The Psychology of Dr Agnes P Jurati (Pt. 1)
[Content Warning for psychological trauma, manipulation, discussion of murder, and spoilers for the entirety of Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard.]
Over the last two years, ever since the end of Star Trek: Picard’s first season, I’ve seen a lot of people criticize the character of Agnes Jurati. A common refrain has been that people don’t understand how Rios, Picard, and the others could trust or forgive her after they found out she killed Maddox, and that we should have seen her face prosecution for her terrible, inexcusable crime.
On some level, I understand where these people are coming from. The show barely contradicts this point of view. Agnes herself says she’s going to turn herself in to the authorities, and there is only a single instant where someone speaks up to defend her. Briefly.
However, I think this is a deep disservice to the complex character of Agnes Jurati. When you actually sit down and look at the situation she found herself in, I don’t think the way the show and many viewers treat her is fully justified. Let me explain.
The story of season 1 as seen through the eyes of Agnes Jurati goes something like this:
Doctor Agnes P Jurati, Earth’s leading expert on synthetic life, is working at the Daystrom Institute in a research field that has been all but banned because she and her colleagues developed the androids that went rogue and caused unimaginable destruction on Mars.
One day, Admiral Picard, retired, drops by her lab and explains that her former mentor, Bruce Maddox, managed to build two sentient, flesh-and-blood synths, but one of them has been killed by Romulans.
Jurati gives Picard all the information she can on Maddox’s work, so he can try and contact him. She has tried it herself, but never had any success.
Shortly after this, Jurati is approached by the head of Starfleet Security, Commodore Oh. Oh tells her that the creation of sentient synthetic life is a threshold, similar to breaking the warp barrier. History has shown that when a society reaches this threshold, a force of über-synths, powerful beyond all comprehension, shows up and causes massive devastation, bordering on the destruction of all organic life.
Oh has evidence for this, in the form of the Admonition. A terrible, devastating record of the history of an ancient civilization who experienced this devastation and left a warning so nobody else would fall victim to the terrible über-synths that destroyed nearly every member of this ancient civilization.
Oh not only shows Jurati a recording of this history, but dumps it into her brain via non-consensual mind meld, a procedure that in itself is extremely dangerous and can have devastating consequences on the human psyche.
Oh then proceeds to tell Jurati that the only way to prevent this devastation from happening again and this time destroying the Federation, is by making sure they never reach this terrible threshold. This means they need to destroy the existing sentient synth, Dahj’s sister, and need to take out Bruce Maddox.
Jurati has proven that she is willing to abide by the law that bans the creation of androids. Bruce Maddox, however, has proven the opposite. He went into hiding and continued his work despite the ban on synthetics. If a galactic treaty was not enough to prevent Maddox from creating sentient synthetic life, no order from Starfleet or reasoning from Jurati ever will. If he isn’t stopped, and permanently, his work will alert the über-synths who will rain down destruction on all organic life in the galaxy.
Oh tells Jurati to swallow a viridium tracker and follow Picard on his quest to find Bruce Maddox and the second synth. Picard has been turned down by Starfleet, and they won’t be able to track him easily. But Jurati is uniquely positioned to fulfil this mission. She knows Maddox, she’ll be able to find out from him where the second synth sister is hiding, she’ll be able to infiltrate his lab and destroy his research — or tell Starfleet Security the location of his lab so they can do the rest. She can come close to the second synth and deactivate and destroy her, too.
Jurati, overwhelmed by the terrible vision of history that is about to repeat, believes Oh and agrees to go on this mission.
For good measure, Oh puts in a psychic block that would prevent Agnes from talking about the Admonition — probably under the guise of protecting her from exposing the mission if the stress gets too extreme or something along those lines. As Oh said, this mission is going to require terrible sacrifices from Jurati — but she’s doing it in the name of Starfleet and to prevent the extinction of potentially all sentient organic life in the galaxy.
Presumably that same day, Jurati goes to La Barre to convince Picard to take her along on his mission. (I assume it’s the same day because she has changed her jacket but not her shirt.) She hasn’t packed anything, she might not be expecting to leave right then, depending on what Oh told her.
As she arrives, she walks in on a Romulan death squad attacking Picard. She grabs a weapon and kills one of the Romulans, saving Picard’s life. As terrible and shocking as that is, it perversely gives her one more argument in her arsenal to convince the Admiral to take her along on the trip, so she rolls with it.
She manages to get onto La Sirena, where Raffi reveals they are headed to Freecloud, where they’ll find Bruce Maddox.
The journey to Freecloud (via Vashti) takes anywhere between a week and two weeks. Jurati is in deep psychological distress, but she manages to compartmentalize. She pushes aside her devastation and finds ways to still have moments of fun and levity. Partially, I’m sure, to appear innocent, naive, and unobtrusive, but partially out of a desire to feel something, anything, beside devastation, panic, and pain. So, she waters the plants she finds in sickbay, she flirts with the roguishly handsome captain, she jokes around with the rest of the crew, and she tries not to think too hard about the existential pain of living with the consciousness of death.
