Synopsis: Retired Admiral Picard devises a plan to find Dahj’s twin sister.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how a cultural complex is created.
“Maps and Legends” begins with a flashback to the day that Utopia Planitia on Mars was destroyed by an attack believed to have been made by compromised synthetic beings. Then Retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard learns from Laris about a deadly group of Romulan operatives called the Zhat Vash who hate, fear, and loath any form of synthetic life. Picard, believing that the answer to all this lies in finding Dr. Bruce Maddox and/or Dahj’s twin sister, goes to Starfleet Headquarters to request to be reinstated and given a vessel to carry out his plan. He is denied. One reason is that the CNC of Starfleet, Admiral Kristen Clancy knows about the Zhat Vash on Earth. This gets relayed to Commander Oh, a Vulcan in charge of Starfleet Security, who controls the Zhat Vash operatives on Earth. In fact, Oh sends her own agent to seek out Dahj’s sister.
In this episode, the result of the attack on Utopia Planitia was the end of the rescue mission that Starfleet was heading to relocate Romulans endangered by an upcoming supernova, and the ban of all synthetic life in the Federation. This is an example of the creation of a cultural complex. When Utopia Planitia was attacked, the Federation reacted to that by prioritizing protecting itself over the directive to protect all forms of life. This is very similar to how when a society is felt that it has been attacked, its first instinct is to protect itself and try to make sure there is never another opportunity for this to happen again. And while this is instinctual it is also the beginning of a cultural complex.
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