soji, who has experienced trauma herself, makes sure a wild feral Yar stays out of trouble and doesn't kill herself againdue to depression. When Data reunites, it is a joyful moment.. When Data 2.0, Geordi, Deanna, Sidney, Alanna and Jack sets out to find her and learns he has a daughter, there is a wonderful reunion because hmmmm, alton wanted him to find out for himself.  There is epic Data 2.0 tears and SEX SEX SEX and wild twist and Turns in this dreams. And Data.20 has lore funny moments as well. Tasha is like who are you?! Tell me what you think?

Thanks

Gina Taylor

I think you should totally write it! I'm always a fan of anything where we get more Tasha, more Data, and absolutely the two of them together! <3 If you do - please let me know so I can enjoy it!! :D

[fractalcloning]

@my-timing-is-digital

"Okay, so, promise you won't get mad--" Soji prefaced hastily in a way that was just barely ominous. She didn't wait for an answer, she already knew what he was going to say. He wasn't capable of getting mad--though, honestly, she was beginning to think his claims that he didn't experience emotion weren't entirely accurate.

"I wanted to do something special, and I just happened to stumble across the best possible thing--" she continued, practically vibrating. She held out both hands, gesturing for Data to wait right here, and then spun on her heel and darted back to the open door. As she poked her head outside to peek at his gift, her delight shifted to incredulity.

"Are you kidding me!? Five minutes--he couldn't wait five minutes--?" Soji complained in hushed tones down one direction of the hallway. She twisted to look the other way and startled the moment she did. Whoever was there, they earned an exasperated look and a quiet snatch of conversation. "Are you a cat? Wait how did you get to the other side without me seeing--nevermind. Ready?"

The confirmation Soji recieved was either silent or nonexistant--in any case, it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of her excited theatrics. She stepped back from the door to make space and threw her arms wide in a dramatic TA-DA gesture. And... nothing happened, because her uncle was a dyed in the wool contrarian. The moment she dropped her arms to lean through the door again, he sauntered across the threshold easy as you please. Soji's excitement won out over her frustration and she beamed at Data again while gesturing to Lore.

"Happy Birthday!" Soji announced brightly.

"It's true, my presence is a gift," Lore said. "Miss me, brother?"

[crysdrawsthings]

I was tagged by @argisthebulwark and @skyrim-forever to fill out this tag game and so here I am c: Fashionably three days late, as usual, I am sorry, folks.

Last song listened to: out of less obscure things - Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land by MARINA. Out of more obscure things specifically of a "a lot of weird screaming in Russian" - Exterminatus by HMKids, a fan 40k song.

Currently watching: I am slowly rewatching W.I.T.C.H. animated series! Hey-ho, old obsession of mine.

Currently reading: rereading W.I.T.C.H. comics and, quite unexpectedly for myself (and because it was like, two bucks for a soft cover), picked up Russian translation of The Cannibal Tree of Dark Hill by Soji Shimada.

Current obsession: TES brainrot is eternal, then we have W.I.T.C.H., of course, my Original Setting (that I am now posting weekly on my Boosty, check the link in pinned) and mildly WH40k.

___

Same @skyrim-forever and @bostoniangirl21 have also tagged me to list 5 things I enjoy, so in no specific order:

• I love the new keyboard I bought for my office job. It is very pretty, has a nice thock to it and takes less space. Make my work that much more exciting.

• I love the watermelon season here in Motherland. Always brings me joy and reminds me about how nice summer can be. Looking forward to seeing my favorite grapes in stock again!

• I am looking forward and enjoy working more on my original setting and sharing it with people. I mean, I don't think it is that great, but I am still happy when people seem to find it fascinating, even if ridiculous anime shit.

• Well, Baldur's Gate release draws near, so I am quite excited for this as well, I suppose? I general I am happy to have so much entertainment these days and all just for me. Love me some bibeo gaems.

• Also you know what? Tomorrow I will eat a delicious potato-and-mushrooms pie for lunch and an ice-cream sometime later, I quite enjoy this as well.

• Hey! Bonus fact! I enjoy and am blessed by the fact that I have met so many wonderful people over the years with whom I can chat about such important topics as "OC deep lore", "ridiculous AU", "have you seen that thing?!" and just about everything else really.

[sodiumlamp]

Picard

This is Season 1, episode 8, and the characters finally get around to explaining why the Romulans are so terrified of androids. It's boring and dumb, and it's not even the most boring, most dumb part of this episode. That honor goes to the extra long subplot where Rios locks himself in his quarters and Raffi tries to figure him out by conferring to his holographic crew. They waited eight episodes to pay off this guy's whole deal and I am so disgusted with this show that I don't even care. I just... I just want it to be over.