Actually, the roguishly handsome captain, who is trying desperately to pretend he’s unlikeable and misanthropic, is really warm and kind, and also handsome and kind of funny. Hanging out, joking around, and flirting with him is a good way to feel a few fleeting moments of much-needed happiness and levity.
The closer they get to Freecloud, the more nervous Jurati gets. When they prepare for their big Stardust City caper, she’s already a little subdued, and not really in a mood to learn how to operate the transporter controls. Obviously, she’s an expert in AI and robotics. Figuring out how to transport people is not hard. But it gives her a convenient excuse to blame her ever-increasing nervousness on.
This comes in handy when her psychological distress becomes extreme enough to trigger the ship’s EMH. It’s debatable whether he only notices her distress so late because Rios has changed the EMH activation algorithm (actively or through years of yelling and rebukes) so Emil won’t activate for every occurrence of bad PTSD symptoms (heavily hinted by the showrunners), whether Jurati was the one meddling with his activation sequences, or whether it has something to do with the deletions Rios made in all the Emergency Holograms’ codes. Whatever it may be, if anyone asks why the EMH activated, Jurati can blame it on nerves about transporter duty and worrying about Bruce.
The others actually manage to rescue Maddox, and he gives Picard the location of the second synth sister. Jurati, sensing her opportunity, sends Picard away and uses the fact that Maddox is badly injured to kill him in a way that will look like natural causes. His injuries were just to grave. There was nothing she could do. She got an MD, once upon a time, before she went into the field of synthetic consciousness. Picard and the others trust her medical knowledge enough to leave Maddox in her care, rather than activating the EMH. They are not going to question her.
When the EMH activates again, Jurati sends him away, and finishes the job Starfleet sent her to do. It is a small way for her to atone for her part in the devastation synths have caused — and are going to cause if she cannot prevent it.
Afterwards, Jurati is devastated. Outwardly, she manages to keep it together; uses the fact that she had an affair with Maddox once upon a time (An Issue™ onto itself) to explain why it’s hitting her so hard. Beyond “he was my colleague and mentor, I was unable to save him, he died before my eyes”, which would be horrible enough for anyone. The others don’t question her. Raffi might have been suspicious, but Raffi is lost in a mire of snakeleaf, liquor, and misery.
She knows she needs to hold on until they find the second synth, because she needs to finish her mission. Starfleet needs her to destroy the second sentient synth sister in order to prevent galaxy-wide calamity. But the weight of her actions (not just the two killings, but also her part in creating the synths, her life’s work, and knowing it will mean the end of all), and the psychological and neurological trauma of the Admonition are starting to wear her down.
It’s getting much harder to find even brief moments of distraction or relief. When Jurati happens upon Rios one night, playing football, looking stunning, she almost falls in bed with him because she’s lonely and scared and she just wants to feel something. Anything. But she stops herself, because that would probably be a bad idea. Except then this man turns around and instead of being annoyed at her pulling back or leaving her to her misery, he’s incredibly kind and caring and warm. And it no longer feels like a quick fling, this feels like a genuine connection. It’s probably still a bad idea, but she goes for it anyway.
The next morning, they arrive at the Artifact. Jurati is prepared to go on board and get Soji out (or maybe find a way to dispose of her there and then), but her conviction is wavering. Oh told her this mission would demand sacrifices, and she is realizing the sacrifices are too big. She doesn’t want to be the one who has to kill Soji. She doesn’t want to be the one who has to save the world. That’s why she’s relieved when she can’t go to the Artifact with Picard.
After everything goes to hell on the cube, she cracks for a moment and nearly gives herself away when she asks Raffi and Rios whether they really want to go to Nepenthe. Because she is done. She doesn’t want to do this any more.
In that moment, Raffi is kind to her and takes pity on her, getting her cake and chocolate milk, being nice and understanding.
On some level, this makes Jurati feel better. Here, on this ship, for the first time in a long time, she has felt that she is part of something. Of a crew. But it’s all a lie.
This becomes painfully clear when the Romulan scout ship reappears as they’re trying to get to Nepenthe. Initially, Rios and Raffi assumed the scout had simply been following them when they were allowed to leave the Artifact, and Rios was sure he’d be able to lose their tail. Except the scout ship reappears. Almost like he is tracking them, somehow.
And suddenly, Jurati starts to suspect that the reason the scout sip was able to find them again, is her. That he is following her tracker. The tracker Commodore Oh gave her.
And the implications of that hit her hard enough to make her throw up her cake. If a Tal Shiar agent is following her tracker, that means that, at the very least, Starfleet is cooperating with the Tal Shiar. It means Commodore Oh has passed along the information of how to track La Sirena to the Romulans. Or, though this is truly, horribly absurd, Commodore Oh might be a Romulan agent herself, and Jurati wasn’t working on orders from Starfleet at all. Either way, she has been lied to and manipulated from the start.
