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Spoilers Concering the ones who attacked Mars

Discussion in ' Star Trek: Picard ' started by NCC-73515 , Jan 9, 2020 .

NCC-73515 Vice Admiral Admiral

So now we know that the androids apparently attacked Mars. Did Lore have anything to do with it? Did Starfleet build an army of Soong-type droids, perhaps with Maddox's help, and then they went rogue? Did CONTROL take over the droids? Or did some Starfleet judge rule that these droids are not sentient like Data, and they were enslaved, and that's why they attack? Certainly has huge implications for Picard, since he's the one who fought for their liberties. It also brings up interesting connections to the Borg that we know are part of the show as well. Anyway, I'm very excited that they were apparently not Romulans as we all thought. It seems rather similar to Terminator or Matrix again though, with our machines rebelling against us. It would be cool if Bruce "Mad Doc" Maddox actually built his army of droids and he's the villain. Or did the hordes of EMH Mark Is have enough of tube scrubbing and they're fighting for their freedom now?  

DaveyNY Admiral Admiral

Perhaps Dr. Jurati had some part in building these new "Synth's" and is feeling responsible for their actions? That's why she insists on joining Picard in his newest avocation.  

Paul Weaver Vice Admiral Premium Member

19 Rogue Synths hijack federation shuttles and attack Mars, under direction/command of Lore. 3000 dead. Federation population is shaken and blame all Synths. Anti-synth attacks throughout the Federation. Federation invades Tzenketh (based on a rumour that's where Lore is). They don't find Lore, so they then invade Cardassia. At this stage half the Federation believes Garak attacked Mars, they've forgotten who Lore is. Meanwhile Romulan star goes supernova dcausing massive refugee problems. Federation closes it's borders and refuses to help because of the attack on Mars. Lore found hiding in Gorn space, captured, dismantled, and is stored in drawer. Federation still occupying Cardassia and has a large deployment in Tzenketh. Federation in a moment of madness elects Brunt as president as he promises to build a forcefield at the romulan neutral zone. He starts saying the Klingons aren't paying enough of their GDP into defence and starts to pull out of alliances, while building support for an invasion of Bajoran space (Bajoran vedeks overthrew the federation puppet government after a hostage crisis on DS9 and Bajor was under federation sanctions for several years). Federation assasinates a Bajoran general who's visiting Cardassia, claiming he's been funding attacks on federation ships by Orion pirates Bajor retaliates with an attack on starbase 375, which kills noone, and a Bajor-Ferengi shuttle crashes in the Denorious belt shortly after leaving Bajor, and that's where we open the series. Will Brunt respond aggressibly to Bajor? Or will it de-escalate? Will Brunt will the next election? What will happen to the refugee crisis? The Romulan supernova is already having effects, melting glaciers on Andor and setting Vulcan on fire, but the Federation (and other species) are still pushing out the subspace polution that caused the supernova in the first place.  

eschaton Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

I do wonder why they're called "synths" and not "androids." Android was the established in-universe name for Soong-type constructions after all. Maybe they're constructed with the help of borg tech jerry-rigged into them, in an attempt to allow them to better communicate with one another in their own "collective?" But the Romulan faction from Countdown who gets access to Starfleet's security codes subverts them? After the rebellion, all remaining synths are quarantined on a decomissioned Borg cube. They look completely human externally.  

picardjean-luc Captain Captain

DaveyNY said: ↑ Perhaps Dr. Jurati had some part in building these new "Synth's" and is feeling responsible for their actions? That's why she insists on joining Picard in his newest avocation. Click to expand...

Paul Weaver said: ↑ 19 Federation population is shaken and blame all Synths. Anti-synth attacks throughout the Federation. Federation invades Tzenketh (based on a rumour that's where Lore is). They don't find Lore, so they then invade Cardassia. At this stage half the Federation believes Garak attacked Mars, they've forgotten who Lore is. Meanwhile Romulan star goes supernova dcausing massive refugee problems. Federation closes it's borders and refuses to help because of the attack on Mars. Click to expand...

I think Agnes Jurati is probably too young to have been instrumental in building the synths. She looks to be around mid 30s, meaning she'd be in her early 20s when this short (and the Countdown comic) happened.  

eschaton said: ↑ I do wonder why they're called "synths" and not "androids." Android was the established in-universe name for Soong-type constructions after all. After the rebellion, all remaining synths are quarantined on a decomissioned Borg cube. They look completely human externally. Click to expand...

Maybe synths aren't androids at all, but sort of "reverse borg" Basically, they start out with an android endoskeleton, and use borg nanoprobes to incorporate human (or other) DNA, and use it to grow real human organs and tissue on top. Hence Borg are fundamentally lifeforms augmented with machines, while synths are fundamentally robots augmented with living tissue.  

Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

We do see a closet full of androids in the Picard trailers.  

Tuskin38 said: ↑ We do see a closet full of androids in the Picard trailers. Click to expand...

SCE2Aux Captain Captain

eschaton said: ↑ We do. They appear to be Soong-type androids through - presumably less advanced than Data. And it's a bit difficult to believe that if rogue androids caused this attack that Starfleet would continue open research into them. It may well be involved somewhat, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are different in some way than whatever the "synths" were which caused the attack. Click to expand...

SCE2Aux said: ↑ It's interesting that you mentioned the possibility of less advanced song type androuds: my current theory is that the Star Trek: Picard character who is apparently a positronic brain expert had access to B4 (somewhat implied in the trailers) and used her knowledge of B4 to create these 'synths', which go on to attack Mars. In the actor interviews it has been said that all characters are carrying emotional baggage, and I think that she is suffering from guilt over what she's created. Click to expand...

Another thing I'm wondering about, beyond who the synths are - why attack Utopia Planitia ? Did they have something against Romulans in particular, and wanted to make sure as many of them died as possible? If they were just being used as indentured servants, the most logical decision, once they "broke free" would be to just hijack a bunch of ships and run away with minimal casualties. Also, it's unclear where they got their fleet from. The little bit of info from FNN certainly makes it seem like they appeared out of nowhere.  

Datasbeard Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

eschaton said: ↑ Another thing I'm wondering about, beyond who the synths are - why attack Utopia Planitia ? Click to expand...

eschaton said: ↑ Another thing I'm wondering about, beyond who the synths are - why attack Utopia Planitia ? Did they have something against Romulans in particular, and wanted to make sure as many of them died as possible? Click to expand...

Tuskin38 said: ↑ I think a group of Romulans were working with, or reprogrammed the synths. In the prequel comic, some Romulans think the rescue fleet being built is an invasion fleet. They don’t believe the federation is trying to help them. They were able to hijack a federation cruiser’s computer why not some androids? Click to expand...

tribbleorlfl Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

eschaton said: ↑ That is looking like the most likely option. That is somewhat less interesting though in terms of narrative, as it means the synths are not free agents, but simply tools. Click to expand...

eschaton said: ↑ It's possible, but as I said, Jurati is already a fairly young character, and she'd presumably be just out of Starfleet when the attack happened, meaning if she played any role (unless she's Leslie Crusher or something) it would probably be in a very junior status. Click to expand...

