oh – Trekking with Dennis

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 theory roundup!

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the entirety of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, including its ending. There may also be spoilers for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

Star Trek: Picard’s first season wrapped up at the end of March – and it feels like forever ago, what with everything that’s happened in the world since! While the season was running, in addition to reviewing each of the episodes in turn I also concocted a number of different theories for what was going on in the show. Star Trek: Picard very carefully set up a number of mysteries, and even heading into the second half of the finale, it wasn’t clear exactly how they would be resolved.

I’d argue that the first season’s two-part finale wasn’t the show at its best, and it felt as though a season which started incredibly strongly ended up stumbling a little as it crossed the finish line. There were a number of reasons for this – which I covered at the time – but it boils down to some of the show’s mysteries not being fully explained, and some storylines being dropped or left unresolved. That and the truly awful gold makeup used for the synths on Coppelius!

If you’d like to read all of my theories from Star Trek: Picard Season 1, you can find them on my dedicated Star Trek: Picard page. Click or tap here to be taken there!

This time, what I’d like to do is take a look back at some of the theories I postulated while the season was running. I’ll explain why I thought they seemed viable – and why they ended up being total misses! In a way, part of the fun of theory-crafting and speculating is knowing that you won’t always get it right… and boy oh boy did I have some seriously wrong theories!

Number 1:
Dahj and Soji aren’t synthetics, they’re genetically-engineered humans.

This is a theory I first came up with right at the beginning of the series, almost from the very moment Picard begins to suspect that Dahj is synthetic. It seemed like it could’ve been a clever idea for a double-bluff – establishing Dahj and Soji as synths, only to rip that away and challenge both Picard’s and the audience’s expectations. However, it didn’t pan out that way, and looking back, this theory was kind of ridiculous!

Genetic enhancements, similar to those made on characters like Dr Bashir and Khan, could have given Dahj the incredible speed and strength that she possessed in Remembrance, so from that point of view it wasn’t wholly unthinkable. But looking back, while Star Trek: Picard did aim to be a show that kept us guessing and didn’t telegraph every aspect of its storyline, this kind of subversion of expectations would have been a step too far. We didn’t know anything about Dahj or Soji at the beginning of the series, and to take the one established fact about them and make it a lie or a misunderstanding would have been a storytelling mistake.

Dahj during her fight against Zhat Vash operatives in *Remembrance.*

There was also plenty of evidence that Dahj and Soji were synthetic: Picard’s meeting with Dr Jurati, Narek’s interest in Soji, and the strong connection Picard felt to Dahj (and later to Soji) because of his friendship with Data. All of that would have made no sense in the story if we’d ended up dealing with genetically-enhanced humans!

I brought this theory back after episode 3, The End is the Beginning, based on a line spoken by one of the Romulans who attempted to assassinate Picard: “she’s not what you think she is!” This of course referred to Soji, and it struck me that, as Picard and his comrades believed Soji to be a synth, perhaps the Romulan knew that she was not. However, as the story progressed it became abundantly clear that Soji and Dahj were the synthetics that the story established them to be, and that I was barking up the wrong tree with this one!

Number 2:
Section 31 will make an appearance in the show.

A black Section 31 combadge from *Star Trek: Discovery.*

This theory was crafted not so much because of anything that directly happened in the plot of the show, but rather for production reasons. In short, the Star Trek timeline is seriously fractured, with shows being produced simultaneously occupying very different timeframes. When Discovery’s third season kicks off in a few weeks time, there will be four shows occupying four time periods. This complicates the franchise, and what that means is that some threads of continuity would be very helpful, especially for casual viewers.

Section 31 featured heavily in Discovery’s second season, and in addition, a spin-off based on the organisation is currently being worked on. It seemed logical that Star Trek: Picard might want to find some way of incorporating Section 31 if for no other reason than having one of those threads of continuity running through the franchise, tying things loosely together and being a frame of reference for casual viewers.

My first thought for a potential Section 31 appearance was that they could’ve been responsible for the attack on Mars and the destruction of Picard’s armada. I theorised they might have taken such aggressive action to prevent the Federation giving aid to the Romulans. This was extended to include Section 31 hacking the Mars synths as part of this plan.

F8’s eyes during a flashback sequence that depicted the hack.

I next had two potential Section 31 operatives pegged – Chris Rios and Seven of Nine. Rios because he worked aboard a Starfleet ship that was “erased” from the records, and Seven of Nine because it wasn’t clear who she worked for or why she was following Picard.

Finally, as these other theories fell by the wayside, I speculated that Section 31 may have arrived to take control of the Artifact after it was abandoned by the Romulans and later crashed on Coppelius. While I suppose you could argue that might yet happen, it didn’t happen in Season 1, and thus any real benefit of the organisation crossing over from a behind-the-scenes perspective was lost.

I maintain that this theory makes a lot of sense from a production perspective, and my final idea in particular – Section 31 taking control of the Artifact to study it – could have been accomplished without making any changes whatsoever to the season’s storyline. However, it didn’t happen!

