Tag: Star Trek

The Borg: Space Zombies

The Borg: Space Zombies

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise, including Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 and the first three episodes of Star Trek: Picard.

As part of a series of articles I wrote leading up to the release of Star Trek: Picard, I covered the Borg from an in-universe perspective, as well as looking at some possible options for their role in the new series. You can read that article by clicking or tapping here. While Star Trek: Picard remains a mysterious show even now that we’re three episodes in, the Borg’s role has been somewhat on the sidelines so far, as we’ve really only seen a few former Borg and the disabled Borg cube used as a setting.

For a while I’ve been wanting to look at the Borg from a storytelling perspective, because I think they’re one of Star Trek’s most interesting villains. Not only that, but they have an analogue outside of the franchise which we can compare them to – zombies. Both the Borg and zombies fill a similar role in the stories they appear in, and both can fall victim to the same storytelling pitfalls.

Let’s start with the most obvious comparison – and why both the Borg and zombies are a frightening adversary for any heroes to be pitted against. With the exception of the Borg’s first appearance in The Next Generation’s second season episode Q Who, the Borg’s sole purpose has been assimilation. By forcibly injecting their nano-technology into both machines and living organisms, practically anything they touch can become part of the Borg Collective in a matter of moments. Zombies are a low-tech, biological version – in almost every zombie story, the zombie infection spreads through biting. Thus both Borg and zombies don’t just kill, they turn everyone the heroes lose into another enemy to fight. And the infection or invasion can never be truly over until every last individual is defeated, because if even one Borg drone or one zombie remains, there’s the possibility for them to attack others and start all over again.

The Borg take on a similar role in some respects to zombies – such as those in The Walking Dead.

This one factor – that every friend lost doesn’t just reduce the numbers on the heroes’ side, but increases the number of enemies to fight – is huge. It means that a story featuring a Borg or zombie attack is completely different in tone and scope from any other war or invasion or battle that we might see in science fiction. And it’s a frightening prospect, seeing allies quite literally turned into enemies before the very eyes of the heroes. In fact, it’s arguable that the Borg’s appearances are as close as Star Trek as come to crossing over into the horror genre. The underlying premise, certainly, would be at home there. And if ViacomCBS ever chose to go down that route, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a Borg-themed horror film or series.

One of the great things about entertainment and storytelling is that it’s subjective. The audience can interpret themes and points in a story in different ways, and anyone who’s ever taken a literature class can attest that! When I was in school and in the few literature classes I took at university, my teachers were always talking about analogies and themes and metaphors. And when it comes to the Borg, there are different interpretations as to a real-world analogue.

One of the most obvious is communism. Despite what’s often been said, Star Trek doesn’t really depict a “communist utopia”. The economy of the 23rd and 24th Centuries has always been deliberately ambiguous, and really I think it’s fairer to describe it as a post-scarcity economy, thanks in large part to technologies like food replicators and interstellar travel. Humans in Star Trek can still, for example, own and inherit property – like we see Joseph Sisko and the Picard family do – something which indicates that we’re not looking at communism. But that’s rather beside the point. The Borg, to get back on topic, with their lack of individuality and aggressively expansionist mindset, are arguably a metaphor for Western fears of communist states during the latter part of the Cold War. The history of Star Trek is littered with Cold War metaphors, and at the time the Borg were created and debuted on screen in 1989, the Berlin Wall hadn’t yet fallen and the Soviet Union was still the world’s “other” superpower.

Since the concept of the “walking dead” came to mainstream attention in the 1960s, critics have said the same thing about zombies, too – that they’re a metaphor for America’s communist adversaries. The comparison plays on a crude stereotype – that all people in a communist state are brainwashed and forced to do the state’s bidding. However, my intention isn’t to critique the concept, merely to acknowledge its existence. In a very real sense, part of what makes zombies and the Borg so frightening is the idea of losing oneself, and suffering “a fate worse than death”. For many in the Cold War era, ideas like communist infiltrators and brainwashed citizens returning from overseas – including former prisoners of war – were genuine concerns, if somewhat overstated and exaggerated.

Picard’s transformation into Locutus of Borg was shocking.

It’s those underlying real-world fears that give power to the Borg when they appear. They wouldn’t be so scary if it weren’t for a shared fear we have of losing our identity – stoked by fears from the Cold War era, perhaps, but just as relevant today in the age of radicalisation via social media. How many young men – and it is almost always young men – have been involved in mass shootings or terrorist attacks after being radicalised online? The concept of brainwashing – and our collective fear of it – is still very much alive in society today. The emphasis has shifted from the state to individuals, perhaps, but the basic fear remains the same. And it continues to make villains like the Borg intimidating.

When it comes to turning that into an exciting, heart-stopping story, though, it’s all too easy to fall flat. What we’ve seen in Star Trek, especially in Star Trek: Voyager, is the overuse of the Borg. The same thing has happened to the zombies in The Walking Dead, and can happen to other villains in other series too – the Daleks from Doctor Who come to mind as another example of overuse. The fundamental problem with having the heroes outsmart and defeat the same villain too many times is that they simply lose their fear factor – no matter how powerful it may once have been and what underlying social factors are propping it up.

Every victory over the same opponent adds to a feeling that victory for the heroes is inevitable. And in many cases, we know that. Even in a series like Game of Thrones, which could be utterly unpredictable, nobody was genuinely expecting that the Night King would be victorious – we all knew that somehow, some of the heroes would survive and find a way to win. That didn’t make the story any less exciting, and nor is Star Trek: First Contact any less exciting for first-time viewers who expect Picard and his crew to find a way to defeat the Borg. The tension and drama comes on a moment-to-moment basis, and also, as in many stories, part of the enjoyment comes from the journey even if the overall destination – victory, in this case – is known.

But when the same scenario plays out over and over again – a scrappy Starfleet crew faces off against impossible odds and beats the Borg, for example – it gets less and less tense and less and less dramatic with each new revision. When we see the Borg lose to Janeway for the fourth or fifth time having already seen them bested twice by Picard, they become stale, and the stories in which they appear become uninteresting.

The addition of the Borg Queen is symptomatic of this. After several prior Borg stories, and with their first big-screen appearance looming, there must have been some discussion about how to make the Borg intimidating again. It wasn’t enough to have this faceless mass any more, the Borg needed something new in order to fit the bill as big-screen villains. Part of that stems from the need to keep the story cinematic; to have those moments where Picard is traumatised by his memories of the Borg Queen, to have Data tempted and taunted by her in a way a nameless drone couldn’t, and to be able to have dialogue between heroes and villains which is often a tense yet satisfying part of storytelling in and of itself. But a significant part of the Borg Queen’s role in First Contact and subsequently has been to rejuvenate the Borg as a faction from a storytelling perspective.

The Borg Queen in First Contact.

Telling unique and different Borg stories has become as much of a problem for Star Trek as making the zombies scary again is for The Walking Dead. Unlike that series – which I’d absolutely argue had a natural lifespan (forgive the pun) of about four seasons and should have ended at that point – Star Trek has a much richer galaxy to explore and plenty of other villains to play with. The Borg are not essential to Star Trek in the way that zombies are to zombie stories – and that’s definitely been a saving grace.

With the exception of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode Regeneration in 2003, there hadn’t been any Borg stories in Star Trek since Voyager’s finale in 2001 – and none which were set further forward in the Star Trek timeline. After an absence of close to two decades, then, there’s an argument to be made that enough time has passed for a renewed look at the Borg. For new fans and younger fans who didn’t see every single appearance in order, and for more casual viewers who may not have seen any Star Trek episode or film since the turn of the millennium, that’s probably a fair point. But even then, because the Borg are essentially “space zombies”, in an era where zombie stories have become a television and cinematic genre in their own right with dozens of examples, perhaps we’re still burnt out.

Here’s where the Borg’s trump card comes into play – they aren’t just a metaphor for our fears of communism or brainwashing. Because of their technological nature, they can absolutely be an analogy for our overreliance on technology and for our fears of the evolution of technology in the future. This is what Star Trek: Discovery’s second season did, very successfully in my opinion, with the Control AI. Now I’m absolutely convinced that Control was meant to tie in somehow to the Borg and their origins when the story was originally written. Why that angle was scrapped (if indeed it has been wholly scrapped) is unclear, but it could be related to the Borg being an integral part of the story of Star Trek: Picard. That’s my current theory on that, at any rate.

The whole point of the Control storyline in Discovery was that artificial intelligence might not be a good thing to pursue. When an AI surpasses humanity in its abilities, it becomes inherently unpredictable. It can overwrite its own programming and could turn on us. This isn’t just a science fiction story trope – scientists like Stephen Hawking have expressed genuine concern that an AI could ultimately be harmful. Technological progress has advanced so rapidly from even when The Next Generation was first on the air and computers were basically glorified calculators and typewriters to the modern day where everyone has an internet-enabled super-smart camera-and-microphone connected-to-everything always-on computer-phone about their person 24/7. Those changes have, thus far at least, been a net positive for humanity. In Africa, for example, the rise of mobile phones has meant many of the world’s poorest citizens have access to the internet and information, as well as the ability to send and receive money securely without relying on banking. But with change comes fear, or at least a sense of uncertainty. Discovery played on those fears and concerns about the pace of technological change quite expertly.

The nanobots Control used to “assimilate” Capt. Leland are reminiscent of Borg technology, and play on the same fears of out-of-control AI.

The decision to have Control be an invention of Section 31 was another masterstroke. Since Edward Snowden and Julian Assange (and many others, of course) have demonstrated to the world that major governmental organisations run hidden technological surveillance on, well, everyone, mistrust of technology and technological communication has only grown. The idea that we’re all being watched all the time by “big brother” in the various three-letter agencies, and their international equivalents, has caused a lot of people to be incredibly uneasy about technology in general. Once again, Discovery tapped into this to great effect.

To get back to the Borg, regardless of whether or not Control was meant to be related to them in some way, the same principle is at work. The relentless march of technology could see us literally plugging ourselves into some giant network of machines, or augmenting our bodies with technological upgrades. In a sense, we already do. Our phones and computers are arguably an extension of ourselves, we’re almost constantly networked to billions of others via the internet, with all of their experiences and information only a few keystrokes away, and as medical science advances we’re able to replace defective body parts – like hips, for example – with synthetic replacements. The Borg are simply a few steps further along from we currently are in their embrace of technology.

For many people, the unstoppable march of technology is something they find intimidating. It means that the future is always changing – and people in general have an inbuilt mistrust or fear of change. Thus the Borg stand out in stories that feature them as a kind of nightmarish vision of a future gone wrong.

By playing on these two deep-rooted, almost instinctive fears, the Borg are truly a frightening opponent for the heroes in Star Trek stories to face.

Keeping that fear alive is a task for the new creators of Star Trek. In Discovery, Control hit the reset button by showing us at least a potential precursor to the Borg we’ve seen before. Enterprise threw 24th Century Borg against a 22nd Century crew – not that it was always apparent, but that was part of the goal of that episode. And finally, in Picard we have the Borg absent from their own setting – a derelict cube being slowly picked apart and studied. There’s an inherent creepiness to the aesthetic of the cube – a kind of cold, inhuman feel, amplified by the lack of windows and endless maze of identical rooms and corridors. If the showrunners wanted to play up that aspect they absolutely could, and it will be interesting to see where Picard takes this angle.

What has to be avoided, however, is the trap that ensnared Voyager’s Borg episodes. Repetition leads to a loss of that fear factor, and without it the Borg become stale and boring – it would be better to see the faction utterly defeated in a climactic battle than to have them crop up again and again in random episodes over several seasons. The serialised nature of current Star Trek storytelling, which has replaced the episodic, “monster-of-the-week” format, means that we’re less likely to see individual Borg-centric episodes any more. And that’s probably a good thing overall – despite my personal preference for episodic storytelling in Star Trek.

The episode Q Who introduced the Borg for the first time.

At the end of the day, the question for the Star Trek franchise and its new creative team is what to do with the Borg in future. We saw what I’m certain was an abortive attempt to show some kind of origin story in Discovery’s second season, and now in Picard we have the creepy abandoned cube as a setting, as well as the return of Seven of Nine and Hugh as liberated ex-Borg. Both of these approaches are different, and that’s good. As great as The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact were, those stories were lightning in a bottle – not something that can be recaptured or repeated, at least not to the same effect. And the way stories approach and treat the Borg will have to change if they’re to be as intimidating as we want them to be. That doesn’t mean the Borg have to change in their core outlook or philosophy; doing so would mean they’re no longer the villain we remember, after all. But it does mean they have to be written in a different way and that their inclusion in future Star Trek stories has to be very carefully considered.

In a sense, the Borg’s greatest and most frightening aspect – their relentlessness and faceless nature – is also part of their undoing when considering their inclusion from a storytelling point of view. Because of their philosophy and the way they approach their assimilation targets, the Borg are very much a one-trick pony. They show up, either en masse or on a single vessel, overwhelm their opponents, forcibly assimilate them, and move on. They have one unwavering goal, and essentially only one method of achieving it. There are no Borg spies, no Borg generals to be outwitted, no Borg personalities to provide personal drama and conflict in a story. With the exception of the Borg Queen – who isn’t even really an exception as she is simply the face of the Borg, not a leader – the Borg operate as one entity with one goal and one approach.

The Voyager two-part episode Scorpion, which introduced Seven of Nine, took one of the most interesting looks at how the Borg’s single-mindedness can be their undoing. By presenting them with an opponent in Species 8472 who could not be assimilated, the Borg were on the back foot as the only method they had of information-gathering and conquest – they use assimilation for both purposes – did not work. This was a unique take on the Borg in Star Trek, but it had the unintended consequence of making them less intimidating as a result. As previously mentioned, any time we see a supposedly imposing villain failing in their objective, beaten and in retreat, it lessens the fear factor. As the audience, we know that they can be beaten – changing how we perceive stories. It stops being a question of “will the heroes prevail?” and instead becomes “when and/or how will they prevail?”

We need only look to Doctor Who for a case in point. Since its 2005 reboot, Doctor Who has seen its main villains, the Daleks, so thoroughly overused that they long ago became completely dull and unexciting. And two other villains, the Cybermen and Weeping Angels, have suffered from overuse too. As a result, since the latter half of Matt Smith’s tenure as the Eleventh Doctor, the show has limped along feeling played out. New villains and storylines have fallen flat – a consequence of mediocre writing – and the show is absolutely ready to go back on hiatus as there are no good ideas. It’s a lesson for Star Trek to learn, especially as production ramps up and there are multiple shows (and at least one film) all in various stages of development. Sometimes less is more. And also, when a storyline has run its course, and when a villain has done all they can reasonably do, unless there’s a new way to approach that story it’s time to put an end to it and move on.

The Borg haven’t yet reached that point. There is still space in Star Trek for new and exciting Borg stories, but they will have to be properly planned, not simply thrown in at the last minute. Like Doctor Who’s Daleks, the Borg are an iconic villain, emblematic of the franchise that spawned them. But they aren’t an infallible storytelling device that guarantees a successful film, season, or episode. And mishandled or overused, all the threat, tension, and drama they can bring will melt away leaving a bland, uninspiring film or episode behind.

The Artifact represents a new direction for Borg-related stories in Star Trek.

Between the zombies in The Walking Dead and the Daleks in Doctor Who, we have two great examples of how to mishandle and overuse villains like the Borg. Star Trek is fortunate to have such a rich history of alien races to draw on, and can hopefully avoid those pitfalls as we move into what will hopefully be the franchise’s second “golden age”.

The Borg are a frightening and compelling faction in the Star Trek universe, and there is still scope to learn more about them and see them return – in both big and small ways – in future episodes and films. And I’m looking forward to that, as well as to seeing what Picard has in store for this absolutely iconic faction. As I’ve said many times already, it’s a fantastic time to be a Star Trek fan right now. There’s just so much going on, and so much more to come. Discovery has had hits and misses, but in my opinion at least, Picard has been outstanding so far, and I’m interested to see what will come next. Surely, after the success the franchise has experienced over the last few weeks, this won’t be our last look at the 24th and early 25th Centuries – and unless something major happens to the Borg by the end of Picard’s first season, I’m sure that sooner or later we can expect to see them back once again.

The Star Trek franchise, including all films, episodes, and series mentioned above, is the copyright of ViacomCBS and Paramount Pictures. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Picard review – Season 1, Episode 2: Maps and Legends

Star Trek: Picard review – Season 1, Episode 2: Maps and Legends

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Maps and Legends, as well as for the previous episode of Star Trek: Picard and other iterations of the Star Trek franchise. If you haven’t seen the episode yet and don’t want to know what happened, now’s your chance to jump ship!

A week seems like a long time when you’re waiting for something, and waiting for the release of Maps and Legends, the second episode of Star Trek: Picard, seemed to take forever. After Remembrance had been so stunningly good last week, I was hoping that Maps and Legends would manage to be just as enjoyable. In case you missed it, you can find my review of Remembrance by clicking or tapping here.

Though I don’t think it hit quite the same highs as last time, Maps and Legends was nevertheless a solid episode that advanced the story – albeit at a slower pace than Remembrance. There were some great performances again, especially from Sir Patrick Stewart, and we learned a lot more about the synthetics and the Romulans.

The end of the opening titles features Picard looking at the camera.

The episode opens with a step back in time – to fourteen years prior to last week’s episode and the rogue synths’ attack on Mars. We get a better look at the rescue armada – Picard’s fleet that was under construction – than we did in the Short Treks episode Children of Mars from a few weeks ago. Unlike in that short episode, where the few ships that we briefly glimpsed looked very similar to vessels of the Discovery era, my impression of the ships being built in orbit of Mars was that they were much more in line with the 24th Century. And I’m glad, because while some elements of Discovery’s visual style crossing over is inevitable given that the two shows are being produced simultaneously, the two eras are separated by one-and-a-half centuries from an in-universe perspective, so we shouldn’t really be seeing that many similarities in things like starship design.

To pick out a couple of specific examples, I felt that the tapered look that the warp nacelles on the rescue ships had was reminiscent of the Enterprise-E. This would make sense as the Enterprise-E would have been active in this era – the attack on Mars having taken place around six years after the events of Nemesis. Secondly, the red impulse engines mounted on the “saucer” section of those vessels is a familiar element of Federation starship designs, and has been seen on many vessels across all iterations of Star Trek. I’m assuming, anyway, that the glowing red sections were impulse engines – that’s what they look like to me. Unlike the vessels in Children of Mars, these ones felt like they definitely were late-24th Century Starfleet ships. This could be simply a change in the viewing angle, but they looked like an altogether different design to me.

Oh, and while we’re breaking down this briefest of scenes, the CGI work was absolutely excellent. The ships really felt like they were hanging there in orbit of Mars, and the whole shot, though it only lasted a few seconds, did a great job establishing the scale of the fleet. Previous iterations of Star Trek have, on occasion, struggled with such large numbers of ships – a consequence of the days when they had to use hand-built scale models.

The scale of Picard’s planned rescue armada was huge – there were going to be 10,000 ships.

The action starts with a crew working on Mars. The synths we’d seen in the trailer – who I speculated might’ve been deactivated as part of the purge on synthetic life in the aftermath of the attack – turned out to actually be workers on Mars from this time period. They were in some kind of storage – presumably sent there to rest in between shifts.

Unlike Data, these synthetics were far less “human” in the way that they acted and behaved. Dr Jurati told us last time that no one had ever been able to recreate the process used to build Data – and that’s apparent from looking at these synths. Even when we first met him in The Next Generation’s premiere, Encounter at Farpoint, Data had a personality. He had the desire to expand his programming and become more human – almost akin to a craving or a desperate want. He came close to achieving his goal in Generations, seven years later, when an emotion chip was installed allowing him to feel sensations like amusement, fear, and disgust. The androids we met in Maps and Legends, though, are missing all of that. They have clearly been programmed to be interactive – they respond when spoken to, answer questions, fake a smile when told a joke – but they lack any personality or character of their own. Clearly Maddox’s work was incomplete at this stage.

It’s also interesting to note that, as of Nemesis, no Data-esque androids were known to exist aside from the few examples made by Dr Soong (Data’s creator). Work on these synths must’ve been well underway by then, however, to have teams of them deployed to Mars only a few years later.

A few days ago I wrote an article detailing six of my own pet theories for Star Trek: Picard. And one of the theories I had, based on what we saw in Remembrance, was that the synthetics on Mars were hacked. While this is still very much an unconfirmed theory, we may have seen some more evidence in Maps and Legends that points to it being true. The work crew are going about their day, when their android – F8 (is that a play on the word “fate”?) – seems to malfunction. He stops, appears to process something – perhaps downloading or receiving a transmission – then starts working feverishly on one of the computer terminals. He may have been the one responsible for taking down Martian defences, or at least one section of them. Mere moments later, after F8 has turned on the work crew, killing them and two guards, the “stingray ships” arrive and the attack on Mars unfolds.

We saw the briefest of glimpses from this scene in the trailers – but now we know these were some of the rogue synths on the day they attacked Mars.

Whatever happened to F8 had to also have happened to other synthetics simultaneously – the attack unfolded in a matter of seconds. He wasn’t physically interfered with, so whatever altered his programming had to have been a transmission coming from somewhere else, or perhaps an innate flaw in his programming that activated for some reason. It also seems that the rogue synths killed themselves in the aftermath of the attack. F8 fires a phaser into his own head, presumably destroying his positronic brain. If something similar happened to all the synths it would explain why no reason for the attack has been discovered: they left no evidence behind. The fact that F8 killed himself is another hint, in my opinion, that he and his fellow synths were hacked. This would be the hacker trying to conceal the evidence of their crimes.

After the opening titles we’re back at Château Picard, where Laris and Zhaban are talking with Picard about who might’ve been responsible for killing Dahj. They initially suspect the Tal Shiar (the Romulan intelligence agency), but Laris has another idea – an older, much more secretive Romulan faction called the Zhat Vash. Romulans, according to Laris, don’t work with androids, AIs, or any other synthetics because of a deep-seated fear and loathing of them, and the Zhat Vash hate synthetics even more passionately than other Romulans. They may have been responsible for the attack on Dahj as part of their crusade against synthetic life. This is a fascinating idea, but I didn’t feel that the way this information was conveyed – a single scene with one character dumping a lot of expository dialogue – was particularly strong.

We were always going to learn more about the Romulans in Picard, with the show being so tied up in the aftermath of the supernova, but this was especially interesting to me notwithstanding how it came across on screen. In the Romulans’ appearances throughout Star Trek, they’ve never indicated that they hated or feared artificial intelligence, yet apparently it’s a Romulan trait going back hundreds of years or more. The Romulans have always been a paranoid race, and this fits in nicely with what we already knew about them. Whether there’s a reason for this fear – such as an historical attempt at building their own AIs that went awry – is unclear. It’s possible that the synths’ actions in destroying the rescue armada has given the Zhat Vash additional motivation to hunt down any remaining synthetics – as well as perhaps covert support from elements within the Federation, but more on that later.

Laris tells Picard about the Zhat Vash.

The scene at the vineyard is spliced with another taking place at Dahj’s apartment in Boston. Picard and Laris travelled there to look for clues – but whoever attacked Dahj has since been back and completely cleaned everything. Laris uses some kind of illegal scanning device to recreate some of the events leading to Dahj’s death, but the holo-recording she manages to piece together cuts out abruptly – thanks to the way the apartment has been surgically cleaned up. They are, however, able to confirm the existence of Soji – who is now confirmed 100% to be Dahj’s “twin”. Soji is offworld, but they don’t know exactly where.

I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t certain until this point that Dahj was the “sister” that Soji referred to in the previous episode. For some reason I was thinking that there might be others, and that they may have been two members of a larger group. But Dahj’s last name – Asha – was spoken in Maps and Legends and it’s the same as Soji’s.

The action then returns to the Romulans’ Borg cube, where Soji and the Romulan she met at the end of the last episode, Narek, have wasted little time in becoming intimate. He’s incredibly secretive, giving non-answers to most of the questions Soji asks him, and it turns out “Narek” may not even be his real name – when asked, he says it’s “one of” his names. Does that mean it’s one part of his full name, or does it mean perhaps that he has numerous aliases?

The Borg cube, incidentally, is occupied by the Romulans, but it’s hinted that they may not have been responsible for its damage. The Borg Collective is also implied to still be active, as the cube is disconnected from the rest of the Collective – “a graveyard” as far as the Borg are concerned, according to Narek. So the events of Voyager’s finale, Endgame – in which a time-travelling Janeway infects the Borg Queen with a virus and equips Voyager with anti-Borg armour and technology – doesn’t seem to have wiped out the Collective as a faction in the Star Trek galaxy. Good to know!

We now know that the Romulans call this Borg cube “the Artifact”.

Picard meets with his doctor at the vineyard, and apparently the two know each other from having served together on the USS Stargazer. I liked this inclusion, it was a reference to Picard’s past but without being too distracting or overt. However, it would have been a perfect opportunity to bring in someone from Star Trek’s own past, like Dr Pulaski or Nurse Ogawa – both of whom Picard served with on-screen in The Next Generation. But that’s just a creative decision, and having Dr Benayoun be someone new was a perfectly valid choice.

Dr Benayoun brings bad news. Picard had asked him to certify to Starfleet that he was fit and well to return to active spacefaring duty, but the doctor has discovered something in Picard’s scans that may be a terminal illness. There are hints that this could be the “Irumodic Syndrome” mentioned in The Next Generation’s finale, as Picard says he was warned something like this might be coming, and Dr Benayoun refers to the collection of conditions that may be present as “syndromes”. As with the Stargazer reference, this was a nod to The Next Generation for returning fans that in no way interfered with or got in the way of the overall story. The news of his impending illness pushes Picard even harder to unravel the mystery of Dahj – before it’s too late.

Dr Benayoun brings Picard bad news.

He travels to San Francisco, to Starfleet Headquarters. We saw this in the trailers, and Picard has made an appointment with Admiral Clancy – who is seemingly in charge of Starfleet. He asks to be reinstated to track down Dr Maddox and learn what happened with Dahj, and offers to be demoted to Captain for the mission if it will sway her. Apparently she and Picard had tussled before, during the Romulan rescue attempt, because she angrily refuses his request. They debate the Romulan issue, and it emerges that some member worlds of the Federation (it’s not stated which ones) threatened to secede from the Federation if help was provided to the Romulans. Admiral Clancy felt – and still feels – that calling off the rescue mission after the attack on Mars was the right thing to do because it preserved the Federation.

Though I doubt we’ll learn exactly who may have been threatening to withdraw, it would be interesting to know. Could the Vulcans be among those uncomfortable with helping the Romulans, perhaps? After multiple attempts by the Romulans to forcibly conquer them, perhaps the Vulcans decided to leave them to their fate. Pure speculation, but I can’t help wondering.

This scene was, frankly, a little clichéd: the hero asking for help and getting turned down by a superior officer who believes everything is fine the way it is is a trope seen throughout fiction. Sir Patrick Stewart was passionate, however, and we’re seeing more and more of the Picard we remember coming to the surface after his time away from Starfleet. Guest star Ann Magnuson – who played Admiral Clancy – gave a solid performance too, and the argument that the two characters have really emphasises how Picard is now seen – and sees himself – as an outsider to Starfleet.

This is a significant shift in tone from practically anything we’ve seen in Star Trek before. In other series like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, non-Starfleet main characters have felt like they were largely on the same page as Starfleet, sharing the same basic ideals and goals. Even someone like Quark, arguably the most non-traditional main character in Star Trek to date, had a longstanding association with the Federation, and the Maquis in Voyager were so quickly absorbed into the crew (a consequence of the writers not really knowing what to do with the Maquis-Starfleet conflict after the first few episodes) that they don’t really count as being anything different from a thematic perspective. To be fully on the outside – a rebel, if you don’t mind thinking about it that way – is something we haven’t really seen before. Putting together a non-Starfleet crew, as Picard is with Dr Jurati, Raffi, and others we’ve yet to meet, is also something new.

Admiral Clancy and Picard have a heated argument.

Picard leaves the meeting dejected, and the action returns to Soji aboard the Borg cube. We learn that the cube has been named “the Artifact”, and as we’d seen in both the trailers and the previous episode, is under Romulan control. Interestingly, however, the Romulan Star Empire isn’t named, and instead the cube is controlled by the Romulan Free State. In the video game Star Trek Online, the Romulans broke into two factions: a continuation of the Empire and a democratic state called the Romulan Republic. Whether something similar has happened here, or whether the Romulan Free State has replaced the Empire as a result of the supernova is unknown, but the Free State clearly has resources and a powerful military judging by their security guards.

Soji assists a newbie on the Artifact – a Trill doctor – as they get ready for work. Part of the cube – seemingly the part where Soji and her crewmates live – has been rendered entirely safe and free of any Borg activity. There are even private rooms which have been built into the cube. But beyond this area Soji, the Trill doctor, Narek, and others all have to take extra precautions – including wearing a grey combadge-like device. This device serves as a warning system, with a Romulan guard telling Soji and the assembled crew to get out of danger if the grey badge flashes green. It may also be some kind of shield or even a cloaking device to keep wearers safe from residual Borg activity – we’ve seen similar technology in Voyager.

