Here’s a question for the avid Star Trek: Picard viewers among us: why did Bruce Maddox send Soji to work on the Artifact?
I’ve been pondering this for quite some time now, trying to sort out what, exactly, Maddox’s plan was for Soji, and so far, I’ve mostly been puzzled. The obvious answers don’t actually hold that much water once you really look at them, but I’ve been struggling to find any alternative explanations. So, I decided to look at what exactly the show tells us about Maddox’s motives and how, if at all, I can make sense of them.
[Edit: I originally started this with a timeline of Maddox’s actions and whereabouts from around the time of the synth ban to the beginning of Season 1, but given how incredibly, incredibly long this essay ended up being, I will post that separately.]
SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF ST: PICARD SEASON 1 AHEAD!
So. Why does Maddox send Soji to the Artifact?
The closest we get to an explanation of Maddox’s motives is his conversation with Picard, after the Sirena crew saves him from Bjayzl on Freecloud.
When Picard asks why he sent Soji to the Artifact, Maddox says: “For the same reason I sent her sister to Earth. To find out the truth.” and when prompted, he specifies: “[The truth] about the ban.”
Maddox: “There are lies upon lies. They’re hiding something.”
Picard: “Who?”
Maddox: “I don’t know. The same ones who were hunting her.”
Picard: “The Romulans?”
Maddox: “Not just them. I think the Federation are involved. That’s what I sent them to find out.”
There’s a lot of information here. Maddox sent Dahj and Soji to Earth and to the Artifact respectively to investigate the Synth Ban, which implies investigating the Attack on Mars, since that was the inciting incident for the ban. Maddox seems to think that the synths didn’t go rogue due to some faulty programming or glitch, but that someone had a hand in it, and that they’ve been covering it up ever since. He suspects someone or some group from the Federation was involved, but so were outside forces.
It makes sense to send Dahj to Earth to investigate the Federation connection (I will go into more detail on Dahj’s assignment in the upcoming timeline post). That would mean Soji’s task was to find out who else was involved.
After watching Picard the first time, the impression I came away with, especially given the conversation with Picard mentioned above, was that obviously, Maddox suspected the Romulans to be culpable in some way. It’s the logical conclusion, right? He has Soji work on the Artifact to find out more about Ramdha, how she’s connected to the Attack on Mars, and whether the Romulans had a hand in that event or in the cover-up following it.
Except the more I thought about it, the less plausible it seemed.
While he was working at the Daystrom Institute, Maddox helped build the synths that became Utopia Planitia’s workforce. Being so closely involved in the Romulan resettlement, he knew there were voices in the Federation and Starfleet that objected to the rescue effort from the start and might have taken action. By contrast, suspecting the Romulans themselves to be involved in the destruction of the armada built to rescue their own people seems like a much greater leap of logic.
This in itself is not sufficient proof Maddox wouldn’t have believed it possible, though. From how Agnes Jurati and Altan Soong talk about him, it sounds like Maddox got obsessed and possibly a little paranoid in the years after the ban. It’s entirely possible he found reasons why one Romulan faction or another might have sabotaged the rescue effort for political gain, isolationist sentiment, or animus toward Starfleet. And he would not be the only one coming to this conclusion.
However, if he was suspicious of the Romulans, why would he send Soji to the Artifact of all places?
A Romulan Connection?
If Maddox’s plan was to have Soji investigate the connection between the Romulans and the Attack on Mars, he would have sent her somewhere she could gain access to sensitive Romulan records, and where she could make the acquaintance of important or well-connected Romulans and exploit them to gain information. He should have placed her in some kind of diplomatic service, maybe working for a Federation ambassador to the Romulan Free State and whatever other organizations have succeeded the Romulan Star Empire. Perhaps he might have made her part of a humanitarian mission, working in the resettled border worlds or in the collapsed Neutral Zone. But the Artifact?