Basically, the Romulans learned of some Lovecraftian horror a long time ago and they learned of a terrible horror thanks to an ancient warning left by some long-dead civilization. The warning is so mind-blowing that it drives most people insane when they experience it. That Borg cube the Romulans were working on through this series, the one Hugh was doing his Reclamation Project on? The reason it shut down was because it assimilated a Romulan who had been driven mad by the warning. This feels like something a teenager would write.

The short version is that the Romulan double-secret police are thoroughly convinced that artificial life forms are dangerous, because if the technology progresses far enough, they will bring about some sort of calamity, the kind of calamity that brought down an ancient civilization powerful enough to engineer an solar system with eight suns, just so they could warn others not to repeat their mistake.

So when Data was invented, the Romulans began this long-game plot to infiltrate Starfleet. Their end goal was to stage the attack on Mars and make it look like androids were to blame, so the Federation would abandon and outlaw further research on androids.

I guess that tracks. The Romulans behind the plot were so terrified by the warning that they would orchestrate a catastrophe like that even while the Federation was helping the Romulans recover from a supernova. At first it sounds like an unthinkable, almost insane kind of treachery, but from their perspective it was a desperate act of mercy.

There are a lot of problems with this. If the Romulans felt this way about artificial life, then you'd think they would have gone to great lengths to assassinate Data during his lifetime. Maybe they tried, and it just took until Star Trek: Nemesis to finish him off, but they never seemed that worried about him in the TV show. And they weren't worried about Lore, either.

Also, the Romulans don't seem concerned about other forms of AI, like holodecks and holographic characters. The Federation banned synthetic life forms, but we see lots and lots of holograms in this show, from the ones at the Starfleet archive to Rios's crew, to the holo-ads at Freecloud, to the holographic mother Dahj and Soji would talk to. Some holograms are more sophisticated than others, sure, but they seem to be widespread, and legal. Do the Romulans just think the ancient warning is only about synthetic life forms with humanoid bodies? If a computer becomes self aware and takes control of a starship, isn't that just as dangerous?

To be fair, only a handful of Romulan agents seem to know all the details of the warning, and they've been working on this plan for decades. They weren't going to jeopardize the whole thing just to shoot Data. Killing him wouldn't necessarily solve anything. Still, the anxiety towards artificial life forms seems to be baked into Romulan culture in general, like this has permeated their mythology for a very long time. But the Romulans never seemed fussed with holograms and talking computers.

There's a decent idea buried in all of this, but it's wasted on this show, which reveals it in such a tedious and circuitous fashion that you end up rooting for whatever it is to just hurry up and destroy the galaxy.

[my-timing-is-digital]

DOSSIER CHEAT SHEET

LEGAL NAME: Data Soong

NICKNAME[S]: He doesn't have one, but would love to have one. So, send in your best Data nicknames for mah boi! (Although I like the one Mirror!Barclay gave him in a personal log, which is "Picard's pet android.")

DATE OF BIRTH ACTIVATION: February 2, 2338

GENDER: Male

PLACE OF BIRTH ACTIVATION: Omicron Theta colony

CURRENTLY LIVING: On the U.S.S. Enterprise

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, French, binary, and probably a lot more (Earth languages as well as alien languages). This funky lil' android is literally a walking ChatGPT, albeit more advanced.

EDUCATION: Starfleet Academy.

HAIR COLOR: Depends on the lighting; sometimes it's dark brown / brown, at other times, it's auburn.

EYE COLOR: A greenish yellow (or chartreuse, according to Google).

HEIGHT: 1.80 / 5'9''

WEIGHT: 100 kg

FAMILY INFORMATION

SIBLING[S]: B-4 and Lore, his older brothers (and Altan Inigo Soong, I suppose, although I'd like to think of him as Data's half-brother, since Juliana never mentioned him, so he might have had a different mother? God knows what Noonian has been up to in that weird jungle hideout of him).

PARENT[S]: Doctor Noonian Soong and Juliana Soong

RELATIVE[S]: Adam Soong, Arik Soong, and Ira Graves, but idk if he even qualifies lol.

CHILDREN: Lal, Dahj and Soji (and technically an entire planet of androids, but let's not over-complicate things).

PET[S]: SPOT! His precious cat!

RELATIONSHIP INFORMATION

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Tbh, I've thought about this a lot, but never wrote it down as a proper headcanon; I'd like Data to represent the minority and state that he's aromantic — he's possibly bordering on the asexuality spectrum as well. And as for his preference, he doesn't have one; not only does his programming prohibit him from discriminating between genders and withhold him from engaging in favouritism, he's also genuinely fascinated by everyone. In other words, he doesn't nurture a strong preference for a specific gender. However, since he's aromantic he's not really interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with anyone; it's primarily friendships he's after, familial or platonic.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Data is a single bean, just living his best life with his beloved cat.

SINCE WHEN: And this is where we ignore the whole romantic escapade with Jenna D'Sora lol. So, N/A (Or since his date of activation).