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Star Trek: Picard episode 8 recap: The truth behind the attack on Mars is revealed

Our spoiler-filled Star Trek: Picard episode 8 review

- Episode 8 (of 10), ' Broken Pieces' - Written by Michael Chabon - Directed by Maja Vrvilo ★★★★

Spoilers follow . 

On Aia, a planet with eight suns, a group of hooded Zhat Vash – including Oh, Rizzo, and Ramdha – take part in a ritual. They touch an artifact, the Admonition, which gives them apocalyptic visions. They say it's a warning from a long extinct race about the perils of developing synthetic life. The visions drive some of the group to suicide. On the Borg Cube, Rizzo talks to a comatose Ramdha, who was apparently driven mad by the ritual. We also learn that she took Rizzo and her brother Narek in when their parents died. Elsewhere on the Cube, Elnor is overwhelmed by Romulans, but Seven of Nine appears and kills them before they can finish the job.

The crew of the La Sirena learns that Jurati had been implanted with a tracker, and had injected a hydrogen compound to neutralize it. The ship's EMH also informs them that she killed Maddox by disabling his life support. Picard asks Admiral Clancy for help, and she agrees to send a squadron to a nearby starbase, Deep Space 12. While on the Cube, Raffi noticed a symbol being drawn by the Romulans. The ship's Emergency Navigation Hologram thinks it could be an octonary star system; a planetary system with eight component stars. Raffi wonders if this is the Conclave of Eight, a term she heard while trying to find out who attacked Mars. On the Borg Cube, Seven of Nine activates its regeneration systems, and we see swarms of mechanical insects repairing the broken sections of the destroyed ship.

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Soji and Picard talk about Data over dinner. Picard says he was brave, curious, gentle, and unclouded by bias or habit, with a child's wisdom. He made the crew of the Enterprise laugh, except when he was trying to get them to laugh. Soji seems reassured by this, realizing that being synthetic doesn't mean she's worthless. Raffi learns from the La Sirena's engineering hologram that the chances of an octonary system forming naturally are basically zero, implying that if this place exists, it would have been created to draw attention to itself. In his quarters, Rios looks through a box of memories including his old Starfleet uniform, a photo of an older man, and a drawing of himself and someone who looks a lot like Soji.

On the Cube, Seven of Nine tells Elnor that she might be able to take control of the drones in stasis and create a micro-collective, turning them against the Romulans. On the La Sirena, Raffi gathers the holograms and asks them why Rios has sealed himself away in his quarters. They reveal that something happened on his old Federation ship, the USS Ibn Majid, but that it's been marked as classified. In sickbay, Jurati wakes up and confesses to killing Maddox and working for Oh. She tries to tell Picard about the visions Oh showed her, but says a psychic block has been placed on her. She tells Picard about Seb-Cheneb, the Destroyer, and says Hell is coming.

Rios opens up to Raffi about what's been troubling him. When he was serving on the Ibn Majid, his ship encountered two beings in a ship: one called Beautiful Flower, and one called Jana, who looked exactly like Soji. But as first contact was being initiated, the captain – the older man in Rios's photo – was ordered by Starfleet to kill them. They were synths, and the person who gave the order was Oh. On the Cube, Seven of Nine wakes the sleeping Borg drones up, but Rizzo responds by opening an airlock and blowing them out into space. On the La Sirena, Raffi, having figured out what the Zhat Vash are and believe, and how Oh infiltrated Starfleet, tells the crew. She confirms the Romulans were behind the attack on Mars, which was staged to justify a galaxy-wide ban on synthetic life.

A Romulan fleet gathers near the Cube, beaming Rizzo away and warping to Soji's homeworld, the location of which they learned through her dream. Picard reassures Rios that his captain was a good man, and was betrayed by Starfleet. Soji, whose memories are flooding back, uses the Borg's transwarp conduit network to go to the same planet the Romulans are racing towards. She wonders if the Zhat Vash are right, and she is the Destroyer. Picard says that happened 200,000 centuries ago. The past is written. But they have the tools to change things: positivity and curiosity. The La Sirena enters the warp conduit, with Narek's ship following close behind.

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Verdict: This is perhaps the most revelation-heavy episode of Picard yet, laying out the motivations and history of the Zhat Vash, and what their next move is, in detail. It's also one that doesn't give Picard much to do, focusing largely on Raffi, Rios, and his crew of holograms. But Patrick Stewart steals the episode when he fondly remembers his relationship with Data, which is a hugely satisfying moment for Next Generation fans.

• Picard learns that Soji was implanted with a viridium tracker. A version of this device first appeared in the 1991 movie Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country. One of them was used by Spock to rescue Kirk and McCoy from a penal colony on the planetoid Rura Penthe.

• Rios has a book in his quarters called Surak and Existentialism. Surak was a legendary Vulcan philosopher, who is mentioned in too many Star Trek episodes to count. In the Enterprise episode Awakening (S4E8), Surak appears to Jonathan Archer in a vision, played by Bruce Gray.

• Picard and Rios briefly talk about a Federation captain, Marta Batanides, who Picard says he went to Starfleet Academy with. This character plays a major role in the TNG episode Tapestry (S6E15), in which the mischievous Q gives Picard a chance to relive his youth and alter his past.

Star Trek: Picard is available to watch on CBS All Access every Thursday in the US, and every Friday on Amazon Prime Video internationally.

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Attack on Mars

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The Attack on Mars was a surprise attack on Mars which occurred on April 5, First Contact Day, in 2385. It was masterminded by Commodore Oh , a Zhat Vash operative who had infiltrated Starfleet Security, and carried out through compromised A500 synths originating from the Daystrom Institute's Division of Advanced Synthetic Research.

Prelude [ ]

In 2385, it was discovered that the Romulan sun would soon become a supernova, destroying the planets Romulus and Remus as well as other planets, and killing at least nine hundred million Romulans. The Romulan Star Empire requested aid from the Federation , and Admiral Jean-Luc Picard convinced Starfleet to mobilize a massive rescue armada -- "ten thousand warp-capable ferries" -- to aid in the evacuation efforts, which assembled over Mars. (PIC episode : "Remembrance")

The android F8, who helped initiate the attack

On First Contact Day, only a skeleton crew remained to work at the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, the center of the fleet during the holiday. Multiple A500s at Utopia Planitia, such as F8, suddenly went rogue. It lowered the deflector shields protecting the shipyards and the planet itself, and hacked the Martian defense net. (PIC episodes : "Remembrance", "Maps and Legends")

The attack [ ]

Moments thereafter, numerous synth ships began targeting the rescue armada, the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, the Mars Orbital Facility, and other Martian facilities. The satellite network surrounding Mars was turned against the surface. The synths then began bombarding the surface, igniting flammable vapors in the stratosphere and causing massive damage to the planet's infrastructure. After the attack began, F8 killed his coworkers and then himself.

Starfleet dispatched a task force to Mars at high warp in response to the attack, but was unable to prevent the destruction of almost the entire surface of the planet.

Aftermath [ ]

Though initial reports estimated over three thousand killed, the death toll was eventually revised to 92,143 in total. During the battle, Admiral Picard was shown on the Federation News Network, calling it "devastating".

Because it could not be determined how or why the synths went rogue, the Federation Council placed a ban on the creation of synthetic lifeforms. Androids such as B-4 were dismantled, and the Daystrom Institute was restricted to "theoretical" studies on synthetics.