Though the guard seemed to be revelling in his role, and the other Romulan security personnel clearly take their jobs very seriously, this scene gave me the impression of a tourist trap. We’ve all been somewhere like that, I’m sure, where the tour guide or someone from the local area tells a gaggle of tourists to be extra careful because where they’re going is dangerous – but of course it’s all a play to make them feel more excited. Whether that was intended isn’t clear but that’s the impression I got!

I can’t help but feel that the Trill doctor isn’t long for this world, though – perhaps she’ll end up assimilated before long. There was just too much “everything will be fine” from Soji for that particular cliché not to play out!

The Trill doctor getting ready for her first foray into the Artifact. Will she make it out?

The Romulans, counter to what we might have expected, seemingly allow researchers and doctors from other factions – including the Federation – access to their Borg cube for study. Soji is assisting in disassembling some of the drones who remain on the Artifact. Their components are collected by the Romulans and, presumably, studied in more detail. How exactly this fits into their “no AI, no synthetics” mantra is unclear, but as the Borg are known to have technology far more advanced than the Federation, perhaps they’re hoping to learn more about that. Soji is clearly uncomfortable with the callous way the Romulans are treating the Borg drone she’s helping with, even though it appears to be dead.

The Borg drone – Nameless – being disassembled was suitably gory for an episode of Star Trek. The removal of his eyepiece revealed some raw flesh, and the whole makeup and prosthetics departments should be complimented for their work here. Indeed all of the visual effects here, from the holo-screens projected in mid-air through to the look of the Borg bodies and their components, were absolutely on point. The scene really got across the look and feel of a disabled Borg ship being pulled apart.

Another of the scenes from the trailers was Soji and others in the red jumpsuits aboard the Borg cube. I know some folks online had speculated that it was a prison, but it seems that this isn’t the case. There are also scans on the Artifact to presumably detect Borg activity. This ties into what I said last time about Soji and Dahj being able to register as fully human on scans, but clearly Soji has been able to get aboard the Artifact, a militarised, secure facility, without raising any alarms. How exactly that’s accomplished is still unknown.

Back at the vineyard again, and Picard meets with Dr Jurati. They discuss Dr Maddox and the synths, and she seems sure that Dr Maddox would have modelled Soji and Dahj on Data’s painting to pay homage to him. She’s also researched more about Dahj – and it seems she may have only existed for three years or so. Her credentials and background have been faked, and prior to that time there’s no record of her existing. Dr Maddox is mentioned again, but Dr Jurati can’t speak to his motivations for creating Dahj and Soji.

Picard makes tea for Dr Jurati at the Château.

However, it seems that Dahj may have been looking for something at the Daystrom Institute. Soji is aboard the Artifact, the Romulan-occupied Borg cube, and Dahj had been accepted to work/study at Daystrom. Picard and Jurati seem to suspect that they have been programmed to look for something – something common to these locations, or two separate somethings perhaps. Whatever it may be, however, it clearly isn’t all that time-sensitive given that Dahj had been active for three years and had only just made her way to the Daystrom Institute. Whoever built and/or programmed them – Picard and others assume it’s Dr Maddox but that could be a deliberate misdirect – evidently has time to wait.

Picard is is then seen putting on his old Nemesis-era combadge, and contacts someone called Raffi – immediately asking her not to hang up on him, showing that they clearly have some history!

Starfleet combadges have changed since Nemesis, featuring a design similar to that seen in TNG-era shows’ depictions of the future, which was a nice touch. The new combadge is an understated design, a hollow silver outline over a dark background, combining elements of The Original Series, Discovery, and the TNG-era shows all in one, with the most obvious influence being the future combadge we saw in those 24th Century shows. The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all featured this same design when they set episodes in the future, so to use a visually similar combadge here is a great way to tie Picard to the rest of the franchise from a design standpoint.

Starfleet combadges in Picard (left) and Voyager’s future (right).

At Starfleet Headquarters, Admiral Clancy contacts someone called Commodore Oh, who appears to be a Vulcan, to discuss Picard’s visit. She is clearly alarmed by the idea that Romulan agents may be operating on Earth, and Oh says she will investigate. However, Commodore Oh is working with a Lieutenant named Rizzo and they are responsible for the attack on Dahj – though killing her before they could interrogate her was clearly a mistake. Furthermore it’s revealed that Rizzo is a Romulan disguised as a human, and is very close with Narek – she refers to him as “brother”, though whether this is literal or not is unclear. Narek is, however, implicated in this plot, and his relationship with Soji seems a facade simply to get close to her. Rizzo – which is probably not her real name – says she will travel to the Artifact to complete their mission with Soji. What she plans to do isn’t clear, but it seems like Soji is in real danger.

It’s possible that Commodore Oh is a Romulan agent. That’s heavily implied by Maps and Legends, but it could also be the case that she’s a Vulcan who’s simply cooperating with the Romulans. While it may be easy enough for a well-organised intelligence agency to have one of their operatives disguised as a lieutenant, I think it would be much harder to create the fake identity of someone of such high rank as Commodore – not least a Commodore who is in charge of what looks like a whole department of Starfleet security and/or intelligence. That, to me at least, suggests she may be a Vulcan who’s simply decided to work together with this Zhat Vash faction, who are mentioned by name.

When Picard proposes to go back into space, looking for Soji and answers, Laris refuses to go, saying he’ll get himself killed. Zhaban suggests Picard contact his old crew – Riker, Worf, and La Forge are all mentioned by name – and have them join him on the mission, but Picard, seemingly still haunted by what happened to Data, won’t put them in danger. He travels to see Raffi, another new main character played by Michelle Hurd, and she points a phaser at him and tries to get rid of him. By telling her about the “Romulan assassins”, he manages to persuade her to at least hear what he has to say.

An evidently complicated relationship between Picard and Raffi – considering she points a weapon at him!

There was a lot going on in Maps and Legends, but the action was mainly taking place on the vineyard and on the Artifact. I had expected, as we’re now two episodes into a ten-episode series, that Picard may have left Earth before the end of the episode, or that we might’ve met more than one of the other new starring characters. I think that’s why this episode feels slower-paced than last time. Star Trek: Picard is clearly working towards bringing this crew together and getting off Earth, but it’s a slow build.

The Romulans having a fear, mistrust, and hatred of synthetic life, while wholly new to Star Trek, does fit in with their paranoid nature and I think it’s an interesting element to the faction. The fact that we’re no longer using the term “Romulan Star Empire”, and instead the “Romulan Free State” is also a point of note, but since the Tal Shiar are confirmed – by Zhaban and Laris – to still exist, I wonder how “free” the Free State really is.

The only part of the episode that I wasn’t so keen on was Laris’ exposition dump regarding the Zhat Vash. While this faction is clearly going to be an important element to the story, simply having one character talk about them instead of letting us, as the audience, learn more about them through seeing them on screen, interacting with others, or even seeing our characters find evidence for them, fell a bit flat. Exposition is always hard to get right, and in an episode with limited runtime it can be hard to avoid it feeling like just a pure information dump. While it’s helpful to know who we’re dealing with – the antagonists now have a name, at least – the scene was just a little clumsy in my opinion.

That’s really my only significant criticism. There are other nitpicks, but they’re all very minor things that in no way detract from the episode or the story. Maps and Legends was a good follow-up to Remembrance, and the show feels like it’s coming together. Hopefully next time we’ll get to see more of the new crew, and possibly even give them a destination. If this Lt. Rizzo is already preparing to head to the Artifact, they don’t have a lot of time if they’re to get there first to help Soji.

Lt. Rizzo arrives to meet Commodore Oh.

There were a couple of uses of the word “fuck” in Maps and Legends. Though we’ve seen swear words before in Star Trek, both of these instances – by Laris in Dahj’s apartment and by Admiral Clancy – felt scripted and forced. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the way the lines were written or delivered, but I didn’t think that either felt natural. Instead the uses of “fuck” felt artificial, as if a team of writers had sat around and said “hey we’re allowed to use the F-word! So where can we put it?” It’s nothing to do with foul language “having no place in Star Trek”, because we’ve seen it used before and it’s generally okay when it’s done right. I just felt that neither of these uses were done right. It’s worth noting that times have changed since The Next Generation and other Star Trek shows were on the air. CBS All Access and Amazon Prime Video don’t have to be as constrained when it comes to their use of language, and television audiences are far more accepting of it too. As I said I don’t think that the use of such language in Star Trek is an issue in itself, but the way it was done here fell flat for me.

Toward the end of The Next Generation’s first season there was a conspiracy in Starfleet by parasitic organisms to infiltrate and take over the Federation. Picard and his crew stopped that before it could proceed. There was also the Khitomer conspiracy seen in The Undiscovered Country, which involved both undercover Romulan agents and some Starfleet personnel working together. I got the impression that the Commodore Oh-Lt. Rizzo-Narek grouping of characters was drawing inspiration from both of those sources, and I liked that. A few of the components of those characters’ actions are comparable to those previous Star Trek adventures, and whether the showrunners were conscious of that or not, it adds a nice little extra element to the story. Without being a copycat or even being particularly overt, using the feel or concept of those stories is a nice way to tie some of these things together. And thematically, it brings Picard in line with something we’ve seen before, which is again a nice little tie-in to the rest of the franchise.

I liked Picard’s line about science fiction during his conversation with Dr Jurati. In case you didn’t know, Sir Patrick Stewart came very close to turning down The Next Generation in 1986-87, and though he’s now inseparable from the franchise – as indeed he also is from the X-Men film series – he’s not by nature a science fiction fan nor an actor who would’ve chosen such roles. In the context of a science fiction series a main character saying they were never interested in sci-fi is funny in itself, but knowing that little bit of background information makes it even more amusing, and I’m sure it was put in as an acknowledgement of Sir Patrick!

Overall I had a great time with Maps and Legends. It was a good follow-up to Remembrance – even though it wasn’t quite as spectacularly good as that episode had been. The Zhat Vash add an extra dimension to the Romulans, and their motivation for attacking synthetics, which I had assumed to be vengeance for lost lives in the supernova, is a little clearer. But there’s still plenty of mystery – who really built Soji and Dahj? Where are they now? What were they created for? Who’s in charge of the Zhat Vash? Is Commodore Oh a Romulan? Who is Raffi, and how does she know Picard? So many questions – hopefully we’ll start to find some answers soon!

Santiago Cabera was in a television series a couple of years ago called Salvation, which I thoroughly enjoyed. When I heard he was going to be in Picard I was very pleased, and it looks like we might finally get to see his character next week, so I’m looking forward to that as well.

Stay tuned over the next few days, as I’m sure there will be much more to talk about before next week’s episode, The End Is The Beginning.

Maps and Legends, the second episode of Star Trek: Picard, is available to watch now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

The biggest “problems” with Remembrance… that aren’t problems at all!

The biggest “problems” with Remembrance… that aren’t problems at all!

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers for Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, as well as potential spoilers for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

I don’t read a lot of reviews. Maybe you could tell from the amateurish way that my own review of Remembrance (the premiere of Star Trek: Picard) was written! But I do check in with Star Trek on social media, and I sometimes watch a couple of folks on YouTube who discuss the franchise. In the aftermath of Remembrance last week, some people seem to be pulling at the threads of the story expecting it all to unravel.

There are a few points that I saw being raised multiple times, especially in comments on other sites and on social media. Makes me glad to not have comments enabled here, really! I thought I’d go through and take a look at a few of the complaints people had, because they’re all nonexistent as far as I’m concerned.

Remembrance was a stunningly good episode. Sir Patrick Stewart was outstanding as Picard, despite an eighteen-year absence from the role. And the three new actors who took starring roles – Harry Treadaway, Alison Pill, and Isa Briones – were on top form. I could nitpick a handful of very minor things (and I did), but that’s always the case with practically every work of fiction. And in case you missed it, Star Trek’s canon has always been a bit of a mess – just look at warp factors as one example.

So here’s a list of a few criticisms folks have thrown out regarding Remembrance – along with my own deconstructions and why I don’t think they’re relevant.

Please don’t take this as a personal attack – if you didn’t like Remembrance that’s okay. Even as Star Trek fans, we like different kinds of stories within the franchise – and that’s okay too. Entertainment is always going to be subjective, and we don’t all enjoy the same things. This isn’t meant to insult or attack anyone; if anything it’s a response to general points I’ve seen made, and it’s really just an excuse for me to get my own thoughts in order.

That said, if you can’t tolerate disagreement, now’s your chance to jump ship!

Number 1: Wasn’t it the “Hobus” star that went supernova?

The planet Romulus is destroyed in a supernova.

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: I spent a while going back and looking at 2009’s Star Trek to see where this word came from. Even I knew the word “Hobus”, and although I didn’t remember where I’d heard it spoken, it surely had to come from the 2009 reboot film, right?

Wrong – no one in that film uses the word “Hobus”. It was only ever mentioned in the Countdown comic book series that preceded the film. Since those comic books aren’t canon, it doesn’t count.

In the film itself, Spock simply says that “a star” went supernova, and that he raced to get there in time before it destroyed Romulus. For some people – probably some of the same people now getting upset about “Hobus” – this was always a bit of a plot hole in Star Trek, because supernovae can’t really destroy planets in nearby star systems, nor threaten “the galaxy”. At least that’s our current understanding of the phenomenon.

In 2009’s Star Trek, Spock never uses the name “Hobus”.

In that sense, changing the star that went supernova to be in Romulan system actually closes a plot hole rather than opens one.

And even if we’re so attached to the word “Hobus” that we can’t let that slide, it could simply be the Romulans’ name for their star, in the same way that we call our star the Sun or Sol. Thus it’s possible to have your cake and eat it: Hobus was the name of the star in the system containing Romulus, and it went supernova.

Number 2: How many Romulans are there?

A Romulan crew seen in Balance of Terror from The Original Series. The exact Romulan population – and even a guesstimate – is unknown.

Some people seem to be confused by the “900 million” number given by the FNN interviewer when discussing Picard’s evacuation of Romulus. I can kind of see why; it seems like a low number on the surface given that there were 50 million people just living on Earth’s moon in the 24th Century.

I tried looking for sources on the population of the Federation as a whole for some kind of guide. There’s nothing “official”, only non-canon sources like reference books which don’t really count. But there’s no reason to believe it would be a small number – tens or hundreds of billions people could easily be in the ballpark. So the population of the Romulan Star Empire, which controlled a large expanse of space, should be somewhere in the region of tens or hundreds of billions too, right?

Data and Picard went undercover on Romulus during the events of The Next Generation’s two-part episode Unification – and they saw a populated, but not overcrowded, city.

Well there are a couple of issues here. First is that we have absolutely no idea. We’ve only ever seen a handful of Romulans on screen all at once, and even their biggest fleets at the height of the Dominion War weren’t huge – so it’s conceivable that their population wasn’t as large as their territorial expansion would suggest. That could be for many reasons, like their empire containing a large number of uninhabitable worlds. Pure speculation, but it fits with established canon.

Secondly, and most importantly for this discussion, nobody said that Picard was evacuating the entire Romulan Star Empire – it was probably just Romulus and Remus and any bases or stations in that system. Add to that the fact that the Romulans have their own shipyards and their own fleet, meaning they could conduct a significant portion of any evacuation themselves. Starfleet wasn’t doing the entire thing while the Romulans sat on their hands – they would have been constantly evacuating as many people as possible while the fleet was being built. The 900 million figure is what Picard was able to contribute – and based on what he said about arguing with Starfleet Command, I bet he wanted to have more capacity on that fleet.

Thirdly, 900 million people could easily have been the population of the Romulus system – with billions of other Romulans spread throughout their Empire.

A combination of factors is actually the most likely – the Romulans were evacuating as many people as they could, but they needed extra support. The Federation, under Picard’s command, could get 900 million Romulans out of danger, which was a contribution to the effort but not the entire thing by any means. 900 million may have been the leftover population of Romulus by the time the fleet was being built.

See? It doesn’t have to be a problem at all.

Number 3: Too much politics!!!

If someone told me they’re upset by the intrusion of politics and political themes in Remembrance, I’d ask them one question: “have you ever seen Star Trek before?” Since its 1960s origins, Star Trek has used its science fiction setting to highlight real-world political issues.

In The Hands Of The Prophets from the first season of Deep Space Nine was a deeply political episode tackling the issue of religion in schools – a clear metaphor for the teaching of creationism and evolution.

If someone first watched the show while very young these things would go over their head, which is perfectly understandable. And if they watched it two decades or more after its initial airdate, many of the issues raised wouldn’t be obvious because they’re no longer current affairs. They were important socio-political issues at the time, but may no longer be something we’d even think about. So it’s easy to miss if someone didn’t watch each series when they were originally broadcast.

Let’s look at a handful of examples of where the Star Trek franchise has brought in potentially controversial political themes:

The Doomsday Machine (TOS, 1967) This episode featured Kirk and Spock discussing nuclear weapons and how good it was that they were never used, as well as looking at the concepts of superweapons and mutually assured destruction – both massive topics during the Cold War.

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS, 1969) This episode looked at racism and the consequences of holding on to hate for a long time. It was an attack on racist attitudes held by some in 1960s America.

Ethics (TNG, 1992) This episode dealt with the concept of ritual suicide in other cultures, disability and suicide, the concept of moral relativism, and the ethics of experimental medical procedures.

Relics (TNG, 1992) This episode looked at how we treat older people, and how people can make valuable contributions regardless of age.

Melora (DS9, 1993) This episode dealt with disability and how disabled people can be treated differently, looked down on because of their condition, and underestimated.

Jetrel (Voyager, 1995) This episode looked at the consequences of using chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction – and the toll it can take not only on the victims, but the perpetrators too.

Rejoined (DS9, 1995) This episode is famous for featuring one of the first female same-sex kisses on American television. It touched on homosexuality and LGBT+ issues.

Death Wish (Voyager, 1996) This episode dealt with the concepts of suicide and euthanasia, as well as whether a “right to die” exists or should exist.

Stigma (Enterprise, 2003) This episode looked at the stigma of living with a disease that only “undesirable” people would have contracted. It was an allegory for the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Damage (Enterprise, 2004) This episode tackled addiction, and the long-term effects it has on people.

The Original Series could be incredibly political. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, from Season 3, was intended to me a metaphor for race relations at the time.

So there’s a few episodes from all the iterations of Star Trek prior to Discovery that dealt with contemporary issues. There are literally hundreds of other examples, including smaller points in episodes about other topics. This could be a full article in itself, but anyone suggesting politics “has no place in Star Trek” hasn’t been paying attention.

As a final note on this, I didn’t really think that Remembrance got particularly political. The section of the interview regarding the evacuation of Romulus could be taken as allegorical for the modern-day migration crises facing Europe and the United States, and it could also be taken as a critique of isolationism as a broader concept. That’s really the only point that was “politically charged”, and even then it wasn’t the focus of the episode. That scene was there to provide some backstory.

The only other point where I think people have seen the episode through a political lens is the rooftop fight scene, where Dahj takes on the attackers while yelling at Picard to take cover. For some people with preexisting biases, perhaps they took this as “Strong Woman has to defend Old White Man” – she’s strong, he’s not, so it must be a feminist political point – or so goes their argument. But Picard is an old man, even by 24th Century standards – and more importantly he’s unarmed. Dahj, by contrast, is a newly-activated butt-kicking machine – probably literally a machine. Picard would have been useless in that fight, so she was the only one of the two characters who, in the context of the story, could have made a stand. It was just a fight scene – not a political attack on one group or another.

Sometimes we all need to deactivate our political lenses when watching something that’s designed to just be entertainment. If we turn every single thing into a political fight, there’ll be no room for entertainment or anything else.

Number 4: Technology is wrong – it’s not advanced enough!

So firstly, the episode took place entirely on Earth. As a result, we don’t get to see as much technology as we would if we were on board the Federation’s newest flagship. Secondly, Château Picard – the setting for much of the episode – is deliberately rustic. Picard’s family, if you recall from The Next Generation, were quite traditionalist. Picard was the first in his family to have left the solar system, and the way the house is built and decorated reflects the past deliberately. But even here at the Château, we see an updated LCARS display, a food replicator, holo-screens, and other trappings of the 24th Century.

An updated LCARS panel and a food replicator at Château Picard.

The transporter – as used by the attackers anyway – also seems to have been updated. Whereas the transporters of the TNG era took several seconds to fully materialise, in Remembrance the attackers appeared practically instantaneously – the transporting process now taking less than a second.

There’s also the archive. How exactly it works isn’t clear, but I’d speculate that the all of the items are held in some kind of transport buffer, able to be materialised at will. That’s a pretty impressive feat, and not something we’ve seen before, at least not on this scale.

We’re also looking at Earth a decade after the attack by rogue synthetics. The synths were living technology – and perhaps as a result of their actions, people are less enthusiastic about trying out new technology.

Sisko’s Creole Kitchen in New Orleans wasn’t a high-tech establishment – clearly a lot of people on Earth in the 24th Century appreciated that.

Finally, when we’ve seen Earth in other iterations of Star Trek, technology was never front and centre then either. Sisko’s restaurant in New Orleans is a good example – where was the technology there? We hardly saw any. It’s possible that the Federation likes to keep Earth looking as pristine as possible, at least in some regions, without too much tech everywhere. These could also be aesthetic choices by citizens of Earth to hide as much of their tech as possible. And of course, it’s also possible that, since the TNG era, miniaturisation has occurred, allowing formerly large devices – like the computer panels that took up a whole wall that we saw on starships at that time – to be much smaller.

Number 5: Picard is depressed.

Well, yes.

He lost a very close friend in Data, who sacrificed himself to save Picard. That isn’t something you can just snap your fingers and get over. It came only a few years after his brother and nephew died, too, with that loss (seen in Star Trek: Generations) affecting him greatly as it meant he was the last living member of his own family – and the end of his family line.

I’ve lost friends and family in my life, and I still think about them, I still visit their graves, and I’m still sad about them no longer being here even decades later.

Picard and Data, mere moments before Data’s death. The loss of his friend has clearly weighed heavily on Picard in the years since.

In addition to his personal loss, he went through a series of traumatic events. Firstly, the attack on Mars destroyed his fleet and killed over 90,000 people – many of whom he will have known. It’s even possible that Geordi La Forge was among those killed – he was working on Mars in the Star Trek: Picard Countdown comic book series (which is confusingly not the same Countdown as the 2009 series mentioned above), though whether this is fully canon or not is unclear. Next the Romulan supernova hit, and despite his best intentions it seems clear that he wasn’t able to save as many lives as he hoped. Finally, he’d been a Starfleet officer since he was very young – we’re talking six or seven decades of service, practically his entire adult life. And in an instant it was all over – he resigned in protest at Starfleet’s decision to pull out of helping the Romulans. No one stopped him – perhaps this is part of what he meant by his “offended dignity” remark.

We were warned a number of times that Picard might not be the same way we remember him, and in that sense it’s true. He’s missing a part of himself because of what he’s been through. But at the same time, the man we knew is right there under the surface. The way he speaks with passion and anger during his interview, defending the rights of Romulans and synthetics alike was absolutely pure Picard, and anyone who thinks otherwise must’ve skipped episodes like The Drumhead, The Measure Of A Man, Who Watches The Watchers, and countless others because the way he reacts in that moment is absolutely the way we would expect him to.

I felt the same way when I read so much criticism of Luke Skywalker’s characterisation in The Last Jedi too, and the two characters and their situations are somewhat comparable. But anyone saying “my childhood hero would never ever become depressed!” clearly has no understanding of depression and mental health. They’ve almost certainly never experienced it in their own lives or within their own families or peer groups, because if they had – and they were capable of basic empathy – they’d know that depression can afflict anyone. Sometimes it’s a result of circumstances – in Picard’s case, the loss of his friends and his treatment by Starfleet. In Luke Skywalker’s case, it was one moment of weakness that had disastrous consequences. But sometimes depression comes out of nowhere and hits you like a ton of bricks. Anyone who’s lived a life will know that there are good moments and bad moments. If we’re lucky, the bad moments don’t last long. But for Picard, his bad moment clearly has.

Picard’s mental and/or emotional state has been a point of contention for some viewers.

This is a much broader point. Life happens – and the way a person is at age twenty isn’t the same way they’ll be at forty, and the way they are at forty will change again by the time they’re sixty or seventy. We haven’t seen Picard in two decades – in which time he’s been though some really difficult experiences. It’s no wonder he’s stepped back.

But the point of these kind of stories isn’t that he’s a depressed old man, it’s that something gave him a reason to get involved again. There’s a mystery to unravel, a long-lost friend’s family to find – and suddenly Picard has motivation and confidence again. It took the extraordinary events of Remembrance to remind him that he can still make a difference. And a similar story plays out in The Last Jedi – Luke eventually realises that he can’t just sit around and die, he has to take action because there’s a cause worth believing in.

This is a twist on a very classic adventure story setup. I mentioned this in my review, but Remembrance plays up some of the elements present in classics of the genre like The Hobbit – Picard is living a quiet, rural life, with no plans to leave his home or do anything significant. But his life is interrupted by someone new, who drags him into a mystery and sends him on an adventure. The added twist is that Picard used to be an adventurer of sorts, but he ended up depressed and back at home before someone reignited that spark within him and gave him something to investigate and a cause to get involved with.

It’s an incredibly positive message: anyone can fall victim to this kind of mindset, but there is hope. Under the right circumstances, someone who has lost their way and who has been feeling down for a long time can find a way out of it. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, even for someone who had arguably lost all hope and was “just waiting to die”.

So that’s it. A few criticisms of Remembrance that I’ve seen people throwing around. Some were glorified nitpicks, like the Romulan population or the supernova’s name, and others were more to do with the themes and concepts the story established. But in both cases I’ve provided my rebuttal just based on my own viewing of the episode.

As I said before, this isn’t meant to call out anyone or criticise anyone. It’s totally okay to dislike the episode, it’s totally okay to have a different opinion to me on all of these points. Entertainment is subjective, and we all have different opinions about an episode or film. Some of these are informed by our own experiences in life.

For me personally, I hadn’t considered any of the above points to be problematic while viewing Remembrance, and a couple of them caught me completely by surprise when I saw people were upset.

I had expected the biggest criticism to be along the lines of “this is completely different from The Next Generation“, and while I’m sure there are people who don’t like the concept of the series, I haven’t seen a great deal of criticism centred around that point thus far.

Friday can’t come soon enough for me, though! Roll on episode two – Maps and Legends.

Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, is available to watch now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Six Star Trek: Picard theories

Six Star Trek: Picard theories

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers for Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, as well as for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

I don’t usually engage too much in theorising about my favourite shows, but Star Trek is somewhat of an exception! Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, introduced us to a lot of information about some of the events and individuals that have shaped the galaxy since Star Trek: Nemesis. And I got thinking about a few of those points, as well as other story points from the episode.

This is pure speculation. I don’t have “sources” – no one online does – and this is just a short collection of my own personal theories based on my viewing of Remembrance. It’s highly likely that none of these will turn out to be correct!

Number 1: Index, the hologram from the Starfleet archive, is sentient.

The hologram named Index in Picard’s personal archive.

After the attack on Mars, which was conducted by rogue synthetics, there was a “galactic treaty” which banned synthetic life. But “synthetic” is a very broad term – if they wanted to ban androids, why not just say “android”? If I’m right, then all sentient machines and AIs – not just androids – have been outlawed. This would include self-aware, fully sentient holograms.

We’re aware of three who fall into this category. Vic Fontaine, who was a recurring character on Deep Space Nine in its final seasons, Professor Moriarty, who was accidentally created by the Enterprise-D computer, and The Doctor from Voyager. Of those three, Moriarty’s fate is unclear – he was trapped in his own holographic world by Picard and his crew, but whether his programme survived the destruction of the Enterprise-D isn’t known. Vic Fontaine and The Doctor may very well have still been active around the time of the attack on Mars – so what happened to them? I wonder if we’ll find out.

Regardless, if there is a ban on all artificial intelligence, including holograms, that should mean that Index, the hologram at the Starfleet archive, is just a piece of software and isn’t self-aware. But when I watched Remembrance, there was something in the performance that indicated a greater understanding of what was going on. The eye movements, the tiny smile when showing Picard the painting, and other very subtle clues contributed to this feeling, at least for me. I don’t know whether we’ll see Index again, or whether it will even matter, but I have a suspicion that she is sentient.

I hope that, one way or another, the question of holograms is addressed. The Doctor was obviously a huge part of the Voyager crew, and Vic Fontaine was important too, so it would be nice to know one way or the other what happened to them – even if it’s only implicitly through some throwaway comment about holograms.

Number 2: Bruce Maddox inadvertently caused the attack on Mars.

Picard with Bruce Maddox aboard the Enterprise-D.

Mars came under attack by rogue synthetics, destroying the fleet Picard hoped to use to aid the evacuation of Romulus. At that time, a senior figure in the Federation’s synthetic research was Bruce Maddox – who we met in The Measure Of A Man from the second season of The Next Generation. After the ban on synthetics went into effect, Maddox went underground and – so it seems, anyway – continued his research into synthetic life.