About the only thing the Artifact has going for it in this regard is that it’s a place where Romulans and Federation citizens work unusually close together. This might make it easier for Soji to gain access to their critical computer systems and classified records. However, for this exact reason, I imagine the Artifact must be somewhat sequestered from whatever systems the Romulans use to store and transmit sensitive data. You wouldn’t want easy access to your Tal Shiar communications network within reach of a mass of Federation citizens and unpredictable xBs.
At this stage in my considerations, I realized something: At no point in season 1 do we actually get confirmation that Soji is on the Borg cube to investigate the Romulans. I only assumed she was, because before we even meet Soji, we find out that the Romulans are caught up in the Big Mystery of the show somehow. We don’t learn the full extent of the conspiracy until later, but from a viewer’s perspective it makes sense for Soji to be looking for more information on a possible Romulan involvement. We want more information on the Romulan involvement.
But, if you take another look at Maddox’s discussion with Picard, it’s actually the latter who brings up the Romulans. Maddox says he doesn’t know who’s behind it all. And as outlined above, if he really wanted to investigate this angle, he wouldn’t have sent his spy somewhere so out of the way and disconnected from Romulan political power and historical records.
So, if Maddox didn’t send Soji to spy on the Romulans, there are essentially only two things I can see that might make the Artifact relevant for his investigation of the Attack on Mars.
Cube Collapse and Synth Sabotage
The first possibility is that Maddox thinks whatever caused the Borg cube now known as the Artifact to lose its connection to the collective somehow also caused the synths to go rogue on Mars. Whether it was some virus, third party sabotage, or even some unknown cosmic power, it caused the cube’s submatrix to collapse and the synths to rebel against their masters.
At first glance, there might be some evidence that this is Maddox’s reasoning. We don’t know the exact timing of Ramdha’s initiation into the Zhat Vash, her failed assimilation, and the Mars Attack. The title card on the flashback to Ramdha experiencing the Admonition says it happened fourteen years ago, same as the Attack on Mars…
… but from the dialogue we know the initiation happens before the Zhat Vash carry out that attack.
The xB we see Soji help to reclaim (which convinces Hugh to let her talk to Ramdha) is said to have been in regenestasis for fourteen years.
If we assume that’s the date at which the cube broke, it must have happened relatively quickly after Ramdha’s initiation, right around the same time as the Mars attack, or possibly a few months later. Given this, the timing of the cube breaking might make it seem connected to the rogue synths in the eyes of devoted conspiracy theorists, even if it happened nowhere near Mars.
We know that Soji is very intent on finding out why the cube broke. When she has her conversation with Ramdha, she starts out as intrigued anthropologist Doctor Asha, exchanging ideas about Romulan mythology news. However, the moment she starts asking about whether Ramdha knows why the cube severed its connection to the collective, she suddenly turns into an intense Android On A Mission.
Afterwards, Soji can’t explain where she got the information about Ramdha’s ship, the Shaenor, being the last to be assimilated by the cube, and it’s not clear that she knows why she was asking about it in the first place. This would make a lot of sense if Maddox sent her in to find the reason behind the cube breaking because he suspects whatever caused its submatrix to collapse might also be what caused the synths to go rogue.
However, there are some holes in this explanation. Most glaringly: If Soji’s main aim was to investigate the cube collapse, why did it take her months if not years to get around to interviewing Ramdha? It’s not entirely clear how long Soji has been working on the Artifact at the beginning of season 1. We know Maddox created her fake identity three years ago, but how much time passed between then and her beginning her assignment is less clear. From the way it’s presented on the show, though, it sounds like it has been quite a while.
Finding out about the Shaenor‘s connection to the cube’s destruction would have taken some time. It can’t be easy trying to break through massive Romulan security and Borg encryption without getting caught or doing anything so obvious that your “I am totally human”-algorithms couldn’t suppress the memory of it. We also know that by the start of season 1, Soji has been asking Hugh for a while to give her an interview with Ramdha.
