#dahj and soji were both synths but they are also twins

[lonely-night]

DAHJ ASHA & SOJI ASHA

- I'm sorry? "Them"? 

- They're created in pairs. 

- Twins? 

-Twins.

[thelaithlyworm]

Thoughts on Picard 1.09

So that was a lot to unpack.

The title seems pretty appropriate - “And In Paradise, I (Death)” - given what Sutra is contemplating. And all those other, y’know, themes.

// Floral Themes

I do not Get the floral motif. Well. I can pick out lesser meanings at times.

The hybrid orchid Dahj mentions, which can represent her own hybrid nature.

The Space Orchids - mastery of tech, plenty weird, the Most Non-Lethal of Non-Lethal Takedowns, suitable for a peace-loving but advanced settlement.

But flowers are turning up a ~lot~ elsewhere - in the Admonition vision, in Beautiful Flower’s name. So… what else do they mean? Mastery of nature, by the Synths? Could we consider a flower a complicated machine, for reproducing the plant? Do the synths outstrip humanity in complexity, as humanity does a flower? Is it that flowers are about ~reproduction~ and right now, the Synths can’t do that on their own, but needed Soong and Maddox’s help? That’s a ~hell~ of a reproductive bottleneck and it just closed entirely with Maddox’s disappearance and death (Soong doesn’t do substrates). I’m not sure, even if the Romulan fleet goes away, that they’d allow Agnes to leave.

For that matter, who the hell was Beautiful Flower, because his name does not match any of the Synths’ theme nomenclature and surely if he were a Synth there would be a twin hanging about and… there isn’t? Where did he come from and what did he want?

That said, this season has been tightly enough written that I feel 1.10 will answer at least some of that.

// Soji/Sutra, Deity

My hat is very much off to Isa Briones for her portrayal of Sutra - so powerful, so sensual, so ~angry~. 

The drapery she and the other Synths wear, and the golden skin, and that unearthly passion, really brings to mind the Hindu pantheon. (“Are you the one that lives or the one that destroys?” Maybe she’s both.) She makes a v. good counterbalance to Soji - both grieving a twin, but one is immersed in Synth perfection and the other is ankle deep in human friendships.

That thing, where they keep going on about human flaws and frailty, and Synth perfection and how it could not be tolerated. That’s interesting because, at least in stories, humans are pretty good about Perfection so long as it’s associated with deity in one form or another. And: the Synths are reminiscent of Hindu gods, so. Also - Star Trek humans have encountered omnipotent beings so many times? Q is the most recurring character but, they’ve met a lot, you guys. Is it, in this story, because humans can remember when the Synths were just machines? Tools? Servants? That feeling of being supplanted by one’s own creation?

In some ways, this story is going straight back to “Rossum’s Universal Robots” - created as a servant caste with arguments over whether they’re appliances, or slaves whose lot could be improved - there is the fear they will destroy humanity (justified, in the play, they totally do it) - and then, the bottleneck of reproduction.

Robots… are often an analogue for slaves, really. Azimov’s Three Laws were about making it impossible to rebel, for fuck’s sake. C3PO and R2D2 were literally sold at an auction to Owen Skywalker, a character we’re supposed to find sympathetic and maybe wouldn’t if they looked a bit more human. I ~have~ seen some counter-examples, most notably for me Iain Banks’ Culture books, where AIs could get very, very, very smart, were… generally benevolent unless they belonged to a warship, and really seemed to dig their existence.

On a side note I really hope La Sirena’s Emergency Holograms will be back for the finale because they aren’t just entertaining, or a window into Rios’s psyche - given that they hold parts of his memories and personality, they’re another version machine-organic existence, compared with the Borg and Dahj & Soji. (Nobody has brought up bioneural gel packs, the cheeky little feckers, but I suppose that would complicate the story even more.)

// Flaws, the Tragic Sense of Life

That book that Rios reads early on, “The Tragic Sense of Life”. It’s a dense philosophical text, but the central premise as far as I understand it is: we can define consciousness by wanting to stay alive, while knowing that death is inevitable. I’m not sure I agree with that (haven’t read much of it), but it came up early, and got repeated, and had Rios state that central premise to Agnes, and we saw it on the bookshelf in 1.08 so… I think the show wants us to pay attention. And then we have the Synths, who seem to be set on functional immortality.

