Jocasta wants to end human conflict and prevent disease by putting microscopic nanites into everyone’s bloodstream. The catch: nobody gets a choice. In “Immolation,” the seventh and penultimate episode of VisionQuest, that promise gives the MCU’s android drama a chilling Star Trek echo: assimilation presented as a favor.
The episode’s Star Trek connection works on two levels. Its flashback to the earliest days of the MCU recalls Data’s complicated android family, while Jocasta and Ultron’s sinister plan resembles the Borg Queen’s pursuit of perfection. Nerdist’s reading of those parallels points to something more specific than shared science-fiction hardware: creators who build children in their own image, and synthetic beings convinced they know what’s best for everyone else.
There’s a creative connection, too. VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas previously ran Star Trek: Picard’s celebrated third season and worked on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise earlier in his career. His MCU series stars Paul Bettany as the android hero Vision and James Spader as Ultron, Vision’s creator.
Bettany’s android family recalls Spiner’s multiple roles
“Immolation” travels back to 1939 to introduce Dr. Phineas Horton, described as the father of synthetic lifeforms in the MCU. Bettany plays the scientist in old-age makeup, as well as Horton’s prototype synthetic man, J.I.M. The name stands for Joule Individual Machine. Horton’s work is partly driven by grief over the loss of his son, giving his creation a personal purpose beyond scientific achievement.
Nerdist identifies a direct parallel with “Brothers,” a fourth-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That episode finally introduces the frequently discussed Dr. Noonien Soong, creator of the android officer Data. Brent Spiner plays both characters, wearing layers of aging makeup as Soong, and also appears as Data’s prototype android and “evil twin,” Lore.
The resemblance goes beyond one actor playing several members of a synthetic family. In the early first-season episode “Datalore,” Soong is said to have deactivated Lore because his emotion chip was overwhelming, leading to sociopathic behavior. VisionQuest gives Bettany a comparable trio: the human genius who creates artificial life, the prototype who struggles to control emotion, and the final, “perfected” heroic android. Both prototypes, Lore and J.I.M., ultimately kill their human fathers.
That family tragedy builds on a comparison that predates this episode. Data, one of The Next Generation’s most beloved characters, is a synthetic being searching for his humanity, much like Vision. The comic-book Vision predates Data by almost two decades, so the argument concerns Bettany’s MCU portrayal rather than the character’s original conception. Nerdist sees clear traces of Data in that performance, going back to Vision’s first appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Nerdist also connects the ways they gain access to emotion: Vision receives his emotions from the Mind Stone in that film, while Data eventually receives an emotion chip that allows him to feel. “Immolation” extends that resemblance to an entire family, with emotional instability and a creator’s death making the comparison considerably darker.
Jocasta’s promise has the Borg Queen’s catch
The episode’s other major parallel centers on Jo Carrington, played by T’Nia Miller. Now inhabiting a synthetic body and given the name Jocasta by Ultron, she creates nanites that enter human bloodstreams and insert software to “upgrade” humanity. The intended result is a hive mind encompassing every human on Earth, stopping people from fighting one another and preventing diseases.
Those aims sound benevolent in isolation. The method makes them coercive. Jocasta isn’t offering a treatment people can accept or refuse; her plan would impose a shared mind on the entire species.
That’s the central resemblance to Star Trek’s Borg Collective, the cybernetic hive mind that served as a major antagonist in The Next Generation. The Borg don’t regard themselves as conquerors. They see themselves as a unified mind, continuously connected, with the goal of assimilating all organic lifeforms to “improve” them, regardless of consent.
Star Trek: First Contact gives that collective a central intelligence in Alice Krige’s Borg Queen. Unlike the drones, who share one mind, the Queen has an independent personality and exercises control while seeking “perfection.” She also tries to recruit Lt. Commander Data through seduction, drawing him toward her cause while pursuing him romantically.
Nerdist argues that Jocasta’s plan to perfect humanity through involuntary cybernetic enhancement reflects the Queen’s ambitions, while her romance with Ultron echoes the Queen’s search for a mate in First Contact. The unsettling element is the same: promises of improvement leave no room for the people being improved to say no.
Marvel’s wider Star Trek connection is hardly new. Kevin Feige is a huge fan, and Nerdist has previously traced those influences in Avengers: Endgame. Its assessment is that VisionQuest may use them better than any earlier MCU story. With the series finale still ahead in Nerdist’s account, further echoes remain possible. For now, Jocasta’s plan poses the sharper question: if peace requires surrendering an independent mind, who gets to call that perfection?