The underlying cause of the attack on Mars isn’t known as of Remembrance, despite the attack taking place over a decade earlier. I wonder if Maddox did something while creating or programming the synthetics to cause them to malfunction. In Star Trek: Insurrection, Data goes rogue too, attacking a cloaked Federation outpost and exposing the officers to the Ba’ku, who they had been observing. The reason was that Data’s core programming took over, and all he knew was “right and wrong” – and believing the mission to forcibly relocate the Ba’ku to be wrong, he attacked his Starfleet colleagues.

So there is precedent in Star Trek for an android to malfunction in a similar way. If there were something wrong in the synthetics’ programming, or if Maddox inadvertently triggered something, that could explain why they went rogue and attacked Starfleet.

It might also explain why Maddox went into hiding, and why he continues to work on synthetics in spite of the ban – perhaps he feels guilty over what happened. And perhaps he’s trying to prove – to himself and to the galactic community – that not all synthetics are bad, and that what happened was a one-off mistake.

Either way, I’m certain we’ll learn the reason for the synthetics’ attack by the end of the season.

Number 3: The Romulans who attacked Dahj were the Tal Shiar.

At least one of these attackers was Romulan – possibly working for the Tal Shiar.

In Remembrance, Dahj is attacked twice by masked assailants, and during the second attack one of them loses his helmet and is revealed to be Romulan.

In the 24th Century, the Tal Shiar was the Romulan intelligence agency and secret police force. They were known to employ cutting-edge technology, and if any organisation had the capability to pull off two incursions on Earth without raising the alarm, it’s them. They were able to beam operatives to a location very close to Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, attack and seemingly kill a Federation citizen while she was with a retired Starfleet flag officer, and cover their tracks so that neither they nor their target appeared on Starfleet’s security monitors. That’s incredibly impressive, and of all the organisations we know of in Star Trek, the Tal Shiar are certainly near the top of the list when it comes to being able to pull it off. Given that at least one of the attackers was Romulan, it starts to add up.

It’s possible that the group weren’t all Romulan – we only saw the face of a single individual, after all – and even if they are, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re working for the Tal Shiar. However, the Romulan state has clearly survived in some form, and the Romulans remain an independent faction, so that implies that the machinery of their state, including the Tal Shiar, survived as well. The Tal Shiar and the Cardassians’ Obsidian Order were the two most significant intelligence agencies in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants the last time we saw the 24th Century, so if anyone could pull off an attack of this type so close to the heart of Starfleet – and manage to cover it up – it seems at least plausible that they’re involved.

Number 4: The Romulans/Tal Shiar are attacking synthetics as revenge for Mars.

Are these attackers checking to see if Dahj is synthetic?

Over 90,000 people died as a direct result of the attack on Mars. Some of those may have been Romulan, but by far the greater impact of the attack was that the rescue armada, designed to evacuate 900 million Romulans, was completely destroyed.

While the attack proved a significant blow to the Federation – losing a major shipyard and Earth’s closest neighbour becoming uninhabitable – the Romulans arguably suffered more as a result, not least because the Federation refused to rebuild the lost fleet. How many Romulans died as a result, because they couldn’t be evacuated before the supernova, isn’t clear at this stage, but it could number in the millions.

That gives Romulans a powerful reason to hate synthetics, and could explain why they send strike teams to Earth to capture or kill any synthetics they find.

Dahj describes synthetics as “murder machines” – a view tainted, no doubt, by the events on Mars. The Romulans, out of all the factions in the galaxy, would have felt that way even more strongly if the attack disrupted plans to evacuate their homeworld. Even more so than the Federation, this gives the Romulans a reason to be incredibly aggressive toward synthetics and a reason to strictly enforce the ban on synthetic life.

Number 5: Soji and Dahj aren’t synthetic after all – they’re human.

Could Dahj be human after all?

This one would be a major double-bluff. After Picard discovered that Data had painted Dahj’s likeness thirty years previously, it’s assumed by everyone that they’re androids created by Maddox – but what if they aren’t? What if, instead, they’re genetically enhanced humans? One of the ancestors of Data’s creator, Arik Soong, experimented with augmented humans in the 22nd Century. A trilogy of Enterprise episodes in Season 4 deal with this storyline: Borderland, Cold Station 12, and The Augments.

If Maddox – or someone else on his team – had shifted research away from synthetics to genetic engineering the result could be Soji and Dahj. Since Dr Jurati was absolutely convinced that sentient androids were a long way away from being achievable, it could make sense. Genetic engineering could also explain Dahj’s abilities, as we saw from augments in Enterprise and of course Khan that physical and mental abilities can both be enhanced. We also saw in The Next Generation that the ageing process can be accelerated for genetically enhanced children, so Dahj and Soji’s ages (twenty-ish) shouldn’t count against this idea.

In the 24th Century, the Federation could scan for life forms very accurately. Data would register on sensor scans very differently to a human, so if synthetic life was banned, surely the Federation would have measures in place to detect synthetics using already-available technology. Dahj and Soji weren’t detected as being out of the ordinary at all, so either their synthetic nature is completely concealed somehow, or maybe they’re not synthetic at all. If they are, as Picard puts it, “flesh-and-blood androids”, this raises an interesting question in itself – where do you draw the line between synthetic and non-synthetic? If Maddox and his team basically built two humans from the ground up, using organic materials and human DNA, are they human or synthetic?

The flip side to this theory – and the reason why it’s unlikely – is that genetic engineering is banned, just as synthetic research is. There’s no reason for Maddox and his team to switch lanes. And Maddox has been involved in android research for over three decades at this point – changing to genetic engineering would be a wholly new field of study.

Number 6: Someone hacked the synthetics.

More than a decade later, no one knows what caused the synthetics to attack Mars.

Why did the synthetics attack Mars? This is one of the key mysteries that Star Trek: Picard established, and I’m absolutely certain we’ll find out the real reason by the end of the season.

Connected to the idea above, that a mistake on Maddox’s part may have inadvertently led to the attack, it’s conceivable that someone hacked into the synthetics and commanded them to launch the attack.

The attack on Mars was a very specific action. The synthetics didn’t simply malfunction and attack any Starfleet or Federation personnel in their immediate vicinity. A team of them, working in tandem, took control of a number of ships, took down Mars’ defences, and launched a coordinated attack with all ships engaging simultaneously. That doesn’t seem like a malfunction – it was a specific, deliberate act.

If something Maddox did left the door open to a cyber attack that took control of the synthetics – or even if it was something he and his team could in no way have prevented – this would mean that someone deliberately targeted Mars, and by extension the rescue fleet.

The choice of target is also interesting – the synthetics could have attacked Earth, destroying the office of the Federation President and Starfleet Headquarters. That would have been a far more devastating blow to the Federation as a whole than the loss of one shipyard – which was building ships not even intended for the Federation to use for their own benefit. Again, this speaks to it being a deliberately chosen target, and thus a deliberate act by someone.

So who could the culprits be? Let’s make a list.

Section 31 – The shadowy, off-the-record intelligence agency has recently been featured heavily in Discovery (and is set to have its own series) and they’ve shown in the past that they’re not above taking incredibly aggressive action to further their objectives. If Section 31’s leadership believed the decision to help Romulus was a mistake – as they conceivably might have done – they may have decided to act to stop it.

The Borg – Borg technology is capable of things far beyond the knowledge of the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant powers. They’re skilled at working with AIs and machines as the Borg are themselves partially synthetic. They’re also no friend to the Federation or the Romulans, and we know thanks to the existence of a Borg cube that there has been some form of Borg activity in the region.

The Klingons – The Klingons and Romulans have cooperated in the past, but relations between the two Empires haven’t always been great. The Klingons may have seen the Romulan supernova as an opportunity to expand into Romulan territory, and may have decided to sabotage Federation efforts to help believing it would benefit them. While hacking synthetics and hiding behind the scenes may not be a stereotypically Klingon move, they may have chosen this route to avoid war with the Federation.

A rogue Romulan faction – It’s possible that elements within the Romulan government, military, or the Tal Shiar would have seen accepting Federation help as beneath them. Not wanting to be indebted to an old enemy, they may have sabotaged the evacuation, even if doing so condemned many of their fellow citizens to death.

The Dominion – Prior to the Dominion War, Dominion operatives attempted to break apart the Alpha and Beta Quadrant factions, pushing them into war with one another so that they could sneak in during the chaos. Their attempts to push the Federation and Klingons to war even worked for a time, before a changeling was exposed in the Klingon military. This fits with their modus operandi, at least as of the 2370s – whether the Dominion changed significantly as a result of their loss is unclear.

So that’s it. Six ideas that are probably all wrong, but were fun to write about nevertheless. I’m not the sort of person to get overly attached to any particular theory, certainly not to the point where I’d let it spoil my enjoyment of finding out what the writers and directors of the series actually intend to happen! I’ve seen that happen a lot in recent years – The Last Jedi probably being the best example, as a lot of people became very upset that their own pet theories about where the story would go didn’t pan out on screen.

Of the six above, Dahj and Soji being genetically enhanced humans seems the least likely, and the Tal Shiar being the mysterious masked attackers seems the most likely, at least to me. But as I say, they could very easily all be wrong.

Remembrance has set up some genuinely interesting story threads, and I can’t wait for Friday to get the next instalment and see where things go next.

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, is available to watch now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Ten things we learned from Remembrance

Ten things we learned from Remembrance

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 1: Remembrance. There may also be spoilers for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise, including Short Treks and Discovery.

I know that for the last couple of weeks the blog has been dedicated almost entirely to Star Trek: Picard, but to be fair it’s been my most highly-anticipated series of the last few years! I do have a few non-Picard articles in the pipeline, but before my memories of the episode fade too much, I wanted to go over a few things we learned in Remembrance.

Considering that the episode was our first real look at the 24th Century since 2002 – I’m not counting Children of Mars or the brief scenes in 2009’s Star Trek – there was a lot that longstanding Star Trek fans wanted to know. Remembrance was peppered with enough little hints and pieces of background information to tide us over till next week – but without drowning out the plot in fan-service and nostalgia. Take note, Star Wars!

I have a full review of the episode already published – you can find it by clicking or tapping here. In that article I cover the plot in more detail, as well as giving my thoughts on various elements of the episode. Spoiler alert: I loved it.

Number 1: The “Prime Universe” or “Prime Reality” still exists!

You may recognise this graphic from the official website; it shows the various Star Trek series and their place in the overall timeline of the franchise.
Credit: Star Trek.com

This one should’ve been a given, considering everything we’d been told beforehand. But some “fans” – and I use the term very loosely – have been obsessed in recent years with convoluted “theories” that the Star Trek timeline ended or diverged after Enterprise went off the air.

The basic argument went something like this – the Kelvin-timeline films had a contractual obligation to make everything look 25% different from what had come before, and this carried over into Discovery, meaning the new shows are set in an alternate reality and not the original Star Trek timeline. Obviously that’s completely untrue, and Remembrance confirmed it. This is the original timeline, the one Spock left behind when he travelled to the alternate reality.

Picard has many artifacts in his personal archive from The Next Generation and the TNG-era films, so this is definitely, 100%, the same reality. Picard is the same Picard from TNG – just older. Enterprise, Discovery, The Original Series, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all took place in this timeline as well, before the events of this episode. Case closed, “theory” debunked. And as we saw dozens of TNG-era objects in Picard’s archive, the “25% different” nonsense is debunked too.

Number 2: The Ready Room – Star Trek’s aftershow – is actually worth watching.

Wil Wheaton now hosts The Ready Room – discussing each episode of Star Trek: Picard after it’s released.
Credit: Star Trek on Facebook

During Discovery’s second season, I only tuned in to The Ready Room a couple of times, and I wasn’t particularly impressed. Airing on Facebook Live after each episode, the show would feature someone involved in the episode’s production and they’d discuss some of the behind-the-scenes goings-on with the host. This time around, the host of The Ready Room is Wil Wheaton – yes, Wesley Crusher himself!

And it’s clear that he’s a fan of Star Trek – a passionate one, too. He talked about Remembrance with such enthusiasm that he was a joy to watch, and the interviews with Hanelle M. Culpepper and Michael Chabon – the director of the episode and the showrunner respectively – were respectful and genuinely interesting.

Personally, I like to keep my in-universe and real-world experiences separate, so watching The Ready Room immediately after the episode isn’t something I want to do… I need to give myself a few hours at least to come back down to Earth! But when I was ready, I gave The Ready Room a chance and I’m glad I did. I look forward to tuning in again next week for another look behind the curtain.

Number 3: The Ferengi Alliance is still around – at least in some form.

The emblem of the Ferengi Alliance seen in Boston.

This one was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it “easter egg”, but toward the beginning of the episode during an establishing shot of Boston, the emblem of the Ferengi Alliance can be seen. It’s projected on the side of a Bostonian building right before the scene with Dahj and her boyfriend, but I noticed it immediately.

Towards the end of Deep Space Nine, Grand Nagus Zek had begun implementing reforms to Ferengi society. Women were allowed to fully participate for the first time, and basic state assistance was put in place for financially unsuccessful Ferengi. Rom was chosen to be the next Grand Nagus when Zek stepped down. That’s twenty-five years before Star Trek: Picard’s setting, but it’s interesting to see that the Ferengi Alliance still exists, and is presumably still an independent faction.

Number 4: The attack on Mars was far worse than we realised.

Ships commandeered by rogue synthetics attacked Mars.

In Children of Mars, the attack by the rogue synths looked serious, but its ultimate outcome was unclear as the episode ended when news of the attack was only just breaking. Remembrance takes place over a decade later, and the extent of the damage is now known. Picard lost the entire rescue armada, and over 90,000 people died.

Worse is that Mars, which had been home to Utopia Planitia, is “on fire to this day” – strongly implying that the shipyards couldn’t be rebuilt and that the planet, which we know to have been inhabited, now might be wholly uninhabitable. The loss of the Federation’s most significant shipyard will have had repercussions, and the loss of Mars, Earth’s closest neighbour and one of humanity’s earliest colonisation targets, will have been a psychological blow.

Number 5: The Rogue Synths are no longer active.

I’m fairly sure that these are either the rogue synths or other androids shut down around the same time.

We speculated a little about who the rogue synths might be in my final article about the factions of Star Trek: Picard. The question of whether they remained an active faction after the attack wasn’t clear then, but the galaxy-wide ban on synthetics makes it clear that the rogue synths are no more.

What became of the individuals who attacked Mars isn’t clear, though. It’s possible that they and their ships were destroyed by Starfleet, but it’s equally possible that they were able to be peacefully shut down and are currently in storage, like the Data-esque characters we saw in the trailer.

However, with the plot of Picard currently fixated on synthetic life, I think that the rogue synths will come back into play somehow. And even if they were all destroyed – or rather, killed – in the aftermath of the Mars attack, I’m confident that by the end of the season we’ll understand what led them to rebel and attack the shipyard.

Number 6: The Romulan situation is bad – but they aren’t completely out of the game.

These Romulans were able to launch an undetected attack very close to the heart of Starfleet.

With Picard’s armada having been destroyed, it’s unclear how many Romulans were saved before the supernova. However, it seems unlikely that the planned 10,000 ships were able to be built elsewhere, and that whatever evacuation could be ultimately cobbled together saved far fewer than the intended 900 million lives.

However, the Romulans remain a force to be reckoned with. Armed Romulan operatives were able to transport to two locations on Earth and attack Federation citizens – all without raising any alarm. One of the attacks took place spitting distance from a Starfleet archive which required Picard’s Admiral-level clearance – and in addition, the Romulans were able to conceal themselves and the target of their attack in such a way that they didn’t even appear on any Starfleet security feeds.

So while it’s clear that the Romulan Star Empire has suffered, their intelligence and military technology is keeping pace with, and arguably outmanoeuvring, that of the Federation. Whether these operatives are the Tal Shiar (the Romulan secret police/intelligence agency) or whether they’re even formally affiliated with the Romulan government is still unknown.

Number 7: Androids are banned.

Picard and Dr Jurati examine the disassembled body of B4.

After the attack on Mars, a “galactic treaty” went into effect, prohibiting synthetic life forms such as androids. Picard considers this to be a mistake, even morally wrong, but nevertheless the ban exists, and it appears to be something that all of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants’ major factions have subscribed to.

Describing the ban as “galactic” may suggest that it even extends to factions like the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant and possibly even Delta Quadrant factions from Voyager, but I think that may be taking the word slightly too literally. For all intents and purposes, though, androids and other synthetic life forms are banned, and presumably any synths that were active at the time of the attack have been rounded up and forcibly shut down – raising some alarming questions about how this was done and whether synthetic life forms had any rights.

What does this mean for self-aware holograms, like The Doctor or Vic Fontaine? It’s unclear whether they were affected by the ban too, as the only hologram we’ve seen thus far was Index – who did not appear to be fully sentient. Index may have given a couple of very subtle hints at sentience, though, or maybe that’s just my interpretation of her movements and expressions.

Number 8: Some people flout the android ban and continue to work.

Dahj’s necklace was a symbol representing a particular method of creating androids.

Bruce Maddox, last seen in The Measure Of A Man from the second season of The Next Generation, disappeared in the aftermath of the attack on Mars and the ban on synthetics. A symbol he used to illustrate one of his theories about creating androids was seen on Dahj and Soji’s necklaces – implying that he created them, if indeed they are synthetics.

As with many points above, this raises as many questions as it answers. Was Dr Maddox involved, even inadvertently, in the attack on Mars? What purpose does creating Dahj and Soji serve? Who is supporting his research, and where is it being conducted?

Most significantly, if Dahj appeared to be fully human, how did Maddox manage to pull that off? If synthetic life is banned, and the Federation has sensors capable of detecting synthetics, then Dahj must have either been fully anatomically human, or must have employed some kind of system designed to fake that on all scans. We know Federation sensors in the 24th Century could differentiate Data from a human, so how Dahj and Soji haven’t been detected remains a mystery.

Number 9: There has been Borg activity in the Alpha and/or Beta Quadrants.

The Romulans have a base aboard a Borg cube.

There had been two Borg incursions into the Alpha and Beta Quadrants that we knew about before Remembrance. The first was in The Best Of Both Worlds from The Next Generation’s third season, where a single Borg cube attacked Earth and destroyed a huge Federation fleet at the Battle of Wolf 359. The second came a few years later when the Borg again sent a single cube to Earth during the events of First Contact. Both cubes were completely destroyed, such that they couldn’t have been reassembled.

The existence of another Borg cube in Romulan-controlled territory strongly suggests another Borg incursion on this side of the galaxy. When this took place and what its objective was isn’t known, but the fact that the Romulans were able to defeat it and still keep the vessel intact must have been a huge coup. The knowledge they could gain about the Borg may have unlocked whole new technologies for them – perhaps even explaining how Romulan operatives were able to conduct covert operations in San Francisco.

Number 10: The Federation pulled the plug on the mission to aid the Romulans.

“We withdrew.” – Picard became very upset when pushed on why he resigned.

Picard as an individual has the loyalty of at least two Romulans – but relations between the Federation as a whole and the remnants of the Romulan Star Empire may be much more frosty. In the aftermath of the attack on Mars, the Federation abandoned the rescue mission and didn’t rebuild the destroyed fleet – presumably forcing Picard to use other means to aid Romulus.

He was clearly successful to an extent – the presence of such loyal Romulan aides confirms this – but he resigned from Starfleet in protest at the decision, perhaps calling their bluff in a last-ditch effort to force his superiors to reconsider.

Picard states that Starfleet “withdrew”, shirking its duties in the aftermath of the supernova – and possibly other significant events. Whether this represents a change in Federation policy to become more insular and/or isolationist isn’t clear, but from Picard’s perspective at the time that was certainly the case.

There are surely going to be consequences as a result of the decision to effectively betray the Romulans after they had been assured of help. The fact that we see Romulan operatives on Earth at least hints at this, but the extent of the relationship will be seen later as the story unfolds.

So that’s it.

A few bits and pieces that we learned from Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard. Many of these points lead to more as yet unanswered questions, but a series as carefully constructed as Picard would seem to be would surely not be setting up mysteries it doesn’t intend to resolve. After all, this isn’t a JJ Abrams film!

As I said last time, I felt that Remembrance absolutely knocked it out of the park, and as far as Star Trek premieres go, it’s at least on a par with Emissary, the opening episode of Deep Space Nine.

While it can be nice to binge-watch a whole series at once, I think that weekly instalments like this give us time to digest each episode fully before moving on to the next. And I’m glad that Star Trek hasn’t gone down the route of doing full-season dumps like Netflix does for some of its original programming. Breathing room, especially after an episode as entertaining, exciting, and interesting as Remembrance can be important to us as viewers, and I’m glad that it’s being released this way. It gives me time to ponder some of those questions and speculate wildly about potential plot points!

If the rest of the episodes this season are even close to being as good as Remembrance, we’re in for an amazing couple of months. And I’m even more glad that a second season of Star Trek: Picard has been confirmed – hopefully production will begin shortly so the season can be released in about a year’s time.

Live Long and Prosper!

Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, is available to watch now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. Star Trek: Picard, and the entire Star Trek franchise, is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Picard review – Season 1, Episode 1: Remembrance

Star Trek: Picard review – Season 1, Episode 1: Remembrance

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek: Nemesis, Star Trek: Discovery, and for other iterations of the franchise.

Star Trek: Picard’s opening title.

I don’t wear t-shirts very often. That’s just a personal style preference, I guess. But as I waited for Amazon Prime Video to make Star Trek: Picard’s premiere episode available here in the UK, I was wearing my Star Trek: Picard t-shirt which I’d managed to get a few days ago. As I watched the clock tick awfully slowly to the moment I expected the episode to go live, both of the promotional posters for Picard – the vineyard Starfleet logo and the one with Picard and his dog – were hanging framed on my wall. And my Jean-Luc Picard action figure stood proudly in my glass display cabinet. Suffice to say, I’m a fan.

I was a little concerned going into Remembrance, and I haven’t really discussed this on the website before. The director of Picard’s premiere, Hanelle M. Culpepper, had directed what I considered to be Star Trek: Discovery’s worst episode by far – Season 2’s The Red Angel. That episode failed hard, with incredibly cringeworthy attempts at humour, complete mischaracterisations, and the kind of stupid, paradoxical time travel storyline that really just encapsulated why I don’t like time travel as a concept – and was a great example of how it’s hard to get right.

One of my two framed Star Trek: Picard posters, and my Picard action figure. Both are permanent fixtures in my living room!

Some – perhaps even most – iterations of Star Trek have started with premiere episodes that weren’t especially great. In fact the only real exception to this is Deep Space Nine, whose first episode, Emissary, was fantastic. So in addition to my concerns about the director, there was precedent for Star Trek shows to have underwhelming starts. As excited as I was for Picard, there were those two factors gnawing away in the background making me nervous!

Finally, after hitting “refresh” for what must’ve been the hundredth time, Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 1 was there! I was one click of the mouse away from Remembrance, and finally being back with Jean-Luc Picard for the first time in eighteen years – since I saw Star Trek: Nemesis at the cinema with my dad. I was still at university then. A lot has happened in my life since, and as Sir Patrick Stewart has told us in many interviews over the last couple of years, a lot has happened to Picard in that time too. I clicked “play”.

It was a nervous wait on the Amazon Prime Video page, waiting for Star Trek: Picard!

I’ve never been particularly impressed with Amazon Prime Video. When I watch something on Netflix, it’s always in 1080p high definition with no problems. On YouTube, for certain channels I’m able to watch videos in even higher quality – 1440p, a half-step between HD and full 4K. But Amazon Prime Video, at least in my experience, has tended to suffer from dips in quality where a high definition stream will suddenly and unexpectedly drop down to a much lower quality for a time. Obviously this is annoying, but luckily that didn’t happen on this occasion. I am disappointed, however, that Amazon Prime Video didn’t get the Short Treks episode Children of Mars. While I was able to watch it by “other means” – I even reviewed it – I think that it should have been made available to viewers outside the United States, preferably a few days ago prior to the start of the series. But we’re getting off topic again.

Remembrance begins with a dream sequence. We saw clips from this in the trailers – indeed, a significant portion of the content from the trailers was taken from this episode. Set to a forties- or fifties-inspired song, the camera pans over a nebula, and then we see the Enterprise-D, beautifully rendered in CGI. And sat in what I believe is Ten-Forward (though it may have been another observation lounge) are Picard and Data, playing cards. Data is wearing his First Contact-era uniform, which confirms this is a dream and not a flashback as that uniform was never used while the Enterprise-D was in service.

A brand-new CGI recreation of the Enterprise-D.

In the first trailer for Picard, I’d been a little concerned that Brent Spiner looked, to put it bluntly, too old to convincingly play Data. Indeed, Spiner himself said he felt he’d aged out of the role by the mid-2000s – which is why he opted not to appear in Enterprise’s finale These Are The Voyages along with Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes. Whatever makeup and/or digital effects have been applied to him, however, definitely looked better in the finished episode than they did in the trailers, and if we also remember that Data’s scenes are all taking place in Picard’s head, I think the way he looks is fine. It arguably wasn’t on the same level of digital de-ageing that we’ve seen in films like The Irishman or Captain Marvel, but it was good enough here not to be immersion-breaking.

Picard and Data continue their card game, and suddenly the Enterprise is in orbit of Mars. And just as in the Short Treks episode Children of Mars from a couple of weeks ago, the planet comes under violent attack, which finally jolts Picard awake. He opens the curtains and we see Château Picard – the Picard family vineyard in La Barre, France. The action then cuts to Dahj – the new character played by Isa Briones. She’s in her apartment in Boston when she and her boyfriend come under attack by unknown assailants. He is quickly killed, but the attackers place a device on her head and check to see whether or not she has been “activated”. She hasn’t, so they attempt to abduct her, but the violent nature of the attack causes whatever activation they were checking for to occur – and she quickly kills all three of them. For a military-esque team who knew what they were looking for, they went down remarkably easily against their target! But that’s very much a nitpick and not something that in any way hampers the story.

As Dahj mourns her boyfriend, she sees Picard’s face in her mind, and then the title sequence kicks in. The Next Generation had a memorable theme, taken from The Motion Picture a few years earlier, and aside from The Original Series’ theme, that piece of music is arguably the most iconic in the franchise. Picard’s theme is hard to explain in words, as music often is, but the best way I think I can describe it is that it’s somewhere between Discovery’s theme and the themes used on Deep Space Nine and Voyager. It’s slower in tempo and less adventurous in tone than The Next Generation’s theme, perhaps even reminiscent of something from The Lord of the Rings. The title sequence, as Discovery’s also does, runs through a few artistic designs of elements from the series – we see the vineyard, the damaged Borg cube, a planet breaking apart that I assume is Romulus, and what looks like DNA, before the sequence ends with Picard himself facing the camera. Obviously because I haven’t heard the theme more than a handful of times it doesn’t give me the same feelings as I might get from other Star Trek themes, but it is instantly recognisable as part of the show and it’s a perfectly creditable piece of music. The whole opening sequence is great, actually, and I wonder if they’ll do what we’ve seen in Discovery where they occasionally change up elements of the opening sequence to reflect what’s happening in that episode.

Picard at the end of the opening title sequence.

As the titles end we’re back at the vineyard, and Picard is with Number One – his pet dog. We briefly meet two Romulans who seem to be Picard’s assistants, and learn that he’s preparing for an interview to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Romulan supernova. In the 2009 film Star Trek it’s left unclear which star destroyed Romulus – Spock simply describes it as “nearby”. In this episode we learn that it was in fact the main star in the Romulan system. This closes what has been, for some people anyway, an annoying “plot hole”, as a supernova in one system shouldn’t have been able to travel far enough and fast enough to destroy a planet in another system based on our current understanding of supernovae in science. Hopefully that clears things up for those folks!

The interview Picard agreed to, however, turns into an ambush, as the interviewer aggressively pushes him on why he wasted resources to help “the Federation’s oldest enemy”, how he feels about “synthetics” like Data, and finally, why he quit Starfleet.

Picard is interviewed by the Federation News Network.

It turns out that the rogue synths, seen attacking Mars in Children of Mars, were in fact androids of Federation origin, though why they went rogue and attacked Mars is still unclear more than a decade later. We also learn more about Picard’s rescue armada – it was planned to be 10,000 ships capable of evacuating 900 million Romulans from their homeworld. Not only was the entire fleet destroyed by the rogue synths, but Mars even more than ten years later remains “on fire” – and presumably uninhabitable.

Sir Patrick Stewart had warned us heading into the new series that Picard may not be the same man we remember, but here in the interview he definitely was. He defiantly states that he left Starfleet because Starfleet tried to call off the rescue after the attack on Mars, something he felt was dishonourable and criminal, and that the lives at stake were simply “lives” – not “Romulan lives” as the interviewer coldly puts it. This reminded me so much of Picard’s staunch defence of Data in The Measure of a Man from The Next Generation’s second season. Picard has always argued in favour of the rights of life forms, and here he defends not only the Romulans but synthetic life too. Though he may have retired, he did so because he felt Starfleet no longer upheld its own ideals. He didn’t run away, and I’d argue that his decision to leave 100% re-emphasises that he is the character we remember. His morality and his code of ethics, at the very least, remain absolutely intact.