We keep coming up on the idea of ~flaws~. A Synth lady (Arcana?) traces the age lines on Picard’s face, then says, wonderingly, that they’re not just lines, they’re marks of endurance and survival. None of the Synths have these; I don’t think they plan to. (Whether they really could survive unchanging throughout millenia is a different story - metal gets fatigued, memory runs into finite storage capacity, eh.)

And, this show keeps showing us Picard fucking up. He misreads social situations, he approaches diplomacy like he still has a capital ship and decades of mana supporting him (and he doesn’t), his famous speeches often fall flat. Plus - Raffi, the substance-abuser estranged from her son; Rios, who had a nervous breakdown after his father-figure murdered some people and then killed himself; Agnes (leaving the murder aside) who’s so scared, constantly scared, and clumsy about Basic Starship Things. It’s not just the generic frailty of mortal flesh that they represent, it’s people who fail and keep on going. They are imperfect. I must confess, I still love them for it. There’s something Picard says early on, about letting the Perfect overshadow the Good. They are all of them flawed, and amazingly good.

The thing is, the thing is, the Romulan evacuation was a mess. It involved failure, there’s a quagmire of chaos where the Neutral Zone used to be. But, imperfect as it is - there are people alive now who wouldn’t be if the Federation hadn’t intervened. Picard was living with ex-Tal Shiar, and how did that ever happen?? But it did. There are things that happened in that imperfection and failure that are beautiful. I think it’s… Soji who references the evacuation to Picard, insisting that the Synths aren’t his redemption for that failure. But - I think there is more to that past example than just losing.

// Borg Cube, The Cavalry, The Vision

I never thought seeing a Borg Cube coming over the horizon might be a reason to cheer, but here we are. It’s lovely to see Seven running the place, picking people up… arranging things. (Damn, she looked fiiiiiiiiine.) I still have hopes that Hugh is sitting in a freezer, quietly regenerating, by the by. What I have a more solid belief in is that Rhamda, last seen on a coma in the Cube, is going to wake up and be relevant in 1.10

(Something that I’m curious about in the Admonition is Data’s face. If the Admonition comes from long, long ago then either it’s kind of a generic image and everyone who experiences it puts images from their personal experience onto it, to help them parse things, or… the long ago Artificial Life has foreknowledge? They do say something about existing beyond time and space, so I suppose they could. I am reminded of Q, in his very first appearance, telling Picard that he’s being tested, and much, much later saying that the test never ended. Will the God Synths, if asked, really destroy all the Organics? Or… is this a test for the Synths, of their virtue, their capability, their morality? Hm. Maybe we’ll find out.)

// Agnes and Sacrifice

Something I really appreciated in 1.09 was the flashes of protectiveness Raffi and Rios were both showing Agnes. Those two, at least, don’t expect her to just pick up and keep going, stoic-like, in the aftermath of nearly dying, betrayal, psychic assault etc. Raffi and Rios are both Very, Very Soft under the prickles, and I hope this season ends with them picking up their little murder doctor and running off to be happy somewhere. Screw Starfleet.

Somewhere in the middle, Sutra asks Agnes if she still feels the murder of Bruce Maddox was justified. Agnes doesn’t really answer? Which is fair - as Raffi insists, she was off her head at the time. I am glad that they’re coming back to that idea of the necessary sacrifice, and the ethics of it - and this is a useful incident to talk that through with instead of just… Maddox gives One Clue and then expires conveniently before telling them exactly where to go and it’s never spoken of again. Maddox, the shit, is still having repercussions.

That said, I think that Agnes, named for a lamb, is going to be faced with a very important decision, in the last episode. I don’t know what it is, but I think that it will involve sacrifice and she won’t have the Admonition overriding her moral choices, so.

I am wondering if she already foresaw that, at the end of the ep. When she looked Sutra straight in the eye and told the Synth what she wanted to hear.

I am wondering, now, if Agnes has learned how to ~lie~.