Tagged by: @lettherebemonsters Tagging: @elaleph (Agnes!), @ensnchekov, @dimensionalspades (Julian!), @quantumstarpaths, @nebulaties (Tasha!), @fasciinating, @storiest0ld (Beverly!) & anyone else who'd like to do this!

[regionalpancake]

Which raises the question:WHO would La Sirena’s crew be in the fellowship?

Gandalf - you’d think I’d say Picard, right? NO. JL does not nearly spend enough time pouring through books and scrolls in search of long lost knowledge, that is a job for Raffi! Great researcher, loves some convoluted lore, and partial to a horgl full of pipeweed.

Frodo - Soji, bearer of the terrible secret. Needs to Go To The Plot Related Place.

Sam - Rios, HEART OF GOLD 😭 also key in getting the bearer of the terrible secret to the plot related place.

Merry & Pippin - Agnes and Enoch, we were robbed of this duo, so I’m putting it into this daydream.

Aragorn - Seven. LOOK. You want a roguish yet infamous hero? Someone who goes by many different names? Someone not quite human? (The thought of Seven in a cape, in the firelight shadows of the Prancing Pony may will end me)

Legolas - Elnor. No one’s arguing with this, Elnor’s position as Space Legolas is undisputed.

Gimli - you’d think THIS ONE would be Picard, since I’m running out of characters, but 🤷 I care about Picard the least and he’d make a terrible Gimli. You know who is stubborn and loyal, and would make a great Gimli? Zhaban. Imagine him and Elnor in battle together!

“Never thought I’d die fighting side by side with a Qowat Milat.”

“How about side by side with a friend?”

(I need this now.)

And of course…

Boromir - Hugh💀 (too soon? 😅 but if you REALLY want some angst, then please imagine Seven holding Hugh by the riverbank while he mumbles “I would have followed you…” I’M NOT OK ABOUT THIS)

and Picard can be Denethor I guess 🤷

[quasi-normalcy]

For all that people complained about how bleak Star Trek: Picard was when it came out, I would say that its depiction of the Federation was just a culmination of all of the flaws that it was depicted as having on Deep Space Nine (and, to a lesser extent, Voyager and even TNG): Earth-centrism, disregard for the rights of artificial persons, and a willingness to regard entire non-Federation species as disposable if their survival is deemed a threat to the Federation (or even if saving them contradicts an abstract philosophical point). It’s a society that has clearly lost its way, and its annoying (at least to me) that the writers couldn’t have instead imagined the Federation getting its shit together, but the thing is: everything that’s wrong with it emerges organically from the Federation we’ve seen, and, most critically, it is problematised. Our heroes stand in opposition to this corruption. Picard, Rios, and Raffi all left or were cashiered out of service over various aspects of Starfleet’s authoritarian turn; Elnor is a survivor of the Federation’s neglect; Seven and Soji are both members of oppressed minorities and Jurati had her academic career derailed, all because of fear and reactionary opposition to cybernetics. And yes, it’s bleak, but it’s also fundamentally hopeful: they are standing up for what’s right, even in the face of bigotry and oppression, and what could possibly be more Star Trek than that? You can argue about whether it was successful or particularly well-executed, but its heart was very much in the right place.

And that’s why, for all that I’m enjoying Season 3--for all that I love seeing the TNG crew together again and paying-off character arcs that I’ve been watching play out over the course of my entire lifetime--it gnaws at me. Because the thing is: the Federation hasn’t gotten any better. The genocidal criminal conspiracy from Deep Space Nine is now considered “a critical division of Starfleet Intelligence.” This “critical” bunch of war criminals keeps a sentient AI comatose to guard its warehouse, and nobody even comments on how fucked-up that is. The captain of the Titan constantly denigrates his ex-Borg first officer and orders her to deadname herself, but it’s okay because he’s *traumatised* and kind of funny in his assholishness. You get to have a heartbreaking moment with Picard saying “I didn’t know...” when he hears the extent of Section 31′s war crimes, but then he and Beverly, in the face of 35 years of consistent characterisation, immediately compound the war crime by resolving to execute Vadic. No, the Federation hasn’t gotten any better; the heroes have just gotten worse.

I love the TNG crew. I love seeing Picard and Ro finally have it out with one another; I love having a lifetime spent shipping Jean-Luc and Beverly pay off; I love that we finally get to see just how deeply Data’s death affected Geordi, and that we finally get to see Data’s relationship with Lore and his “becoming more human” arc pay off in a way that’s so seamless that it honestly feels kind of obvious in retrospect. But at a deep, philosophical level, I would rather see an angsty story about heroes opposing corruption than a happy story about heroes going along with it.

[roguetelepaths]

it’s a truth universally acknowledged that in any star trek series, when someone who’s been isolated from others like themself finally meets more of their own, there’s always a horrible twist just around the corner

[autisticburnham]

I think Lal would have liked Soji