With the destruction of the Romulan rescue armada, Admiral Picard submitted a plan to replace the lost ships with mothballed vessels from Beta Antares Ship Yards and the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards. Starfleet, aware that the Romulan rescue mission was unpopular among many of the Federation's member races, instead abandoned its promise to aid the Romulan evacuation altogether, a decision that shocked Picard. In desperation, he submitted his resignation, demanding that Starfleet either accept it or honor their promise to the Romulans; to his surprise and dismay, they accepted the resignation. In the years that followed, Picard had developed recurring nightmares of the attack, partly from his loss of faith in Starfleet.

In 2387, the Romulan sun did indeed go supernova, destroying the Romulan system and killing millions. Picard blamed Starfleet's inaction for the high death toll, lamenting that "The decision to call off the rescue and to abandon those people we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable, it was downright criminal!"

As of 2399, Mars remained ablaze. Dr. Agnes Jurati later referred to the planet as having been "destroyed" in the attack. ( Star Trek ; ST: "Children of Mars"; PIC episodes : "Remembrance", "The End is the Beginning")

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A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

Attack on Mars

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The Attack on Mars was an attack by A500 android worker units at Utopia Planitia Ship Yards on the Martian colonies and the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards itself.

• 1 Background
• 2 Attack on Mars
• 3 Aftermath
• 4.1 References
• 4.2 External link

Background [ ]

Spock 's vision of the Synth attack.

In 2270 , the Aegis operative Gary Seven shared a vision of the attack with Spock . The memory faded, to avoid affecting the timeline . ( TOS - Year Five - Experienced in Loss comic : " Issue 23 ")

On Aia , Tal Shiar / Zhat Vash General Oh showed several members the "Admonition". Only Colonel Narissa and her aunt Ramdha survived. Narissa and Oh agreed to put an end to the Federation's synthetic life-forms. Thus, decided that Mars would be perfect target.( PIC episode : " Broken Pieces ")

When it was discovered that Eisn was going to go supernova and destroy Romulus , the Federation offered to assist in the evacuation of nearly one billion Romulans within the blast range of the supernova.

They began constructing a fleet at Utopia Planitia Ship Yards to evacuate Romulans to safe locations.

Attack on Mars [ ]

The attack occurred on First Contact Day , 5 April 2385 . Synth-controlled ships began bombarding the Martian colonies and attacking Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards.

Aftermath [ ]

Following the conclusion of the attack, 92,143 had been killed and the whole of the Romulan rescue armada and Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards had been destroyed. In addition, the attack ignited vapors in the Martian atmosphere, which continued to burn as of 2399.

Immediately after the attack, all synthetic life was banned by galactic treaty. In addition, the Federation refused to undertake any further attempts to rescue the Romulans - 14 species had, prior to the attack, threatened to withdraw from the Federation.

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard had developed an alternate plan to rescue the Romulans, and presented it to the Federation Council , stating that they would either accept his plan or his resignation. After the meeting, he informed Raffi Musiker that they had accepted his resignation. His resignation directly led to her being discharged from Starfleet, leading to her harboring a 14-year-long resentment towards the former admiral. [1] ( PIC episodes : " Remembrance ", " Broken Pieces ", " Et in Arcadia Ego ")

Appendices [ ]

References [ ].

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 PIC episode : " The End is the Beginning "

External link [ ]

Attack on Mars article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .

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• 2 Preserver (race)
• 3 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Picard Section 31 theory could explain a huge Synth twist

What if everybody is secretly an Android?

Now that Star Trek: Picard has hit the halfway point of its first season, one mystery has risen above the rest. Was there a conspiracy to make the Synths revolt on Mars , and if so, who was behind it? Who could benefit from a near galaxy-wide ban on synthetic lifeforms?

In episode 5, "Stardust City Rag," new threads of this mystery point to at least one shadowy organization behind the scenes, and some fans think we know exactly who the secret players might be — the super clandestine Starfleet spy group, Section 31. But if there is a cover-up going on, what is being hidden could be bigger than everyone assumes. Picard spoilers and speculation ahead.

In episode 5 of Picard , two different characters, in two different contexts, say the attack on Mars and the ban on Synths was "not what it seems." Raffi has already told Jean-Luc she thinks there's a cover-up, and right before he died, Bruce Maddox said he created Soji and Dahj to uncover "the truth" about the ban. Maddox also claimed the Federation was involved in it, too.

This could only refer to Section 31. On Reddit and elsewhere, fans argue the super-secret sect of Starfleet could be behind the attack on Mars. Derp4077 suggests Section 31 "saw the possible destruction of the Federation's longest-standing rival and it took it."

We know from Discovery that Section 31 was heavily involved in statecraft. In the Season 2 episode "Point of Light," we see Mirror Georgiou on the Klingon homeworld with the expressed purpose of keeping L'Rell in power, mostly because it's good for the politics of the Federation. In Deep Space Nine , we saw Section 31 try to manipulate various governments to help the Federation win the Dominion War. Even during Into Darkness, Section 31 manufactured terrorist attacks on Earth, and even created a fake identity for Khan to push the Federation into a war with the Klingons.

In other words, the idea that Section 31 could be behind a conspiracy to get rid of Romulans and ban A.I. at the same time isn't crazy. In fact, in the Season 2 finale of Discovery , Section 31 is nearly destroyed by a self-aware A.I. called Control. By the end of that episode, Section 31 is thought to have restructured, which presumably results in the more underhanded version of the organization we saw in Deep Space Nine .

Georgiou and Leland, Section 31 agents in the 23rd Century.

Discovery Season 2 takes place more than a century before Picard , and the last time we heard from Section 31, chronologically speaking, was in the DS9 era. Are Section 31 even around any more, and what's their motivation for this?

Section 31 and Starfleet Intelligence are not the same thing, even though they both have spies. In Picard , the head of Starfleet Intelligence is Commodore Oh, who ominously met with Dr. Jurati in episode 3. It's also fairly clear that Raffi herself used to work for Starfleet Intelligence, and saw corruption 14 years prior to the start of Picard .

There's already plenty of corruption happening at the public-facing Starfleet Intelligence, which you don't need Section 31 to be pulling the strings. Assuming Commodore Oh is actually conspiring with the Romulans, and is not a secret double-agent "good guy," she's a decent cipher for Section 31.

But from a narrative point of view, this is disappointingly simplistic. Will the big reveal of Picard just be that the Federation has become so corrupt that they killed innocent people on Mars just to screw over the Romulans? And if so — as Jean-Luc points out to Raffi — why would the Romulans help them? Section 31 or no Section 31, the Federation wouldn't need Romulan help to screw the Romulans.

Perhaps instead of "who," we should instead be looking for a reason "why." For one thing, Jurati's heel turn in episode 5 could have a lot of implications that are bigger than space politics. If Jurati is a secret Synth, made aware of a larger conspiracy involving other secret Synths, then suddenly you have a reason for a cover-up.

Okay. Let's say somebody in the Federation did conspire to create the attack on Mars, and they asked the Romulans to help them do it. Why? Here's the batshit crazy theory.