The enormity of this revelation leaves Jurati shaken, but perhaps she is wrong. Perhaps their tail was just lucky, or he tracked them some other way. Commodore Oh is the Head of Starfleet Security! She can’t be working with the Romulans, the Federation’s oldest enemy, right? She can’t possible be a Romulan agent, can she?
Now, Rios is taking her to sickbay, being kind, being understanding… And he has no reason to suspect Agnes could have anything to do with their being tailed. If it were Agnes, that would mean the Romulans must have been tracking her since Earth. It would mean the attack on Château Picard was faked, because the Tal Shiar wanted to track Picard, not kill him. It is too enormous to consider, much more likely that someone slipped Raffi a tracker, or someone is blackmailing her through that mystery kid of hers.
But it’s not Raffi. Jurati cannot shake the thought, more certain with every minute, that it’s not Raffi. It’s her. The Romulans are tracking her.
And then their scout ship returns. And Jurati knows. She knows it was all a lie. Commodore Oh betrayed her. Used her. Manipulated her. Without realizing it, she has been working for the Romulans all along. And now they are tracking her to find Soji.
And she still believes the creation of sentient synths could bring about horrible devastation. Might destroy all sentient organic life in the galaxy. She has seen irrefutable evidence that it has happened before. But she also knows she has been ruthlessly manipulated, brainwashed, and used. And she is going to put an end to that.
She replicates a substance that she believes will deactivate the viridium in her system. If the Romulans are following her, this will get them off La Sirena’s track. It might also kill her, but at this point, that’s a price she’s willing to pay.
And so, Agnes P Jurati breaks through the brainwashing and manipulation and puts and end to her involvement in Commodore Oh’s plot to exterminate any trace of sentient synths in this galaxy. Come what may, end of the world or no, Agnes is done being used.
The aftermath of this is… a lot. Picard doesn’t believe that Commodore Oh could be working with the Romulans and he blames Jurati for killing Maddox. And he should. She was working for the Romulans. She didn’t know it, of course, she thought she was acting on orders of Starfleet, but she wasn’t. Or it was Starfleet that was cooperating with the Tal Shiar. Either way, it was wrong and she deserves to be punished for it.
And then she meets Soji. And Soji is a marvel! More beautiful, more human, more perfectly imperfect than Jurati could have ever imagined. And any thought of trying to destroy her or anyone like her becomes preposterous. They are people. They have a right to exist. And there has to be a way to prevent whatever happened to the ancient civilization from happening again without killing Soji and her people. And if there isn’t, if destruction is inevitable, then let the chips fall where they may. Jurati is done. She is going to turn herself in and that’s that.
And then she finds out all the rest of it. That this conspiracy goes so much further than she ever imagined. The Tal Shiar — or rather the Zhat Vash — agent Oh was not only responsible for the murder of Dahj, she was ready to destroy Rios’s entire Starfleet ship, the ibn Majid, just because they had discovered sentient synths. And worse, much, much worse than that: She and the rest of her sisterhood orchestrated the devastating loss of life on Mars. The event Jurati has probably felt at least a little bit responsible for for fourteen years. It had nothing to do with anything she did after all. It was all Oh.
And even after all this, after finding out how thoroughly she has been manipulated, after finding out the depth to which she has been violated (beyond the non-consensual mind-meld and having the Admonition dumped in her brain), Jurati is still prepared to face the authorities. She has her bag packed and is ready to turn herself in — except they haven’t landed at Deep Space 12, they suddenly find themselves in orbit over Coppelius, home of the synths.
And although on Coppelius Jurati is faced with more attempts at guilt-tripping and manipulation, this time from Soong and Sutra, she is using the inner strength that has kept her going through weeks of absolute abject horror, to resist them. To decide for herself that she won’t support the synths’ plan to summon creatures that will end all organic life in the galaxy. That she won’t condone murder because ‘there is no alternative’ and ‘it’s us or them’. She has learned from her experiences, and she is going to trust in Picard and his ability to find a different way.
And in the end, this trust is rewarded.
So, this is my take on Agnes P Jurati, MD, PhD, Earth’s leading expert in synthetic life, adorable nerd, victim of horrendous abuse and manipulation, beacon of perseverance, saviour of Picard and potentially all organic life in the galaxy. And this is why, in the end, I don’t think any of the takes decrying her as manipulative, duplicitous, evil, morally worse than any of the other characters we see killing people throughout Star Trek: Picard (to say nothing of wider Star Trek canon), are missing the full picture. As I pointed out at the start, I do empathize with that view, in my opinion the show failed to give us even a brief acknowledgement of the sheer depth of Oh’s betrayal where Jurati is concerned. But I will still vehemently defend her as a good character, and insist that it makes sense for Rios, Raffi, and especially Picard, who knows a thing or two about being forced to kill people against your better judgement, are willing to trust and forgive her.
