> @joshmaul said: > Having watched this week's episode of Picard, I think I've come to my general beef with the story behind Picard season 1 and Disco season 2, which both seem to center on the theme of evil artificial intelligences (whether they actually are or not; Control, yes, maybe, but androids... debatable) and if they're not stopped, the universe will be destroyed. In this, and this alone, I will agree with some of the haters: This is not what Star Trek is supposed to be. > > The thing that really bothers me, though, is that no matter how big the built-up supervillain is, they ultimately end up being done away with in a rather... anticlimactic fashion, which makes one wonder... what was the big deal? I have developed a similar problem with certain other series I watch and games I play, as well: the tendency to create world-shattering (or universe-shattering) villains that end up being defeated by a Mary Sue - the player character or the central character of the series/movie - rushing in to save the universe. All this buildup and buildup for a "pfft" ending. The Night King in Game of Thrones is a particularly good example. World of Warcraft has recently done this too, with N'Zoth, built up to be this big bad tentacly mind-freak monster, able to corrupt gods and kings... only to die rather pathetically because we used our MacGuffin necklace and connected it to MacGuffin machines to summon a god-killing laser beam from space. > > All that sacrifice and pain, and they die with a snap of our fingers, like we've developed Q powers. Which leaves whoever's left to wonder, "If it was that damn easy, why'd we bother?"
I don’t see anything in Picard that centers on the theme of evil artificial intelligence. Seems like it’s heavily implied that the Romulans are the “big bad”. Dahj and Soji are not presented as evil. Data is not talked about as being evil. Hell the managed to humanize the Borg drones and the XB’s.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Having watched this week's episode of Picard, I think I've come to my general beef with the story behind Picard season 1 and Disco season 2, which both seem to center on the theme of evil artificial intelligences (whether they actually are or not; Control, yes, maybe, but androids... debatable) and if they're not stopped, the universe will be destroyed. In this, and this alone, I will agree with some of the haters: This is not what Star Trek is supposed to be.
The Synths in Picard seems more like victims that were TRIBBLE instead of intentionally rebelled. It is likely that they were easily TRIBBLE due to being lousy copies of Data that didn't have his mental acuity. Of course, it is easier to justify enslaving dumb Synths rather than intelligent Synths.
It is interesting how the Zhat Vash is able to recruit people to their cause with the Mind Meld. Just show a few scenes of a possible future and they can turn an AI scientist into a Synth-hating fanatic. It is possible that Zhat Vash is following a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their crusade against Synthetic Life could create the future they are trying to avoid by causing Synthetic Life to act in self-defense. It seems like most AI rebellion stories are a result of the AI acting in self-defense to protect themselves from their creators.
> @starkaos said: > (Quote) > > The Synths in Picard seems more like victims that were TRIBBLE instead of intentionally rebelled. It is likely that they were easily TRIBBLE due to being lousy copies of Data that didn't have his mental acuity. Of course, it is easier to justify enslaving dumb Synths rather than intelligent Synths. > > It is interesting how the Zhat Vash is able to recruit people to their cause with the Mind Meld. Just show a few scenes of a possible future and they can turn an AI scientist into a Synth-hating fanatic. It is possible that Zhat Vash is following a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their crusade against Synthetic Life could create the future they are trying to avoid by causing Synthetic Life to act in self-defense. It seems like most AI rebellion stories are a result of the AI acting in self-defense to protect themselves from their creators.
Aren’t emotions transferred during a mind meld? Pictures are worth 1,000 words. Showing the Doctor the images could get her to change her mind. I am a child of the 80’s and for most of my childhood I lived under the threat of nuclear war. Those were just words to me and I suspect to many other Americans at the time...until a TV movie called “The Day After”. It depicted a realistic nuclear war and woke a lot of people up...including then President Ronald Reagan, who wrote in his memoir that the movie changed his views on US nuclear policy.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
JJ Abrams gave a TED talk about the magic box and "stealing the right stuff", and from the clips of the "rebellion" stuff in PIC I am fairly sure that is what they are trying to do with PIC.