At some point — maybe — thousands of people within the Federation and the Romulan Empire were replaced with Androids . What if, somehow, without anyone knowing, a whole populace of Sythns became so indistinguishable from humans (or Romulans!) that a ton of people were all Synths and totally didn't know it. We already know that the Zhat Vash (the group controlling the Tal Shiar) hates A.I., but we don't know why. So, maybe they hate it because, at some point in the past, a ton of Romulans was replaced by Androids, and it messed up the "purity" of the Romulan race.

Picard relives the Mars attacks.

If something similar happened in the Federation, then both the Tal Shiar and Starfleet (or Section 31) would have good reason to get Synthetic research banned.

Narek and his sister are pretty convinced that there are a bunch of Synths out there. What if the big reveal is that this "nest" is everywhere? If Picard reveals a conspiracy to conceal the fact that secret Androids were living among humans and Romulans on a massive scale, then the series will literally change everything we know about the Trek canon. (And really be a lot like Blade Runner )

This isn't to say the story of Picard will go in this direction at all. Right now, this is, as Spock once said, simply a supposition that just happens to fit the facts. But if the season finale reveals several major characters were Sythns in disguise all along, it could allow this series to actually boldly take the franchise where it has never gone before.

Picard airs Thursdays on CBS All Access.

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Star Trek: Picard - The Romulan Consipracy, Explained

The most recent episode of Star Trek: Picard reveals the source behind the Zhat Vash's anti-android mentality.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 8 of Star Trek: Picard , "Broken Pieces," now streaming on CBS All Access.

The first season of  Star Trek: Picard  has depicted the titular character's ragtag group of adventurers fighting against the Zhat Vash, a secretive and legendary Romulan cabal. As more were discovered to be a part of the organization, their motives remained hidden. That all changed in "Broken Pieces," the eighth episode of the CBS All Access series.

The first scene of the episode takes us back 14 years. A group of Romulan women, clad in black hoods, congregate on Aia, also known as the "Grief Planet." It turns out it's the home world of an extinct civilization that was wiped out mysteriously hundreds of thousands of years ago. The only remnant  is the "Admonition," a glowing structure the group surrounds.

Related:  Star Trek: Picard Episode 8 Recap - The Past Is Present

Guided by Oh, long before she became Starfleet chief of security, the group is named as a generation of the Zhat Vash. The revelation is interesting on multiple levels: The Zhat Vash is made up of only women; it is assumed the use of the word "foremothers" means this has always been the case. This nicely counters the Qovat Milat, Romulan nuns who dedicate their lives to lost causes. This Zhat Vash configuration includes not only Oh and Narissa Rizzo, but also Ramdha, one of the formerly assimilated Romulans seen on the Artifact in previous episodes.

The Admonition warns them " of the horror and annihilation that came from the skies," according to Oh. It was left behind to give the Zhat Vash a mission: To prevent the return of the "Destroyers" and subsequent devastation. As the Zhat Vash touches the Admonition, they are witness to this horror. We see flashes of images, ranging from a fetus and a blooming flower to an android's face that transforms into the visage of beloved character Data. 

When we first heard about the Zhat Vash back in Episode 2, Picard's Romulan housekeeper Laris said they kept a secret that was heard to drive the very people keeping it mad. That madness manifests once the Admonition is seen. Some take their own lives in the moment, in a brutal fashion. Others began to tear at themselves in madness. In talking with Ramdha (who turns out to be her aunt), Rizzo reveals that the despair she possessed from the Admonition infected the Borg assimilation of her spacecraft, which destroyed the Collective's connection to the Artifact and rendered her and others on board mentally unstable. Even Agnes Jurati, who was brought in on the conspiracy and killed her co-worker and former lover, Bruce Maddox, out of it, said she contemplated suicide every day after learning what she did.

RELATED: Picard's Latest Reveal May Tie Into Star Trek: Discovery - in a MAJOR Way

The Admonition, it turns out, comes bearing a cautionary tale. The people of yore had invested their efforts into artificial life and the production of synthetic technology. Eventually, the technology evolved beyond a certain threshold. At that point, the synths turned on their masters, as the "Destroyers" lay waste to everyone and everything. The survivors sent a message of their story through the Admonition, warning the Zhat Vash to prevent a similar fate by any means possible.

The Zhat Vash has spent hundreds of years working to stymie synthetic life, which has manifested in several events of  Picard so far. It was confirmed this episode that the group was behind the brutal attack on Mars, where synths destroyed the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. This was meant to inspire distrust in androids and subsequent ban on production, as instituted by Oh and the Federation. Additionally, any currently-existing synthetic life was mandated to be snuffed out. One example came on the  ibn Majid , where Rios' captain Alonzo Vandermeer was ordered to kill two new arrivals in cold blood, both of which turned out to be androids.

It's understandable, then, why the character of Soji poses such a substantial danger to the Zhat Vash. Her presence means that their attempts to eradicate androids to avoid armageddon is incomplete. There is still a chance that "Ganmadan," the mythical Romulan day of annihilation, can still occur, where "all the shackled demons break their chains and answer the call of the Destroyer." Though the Zhat Vash have been calculating, menacing, and torturous so far in  Picard , their motives are surprisingly out of saving all life in the universe.

Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera and Harry Treadaway. A new episode arrives each Thursday on CBS All Access.

NEXT: Picard's Riker Appearance Breaks a Star Trek Actor Record

'Star Trek: Picard' Episode 2: What we learned from the 2385 attack on Mars by its synthetic workers

Spoiler alert for Episode 2 of 'Star Trek: Picard' 

There are two events that redefined the post-Enterprise life of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and they both happened on the same day. One is the Romulan disaster, his decisions during which led him to part with Starfleet. The disaster-relief endeavors there were, however, compounded by the second event - the attack on Mars at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards.

The attack was first featured on the 'Short Trek' episodes released by CBS. We were shown very little of it - only that workers on Mars had been brutally attacked on the celebration of First Contact Day. The first episode of 'Star Trek: Picard' reveals more details:  The attack was carried out by rogue synthetic beings, ones not unlike Commander Data (Brent Spiner). The sudden, devastating attack on Starfleet ships led to an extreme distrust of synthetic beings - to the extent that they've been banned by the Federation, throughout the known galaxy. While there are still AIs, they are restricted to digital interfaces and soft-light holograms - none of them are given physical form and the creation of one is illegal. 

In Episode 2 - 'Maps and Legends' - we are given a ground-level view of the attack itself. What's interesting is that the attack happened on First Contact Day - a day when most of the Shipyard's employees were given the day off, with only a skeleton crew to supervise the work of the synthetic beings. This seems to suggest that the plan was to minimize the cost to human life. 

Another thing we see is that there was no specific trigger for the androids to attack - at least, not one that came for them. The android we see - designated F8 (Michael Dorn) - was acting as normally as he could despite obviously being a much less advanced android than Data - when something suddenly changes inside him. It's implied that F8 was hacked - meaning that the androids might not be to blame for the Mars attack. That does not make them any less dangerous, however - once hacked, F8 was able to take out the human crew members with horrifying efficiency, before taking himself out, meaning that even if androids aren't inherently malicious, they're still very, very dangerous.

It's a mystery that the show appears to slowly be teasing out through its season and the question of why Mars was attacked is one of the series' biggest mysteries, for now.

The next episode of 'Star Trek: Picard' airs February 6, on CBS All-Access

Were Star Trek: Picard's Real Villains Just Revealed?