Number 3:
Soji’s Trill friend will end up getting assimilated or killed.

Soji with Dr Kunamadéstifee in *Maps and Legends*.

Episode 2, Maps and Legends, introduced a Trill doctor working aboard the Artifact along with Soji. She ultimately only appeared in one sequence, but that sequence seemed to contain a lot of horror film-style foreshadowing, and for weeks I was insistent that we’d see this character meet an unpleasant end! Aboard a Borg cube – even a disabled one – the most likely way that would manifest would’ve been her assimiliation.

After Soji helped Dr Kunamadéstifee with her uniform, the two stood together while they listened to a speech from one of the Artifact’s Romulan guards. He stated that the area they were about to enter was incredibly dangerous, and a nearby sign seemed to reinforce the possibility of assimilation by counting the days since it had last happened. This seemed as thought it could tie in with Soji working on de-assimilating Borg drones; was she about to see her friend end up on her operating table?

It turned out, of course, that I was reading too much into one side character and one short sequence, because not only didn’t Dr Kunamadéstifee end up assimilated, she was never seen again after Maps and Legends, which was a shame because she seemed like a potentially interesting character. Soji spent much of her time from episodes 2-6 with Narek, and giving her someone else to interact with was a good idea. My theory was that their friendship may have built up a little more, leading to shock and sadness for Soji upon learning of Dr Kunamadéstifee’s fate.

I suppose in theory we could say that it’s unlikely that she survived the various disasters which befell the Artifact, from Narissa executing huge numbers of ex-Borg to the ship crashing on Coppelius, but nothing was ever seen on screen to even hint at her fate.

Number 4:
Commodore Oh is a synthetic.

Commodore Oh in the episode *Broken Pieces*.

As with Soji and Dahj being human, this was kind of an “out there” theory! But the whole point of theory crafting is to make wild guesses sometimes, and there were a couple of reasons why I considered this a possibility. First of all, it would have been thoroughly unexpected and shocking. Many recent films, games, and television series have tried to pull off genuinely unexpected twists, and had this been true, it would have been one heck of a shock!

Secondly, the premise of Star Trek: Picard’s first season had been the cloak-and-dagger factions vying to thwart or create synthetic life. The Zhat Vash and the Tal Shiar were on one side, Maddox and his team on the other. There were rogue traders, Romulans, ex-Borg, and all sorts of shadowy figures involved – any one of whom could have not been what they seemed. The show crafted mysteries for us to examine. As we learned more about the Zhat Vash and their mission, I began to wonder if they could have been infiltrated by someone who wanted to stop them harming synths. This later evolved into wondering if they’d been infiltrated by someone who wanted to bring about the very disaster they sought to prevent.

Dahj and Soji were both unaware of their true synthetic natures, which built on past iterations of Star Trek that showed synths can be programmed to not realise they’re synths. Commodore Oh could have genuinely believed in the Zhat Vash cause – but been programmed to “activate” at the opportune moment. We later learned that the Zhat Vash feared the arrival of a faction of super-synths that I dubbed the “Mass Effect Reapers” (because they were very similar to that video game faction) and I incorporated that into this theory, suggesting that Commodore Oh may be working for the “Mass Effect Reapers” to try and bring about their arrival.

Of course it was a complete bust! Commodore Oh was a Zhat Vash operative to the core, and as far as we know, wholly organic in nature! I still think she’s a fascinating character, and I wrote an article a few months back looking at her place in the Star Trek timeline. You can find it by clicking or tapping here.

Number 5:
Picard telling everyone that their enemies are the Tal Shiar – and not the Zhat Vash – will have consequences.

One thing that Star Trek: Picard didn’t do particularly well, in my opinion, was staying consistent in how it referred to its antagonists. In Remembrance, the faction who attacked Picard and Dahj weren’t named, but in Maps and Legends we learned of the existence of the Zhat Vash – an ancient, shadowy organisation which operated within, yet were distinct from, the Tal Shiar.

Yet for several episodes, Picard and others kept referring to their adversaries as the Tal Shiar. In-universe, there’s a certain kind of logic to this. Picard may not have believed fully in the Zhat Vash’s existence, having only heard about them from one source, or he may have felt trying to explain the difference would have been too time consuming and/or made him seem too conspiratorial. However, with practically everything else in the show being done deliberately to achieve certain story payoffs, I wondered whether Picard’s decision not to be up front with his crew might have had repercussions.

Colonel Lovok (or rather, a changeling impersonating him) was a Tal Shiar operative seen in *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.*

Elnor was the one character who I felt seemed most likely to be affected by the revelation that it was the Zhat Vash, not the Tal Shiar, that he was up against. As a member of the Qowat Milat, Elnor was opposed to the Tal Shiar. But the Qowat Milat’s relationship with the Zhat Vash was unclear; even if they were enemies, the Qowat Milat may have had particular techniques for dealing with them. And at the very least, Elnor and his faction seemed likely to know of their existence.