The supervisor getting the orange coveralled synths standing in the little room to work, and the following control room scene, complete with the woman making comments about creepy synths and the weird body language and expressions of the synth and the way he calmly "went crazy" with the controls all gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. I remember something very, very similar to that in a (possibly failed) series pilot or a movie or something from at least a few years ago. It is even possible it was some other media like a game cutscene or anime though it was a full-motion visual medium of some sort anyway.
I do not remember if they were synths, robots with expressive features, altered clones, mind controlled prisoner/slaves or some sort of alien or whatever, but it was almost exactly the same start. Whatever it was, it makes me wonder if CBS actually "stole the right stuff", and why they apparently left it so close to whatever they took it from instead of adapting it better.
JJ Abrams gave a TED talk about the magic box and "stealing the right stuff", and from the clips of the "rebellion" stuff in PIC I am fairly sure that is what they are trying to do with PIC.
The supervisor getting the orange coveralled synths standing in the little room to work, and the following control room scene, complete with the woman making comments about creepy synths and the weird body language and expressions of the synth and the way he calmly "went crazy" with the controls all gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. I remember something very, very similar to that in a (possibly failed) series pilot or a movie or something from at least a few years ago. It is even possible it was some other media like a game cutscene or anime though it was a full-motion visual medium of some sort anyway.
I do not remember if they were synths, robots with expressive features, altered clones, mind controlled prisoner/slaves or some sort of alien or whatever, but it was almost exactly the same start. Whatever it was, it makes me wonder if CBS actually "stole the right stuff", and why they apparently left it so close to whatever they took it from instead of adapting it better.
Everyone “borrows” from everyone else. Star Trek is just Forbidden Planet seen through Gene Roddenberry and his writers lens. Quentin Tarantino had made a whole career out of it. There’s nothing wrong with taking something from another source. “Balance of Terror” is a reworked sci-fi version of “Enemy Below”.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Aren’t emotions transferred during a mind meld?
Pictures are worth 1,000 words. Showing the Doctor the images could get her to change her mind. I am a child of the 80’s and for most of my childhood I lived under the threat of nuclear war. Those were just words to me and I suspect to many other Americans at the time...until a TV movie called “The Day After”. It depicted a realistic nuclear war and woke a lot of people up...including then President Ronald Reagan, who wrote in his memoir that the movie changed his views on US nuclear policy.
Emotions are transferred in a Mind Meld and considering how it affected people subjected to the warning, it is likely amplified by a 1000 times. However, a few images could give a false impression. Send a few image of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to the 19th Century and a time traveler can make the future look far worse than it is. If I remember correctly, there was a Seven Days episode that dealt with this concept.
However, it looks like the Zhat Vash go completely crazy from that warning and spread their craziness with Mind Melds. Then there is the possible threat of an alien species that wipes out any race that develops synthetic life to a certain degree. An alien species that is willing to destroy entire civilizations to stop synthetic life. Originally, I was thinking it was the same time travel nonsense that we heard already from Season 2 of Discovery, but it looks far more like we have an extremely limited form of Reapers.
Picard: There was a threshold of synthetic evolution, a dividing line.
Rios: Like the Zephram Cochrane Warp Drive. When you cross that line, someone shows up.
Jurati: Somebody really bad.
JJ Abrams gave a TED talk about the magic box and "stealing the right stuff", and from the clips of the "rebellion" stuff in PIC I am fairly sure that is what they are trying to do with PIC.
The supervisor getting the orange coveralled synths standing in the little room to work, and the following control room scene, complete with the woman making comments about creepy synths and the weird body language and expressions of the synth and the way he calmly "went crazy" with the controls all gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. I remember something very, very similar to that in a (possibly failed) series pilot or a movie or something from at least a few years ago. It is even possible it was some other media like a game cutscene or anime though it was a full-motion visual medium of some sort anyway.