The new short trek “children of mars” offers a surprising revelation about the plot of the upcoming patrick stewart series..

How Picard Connects to “Children of Mars”

But what is a rogue synth anyway? It seems they’re some kind of androids like Picard’s old friend and shipmate Data (Brent Spiner). But why are they attacking a Federation site and murdering its citizens?

Rogue Synths, Androids, and Data

Jean-Luc Picard: The First Duty Gallery - Comic Con 2019

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Star Trek Symbol Spotted On Mars Explained

• Mars Curiosity Rover recently photographed a rock on Mars that resembles the Star Trek delta symbol, delighting Star Trek fans on the team.
• Star Trek has often predicted future technology and advancements accurately, showcasing its impact on inspiring real-life astronauts.
• The attack on Mars depicted in Star Trek: Picard represents one of the most tragic and devastating events in the Star Trek universe, leaving a lasting impact on the planet.

The Mars Curiosity Rover recently spotted a sight on Mars that will look familiar to Star Trek fans. Since the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series in 1966, Star Trek has been captivating fans, encouraging people to dream of the stars. Many real astronauts were originally inspired by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew on the USS Enterprise . In the 1990s, Captains Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), and Katheryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) inspired a whole new generation of stargazers. Star Trek may be science fiction, but there have been several times when the franchise accurately predicted the technology or other advancements of the future.

NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars in 2012, and it has been exploring the red planet ever since. As Curiosity studies Mars' environment and searches for signs of life, the rover collects samples and takes photographs, before sending that information to NASA scientists. On January 9, 2024, Curiosity snapped a photo of the rocky Mars landscape, and one of the protruding rocks looks like the Star Trek delta symbol that every Starfleet officer wears on their uniforms , as reported by Space.com . On Twitter/X, amateur astronomer Scott Atkinson shared the photo, with a close-up shot of the delta-shaped rock. Check out his post below:

Star Trek: Picard's Europa Mission Is Really Happening At NASA

Mars is a star trek: picard tragedy, "mars is burning. tens of thousands are dead. and nobody is thinking, nobody is listening.".

As revealed in Star Trek: Picard season 1, a devastating attack occurred on Mars on First Contact Day in the year 2385. Sometime before this attack, Starfleet had determined that the Romulan star would soon go supernova. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard led Starfleet's massive rescue effort, which required them to construct new ships at the Utopia Planetia Fleet Yards on Mars. To build these ships quickly, Starfleet used synthetic android workers. This proved to be a fatal mistake, as Romulan Zhat Vash operative Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) infiltrated Starfleet Security and compromised these androids to carry out the attack .

As the synths turned against their human coworkers and turned Mars's own defense grid against it, the Utopia Planetia Fleet Yards and all the ships meant to rescue the Romulans were destroyed. As a result of the attack, and the 92,143 deaths it caused, the Federation banned all synthetic life. The Zhat Vash's ultimate mission was the extermination of all synthetic life, and the Federation's ban on synthetics had been one of their goals. When Starfleet backed out of its promise to aid Romulus, Admiral Picard resigned and eventually retired to his family's vineyard. Mars continued to burn for years after the attack, leaving the red planet with little but the legacy of one of Star Trek's most devastating tragedies.

Star Trek: Picard is available to stream on Paramount+.

Source: X (Twitter) , Space.com

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A group of A500 androids

The A500 was a type of android designed and constructed by the Daystrom Institute 's Division of Advanced Synthetic Research for use as manual labor during the 2380s . ( PIC : " Remembrance ")

They were capable of speech communication and following verbal instructions, but did not understand humor . Their biped Human design made them capable of all the basic locomotion, movement, and motor control of the typical organic (presumably something like using a ladder , for example), and had enough physical strength to tear titanium apart with their bare hands. It was likely that they all shared an identical, Human male appearance, and were only individualized and identified by a code stenciled on their forehead , consisting of a combined letter and number. ( PIC : " Maps and Legends ")

In 2385 , these synths were compromised by the Zhat Vash and used for the attack on Mars . ( PIC : " Maps and Legends ", " The End is the Beginning ")

The A500 model, or one resembling it, also existed in the alternate timeline that was home to the Confederation of Earth . ( PIC : " The Star Gazer ", " Penance ")

• 1 Known units
• 2.1 Background Information
• 2.2 Apocrypha
• 2.3 External link

Known units [ ]

• 335 ( alternate timeline )
• Harvey ( alternate timeline )
• Unnamed A500 units

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

All A500 type synths shown on screen were portrayed by Alex Diehl .

Apocrypha [ ]

The novel The Last Best Hope establishes that the A500 was created by Bruce Maddox and Estella Mackenzie at the behest of Geordi La Forge . The A500s were developed by combining Maddox's expertise in cybernetics with Mackenzie's work in bio-neural circuitry . They were not sentient and were designed to serve as a labor force for Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards ' efforts to mass produce a fleet of transport ships to relocate Romulans and others threatened by the imminent supernova of the Romulan sun . They came online in late 2382 and were in mass production by 2383 , with scores of A500s already beginning their work on Mars.

External link [ ]

• Daystrom A500 at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 3 Star Trek: Discovery

• The Inventory

A History of Star Trek 's Uneasy Relationship With Androids

Sci-fi has been fascinated with sentient synthetic life since its earliest days , but Star Trek , in particular, has had quite the tumultuous history with its own consideration of androids and their place in its far future. From classic interpretations of sinister ‘bots to one of the franchise’s most beloved characters, here’s everything you need to know about Star Trek ’s androids.

Just a warning going in: This explainer will touch on plot details covered in the first episode of Star Trek: Picard near the end ( get caught up , it’s great!). We’ll post our usual spoiler image when we get there.

The Androids of the 23rd Century

You can’t talk about where androids end up in the Star Trek universe without also untangling the franchise’s relationship with human augmentation in general.

In the 23rd century of the original series (fleshed out in Discovery and eventually in the even-earlier predecessor Enterprise ), genetic augmentation of humankind has been outlawed since the mid-2200s, in the wake of the Eugenics Wars—a series of conflicts in Trek ’s 1990s over the decision to advance human civilization through selective breeding and genetic manipulation; these conflicts eventually sparked World War III—and the creation of bioengineered superhuman beings like Khan.

In the wake of that ban, there were still scientists interested in the idea. Arik Soong, an ancestor of Dr. Noonien Soong (who we’ll be discussing later), started his generation-spanning desire to explore human augmentation not through synthetic life, but controversial genetic engineering, entrusting his descendants to carry on his work.

But human augmentation in various forms is alive and well by the time of 23rd century Starfleet in spite of this ban. Despite it being against Federation law, microbiologist Paul Stamets becomes an augmented human on Discovery when he splices himself with Tardigrade DNA to pilot the titular ship’s spore-drive, enhancing himself further with cybernetic augmentation to better facilitate the process.

And speaking of cybernetics (and the eventual path to the development of synthetic life) and Discovery , you’ve also got cyborgs like Lieutenant Commander Airiam , an augmented human who, in the wake of a nearly-fatal shuttle crash, received major cybernetic upgrades—at this point in Trek history they were not as advanced as you may expect, though, with Airiam having to selectively manage the storage of her own memories to avoid overloading her augments.