However, Elnor learned in Nepenthe that he was facing off against the Zhat Vash, not the Tal Shiar, and the revelation seemed to have no impact on him whatsoever. The rest of La Sirena’s crew were equally nonplussed, and there were no consequences at all for the confused terminology – at least, not from an in-universe point of view. I think that, unfortunately, the decision to complicate the terminology around the show’s antagonists may have made it harder to follow for casual viewers. When dealing with made-up names like “Tal Shiar” and “Zhat Vash”, remaining consistent is important for the audience to be able to follow what’s going on.

Number 6:
There’s a Starfleet-Zhat Vash conspiracy.

Admiral Clancy, the commander-in-chief of Starfleet.

In Maps and Legends, we were introduced to Commodore Oh for the first time. It was a great shock to see a high-ranking Starfleet officer involved in Dahj’s murder, and at the time it wasn’t at all clear whether Commodore Oh was a Romulan infiltrator or a Vulcan co-conspirator. If she was a Starfleet officer working with the Zhat Vash, it stood to reason that others in Starfleet were as well – perhaps even senior admirals.

Furthermore, when we learned how Commodore Oh recruited Dr Jurati into the conspiracy – all it took was a brief mind-meld – it seemed plausible that she may have used the same technique on others. Commodore Oh had been embedded in Starfleet for more than sixty years, and in that time there’s no telling how many people she may have interacted with.

Lieutenant Rizzo arrives to meet Commodore Oh.

However, it turned out not to be the case. Admiral Clancy, the head of Starfleet Command, wasn’t compromised, nor were any of the other Starfleet officers and leaders seen or referenced in Season 1. As far as we know – and this could change if future Star Trek projects decide to look at this aspect more deeply – only Commodore Oh and Rizzo were involved within Starfleet, and they were both Zhat Vash operatives.

This is one theory that I’m definitely pleased didn’t pan out. Making Starfleet itself the “bad guys”, even if there were a reason for it, wouldn’t have felt great in a Star Trek series, and would have been a far darker path for the show to have taken. Seeing Riker show up in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 at the head of a Starfleet armada was a beautiful moment (though sadly one that had been telegraphed ahead of time) in large part because it proved that Starfleet and the Federation were still on the right side. The plot to kill the synths and attack Mars was purely a Zhat Vash creation.

Number 7:
The Control AI, from Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, is involved.

A re-used image from *Star Trek: Discovery.*

Although I initially considered it to be a bit out of left field, the episode Nepenthe really kicked this theory into high gear! My first thought had been that perhaps the reason why the Zhat Vash were so frightened of synthetic life was because they had some involvement with Control, the rogue artificial intelligence from Star Trek: Discovery’s second season. I was convinced – wrongly – that the producers behind the overall Star Trek franchise would have wanted to build a major connection between Discovery and Picard for some of the reasons already discussed, and bringing Control in seemed like a viable option for accomplishing this.

In the episode Nepenthe, we finally got to see how Dr Jurati came to be recruited into the conspiracy – she was shown a vision by Commodore Oh, one that seemed to warn of something apocalyptic. Contained within this vision were a couple of visuals that were made for Star Trek: Discovery – more specifically, they were used to show a vision Michael Burnham and Spock had of the Control AI.

The Control AI commandeered Captain Leland’s body in *Star Trek: Discovery*.

At the time, I noted that there could be production-side reasons to re-use visual effects, as it was less time-consuming and cheaper than making wholly new CGI. However, for a couple of weeks I really did think that we were going to find some connection between Control and the Zhat Vash; perhaps the Romulans and Federation had been competing in some kind of mid-23rd Century AI arms race, or perhaps while Control was on the loose it had attacked Romulan ships or planets.

In a thematic sense, Star Trek: Picard’s first season and Discovery’s second season share some significant points. Both consider the potential for rogue or out-of-control artificial life, and both look at the consequences of continuing to develop AI – something that we arguably should be concerned about today! But there was no deeper crossover beyond basic themes, and the shows remain almost entirely separate from one another. The re-used visuals are what completely threw me for this one!

Number 8:
The synths on Coppelius are already dead.

A crowd of clearly not dead synths in *Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2*.

Star Trek: Picard’s first season had, unfortunately, one rather large plot hole. The driving force for much of the first half of the season was locating and rescuing Bruce Maddox, the Federation cyberneticist who built Soji, Dahj, and many of the other synths. Maddox was on a planet called Freecloud, a place he travelled to when he seemed to have nowhere else to turn. He ended up returning to the dangerous Bjayzl, someone he owed a lot of money to, and was captured. The reason he put himself in such grave danger was because his lab had been destroyed by the Tal Shiar, or so he claimed.

But in the two-part finale, Picard and the crew travelled to Coppelius and saw for themselves that Maddox’s lab hadn’t been destroyed, and the Tal Shiar or the Zhat Vash had never been there. This feels like a pretty major issue, because the question of why Maddox was on Freecloud now has no satisfactory answer. The reason seems to be “because plot”, and that’s never a good thing.