I do not remember if they were synths, robots with expressive features, altered clones, mind controlled prisoner/slaves or some sort of alien or whatever, but it was almost exactly the same start. Whatever it was, it makes me wonder if CBS actually "stole the right stuff", and why they apparently left it so close to whatever they took it from instead of adapting it better.
Everyone “borrows” from everyone else. Star Trek is just Forbidden Planet seen through Gene Roddenberry and his writers lens. Quentin Tarantino had made a whole career out of it. There’s nothing wrong with taking something from another source. “Balance of Terror” is a reworked sci-fi version of “Enemy Below”.
I did not say the practice is bad per se, I just think it was a bit lazy to not rework it into their own story better. The practice itself is a long time tradition in Hollywood and not just in science-fiction though they usually take it a bit further away from the original, Bewitched was from Bell, Book, and Candle for instance.
Star Trek on the other hand was taken from sailing ship novels (especially Hornblower) and projected into a post-scarcity future, it really had little to do with Forbidden Planet except that both were serious science fiction shows instead of the low budget spoofs and horror movies that were the bulk of Hollywood sci-fi at the time. Trek actually had more in common with The Day the Earth Stood Still with the way its interstellar community worked than it did with Forbidden Planet.
Roddenberry found that he could not sell the "Hornblower in space" concept in a market already tired of "swashbuckler" movies and switched the wording of his pitch to the then popular Western genre, particularly the wildly popular at the time Wagon Train (which it did not actually have much in common with, Wagon Train being an anchored anthology similar to 12' O'clock High and The Love Boat while Star Trek was a semi-ensemble but otherwise normal format).
> @starkaos said: > (Quote) > > Emotions are transferred in a Mind Meld and considering how it affected people subjected to the warning, it is likely amplified by a 1000 times. However, a few images could give a false impression. Send a few image of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to the 19th Century and a time traveler can make the future look far worse than it is. If I remember correctly, there was a Seven Days episode that dealt with this concept. > > However, it looks like the Zhat Vash go completely crazy from that warning and spread their craziness with Mind Melds. Then there is the possible threat of an alien species that wipes out any race that develops synthetic life to a certain degree. An alien species that is willing to destroy entire civilizations to stop synthetic life. Originally, I was thinking it was the same time travel nonsense that we heard already from Season 2 of Discovery, but it looks far more like we have an extremely limited form of Reapers. > > Picard: There was a threshold of synthetic evolution, a dividing line. > Rios: Like the Zephram Cochrane Warp Drive. When you cross that line, someone shows up. > Jurati: Somebody really bad.
I am 1000% sure the Romulans read the message wrong. Whoever comes when real AI is created will be more friend than enemy. That’s how I think the story will play out. I could be wrong.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,577Community Moderator
When I think of "Wagon train" and sci-fi... I think Battlestar Galactica fits that better than Star Trek.
I am 1000% sure the Romulans read the message wrong. Whoever comes when real AI is created will be more friend than enemy. That’s how I think the story will play out. I could be wrong.
It would have to be their memories are incompatible with the warning in order for them to act so insane for a friendly message. Picard's crew theorize that some alien race devastated the civilization that left the extremely messed up warning when their Synths reached a certain level of development. It could be due to the aliens that devastated that civilization dealt with Berserkers from the Saberhagen novels which is similar to the androids from the Prototype episode of Voyager except that they are intelligent and homocidal starships.
It is more likely that it is luck that determines whether the aliens that comes when real AI is created is a friend or enemy. If Cochrane's Phoenix was discovered by the Borg or some other hostile aliens instead of the Vulcans, then there would be no Federation. Reaching a certain level in synthetic evolution or warp travel just means that a giant beacon is activated and there is no way to know who will come. Besides the alien civilization was destroyed thousands of centuries ago so there is no way to know if the alien race that destroyed them are still around. They could have been destroyed by the Iconians or they are the Iconians for all we know. Although, a virus that can easily disable starships would be effective against synthetic life.
