Star Trek: Picard Confirms Data's Daughters' Mission
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 5
Star Trek: Picard episode 5 confirmed the true mission of Dahj and Soji Asha (Isa Briones), the synthetic twin daughters of the late Commander Data (Brent Spiner). Soji and Dahj, who was assassinated in Star Trek: Picard's pilot, are at the heart of the CBS All-Access series' story about the future of artificial lifeforms in the United Federation of Planets. Just as Dahj was targeted, Soji is also in the crosshairs of the Zhat Vash, a fanatical sect of the Romulan secret police, the Tal Shiar, that bears an unassuageable hatred of all synthetic beings.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowDahj and Soji were secretly built by Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) at his facility on Freecloud in 2396. The synthetic twins were made through a miraculous process called neuronic fractal cloning from one of Data's salvaged positronic neurons. Not long after the extremely human-like girls were properly programmed, Maddox sent them on their missions: With falsified identification, Dahj was sent to Earth to pose as a cybernetics research fellow at the Daystrom Institute, which Maddox was formerly the Director of. Dahj was killed by the Zhat Vash before she could actually join Daystrom, though she was able to contact and gain the trust of Jean-Luc Picard. Meanwhile, Soji was sent to the Artifact, which is the Romulan-controlled Borg Cube. Under the cover of Dr. Soji Asha, the surviving twin works as a therapist to the newly-reclaimed former Borg after the Romulans harvest their implants for profit. However, Soji is also pursuing a separate agenda of seeking the "therapeutic utility of a shared mythical framework", which led her to be accused of being "the Destroyer" by the Romulan survivors of Borg assimilation.
In Star Trek: Picard episode 5, "Stardust City Rag", Picard completed his initial mission to locate Bruce Maddox, whom he first met in the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Measure of a Man", on Freecloud. The Starfleet legend found the cyberneticist injured by a criminal cabal but Picard and his crew rescued Maddox and beamed him aboard their ship. Jean-Luc got to briefly speak to Maddox and the retired Admiral learned that Dahj's twin's sister is named Soji and that she's stationed aboard the Artifact. Maddox also told Picard that the twins' mission was to find out the truth about "the ban" - the injured scientist was referring to how artificial lifeforms were banned in the Federation in the wake of the attack on Mars by rogue androids. Maddox vanished soon after the ban and he's come to believe that there was a conspiracy that led to the attack, which involves the Romulans... and the Federation itself.
Before Maddox could tell Picard anything more about Data's daughters, he was murdered by his colleague and former love interest Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), which confirmed her as a Romulan spy. Jurati was a plant sent by Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita), the head of Starfleet Security who is secretly a member of the Zhat Vash. Before Agnes was sent to join Picard's mission, Oh showed the cyberneticist the terrible secret that drives the Zhat Vash's hatred of artificial lifeforms - and Jurati was terrified enough that she has been weaponized to kill Soji just as she did Bruce Maddox.
Thus far, however, Data's remaining daughter hasn't made much headway into finding out about the Starfleet/Romulan conspiracy behind the Mars attack and synthetics ban, something Picard himself refused to believe. Instead, Soji is growing obsessed with the reclaimed Romulans aboard the Artifact and why they labeled her "the Destroyer". In fact, Maddox didn't even know about the Zhat Vash and assumed it was merely the Tal Shiar trying to stop his investigation. So, it seems Soji remains far from learning the truth behind the ban on artificial life and she's running out of time; Soji is unaware that Zhat Vash conspirators Narek (Harry Treadaway) and Narissa (Peyton List) will soon kill her in the second half of Star Trek: Picard season 1, unless Jean-Luc Picard can reach Data's daughter in time.
Star Trek: Picardstreams Thursdays on CBS All-Access and Fridays internationally on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: screenrant.com