Bruce Maddox only went to Bjayzl because his lab had been destroyed.

However, before the finale I was still trying to square that particular circle. One of the possibilities I came up with was that Maddox was right – his lab had already been destroyed, which could mean that the synths he’d built were already dead. It would have made Narek’s mission kind of a waste of time, as his colleagues had already killed off the synths, not to mention being a rather bleak way to end the season, but it would have fit together with what had already been established.

I don’t think I’d have enjoyed this storyline, which would have left Soji as perhaps the sole survivor of her race. It would have been very dark, and would have felt like a victory for the show’s antagonists. But at the time, I was scrambling around looking for ways to make the story of the first half of the season – culminating in Maddox’s statement to Bjayzl about his lab being destroyed – fit with the second half of the season and the revelation of the existence of more synths.

Number 9:
The captain of the USS Ibn Majid is a character from a past Star Trek show.

Harry Kim could’ve been a starship captain in this time period.

This was a pretty simple theory by my standards. When we learned that Rios had served aboard a ship called the USS Ibn Majid, which was destroyed and covered up, I began to wonder who might’ve been in command of the vessel. Rios was clearly very attached to his former captain, and I wasn’t sure if we might’ve seen – in flashback form – this character make an appearance.

From Rios’ initial comments about the character – that they were dead, male, and “heroic” – I put together a shortlist based on possible characters from past Star Trek shows who could conceivably have been starship captains in that era. I ruled out those who seemed to have no desire to sit in the captain’s chair, like Dr Bashir or Tom Paris, and obviously ruled out those who wouldn’t be eligible like Chief O’Brien. Finally, Zhaban had mentioned that La Forge and Worf were still alive, so they were out too. That left a handful of characters, including Chakotay and Harry Kim, both from Voyager. I also suggested Edward Jellico from The Next Generation two-parter Chain of Command, Solok from the Deep Space Nine episode Take Me Out to the Holosuite, and Captain Bateson from The Next Generation Season 5 episode Cause and Effect.

Solok, the Vulcan captain of the USS T’Kumbra.

There were other possibilities – most of which were minor characters who made only one or two appearances in Star Trek – and there were many male officers who could, in theory, have made the cut. I liked this idea simply for the sake of continuity, as having the Ibn Majid’s captain be someone we already knew seemed like an interesting concept.

With Bruce Maddox, Hugh, and Icheb all killed off in Star Trek: Picard’s first season, it was clear that the producers has no qualms about getting rid of legacy characters! That fact also contributed to making this theory plausible. Past iterations of Star Trek has been reluctant to kill off main characters, but Star Trek: Picard did so several times. However, none of this came to pass, and instead a new character – Captain Alonso Vandermeer – was created for the show, and was only seen briefly in a photograph.

Number 10:
Narek will go rogue.

Narek in *Broken Pieces* after trying to kill Soji.

Narek was a unique character, not only in Star Trek: Picard but in the whole franchise. Never before had an out-and-out villain been a main character, with their name in the opening titles. Narek was also an interesting and nuanced character in a season where – most of the time – the villains could feel flat and one-dimensional. I’m still disappointed that his storyline was unceremoniously dumped midway through the season finale; we didn’t even learn what became of him after Picard’s “death”.

But that’s somewhat beside the point. From as early as the third episode, I began speculating that somehow, Narek would be convinced to abandon his mission and join with Soji and Picard. His clear feelings for Soji seemed to offer a route for him to make this happen, but even if the show didn’t go for the “spy falls in love with his target” trope, there were other ways it could’ve happened. Narek seemed like a reasonable man; if it were demonstrated to him that the synths were not a threat, it seemed at least plausible that he might’ve switched sides.

However, as of the last time we saw him – before he just dropped of the face of the series with no conclusion to his story – he was still 100% committed to the Zhat Vash cause. In fact, he never wavered. His attempt to kill Soji may have caused him great distress, but that didn’t stop him going ahead with his mission; he didn’t even hesitate.

I actually like that Narek was unpredictable, and as a whole I like that the show set up what looked to be a familiar trope – the spy with a heart of gold who switches sides for the girl he loves – only to say that actually, Narek was still committed to his cause and his mission. However, it’s a shame that this never really got a proper payoff, as Narek disappeared. His character arc feels incomplete, and as I’m fairly confident he won’t be returning for the show’s second season, we may never learn what happened to him after the events on Coppelius.

So that’s it!

A handful of my theories for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 that never came to pass! I did manage to successfully predict a handful of (more obvious) plot points across the first season, so my theories didn’t all fail as hard as those listed above. The important thing, though, was that I had fun doing this. Thinking about the series and writing up the theories was really enjoyable at the time, and it’s something I hope to do with Discovery later in the year – at least, provided it has suitable theory-crafting material to work with!

Jean-Luc Picard will return for Season 2!

