'Star Trek: Picard' Season 1 Episode 2: The secrets of the former Borg Cube known as 'The Artifact', revealed
Spoiler Alert for 'Maps and Legends' - Season 1, Episode 2 of 'Star Trek: Picard'
The big reveal at the end of the last episode is that Soji (Isa Briones) is on board a large Borg Cube, that was labeled 'Romulan Reclamation Site' by the show. In this episode, we learn a little more about it.
The Borg Cubes are general objects of terror, being the transport vessels for the all-conquering Borg, connected to the rest of the assimilating species and powerful enough to decimate those that the Borg aboard the Cube can't assimilate themselves. This Cube, however, is known as an Artifact - it is a Cube that's been cut off from the Borg hive-mind known at the Collective, and is thus considered by the rest of the Borg to be as relevant as a clipped toe-nail.
Soji refers to the Cube as the 'Artifact'. It is owned by the Romulans, who may find the Borg distasteful, but certainly have used for Borg technology. The Romulans are conducting research aboard the Artifact, extracting technological secrets from it and profiting off of whatever they find. There are safe areas of the ship, but there is also an area known as the 'Grey Zone', in which former members of the Borg Collective can still be found - alive, and dead. It's relatively safe - 5843 days without assimilation, as a sign proudly proclaims, but that doesn't mean the former Borg aren't still a threat.
Not all work being done on the Artifact is strictly for profit, however. Some research is being done into the purported "reclamation" - into not only freeing former Borg members from their cybernetic enhancements but also in restoring their former identities to them. While Borg assimilation is often permanent, it has been overturned before - most notably by Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) - who is to appear on the show - and Picard himself.
The first species to be assimilated by the Borg are possible of some import to the show going forward, but so little of them is known that the only name for their species is "The Nameless." With the mysteries of the Artifact being a vital plot of the wider mystery of 'Star Trek: Picard,' the secrets of the Artifact may just unlock more secrets about the Borg than have ever been seen before in the 'Star Trek' universe.
The next episode of 'Star Trek: Picard' airs February 6, on CBS All-Access.