But moving beyond human augmentation and to the androids we encounter in this earliest period of Star Trek on screen, it’s interesting to note that even with beings like Airiam as contemporaries, completely synthetic sentient life is a pipe dream. Every android we meet in the time of the original Star Trek comes from societies that exist outside of the Federation—from ancient, long-gone civilizations, or seemingly omnipotent beings whose grasp of technology is clearly established as being far beyond the current understandings of Starfleet.

On the “ancient civilization” front, you have androids like Rayna in “Requiem for Methuselah,” the creation of an immortal named Flint who, despite completely passing as a human female, was not advanced enough to deal with...the flirtations of Captain Kirk —she overloaded her circuits dealing with the intense emotional overload of her attraction to him and her creator. There were also the Mudd androids of “I, Mudd,” the servants of an unknown precursor civilization from the Andromeda galaxy dispersed as researchers and observers of the less-advanced species of our own galaxy until they encounter Harry Mudd, who naturally forces them to make him a harem of fembots to do his bidding. But as advanced as these self-replicating androids were, like Rayna before them, their adherence to logic in the face of emotional variability proved to be their undoing.

Separately, early Trek also featured androids that, while synthetic, were replicas of organic beings instead of their own selves. “I, Mudd” featured a few, notably Mudd’s recreation of his “beloved” wife Stella—but we also had the Exo III androids of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Even more advanced than the Mudd Androids or Rayna, they couldn’t just deal with emotions but developed their own android duplicator that could create a synthetic copy of an organic being, complete with their memories and personality.

Star Trek: The Motion   Picture also gave us a grim form of android in V’Ger’s creation of the Illia Probe, a hybridization of one of its sensor probes with the unfortunate body of the Enterprise ’s Lieutenant Illia, using her corpse essentially as a puppet. We also got the inverse of that idea in the Sargon-types of “Return to Tomorrow”—android “shells” designed by the disembodied being Sargon, intended to store the disassociated minds of the last survivors of his race.

Not only are all of these androids products of beings far beyond the capabilities of the Federation, they’re also all coded as inherently sinister—they are alien, antagonistic forces, whether passively observing our heroes as technological lessers or, in some cases, outright intended to replace them. It would take Star Trek ’s leap into a whole new century—and a whole new show—for the series’ portrayal of androids to radically transform and evolve.

Enter Soong

By the 24th century—and by The Next Generation —android technology had taken steps that were paradoxically massive and incremental. By TNG ’s 2360s, Federation-aligned scientists had managed to do what was so alien a century prior and create sentient synthetic life. Or, rather, one scientist had. One of Arik Soong’s long descendants, not a geneticist like his ancestor, but a renowned, infamous cyberneticist: Dr. Noonien Soong.

Based off a “positronic brain”—a completely technological, intricate recreation of a human’s nervous systems—Soong-type androids could achieve sentience unlike any previously known kind of android. They were also so difficult to make, no other scientist could effectively replicate the task of manually recreating positronic relays, and even Soong himself struggled. From his research lab on Omicron Theta, he only ever made six, seemingly the only ones to exist within the Federation at this point in time: two unknown protoypes, B-4, Lore, and eventually Data, who went on to serve in Starfleet as an officer aboard the Enterprise . His final android was, unlike his prior efforts, not a replication of his own youthful visage, but a recreation of his deceased wife, Juliana Tainer, who was actually advanced enough to be unaware of her android nature.

B-4, Lore, and Data are the most notable and important of Soong’s advancements in synthetic life. Though B-4 was a predecessor of Data and Lore, he’s actually the last Soong-type we met, appearing in the godawful Star Trek: Nemesis. While functional, B-4 was based on a simpler version of Soong’s positronic technology, in turn, giving him a simpler personality compared to his “brothers.” That personality was eventually overridden by Shinzon to make B-4 an unwitting spy, and then Data attempted to expand his sibling’s capacities by giving him his own archive of memories.

Lore, meanwhile, first introduced in the TNG season one episode “Datalore,” was B-4's successor. More advanced, Lore was also highly aware of his capabilities being far beyond that of a human, and eventually developed a narcissistic personality that, combined with his inability to balance his unstable emotional reactions, made him a threat to the human colonists living on Omicron Theta. It got so bad that Soong was forced to deactivate Lore and put him in stasis. Data was then created as a response—a Soong-type that had all of Lore’s intelligence and advanced abilities, but could also better deal with emotional concepts.

Data’s creation was a landmark moment not just in terms of Federation science, but upon first contact with Starfleet in the form of a landing party from the USS Tripoli —which found Data abandoned by his creator and his fellow colonists on Omicron Theta after an attack on the planet by the Crystalline Entity—he became a landmark in Federation ethics, too. “Measure of a Man,” one of TNG ’s most iconic episodes, dealt with the ramifications of Data’s existence as a synthetic, sentient being. The complete scarcity of android lifeforms within the Federation made Data’s place as a member of the Enterprise ’s crew an abnormality, a being respected as a Starfleet Officer but not actually given any of the fundamental rights a citizen of the Federation has.

His ascension through Starfleet Academy and into the organization itself was opposed by Daystrom Institute cybernetics researcher Bruce Maddox, and Maddox’s own desire to break Data down and research his positronic brain to see if the Federation could craft its own synthetic life sparked Data’s quest to be recognized as an individual. What followed, as seen in “Measure,” was an unprecedented legal tribunal that ultimately lead to a ruling that not only was Data an individual citizen of the Federation, but that should more androids of his kind ever be created, they would be tantamount to the establishment of a new species.

Despite Maddox’s opposition to his status as a being, Data kept in touch with him, encouraging the scientist in his work to create more androids—and even experimented with expanding his own development with the use of an emotion chip, which allowed him to physically stimulate and experience emotion for the first time...to varying degrees of success.

It was, however, never meant to be. Over the course of The Next Generation , and even beyond in the Star Trek timeline, androids were still incredibly scarce beings. Data himself attempted to create one in the form of his “daughter” Lal in TNG’s season three episode “The Offspring.” After attending a Federation cybernetics conference that discussed the development of “submicron matrix transfer” technology, that would allow the already-existing neural network of a functioning positronic brain to be duplicated and inserted into another, Data set about creating his own Soong-type advancement, declaring the product to be his daughter. Unfortunately, while Lal was in many ways more advanced than Data, the transfer process was still imperfect, leading to brain degradation that ultimately forced him to shut her down.

With Data’s own demise during the events of Star Trek: Nemesis , and both B-4 and Lore deactivated (the latter permanently, the former stored for research purposes by the Daystrom Institute after Data attempted, and ultimately failed, to transfer his own memories to his body), it would seem that, coming into Star Trek: Picard , the Federation’s development of Android technology had hit a considerable roadblock. Scientists had developed a way to replicate positronic neural nets, but with only B-4's limited—and compromised—brain available, creating a successor to Data was seemingly far out of reach.

A Post-Data World

Two decades after Data’s death in Nemesis , the world we encounter in Picard has once again undergone dramatic changes in the field of android development, even if his death has also stagnated it at the same time.