Picard ends the interview, clearly enraged by what he’s heard from the interviewer, and the action then cuts back to Dahj, who sees Picard’s interview on a screen and travels to find him. She’s clearly shaken, and despite the intrusion Picard welcomes her to his home. His Romulan assistants patch up her wound, and she’s invited to spend the night, but not before Picard is able to examine a necklace that she’s wearing. It’s a fairly plain silver necklace with two interlocking rings – I hadn’t actually noticed it until Picard asked for a closer look. Because the necklace was so plain I think this moment, of all the moments in Remembrance, felt forced. I understand it’s important to the plot, but I’m sure with a modicum of effort they could’ve made the necklace a little more visually interesting – as it is it looks like a piece of cheap costume jewellery from Claire’s Accessories! Again, however, this is really just a nitpick, and the necklace is only seen a handful of times across the episode so its appearance doesn’t really matter.

Dahj’s necklace.

Picard dreams again about Data, this time painting a picture – another scene from the trailers. Picard looks at the picture Data is painting – a portrait of a woman – and jolts awake to learn Dahj left in the night. Clearly inspired by the dream, he heads to San Francisco – but not to Starfleet Headquarters. Instead he heads to an archive, which holds (among dozens of TNG-era artifacts) a copy of the painting. In the dream it was incomplete, but the copy at the archive is fully complete and the woman Data painted thirty years ago is revealed to be Dahj.

Meanwhile Dahj is on the run, seemingly in Paris. She contacts her mother, who tells her to go back to Picard – even though Dahj never mentioned him. She then experiences another “activation” and hacks into Starfleet to track Picard down, and the two meet up outside the archive.

Picard thinks that Dahj is a synthetic – an android – and may be Data’s daughter. Data did attempt to create a “child” – Lal – in The Next Generation episode The Offspring. But Dahj is clearly not Lal – and believes herself to be human, perhaps suffering from a mental illness. The two are interrupted when Dahj believes they’re about to come under attack – and she’s proven correct. Another group of masked assailants appears – clearly the same faction as earlier – and they’re revealed to be Romulan. Shortly after the reveal, Dahj is killed. One of the attacking Romulans appears to spit something acidic at her, and his weapon overloads in a huge explosion which renders Picard unconcious. RIP Dahj!

Picard awakens back at the vineyard, and his Romulan assistants tell him that in the footage of the explosion there was no indication of anyone else being present – no masked Romulans, and no Dahj. Picard thinks she may have had some kind of cloaking device, and travels to the Daystrom Institute, which had been conducting research into androids – before such research was outlawed seemingly galaxy-wide.

At the Daystrom Institute. Named for a TOS character, the Institute has been mentioned a number of times in Star Trek.

He meets Dr Jurati, played by Alison Pill, and she explains that Bruce Maddox – presumably the same character from The Next Generation episode The Measure Of A Man – had been working on developing sentient androids which appeared to be human. Picard describes Dahj as a “flesh-and-blood” android. Here it’s also disclosed that B4 (from Star Trek: Nemesis) lacked the capability to take on Data’s memories and that despite Data’s attempts to copy his programming to B4, that information has been lost.

The necklace comes back into play – it’s a symbol used by Dr Maddox, which Dr Jurati recognises. And she reveals that, for some reason, part of the creation process for androids like Dahj means they’re made in pairs – so there may be another Dahj, another “daughter” of Data, somewhere out there.

The action then cuts to a Romulan base where we immediately meet Dahj’s twin, wearing the same necklace. She meets a Romulan – Harry Treadaway’s character – and they have a short conversation, before the camera pans out revealing that the Romulan base is aboard the Borg cube we’ve seen in the trailers, and the episode ends.

I feel that the trailers kind of spoilt that moment, because it would’ve been apparent from the decor of the Romulan base that it was inside the Borg cube to anyone who’d seen the trailers, yet the episode itself treated the reveal that the Romulans were on this Borg cube as a pretty big deal. In that sense I think the creative team and the marketing team may have not been working in tandem as well as they should’ve!

The Romulan base is revealed to be a Borg cube – and it looks a little different from the trailers.

Overall I was incredibly impressed with Remembrance. It was a very strong start for the series – setting up enough mystery to drive the plot forward. There were some looks back, and some “easter eggs” for long-time fans, but these complemented the plot rather than interrupting or overwhelming it. The emblem of the Ferengi Alliance pictured for a couple of seconds, the LCARS computer displays at Picard’s home, a TNG-era Batleth in Picard’s archive, the First Contact and TNG uniforms worn briefly in dream sequences, and many others that I’m sure I’m forgetting seasoned the episode with just enough nostalgia to say “hey, you’re definitely watching Star Trek”, but without drowning out the plot or any of the new characters.

Picard always had to find a way to get that balance right, and I think that if the season continues in a similar way to Remembrance, they’ve managed to pull it off.

The Romulans are clearly in a very bad situation. Picard initially intended to save 900 million lives – but after Mars was attacked and his fleet destroyed, it isn’t clear how many he was ultimately able to rescue before the supernova hit. Whether the Borg cube is their headquarters isn’t clear, but it just might be. If that is the case, it raises the question of why they didn’t settle on one of their colonies – the Romulan Star Empire was known to control other worlds and a significant amount of territory.

Picard’s Romulan assistants, Laris and Zhaban. How many other Romulans survived is unknown.

Dahj being killed off was a shock, and it was a story point put in purely for that reason – shock value. Though by the end of the episode it’s revealed she has a “twin”, the character we met who set in motion the events of the series is gone, and – barring any technobabble explanation for how she survived being disintegrated – isn’t coming back. That’s a new one for Star Trek, and it’s something you’d expect to see in a show like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. Dahj’s twin looks much more settled than Dahj did, but whether she too is going to be “activated” is unclear.

Indeed, it’s unclear what exactly was “activated” in Dahj. It’s apparently some part of her synthetic programming, something designed to keep her safe, but why it would direct her to the retired Admiral Picard instead of, say, sending her back to Dr Maddox if she got into trouble or came under attack is unclear.

I wonder if we’re going to see Dr Maddox in the flesh later in the series. Brian Brophy – the actor who portrayed Maddox in The Measure Of A Man way back in 1989 – wasn’t mentioned as being in the cast, and according to his IMDB page doesn’t seem to have had many film or television roles since the turn of the millennium. It’s possible, of course, that the character has been recast.

Picard and Bruce Maddox in The Measure Of A Man.

Remembrance played out like a the beginning of a classic adventure story. The protagonist – Picard, in this case – is living a quiet, rural life. His life is disrupted by a mysterious newcomer – Dahj – and he becomes embroiled in the mystery, setting the stage for the adventure to unfold as he chases down the solution.

It also had a very “Star Trek” feel, and moreover, it did feel like a continuation of the Star Trek story as a whole. For all of the high points of Enterprise, Discovery, and the Kelvin-timeline films, what was missing from those stories is a sense that things were moving forward, that the overarching narrative of the entire franchise was progressing. Prequels and mid-quels (or however we’re to describe Discovery) can be great, but pressing forward into the future is what Star Trek has always been about – at least, when it was at its best. Picard feels like a return to that, and a significant part of that is Sir Patrick Stewart’s performance.

I mentioned that he spoke passionately and angrily about helping the Romulans and about the ban on synthetic life, and that was absolutely pure Picard. The man we met in 1987’s Encounter At Farpoint was on full display in that moment, and his willingness to help Dahj, even before he knew who she was, shows he’s the same compassionate person we knew, even despite what happened with Starfleet and the Romulans.

Dahj, coming to terms with the idea of being an android.

There are parallels to Luke Skywalker’s characterisation in The Last Jedi in the sense that both men have left the institutions to which they belonged and from which they seemed inseparable. Both sought solitude and a quiet life – as Picard says, he felt he wasn’t living, merely “waiting to die”. And ultimately, both found a reason to come out of isolation, finding an inspiring cause once again.

So what are the mysteries Picard aims to solve over the rest of Season 1? Part of it surely has to be the reason that the synthetics went rogue and attacked Mars. A cause has never been identified, yet surely we’re on course to learn they were hacked, attacked, reprogrammed, etc. by some nefarious villain. Next is Dr Maddox – is he out there, somewhere? Is he going to feature in later episodes, or will we only know him through Dahj’s twin? What are the Romulans doing on the Borg cube? And how do the ex-Borg Seven of Nine and Hugh fit in to all of this? At this point we have absolutely no idea – and that’s compelling me to come back next time and find out more.

When Discovery premiered, I felt that The Vulcan Hello and Battle At The Binary Stars were not a very strong start, and that’s for a variety of reasons. Remembrance stands in absolute contrast to that, and ranks up there with Deep Space Nine’s Emissary as one of the best premieres in all of Star Trek. It crammed a lot into its 44 minutes without any of it feeling rushed, without any of it feeling overwhelming.

One of my cats interrupts my viewing of Remembrance!

The introduction of the series’ main characters has felt deliberate, and we’ve only met three out of six so far – one only very briefly at the end of the episode. This is incredibly positive – a show that throws a huge cast of characters at you in episode one can be difficult to follow. Picard has clearly had a lot of thought put into every aspect, including the pacing.

Hanelle M. Culpepper, whose work on The Red Angel had me feeling a little nervous as I mentioned, really excelled. Each shot, each camera angle, and the way each scene unfolded all felt meticulously organised and planned. A lot of care was taken with Remembrance to get the look and feel just right, and it shows.

It’s hard to pick out a significant point to criticise, really. I was thoroughly enjoying myself from start to finish, and while I can (and did) find a few very minor nitpicks, taken as a whole, Remembrance was incredible. A worthy successor to The Next Generation, and a fantastic way to rejoin Picard and the Federation in the late 24th Century.

Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and a number of other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part four – everyone else

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part four – everyone else

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise – including Short Treks, Star Trek: Discovery, and the trailers for Star Trek: Picard.

If you’re in the United States, you’ll be able to watch Star Trek: Picard tomorrow, you lucky thing! The rest of us have to wait an extra 24 hours… hopefully I can manage! This is the final part of my series of articles leading up to the release of the new show, and after this I expect my next piece – on the 24th or 25th – will be a review/breakdown of the first episode, which we now know is titled Remembrance.

Before we jump in and look at a few other factions from Star Trek, let’s briefly recap the articles here on the site in case you’ve missed any.

Firstly, I wrote a piece back in December explaining why I’m so excited for Star Trek: Picard. This was more of a personal look at my feelings regarding the upcoming series. The next piece I wrote was a review of Children of Mars – the Short Treks episode which was a prequel or prologue to the new show. Next, I wrote two articles which each highlighted ten episodes and/or films from Star Trek’s extensive back catalogue which may or may not be useful preparation for Star Trek: Picard. The first article contained episodes I think will surely have some relevance, and the second article looked at some episodes which are less likely to matter – but still might! After that, Picard had its red carpet premieres in Hollywood and London, so I wrote a short piece about that.

Finally, I began this series, looking at some of the factions we will encounter in Star Trek: Picard and giving some background information. First I looked at the Romulans, then the Borg, and finally the Federation.

This time – as a bonus and the final part of the series – we’re going to look at an assortment of other factions which seem less likely to be relevant to Picard. However, they may be mentioned in passing, may have been deliberately kept out of marketing material, or are just factions we know less about.

The Bajorans

Captain Picard has some history with the Bajorans, who were first introduced in The Next Generation. He took Ensign – later Lieutenant – Ro under his wing for a time, and was hurt by her ultimate defection to the Maquis. Of course most of what we know about Bajor and its people comes from Deep Space Nine, which was set in the Bajoran system.

Very briefly, the Bajorans were a much older race than humanity, and flourished more than 10,000 years prior to the events of Star Trek. In their star system is the only known stable wormhole – connecting Bajor to the Gamma Quadrant. The Prophets – a noncorporeal species with no concept of linear time – live in the wormhole and contacted the Bajorans throughout their history.

Ensign Ro and Captain Picard (with Worf and Data) visit a Bajoran refugee camp around the time the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was coming to an end.

In the late 23rd or early 24th Century, Bajor was violently conquered by their neighbours, the Cardassians. The Cardassian occupation stripped the Bajorans of significant quantities of resources, and many Bajorans were enslaved. A resistance movement sprang up, and for a variety of reasons the Cardassians withdrew from the Bajoran system in the mid-late 24th Century.

The new Bajoran government asked the Federation for help putting their planet and people back together, and a former Cardassian space station was occupied by the Federation and christened Deep Space Nine. The crew of DS9 discovered the wormhole shortly thereafter.

Bajor experienced a renaissance as a result of being the gateway to the Gamma Quadrant, and for a time many ships were passing through their system. However, their old enemies the Cardassians soon allied with the Dominion – an aggressive faction from the Gamma Quadrant – and when war broke out, Bajor – while officially neutral – was again occupied by the Cardassian-Dominion alliance until the Federation were able to drive them out.

Bajor came very close to joining the Federation! A ceremony to officially bring them into the fold was ultimately disrupted, and Bajor had not attempted to re-apply as of the end of Deep Space Nine.

Prior to the Dominion War, Bajor was a candidate for Federation membership. At one time they were on the cusp of being accepted, and an official ceremony was even planned to mark Bajor’s admission into the Federation. However, as of the finale of Deep Space Nine, Bajor had not yet officially become a Federation member – though it’s heavily suggested that it was still their goal.

In Star Trek: Picard, look out for signs that Bajor is a full Federation member, and that they have begun to heal after such a prolonged period of conflict. Also listen out for any mention of Deep Space Nine, as the station is located in the Bajoran system.

The Cardassians

The Cardassians, as mentioned above, occupied Bajor for a long period from the late 23rd Century through to the mid-late 24th Century. They were, as of the mid-24th Century, a regional power comparable in strength to other factions in the Alpha Quadrant – including the Klingons, Romulans, and even the Federation.

In wars and border conflicts with all of the aforementioned factions, the Cardassians held their own and even forced the Federation to concede settled planets as part of a peace treaty. These concessions, along with continued Cardassian aggression toward Federation border worlds, would ultimately lead to the Maquis attempting to secede from the Federation.

Despite the end of hostilities, some in the Federation retained a dislike of Cardassians even years later. Here, aboard the Enterprise-D, Miles O’Brien is forced to deal with Cardassians for the first time since he fought against them.

The Cardassian Union was, in some respects, similar to the Romulan Star Empire in that it was heavily militarised, and with a very powerful intelligence agency that also operated as a secret police. The Obsidian Order, as it was known, was responsible for keeping order in the Cardassian territory, and dominated the Cardassian state.

In the 2370s, the Cardassian Union entered a period of decline, withdrawing from Bajor and fighting a losing war against the Klingons. As a result, Gul Dukat was able to seize power and allied Cardassia with the Dominion – formally becoming a member of the Dominion under their rule. This would ultimately lead to the outbreak of the Dominion War, as a reinvigorated Cardassia sought to reconquer all of its old territory – including Bajor.

The dramatic moment when the Cardassians switched sides mid-battle, joining the Federation alliance and turning on the Dominion and Breen.

At the end of the war, fed up with an increasingly authoritarian Dominion occupation and too many concessions made to the Breen, a mass revolt began among Cardassian troops and later even Cardassian civilians. The Dominion responded by attempting mass genocide of the Cardassians, devastating Cardassia Prime in the process. Fortunately, the end of the war saved the Cardassians from complete extermination – though they were left in a thoroughly ruined state.

Again, be on the lookout for mentions of Deep Space Nine – as this station was close to Cardassian space. We may hear about the reconstruction of Cardassia after the war, and what state the Cardassian Union is in. It’s also possible that – due to the extent of the devastation inflicted – Cardassia has become a Federation protectorate.

The Delta Quadrant factions

The crew of the USS Voyager encountered dozens of species during their journey through the Delta Quadrant. From Ocampans and Talaxians to Kazon, Vidiians, Brunali, and Hirogen, each had their own territory and technology. Some Delta Quadrant races came into contact and conflict with the Borg, and if the Borg have resumed their expansion efforts in that region some of these species may be in jeopardy.

Jabin, a Kazon, and Neelix, a Talaxian. Both races were native to the Delta Quadrant.

With Star Trek: Picard seemingly taking place firmly in the Alpha and/or Beta Quadrants, I’d be surprised to see any Delta Quadrant factions making an appearance. However, it’s possible that an individual from one of these races may be encountered, especially given that part of the plot, as hinted at in the trailers anyway, may involve dealing with ex-Borg. If the Borg had assimilated a Talaxian, for example, and that individual had been de-assimilated in the Alpha Quadrant, it’s possible we could see them. It’s also possible that new technology allows for travel between the Alpha and Delta Quadrants, but again I think this is unlikely.

The Dominion

The Dominion, as mentioned above, originated in the Gamma Quadrant and allied with the Cardassians and Breen to attempt to conquer large parts of the Alpha Quadrant. At least three distinct races make up the Dominion. Their leaders are shape-shifting beings called The Founders. They designed and bred two servant races: The Jem’Hadar, who served as the bulk of their forces during the Dominion War, and the Vorta, who serve more as diplomats and an officer corps.

Aboard an occupied Deep Space Nine, Jake Sisko tries to talk with the Vorta named Weyoun while two Jem’Hadar soldiers look on.

I don’t expect the Dominion to feature in a significant way in Star Trek: Picard. They had, as of the end of Deep Space Nine, been forced to withdraw behind the Bajoran wormhole, and while they may be mentioned in passing, I would be surprised if they have a significant impact here.

The Ferengi

Early appearances in The Next Generation attempted to set up the Ferengi as a major antagonist to replace the Klingons, who had been pacified, and the Romulans, who had isolated themselves. This never really worked from a storytelling perspective, however, and the Ferengi quickly shifted into the money-obsessed species we saw in Deep Space Nine.

The Ferengi proved very aggressive during early encounters with the Federation.

The Ferengi, starting after The Next Generation’s first season, were a neutral power, more concerned with their own finances than galactic affairs. War could be profitable for them, but they also saw that a prolonged, devastating conflict (like the Dominion War) could be financially ruinous, and were cautious about becoming involved. They preferred to stay on the sidelines and trade.

Having been incredibly aggressive with their approach to capitalism for a long time, by the end of Deep Space Nine the Ferengi government was beginning to implement some reforms – this process may have continued under Rom, who was appointed the Ferengi Grand Nagus in 2375.

Rom would go on to become Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance after his predecessor, Zek, set in motion a series of major reforms.

As an independent, neutral power, the Ferengi may prove useful to Picard and his crew if they need to operate outside of the jurisdiction of the Federation and other factions. However, aside from maybe the odd passing reference, I would be surprised to see much from them at least in Season 1.

The Klingons

A cold war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation had been building since the mid-22nd Century. The Klingons, upset by Federation exploration and expansion, ultimately ended up at war with the Federation in the mid-23rd Century – and the war proved devastating for a time.

However, after the crew of the USS Discovery were able to stop a plot by Starfleet which would have devastated the Klingon homeworld, the Klingon Great Houses came together and the Empire, under new leadership, sued for peace.

Federation and Klingon fleets face off at the Battle of the Binary Stars, which started the Federation-Klingon war.

Relations would remain frosty for much of the rest of the 23rd Century, but the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis led to a peace agreement with the Federation called the Khitomer Accords – a peace treaty which would remain in place (with one brief lapse) for the duration of the 24th Century.

The Khitomer Accords would ultimately evolve from a peace treaty into an alliance, and Captain Picard himself spent time on the Klingon homeworld and was trusted by Klingon Chancellor K’mpec to be a neutral party as the Klingons chose a new leader. Gowron, despite breaking the peace treaty for a time, ultimately became a firm ally of the Federation during the Dominion War, and for a time, the Federation and Klingons stood alone against the forces of the Dominion.

Worf was the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet, serving on both the Enterprise-D and on Deep Space Nine. Also in the 24th Century, the Federation and Klingons participated in an exchange programme where officers could spend time serving on each other’s starships.

Captain Picard, immediately after officially installing Gowron as the new Klingon Chancellor.

With the Klingons having featured so prominently in Star Trek: Discovery, I’m sure there will be at least some reference to them in Picard. Keep an eye out for Worf – it’s possible he may make a cameo appearance or at least be mentioned, and the last time we saw him he was scheduled to become the Federation’s Ambassador to the Klingon homeworld. However, it’s possible that relations have deteriorated – we’ve seen in some episodes set in the future (like Endgame and All Good Things…) that the Klingons were once again enemies of the Federation.

The “Rogue Synths”

This faction was mentioned in the Short Treks episode Children of Mars. They were identified as being behind the attack on the Utopia Planitia shipyards on Mars, which set back Admiral Picard’s fleet as he attempted to aid the Romulans.

Who they are and where they came from is unclear, as this isn’t a faction we’ve met before.

The “stingray ships” operated by the “rogue synths” during their attack on Mars in the 2380s.

Based on the designs of the ships they used, I made stab-in-the-dark guesses that they could be affiliated in some way with the Klingons or the Romulans, as I could see that design of ship being a natural evolution from the 23rd and 24th Century ships used by those factions. However, it’s likely that I’m way off base with that.

The word “synth” seems like it’s short for “synthetic”, and the term has been used in other science fiction works to describe robots, droids, and artificial or machine intelligences. In the trailers for Picard, we’ve seen glimpses of a number of Data-esque characters who appeared to be in stasis or shut down, so the rogue synths could be a race of androids or AIs – perhaps even androids created by the Federation themselves.

Could these android-esque humanoids, seen in the trailers for Star Trek: Picard, be the “rogue synths”?

The attack on Mars seemed to be significant at the time – though it doesn’t appear to have set back the Federation in a major way. Who the rogue synths are, and whether they are still even an active faction during the new series, is something yet to be revealed.

The Suliban and Xindi

Two of the biggest antagonists in Star Trek: Enterprise, both the Suliban and Xindi were aided by time travellers to grow in power and strength. Following the NX-01 Enterprise’s intervention in the “temporal cold war”, the Suliban eventually became a somewhat-ally of Earth, even giving Captain Archer the information that showed it was the Xindi who were responsible for attacking Earth. What became of the Suliban Cabal after the 2150s is unclear, and as a new faction featured only in Enterprise, we haven’t seen them since.

The Xindi were a collection of five races: humanoids, arboreals, aquatics, reptilians, and insectoids, who all originated from one planet and achieved sentience together. Having been manipluated by extra-dimensional time-travelling beings known as the Sphere Builders, the Xindi attacked Earth with a weapon-probe that killed over 7 million people in the 2150s. The NX-01 Enterprise was dispatched to stop them before they could deploy an even larger weapon capable of destroying entire planets. Captain Archer and his crew were able to stop them, and in the process swayed some Xindi – primarily the humanoids and arboreals – to become friendly to Earth and her allies.

Degra, a Xindi-humanoid, and Jannar, a Xindi-arboreal.

By the 26th Century, the Xindi had joined the Federation, though whether this took place before or after the events of Star Trek: Picard is unclear. If we see any Xindi officers serving in Starfleet, that would be a good indication that they’re at least close to becoming Federation members, though it’s possible we may not see any indication of the Xindi or the Suliban, especially given that Enterprise wasn’t as successful as the TNG-era series.

So that’s it.

I think we’ve recapped pretty much all of the major factions encountered in Star Trek up to this point, or at least all of the ones who have a chance of being connected to the plot of Star Trek: Picard.

I’m hopeful that Picard will surprise me, and that we’ll not only see some glimpses of returning factions, but also some brand new ones, as well as new alliances or groupings that change things up.

Star Trek: Picard has to walk a fine line between looking back at Star Trek’s successes and building something new for the future. I’ve said before that, as excited as I am to see returning characters like Riker and Seven of Nine, I want the series to give new characters like Chris Rio and Dahj a chance to shine too. Spending too much time looking back would stray too far into fan-service, and as Star Wars has been learning to its cost, that doesn’t always work. When it comes to factions and species, the same is true.

As fans, we absolutely want to see the Klingons and the Cardassians and the Xindi – but only if doing so moves the story forward. Picard has its own story to tell, and while I hope we’ll find out a great deal about the shape of the galaxy and its factions as that story unfolds, there should to be new things in there too. We’ve already seen one new potential faction – the “rogue synths”. What role they have to play isn’t clear, but some of you will find out tomorrow!

Star Trek: Picard is upon us, and as I said I’ll be taking a short break until I’ve seen the premiere, then I’ll be back with a review. Live Long and Prosper!

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Star Trek: Picard premieres on the 23rd of January in the United States on CBS All Access and in the United Kingdom and other countries/territories on the 24th of January on Amazon Prime Video. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part three – the Federation

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part three – the Federation

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for every iteration of the Star Trek franchise, as well as from the trailers for Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.

The Federation crest in the 22nd Century.

Over the last few days we’ve looked at a couple of the main Star Trek factions that seem certain to make an appearance in Star Trek: Picard. In case you missed them, you can find my articles on the Borg by clicking or tapping here, and on the Romulans by clicking or tapping here. In this article I’m continuing to look at some (hopefully) useful background information as we prepare for Star Trek: Picard, and oh boy, today’s faction is the big one!

Introduction

The United Federation of Planets – or simply “the Federation” for short – is the faction to which our protagonists and heroes in every iteration of Star Trek belong. Okay, maybe that isn’t strictly true, because we’ve seen non-Federation citizens as main characters in Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and because of its setting technically no one in Enterprise was a Federation citizen until after that show’s finale. But you know what I mean!

The Federation is not to be confused with Starfleet. Starfleet is the Federation’s deep-space exploration and military arm, but it is not synonymous with the entire Federation. Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel may hail from non-Federation worlds, and being a Federation citizen does not make an individual a member of Starfleet.

Members

The Federation, at the moment of its founding in 2161, consisted of four species, and throughout its history – with the possible exception of the future glimpsed in the trailers for Discovery’s third season – remained a faction which incorporated many different species under one banner.

The four founding members were: humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. These four species’ homeworlds are in relatively close proximity to one another in the Alpha Quadrant, and Vulcans were the first extraterrestrial race encountered by humanity.

The founding member species of the Federation: Vulcans, humans, Tellarites, and Andorians.

Other important members, as of the late 24th Century, were as follows: Betazoids, Bolians, Catians, Deltans, Rigellians, and the Zakdorn. The Federation also offered protectorate status to some species, including the Evora. The Bajorans, because of the heavy Federation presence in their system, could be arguably considered a Federation protectorate too, and were a candidate for full Federation membership.

Two of the most important criteria for a species to meet before being permitted to join the Federation were a united planet/species not divided into factions or nation-states, and having achieved the technological milestone of warp drive. Some species, like the Bajorans, fulfilled these criteria, but other factors prevented the Federation from seeing them as viable members for a time.

Amanda Grayson, Michael Burnham, and Sarek at a meeting of the Vulcan Expeditionary Group in the mid-23rd Century.

Members of the Federation were fairly autonomous. The Vulcans, for example, were seen to maintain their own fleet of starships, their own science academy which was at least equal in standing to Starfleet academy, their own “expeditionary group”, and their own government – even into the 24th Century. Spock was the first Vulcan to serve in Starfleet, though many others would follow. In the 24th Century, there were Starfleet ships whose crews were entirely made up of a single species – often Vulcans. However, the norm appears to be for multi-species crews.

22nd Century

In the aftermath of conflicts and skirmishes with the Klingons, and especially with the Romulans, four Alpha Quadrant powers – the Vulcans, humans, Andorians, and Tellarites – agreed to work together in the interests of safety and technological cooperation. The Andorians and Vulcans had long been adversaries – even before humanity achieved warp drive and joined the galactic community – but were able to set their animosity aside and band together. The ceremony which marked the Federation’s official founding took place in San Francisco on Earth.

Earth was arguably chosen to headquarter the Federation as a neutral venue controlled by neither the Vulcans nor the Andorians – whose confrontational past was still an obstacle to be overcome. Regardless of the reasoning, Earth remained the Federation’s headquarters into the late 24th Century, seemingly hosting the entire Federation government as well as Starfleet.

Travis Mayweather, Hoshi Sato, and Malcolm Reed of the NX-01 Enterprise attend the founding ceremony of the United Federation of Planets in 2161.

By the end of the 22nd Century, the Federation’s economy transitioned entirely away from money, as technology had improved for all members and was able to provide a better standard of living for all citizens. The Federation retained some form of “credit” which could be considered a currency, but by this point it’s assumed that technology like food synthesizers and the availability of energy to power everything meant that the entire economy was transformed. Picard states that, as of the 24th Century, the goal of humanity was to “better itself” rather than pursue material goods. This was a core part of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future.

23rd Century

In the 23rd Century, the Federation was focused on exploration of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. First contact was made with many species in this region, and several would join the growing Federation. The Klingons were left feeling ill at ease with this expansion, particularly the presence of human colonies, and a cold war between the Federation and Klingons began brewing. This ultimately boiled over into a very costly war between the two factions, which was only ended when Starfleet threatened to use a superweapon to trigger mass volcanic eruptions on the Klingon homeworld which would have devastated the Empire. The Klingon Great Houses were thus forced to sue for peace, despite the Federation’s weakened position as a result of the war.

The crew of the USS Discovery discuss the tactical situation near the end of the Federation-Klingon war.

The Federation recovered quickly, however, and resumed the scientific and exploratory work that they had been engaged in prior to the Klingon war. In this era, Constitution-class starships, such as the USS Enterprise commanded by Captains Pike and Kirk, made up the bulk of Starfleet. The Federation also discovered the Mirror Universe around this time, populated by an aggressive, expansionist empire led by that universe’s Earth.