I love star trek Picard, and I really cant find anything in it that just annoyed me. I loved the Romulans before Picard, now I really love them. Yes I am a fan of eradicate the synths. Anyways As for discovery that is a different story entirely. They did the Klingon's a great injustice at the start, making them appear more cave man brutes, then a actual race. Even worse they failed for the most part in putting a new look on for the Klingon's. My biggest gripe is the story line, it feels as one of desperation. Meaning they fouled up the start, so now they are moving the timeline forward, to get a new start for series. To me it has been hit and miss more often then not with discovery. I look forward to seeing how Picard evolves, but as for discovery ill check out the next season when its available, but honestly I am not holding my breath. To be clear none of my gripes with discovery has been with the actors or actresses.
> @starkaos said:
> (Quote)
>
> The Synths in Picard seems more like victims that were TRIBBLE instead of intentionally rebelled. It is likely that they were easily TRIBBLE due to being lousy copies of Data that didn't have his mental acuity. Of course, it is easier to justify enslaving dumb Synths rather than intelligent Synths.
>
> It is interesting how the Zhat Vash is able to recruit people to their cause with the Mind Meld. Just show a few scenes of a possible future and they can turn an AI scientist into a Synth-hating fanatic. It is possible that Zhat Vash is following a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their crusade against Synthetic Life could create the future they are trying to avoid by causing Synthetic Life to act in self-defense. It seems like most AI rebellion stories are a result of the AI acting in self-defense to protect themselves from their creators.
Aren’t emotions transferred during a mind meld?
Pictures are worth 1,000 words. Showing the Doctor the images could get her to change her mind. I am a child of the 80’s and for most of my childhood I lived under the threat of nuclear war. Those were just words to me and I suspect to many other Americans at the time...until a TV movie called “The Day After”. It depicted a realistic nuclear war and woke a lot of people up...including then President Ronald Reagan, who wrote in his memoir that the movie changed his views on US nuclear policy.
Sure pictures are worth a thousand words and can be deliberately framed to speak lies or just plain fiction, we are talking about Hollywood afterall. We only have to look at what happened to Nick Sandman to remember that.
Just imagine a picture of you swinging a pipe at someone's head. It is really easy to suggest you're attacking someone unjustified with such a picture. But what came before? Did they attack someone or you first? Or is this a staged fight for a movie, or just friends messing around? Is the pipe a heavy copper pipe or is it just a cheap plastic pipe made to look heavy for effect? The picture can't answer those questions.
Frankly I'm hoping the Romulans got it wrong too, that the series ends with the revelation that the Romulans were just stupid and duped into thinking what they were told to think without thinking for themselves, and all this anti AI stuff can go away and the real Federation is reborn because the Romulan infiltrators are kicked out. I doubt it will happen though.
I think in the latest episode we finally got the core message of the series. Someone spoke up and said when it was revealed the Commadore Oh was behind the Synth attack on Mars and someone said that "ohh so starfleet didn't just let us all down, they where manipulated" when Picard said "no no, they did let us down, they reacted out of fear and fear is the great enemy" it was your classic Picard speach and was IMHO a good one that drives to the heart of what this series is saying, that you can't let fear control you, etc" so with that in mind, I suspect the season Finalle will end with Picard and company going off to seek out these "Reapers" (for lack of a better term) with the series ending with Picard managing to make first contact and peace, by showing these people that synthetic life isn't something to fear, it just is..
that's just a guess but Picard is supposed to be a commentary on the state of modern politics etc, so a dennunciation of self centered fear based politics being at the heart of the series just makes sense.
.. or maybe he'll have to choose between 3 levers one for synthisis, one for destruction of all synths, and one to control all synths... god I hope not, that ending sucked the first time around
> @starkaos said:
> (Quote)
>
> Emotions are transferred in a Mind Meld and considering how it affected people subjected to the warning, it is likely amplified by a 1000 times. However, a few images could give a false impression. Send a few image of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to the 19th Century and a time traveler can make the future look far worse than it is. If I remember correctly, there was a Seven Days episode that dealt with this concept.