By 2389, for example, lower functioning Androids than Soong-types have become an accepted form of manual labor. They are seemingly not afforded the same kinds of rights as Data and are perhaps a replacement for holographic labor (as glimpsed in Voyager ’s seventh season episode “Author, Author,” which established that, unlike Soong-types, holograms capable of achieving sentience akin to Voyager ’s Emergency Medical Hologram had yet to be afforded citizenship in the Federation). Well, that is, until an android workforce at the Utopia Planitia shipyards was corrupted by an unknown force and used to stage a terrorist attack that decimated one of Starfleet’s most important dry docks, scuttling a flotilla of ships intended to offer evacuation relief to Romulans fleeing the destruction of their homeworld.

If Data’s death hadn’t already stagnated synthetic sentience research in the Federation, the attack on Mars did—the loss of nearly 100,000 Federation citizens (and a valuable source of industry) led to a complete and total ban on synthetic life. And even without it, the creation of an android akin to Data’s capabilities was still centuries away from development.

Picard ’s debut episode “Remembrance” tells us that prior to the ban, Federation scientists at Daystrom’s synthetic research division (led by Bruce Maddox himself) were on a path to developing something akin to an organic equivalent of the Sargon-types Kirk and his crew encountered in “Return to Tomorrow.” They’d have flesh-and-blood bodies that could house a positronic brain. But Data’s death meant access to functioning neural networks with which people could stage a submicron matrix transfer was all but impossible.

Except the episode reveals that Maddox, who fled Daystrom in the wake of the all-but-shutdown of its synthetic research, apparently managed to gain access to remnants of Data’s positronic network before his death. As explained to Jean-Luc Picard by one of Maddox’s former co-workers, Agnes Jurati, Maddox was working on a theory called “fractal neuronic cloning”—which, unlike submicron matrix transfers, would allow the creation of a full positronic brain out of an individual synthetic neuron. Except it apparently wasn’t just a theory, and Maddox, using a fragment of Data’s neurons, created two identical androids (the process apparently requiring a pair of cloned organic bodies): Dahj and Soji Asher.

Right now, little is known of just how advanced Dahj and Soji are in comparison to Data—whether they were, because of the cloning process, equally capable or even more advanced. Like Data’s successor in Soong’s Juliana android, neither Android is aware of their synthetic nature. Or at least, Soji isn’t, with Dahj’s enhanced abilities—enhanced hearing, advanced hacking skills, and even strength and combat techniques—being activated when she is attacked by mysterious Romulan assailants.

Whatever either she or Soji are capable of, however, they represent an entirely new generation of android in the Star Trek universe—and are about to be more vital to not just Picard, but the Federation at large, than ever imagined.

With Picard revealing its focus on the creation of Data’s legacy—and how it might return the Lieutenant Commander himself—it’s clear we’re about to get even more exploration of androids, their rights, and the boundaries of what it means to be post-human in the franchise than we’ve perhaps seen it tackle in years. Just how Trek ’s relationship to one of sci-fi’s most enduring technological feats will evolve remains to be seen, but for now, as always, it seems like it will continue to be a tumultuous and fascinating one.

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Star Trek: Picard's premiere reveals new Android life and digs deep into Trek canon

Credit: CBS

Philip K. Dick may have famously wondered if androids dream of electric sheep, but Star Trek: Picard is wondering why ex-starship Captains dream about dead androids. In the opening scene to the newest ongoing Star Trek series, Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) dreams of the deceased synthetic life form with a heart of gold, Lt. Commander Data ( Brent Spiner ). Later, Picard tells his Romulan housekeepers that "the dreams are lovely... it's the waking up I'm beginning to resent."

Jean-Luc is waking up to a changed Star Trek world, one that has taken various stories about A.I. from Star Trek: The Next Generation and given that future a hard left turn.

But, fear not Trekkie purists! None of this means that the fragile Star Trek canon has been changed, and in fact, all this new android stuff has a precedent. Here's how the plot of Picard has reimagined Trek 's androids, and in doing so, rediscovered the wonder of one of science fiction's oldest conundrums: What happens when you make the perfect synthetic human?

**Spoiler Alert: There are spoilers below for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 1: "Remembrance."**

After dreaming of playing poker with Data aboard the USS Enterprise-D , we find Jean-Luc Picard at his family's wine vineyard, in La Barre, France. In case you forgot, despite his English accent, the character Jean-Luc Picard is French, which is why he has a French name and loves red wine. Jean-Luc is having a rough time, and things get even rowdier as we cut from 24th century France to 24th century Boston. Here we meet a bright young student named Dahj (Isa Briones), who is giving her boyfriend the good news that she just got accepted into the Daystrom Institute.

If you remember your Star Trek history , you might recall this is a really prestigious tech hotspot in the future. And, if you really remember your Star Trek history, you also might remember the Daystrom Institute gets its name from a guy named Richard Daystrom, who, in the original series episode "The Ultimate Computer," invented an A.I. that was supposed to run a starship — then, that A.I. started killing everyone until Kirk yelled at it. So, if hearing the word "Daystrom" makes you worried about rogue computers and killer robots, you're right! Because soon, Dahj and her boyfriend are attacked by helmeted thugs who are worried about her "activating."

Pretty soon, she activates , and like Trinity in The Matrix , easily takes out all of her attackers. From that point, the writing's pretty much on the wall: Dahj is some kind of android, and for some reason, she has visions of Picard. While this is going on, Jean-Luc gives a cranky interview to an interstellar news service that has promised not to ask him why he left Starfleet and then asks him why he left Starfleet. We're led to believe this news is for the people of the Federation, but really clever exposition for the audience.

See,14 years prior, Picard was all set to rescue the Romulans from a giant supernova (thanks for that, J.J. Abrams ) but his plan got canceled after a bunch of Synths (a word now interchangeable with androids) went bananas on Mars and destroyed the rescue armada specifically built for this purpose. To this day, no one knows why the Synths went rogue, but all synthetic lifeforms were subsequently banned, and the Romulans were not rescued. Seemingly in protest, Picard left Starfleet, and at this point, is still clearly pretty ticked-off about all of it.

After walking out of the interview like a '90s British pop star, Jean-Luc has a glass of wine with his dog and quotes Shakespeare from All's Well That Ends Well .

Spoiler alert: Things do not end well.

Dahj finds Picard, and fairly quickly he decides that he's going to take care of her. After everybody has some tea and wine, Picard goes to bed and again dreams of Data. This time, though, his former android shipmate is asking him to help finish paint an oil painting. When Picard wakes up (he wakes up three times in this episode to be clear), he realizes he has a version of this painting in his house, and another version of the painting hidden away in what can only be called a high tech storage unit at Starfleet Headquarters. Dahj has mysteriously vanished, but Jean-Luc is way more interested in figuring out why he's dreaming of this painting.

In the one in his house, you can't see the face of the person in the painting, but when he hits up his storage unit, Picard finds another nearly identical painting, but this one has a face and it's Dahj. The painting is called "daughter."

Picard and Dr. Jurati (Alison Pill) talk human-looking androids. (Credit: CBS)

Suddenly, Picard runs into Dahj, who followed him from France all the way to San Francisco, presumably by beaming around, but we're not really worried about that. Picard is convinced she's an android, and basically tells her this. Dahj doesn't accept it at first, but they don't have time to worry about it because pretty soon the thugs are back, and they're out to kill Dahj.