Aside from brief skirmishes with the Klingons and Tholians, the Federation remained mostly at peace in the second half of the 23rd Century, though it did face challenges such as a rogue AI created by Section 31, a planet-killing superweapon that entered the Milky Way from another galaxy, V’Ger, a hyperintelligent machine, Khan, a 20th Century despot who had been genetically enhanced, and a probe that threatened Earth.

The Federation continued its exploration, however, including missions further and further into deep space, often requiring ships and their crews to spend years at a time away from the faction’s core in the Alpha Quadrant.

An assembled Starfleet crew during the V’Ger incident in the late 23rd Century.

By the end of the 23rd Century, the Federation and Klingons had signed a peace agreement and were working together to alleviate the problems on the Klingon homeworld caused by a devastating explosion on the moon of Praxis. The Khitomer Accords would remain in force throughout the 24th Century – with a brief lapse in which the Klingons and Federation again engaged in a few skirmishes over the course of a few months.

24th Century

The Romulans and the Federation had a Neutral Zone separating their territories, and after failed attempts to invade and then to disrupt the budding peace process, the Romulans remained inactive from the Federation’s perspective for most of the first half of the 24th Century.

In the years prior to The Next Generation, which takes place in the 2360s, the Federation were involved in conflicts, wars, and/or skirmishes with: the Breen, the Cardassians, the Gorn, the Tholians, and the Tzenkethi. None of these wars appear to have been as significant nor as damaging as the earlier Klingon war.

Calvin Hudson, a former Starfleet officer, was an early leader of the breakaway Maquis.

When the Cardassians and Federation agreed to a peace treaty, several Federation worlds were transferred to Cardassia and were no longer under Federation jurisdiction despite being home to colonies. Some of these colonists, along with others on the Cardassian border, broke away from the Federation. Calling themselves the Maquis, they would attempt full secession from the Federation, which considered them little more than terrorists, but were ultimately eradicated in brutal fashion when the Cardassians allied with the Dominion.

By the mid-late 24th Century, the Federation’s two biggest adversaries were newly-contacted factions: the Borg and the Dominion. The Federation faced two major Borg attacks, where each time a single Borg vessel was able to take on a huge fleet of Federation ships, and a protracted war against the Dominion. Both events significantly drained the Federation’s resources.

The Borg, seen here on the viewscreen of the Enterprise-D, would attempt to assimilate the Federation twice in the mid-late 24th Century.

Prior to the outbreak of the Dominion War, a Starfleet Admiral named Leyton attempted a military coup against the democratic government, under the impression he was the only one capable of “saving” the Federation and its ideals from the manipulations of the Dominion and their shape-shifting Founders.

During the Dominion War, the Cardassians and Breen allied with the Dominion – who were originally from the Gamma Quadrant – and inflicted heavy losses on Starfleet and their Klingon and Romulan allies. Many ships were lost, and key Federation worlds such as Betazed were captured, as well as Deep Space Nine, which was the gateway to the Gamma Quadrant. It was only thanks to the intervention of the Prophets – a noncorporeal race who live in the Bajoran wormhole – that Dominion reinforcements were prevented from arriving, paving the way for the Federation alliance’s victory, but not before the Breen attacked Earth itself.

The Breen’s attack on Earth damaged Starfleet headquarters, and while it was able to be repulsed, it left many in the Federation badly shaken and emphasised how close they were to defeat.

Federation troops prepare to battle the Dominion on the planetoid AR-558 at the height of the Dominion War.

Shortly after the war’s end, the USS Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant, bringing knowledge of that region as well as technology designed for battling the Borg. The Federation would also face an attack by the Romulans shortly thereafter, though relations between the two powers looked set to improve when the leader in power was defeated, and Romulan ships came to the Federation’s aid to prevent an attack on Earth.

Relations between the Romulans and Federation had reached a point where the Romulans turned to the Federation for help when facing the supernova crisis. Admiral Picard would lead a rescue armada to save as many Romulans as possible, though an attack by a faction called the “rogue synths” against Mars destroyed at least a portion of this fleet.

Beyond the 25th Century…

This should bring us up-to-date… only it doesn’t, because we’ve also seen some glimpses of the Federation’s future.

The crew of a 31st Century Federation timeship.

Cardassians, Xindi, and Klingons would all seem to have joined the Federation by the 26th or 27th Centuries, and by the 31st Century, the Federation was routinely travelling through time in much the same way as they had explored space from the 22nd-24th Centuries. They considered themselves in this era to be a kind of temporal police force, correcting errors in the timeline and trying to prevent other factions in a “temporal cold war” from rewriting history.

By the time the USS Discovery arrives – supposedly the late 32nd or early 33rd Century – the Federation appears to be in a much weaker state, perhaps having suffered numerous secessions and being set back technologically. But that’s a problem for Discovery to deal with in Season 3!

Society and Culture

The Federation, as a loose union of many races, doesn’t have one single culture of its own. While all member planets are committed to the principles of peaceful exploration and democratic governance, they each have their own distinct histories and cultures which mix together in the Federation without any one culture being dominated and forced out by another.

The crew of the USS Voyager celebrate First Contact Day – a Federation holiday marking the anniversary of first contact between Vulcans and humans.

Though we see far more humans than any other species, this is arguably for production reasons – it’s cheaper to have Ensign McRedshirt who will only be on screen for three seconds in one episode be human than have to put him through expensive prosthetic makeup or use time-consuming digital effects. So it’s worth remembering that while we, as the audience of a television series, see the Federation as a primarily human enterprise, humanity is just one part, and there were, as of the 24th Century, more than 150 Federation members. Some of these will have been colonies, but many were distinct species.

It isn’t exactly clear what the majority of Federation civilians do with their time. We’ve only seen two main characters in Star Trek thus far who were non-Starfleet Federation citizens: Wesley Crusher and Jake Sisko. Wesley would, in fairly short order, become an acting ensign and later go to Starfleet Academy, so he doesn’t really count. Jake was a bit of a drifter for much of DS9′s first half, until the show’s writers eventually settled on making him a novelist and journalist. We’ve seen his grandfather, Joseph Sisko, as a restaurateur, though in a world without money and with access to food replicators, how much of a need there is for that job and how he came to own/use the building is up for debate. We’ve also seen Picard’s brother, Robert, and his family running the vineyard that Picard himself will take over in the new series. Other non-Starfleet personnel we’ve seen have been primarily scientists or diplomats, and there was clearly a huge amount of scientific research being conducted in the 24th Century.

“I’m a reporter.” – Jake Sisko became a writer and journalist, showing one of the roles non-Starfleet personnel could play in the 24th Century.

The government of the Federation is similarly vague, but we know it has a legislature called the Federation Council, and an executive branch headed by a President. There is also a judicial system – though when it comes to Starfleet, military-style courts-martial rather than jury trials are the way justice is applied.

Technology

Vulcan was the first of the Federation worlds to develop faster-than-light travel, while humanity was still living in the Dark Ages around the fall of the Roman Empire! Andorians and Tellarites were also spacefaring before humanity, and the Andorians and Vulcans had a centuries-long conflict that was only resolved shortly before the Federation was founded.

Despite coming late to the party, humanity developed quickly from the end of World War III through to the mid-22nd Century, such that the Vulcans thought they were moving too fast and weren’t ready for significant missions into deep space. The Vulcans – and presumably the Tellarites and Andorians – had been somewhat conservative in their explorations prior to humanity becoming warp-capable, and by the 23rd Century, humans were venturing far deeper into the unknown than the Vulcans had in almost two millennia.

A late 23rd Century Starfleet away team with handheld phasers and a tricorder.

By the 24th Century, the Federation was one of the biggest powers in the Alpha Quadrant, and as such their technology kept pace with the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, and others. However, the Federation were limited by their lack of cloaking devices, which had been prohibited as part of an agreement with the Romulans. The Breen had a particular type of energy weapon which, for a time, was capable of draining even a fully-shielded Federation starship of all its power, and the Federation were similarly outgunned by the Dominion from the Gamma Quadrant, especially during early encounters. The Borg were also a significantly more powerful faction, as a single Borg cube was capable of defeating an entire Federation battle fleet.

Phasers were the Federation’s primary weapons, both shipboard and handheld. And photon torpedoes and later quantum torpedoes provided many starships with powerful antimatter explosives. The most powerful Federation starships were capable of surpassing warp 9.9 by the latter part of the 24th Century – though relative warp factors have always been a weak point in Star Trek storytelling! The Federation had sensors capable of penetrating certain types of cloaking devices, as well as scanning light-years away for very specific items, objects, or types of radiation.

Montgomery Scott invented “transwarp beaming” – a new kind of teleportation which was able to allow the Federation to transport huge distances, including from Earth to the Klingon homeworld and onto moving starships. This was invented in the late 24th Century, and Spock took it with him to the alternate reality’s 23rd Century.

The USS Voyager departs Deep Space Nine – she had a maximum cruising velocity of warp 9.975.

The Federation had experimented with time travel, artificial intelligences, cloaking technology – including a phase cloak capable of passing through solid objects, life-lengthening technology (such that a human living past 140 years of age was possible), and various trans-warp engines. Not all of these experiments were successful.

Conclusion

In the last two articles, I said that it was hard to know what state the Borg and Romulans were in as a result of two potentially massive catastrophes those two factions faced the last time we saw them. That doesn’t apply to the Federation, as everything we’ve seen in the trailers for Star Trek: Picard shows them running smoothly, just as we left them. It has been indicated that perhaps all is not well in the galaxy as a whole, but for the Federation it seems that, as of the beginning of Star Trek: Picard at least, things are going alright.

The trailer for Star Trek: Picard shows the Federation alive and well! But will it stay that way as the series progresses?

The Short Treks episode Children of Mars showed the Federation under attack by a faction called the “rogue synths” in the years prior to Picard. Whether this conflict lasted, and whether there were further significant losses beyond the Mars shipyards isn’t known, but again just going off the trailers it would seem that whatever impact the “rogue synths” attack(s) had was forgotten a few years later.

It’s only a couple of days now till we’ll have Star Trek: Picard on our screens. I’ve got one more piece planned in this series, and then I’ll probably take a break until I’ve seen the first episode (it comes out on the 24th here in the UK). I’m really looking forward to hanging out with Picard again and being back in the 24th Century. As before, I hope the information above has given you some background, or just a refresher, on the Federation as we await Star Trek: Picard.

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part two – Borg

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part two – Borg

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Trek, including the most recent season of Star Trek: Discovery, as well as the trailers for Star Trek: Picard.

As Star Trek: Picard gets closer, I’m continuing the series I began last time, looking at some of the factions we seem certain to encounter in the new series. We’ve already looked at the Romulans, as Star Trek: Picard will feature the franchise’s first ever Romulan main character. And today, it’s the turn of the Borg to be under the microscope!

History

There’s still a part of me that wonders if the AI named Control, featured in Star Trek: Discovery’s second season, will ultimately turn out to be connected in some way to the origins of the Borg, which thus far are shrouded in mystery. It definitely seemed for a while that the story was going to go that way, but for now we’ll have to treat it as unconfirmed at best.

The nanobots used by Control against Captain Leland are certainly reminiscent of Borg technology…

The Borg originated in the Delta Quadrant – the area of the galaxy farthest from Federation space. Due to the distances involved, the Borg had relatively few encounters with the humanity and the Federation prior to the 24th Century.

The Borg Queen claimed that the collective was developed over “thousands of centuries”, and began as any other organic humanoid species. The addition of their cybernetics came later. By the 15th Century, the Borg were known to other Delta Quadrant races, but they had only a few systems under their control. It’s implied that their technology was also much more limited, comparable to other factions at the time, though they were capable of faster-than-light travel.

Captain Janeway with Gedrin. His people, the Vaadwaur, encountered the Borg in the 15th Century.

Here’s where it gets a little messy – thanks to time travel.

In the 24th Century, as part of a plan to conquer the Federation, the Borg travelled back in time and attempted to assimilate Earth in the past: specifically in the year 2063, the year humans made first contact with the Vulcans. Though this attack was able to be thwarted thanks to the efforts of Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E, several Borg drones, as well as wreckage from their vessel, crashed on Earth, north of the Arctic Circle.

Earth scientists uncover the remains of 24th Century Borg drones – in the 22nd Century!

These Borg were uncovered over ninety years later by scientists, who inadvertently awakened the drones – and were promptly assimilated. This marked the second “first contact” between the Borg Collective and humanity. Because the drones were few in number, and only had access to a sub-light shuttle, they were ultimately defeated by the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise: but not before they sent a message to the rest of the Collective. In this time period, the Collective was still in the Delta Quadrant, and the message would take over two centuries to reach them – coinciding with the Borg’s later appearances in the 24th Century. Whether this forms a kind of “time loop” paradox, or whether the Borg would always have been interested in the Alpha Quadrant by the 24th Century is unknown.

There was no contact between the Borg and humanity after this incident, and records of it seem to have been lost – or deliberately kept hidden – by the next time humans encountered the Borg in the 24th Century. However, sometime in the 23rd Century, the El-Aurians (Guinan’s species) were attacked by the Borg, and several hundred El-Aurian refugees came to Earth – bringing with them stories of what happened to their homeworld. It was at this time that Starfleet officially began researching the Borg – though no connection was made between the El-Aurian’s conquerors and the Arctic Circle incident.

Pictured on the viewscreen of the Enterprise-B, the ships SS Robert Fox and SS Lakul were transporting El-Aurian survivors of the Borg’s attack on their homeworld when they became trapped in the Nexus.

By the mid-24th Century, some in Starfleet considered the Borg to be a myth, but two exobiologists, a married couple named Magnus and Erin Hansen, took a small exploration vessel to try to track them down. Taking their young daughter, Annika, with them, they would eventually be successful in finding the Borg, and ultimately followed them all the way to the Delta Quadrant, collecting a huge amount of information. Unfortunately they were discovered and assimilated after approximately two years. Annika Hansen would later be better known as Seven of Nine after being liberated from the Collective by Captain Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager.

Because of the distance between the Delta Quadrant and Federation space, the Hansens’ research and knowledge of the Borg was not communicated to Starfleet. Instead, the Federation’s first “official” encounter with the Borg came when Q used his powers to deliberately throw the Enterprise-D into the path of a Borg cube – some 7,000 light-years from Federation space in System J-25. Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D attempted to make contact, and soon found themselves horribly outmatched in a fight with the Borg vessel. Q, after being begged by Picard, saved the Enterprise-D by returning it to Federation space before the Borg could assimilate the ship, but this incident prompted Starfleet to finally take the Borg threat seriously, and a task force was formed to tackle a likely Borg attack.

Magnus and Erin Hansen were the first humans to extensively study the Borg, though their knowledge was lost before it could be sent to the Federation.

The incursion the Federation feared came within a year of the J-25 incident, leaving them little time to prepare. A single Borg vessel was dispatched by the Collective, and after assimilating Captain Picard, used his tactical knowledge against the Federation, destroying almost forty ships and assimilating or killing over 11,000 people – including civilians. With such a large part of Starfleet destroyed, Earth was effectively defenceless, but after the assimilated Picard – now called Locutus of Borg – was liberated by the crew of the Enterprise-D, Data was able to use his link to the Collective’s hive mind to force all the drones aboard the vessel to regenerate – or “sleep” – which ultimately led to the vessel’s destruction.

A year or so later, Third of Five was encountered by the Federation, the sole survivor of a Borg scouting mission near Federation space. Captain Picard wanted to use him as a weapon to send a virus back to the Collective, but as his individuality reasserted itself, the drone, now named Hugh, returned to the collective voluntarily. His newfound identity, however, proved difficult for the collective to handle and Hugh, along with several other rogue Borg, would leave the Collective soon after.

The Enterprise-D makes the Federation’s first “official” encounter with the Borg.

There was then a lull in the Borg-Federation conflict lasting several years, before the Collective again sent a single cube to attempt to assimilate Earth. This ship, commanded by the Borg Queen herself, was the one which travelled back in time to 2063, possibly setting in motion the chain of events which led humanity and the Borg to encounter one another in the first place as part of a “temporal loop” paradox.

A battle took place near to Earth before this cube deployed a smaller spherical ship to travel through time, and several ships, including the Enterprise-E and the USS Defiant – which would normally be stationed at Deep Space Nine – took part in the battle. This was the Borg’s most recent attempt to directly attack Earth.

The Enterprise-E engages the Borg during the Battle of Sector 001.

After the Battle of Sector 001, the only encounters between the Federation and the Borg took place in the Delta Quadrant, where the USS Voyager was making its way home. The Borg were engaged in a losing war with a race known only by their Borg designation – Species 8472. Under the command of Captain Janeway, Voyager and her crew came to the Borg’s aid, trading their tactical knowledge of Species 8472 for safe passage through Borg space. The Collective dispatched Seven of Nine to be their representative aboard Voyager, and the crew would liberate her from the Borg when they broke the alliance.

The Species 8472 war proved incredibly costly to the Borg, and arguably set back any plans they may have had for further expansion at that time. Their space was at least 9,000 light-years across, extending beyond the range of Voyager’s sensors, and even extended to near the Beta Quadrant.

Two Borg cubes under attack by Species 8472 during the conflict between the two factions.

On one occasion the Borg attempted to recapture Seven of Nine, hoping to use her new knowledge of humanity as part of a third invasion/assimilation attempt, but this was thwarted by Voyager, who managed to again liberate Seven from the Collective. Voyager was able to use part of the Borg’s extensive transwarp network to get significantly closer to home.

This feat would be overshadowed, however, thanks to the actions of a time-travelling Admiral Janeway. In her timeline, Voyager had managed to make it back to Earth, but it had taken a long time. By travelling back to a point around seven years into Voyager’s trip through the Delta Quadrant, future Janeway was able to simultaneously get Voyager home much sooner, as well as deal a significant blow to the Collective.

A time-travelling Admiral Janeway infected the Borg – and their Queen – with a potentially devastating virus.

By outfitting Voyager with technology from the early 25th Century, the ship was easily able to overpower a number of Borg vessels, and future Janeway allowed herself to be assimilated in order to infect the Borg – and the Borg Queen herself – with a devastating virus she hoped would spread throughout the Collective.

Voyager was able to use the transwarp network to return to Earth, around 25 years before the era of Star Trek: Picard. It’s unclear what happened to the Collective after this point.

Leadership

For a long time, the Borg were assumed to be leaderless. The nature of their “hive mind” – a mechanical-telepathic link that all Borg are connected to – implied that there was no one individual leader, and that the Borg made decisions as one Collective, operating with one mind.

A Borg Queen during the Collective’s second attempt to assimilate Earth.

While this is true in some respects, the Borg Queen acts as the Collective’s leader, and is the only individual Borg – outside of those liberated by Starfleet or otherwise disconnected from the Collective – who appears to have any semblance of individuality or personality. The Queen describes herself as simply “the Borg” – and the question of whether she is truly a leader in the sense that we would understand, or whether she is in fact a personification of the Collective, is up for debate.

At least two Borg Queens have died – and it is likely that when the physical form of a Borg Queen is destroyed, a new one is created. The loss of a single Queen does not seem to significantly hamper the Collective’s efforts – so it’s at least possible that there may be multiple Queens in existence at any one time.

Technology

The Borg have assimilated thousands of species in full or in part. Their attacks seem to begin with outer colonies – as happened to the Federation – before a significant effort is launched against the homeworld of that race. While Borg efforts to attack Earth have been limited to a single vessel each time – albeit a very large vessel with thousands of drones aboard – assimilation of other races, such as those on the periphery of Borg space in the Delta Quadrant, seem to proceed with multiple ships and millions of drones.

Hugh, a mid-24th Century Borg drone. Hugh was freed from the Collective – and is set to make a return in Star Trek: Picard.

As a result of their conquests and assimilations, the Borg have gained knowledge and technological advancements which – as of the late 24th Century – outmatched and outgunned the Alpha Quadrant powers. Federation successes against the Borg came as a result of Captain Picard’s unique knowledge as someone who had spent time as part of the Collective. Voyager’s successes similarly came from Seven of Nine.

When the Borg assimilated an individual, the sum total of that person’s knowledge would be disseminated across the entire Collective. The same applied to the assimilation of starships – and presumably other technology as well. In practice this meant that if the Borg assimilated an individual with tactical knowledge – such as Picard prior to the Battle of Wolf 359 – they could use that knowledge to adapt.

One of the Borg’s distinctive cube-shaped vessels near the Paulson Nebula in the Alpha Quadrant.

Adaptations were quickly sent out to all Borg. Once they had encountered a weapon setting more than a couple of times, it would have to be altered to remain effective, and the same applied to deflectors and shields. Remodulating phasers and shields became a key tactic of the Federation during Borg engagements.

Borg communications were still limited by subspace technology, as it was noted by the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise that a message sent by Borg near Earth to their home in the Delta Quadrant would take two centuries to arrive – though this may have been related to their use of 22nd Century technology.

Society and Culture

The Borg operate as a single mind – with the aforementioned exception of the Borg Queen. As such, they don’t have what could really be termed a “culture”.

The basic tenet of Borg philosophy is that assimilation of other races brings both the Borg and the assimilated race closer to “perfection”. By merging biological and technological together, they hope to achieve their goal of “perfection”. This seems to be the basic driving force behind the Borg’s activities.

The interior of a Borg cube could hold thousands of drones – all connected to the Borg’s collective consciousness and working as one.

In a sense, an individual assimilated by the Borg can never die, as every memory and experience they had, both before and after assimilation, is stored permanently by the Collective. However, that individual loses all sense of individuality in the process, and exists only as part of the single “hive mind” of the Borg.

The Borg will assimilate anyone they perceive as useful and attack anyone they perceive as a threat. However, they will often ignore the presence of intruders if they are busy or if they don’t consider them a threat. They will assimilate children as well as adults, and the children will be placed in “maturation chambers” until they have grown enough to serve as useful drones. The Borg will also opt not to assimilate a species they perceive as useless or that they feel would detract from the “perfection” they are trying to create.

The interior of a Borg maturation chamber – with an assimilated child.

As of the mid-late 24th Century, the Borg occupied a vast expanse of the Delta Quadrant, and operated an extensive transwarp network which allowed their vessels to be present in at least the Alpha, Beta, and Delta Quadrants. No Borg activity was noted in the Gamma Quadrant, but explorations of that region of space were limited by the Dominion War. There may have been trillions or quadrillions of individual Borg drones at that time – perhaps even more than that.

Conclusion

Because of the events of the Star Trek: Voyager finale, Endgame, it’s hard to know what state the Collective is in. Admiral Janeway, travelling back in time, brought the crew of Voyager technological advantages which the Borg struggled to fight against, but more significantly she infected the Borg Queen with a virus. This virus was disseminated to other ships in the Collective. In addition, the Borg Queen’s entire complex, as well as a significant part of the Borg transwarp network and a number of Borg vessels, were destroyed by Voyager before they arrived back in the Alpha Quadrant.

As a result of these actions, as with the Romulans we simply don’t know how badly affected the Borg may have been, and how long it will have taken them to recover. Assuming they could recover from the virus, we’ve seen the Borg able to repair and rebuild their ships and technology incredibly rapidly, so in theory they could have rebuilt the entire complex and replaced the lost ships without too much hassle.

A damaged Borg cube – seemingly under Romulan control – was seen in the trailer for Star Trek: Picard.

I would assume that the Borg survived what future Janeway tried to do. Two reasons for this: in-universe, the Borg are so adaptable, numerous, and widespread that the losses Voyager inflicted should be survivable, and on the production side, I think that Star Trek needs the Borg to still be around and be a threat, even if their role in Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is limited.

We’ve seen a Borg cube seemingly under Romulan control in the trailers for Star Trek: Picard, and we know ex-Borg Seven of Nine and Hugh will have roles to play in the story. Hopefully the information above will you some background information on this faction, regardless of how significant their presence is on the story of the new series.

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part one – Romulans

Factions of Star Trek: Picard part one – Romulans

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead from most iterations of Star Trek. The article also references details from the production of Star Trek: Picard, including the trailers.

The emblem of the Romulan Star Empire, as seen aboard one of their vessels.

In past articles, we’ve looked at some episodes and films from Star Trek’s back catalogue which may or may not be relevant to Star Trek: Picard, which premieres next week. Before the show kicks off I wanted to take a look in a little more detail at a few of the factions that we’re likely to encounter in the new series. This time we’ll look at the Romulans.

Early History

The Romulans are, biologically speaking, the same race as the Vulcans. Around what we’d call the 4th Century (1,700 years before today) the Vulcans were a warlike people, and had begun to develop atomic weapons. They were even on the cusp of faster-than-light travel, but their violent ways threatened to destroy them and their planet. A Vulcan named Surak began to teach Vulcans how logic could be used to suppress their emotions, and they soon evolved into the peaceful, contemplative race that we know today.

Surak, the Vulcan whose teachings inspired his people to embrace logic – and inspired the faction who would become the Romulans to leave their homeworld and head out into space.

However, a large group of Vulcans were not swayed by Surak, and after a war they left the planet and ventured out into space. These renegade Vulcans – “those who march beneath the raptor’s wing” – would eventually become the Romulans.

The twin planets of Romulus and Remus, in the Beta Quadrant, were chosen by this group to become their new home. The planet Remus was home to a native sentient race – the Remans – who the Romulans conquered and subjugated.

22nd Century

By the mid-22nd Century (i.e. the era of Star Trek: Enterprise), no one besides the Romulans themselves were aware of the connection between Vulcans and Romulans. The Vulcans knew of the Romulans only by reputation, and first contact between humans and the Romulan Star Empire occurred when the NX-01 Enterprise inadvertently stumbled upon a planet that the Romulans had annexed. There was no visual contact between Enterprise and the Romulans at that time, so their identity remained unknown.

As seen on the viewscreen of the NX-01 Enterprise, a Romulan vessel appears, surrounded by Romulan mines.

As an interesting aside, it seems by this point that the Romulan language had entirely diverged from Vulcan, such that the two were not mutually intelligible or even recognisable – even to Enterprise’s Vulcan science officer T’Pol.

Also around this time, early attempts by the Romulans to conquer Vulcan – under the guise of “reunification” – were ongoing. Covert Romulan agents were present on Vulcan, and attempted to push the Vulcan government into war with Andoria and Earth – but these attempts were thwarted.

“They claim to have annexed the planet in the name of something called the… ‘Romalan Star Empire'” – Hoshi Sato makes a first translation of the Romulan language.

The Earth-Romulan war broke out a few years later (this was apparently one storyline under consideration for the never-produced fifth season of Enterprise) and resulted in the establishment of the Neutral Zone between territory controlled by Earth and Romulan space. The Neutral Zone remained in place after the founding of the United Federation of Planets (the war having taken place prior to this).

23rd Century

The Romulans seem to have entered into a period of isolation following the war, at least from the Federation’s perspective. There was no contact from the Romulan Star Empire for almost a century – until a ship armed with a new type of cloaking device and plasma torpedoes began attacking starbases across the Neutral Zone in Federation space. This ship would be defeated by Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise, but not before the Romulans were first seen and their links to the Vulcan people exposed for the first time.

The first Romulans ever seen by the Federation.

Around this time, the Romulans worked jointly with the Klingons – trading their technology for the Klingons’ successful D7 battle cruiser design. The Romulans built and used these Klingon-designed ships as part of their fleet. The Enterprise, still under Kirk’s command, was twice caught in the Neutral Zone by the Romulans, but neither occasion led to war.

Nimbus III – the “planet of galactic peace” – was established in the mid-23rd Century to be a place where Romulans, Klingons, and the Federation could cooperate peacefully. This planet was later attacked by Sybok, who commandeered the Enterprise-A.

Romulan representative to Nimbus III, Caithlin Dar (centre) aboard the Enterprise-A.

By the latter part of the 23rd Century, the Klingons and Federation were moving closer to peace. The Romulans attempted to disrupt this, assassinating Klingon Chancellor Gorkon and attempting to disrupt the Khitomer Peace Accords. Kirk and his crew stopped the plot, and the peace agreement went ahead.

24th Century

In 2311, an event known as the Tomed Incident led to a peace treaty with the Federation. Under the terms of the treaty, the Federation agreed not to develop cloaking technology, and the Romulans again withdrew behind the Neutral Zone. They would not re-emerge until several of their border outposts – as well as several Federation outposts – were mysteriously destroyed. According to the producers of The Next Generation, it was supposed to be the Borg who were responsible for this, but this was never confirmed on-screen.

Picard and Commander Riker attempt to hail a Romulan warbird, marking the first communication between the Romulans and the Federation in half a century.

In the mid-24th Century the Romulans and Klingons still engaged in skirmishes. One such battle saw the Enterprise-C destroyed while defending the Klingons. Thanks to time travel, this saw an alternate timeline version of Tasha Yar captured by the Romulans. She later gave birth to the half-human/half-Romulan Sela, who would go on to become a senior commander in the Romulan military.

The crew of the Enterprise-D, under the command of Captain Picard, tussled with the Romulans on a number of occasions. Geordi La Forge rescued an injured Romulan on the planet of Galorndon Core; Jarok, a senior admiral, defected to the Federation to try and prevent war; a Romulan agent escaped after impersonating a Vulcan ambassador; and the Romulans attempted to capture a space-dwelling lifeform.