The important thing when considering fan theories is to remember that they’re just guesses and speculation. The showrunners, writers, and producers are the ones who craft the story, and they’re the ones who get the final say on how it’s going to pan out. Getting overly attached to any one theory – no matter how much we like it or how plausible it seems – really just means we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. I could point to many projects in recent years which have suffered as a result of this, but all I really want to say is that, for those of you who followed my theories during Star Trek: Picard Season 1, I hope that I didn’t cause you any disappointment or frustration when I was wrong. At the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun and an excuse to spend more time in the Star Trek galaxy. Let’s all try to take fan theories with an extra-large pinch of salt!

Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently airing its first season – the second of three Star Trek projects in 2020. For all the problems that this year has thrown at us, having three different Star Trek shows to enjoy has been a blessing. If you missed it, I’ve reviewed the first episode of Lower Decks and I’ll soon be taking a look at episode 2, which will be available to watch (at least for viewers in the US and Canada) later today. And as mentioned I’ll be looking at Discovery when that airs in October. There’s no word on when exactly we can expect to see Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. It has an optimistic release date of 2021, but given that California is still largely locked down and filming has yet to begin, I wouldn’t be surprised if that slips back. Regardless, whenever we get it I’ll be taking a look at the episodes and probably crafting a bunch more theories!

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

How does Commodore Oh affect other Star Trek stories?

Mon 27.04.20Sun 20.02.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the first season of Star Trek: Picard, as well as for Star Trek: Discovery and other iterations of the franchise.

The revelation in Star Trek: Picard that the Romulans had managed to plant an operative in Starfleet was an interesting one, especially because that operative – Commodore Oh – had managed to attain such a high rank. She’d been working in Starfleet since at least the time of The Next Generation and probably even before then, with the Zhat Vash deciding to make a move against the Federation from the moment they learned of the existence of Data.

There had been androids, artificial intelligences, and other forms of synthetic life present in the galaxy prior to Data, and it’s conceivable that the Zhat Vash may have taken action against those as and when they could. But Data represented a step forward in the development of synthetic life, and definitely would have been considered a threat.

There are two possibilities for how the presence of Commodore Oh could be interpreted. She may have chosen to remain deep undercover and stick rigidly to her mission, even if that came at a cost to the Romulan Empire. Alternatively, however, she may have used her position as a spy within the Federation’s ranks to relay information to the Romulans at certain points. This could have been dangerous to her mission, increasing her chances of being caught. The way Commodore Oh and the Zhat Vash were presented for the most part in Star Trek: Picard were as zealots, meaning they seem like the kind of organisation who would be willing to sacrifice the lives of their own people if it advanced their ultimate objective. Indeed, we saw this with their actions on Mars.

Commodore Oh was a major antagonist in *Star Trek: Picard* Season 1.

Let’s look at the timeline first of all. As early as the 22nd Century, Starfleet had encountered what could arguably be considered examples of artificial intelligence. In the Enterprise episode Dead Stop, for example, the ship encounters a fully-automated space station which seems to act of its own volition. There was also a certain Dr Soong in Enterprise’s fourth season, and while he initially worked with genetically enhanced humans, he indicated he would begin research into synthetics.

By the 23rd Century, Starfleet had developed its own AI. Control, as seen in Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, would ultimately go rogue and kill a number of Section 31 operatives as well as commandeer a fleet of ships. There was also Richard Daystrom, who build an AI capable of controlling a starship in The Original Series episode The Ultimate Computer, as well as several different androids, automatons, and AIs seen in that series.

By this point in time, the Romulans were aware of the existence of the Federation and thus might’ve known about some of these developments. The key ones, in my opinion, which may be relevant to the Zhat Vash would be Control and the M-5 computer, both of which went rogue and may have fed into their fears about synthetic life.

Dr Richard Daystrom, namesake of the Daystrom Institute, invented one of Starfleet’s first sentient machines.

We should also note that there are different types of synthetic life. For some reason, the Zhat Vash seem exclusively focused on preventing the rise of androids as opposed to other forms of AI. That’s despite the fact that many of the dangers present when considering out-of-control AI – including the ability to receive the message on Aia – are common to other kinds of artificial life too. Or at least would be in theory. To use Control as an example, if it became aware of Aia and the message there, given how aggressively it pursued Burnham and the USS Discovery it seems certain that it would have taken the same action as Sutra and tried to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers” (the race of super-synths introduced in the finale of Star Trek: Picard). So why the Zhat Vash are okay with some types of AI and not others, and why holograms seem to be exempt, for example, hasn’t really been covered in detail in the series so far.

However, assuming that the Zhat Vash learned of some of these events they would surely have been concerned – at the very least about the possibility of further development and the creation of android bodies for these AI systems to inhabit.

After the mid-23rd Century, we have no real information on synthetic life until Lore was known to be active on Omicron Theta in the late 2320s or 2330s. Within Star Trek: Picard itself – notably the episode Broken Pieces – the crew of La Sirena assume that Commodore Oh first infiltrated Starfleet after Lore’s brother Data was discovered and activated in 2338 – and by implication, that was the time the Zhat Vash became convinced that Starfleet and the Federation were a threat due to their involvement with synthetic life. However, I think we can reasonably assume that the Romulans, and by extension the Zhat Vash, would have at least become aware of the Federation’s other ties to and encounters with artificial life – even if they didn’t learn about these events until afterwards.

