Star Trek: Picard Episode 9 Recap With Spoilers: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"

No flashback this week. Instead, the episode picks up right where last week's episode left off. The La Sirena comes out of the Borg transwarp conduit, following by Narek's Snakehead and the Artifact. Flower-like objects float up from Soji's homeworld, Coppelius. They Engulf the La Sirena and the Snakehead and several surround the Borg Cube. The cut the power to the ships, bracing their descent as they crash onto the planet below. Picard is knocked unconscious in the crash. Jurati tends to him and discovers the abnormality in his brain, which forces him to come clean about his condition with everyone else.

Once on the planet, the La Sirena crew searches the down Borg Cube and discover Elnor is alive and still with Seven of Nine. They catch up on what's happened and Picard tells Elnor to stay and help Seven and the ex-Borg get the Cube's defensive systems back online while the rest of the group heads towards Coppelius Station.

At the settlement, Picard and his crew discover an entire community of synths. The only organic among them is Alton Inigo Soong, the son of Dr. Noonien Soong, who had been working with Bruce Maddox. Among the synths is another that looks just like Soji and Dahj, except with skin and eyes that more closely resemble Data's appearance, named Sutra.

Sutra has mastered the Vulcan mind-meld and uses it to see what Commodore Oh showed Jurati. Her synthetic mind is able to process the visions a message from an alliance of synthetic lifeforms living outside of space and time. The message offers aid to any synthetic lifeforms who need help fighting against oppression from the organics, meaning and offer to exterminate all biological life. Thus begins the debate over whether the synth community should reach out to this alliance.

Meanwhile, Alton reveals to Jurati that he's been working on a golem, an empty synthetic body. He's dying and has been studying mind transference in the hopes that he'll be able to move his consciousness to a new, synthetic body. Jurati agrees to help him.

The synths find and imprison Narek. Soji warns the other synths not to trust Narek, despite his attempt to appeal to the love they once shared. Sutra frees Narek and either he or she kills another synth off-screen as he escapes. This allows Sutra to push her people towards summoning the synthetic alliance. Picard tries to talk to them down, but he's ignored and imprisoned. Meanwhile, Commodore Oh and her fleet of 218 Romulan Warbirds are getting closer to the planet.