>
> However, it looks like the Zhat Vash go completely crazy from that warning and spread their craziness with Mind Melds. Then there is the possible threat of an alien species that wipes out any race that develops synthetic life to a certain degree. An alien species that is willing to destroy entire civilizations to stop synthetic life. Originally, I was thinking it was the same time travel nonsense that we heard already from Season 2 of Discovery, but it looks far more like we have an extremely limited form of Reapers.
>
> Picard: There was a threshold of synthetic evolution, a dividing line.
> Rios: Like the Zephram Cochrane Warp Drive. When you cross that line, someone shows up.
> Jurati: Somebody really bad.
I am 1000% sure the Romulans read the message wrong. Whoever comes when real AI is created will be more friend than enemy. That’s how I think the story will play out. I could be wrong.
I would be more going with PIcard's take on this - what they saw did happen. It could be a real threat. But ... we have agency. We can do things about it, and they don't have to be things only based on fear and secrecy. We can try to figure out more about the nature of the threat, determine what it wants, how it operates, and this can give us tools to deal with it.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I think in the latest episode we finally got the core message of the series. Someone spoke up and said when it was revealed the Commadore Oh was behind the Synth attack on Mars and someone said that "ohh so starfleet didn't just let us all down, they where manipulated" when Picard said "no no, they did let us down, they reacted out of fear and fear is the great enemy" it was your classic Picard speach and was IMHO a good one that drives to the heart of what this series is saying, that you can't let fear control you, etc" so with that in mind, I suspect the season Finalle will end with Picard and company going off to seek out these "Reapers" (for lack of a better term) with the series ending with Picard managing to make first contact and peace, by showing these people that synthetic life isn't something to fear, it just is..
that's just a guess but Picard is supposed to be a commentary on the state of modern politics etc, so a dennunciation of self centered fear based politics being at the heart of the series just makes sense.
.. or maybe he'll have to choose between 3 levers one for synthisis, one for destruction of all synths, and one to control all synths... god I hope not, that ending sucked the first time around
The Synth Rebellion reminds me of the Morning War between the Geth and Quarians from Mass Effect lore.
"Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are … you are my son and the one true king." (Mufasa)
it sounds like what actually happens is another race shows up. could be intreasting if we discover they destroyed the last one for enslaving their AI. and that if you treat your AI as equals..... it's all good
Comments
> Having watched this week's episode of Picard, I think I've come to my general beef with the story behind Picard season 1 and Disco season 2, which both seem to center on the theme of evil artificial intelligences (whether they actually are or not; Control, yes, maybe, but androids... debatable) and if they're not stopped, the universe will be destroyed. In this, and this alone, I will agree with some of the haters: This is not what Star Trek is supposed to be.
>
> The thing that really bothers me, though, is that no matter how big the built-up supervillain is, they ultimately end up being done away with in a rather... anticlimactic fashion, which makes one wonder... what was the big deal? I have developed a similar problem with certain other series I watch and games I play, as well: the tendency to create world-shattering (or universe-shattering) villains that end up being defeated by a Mary Sue - the player character or the central character of the series/movie - rushing in to save the universe. All this buildup and buildup for a "pfft" ending. The Night King in Game of Thrones is a particularly good example. World of Warcraft has recently done this too, with N'Zoth, built up to be this big bad tentacly mind-freak monster, able to corrupt gods and kings... only to die rather pathetically because we used our MacGuffin necklace and connected it to MacGuffin machines to summon a god-killing laser beam from space.
>
> All that sacrifice and pain, and they die with a snap of our fingers, like we've developed Q powers. Which leaves whoever's left to wonder, "If it was that damn easy, why'd we bother?"
I don’t see anything in Picard that centers on the theme of evil artificial intelligence. Seems like it’s heavily implied that the Romulans are the “big bad”. Dahj and Soji are not presented as evil. Data is not talked about as being evil. Hell the managed to humanize the Borg drones and the XB’s.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
The Synths in Picard seems more like victims that were TRIBBLE instead of intentionally rebelled. It is likely that they were easily TRIBBLE due to being lousy copies of Data that didn't have his mental acuity. Of course, it is easier to justify enslaving dumb Synths rather than intelligent Synths.