It’s clear that these investigations couldn’t happen overnight, and Soji needed some time to get to the stage where we meet up with her. Several months if not years seems a little excessive though.
And again, this line of argument completely depends on the exact timing of the cube becoming the Artifact in relation to the Attack on Mars. If, through some enormous cosmic coincidence, these two events happened one soon after the other or even overlapped, it might cause Maddox to see them as connected. However, we don’t know if that was the case, and I think there is another explanation that better fits the facts and events presented in season 1.
Everything’s Coming Up Borg
If Soji is investigating neither the Romulans, nor some interstellar reason for the cube collapse, there is only really one explanation left for her assignment: Maddox doesn’t think that whatever created the Artifact Formerly Known as Borg Cube is connected to the Attack on Mars — he thinks the Borg themselves are. Somewhere in his investigations, Maddox came across information that gave him the idea that maybe, somehow, the Borg might have had a hand in making the synths go rogue. It’s not his only theory, it might not even be his main theory (which is why he sends Dahj to Earth), but it’s a theory he deems plausible enough to want to investigate.
Before I go into why I think the text of season 1 makes this the most plausible explanation, there is a question that needs to be answered. It’s easy for us viewers to understand how someone like Raffi or Maddox could suspect the Romulans or the Federation to be involved in the Attack on Mars. Since these are the theories that turn out to be true, we spend a lot of time seeing suspicious behaviour and clues that might be picked up by avid investigators. It’s harder to imagine how someone might come to an alternative explanation.
If we are to believe Maddox could suspect Borg involvement in the destruction at Utopia Planitia, we first need to figure out why the Borg would want to destroy the fleet designed to save the Romulans from a supernova.
The most obvious answer here would be that the Borg found a way to remotely hack into the synth workforce on Mars. How exactly they did that is immaterial, there are probably a good dozen different ways they conceivably could have, the important thing is they did. Because the synths operating on Utopia Planitia were limited in their abilities, the Borg probably couldn’t, say, turn them into a strikeforce against Earth. However, they could use them to destroy the rescue armada that represented the last best hope of salvation for the Romulan Star Empire.
This gave the Borg a unique opportunity to plan a large-scale attack against the Romulans. In the wake of their star going supernova, whatever remained of the Romulan Empire would be in disarray, severely weakened, and easier to assimilate than it had ever been before.The strategic, scientific, and technological knowledge that would be gained from such a campaign would probably be incentive enough for the Borg. Add to that the opportunity to gain a foothold comparatively close to Federation territory, which would put the Borg in a favourable position for their next attempt to assimilate the Federation, and you have more than ample reason why they might launch a targeted strike against the Utopia Planitia shipyards.
The question which inevitably follows this line of argument is, of course: if this were true, why didn’t the Borg send a massive fleet into Romulan space in the wake of the Attack on Mars, or the supernova at the latest?
This is where the Artifact comes in.
If you follow this logic, it’s likely that after the rescue armada went up in smoke, the Borg sent a cube into Romulan space as a scout or maybe a vanguard, to do reconnaissance and test the waters for a full-scale attack. Unfortunately, that cube encountered a Romulan scout ship, tried to assimilate them — and then suddenly and inexplicably suffered a complete sub-matrix collapse.
According to Hugh, the disordered xBs, i.e. the passengers of that scout ship, the Shaenor, are the only Romulans ever to have been assimilated by the Borg.
This claim is a little dubious, but even if there have been others, there clearly haven’t been many, so it’s possible the collective doesn’t have up-to-date intel on Romulan defensive capabilities. When an entire Borg cube, one of the most dangerous weapons in the galaxy, gets so thoroughly defeated by a single ship of two dozen Romulans, suddenly the whole large-scale attack might look a lot less appealing. It would stand to reason that the Big Borg Bonanza would get called off, or at least postponed until better intel could be acquired.
Now, if Maddox believed in a theory like this, or even parts of it, he might have wanted to investigate it by somehow gaining access to Borg systems and records. Alas, it’s not like you can just walk up to a terminal in a Borg cube and start rifling through their databases OH WAIT!
