#to picard's bizarre victorian childhood

[isagrimorie]

One of the missed moments in Picard season 2, is after Seven gets re-assimilated they try to stop Soong's drones and it always felt like such a cop-out that once again the writers forget that Seven of Nine has engineering skills and can actually hack into things.

The bad thing about knowing a lot about a character in a crossover show is that -- you know the skills of the character.

It's like when Sam Carter moved to Stargate Atlantis and most of the problems that arose during her time in Command -- I can't help but think... but Carter can solve this, we've seen her do this a hundred times in SG-1.

It's the same thing during Seven's time in Picard season 2.

This part -- I appreciate what Raffi's doing but it's just out of character that Seven wouldn't suggest this too. I get that this could be a primitive system Seven's used to-- maybe but its still wires and computers.

But the director didn't even direct Seven to do anything to help Seven's just standing there

And just... Ordering Raffi to go faster and not helping with the electronics or the hacking???

In her younger days, Seven would be mixing it up and helping Raffi. Even Rios was useful in piloting a rogue drone to destroy another.

And Seven is just standing there as moral support and telling them to move faster.

It's so out of character. Every time I get to this part in the rewatch of season 2 of Picard... I just can't reconcile it. More than the part where Seven becomes a badass who kills in cold blood-- it is the part where Picard seasons 1 and 2 disregard that Seven is a scientist and an engineer. At least in season 3 Picard gestures towards that direction with how she helps with the nacelle dismantling, and how Titan is said to be a well-oiled and maintained ship, something a ship's XO has a direct hand in.

Seven of Nine is not just a badass action hero, she is canonically one of the smartest beings in the Trekverse. It's not an opinion, it's a statement of fact. Seven helped create the Astrometrics lab.

And helped develop the Quantum slipstream drive together with B'Elanna Torres that's now being used in Star Trek Prodigy's USS Dauntless.

But sure, Seven is just standing there.

This Seven:

Who was working in engineering despite being critically ill, and who would rather do something than nothing.

Is just standing there. Not helping.

Especially at this point in Picard season 2 when she's been re-assimilated. I wish Jurati!Borg Queen had placed Seven's implants in this version differently. It's not like the body Seven's has pathways for the implants. This isn't her body, this is President Annika Hansen's body.

We've seen that Seven can interface with computers with her assimilation tubules.

I make it work by rationalizing that despite looking similar to her old implants, the newly installed implants don't work the same as the ones she's had all her life.

And another way I try to work around it is that the computer systems are too primitive for her to hack even though the thing about Borg is how Borg can adapt to any system.

One other thing -- I wish again Seven had the space to really articulate how different it is for her to have a purely organic body. How, much she loves it-- the appreciation of color because her eyes and brain process visuals through a green filter. The sensation of everything.

It would also have been great, as I've mentioned in different posts if Seven also realized there were things about her Borg physiology she missed too: Eidetic memory, enhanced senses, enhanced strength. As well as the downsides of having Borg physiology: Susceptibility to the vagaries of technology, and how her joints sometimes misalign. Her different center of gravity without all the weight of the Borg implants and enhanced skeletal system.

Also, I wonder if Seven had any thoughts that they're trying to disable robot drones to stop an attack on Renee Picard when Seven used to be a drone herself.