Geordi La Forge trapped with a Romulan on the planet of Galorndon Core.

The Romulans also used experimental technology, including a type of cloaking device that would allow a cloaked ship to pass through solid objects. The Federation, in violation of the treaty mentioned above, also attempted to develop this technology – but both factions were unsuccessful.

Perhaps most significantly in this era, Spock – now an ambassador – travelled undercover (and without permission) to Romulus, to see whether genuine bilateral reunification would be possible with the Vulcans. Unlike Romulus’ attempts to conquer Vulcan, this would have been a peaceful coming together – but Sela hijacked the attempt and tried once again to invade. Spock’s movement, which brought Vulcan teaching to Romulus, had gained somewhat of a following, and Spock retained a connection to the Romulans even years later.

After the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole, the Romulans and Federation began a collaboration effort. In exchange for the use of a Romulan cloaking device aboard the USS Defiant, the Federation agreed to share data with the Romulans regarding what they found in the Gamma Quadrant – including the Dominion. The Romulan intelligence agency – the Tal Shiar – allied with the Cardassian Obsidian Order to attack the Founders of the Dominion because they deemed them to be a threat – but this turned out to be a Dominion trap and the Tal Shiar lost dozens of ships.

Commander Sisko introduces Sub-Commander T’Rul, who oversaw the use of the USS Defiant’s cloaking device on a mission to find the Dominion.

When the Cardassians later allied themselves with the Dominion and war broke out between them and the Federation-Klingon alliance, the Romulans remained neutral. Captain Sisko and former Cardassian spy Garak hatched a plan to bring them into the war using a fake recording of the Dominion planning to invade Romulan territory, and it worked – though Garak had to commit murder to cover their tracks.

In the Dominion War, the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons worked together, and eventually the alliance was successful in defeating the Dominion and liberating Cardassia from their rule. Shortly before the war’s end, shadowy intelligence organisation Section 31 managed to place a Federation collaborator in a powerful and influential position.

Dr Bashir is interrogated by the Tal Shiar on Romulus during the Section 31 plot.

Friendly relations didn’t last, however, and shortly after the end of the Dominion War, a new leader rose to power. Shinzon was a clone of Captain Picard, and had a plan to attack Federation worlds using a new form of cloaking device and a powerful radiation-based weapon. Picard was able to stop him, but in the process Data was killed when he sacrificed himself to prevent the weapon being used to attack the crippled Enterprise-E.

A few years later, Picard – now promoted to Admiral – put together a rescue armada to aid the Romulans. A nearby star went supernova, and the supernova threatened not only Romulus and Remus but a number of other systems in their Empire. At least part of the intended rescue fleet was destroyed when a faction called the “rogue synths” attacked the Federation shipyards on Mars.

Ambassador Spock en route to Romulus during the supernova crisis.

The supernova could not be stopped in time, and ultimately destroyed Romulus. Ambassador Spock was able to use something called “red matter” to create a black hole and stop the supernova spreading further – but was attacked by a Romulan mining ship commanded by Nero. Both ships were sucked into the black hole, and ultimately travelled into a parallel universe – now known as the “Kelvin timeline”.

Society, Culture, and Technology

From a production point of view, the Romulans have two significant influences. First is the Roman Empire – much of the way Romulan society is organised, as well as the name “Romulan” itself, is derived from ancient Rome. Second is America’s Cold War adversaries, Russia and China. The concept of a Neutral Zone between the Romulans and Federation was based on both the Iron Curtain dividing Eastern and Western Europe and Cold War-era demilitarised zones, such as those in Korea and Germany.

The Romulan Star Empire wasn’t governed by an Emperor – at least, one is never seen on screen. Instead, a deliberating body called the Senate, led by a senior official called a Praetor, ran things in the Empire. A committee of the Senate called the “continuing committee” was seen as especially influential.

The powerful Continuing Committee of the Romulan Senate.

Despite these hints at democracy, the Romulan Star Empire was not a free society by any means. Being seen in public saying or doing the wrong thing could lead to imprisonment, and the Tal Shiar operated as a secret police as well as an intelligence agency. Because of the autocratic nature of the Romulan state, as well as the ever-present secret police, many Romulans became paranoid.

The Romulan military was powerful, and their technology kept pace with, and in some ways even surpassed, the other major powers in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants throughout their appearances on Star Trek.

Unlike their Vulcan counterparts, the Romulans never embraced Surak’s teachings, and as a result they held on to their emotions. Compared to Vulcans in Surak’s time, however, the Romulans seem to be more methodical and less quick to violence. They’re a faction who prefer to manipulate from behind the scenes rather than launch into a full-on conflict.

The main engine room of a Romulan warbird.

Romulan Ale was one of their more famous exports, but was illegal in the Federation. Not that that seems to have stopped plenty of officers indulging in it!

The Romulans used a different type of warp drive from the Federation and other factions. Their warp cores contained a “singularity” or a mini black hole, capable of powering their vessels. Their weaponry was similar to that of the Klingons, as shipboard and handheld weapons were called disruptors, not phasers.

Conclusion

The Romulans are a difficult faction to nail down when considering Star Trek: Picard, simply because we don’t know the extent of the damage the supernova inflicted upon them. Nor do we know what happened in the aftermath of the supernova regarding their relationship with the Federation.

The planet Romulus is destroyed by a supernova.

Logically, it would make sense that the Romulans set up a new capital on one of their colony worlds. As of the 24th Century, it’s implied that they control a vast expanse of space including potentially hundreds of worlds, and we’ve seen them assemble fleets with dozens if not hundreds of ships.

However, it isn’t clear what proportion of their population was on Romulus, nor how many other core Romulan worlds were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, and all of these factors could affect the Romulans and put them in a much weaker position.

A large Romulan fleet at Deep Space Nine prior to the outbreak of the Dominion War. Are the Romulans in the era of Star Trek: Picard able to produce such a number of ships?

To use a real-world example, if the UK lost London, the government would set up a new capital in another city like Birmingham or Manchester. It would be bad, but ultimately survivable. But if several major cities were lost it would be much harder to recover. Without knowing the extent of the damage to other Romulan worlds and their population, as well as significant infrastructure like shipyards and factories, it’s hard to estimate the situation they will be in.

Regardless, I hope the details above give you some information about this faction, given that they’re set to have a significant role in Star Trek: Picard.

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Picard has red carpet premieres

Star Trek: Picard has red carpet premieres

Dennis

Just a quick one today. I don’t set out to be a news site, but over the last couple of days Star Trek: Picard has had big premieres in Los Angeles and London – which I’ve seen thanks to following the official Star Trek social media sites. Supposedly the first three episodes of the upcoming series were shown to invited audiences – but no news of plot seems to have leaked out.

Which is fortunate, really. It’s nice to be able to go into the new series as unspoilt as possible. And as Star Trek: Picard gets closer and closer I’m actually tuning out of most online Star Trek news sources and websites in order to avoid spoilers. I did the same for Discovery, too. Sometimes with films I have no choice (health issues generally prevent me from being able to go to the cinema, so I end up seeing films later than everyone else) but for television series I really do like to go in unspoilt. And with Star Trek being so important to me, I’m especially keen to avoid seeing or hearing too much before I get to see Picard for myself.

Central London’s Piccadilly Circus underground station re-named in honour of Star Trek: Picard!
Photo credit: startrek.com

One piece of news that has come out from the premieres, however, came from Alex Kurtzman – the head of Star Trek programming at ViacomCBS and the head of production company Secret Hideout. There had been gossip in the anti-Star Trek community that Kurtzman was on his way out, but this is clearly not the case.*

When discussing the current state of Star Trek production, Kurtzman dropped the bombshell that, in addition to the shows that had already been announced, two new, as-yet-unannounced live action series are in early production!

To recap, that means that we currently have the following Star Trek projects on the go: Discovery, whose third season is wrapping up and a fourth looks all but certain; Picard, which already has a second season confirmed; Lower Decks, whose first season premieres later in 2020 and was picked up for a two-season order; the Section 31 series, which is in pre-production with filming likely to begin shortly; the untitled kid-friendly animated series; and the two brand-new live action shows that Alex Kurtzman just told us about. By my count, that brings us to seven Star Trek series in various stages of production! And in addition to those, there’s a fourth Kelvin-timeline film in early production, as well as at least the possibility of Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek film somewhere down the line.

Alex Kurtzman on stage with Sir Patrick Stewart at the UK premiere of Star Trek: Picard.
Photo credit: startrek.com

When I’ve said in the past that it’s an absolutely amazing time to be a Star Trek fan, some people will have shrugged. But with such a huge amount of content coming, there really should be something for everyone – even those who didn’t like Discovery or the Kelvin films.

We can speculate about what might be in the works in terms of new Star Trek series next time! But if you can’t wait, you can check out a few of my own Star Trek story pitches by clicking or tapping here.

I can’t believe it’s only a week until we get to see Picard. Live Long and Prosper!

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

*As an aside, I’m always incredibly wary of anyone online who claims to have “sources” close to the production of any major franchise. We’ve seen this with some people regarding Alex Kurtzman’s position at ViacomCBS/Secret Hideout, and it just isn’t true. A lot of incredibly negative “fan” channels on social media, which deal in practically nothing but hate and bile, make a living doing what they do. And they have an incentive to keep the clicks and views coming in – so they make stuff up claiming to have anonymous “sources” which never existed. Either that or they’re being trolled by someone! So remember to keep your wits about you, and take any such claims with a grain of salt.

A few episodes you probably won’t need to watch before Star Trek: Picard… or will you?

A few episodes you probably won’t need to watch before Star Trek: Picard… or will you?

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers for the episodes listed below.

Last time, I covered a few episodes and films that I thought might be important to watch in the run up to Star Trek: Picard premiering. I had a few more episodes from the Star Trek canon that I was tempted to include, but for one reason or another it felt like the stories they told wouldn’t be likely to be relevant to the new show. Mostly this was because we were dealing with a somewhat obscure plot point, or a story which was only tackled in a single episode then never referenced again.

There’s a huge number of episodes and films in the Star Trek back catalogue, and figuring out which ones may have some relationship with the upcoming Star Trek: Picard is a bit of a guessing game!

Regardless, I had fun putting together the previous list, so here’s a few more episodes from previous iterations of Star Trek which probably won’t matter when it comes to Star Trek: Picard, but are still enjoyable and worth a watch.

Number 1: Balance of Terror (Star Trek: The Original Series, 1966)

The Romulan Commander and Centurion in Balance of Terror.

We know that Star Trek: Picard is going to touch on the Romulans in some form. Picard was supposedly involved with helping them evacuate in preparation for the supernova which ultimately destroyed their homeworld, and the series is set to feature the first ever Romulan main cast member, so why not take a look at the Romulans’ first ever appearance?

The Romulans, at least in early Star Trek, were based loosely on the Roman Empire. Their name is derived from Romulus, the legendary figure said to have founded the city of Rome – and for whom that city and its empire were named. Their military and civilian structure – an Empire and Senate, and with military ranks like Centurion – were all named for the Roman Empire. Though arguably the Romulans were also an analogue for America’s Cold War adversaries, particularly with the concept of a “Neutral Zone” being similar to the kind of demilitarized zones which existed in the world at that time – particularly in Korea and Eastern Europe.

Balance of Terror gives us a fair amount of background to the Romulans – they’d fought a war against Earth, and until the events of the episode, no human had seen a Romulan in person. The episode deals with their potential links to the Vulcans, after the crew of the Enterprise are able to hack into the Romulans’ ship and see them for the first time. Overall, an interesting introduction to what would become one of the franchise’s most significant factions. Mark Lenard – who would later become better known for his role as Sarek – makes his first Star Trek appearance here, as the unnamed Romulan Commander.

Number 2: Regeneration (Star Trek: Enterprise, 2003)

Scientists on Earth discover Borg remains in Regeneration.

Regeneration has a pretty silly premise from an in-universe point of view, but nevertheless churned out a solidly entertaining episode. Conceived as a way to bring the Borg into Star Trek: Enterprise at a time when it needed a boost, the idea is that the Borg who travelled back in time during the events of First Contact crash-landed in the Arctic, and were discovered during the events of Enterprise some 90+ years later.

Setting aside the notion that Picard and his crew would surely have scanned for and recovered or destroyed any Borg technology on Earth to prevent contaminating the timeline, this episode works surprisingly well as a standalone piece. The Borg – who are set to feature in some form in Picard – have always been a formidable adversary, even for the 24th Century Federation, so to see the impact even a small number of drones would have on a 22nd Century crew was interesting. The Borg had become stale across their multiple appearances in Voyager, and Regeneration aimed to bring back their fear factor. In that respect, it did largely succeed.

Though it’s arguably a nitpick given the messy state of Star Trek canon overall, this episode does retcon Starfleet’s first encounter with the Borg – Regeneration takes place over two centuries before the Borg’s first appearance in TNG. And that does raise questions, like why Starfleet seemed to keep no records of the encounter. However, as a standalone episode it’s one of Enterprise’s better offerings, and if you’re not interested in or can ignore the canon issues, it’s well worth a watch.

Number 3: Minefield (Star Trek: Enterprise, 2002)

As seen on Enterprise’s viewscreen, a Romulan vessel decloaks amidst mines in the episode Minefield.

As with Regeneration above, this episode serves as Starfleet’s first introduction to the Romulans in canon – placing the events of Enterprise prior to the Earth-Romulan war mentioned in Balance of Terror. Indeed, the war was supposedly a story element under consideration for a fifth season of Enterprise which was ultimately never produced.

In Minefield, the crew of Enterprise are continuing their mission of exploration when they encounter a planet that the Romulans claim to have annexed. They have placed a minefield in orbit, and Lt. Reed – Enterprise’s weapons/tactical officer – ends up pinned to the outer hull of the ship while attempting to defuse a mine.

The episode plays on Balance of Terror in terms of the claustrophobic ship-versus-ship atmosphere – itself lifted from war films featuring submarines. Unfortunately, as with Regeneration it does throw up some retcons/canon issues, such as the use of Romulan cloaking devices, which were supposedly new technology in Balance of Terror. My own head-canon to get around this – and similar issues raised by Discovery – is simply that there are different types of cloaking devices, and when one has been “cracked” it’s rendered useless. So if the Federation could render older styles of cloak inoperative, they could still be caught off-guard by a new type. That’s just my own personal take on it. But we’ve strayed off-topic.

Minefield is really a character piece, focusing primarily on Reed, who had been a fairly one-dimensional character in Enterprise thus far. He’s given more of a chance to shine here, and Star Trek has always been good at giving characters their own episodes in most of its iterations. As with Balance of Terror, it’s on this list for its Romulan connection.

Number 4: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Film, 1991)

Kirk and McCoy are put on trial by the Klingons (General Chang and Colonel Worf pictured) in The Undiscovered Country.

Gene Roddenberry hated The Undiscovered Country when it was screened for him shortly before he passed away. He didn’t like the military elements, and felt that anti-Klingon “racism” was beneath humanity in the 23rd Century. Whether you agree with him or not – he could be unflinching in his positive vision for humanity – the resulting film was a return to form for Kirk’s crew after the flop that was The Final Frontier a couple of years previously.

For our purposes, as we gear up for Star Trek: Picard, the film shows the events which led to a lasting peace between the Klingons and Federation – as seen in The Next Generation and the other 24th Century series. The Romulans are involved as they aid in a plot to sabotage the peace conference. Ultimately, Kirk and his crew are able to save the day and stop the conspiracy – which even involved some members of Starfleet.

It’s a nice swansong for Kirk’s crew – this would be their final appearance on screen together (save for a photograph in Star Trek Beyond). Whether the Klingons and Federation are still at peace by the time of Star Trek: Picard isn’t clear, but if they are then this is where that peace was won. As a film which looks closely at some of the politics in the Federation and the relationship between two of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants’ biggest powers, it has an interesting place in the Star Trek timeline.

Number 5: In The Pale Moonlight (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 1998)

Garak and Sisko watch a faked Dominion/Cardassian meeting on the holosuite during In The Pale Moonlight.

I included this episode in the “honourable mentions” section of my previous list, but I wanted to expand on what I said there and give it a full entry. With the Dominion War going badly for the Klingon-Federation alliance, Sisko conspires with Garak to bring the Romulans into the conflict on their side – but in order to do so he has to lie and cheat.

Garak ultimately commits murder to cover their tracks, and the plot works! The Romulans declare war on the Cardassians and Dominion shortly thereafter. And for the remainder of Deep Space Nine they remain a key part of the alliance – though by the events of Nemesis which takes place a few years later, Romulan-Federation animosity is once again present.

This one’s a bit of a long shot, and I freely admit that. While it’s one of Deep Space Nine’s finest episodes in my opinion, especially as a character piece looking at Sisko, its events were never referenced again and there were no consequences for the lying and scheming. My pet theory is that prior to the events of Picard, the Romulans learn the truth of how they came to be roped into the Dominion War, and that this will negatively impact relations with the Federation. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, and it’s definitely a little “out there” as far as theories go. Even if none of that turns out to be true, the episode is fantastic and well worth a viewing in its own right. I’d be interested, though, to see the Federation get its comeuppance for the plot.

Number 6: Scorpion (Parts I & II) and The Gift (Star Trek: Voyager, 1997)

A partially de-assimilated Seven of Nine with Captain Janeway in The Gift.

This trilogy of episodes introduces Seven of Nine to the Voyager cast. Seven will have a role to play in Picard, so seeing how she came to be separated from the Borg Collective would make for good background viewing.

Seven of Nine was introduced to shake up the Voyager cast and replace Kes – though at one time it was supposedly Harry Kim who would be sacrificed in order to include her. Personally I found Kes a more interesting character in many ways, particularly as she began to develop her telepathic and telekinetic powers in Season 3. Nevertheless the producers wanted to make a change, and Seven of Nine was that change. As the first Borg crew member on a Star Trek series she brought something new to the table. My criticism of her really stems from later seasons – in which many of her episodes were all about the same thing. She’d learn some lesson or other about “what it means to be human,” only to seemingly forget it all by the next episode and have to learn another, similar, lesson.

Regardless of character critique, however, Seven of Nine is going to be in Picard, and from her scenes in the trailers she looks set to be very different from when we saw her in Voyager.

Number 7: Encounter at Farpoint (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987)

Picard’s first on-screen appearance on the bridge of the Enterprise-D in Encounter at Farpoint.

With Picard about to return to our screens for the first time in almost two decades, maybe we should go back to where it all began. Encounter at Farpoint is the premiere of The Next Generation, and the episode in which Picard makes his debut.

Though we’ve been on many adventures with him since, Picard was – at least as of the end of Nemesis – fundamentally the same man, at the core, as we met in this episode. His style of captaincy was radically different from Kirk’s twenty years previously, and as a result the Kirk-versus-Picard debate has rumbled on in the fan community ever since! A more diplomatic and cautious style of command than we’d previously seen in Star Trek served him well, and was on full display here, even when beset by the dastardly Q.

Q wants to put Picard and his crew on trial to answer for humanity’s “crimes”. Picard refuses, and later impresses Q by solving the puzzle presented by the peculiar and slightly-too-perfect Farpoint Station.

Number 8: The Survivor (Star Trek: The Animated Series, 1973)

Kirk speaks with a Romulan official during the events of The Survivor.

The Animated Series is weird. And for a long time, there was a debate as to whether the characters and events it depicted should even be considered part of the official Star Trek canon. The answer to that is yes, technically it is all canon – but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll revisit the parallel universe where magic is real any time soon.

The Survivor plays out much more like a “normal” episode of Star Trek than many of its other animated outings. A rogue shapeshifter forces the Enterprise into the Romulan Neutral Zone, and of course the Romulans take the opportunity to pounce.

The shapeshifter ends up saving the day by protecting the Enterprise from the Romulan vessels, and though he agrees to be taken into custody, it seems that his actions defending the ship will greatly aid his defence. The episode is notable for being the Romulans’ only major appearance in The Animated Series, and while nothing here is going to be essential, the episode does discuss briefly the terms both the Romulans and Federation agreed to regarding the Neutral Zone.

Number 9: Starship Mine (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1993)

Trapped alone aboard the Enterprise-D, Picard must contend with mercenaries in Starship Mine.

Starship Mine is definitely one of my favourite TNG episodes. The Enterprise-D needs to be cleansed of baryon particles – a process which is described as “routine”, but which employs a beam that is deadly to humans. A group of mercenaries try to steal trilithium resin – a toxic byproduct of warp drive which can be used as a weapon – while the ship is unoccupied.

Picard finds himself trapped aboard the ship with the mercenaries while the deadly sweep slowly makes its way through the ship, and the way he is forced to deal with them, while having none of his crew or any equipment, is impressive. It shows off a side to Picard – his MacGyver-like ingenuity – which we don’t see very often.

We also see a rare instance of Picard’s calm brutality – by deliberately making the stolen chemical more volative, he condemns the mercenaries to death even as they escape. This prevents the trilithium resin falling into the wrong hands, but was nevertheless a brutal decision.

Number 10: Chain of Command, Parts I & II (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1992)

Picard is trapped and captured by the Cardassians in Chain of Command.

This one should’ve really been on my previous list, but never mind! In Chain of Command, Picard leads a secret mission to prevent the Cardassians developing a biological weapon, but it turns out to be a trap to lure him there, and he’s captured.

He’s subjected to torture by Gul Madred – a wonderfully villainous performance by David Warner – in an attempt to get him to reveal sensitive tactical information. Part of the torture is being told to say that he can see five lights where there were only four, and by the end, as he confesses to Troi when back aboard the Enterprise, he genuinely believed he could see five lights.

Picard’s strength, and his ability to survive impossible situations, is on full display here. Despite the horrible torture, he never breaks. Given that we’re about to jump into the unknown in Star Trek: Picard, he will need as much of that strength as he can muster.

Honourable Mentions:

Like last time, I couldn’t end the list without adding a few more episodes that I think are great – even if their relationship to Star Trek: Picard is likely to be tentative at best!

Final Mission (TNG, 1990) – Picard and Wesley crash on a desert moon and are forced to survive. Wesley’s last appearance in TNG as a main character.
Unimatrix Zero Parts I & II (VOY, 2000) – Seven of Nine is drawn into a world where Borg drones exhibit freedom and individuality – and helps them carry that over into the real world, resulting in a minor insurgency among rogue Borg.
The Enterprise Incident (TOS, 1968) – The Romulans’ second and last appearance in TOS sees Kirk try to steal a cloaking device.
Redemption Parts I & II (TNG, 1991) – The first major appearance of Sela, the half human-half Romulan Commander who would tussle with Picard on at least one more occasion.
Yesterday’s Enterprise (TNG, 1990) – The episode which sets up how Sela came to exist is an interesting time travel story in its own right, and shows how altering a single event can have major implications.
The Search Parts I & II (DS9, 1994) – After the Dominion had been introduced at the end of Season 2, the start of Season 3 of DS9 saw the arrival of the USS Defiant to aid in the fight against them. Noteworthy because it shows Romulan/Federation cooperation – which allowed the Defiant to have a cloaking device.
Eye of the Needle (VOY, 1995) – While trapped in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager finds a micro-wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant, but the only ship they are able to contact is Romulan. This episode has a final twist which is quite an emotional punch.
The Pegasus and These Are The Voyages… (TNG and ENT, 1994 and 2005) – Though it can be jarring to watch these two episodes back-to-back, they present an interesting story about cloaking technology and a treaty between the Federation and Romulans, as well as giving some backstory to Riker – who will feature in some form in Star Trek: Picard.
The Measure of a Man (TNG, 1989) – Picard must defend Data and prove to Starfleet that he is a sentient lifeform – if he can’t, they’ll dismantle Data to try to recreate him!
The First Duty (TNG, 1992) – Wesley is involved in an accident at the Academy which kills a cadet, and Picard suspects he and his friends are covering up the truth.

So that’s it.

A few more episodes which are less likely to be relevant to Star Trek: Picard, but might be! One of the reasons I started this blog was to share my love of Star Trek, and even though I like to talk about other sci fi franchises too, and even some real world things, Star Trek really is one of my personal favourites. Writing these lists has given me inspiration not only to write more, but to go back and rewatch some episodes that I haven’t seen in years. It really has been a lot of fun putting these together.

When it comes to Star Trek: Picard, it was actually a struggle to narrow down which episodes to recommend. Particularly when it comes to The Next Generation, Picard was such a huge presence on the show that there are lots of episodes which feature him and show off his character – and which contain plot points and backstory that could potentially be relevant going into the new show. It was hard to resist the temptation to just say “oh my gosh, just watch all of TNG!”

On a personal note, The Next Generation was my introduction to Star Trek. The first episodes of the whole franchise that I can solidly remember watching are The Royale and Who Watches The Watchers.To have Picard back is really amazing and something I would have never expected. I can’t wait for the series to kick off, and it’s a mere ten days away!

Live Long and Prosper!

The Star Trek franchise – including all films, series, and episodes listed above – is the copyright of Paramount Pictures and ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

What to watch to be ready for Star Trek: Picard

What to watch to be ready for Star Trek: Picard

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers for the episodes and films on this list.

It’s only a few days till Star Trek: Picard premieres. Just saying that gets me excited, as I’ve been anticipating this series since it was announced! And in a broader sense, I’ve been waiting for the Star Trek franchise to move its timeline forward again since Voyager went off the air and Nemesis was in cinemas.

If you’re new to Star Trek, or haven’t watched any of the older series for a long time, it might be worthwhile to go back and take a look at some of the classics in anticipation of Star Trek: Picard. So let’s go together and get caught up on some of the episodes which may – or may not – be relevant to Picard’s story. At any rate, they’re all worth a watch before the show kicks off.

Number 1:
Endgame (Star Trek: Voyager, 2001)

Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen in the Voyager episode Endgame.

Before The Avengers ever thought of it, Voyager had the first Endgame! And it was a heck of a ride involving a time-travelling Janeway giving her past self technology from the future in order to defeat the Borg. By changing the past, Janeway was able to get Voyager home far sooner than she had in her own timeline.

Time travel paradox aside (how could future Janeway exist if she erased her own timeline by interacting with her past self?) the episode sets up what could be an important story point regarding the Borg. As Voyager prepares to travel home, future Janeway infects the Borg Queen with a virus – one that has the potential to devastate the entire collective. Voyager is able to easily destroy many Borg vessels – and the Borg Queen’s complex – thanks to the enhancements future Janeway brought them, and the end of the episode is the last time we’ve seen the Borg in the Star Trek timeline. What happened to them after Endgame is a key question, and given that we’ve seen a Borg vessel and ex-Borg in the trailers for Star Trek: Picard, it may be one that the series will answer.

Seven of Nine, a key member of Voyager’s crew in its later seasons, is also set to feature in some form in Star Trek: Picard, and her relationship with the collective was always a point of interest. I definitely think it’s worth giving Endgame a rewatch before Picard kicks off.

Number 2:
Star Trek: Nemesis (Film, 2002)

Data and Picard in this scene from Star Trek: Nemesis.

This had to be on the list, right? Nemesis is as far forward as the Star Trek timeline had gotten – prior to last week’s Short Treks episode Children of Mars. And it was a Picard-centric story, focusing on his fight against a clone of himself created by the Romulans. As a story which features Picard heavily, as well as his relationship with the Romulans, this would already be an important one to watch. But because in this film Picard sees Data sacrifice himself to save him, it becomes even more meaningful in the story of Picard’s life.

We already know from the trailers that Data’s loss weighs heavily on Picard, and may even be a significant factor in his decision to leave Starfleet a few years after the events of Nemesis. As Data’s sacrifice is such an important moment in Picard’s later life, Nemesis is definitely worthy of a viewing before Picard premieres.

Other things to note from the film would be the Romulans and their relationship with the Federation. Nemesis takes place after the Dominion War (as seen in Deep Space Nine) and the Federation and Romulans had been allies. Is that alliance still in place? Is it possible that the surviving Romulans will have a good relationship with the Federation after the destruction of their homeworld? All interesting points to consider!

Number 3:
Children of Mars (Short Treks, 2020)

Picard’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo appearance in Children of Mars.

I have a full review of Children of Mars already written and posted, which you can find by clicking or tapping here. Suffice to say that it wasn’t my favourite episode of Short Treks, but nevertheless it was created to be a prequel to Star Trek: Picard. While it’s unclear whether the two principal characters the episode features – schoolgirls named Kima and Lil – will cross over to the main series, there’s a significant event depicted which certainly will be a story point in some form.

A faction called the “rogue synths” launches a massive attack on Mars, where the Federation’s Utopia Planitia shipyards are located. Who this group are and what their aims were isn’t clear, but it seems as though this attack was designed to disrupt efforts led by Admiral Picard to assist the Romulans as they faced the supernova which would ultimately destroy their homeworld. In that sense, the attack on Mars looks set to be significant in the backstory to Star Trek: Picard.

Unfortunately if you’re outside the United States, as I am, you won’t be able to watch this episode by “conventional” means. Amazon Prime, despite having the rights to show Picard, don’t seem to have shown this episode of Short Treks. I suppose it’s possible that they will put up Children of Mars on their streaming platform before Picard premieres, but realistically if you want to guarantee seeing it before the main series you will have to find another way to access a copy. I can’t recommend any one website or other method, but if you know your way around a computer I daresay you’ll be able to find it.