Suddenly, sending Soji to the Artifact Formerly Known As Borg Cube makes a lot of sense. Even if Maddox doesn’t think that the cube itself or its collapse were in any way connected to the Attack on Mars, it’s the perfect location for a fact-finding mission if he suspects Borg involvement.
He gives Soji a PhD in anthropology, rather than medicine or cybernetics, because her job on the Artifact isn’t, say, to learn about Borg technology or AI applications, it’s to make a connection with the xBs. If it turns out the data in the Borg systems that might contain clues about their involvement in the synth attack has been compromised or is inaccessible for some reason, Soji has another option. She’s working with the xBs on finding ways to deal with their collective trauma. This would give her an opening to subtly interrogate them about memories from their time in the collective without raising too many eyebrows. If the Borg had been planning a large-scale attack on the Romulan Empire, the former drones on the Artifact would probably know about it, even if their own cube was unconnected to those events. The stronger Soji’s connection with the xBs, the more likely they would be to open up to her about this.
If Soji is actually searching for a general Borg connection rather than the one concrete reason why the cube was severed from the collective, that would explain why it keeps her busy for several years. As outlined above, doing this kind of research in secret (especially in a way that keeps it secret from herself) would have taken some time, and there are vast quantities of data to wade through.
Of course, Soji doesn’t find any connection between the Borg and the synths at Utopia Planitia, because, as we know, there isn’t one. In the course of her investigations, though, she would learn that the cube got destroyed when it tried to assimilate the Romulans on the Shaenor. After many of the avenues Soji explores don’t lead her anywhere, the destruction of the cube is one of the last big unknowns. Even if it doesn’t directly link back to the Attack on Mars or a possible aborted Borg attack on the Romulans, it might still be worth looking into. So, Soji sets out to learn more about the passengers of the Shaenor, which is where we meet her at the beginning of season 1.
In this scenario, it’s not entirely clear why Soji decides to talk to Ramdha specifically. I cannot imagine anyone outside of the Zhat Vash knows that it was Ramdha who caused the cube to collapse, and I doubt they keep records to that effect that Soji could come across. After all, the Zhat Vash are so secretive, their existence is considered a myth even by the rest of the Tal Shiar.
However, given Soji’s preternatural hacking skills, it’s possible she might have found out there was something suspicious about Ramdha from some Borg record that was inaccessible to the Artifact’s new owners, or from talks with other xBs. Alternatively, she might have simply picked Ramdha as the person to interrogate, because Ramdha was the Shaenor passenger who had the most in common with the personality of Dr Soji Asha.
Either way, I think it’s likely Soji started her work on the Artifact with the general brief of “finding ways to connect with the xBs and accessing their traumatic memories” and no special interest in any one xB in particular. Only after she fixates on Ramdha as her most promising point of contact does she (subconsciously) decide that her focus is (and always has been) “using myths and legends as a shared narrative framework”. There would have been little reason to focus on Ramdha’s very specific niche of expertise from the start since, as I said, there is no real way for Soji to know Ramdha is important before she arrives on the cube.
Of course, it’s also possible Maddox has given Soji a connection to Ramdha’s research completely by coincidence or based on some reason unrelated to her investigation. Whatever the case may be, Soji’s research focusing on ways for the xBs to process their shared trauma makes the most sense if her brief is to connect with them. And this, in turn, makes the most sense if she is on the Artifact to investigate possible Borg involvement in the Attack on Mars and subsequent cover-up.
Side Note
No matter what the reasons behind Soji’s interviewing Ramdha are, whether Maddox decided in advance to target her specifically, or Soji chose her as a point of connection over the course of her mission, the fact that she is connected to the Attack on Mars at all is a giant cosmic coincidence. Ramdha could have gotten the traumatic apocalyptic visions in her brain from any number of sources, and the breaking of the Borg cube would have happened in the exact same way. Likewise, there is no conceivable connection between the Plot to Ban All Synths and the Borg assimilating Ramdha’s ship. The fact the assimilation happened around the same time as the destruction of Utopia Planitia is another coincidence. It could have literally happened at any time after Ramdha experienced the Admonition.