Picard and the crew of La Sirena pieced together a basic timeline for Commodore Oh’s infiltration of Starfleet.

The decision to send an operative in undercover is not one that can be done on a whim – it needs careful planning. If Commodore Oh did infiltrate Starfleet beginning in the 2330s, the Zhat Vash would have needed months or years before she joined up to make preparations. Obviously killing Data wasn’t the objective, or she would have been able to do so any almost any point. Nor was her goal to stop someone like Bruce Maddox working on synthetic life, as he seems to have been free to do so for decades right up until the ban.

I would suspect that Commodore Oh may have worked behind the scenes to slow research into synthetics, perhaps trying to delay or sabotage work being done. While we don’t have a lot of evidence to go on for this, the fact that Bruce Maddox was considered by Data to be incapable of preserving his memories in the episode The Measure of a Man could, in retrospect, be seen less as proof of Maddox jumping the gun and trying to work on Data before he was ready, and perhaps as evidence that his work was being hampered without his knowledge by the Zhat Vash’s spy.

This is what I mean by the question “how does Commodore Oh affect other Star Trek stories?” There are several which we can look back on in the aftermath of Star Trek: Picard and wonder how the presence of Commodore Oh affected things.

Let’s start with the Federation’s two biggest forays into the artificial intelligence realm in the 23rd Century – the Control AI and the M-5 computer. Obviously these events took place long before Commodore Oh was embedded within Starfleet, but they may have laid the groundwork for her mission.

Both Control and the M-5 computer went rogue. Their creators – Section 31 and Dr Richard Daystrom – lost control of them, and they began to act on their own, taking aggressive action against organic life. While the Federation will have wanted to cover up what happened – as indeed we see them do at the end of Discovery’s second season – the Romulans are known to be aggressive in their espionage operations, knowing far more about the Federation than vice versa. It would not be an unfair assumption that the Romulans would have come to know what happened in one or both of these cases, and thus it may have been around the mid-23rd Century that the Zhat Vash began preparing to infiltrate the Federation.

Thinking about these two stories from the point of view of the Zhat Vash – who, according to everything we know from Star Trek: Picard will have existed at the time – the events are very concerning. The Federation is barely a century old, with humanity only becoming warp-capable less than a hundred years before that. In a comparatively short span of time, humanity has developed intelligent machines that they went on to lose control over. Humanity must appear, to the Zhat Vash, to be incredibly dangerous, pushing further into unexplored space than any other faction had done, and building an inter-species alliance that even brought an end to the Vulcan-Andorian conflict. For Romulans, who like stability and predictability, the Federation had disrupted a state of affairs that had existed for centuries in the local region of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Would it only be a matter of time before they spotted the octonary star system where Aia is located? That had to be a source of concern.

The next major event would be the activation of Lore and Data, and it’s suggested in Star Trek: Picard that it was Data’s discovery by Starfleet in the late 2330s that prompted the Zhat Vash to send Commodore Oh in undercover. Again if we try to look at this event from their perspective, the Federation’s AI research had now gone beyond shipboard computers and had culminated in the creation of a humanoid android – and it’s this type of synthetic life in particular which seems to concern the Zhat Vash. If Control and the M-5 computer were worrying and had caused them to begin planning, the knowledge that Data existed and had been accepted to Starfleet Academy would have been panic-inducing to the paranoid Zhat Vash.

We should consider the Crystalline Entity’s attack on Omicron Theta and examine it through this new lens. Lore, Data’s brother, was responsible for leading the Entity to Omicron Theta, where it wiped out all life on the planet. But was Lore solely responsible? Star Trek: Picard showed us that the Zhat Vash had the ability to hack into synthetics, and that when they did, the synths could be reprogrammed to turn on their creators. The synths on Mars may have been somewhat basic compared to Data and Lore, but the underlying technology is the same, and it’s at least possible that the Zhat Vash hacked into Lore. This could explain not only the attack by the Crystalline Entity, but Lore’s selfish and evil persona.

Sticking with the Crystalline Entity, it may have simply been a convenient way to destroy the colony while having no fingerprints of Romulan involvement. Omicron Theta was a human colony, so if the Romulans were to simply destroy it from orbit with starships, that could lead to war with the Federation. Yet it makes perfect sense that they would see Dr Soong as his work as a threat and want to take every possible step to stop him.

Next we have Dr Maddox and his work with synthetics. We know that, despite Maddox’s objections, Data was allowed to enrol in Starfleet Academy. Around this time, which was roughly the same time of Commodore Oh’s infiltration, Maddox began working on synthetic life. There are two possibilities for why it took Maddox such a long time (fifteen years, give or take, from Data’s admittance to Starfleet Academy to the events of the episode The Measure of a Man) to make much progress with his work. One is that Maddox is simply not as skilled as Dr Soong was, which is what the episode implies. The other possibility has to be that part of Commodore Oh’s mission was to hamper any synthetic research going on within the Federation, and that she, somehow, undermined his work and slowed it down.