Number 4:
Disaster (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1991)

Picard and the children in the stuck turbolift in Disaster.

Disaster is one of my personal favourite episodes of The Next Generation. Perhaps I should do a list of those one day! It’s a bottle show (i.e. a show taking place entirely on board the ship – these were usually done to save money on building new sets) but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tell a very interesting story – or rather, a connected series of stories. As the Enterprise-D hits a “quantum filament”, it is left without power to most of its key systems. The main crew are split up, and are forced to play different roles than they usually would.

It’s a great example of characters working in the face of adversity, and of how the threat and danger in an episode of Star Trek doesn’t have to come from a menacing evil alien. Worf ends up delivering a baby, Counsellor Troi is the senior officer on the bridge and is forced to make significant command decisions, and most significantly for our purposes, Picard is stuck in a turbolift with a group of frightened children.

We’ve seen Picard in command countless times and we know he’s good at it – with his own crew. What Disaster does is show us how Picard can take control of any situation, even one he’s uncomfortable in as he’s never been keen on children. He’s able to get the situation under control and lead the kids to safety in the face of a difficult situation. It may not be the most significant TNG episode ever from Picard’s point of view, but it is nevertheless worth a watch.

Number 5:
The Battle (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987)

Accompanied by a Ferengi Marauder, the Enterprise-D takes the USS Stargazer under tow in The Battle.

The Next Generation’s first season was all about the show finding its feet. With the Klingons having been somewhat pacified, the show was looking for a new antagonist, and the Ferengi were initially created to fill that role. Though over the course of Deep Space Nine we’ve come to see the Ferengi more as a neutral power, interested in their own finances more than in galactic events, in early TNG they were much more aggressive.

The Battle was only the Ferengi’s second appearance, though we’re not really interested in the episode for that reason. Dai’mon Bok, a Ferengi captain, has somehow acquired the USS Stargazer – a ship previously captained by Picard. Over the course of the episode, we learn Picard had been in command at an event called the “battle of Maxia”, in which he defeated a Ferengi vessel using a warp speed technique called the “Picard manoeuvre”. The story fills in some of Picard’s pre-TNG history and proved to be a great opportunity for Patrick Stewart to show off his acting abilities, as the episode takes the character through a moment of (induced) madness.

Number 6:
The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1990)

Picard transformed into Locutus of Borg in The Best of Both Worlds.

I’ve kind of spoilt it in the above picture, but Picard’s assimilation by the Borg in The Best of Both Worlds was a truly shocking moment for The Next Generation to end its third season on. This was the first time we’d seen assimilation on screen, and for a character as significant as Picard to be captured was a phenomenal moment. The entire two-part episode is beautifully constructed, and the moments leading up to the reveal of the assimilated Picard are perfectly shot and edited.

In terms of Picard’s life, his experience with the Borg, and the guilt and regret he felt over the attack on Starfleet ships at Wolf 359, would stay with him for a long time. In First Contact we see how it could influence his judgement – Picard was usually level-headed, calm, and neutral, but when it came to the Borg his emotions could get the better of him leading to irrational decisions. Seeing how this came to be, and how one traumatic event can affect his character, could be very important to understanding his decision-making in Picard, especially if the Borg are involved.

Family, the second episode of Season 4 of TNG, follows on from The Best of Both Worlds and would also be worth a look-in as an epilogue of sorts to this story.

Number 7:
Star Trek: Discovery (2017-present)

Lorca and Saru during Discovery’s first season.

Given the significant changes to Star Trek storytelling that are present in Discovery, it would be well worth getting up to date with Star Trek’s most recent outing if you haven’t seen it already. I understand that some fans weren’t happy with the series for a number of reasons, but there are some definite high points in there which even the most hardline sceptic should be able to appreciate.

Jason Isaacs in Season 1 and Anson Mount in Season 2 both give amazing performances as two very different Starfleet captains, and Discovery tells two separate, season-long serialised stories in the style that Picard plans to adopt for its first season. If the Short Treks episode Children of Mars is any indication, the visual style of Discovery will also carry over to Picard at least in part. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is another matter, of course, but if you’ve somehow avoided Discovery this long, now could be a good time to give it a second chance.

Because of its serialised nature it’s hard to pull just one episode from Discovery and say “just watch this one”. But if I had to pick a single episode, I’d recommend An Obol for Charon from Season 2. Despite containing several ongoing story arcs, the main thrust of this episode – dealing with an ancient planet-sized lifeform – is largely a self-contained story, albeit one that would have a huge impact on the remainder of the season.

Number 8:
Star Trek: Generations (Film, 1994)

Captains Kirk and Picard meet for the first time inside the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations.

“Don’t let them promote you. Don’t let them transfer you, don’t let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you’re there, you can make a difference.” Those were the words spoken to Picard by Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. And for a time, it seemed as though Picard was following the advice his predecessor gave him. We saw Janeway promoted to Admiral in Star Trek: Nemesis while Picard remained a captain, even though for the audience she was a character we’d met much later and was noticeably younger. What could it have been that caused Picard to turn his back on Kirk’s advice?

In Generations, Picard loses several members of his family to a fire. Château Picard, where it seems he’s living in retirement at the beginning of the new series, was the place where his brother and family had lived. Family had been important to Picard, but he had been content that the family line would continue thanks to his brother having a family, but that was taken away from him in Generations. It’s a film in which he suffers another loss, too – the Enterprise-D.

Though casualties were said to be light, the loss of the ship he’d called home for more than seven years and had countless adventures aboard did have an effect on Picard, not that much of it is acknowledged on screen. Mostly, though, it’s Kirk’s sacrifice which is the key point worth noting from Generations, and even though the two men didn’t know each other particularly well, Kirk’s advice seemed to be taken to heart.

Number 9:
Tapestry (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1993)

Given the chance to start over by Q, Picard ends up leading a very different life in Tapestry.

As Tapestry begins, Picard has been badly wounded. His artificial heart couldn’t tolerate the injury and he dies – only to be greeted by his long-time nemesis Q, and given a rare opportunity to make a fresh start.

Picard has an artificial heart because in his youth he was brutally stabbed! By choosing to avoid that fate, Picard set his life on a different path, one which didn’t lead to the man we knew, but a more timid and less successful man who had only made it as far as a junior lieutenant in Starfleet. He realises his mistake, and pleads Q to send him back to set things right, stating: “I would rather die as the man I was… than live the life I just saw.”

It’s another story that adds some colourful background to Picard’s story, and we see him in his youth before he settled down into the man we knew. Given that there are sure to be changes in his character between the last time we saw him and how he appears in Star Trek: Picard, it’s worth remembering that people do change over the course of their lives, and the person you are at 20 isn’t the same person you are at 50 or 70 or 90.

Number 10:
All Good Things… (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1994)

Q takes Picard back in time in All Good Things…

The finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a strange one, with a time-travel concept and the return of Q. Across three time periods Picard had to figure out a puzzle – a spacial anomaly which would destroy humanity, and for which he was ultimately responsible!

If you’ve seen the science fiction film Arrival, then All Good Things… uses a similar concept. By learning to perceive time differently – realising that events in the future were impacting the past, not the other way around – Picard was able to prevent disaster. “We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.” So says Q, complimenting Picard on his ability to change the way he thought and attack the situation in a different way from a completely different line of reasoning.

Bringing to a close Q’s arc in The Next Generation, the episode also shows Picard as someone who is capable of things that he even doesn’t know about himself. Q gave him the push, but it was Picard who solved the mystery and saved humanity. We also get glimpses of Picard’s personal future – including his retirement at Château Picard. There’s the mention of a degenerative disease called irumodic syndrome which Picard is said to be suffering from in his later years – whether this will come into play in Star Trek: Picard is unknown.

Honourable Mentions:

I can’t end a list without adding in a few honourable mentions!

Star Trek (Film, 2009) – This is where we first hear about the supernova that destroyed Romulus from Spock. It’s a significant plot point in the film, but not one which is covered in great detail.
What You Leave Behind (DS9, 1999) – Concluding the Dominion War arc, which brought together the Federation and Romulans as allies, this episode is the most recent in which we saw many Star Trek factions like the Cardassians and Breen.
Skin of Evil (TNG, 1988) – Picard’s first on-screen experience with losing an officer and a friend, when Tasha Yar is killed in action.
Time Squared (TNG, 1988) – Picard must contend with the idea that he abandoned ship in the middle of a crisis when a duplicate of himself from the future is discovered.
The Defector (TNG, 1990) – A Romulan Admiral defects to the Federation to try to prevent a war, and Picard must deal with the information he provides.
The Raven (VOY, 1997) – Seven of Nine experiences flashbacks and uncovers her family’s half-assimilated ship where she was first captured by the Borg.
I, Borg (TNG, 1992) – The introduction of Hugh the Borg, and Picard’s attempt to weaponise him to defeat the collective.
Human Error (VOY, 2001) – Seven of Nine begins to discover more about her human side after years away from the Borg.
In The Pale Moonlight (DS9, 1998) – Sisko lies and cheats to bring the Romulans into the Dominion War as an ally – and Garak commits murder to cover up their actions. Did the Romulans find out between the end of the war and the events of Picard?
Sarek (TNG, 1990) – Picard came to know Spock well, but also met his father. Picard helped Sarek stay in control of his emotions as he suffered a serious Vulcan illness.

So that’s it.

A few episodes and films that might feed into the plot and background of Star Trek: Picard. Perhaps not everything will be relevant, especially given the scant information about the show’s plot that we actually have. I’ve made two significant assumptions based on the trailer and cast information that we’ve seen so far – firstly that the Borg will have some role to play in the story, and secondly that the Romulans will too. But it could be an elaborate misdirect and both of these factions will ultimately end up being little more than backstory. We’ll have to see.

Regardless, the episodes and films above should go some way to showing off Picard and Star Trek at their best as we prepare for the new series. It’s been a long time since I was this excited about the premiere of a new television series, and I can’t wait to tune in when Picard kicks off in just ten days’ time.

Live Long and Prosper!

The Star Trek franchise – including all films, series, and episodes listed above – is the copyright of Paramount Pictures and ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Short Treks (Star Trek: Picard) review – Children of Mars

Short Treks (Star Trek: Picard) review – Children of Mars

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Short Treks episode Children of Mars.

For those of you lucky enough to live in the United States, the latest episode of Short Treks – and the final episode of the current “season” – premiered yesterday. Before we jump into the full review, I want to address again the stupidity of keeping these episodes away from the majority of the Star Trek audience and fan community.

ViacomCBS needs to get as many people invested in the Star Trek franchise as possible. It’s one of their main properties, it’s one they’ve invested a lot of money in, and in order to ever see a return on that investment – which in the days of the “streaming wars” is no longer guaranteed – they need as many people on board as possible. As Star Trek: Picard premieres in two weeks, now is the time to start a huge push to bring in as many people as possible – both returning fans and curious newcomers.

Children of Mars serves as a “prequel” to Picard. Its story is inherently tied to the upcoming series, and Admiral Picard himself even features – albeit very briefly and only on a screen. So why is this episode, of all the Short Treks episodes, not available outside the United States? Here in the UK, and I believe in other countries and territories too, Amazon Prime will be broadcasting Picard. Why are they not also showing this episode of Short Treks? Children of Mars wasn’t the best Short Treks has had to offer this season – spoiler alert for the review below, I guess – but it is a part of the Picard story, and one which at the very least would remind people that the show is coming and get people paying attention. With only a short time left until Picard premieres, now is the time for ViacomCBS to pull out all the stops and get the word out about this series.

Short Treks as a concept was designed for this very reason – to keep the Star Trek brand alive in the public mind while the main shows were in between seasons. And Children of Mars is literally made to be a teaser to get people excited for Picard.

With CBS All Access in a difficult market, and running an in-house streaming platform being an incredibly expensive endeavour at the best of times, Star Trek since 2017 has only been financially stable thanks to outside investment – first from Netflix, who essentially paid for all of Discovery‘s first season, and later from Amazon Prime, who snapped up the rights to Picard. Star Trek’s international audience is big – at the very least equal in number to the audience in the United States, and quite possibly bigger. Yet despite all of these factors, Short Treks hasn’t been made available to us, and despite the fact that the sale of international broadcast rights has been essential to Star Trek’s continued production in the wake of CBS All Access’ shaky market hold at home, ViacomCBS treats its international audience like second-class citizens. They don’t care about us, yet without our viewership, the money they’ve been getting from companies like Netflix, Amazon, and other broadcasters like Channel 4 would dry up, leaving not only the Star Trek brand but CBS All Access itself in a very perilous position.

This remains a source of considerable disappointment.

But that’s enough about that for now. When I tracked down a copy, I sat down to watch Children of Mars, and finally, for the first time since Nemesis in 2002 and brief scenes in Star Trek in 2009, we were back in the 24th Century.

Utopia Planitia as seen in Children of Mars.

Not that that was immediately obvious. Short Treks has worked very well in the past by reusing Discovery‘s sets, but obviously for a short-format show there’s a limited budget and not much scope to build whole new sets. And in this case, that was painfully apparent. The building representing the school had a definite modern-day feel throughout, despite the CGI trappings of the 24th Century, and unfortunately that was noticeable to me. Star Trek has always had a distinctively futuristic aesthetic, and even though the look has changed and evolved significantly between its 1960s origins and its more recent iterations, there were not many moments where as the audience we were knocked out of the future because what we were looking at looked like something from today. Children of Mars absolutely has this issue, and it runs through the entire episode.

Indeed many of the aesthetic choices are strange by Star Trek standards. The school uniforms would be just as at home in the modern day, and had no Star Trek elements at all. We’ve seen countless civilian and non-Starfleet outfits in Star Trek, but none looked like this. Again, it was a modern day school uniform with a white polo shirt and red blazer. And maybe this is a minor point and up for debate, but would 24th Century schoolkids need big school bags like those depicted in the short episode? On its own I wouldn’t have noticed, but as an accessory to a bland, modern day school uniform on kids running around a perfectly nice but definitely contemporary building, it just added to the impression that this wasn’t the 24th Century after all.

There’s also the fact that a significant portion of the first half of the episode has its soundtrack taken over by a modern pop song, which again adds to the feeling that we’re watching something from our own time with a few bits of CGI tacked on.

Transport shuttle from Children of Mars.

It’s difficult to tell a compelling story in less than eight minutes, and I understand that for budget reasons we aren’t going to be running around a brand new, never-before-seen starship and interacting with dozens of characters. My expectations for an episode like this are kept in check. But even so, I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed.

It’s no criticism of the two young actresses, who gave fine performances, but they didn’t really have much to say, and all we really got for more than half the total runtime was a kind of overly-artistic, soundtrack-heavy sequence of two girls making their way to school. During which I just remember thinking to myself that “this doesn’t feel like Star Trek.”

So the basic premise is that there are these two girls who each have at least one parent who works at Utopia Planitia. If you don’t remember from previous iterations of Star Trek, Utopia Planitia is one of Starfleet’s biggest shipyards, and it’s on/orbiting Mars. It’s never fully shown on screen, but it has been referenced a number of times across several different series. Anyway, one of the girls is an alien – maybe from the same species as Tilly’s friend Po from the Short Treks episode Runaway, which fed into Discovery‘s second season. The other at least appears to be human.

I think we were meant to get the impression from the girls’ conversations with their parents that there’s some kind of class difference. One of the parents is an “anti-grav rigger”, and the other is a “quality systems supervisor”. It’s not clear, especially because both parents seemed to be dressed in engineering gear – complete with helmets – but I think we’re supposed to infer that Lil’s family is perhaps the Star Trek equivalent of the middle class, and Kima’s is working class. It seems like they were going for that, at least.

The majority of the episode doesn’t take place on Mars itself, as the girls seem to be living and/or going to school on another planet. I want to say on Earth, but this isn’t clear at all and realistically it could be any one of a number of Federation worlds. Lil’s dad tells her he’s too busy with work to come home, and she heads to school in a sulk, deliberately pushing Kima on her way to the shuttle, causing the latter girl to miss the shuttle. Kima eventually gets to school and the two girls continue their rivalry, silently bickering with each other until eventually a fight breaks out for which they’re both in trouble.

The way this was done was fine, it paints Lil as more of the aggressor than Kima, but ultimately they’re both responsible for continuing the feud and escalating it. As a work of characterisation it’s okay given the short timeframe and by the episode’s climax we know the girls greatly dislike one another.

As they sit a few metres apart in the school’s lobby area, either in detention or waiting for punishment, a couple of the teachers receive a message on handheld communicators. The message is soon broadcast all over the school, and shows a significant attack on Mars.

The stingray ships of the “rogue synths” attacking Mars in Children of Mars.

The vessels engaged in the attack aren’t any we’ve seen before, and it would be pure speculation to try to identify them. But hey, that sounds like fun so let’s do that. They’re described on-screen as “rogue synths”, but that doesn’t tell us anything of their origins. Purely from the design of the vessels, which had a kind of stingray-esque shape, my first thought was Klingons. I could see that shape of vessel being a natural progression from the Klingon ships of the 24th Century. But then we know Picard is going to deal with the Romulans, and that Utopia Planitia is building a fleet to help Romulans, so maybe it was a faction in the Empire opposed to Federation help. I could see vessels of that design being Romulan – again as a natural evolution from their 24th Century ships that we’ve already seen. I don’t think it was the Borg, as I can’t see them using ships of that type, nor carrying out an attack of this type. Their style has always been to assimilate instead of exterminate, so this wouldn’t fit. The other possibility is that these are Federation ships – or ex-Federation ships commandeered by a new breakaway faction like the Maquis.

The stingray ships, as I’m calling them for now, are by far the most interesting ship designs from Children of Mars. The Federation ships being built at Utopia Planitia – as glimpsed briefly at the beginning of the episode – looked decidedly 23rd Century to my eyes. They looked like ships better suited to the Discovery era than the Picard era, and considering it was all CGI I don’t really see why that had to be the case. For nostalgia’s sake they could’ve easily dropped a Galaxy-class or Excelsior-class ship in there instead of the Discovery-esque ships that we ultimately saw, as that would’ve avoided revealing too much about Picard-era ships if that was a concern for whatever reason.

Admiral Picard’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in Children of Mars.

The CGI work for the shipyard and later for the attack on Mars was decent. Not cinema-level, perhaps, but good enough not to be immersion-breaking. At the end of the day, that’s its basic job and it accomplished it successfully, so credit to the animators involved for that. The way that the stingray ships seemed to glide while in flight was great, their motion was clearly unlike any heavier-than-air craft we have in the modern day, so that was a high point of the animation for me.

Children of Mars will feed into the events of Star Trek: Picard, though exactly how is unclear. Short Treks has had a strange relationship with the main Star Trek shows thus far, with some episodes like Calypso and The Escape Artist being true one-shots that didn’t tie into anything else in Discovery, and others like Runaway where a main character crossed over. It isn’t clear yet how this story will affect Picard, and whether the two girls featured, or their parents, will make an appearance. If I had to guess I’d say probably not, and that this episode was just a vehicle to communicate the attack on Mars, but we’ll see in a couple of weeks I suppose!

Unfortunately, Children of Mars didn’t tell the kind of story that I personally find very interesting. The attack on Mars itself will be significant for Star Trek: Picard, and in that sense I’m glad to have seen it and been aware of it. However, the majority of the episode wasn’t about that. Indeed the attack sequence takes up little more than one minute in total. The bulk of the story is the tension between the two girls, which immediately evaporates when they realise what’s going on.

And as a story concept, that’s fine. It’s nice to see two people who weren’t friends come together in the face of a crisis. As they hold hands at the end of the episode, it marks the end of their childish fighting, and because of the severity of what’s happened, arguably the end of their childhoods too.

Perhaps a short format wasn’t right for this story, or perhaps the episode spent too long building up the enmity and fighting before getting to the resolution, because the girls coming together at the end and just letting go of all their anger toward one another didn’t feel like it was earned or that it was plausible. And I know what some people would say, that looking for plausible outcomes in a Short Treks episode is too much. But Children of Mars presented itself this way, as an artistic-inspired, character-centred story. So how the only two characters involved in that story go from enemies to friends in a single moment is the absolute crux of the story, and it’s the part we should rightly be focused on.

I get what the director was going for. This was a story that wanted to say “people can put their petty arguments and rivalries aside in the face of catastrophe, and come together.” It’s an inspiring message of the kind Star Trek has always been good at delivering. But something about the overly-artistic way it was presented, with practically no dialogue, a heavy soundtrack, and stylised camera work just didn’t work for me. And the ultimate pay-off when the girls realise that they have to come together didn’t work either as a plausible outcome. As an artistic outcome, and as a philosophical outcome, sure, it makes perfect sense. But if we’re to treat the girls as real characters inhabiting this fictional galaxy, I just didn’t feel that they had gotten to a place by the end of the episode that the attack on Mars would bring them together in that way. Did they even know each other had a parent stationed there? That detail would’ve built up the emotional bond between them, but because it wasn’t made clear on screen how well they knew each other or if they knew about each other’s family, that moment was robbed of some of its dramatic effect.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical of a short episode. But this is the way ViacomCBS chose to present the “prequel” to Picard. They didn’t have to do it this way, they could’ve told literally any story they wanted if all it had to do was be a vehicle for showing off that Mars was attacked in the years prior to Picard. That they chose this story about fighting schoolgirls was an artistic one, and I respect that. It just didn’t come across as a strong story on its own, at least in my opinion. The sequence where Mars comes under attack is worth watching for anyone intent on tuning in for Star Trek: Picard, but as I said it’s barely a minute long, and the rest of the episode, while interesting in concept, ends up being little more than fluff.

Maybe we’ll see these characters again, if they crop up later in Picard. At this point that’s not confirmed, but if they do then maybe the episode will get some more context and will be worth a rewatch at that point. I kind of hope that turns out to be the case, because I feel Children of Mars is quite a weak story when taken as a standalone piece.

The aesthetic and design issues certainly hampered it too, and it would have been better to redress a Discovery set for the schoolroom than use whatever contemporary building they ended up going with.

Both the starships being constructed and the transport shuttle to take the children to school were both very much in the same style as Discovery. While I like that look overall, it’s a 23rd Century look, is it not? We should surely have seen some kind of change between Discovery and the era of Picard, and if they didn’t want to go to the trouble of making all new models and designs, it would have been better in my opinion to reuse some of the TNG-era designs than fall back on those from the Discovery era. I think seeing a familiar starship or shuttle design would’ve also been a nice little wink to returning fans.

Unless Children of Mars has a more significant relationship with Star Trek: Picard than I’m assuming at present, I’m in no hurry to watch it again. It was okay, but it wasn’t Short Treks‘ finest offering by any means, and as both a tie-in to Picard and a first look at the 24th Century really since 2002, it was a bit of a let-down.

The Star Trek franchise – including Short Treks and Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Children of Mars is available to stream in the United States on CBS All Access – but not anywhere else at time of writing. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Unsolicited Star Trek pitches

Unsolicited Star Trek pitches

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: Beware of spoilers for Star Trek Discovery and practically everything else in the Star Trek franchise.

Welcome back! Last time, I talked about why I wasn’t keen on the post-apocalyptic setting that Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 is seemingly heading toward. And in the course of writing that article it got me thinking about what I’d prefer, and from there, what other settings the Star Trek franchise could use that might make for interesting stories.

This list isn’t even speculation, it’s purely fantasy. These are some of my own ideas for Star Trek that would take the franchise in a different direction. It was inspired by my concerns about Discovery Season 3, but it goes beyond Season 3 to look at other ideas as well. Like a lot of fan fantasies, some of these pitches wouldn’t have any real appeal beyond a small niche of Star Trek fans.

The list is broken into two parts. The first deals with alternative Season 3 ideas that Star Trek: Discovery could have chosen instead of the far future, and the second looks at a few other Star Trek series ideas that I think have some potential to be interesting.

Part I: Season 3 ideas for Star Trek: Discovery

Number 1: The 23rd Century, but with new crew members.

As Season 2 of Discovery drew to a close, it wasn’t at all certain that they were going to head into the future. The decision to do so was only cemented in the finale, leaving open the possibility that the USS Discovery could’ve remained in the 23rd Century. With Pike and Spock headed back to the Enterprise, there would be two openings for new cast members, and realistically I’d have liked to see two new permanent members added to the cast – with a view to having them stick around for future seasons.

Discovery has been, in many respects, a leaderless series. Michael Burnham is the protagonist, but her role across both seasons thus far has not been one of leadership, which has always been occupied by a Captain or Commander in other iterations of Star Trek. Gabriel Lorca was, at least for me, one of the definite high points of Season 1 – at least before his dramatic turn in his final episode, in which he became a one-dimensional, moustache-twirling pantomime villain. Lorca’s departure was an inherent part of Discovery‘s narrative in that season and was inevitable, but his loss did leave a void in the show, one which Capt. Pike – played so wonderfully by Anson Mount – stepped in to fill. But as with Lorca, Pike was strictly a one-season deal, and so we’ve seen two very different leaders come and go for the series.

Stopping the churn of characters, especially high-ranking characters, has to be something Discovery addresses going forward. One way to do so would be to promote a current cast member to the captaincy – most likely this would be Burnham, though how that would work from an in-universe perspective given her mutiny conviction would require explanation. Saru would also be a good candidate, and could be Star Trek’s first non-human commanding officer.

Alternatively an outside captain could be parachuted in, but after going through two captains in two seasons I think fans would be clamouring for some consistency at the top. New characters would be great though, such as a security officer to replace the departing Ash Tyler. It would also be an opportunity to get to know some of the secondary characters, like Detmer at the helm and Owosekun at operations, both of whom have had very little to say or do thus far. Seeing them both in their home environment would let us get to know them better than seeing them in a completely unknown future.

There was still scope for Discovery to tell interesting stories in the 23rd Century, and if the Control/Leland storyline had been concluded differently, there’s no reason why Discovery couldn’t be hopping about the galaxy with or without the Spore Drive on missions of exploration.

Number 2: Ditch Michael Burnham

Burnham has been Discovery‘s main character since it premiered – but as a protagonist she can be difficult to root for at times. It’s no criticism of Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays her very well, but Burnham’s Vulcan upbringing has left her with two of the least attractive Vulcan traits – a cult-like devotion to logic (or rather, her own interpretation of logic), and an aloof nature that can come across as arrogant. This isn’t helped by putting her in stories in which she, and she alone, is able to be the saviour of the ship and crew.

In The Vulcan Hello (the premiere episode of Discovery) her motivations for staging the mutiny are so poorly communicated to the audience, and her actions so incomprehensible, that on first viewing I genuinely thought the producers had pulled the ol’ switcheroo and were surprising us by making Burnham the antagonist of the series. Her storyline in that episode and the one that followed set up Discovery‘s whole Season 1, but it made no sense and has been a major contributing factor to how fans have come to view her character.

Star Trek series have never been primarily focused on one individual before – with the exception now of Star Trek: Picard, which kicks off in just three weeks. But every other Star Trek series has been about a crew, not a person, and losing or swapping out one individual shouldn’t bring the whole concept of the series crashing down. The crew of Discovery would cope without her, and one possible ending for Season 2 would’ve been to send Burnham and the data into the future, while Discovery and the rest of the crew stayed behind to have new adventures without her in the 23rd Century.

Getting rid of Burnham, and not replacing her with a like-for-like “main” character, would allow other members of the crew to shine, as we could spend more time with them. And whether they travelled into the future or not, I think that would be a net positive for the series, because as mentioned above, we still know very little about several of the main crew.

Number 3: Travel into the future – but only to the dawn of the 25th Century

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I’m not convinced that having multiple timelines and realities on the go all at once is a good way to organise a franchise. If you’re trying to convince a friend to give Star Trek a shot, and you have to spend an hour explaining that Discovery is in the 33rd Century, Section 31 is in the 23rd Century, Picard is at the start of the 25th Century, and there’s a film coming out that’s in the 23rd Century – but a parallel universe – it starts to get so convoluted that it’s just offputting for newcomers. And as much as long-time fans might deride it, ViacomCBS needs new people to get on board if Star Trek is to remain profitable and viable into the future. So what better way to fix things than to bring as many of your shows as possible into the same time period?

If Discovery had to abandon its 23rd Century setting, this is by far the best option. By bringing Burnham and the crew into the same time frame as Star Trek: Picard there’s the possibility for characters, storylines, and themes to cross over, and for the franchise as a whole to build a solid foundation in this new era. Other series could take that foundation and build upon it, creating a new era of Star Trek with a 25th Century setting – in much the same way as The Next Generation did for Deep Space Nine and Voyager. And who would disagree that the 24th Century shows were Star Trek’s “golden age”?