It is interesting how the Zhat Vash is able to recruit people to their cause with the Mind Meld. Just show a few scenes of a possible future and they can turn an AI scientist into a Synth-hating fanatic. It is possible that Zhat Vash is following a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their crusade against Synthetic Life could create the future they are trying to avoid by causing Synthetic Life to act in self-defense. It seems like most AI rebellion stories are a result of the AI acting in self-defense to protect themselves from their creators.
> (Quote)
>
> The Synths in Picard seems more like victims that were TRIBBLE instead of intentionally rebelled. It is likely that they were easily TRIBBLE due to being lousy copies of Data that didn't have his mental acuity. Of course, it is easier to justify enslaving dumb Synths rather than intelligent Synths.
>
> It is interesting how the Zhat Vash is able to recruit people to their cause with the Mind Meld. Just show a few scenes of a possible future and they can turn an AI scientist into a Synth-hating fanatic. It is possible that Zhat Vash is following a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their crusade against Synthetic Life could create the future they are trying to avoid by causing Synthetic Life to act in self-defense. It seems like most AI rebellion stories are a result of the AI acting in self-defense to protect themselves from their creators.
Aren’t emotions transferred during a mind meld?
Pictures are worth 1,000 words. Showing the Doctor the images could get her to change her mind. I am a child of the 80’s and for most of my childhood I lived under the threat of nuclear war. Those were just words to me and I suspect to many other Americans at the time...until a TV movie called “The Day After”. It depicted a realistic nuclear war and woke a lot of people up...including then President Ronald Reagan, who wrote in his memoir that the movie changed his views on US nuclear policy.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I do not remember if they were synths, robots with expressive features, altered clones, mind controlled prisoner/slaves or some sort of alien or whatever, but it was almost exactly the same start. Whatever it was, it makes me wonder if CBS actually "stole the right stuff", and why they apparently left it so close to whatever they took it from instead of adapting it better.
Everyone “borrows” from everyone else. Star Trek is just Forbidden Planet seen through Gene Roddenberry and his writers lens. Quentin Tarantino had made a whole career out of it. There’s nothing wrong with taking something from another source. “Balance of Terror” is a reworked sci-fi version of “Enemy Below”.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It was also referred to as "'Wagon Train' to the stars", if I recall rightly?
"There's No Way Like Poway!"
Real Join Date: October 2010
Emotions are transferred in a Mind Meld and considering how it affected people subjected to the warning, it is likely amplified by a 1000 times. However, a few images could give a false impression. Send a few image of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to the 19th Century and a time traveler can make the future look far worse than it is. If I remember correctly, there was a Seven Days episode that dealt with this concept.
However, it looks like the Zhat Vash go completely crazy from that warning and spread their craziness with Mind Melds. Then there is the possible threat of an alien species that wipes out any race that develops synthetic life to a certain degree. An alien species that is willing to destroy entire civilizations to stop synthetic life. Originally, I was thinking it was the same time travel nonsense that we heard already from Season 2 of Discovery, but it looks far more like we have an extremely limited form of Reapers.
Picard: There was a threshold of synthetic evolution, a dividing line.
Rios: Like the Zephram Cochrane Warp Drive. When you cross that line, someone shows up.
Jurati: Somebody really bad.
I did not say the practice is bad per se, I just think it was a bit lazy to not rework it into their own story better. The practice itself is a long time tradition in Hollywood and not just in science-fiction though they usually take it a bit further away from the original, Bewitched was from Bell, Book, and Candle for instance.
Star Trek on the other hand was taken from sailing ship novels (especially Hornblower) and projected into a post-scarcity future, it really had little to do with Forbidden Planet except that both were serious science fiction shows instead of the low budget spoofs and horror movies that were the bulk of Hollywood sci-fi at the time. Trek actually had more in common with The Day the Earth Stood Still with the way its interstellar community worked than it did with Forbidden Planet.
