'Star Trek: Picard' Episode 3: Reclaiming the Borg and the revelation about healing the Assimilated
Spoiler alert for 'Star Trek: Picard'
You might not have recognized him, at first, or even known his significance at all, but Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) is actually a very big part of 'Star Trek' canon, especially in terms of the Borg. Introduced in 'I, Borg' in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' Hugh was one of the first ex-Borg to have recovered from his Assimilation - not counting Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), of course. His story is a complex one, about the fight for individual identity that is lost to the Borg, and when we last saw him his fight had taken on a new purpose. His story also has its own connections to Data (Brent Spiner) and Data's brother Lore (Brent Spiner) - Lore had, in fact, at one point taken control of a rogue group of Borg who were infected with chaotic individuality by a re-assimilated Hugh.
Hugh appears to be fully human now, with only a few markings of his former days as part of the Borg Collective. He's bitter about the ways the ex-Borg are treated, claiming they're taken advantage of. He's the leader of the area of the Artifact most responsible for dealing with the reformation of the former Assimilated, and Soji (Isa Briones) appears to be working directly under him.
Soji is approaching the problem from an extremely novel angle. Where Hugh once tried to undermine the Borg Collective by introducting concepts of individuality to the hive mind, Soji is looking to build a shared "mythological framework." What that essentially means is stories, beliefs, and faith, something people can connect to, and share, without losing their individuality entirely. It's a compromise between the Borg hive mind and absolute individuality. A shared mythological framework can be construed in many different ways, but what it comes down to meaning is a form of religion.
Ramdha (Rebecca Wisocky) quite possibly recognizes this as something that might actually be used to free people of the Borg. She calls Soji "The Destroyer" - something the Romulans know her as too - and based on what Soji is currently working on, the only thing that she is seeking to destroy is the mental tyranny of the Borg Collective.
If that's true, it means that Soji's role in the universe is much, much bigger than simply being an impossibly advanced illegal synthetic being - it might make her the saviour of millions. If the word "Destroyer" happens to mean something much more literal, however, than Picard is going to have a difficult choice to make when he meets her.
The next episode of 'Star Trek: Picard' airs February 13 on CBS All-Access.
