# The Whole Deal With Picard and Locutus **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2003, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758 "2003-01-05T09:05:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/21 "2003-01-06T06:11:24Z")
He is just a _wee_ bit Captain Ahab for a while, isn’t he? 🙂 The opening of that movie may also be what **DoctorJ** is thinking of. Picard has a nightmare in which his remaining Borg implants “reactivate” or… something. I don’t know if they were ever mentioned in another TV episode, though. At the end of the second Locutus epsiode, Picard still has at least one cosmetic Borg thingie stuck to his face, or p’raps his temple, doesn’t he? I’m pretty sure he had a prosthetic of some kind stuck to him, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/22 "2003-01-06T06:52:08Z")
_There. Are. **FOUR**. Lights!_ Very good episode. Despite airing during one of the more mediocre seasons, “Chain of Command” may’ve well been one of the best shows of the entire series, Mephisto. Good call. ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/23 "2003-01-06T07:01:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skeezix \* > \*\*At the end of the second Locutus epsiode, Picard still has at least one cosmetic Borg thingie stuck to his face, or p’raps his temple, doesn’t he? I’m pretty sure he had a prosthetic of some kind stuck to him, in any case. \*\* It was actually a rather large bandage, if I recall correctly. Seems out of place, considering how easily they seem to be able to heal wounds. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/24 "2003-01-06T07:11:00Z")
_Chain of Command_ is one of my favorite, and most disturbing episodes of TNG ever. After the Cardassian captor relates the story about growing up hungry and abused when he was six years old, Picard, half-dead, manages to say: “Despite all you have done to me, I still find you a pityable man.” Shit. Anyhoo, I have all the TNG episodes on DVD, so I will attempt a detailed synopsis of what happens during _Best of Both Worlds_. In the first half, the Borg beam directly onto the bridge of The Enterprise and fight some of the crewmen. In the midst of the shenanigans, one borg grabs Picard, injects him with some nanites and they all beam back to the cube. There, his assimilation is begun (it takes a lot longer than it did in _First Contact_). He begins talking to the Enterprise about being Locutus and stuff. In the second part, Riker et al realize they can’t use any of the battle plans they discussed with Picard because now the Borg now all about them. Also, they can’t beam Locutus out of the cube because of the Borg’s shields. So Riker orders the saucer to be seperated and starts shooting at the cube with the battle-section. Meanwhile, a shuttle with, (I think) Data and Worf is launched from the saucer section. The shuttle drives through the Borg’s shields (on momentum only, to prevent leaving a sensor trail) and then they beam into the Cube to find Locutus. They grab him and transport back to the shuttle, which drives out of the Borg’s shields, then they transport back to the Enterprise just as the Borg blow up the shuttle. Once there, Beverly determines that she could remove the Borg implants, but not while Picard’s brain was still connected to the collective, as that would probably kill him. Data decides to try to hook himself into Picard to access the collective so they can learn about it. Data tries to implant commands to power down or disable the weapon systems, but all the essential command divisions are protected by access codes that Data cannot crack. Just then, Troi senses that _Picard_, not Locutus, is trying to communicate with Data. Picard says, “Sleep, Data, sleep.” Data interprets this as a cue to implant a command to the collective to enter their regeneration cycle. This command is not protected by an access code and it works; the cube shuts down just before attacking Earth. The Cube, realizing there has apparently been a malfunction, self-destructs. Once the cube blew itself up, Picard’s mind is free and Beverly can remove the implants. Later on in _First Contact_ it seems that Picard was never _fully_ removed from the Collective, as he can sense them coming and Data is able to contact him via the Borg mind at the end of the second act. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/25 "2003-01-06T11:32:52Z")
What I don’t get is why the Borg Queen keeps reappearing, no matter how many times she gets blown up. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/26 "2003-01-06T13:12:26Z")
Because Berman and Braga are hacks. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/27 "2003-01-06T13:34:22Z")
I don’t get why they have a Borg Queen in the first place. I thought that the Borg were supposed to make all of their decisions communally via their telepathic links. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/28 "2003-01-06T13:53:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > \*\*What I don’t get is why the Borg Queen keeps reappearing, no matter how many times she gets blown up. \*\* It could be that there is a borg queen for each Cube, or that the borg create a new queen each time one gets blowed up. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/29 "2003-01-06T14:10:46Z")
But in the movie, Picard himself asked why she didn’t get blowed up real good, and she dismissed him with some comment like, “don’t be so three dimensional in your thinking”. Huh? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Solid\_Stang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Solid\_Stang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solid_Stang)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/30 "2003-01-06T14:26:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > \*\*But in the movie, Picard himself asked why she didn’t get blowed up real good, and she dismissed him with some comment like, “don’t be so three dimensional in your thinking”. Huh? 