Roddenberry found that he could not sell the "Hornblower in space" concept in a market already tired of "swashbuckler" movies and switched the wording of his pitch to the then popular Western genre, particularly the wildly popular at the time Wagon Train (which it did not actually have much in common with, Wagon Train being an anchored anthology similar to 12' O'clock High and The Love Boat while Star Trek was a semi-ensemble but otherwise normal format).
> (Quote)
>
> Emotions are transferred in a Mind Meld and considering how it affected people subjected to the warning, it is likely amplified by a 1000 times. However, a few images could give a false impression. Send a few image of the Holocaust and Hiroshima to the 19th Century and a time traveler can make the future look far worse than it is. If I remember correctly, there was a Seven Days episode that dealt with this concept.
>
> However, it looks like the Zhat Vash go completely crazy from that warning and spread their craziness with Mind Melds. Then there is the possible threat of an alien species that wipes out any race that develops synthetic life to a certain degree. An alien species that is willing to destroy entire civilizations to stop synthetic life. Originally, I was thinking it was the same time travel nonsense that we heard already from Season 2 of Discovery, but it looks far more like we have an extremely limited form of Reapers.
>
> Picard: There was a threshold of synthetic evolution, a dividing line.
> Rios: Like the Zephram Cochrane Warp Drive. When you cross that line, someone shows up.
> Jurati: Somebody really bad.
I am 1000% sure the Romulans read the message wrong. Whoever comes when real AI is created will be more friend than enemy. That’s how I think the story will play out. I could be wrong.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It would have to be their memories are incompatible with the warning in order for them to act so insane for a friendly message. Picard's crew theorize that some alien race devastated the civilization that left the extremely messed up warning when their Synths reached a certain level of development. It could be due to the aliens that devastated that civilization dealt with Berserkers from the Saberhagen novels which is similar to the androids from the Prototype episode of Voyager except that they are intelligent and homocidal starships.
It is more likely that it is luck that determines whether the aliens that comes when real AI is created is a friend or enemy. If Cochrane's Phoenix was discovered by the Borg or some other hostile aliens instead of the Vulcans, then there would be no Federation. Reaching a certain level in synthetic evolution or warp travel just means that a giant beacon is activated and there is no way to know who will come. Besides the alien civilization was destroyed thousands of centuries ago so there is no way to know if the alien race that destroyed them are still around. They could have been destroyed by the Iconians or they are the Iconians for all we know. Although, a virus that can easily disable starships would be effective against synthetic life.
Sure pictures are worth a thousand words and can be deliberately framed to speak lies or just plain fiction, we are talking about Hollywood afterall. We only have to look at what happened to Nick Sandman to remember that.
Just imagine a picture of you swinging a pipe at someone's head. It is really easy to suggest you're attacking someone unjustified with such a picture. But what came before? Did they attack someone or you first? Or is this a staged fight for a movie, or just friends messing around? Is the pipe a heavy copper pipe or is it just a cheap plastic pipe made to look heavy for effect? The picture can't answer those questions.
Frankly I'm hoping the Romulans got it wrong too, that the series ends with the revelation that the Romulans were just stupid and duped into thinking what they were told to think without thinking for themselves, and all this anti AI stuff can go away and the real Federation is reborn because the Romulan infiltrators are kicked out. I doubt it will happen though.
that's just a guess but Picard is supposed to be a commentary on the state of modern politics etc, so a dennunciation of self centered fear based politics being at the heart of the series just makes sense.
.. or maybe he'll have to choose between 3 levers one for synthisis, one for destruction of all synths, and one to control all synths... god I hope not, that ending sucked the first time around
I would be more going with PIcard's take on this - what they saw did happen. It could be a real threat. But ... we have agency. We can do things about it, and they don't have to be things only based on fear and secrecy. We can try to figure out more about the nature of the threat, determine what it wants, how it operates, and this can give us tools to deal with it.
The Synth Rebellion reminds me of the Morning War between the Geth and Quarians from Mass Effect lore.
"Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are … you are my son and the one true king." (Mufasa)