Star Trek: Picard

Previously on "Star Trek: Picard"...

A group of rogue synthetics

dropped the planetary defense shields,

completely destroying the Utopia Planitia shipyard.

Tell us, Admiral. Why did you

really quit Starfleet?

Because it was no longer Starfleet!

We're done here.

What's happening? Baby, please,

find Picard.

He can help you.

What do you want here?

I was with my boyfriend.

They murdered him.

No! No! No!

Something inside of me just knew what to do...

I had a dear friend.

Commander Data.

He painted you,

exactly as you are here and now.

That's impossible.

He named the painting Daughter.

Stay down!

She came here

to find safety.

No!

I owe it to her

to find out

who killed her and why.

The androids that destroyed Mars came from this lab.

No one has ever been able to redevelop the science used

to create Data. Then came Bruce. Maddox.

His theory was that Data's entire code, even his memories,

could be reconstituted from a single positronic neuron.

Then Data, or some part of him,

would be alive. There'd be no way of knowing

without examining... Dahj.

Data's daughter.

They're created in pairs.

Dr. Asha?

Narek.

Soji.

Twins? Twins.

So there's another one.

Attention, all personnel.

Happy First Contact Day.

Celebrations will be held in designated recreational areas

during regularly scheduled alpha and beta shift breaks.

All directors, please submit final duty logs

prior to shift change.

Sector 3 maintenance regulators

will report to mandatory security training...

Good morning, plastic people.

Good morning, Mr. Pincus.

Let's go to work.

All A500 maintenance issues

should be reported to Synthetic Personnel supervisors

prior to initiating manual shutdown proceedings.

Every other tri-hy station in the yard gets off.

First Contact Day.

Not us.

What'd we do wrong?

To have a skeleton crew,

you have to have skeletons.

I bet my kids are having cake on Earth.

Yo, F8, you get into

any trouble last night?

Hell yeah.

Oh, yeah? Doing what?

Nothing.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

Hey, F8, I got one for you.

What's brown and sticky?

Teratogenic coolant.

Isonucleic residue.

Boson-enriched nanopolymer.

A stick.

You get it?

No.

Hey,

he can hear you.

And?

You can't offend them.

They're not people.

And they can rip through solid titanium

without breaking a sweat.

What are you, his sister?

Ugh, who raised you?

Report to primary reactor control sector.

Sector 3. Hazard protocol

in effect until further notice.

I wish they'd go back to using uno-amino matrices

in the replicators. No kidding.

Space pineapples again.

I know what's brown and sticky.

This food is brown and sticky.

Is this a joke?

Hey, that dude is lucky.

Now, here is some brown, sticky shit.

Amen.

Did you replicate flies with that, too?

What are you doing?

Security alert.

Multiple synthetic labor units

have been compromised. Hey.

Get away from there.

Deflector shields down

in all sectors of Utopia Planitia.

Repeat, security alert. Shit.

Multiple synthetic...

Central, this is tri-hy station A19.

Synth unit F8 has been compromised.

We have a man down.

Repeat, we have a man down.

Stand down!

Grid failure detected.

Move immediately to designated safe zones.

Security grid failure in progress.

Containments have failed.

Evacuate immediately.

Orbital defense system compromised.

Emergency evacuation protocol in effect...

Cascade failure in progress.

Surface scans negative.

No matter or trace elements consistent

with Dahj Asha are present.

They erased her.

And then they erased themselves.

Well, it's certainly Tal Shiar's operational style, but...

On Earth?

Not even the Tal Shiar would have that audacity.

Then who?

It has to be.

Zhat Vash.

And here we go.

What is Zhat Vash?

A Tal Shiar myth.

It's a kind of boogeyman they use to frighten new recruits.

And children.

Please explain.

Here in the Federation,

you refer to the Tal Shiar as the Romulan secret police.

Mm-hmm. But it's a bit redundant.

You could put the word "secret" in front

of almost any aspect of Romulan culture.

I have heard... And I have reason to believe...

That the Tal Shiar is merely a mask worn

by another, far older cabal.

That before the Tal Shiar,

there was the Zhat Vash.

"Zhat vash" is a term sometimes used to refer to the dead,

the only reliable keepers of secrets.

- Ominous. - No. Fitting.

Because that's the sole purpose of the Zhat Vash.

To keep a secret so profound and terrible

just learning it can break a person's mind.

Are you sure

she said that he was murdered here,

in her apartment?

She did.

All apparent evidence to the contrary.

Would it be foolish to ask

what is the dread secret that the Zhat Vash are keeping?

No one outside the Zhat Vash knows for sure.

But I've heard whispers.

Romulan methods of forensic

molecular reconstruction are illegal in the Federation.

Really?

I had no idea. Yeah.

They're also unreliable, and, uh,

the results are

dubious at best. Ah, yeah.

That's exactly what we wanted you to think.

When I was a new recruit,

one of my first handlers… My mother.

Got drunk on Romulan ale...

My father... and let slip

that at the heart of the Zhat Vash mission

was a deep, unassuageable loathing.

A loathing of whom?

Not whom.

What.

More wine?

Surprise me.

Dahj, your replicator menus are tragic.

That's... extraordinary.

It's said they operate

without regard for treaty or jurisdiction...

And not just in Romulan worlds,

but in the Klingon Empire, the Gorn Hegemony,

even the Federation itself...

And that they have kept this secret

for thousands upon thousands of years.

Oh, the cheeky fuckers.

They've overwritten the particle residuum.

Overwritten it?

Yes. And in a very sophisticated way.

It's...

barely detectable.