😕 \*\* I had to sign up just to respond to this. The queen is 4 dimensional like she exists as the borgs group mind. She is supposedly the mind. Can exists in any form throughout the borg network. She took form as the queen body in First Contact and later episodes. In trek reality, the only way she could be destroyed is to destroy the borg utterly. I think the best ST: TNG episode that hits the hardest emotionally is the one where a probe from a distant planet zaps picard. He then wakes up on a planet and lives out his life trying to reach the stars and look for his ship. The planet he his on is dying and the send up a rocket which has the probe that zaps him on the bridge. (Basically he’s back in time). The probe sends it message by making people remember the planet by reliving the memories of others. What was cool was the symbolizm with the flute which he was seen playing constantly throughout his life on the planet. But when he wakes up on the Enterprise he still has the flute (haven’t figured this out yet). I don’t remember the episode title though. ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/31 "2003-01-06T14:36:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > \*\*and she dismissed him with some comment like, “don’t be so three dimensional in your thinking”. Huh? 😕 \*\* To me, this smacks of **Q’s** insult to Picard in _All Good Things_: “_Tisk Tisk Tisk_ Jean Luc, must you always be so _linear_?” The implication being that the Borg Collective, by nature of their hive mind, advanced technolgy and long distance subspace communication, simply do not percieve the fundemental concept of “location” the same way humans do. The Borg Queen may not be a person as we know it. She may exist enitrely in software, a manifestation of the Hive Mind’s organizational structure. The body of her that we see is merely the tool that she uses to intereact with the physical world. It’s conceivable that on each Borg Cube, there is an advanced Replicator/Transporter Buffer specifically set up to replicate a Borg Queen Body on demand, which she then downloads a version of herself into. Should that one body meet an untimely end, she just creates a new body somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/32 "2003-01-06T14:40:37Z")
Beaten by a first poster. Oh, and Welcome to the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![bafaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bafaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bafaa)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/33 "2003-01-06T16:31:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Solid Stang \* > \*\*But when he wakes up on the Enterprise he still has the flute (haven’t figured this out yet). I don’t remember the episode title though. \*\* The episode was called _The Inner Light_. It’s one of my favorites. The flute was found in the probe/satellite after it powered down. ---
**Author:** ![Solid\_Stang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Solid\_Stang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solid_Stang)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/34 "2003-01-06T16:59:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SC\_Wolf \* > \*\*Beaten by a first poster. > > Oh, and Welcome to the SDMB. \*\* Your explanation was better. I kinda rambled, it gets difficult to explain properly. Thanks for the episode name “The Inner Light.” That’s the one, I forgot about where they found the flute. Again, one of my favorites. I love the flute song he plays and especially the duet he does in a later episode with some chick he likes. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/35 "2003-01-06T21:17:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aesiron \* > _There. Are. **FOUR**. Lights!_ > > Very good episode. Despite airing during one of the more mediocre seasons, “Chain of Command” may’ve well been one of the best shows of the entire series, Mephisto. Good call. Except it was a blatant rip-off of “1984” - “How many fingers am I holding up?” And did we really have to see Picard’s naked ass? Talk about being traumatized… And for what it’s worth, I recall the final scene of the Locutus episode being Picard talking to Counselor Troi and breaking down with grief over his experience. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/36 "2003-01-06T21:57:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > \*\*Except it was a blatant rip-off of “1984” - “How many fingers am I holding up?” And did we really have to see Picard’s naked ass? Talk about being traumatized… > > And for what it’s worth, I recall the final scene of the Locutus episode being Picard talking to Counselor Troi and breaking down with grief over his experience. \*\* I remember that at the end of that episode, after he’s been rescued and the Borg cube blows up, Picard returns to his office adjacent the bridge for a nice cup of Earl Grey. He’s looking out the window at Earth, starts to take a sip, and then stops. There’s some slightly ominous music, and the show ends with him staring vacantly out the window. You know something is wrong, but it’s played subtly. I thought it was well done. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/37 "2003-01-06T22:17:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > You know something is wrong, but it’s played subtly. I thought it was well done. Oh, yeah - I remember that part now. I agree, it was well done. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/38 "2003-01-06T22:26:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Except it was a blatant rip-off of “1984” - “How many fingers am I holding up?” Really? I’m not much one for twentieth century classics but I enjoyed Animal Farm in High School so I might give 1984 a read. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/39 "2003-01-06T23:55:05Z")
I maintain that the Borg Queen is the Ilia probe from _ST:TMP_ gone mad because V’Ger’s fusion with Decker did not transport them to the higher plane of existence hoped for. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758/40 "2003-01-07T00:04:43Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* [ul][li]Borg never refer to themselves as “I” or get individual names (as oposed to numeric designations), unless some really serious problem is happening.[/li][li]Cutting a drone off from the collective does not give them instant individuality.[/li][li]Borg implants are **not** easily removed. At least, not all of them.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] They did at least try to explain why Locutus was unique, in _Star Trek: First Contact_. He was never meant just to be another drone; the Borg were trying something different with him. However, that doesn’t keep Picard from acting like he knows what the other newly-assimilated crew members are going through. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-whole-deal-with-picard-and-locutus/146758.md?page=3)