It just so happens that Ramdha’s cube-breaking vision is also the vision that spurred the Zhat Vash into attacking Utopia Planitia. Causally, the two events are completely unrelated. So, essentially, while following an entirely different line of enquiry (“does the reason for the sub-matrix collapse give me any information about Borg involvement in the Attack on Mars?”, Soji just so happens to stumble ass-backwards upon a piece of information that, by complete happenstance, links the two events. (And the same would still be true if she were looking for a Romulan connection, by the by.)
To Sum Up
Taking into account all the information we can gather from season 1, it doesn’t make sense for Maddox to send Soji to the Artifact to investigate the Romulans. If he did suspect them of being involved in the Attack on Mars or the subsequent cover-up, he would have sent his spy into the political or cultural centre of the remains of Romualn Empire. The Artifact might provide a good opportunity to mingle with Romulans, but it’s out of the way and probably cut off from any truly sensitive information.
Likewise, it seems unlikely Maddox thinks that whatever or whoever corrupted the synths also caused the Borg cube’s submatrix collapse. The only way these events might appear linked is if they happened at a similar time, which we can’t be sure of. And if Soji’s main goal really was to investigate the reason the cube broke, it would not have taken her so long to get around to interviewing the xBs from the Shaenor. We repeatedly see evidence of her prodigious hacking skills, so even Romulan firewalls and Borg encryption could only have stopped her for a short while.
As far as I can tell, there’s only one way Maddox’s choice to send Soji to the Artifact Formerly Known As Borg Cube and her actions once there make sense. Somehow, somewhere amidst his research from Coppelius, Maddox starts to suspect that the Borg found a way to remotely compromise the synths on Utopia Planitia. Most likely they were preparing for an attack against the Romulans or the Federation that got called off for some reason, and then the Federation decided to cover it up.
The Borg cube that broke down in the Neutral Zone around the same time might be connected to the Attack on Mars, or the aborted invasion, or it might not be connected at all. Either way, it’s the perfect place to find information about a possible Borg plot. That’s why he sends Soji there to trawl through their records and connect with the xBs to look for clues.
Whether this is Maddox’s only theory or even the theory he finds most plausible isn’t clear. He does send Dahj to Earth to investigate other angles. But this is the one explanation I have been able to find that accounts for Maddox’s decisions, Soji’s actions, and the events we witness and learn about in season 1 of Star Trek: Picard.
Postscript
I’m not going to lie, when I started writing this little (hah!) essay, this wasn’t where I saw this going at all, but I think it’s a fairly logical place to end up.
To pre-empt the comments: yes, I’m aware the actual reason Soji is on the Artifact is probably a mix of Rule of Cool and “there was a very good explanation, but it got lost in rewrites / edits.” And I don’t blame the writers for this. When you’re in the middle of creating an involved story and have all the details in your head, you can sometimes forget which plot points your audience is and isn’t aware of. It happens. And the show’s vague hinting at “Soji is on the Artifact for unspecified Romulan reasons that are probably connected with Ramdha” works. It doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of the show and I certainly never would have questioned it if I wasn’t predisposed to completely overthink every single aspect of stories I like.
This is not a call-out post or a complaint about plot holes. It’s a loving attempt to wring every last drop of detail from the source material and organize them all in a way that proves that the story totally does make sense, actually. Even if it’s not the sense the creators originally intended. Because what is life for if not occasionally revelling in benevolent pedantry?
And now, if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this screed, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Did I miss anything glaringly obvious? Do you have your own pet theories for why Maddox sent Soji to the Artifact? Let me know all about it, I really enjoy thinking through these arguments together!
[Originally posted on my tumblr]