Maddox’s research, which we now know grew to include a whole department consisting of a number of scientists and researchers, may also be the reason why the Zhat Vash chose not to simply kill Data. At the time her mission began, Data was the only known extant android, so killing him would have made sense for the Zhat Vash. It would have been difficult to get at him within Starfleet, but they did have an operative. However, the realisation that the Federation would, sooner or later, be able to recreate the work, coupled with Data being confined within Starfleet and thus unable to strike out on his own and potentially discover Aia, may have focused the mission on stopping synthetic research, slowing it down, and gathering as much information on it as possible. As a Starfleet Officer, Commodore Oh would be well-placed to do those things.

Dr Bruce Maddox was the Federation’s leading synthetics researcher for decades.

The fact that it took Maddox a further twenty years to develop F8 and the other androids present on Mars could be taken as evidence of the Zhat Vash trying to undermine his work. How they could have done this is unclear, and they may have simply got lucky with Maddox not being better at his job. One question that has bugged me in the context of Star Trek’s sensors and replicators was this: how hard could it really have been to recreate Data using what they already knew about him? This was never really addressed on screen, but perhaps we can take the fact that the Federation was unable to do so as further evidence of their work on synthetics being slowed and undermined from within.

One faction I think we can safely assume would have fed into the Zhat Vash’s paranoia about AI would be the Borg. In the 2350s, many scientists in the Federation were working on the assumption that the Borg were a myth, or at least were so distant as to not be a threat. This was during the Romulans’ 50+ years of isolation, so we don’t know whether or not they had any more evidence about the Borg than the Federation. But there are two points of note: Star Trek: Picard established that, as far as anyone knew, the Borg had only ever assimilated one Romulan vessel. But in contrast to that, the region of space controlled by the Borg was vast, and they had vessels in the Beta Quadrant (where the Romulan Empire is largely based) during the 2370s.

Starfleet’s official first encounter with the Borg, as depicted in Q Who from The Next Generation’s second season, may have gone unnoticed by the Romulans, but the Borg invasion a year later, as seen in The Best of Both Worlds certainly will not. 39 Federation starships were destroyed, and an enemy ship made it to within a stone’s throw of Earth itself. If the Romulans had remained in blissful ignorance of the Borg up to this point, they will have known by the late 2360s that they existed – if for no other reason than Commodere Oh herself relaying that information.

When the Federation encountered the Borg the Romulans would have soon come to know about it.

The reason for the Romulans’ interest in the Borg in Star Trek: Picard must surely be twofold. On the one hand, selling the disassembled components is incredibly lucrative, and with the region’s sole supply the Romulans were in firm control of this market. Secondly, however, their fear of synthetic life must have been a major reason for studying the Borg so intently. For all we know, the “Mass Effect Reapers” were meant to be the Borg. But even if that isn’t true – and the Romulans don’t seem to know either way – the Borg, with their half-synthetic bodies and single-minded focus on assimilation, must have been a major cause for concern among the Zhat Vash. This can have only been exacerbated when two ex-Borg returned from the Delta Quadrant aboard the USS Voyager – Seven of Nine and Icheb.

Icheb would later be killed – butchered for his Borg components by an unnamed doctor at a facility run by Bjayzl. But who arranged for this? And why is there such a huge demand for Borg technology in the first place? I had theorised during the first season of Star Trek: Picard that the Romulans may be keeping a majority of components for themselves, but even if that isn’t true they have been studying Borg technology extensively. Icheb’s death seems to take place around the time that the Artifact came under Romulan control, so it’s at least possible that Bjayzl’s buyer was the Zhat Vash – that they were interested in learning about the galaxy’s preeminent synthetic race.

Icheb was murdered so his Borg components could be harvested.

Finally, we have B4. We know from Star Trek: Nemesis that the Romulans acquired B4 and placed his disassembled body in such a location that the Enterprise-E would be the closest ship available to respond to Shinzon. How did they know so much about Federation ship movements? Is it at least possible that Commodore Oh was relaying information to the Romulans at key moments like this? The possibility cannot be discounted – and this could even explain why, in Star Trek: First Contact, the Enterprise-E is assigned to the Neutral Zone. Perhaps someone in Starfleet had an inkling that a Romulan spy was in their midst.

Sticking with this theme of Commodore Oh being more of a general spy than simply a Zhat Vash agent, there are a number of Federation-Romulan encounters that she may have been involved in. Or, conversely, we can take the failure of certain Romulan plots as evidence that she was deliberately not involving herself!