In the episode's biggest twist, these thugs — who are revealed to be Romulans — are successful. Dahj is blown up by a giant bomb. Jean-Luc wakes up for a third time, back at his house in France, but this time, none of that was a dream. It all really happened. Picard then hightails it to the Daystrom Institue in Okinawa where he meets a robotics expert named Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill).

Jurati's got nothing to do all day because studying actual androids has been banned, so Picard wants her to tell him how a flesh and blood android — who looks human inside and out — could be possible. She reveals to Picard that one of her colleagues, Bruce Maddox, was maybe fooling around with making secret fractal android clones. Bruce Maddox previously only appeared in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation — "The Measure of a Man" — in which Maddox briefly tried to rob Data of his autonomy, so, yes, this is a very deep Trekkie cut.

Eventually, after Picard shows Jurati Dahj's necklace, it's revealed that this special kind of android could be created in pairs; meaning, there is a second version of Dahj out there somewhere. From there, we cut to Romulan space, where a young woman who looks exactly like Dahj — and is called "Dr. Asha" — is working at some place called the "Romulan Reclamation Site." But, when the camera pulls back, this reclamation site is clearly a Borg ship . And cut to credits.

Data's "mom"; Dr. Juliana Tainer (Fionnula Flanagan)

The return of the Borg ship is a pretty neat cliffhanger, but it's also not the big news.

From the trailers, we knew the Borg would be back, so that wasn't much of a shock. What is a shock is that Picard is floating a new kind of Star Trek android that is nearly exactly like older androids with one big difference: Presumably, Dahj (and her "sister" Soji) don't know they are androids, and would never be identified as such because any medical scan would make them look perfectly human.

Star Trek has come close to giving us this kind of android before, but not quite. Juliana Tainer (Fionnula Flanagan), a duplicate of Data's own human "mother" in the TNG episode "Inheritance," was similar: An android who believed she was human up until the moment the circuits in her head were revealed. In the original series episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," the deranged Dr. Roger Korby makes an android duplicate of Captain Kirk before it is eventually revealed that he, too, is an android duplicate of himself, complete with wires hanging out of his damaged hand. Androids that are supposed to pass for humans are also employed by con-man Harry Mudd in both Short Treks and the original series episode "I, Mudd."

And, yes, Data has had a daughter before, the android Lal (Hallie Todd), who was constructed by Data in "The Offspring," but tragically "died" because Data couldn't figure out how to make her positronic brain stable. Lal also knew exactly what she was, and had no delusions that she was android.

So, all of these previous Star Trek androids are close to the idea of Dahj and Soji, but with one crucial difference: They all had very visible circuitry once you got down to it. Other than her superhuman strength and classic Data processing speeds, Dahj bleeds like a human and, perhaps more importantly, thinks she is human. This makes her more like a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica or the replicants from Blade Runner than anything we've ever seen on Trek .

And yet, even those comparisons aren't quite right.

Two of these three people are androids. (Credit: CBS)

The episode begins with Picard wondering if Data has a "tell" during a game of poker. Most secret androids in all forms of science fiction tend to have a tell: circuits that spill out, robotic voices, or the deep need to say "affirmative" instead of "yes."

The Cylons on Battlestar had glowing red spines sometimes, and even the Replicants in Blade Runner were susceptible to the famous Voight-Kampff test that proved they were synthetic. Westworld hosts look human but underneath their skin, they all have very "robotic" exoskeletons and very obvious robot brains. So, although Picard is standing on the shoulders of all this Star Trek canon and a ton of other science fiction precedents that came before, these "flesh and blood" androids are the show's way of forging a path ahead.

With these robots, there's no "tell." At all. It's a small, subtle difference, but it is, in its own small way, a tiny bit of new blood in a long line of robot stories. These androids are virtually indistinguishable from humans. We can't tell them apart from us, and they're dreaming about humans.

The subtle change Star Trek: Picard has made to the robot formula is straightforward but smart. If robots were real, but there was nothing about them that was different other than their abilities and how they were made, would they still count as robots? It's not a new question per se, but Picard presents it in an innovative and elegant way. This may not be an entirely new, strange world of androids, but Star Trek: Picard is exploring it boldly.

• Star Trek: Picard

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Screen Rant

Lore already has the perfect picard season 3 army.

Lore has tried to lead his own army against Starfleet in the past. Star Trek: Picard already set up a possible army of androids for Lore to control.

If Lore (Brent Spiner) tries to assemble another army in Star Trek: Picard season 3, he already has two perfect ready-made options. The evil android brother of Commander Data hasn't been seen since the start Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7. Lore's last attempt to attack Data and the USS Enterprise-D was in the "Descent" two-parter when he became the leader of a group of Borg Drones, including Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) , who were severed from the Collective.

Lore could possibly want another gang of followers in Star Trek: Picard season 3, and season 1 introduced two sets of likely android candidates. The first would be the A500 androids (played by Alex Diehl) who used by Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) to attack Mars in 2385. The A500s were worker machines built by the Daystrom Institute with limited artificial intelligence compared to Lore or Data. It's unclear whether the A500 were destroyed after the Mars tragedy, but if they weren't, they'd be an easy conquest for Lore. But perhaps an even better option for Lore would be the synthetics who live on Coppelius . These synthetics were built from one of Data's recovered positronic engrams, and they're more advanced and powerful than the A500s. Lore could very likely sway them into becoming his followers.

Related: What Happens To Seven Of Nine's Ship When She Joins Starfleet

Lore Would Be The Best Use Of Picard Season 1's Synthetics

Even though Isa Briones isn't returning as Soji in Star Trek: Picard season 3, the synthetics who live on Coppelius are still around. Star Trek: Picard season 2's lone update about them is through Soji, who travels the galaxy as their ambassador. But with Soji away, the synthetics lack a leader, and Lore could easily swoop in and coerce them to do his bidding. Taking out Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) and Dr. Altan Inigo Soong (Brent Spiner), if they're also still on Coppelius, would easy for Lore.

Lore being resurrected to become the leader of the synthetics of Coppelius would be fitting in a few ways. If Data is their "father," in a sense, then those androids are all Lore's "nieces and nephews." The synthetics are also advanced and powerful; Lore could turn them into a formidable army, Just as importantly, Lore taking over the synthetics would allow for the concept that was largely abandoned after Star Trek: Picard season 1 to be used, at last. It's in Lore's playbook to want his own followers, and the synthetics on Coppelius fit the bill nicely since they're already directly connected to himself and Data.

Could Lore Also Reassemble B4 (And Why)

Meanwhile, Star Trek: Picard season 1 established that B-4 remains disassembled at the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa. B-4 was introduced in Star Trek: Nemesis as a previous and defective android predecessor to Data and Lore. B-4 is primitive and "not much like Data at all," according to Dr. Agnes Jurati (Allison Pill), but he remains valuable because Lore could strip mine his "older brother" for spare parts, or to create his own synthetics the way Soji and Dahj were created. Lore has never met B-4, but the simplistic android is a physical link to Data and to his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Lore could also reassemble B-4 and use him as a weapon. Star Trek: Picard has plenty of androids for Lore to take advantage of in season 3, and it would also provide closure to these characters and concepts.

Next: What Happened To Picard's Artifact Borg Cube

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premieres February 16, 2023, on Paramount+.