For example, Sela’s attempt to interfere in the Klingon Civil War in Redemption ended in total failure – thanks in no small part to Data. A large Federation fleet deployed a sensor net to detect cloaked Romulan ships, thus preventing Romulan aid to the Duras faction. This was a major move on the part of the Romulans, and would have shifted the balance of power in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants had it succeeded. The Federation-Klingon alliance would have evaporated, and the Federation would be facing a Klingon-Romulan alliance alone. Sela’s second plan, to conquer Vulcan in the episode Unification, similarly failed, though this was due to the actions of Data, Picard, and Spock on Romulus and may not have been something Commodore Oh could have done much about – except perhaps warn the Romulans that they were coming.

We can further see this lack of involvement in Face of the Enemy, where Counsellor Troi impersonates a Tal Shiar operative and aids in the successful defection of a senior Romulan government official. A Federation defector to the Romulans is also successful in his efforts to return to the Federation in the same episode.

There is also In The Pale Moonlight from Deep Space Nine. In this story, Sisko essentially lies, cheats, and covers up murders to drag the Romulans into the Dominion War – a war that they had no need to participate in. At the end of the episode Sisko deletes the log in which he’d detailed his actions, and with his disappearance into the realm of the Prophets, only Garak remained as someone who knew everything that happened. But the trail of evidence existed, and could have been pieced together by a Romulan operative within the Federation. Sisko may have deleted his log, but as we’ve seen in other Star Trek stories, deleting data isn’t a straightforward process, and as we saw in The Undiscovered Country, it’s possible for logs to be downloaded and transmitted via subspace, even to foreign powers. Kirk’s own captain’s log was used against him in his trial in that film.

A Romulan senator was assassinated as part of a scheme to drag them into the Dominion War.

However, we could take the Romulans’ successes in episodes like Message in a Bottle – where they are able to commandeer a brand-new prototype Starfleet vessel – as evidence that someone within the Federation was feeding information to them.

So where does all of this leave us when it comes to Commodore Oh?

I feel positively certain that the Zhat Vash would have come to know about what happened with the Control AI, not least because it decimated Section 31. Whether they would have come to know about the M-5 computer is unclear, but even if they didn’t, the Federation’s research into AI would have been troubling to the Zhat Vash at least by the mid-23rd Century.

A major candidate for their interference is Lore and the attack on the Omicron Theta colony. This fits with how the Romulans and Zhat Vash operate, it fits with them knowing how to hack positronic brains, and if there was only one successful android builder (Dr Soong) and two extant androids (Data and Lore), the best course of action from the Zhat Vash perspective may have been to exterminate the colony and prevent that knowledge spreading.

When that failed, and when Dr Maddox had begun his own work on synthetic life, building up a team of scientists, eradicating the problem was clearly far less practical. Killing Data would have only set back the Federation’s research in a small way, and it may have been decided that the best course of action was to work from within to slow them down.

Commodore Oh aboard her ship – finally exposed as a spy.

Commodore Oh doesn’t seem to have actively interfered on behalf of the Romulans at key points where having an embedded operative could have been massively useful to the Romulan Empire. To me, the Federation’s successes against the Romulans in these stories implies that Commodore Oh was laser-focused on her own mission, and felt that stepping outside of her mission parameters, even to save Romulan lives in the short-term, was too great a risk.

Finally, when Dr Maddox was ultimately successful in creating synthetic life on a larger scale, and the rollout of F8 and the other androids went ahead, Commodore Oh felt that the time had come to act. Destroying a fleet intended to help the Romulans was simply unavoidable, because that’s where the synths were. Mars may not have been her first choice of target, but it was the only available target, and with synthetic life research and development accelerating, the time had come to act.

That’s how I see the timeline, and when taking a step back and looking at Star Trek as a whole, I don’t feel that the creation and retroactive inclusion of the Zhat Vash and Commodore Oh causes any major plot holes. Sometimes inserting characters and factions can have this effect, but in this case, I think we can find a way for episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager to play out in such a way that is consistent. The Zhat Vash and Commodore Oh were depicted as zealots, and it would make sense that someone with that kind of single-mindedness would be 100% okay with allowing her own government’s plans to fail and to see Romulans die in order to remain on mission. The Zhat Vash were playing an incredibly long game – Commodore Oh was embedded in Starfleet for over half a century, and even by the standards of long-lived Romulans, that’s a very long time.

While Commodore Oh’s plan succeeded, in the long run the development of synthetic life couldn’t be prevented, and it will be up to future Star Trek stories to show what implications, if any, that may have for the Romulans, the Federation, and the synths themselves.

So this was a different type of article, a deeper dive into a single story point and how it can be seen to effect – or not effect – other stories in the franchise.

I liked the Zhat Vash overall, though the inconsistent way they were referred to throughout Star Trek: Picard’s first season wasn’t great, and I question their almost-immediate decision to withdraw in the finale. They brought a whole new dimension to the Romulans, and one aspect of that is that we can look back at other stories in the franchise and think about how the Zhat Vash may have been involved. As someone who loves Star Trek, this kind of theory-crafting is a lot of fun. I consider the ideas outlined above to be at least plausible, but remember to take all of these fan theories with a grain of salt!

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard and all other episodes, films, and series mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.