Precisely because of their shared setting, having a similar aesthetic made sense. Similar visual effects, a similar level of technology, and the possibility for characters, factions, and storylines to cross over all contributed to those shows being Star Trek storytelling at its best. But instead of trying to recreate a formula that worked, ViacomCBS seem intent on splitting up all of their projects, even though they’re in production at the same time. To me that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The difference in how TOS and TNG looked was caused by the shows being produced 20 years apart, and the similarity in effects and technology in TNG, DS9, and Voyager was perfectly reasonable considering these shows were all taking place in the same era. But if Picard in the 25th Century looks the same visually as Discovery in the 33rd Century and Section 31 in the 23rd Century, the aesthetic of the shows becomes an issue – and people will be wondering how they all look the same and have the same level of technology when they’re supposedly taking place centuries apart.

Instead, how about this: something goes wrong during Discovery’s jump to the future, and instead of emerging in the 32nd/33rd Century, they end up at the beginning of the 25th. And who do they meet? Capt. Picard and his new crew, who bring them back to Starfleet for debriefing. Such a scenario would be easy to pull off with a little technobabble to explain how the time-wormhole collapsed.

Starfleet would be sure to find a use for the ship and crew, who would want nothing more than to get back to work. Having two series running in the 25th Century would also allow for more backstory – allowing us to catch up on even more of what’s going on in the galaxy, and because we’re seeing it through the eyes of newcomers instead of people who already live there, there’d be more excuses for exposition and explanation, perhaps allowing for a deeper dive into some of the events we’ve missed since Nemesis. If there were some kind of war or conflict, this would be a great excuse for Starfleet to be in need of every available vessel, again providing a reason for the Discovery to remain in service.

It would also allow for more Spore Drive-related adventures, which Season 2 mostly lacked. The Spore Drive as a whole has felt underused in Discovery, really just serving as a macguffin to allow for the jump to the Mirror Universe. Its potential is unlimited, and it would be interesting to see how Starfleet would react to its reemergence.

Number 4: The Borg

When we think about iconic Star Trek villains, the Borg have to be right up there as one of the best and scariest. And Discovery seemed, for a while at least, to be touching on the Borg in Season 2. Many fans speculated that the Control AI, with its nanobots and ability to take over (or “assimilate”) human bodies was somehow tied to the Borg, and the season could have ended as a Borg origin story.

If Leland/Control and Discovery were thrown backwards in time instead of forwards, we could have seen how the Borg came to be; how the technology of Control came to be used by another species or how Control took over another species and turned them into proto-Borg. I kind of like this one, because as a narrative device, the cyclical idea that Starfleet actually created its own worst enemy could be – if executed well – absolutely fascinating to explore.

This is pure speculation on my part, but at least part of me thinks that this may have been in the original story pitch for Season 2. So much of the Control storyline lines up perfectly with a Borg origin story that it hardly seems accidental. If it was part of the original premise, I wonder why they decided not to go down that route. As with the idea of leaving the 23rd Century, this concept was still valid right up until the finale, with the story in Season 2 being able to go many ways even that late. To me, that makes for good storytelling, and I can’t help but wonder how this alternate route would have worked.

The downside to the Borg idea is that overusing a classic villain is problematic. We’ve seen the Borg many times across Star Trek, and particularly toward the end of Voyager they had become stale. When a villain gets overexplained and we spend too much time with them, they can lose a lot of their fear factor, especially if our heroes come out unscathed time after time. Just look at the zombies in The Walking Dead – the concept is similar in that you have an enemy who massively outnumber our heroes, and who can grow in strength and numbers by forcibly turning anyone into one of them. Yet by the third or fourth season of The Walking Dead, the zombies weren’t scary any more, and the show has since focused much more on human villains. Nevertheless, it’s been more than fifteen years since the last Borg story in Star Trek, and there’s a case to be made that the time is right to reintroduce them.

Part II: Other Star Trek ideas

Number 1: A Deep Space Nine film or miniseries

In the finale of Deep Space Nine, Benjamin Sisko disappears into the realm of the Prophets, and the crew go their separate ways. Sadly, the losses of Aron Eisenberg and René Auberjonois in 2019 mean that the whole crew will never get back together, and that we won’t get to see Odo and Nog again, but we could catch up with Sisko.

Sisko did promise to return from the Prophets, and his return could be a great excuse to catch up with others on the DS9 crew, as well as to see the galaxy through the eyes of someone who’s been away from galactic events. I mentioned this above with one of my Discovery ideas, but using a returning character in this way really is a great storytelling device. It brings us as the audience up to speed without feeling like the explanations and exposition are unnecessary.

Unlike with Star Trek: Picard, which already has a second season on order, I don’t think there’s necessarily scope to turn a Sisko-helmed series into a full-blown multi-season show. Part of what Star Trek: Picard has to be careful of is not simply turn into TNG Season 8. While there’s nothing wrong with that as a concept, Picard is supposed to be a new story and has a new cast of characters. I’m excited to meet them and see what they have to offer, so the show has to strike a balance between looking back and moving forwards. A DS9 sequel would have to do the same, and that’s why a film or miniseries format would work better.

If the Star Trek franchise were producing all of its shows in the same time period, it would be easy for such a project as this to be a nice addition to other 25th Century Star Trek.

Number 2: A hospital ship

This is a series premise I’ve been thinking about on and off for years. Sort of a combination of Star Trek and medical shows like ER, this concept would take a medical ship (like Dr. Crusher’s USS Pasteur from All Good Things) as it travels around the Federation.

Unlike with real-world medical dramas, the series wouldn’t be constrained by real-world diseases, which would allow for a lot of creative freedom for the writers. I don’t mean Theme Hospital levels of silliness, but the conditions which afflict both human and non-human patients could be explored in detail. It would also be interesting to expand our understanding of many of the diseases mentioned on screen only in passing, as well as to learn more about medical equipment and procedures in the 25th Century.

If it were part of a broader franchise, again there’s the possibility for characters crossing over, and it would even be an option to have a former regular like Bashir or Crusher be a part of the show. Medical dramas are popular, and if a series like ER could run for fifteen seasons and still manage to be engaging for (most) of that time, I really feel like this concept could work in Star Trek too. It would be new enough to shake up the franchise by not simply being another exploration or “boldly going” show, but would be familiar enough with the starship setting to be appealing to fans.

Number 3: A series set on a colony

Deep Space Nine sought to break the Star Trek mould by being the first show not set on a moving ship. Thus far it’s the only Star Trek project to take this approach, but going a step further would be to set a series on a colony world. Not even in space, the characters would be firmly rooted to the ground, and we could see how a colony is established.

There are hundreds of possibilities for such a setting. If it were a colony on a disputed world, that could lead to tension with whichever other power wanted the planet. If it were a colony far away from the nearest starbase, there’d be a sense of isolation among the crew. And we’d get another opportunity for Star Trek to show off non-Starfleet personnel – something the franchise hasn’t always done very well.

When it came to the character of Jake Sisko in Deep Space Nine, it always felt like the show’s producers didn’t really know what to do with him. With Nog becoming the young person who went to join Starfleet, Jake was kind of in limbo much of the time and many of his appearances didn’t do much to show what civilian life was like in the 24th Century. Not to say that Jake should’ve enrolled in Starfleet – that wouldn’t have been right for his character, and making him Wesley Crusher 2.0 wouldn’t have made Deep Space Nine any better.

But civilian life in Star Trek is something we don’t see much of, at least not human civilian life. Quark showed us a lot about the Ferengi, but other non-Starfleet characters, like Kes and Neelix, were still crew members on a Starfleet vessel and thus had roles to play in that environment. It would be interesting to see a colony on a planet where there were perhaps one or two Starfleet personnel but everyone else was a civilian. The Star Trek galaxy has room for so much more than just Starfleet ships having adventures, and a colony could be a good setting for telling a long, serialised story. I know some people have talked about a series on Earth, perhaps at Starfleet Academy, but to me a colony has more potential to tell interesting and different stories.

Number 4: Something set between The Undiscovered Country and The Next Generation

This is less a series premise than a time period, but I’ve always been curious to see more of this eighty-odd year span. We’d see, for example, the Romulans going into isolation, as well as the growth in relations between the Klingons and the Federation in the aftermath of the Khitomer Accords. It would also be interesting to see first contact with some species we’ve only seen later, and it would be an opportunity to look at relations between the Federation and other Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers like the Tholians or Breen, and see how things progressed with them.

I know I’ve said before that I prefer Star Trek to look forward not back, and that the franchise should try to set its shows in the same era. Both of those are still true, but if a prequel (or mid-quel) is on the cards, this could be a fun era to look at in more detail. Plus it would be an excuse to revisit the uniforms of that era, which are among Star Trek’s best.

So that’s it.

As I said last time, it’s easy for someone to criticise and tear down, but much harder to come up with new and interesting ideas to create something. I hope that at least some of these concepts were of interest to you.

The Star Trek franchise, including all shows and films mentioned above, is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Is A Post-Apocalyptic Setting Right For Star Trek?

Is A Post-Apocalyptic Setting Right For Star Trek?

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery and Short Treks.

The trailer for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIKAkge9Trg

In both the Short Treks episode Calypso and in the trailer for the upcoming third season of Star Trek: Discovery, we are given the impression that all is not well in the Star Trek galaxy. In Calypso, main character Craft tells the AI Zora of a war he’s involved in, and he later needs to use one of the USS Discovery’s shuttlecrafts to get home – his pod being slower and less advanced than a thousand-year-old shuttlecraft says a lot about the state of technology in this timeline.

Whether or not Calypso is fully canon, or whether its timeline has changed, and whenever it’s supposed to be set, if the trailer for Discovery Season 3 has correctly portrayed the environment they’re heading into and isn’t an elaborate deception, it seems that whatever era the ship and crew ultimately arrive in is also one where war and disaster have occurred. But is this kind of post-apocalyptic setting right for Star Trek?

The last few years have seen a glut of shows, films, games, and books choosing a post-apocalyptic environment. And many of these have been great – I Am Legend is a great film, The Last Ship is a great television series, and The Last Of Us is a great game, just to give three examples. Major franchises like The Walking Dead have helped popularise this sub-genre, and it’s become a popular choice for a lot of storytellers.It’s easy to see why – this kind of setting lends itself to high-stakes drama, and forcing characters to make life-or-death decisions. When survival is at stake, characters need to step up in order to just make it through the day, and that can be a strong driving force in any narrative when it’s done correctly.

The kind of post-apocalypse we seemed to glimpse in the trailer for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 might not quite be at that same level, where it’s day-to-day surviving at the end of the world, but it certainly seems as though something absolutely massive has happened since we last saw the galaxy in the 2380s. Whenever the USS Discovery emerges from the time-wormhole it entered at the end of Season 2, it seems they’re heading into a challenging environment. In the trailer, we saw an official who seemed to represent the Federation saying that Discovery was his last hope, and unfurling a flag with a Federation crest that seemed to be missing many stars – perhaps indicating the loss or secession of planets from the alliance. The Starfleet badge Burnham was wearing was referred to as a “ghost”, and Saru, in a pep talk to the crew, tells them they need to “make the future bright”. All of which strongly imply that the Federation in this era is in serious trouble – if it still exists at all.

But what’s just as telling from the trailer is what we didn’t see. Where was all of the new technology that should surely have been invented by then? At one point, Burnham and a new character are walking across a landscape – why could they not transport from point to point like we’ve seen across Star Trek (and especially with the “transwarp beaming” concept from the Kelvin films)? The weapons used in the trailer also seem to be little more than energy weapons already known to exist, and we didn’t see any new starships or stations or anything that indicated the galaxy has advanced significantly. In a few episodes of Star Trek in the past, particularly in Voyager and Enterprise, we’ve had glimpses of the Federation in the 29th and 30th Centuries – and it seemed not only to be doing great but to have time-travelling starships, and that time travel was so common a concept that it was taught in schools. In short, where is the technology?

Wars and conflicts, especially long ones, can be devastating. But from war, technology often emerges. In the real world, as destructive as WWII was, it led to the development of such things as rockets and computers. So even if the Star Trek galaxy plunged into war in the 32nd or 33rd Centuries, we should still see at least the level of tech they’d got to before the war, and perhaps the emergence of new tech as a result of research during it. The fact that nothing of the sort was in evidence is interesting, and that’s why I’m calling the setting “post-apocalyptic”. At the end of the day, if people of the 32nd or 33rd Centuries are living with a 23rd Century level of technology, that would be a huge backwards step for them, even if it still looks cool and futuristic to us. If we were sent back technologically to the 1950s or 1960s, that would look incredibly impressive to a Victorian, but would feel apocalyptic to us. It’s that principle that feels like it’s in play with Discovery.

Regardless of the exact details of how far technology has advanced or regressed by the 32nd/33rd Century (assuming that’s when Discovery is going to be set – see my previous article for my thoughts on that) it certainly seems from the trailer that something big has happened. The Star Trek galaxy and the Federation are not where we would have expected them to be. Is the Federation in decline? Has it broken up altogether? It’s not clear, but it is definitely facing huge difficulties if the “best hope” they’ve had in years is a 930-year-old ship and crew.

In a media landscape dominated by war and aggression, Star Trek has always shown a more positive vision of the future. Where The Terminator and The Matrix showed us rogue AIs killing humanity, Star Trek showed us Data, the friendly android. Where Star Wars had an evil empire ruling the galaxy with an iron fist, Star Trek had an enlightened democratic society. And where Twelve Monkeys and 28 Days Later had humanity on the brink of extinction, Star Trek showed humankind flourishing, having overcome countless obstacles. As Trip Tucker puts it in Enterprise: “war, disease, hunger – pretty much wiped them out in less than two generations.” This, to me, is the core of what makes Star Trek what it is. And I don’t necessarily think that gels with a post-apocalyptic setting.

Partly, Star Trek’s optimism is a product of its 1960s origins. At the height of the Cold War, there was the legitimate possibility of nuclear war causing the end of human civilisation, and with TOS premiering a mere four years after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world as close to that fate as it arguably ever came, the need for optimism was great. But that optimistic approach has been a constant thread running through the franchise ever since. It’s been the one consistent thing in all of Star Trek, even at the height of the Dominion War in DS9, humanity was still there, and Earth was still a paradise worth fighting for. The drama in that story came from the existential threat to the optimistic future humanity had built, not from that future already being torn down. That’s what made it work as an exciting narrative within the framework of Star Trek’s optimistic take on the future.

A post-apocalyptic setting is, by its very nature, the exact opposite. Where Star Trek has presented an optimistic vision of humanity overcoming obstacle after obstacle, any post-apocalyptic setting says that the obstacles got the better of us. We went up against something – be it a disease, technology, warfare, etc. – and lost. Star Trek says that whatever life threw at us, we came out on top. That cannot be true in a post-apocalyptic setting, where we will have lost.

This represents a fundamental change to the nature of storytelling within the Star Trek franchise, greater than arguably any change made thus far. Enterprise took the franchise backwards in its own timeline, the Kelvin films were not only an alternate reality but changed the storytelling to be more action-heavy. But even these are not as major as changing the entire underlying premise of a positive vision of humanity’s future. In both 2009’s Star Trek and Enterprise, as well as the Dominion War arc of DS9 mentioned above, the basic concept that humanity had not simply survived but was thriving in the future was unchanged. The drama, tension, and narratives all came from challenges humanity faced within that framework, not that we’d failed or that something had beaten us.

Such a significant change risks Star Trek losing its uniqueness and, from a commercial point of view, one of its key selling points. Without its positive vision of humanity’s future, a fundamental part of Star Trek is missing – and without it, will the franchise still work? If Star Trek loses the one thing that makes it stand out, and continues its transition to primarily action-oriented stories, it risks becoming just another work in the generic sci fi and/or post-apocalyptic genres, losing its uniqueness and fading into the mass of action/sci fi franchises which already occupy that space.

Some fans would claim that this has already happened, due to a combination of the Kelvin timeline, Discovery, and even Enterprise taking the franchise to different places and by modernising the storytelling. But that alone isn’t enough to fundamentally change Star Trek. And at the core of Discovery and the Kelvin films, that optimism and positive outlook was still present, even if it wasn’t front-and-centre in the way it had been in prior series.

Taking a bleak setting, where the Federation is shattered and life for humankind is going backwards just doesn’t feel like Star Trek. Perhaps it could be a solidly entertaining sci fi series, but one of the core tenets of Star Trek would be lacking, and I’m certain that would be noticeable.

There’s another problem with this post-apocalyptic theme, too. As things sit right now, Discovery is the only Star Trek series taking place in that time period. Picard and Lower Decks both take place after Nemesis, and the Section 31 series is assumed to take place in the era Discovery left behind. With a second season of Picard on order now, all of these series will basically be prequels to Discovery – and if we see Picard and his crew fighting for the future of the Federation, when we know that actually the Federation has no future because we’ve seen in Discovery that things go very, very wrong, there’ll be a sense of “well what’s the point of this?”

I wrote previously how splitting Star Trek up into three timelines and two parallel realities is a bad decision for a franchise. With three live-action series in production practically simultaneously, there’s just no way to make them line up, let alone allow for any crossover of characters, plot points, and themes. It will make it harder for fans of one show to jump across to another, and will put off new fans altogether at a time when the shaky nature of CBS All Access in the midst of the “streaming wars” means they need those people more than ever. And having one show set in a future that’s potentially saying that everything that happens in the other shows comes to nothing is bleak, depressing, and offputting for both fans and casual viewers alike.

Now that all that’s been said, it should be pointed out that the trailer for Discovery‘s third season may be deliberately misleading, having been cut in a certain way. There are other explanations for what we saw in the trailer that don’t necessarily lead to the conclusion that we’re looking at a fractured Federation and a post-apocalyptic setting. And we won’t know for sure what’s in store until we see Discovery on our screens later in the year. But of all the seasons of Discovery so far, this is the one that has me feeling the most nervous. I want the show to succeed because I want the franchise to succeed so we can continue to enjoy new stories in the Star Trek galaxy for a long time to come. I’m just not convinced that this is the way to do it. And by abandoning one of the core parts of what makes Star Trek, well, Star Trek, the producers are taking a massive risk that could backfire.

As I’ve said several times before, I dislike the expression “nobody asked for this”. And there are two reasons for that: firstly, plenty of shows and films that “nobody asked for” actually turn out to be phenomenal. And secondly, because in a lot of online fan communities, the things that people are actually wanting and asking for are absolute crap. So in principle, the fact that I wouldn’t have chosen this route for Discovery and the Star Trek franchise doesn’t necessarily make it invalid or mean it will be bad. And I hope to be pleasantly surprised, because I’m always hopeful that new Star Trek will be enjoyable. But at the moment, I’m just not convinced it’s the best idea.

So what would I have rather seen? Anyone can complain and whine about what they don’t like, but not enough people are proactive in putting their own ideas forward for what they’d do instead. It’s easy to be negative and tear down someone’s ideas, but it’s much harder to imagine and create something.

So stop by next time and I’ll throw some concepts your way, both for Discovery and for the Star Trek franchise in general.

The Star Trek franchise, including Star Trek: Discovery, is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Star Trek: Discovery is available on Netflix in the UK and around the world, and on CBS All Access in the United States. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Season 3 of Discovery – when is it set?

Season 3 of Discovery – when is it set?

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Trek Discovery and Short Treks.

At the end of Season 2 of Discovery, Burnham led the ship and crew into a time-wormhole. For better or worse, they’re leaving the 23rd Century behind and heading into the future – but when, exactly? And how will it affect the rest of the Star Trek franchise now that there are other series joining Discovery on the roster?

Let’s start off by looking at the currently-announced Star Trek series and their supposed timeframes in the Star Trek universe.

Firstly we have Star Trek Picard, taking place in approximately 2399, as the 25th Century dawns. Then there’s Lower Decks, set in the 2380s. Next we have the Section 31 series, which is supposed to be set in the mid-23rd Century, possibly overlapping with TOS. Already that’s two very different time periods, and three concurrent timelines running within the Star Trek franchise. And in addition to these prime timeline settings there’s the alternate reality, where a fourth film is currently in pre-production, further complicating matters.

If we’re to believe the ending of the second season of Discovery, the ship and crew have travelled into the far future – the late 32nd or early 33rd Century, depending on how literally one takes “950 years” when it’s spoken in Discovery Season 2. So that would a third distinct time period, and one which would potentially undermine every other Star Trek series currently in production, as well as making the franchise overly complicated for newcomers.

CBS All Access, if it’s going to survive as a platform as the “streaming wars” ramp up, needs to bring in as wide an audience as possible. Realistically, most people who tuned in for Discovery are not hard-core Star Trek fans. They’re not the kind of people who argue about the length of time for subspace messages to travel from Earth to the Borg Collective in the 2060s, or who wonder why Tom Paris’ dad had a picture of him with him combadge on the wrong side framed on his desk. Most folks are casual viewers, tuning in to see an episode then moving on and doing other things. Having three entirely different time periods for one franchise risks being confusing and putting off those casual viewers who make up the bulk of any television audience.

In addition, setting Discovery in the far-future will adversely affect all the other Star Trek series currently in production – by essentially turning them into prequels. As a concept, some prequels can work. Rogue One, for example, is a great film and a direct prequel to the first Star Wars. But many prequels are robbed of a significant amount of tension and drama because we already know the outcome. In Enterprise‘s third season, the crew were facing down an existential threat to the Earth in the form of the Xindi’s planet-destroying superweapon. But having seen Earth in the 23rd and 24th Centuries, it was already known to most of the audience that there was no real danger. Thus, the storyline – while still arguably one of Enterprise‘s best – wasn’t as dramatic or edge-of-your-seat exhilarating as it could’ve been if an identical story had been made as a sequel set after Star Trek Nemesis.

By moving Discovery to a far-future setting, in which some form of galactic government and humanity still exist, any significant, galaxy-ending threat in Picard, Lower Decks, or the Section 31 series immediately loses much of its drama in the same way as the Xindi story. It constrains the direction of any future series, because we already know what direction the galaxy is headed. How we get there might be interesting – though Discovery will be under immense pressure to explain much of that backstory itself – but when the destination is known there are only so many options for the journey to take.

Unless the plan is for all of Star Trek to quickly shift to a 33rd Century setting as well, leaving behind almost everything we’ve known thus far, it seems like a bad storytelling decision – one which is sadly motivated by the vocal minority of fans who disliked Discovery‘s place in canon. And trying to run a franchise with three different timelines all running simultaneously will be a daunting task for Alex Kurtzman and others, not to mention that it precludes the possibility of cameos and crossovers.

As Deep Space Nine was getting established early on in its run, there were several crossovers with The Next Generation, which was also on the air at the same time. And Voyager also brought in settings, concepts, and characters from TNG and DS9. Those three shows all overlapped and all shared a single timeline, making it easy for fans to jump between series without getting confused, and with the ability to bring across even major characters like Worf. Aside from a dwindling number of fans who love only TOS, I think most people agree that the TNG era – including DS9 and Voyager – was the “golden age” of Star Trek. Current and upcoming series are trying to reach and surpass those heights, but may find themselves hampered by the decision to split up the timelines.

One of the biggest things getting people excited for Star Trek Picard are the cameos from returning main characters. And this isn’t something exclusive to Star Trek, either. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, crossovers and character cameos are a big deal, and that franchise is arguably the most successful in recent history. By having practically all of its titles in one timeline and one setting, Marvel’s superheroes can cross over from film to film, and fans can skip an entry and still be able to largely follow what’s going on without having to be brought up to speed. I hadn’t watched most of the films preceding Avengers Infinity War and Endgame, but I could still follow what was going on because it was familiar. A casual Star Trek fan who enjoyed Discovery trying to jump into Lower Decks might find themselves confused by the change in timelines, and that might be sufficiently offputting to stop watching. Having to have a chart or graphic to explain where each new series fits in the timeline means that the whole thing is convoluted – and that absolutely will put people off.

So those are the two biggest issues which stem from Discovery heading into the far future: the overly-complicated timeline situation, and the fact that any prequel series potentially loses a portion of its dramatic effect.

The solution is complicated, and would require a either a retcon of parts of the ending of Season 2, or yet another time travel story. So then, either the USS Discovery travels into the far future, then somehow comes back to the 25th Century, or it never travels into the far future at all. The latter is by far the more preferable outcome, as it would allow the series to tie in with Picard, and any future series and films set in that era. Star Trek should be aiming to bring its series together into one single timeline, and the ending of Discovery‘s second season actually gives them a great way to do so.

Instead of travelling 950 years into the future, the USS Discovery would emerge in the Picard era, perhaps in an area of space far away from the Federation or where Federation jurisdiction is in question. Nothing from the Season 3 trailer that premiered a few months ago is contradicted by a setting like that, and in my opinion it would allow for future Star Trek shows to work better as one single franchise, with related – if separate – stories. As things stand, the franchise is fractured by the huge gaps in its timeline between series, and aside from the briefest of references it won’t be possible to have any crossings over.

It would be easy to explain, as well. The Red Angel suit and/or Discovery herself malfunctioned, causing the time-wormhole to collapse before they had exited, thrusting both Burnham and the ship into the early 25th Century. That whole situation could be cleared up inside of the first ten minutes, and whatever we saw in the trailer could just as easily be taking place around the same time as Picard.

Part of Discovery‘s problem has always been its place in canon. I mentioned before the vocal minority of fans who’ve taken it on themselves to be hate mongers of the series and everything about it, but the show itself has provided them the ammunition. The silly thing is that there was no reason to make it that way – nothing about the first two seasons of Discovery would have changed if it were a sequel series, aside from a handful of TOS-era characters. The Mirror Universe plot would have been fine, either by saying the Terran Empire had reformed after the events of DS9 or by setting it in a different parallel reality. And the time travel/Red Angel plot would’ve worked too, and there’d have been no reason to end it by sending the ship away.

In a similar way to how Disney and Lucasfilm have approached the Star Wars sequels, it seems from the way Discovery and the other new Star Trek shows have been rolled out that ViacomCBS hasn’t had a consistent approach, nor really had any idea of what direction to take the rejuvenated franchise. The result in the case of the Star Wars films has been a failed prequel, a complete mess of a trilogy lacking a cohesive story, and one standalone film that was brilliant almost by accident. I hope the same fate isn’t in store for Star Trek, or the franchise could disappear just as quickly as it was renewed. At the end of the day, ViacomCBS brought Star Trek back for basically one reason – it was the biggest property they owned with the best name recognition, and they wanted to launch their own version of Netflix to try to get a piece of the streaming action. But if CBS All Access continues to struggle (at this point it’s not clear whether it’s actually been profitable or has a pathway to becoming profitable) there’s no reason for ViacomCBS to keep making new Star Trek. After all, what would be the point?

The Short Treks episode from its first season, Calypso, comes into play when talking about the direction Discovery could and should go.

Calypso is set after the USS Discovery has been abandoned for almost a millennium, and a human character – or at least, someone we assume to be human – comes aboard. Discovery’s computer has evolved into a full artificial intelligence, complete with emotions, but we don’t learn the stardate or exactly when it’s supposed to take place. If Discovery sets its third season in the 33rd Century, 1,000 years later would be the 43rd Century, which would set Calypso far beyond anything we’ve ever seen in Star Trek. And that still could be its setting, there’s nothing to say that doesn’t work in the context of Discovery setting itself in the far future. But it was interesting that this episode premiered just prior to the season where the USS Discovery and her crew also end up further ahead in the timeline from anything else we’ve seen before. Some people have suggested a connection, or that the galaxy we glimpsed in Calypso is the one Discovery will enter in Season 3.

There are some superficial similarities based on the trailer – both settings exclude Starfleet and suggest that the Federation isn’t present, both feature humans who are at war or in conflict, and both suggest that the level of technology present aboard Discovery is either roughly equal to that which exists in the future or is perhaps even something future people would covet. So is Discovery‘s third season perhaps in the Calypso timeline, and if it is, how would Calypso itself be explained given that the USS Discovery was abandoned? There are a lot of loose ends to tie up there.

It seems to me that at the time Calypso was being made, Discovery‘s future was in jeopardy, or at least in doubt. This would explain why Calypso exists as an epilogue – almost certainly one to an alternate ending for Season 2 where the ship is abandoned. If that had been one option the writers were considering, Calypso makes perfect sense. As things stand now, it’s a bit of an outlier.

I really feel that bringing together Discovery and Picard somehow is a great option for Star Trek, and because of the nature of time travel stories it would be possible to do so in a convincing way that doesn’t feel too forced. Discovery has been a great reboot for Star Trek on television and it deserves more success than it’s arguably had thus far. But the time has come for Star Trek to stop looking back at its own past and do what it’s always done best – press ahead into the future. And if the future is the Picard era – which makes the most sense – then finding a way to tie Discovery to that is what needs to happen.

Whether I can call it a “theory” or not is questionable, because at the end of the day the most likely outcome is that Discovery does what everyone has said it will do and head into that far future setting. But my hope and/or my preference would be that it doesn’t. I don’t think it necessarily needed to leave the 23rd Century, and keeping it in that same setting would have allowed for some crossover with the Section 31 series. But if it has to leave and go into the future, ending up around the time of Picard just makes so much more sense.

If we think about technological progress in the Star Trek galaxy, in roughly 200 years we’ve gone from the tech available on the NX-01 Enterprise, with limited warp speeds and basic weapons, through Kirk’s time and greater exploration of the Alpha Quadrant, into the 24th Century with holodecks, slipstream drives, and the rollout of time travel. The level of technological change in 200-odd years is massive. Representing on-screen the level of change between the 24th and 33rd Centuries will be a huge challenge, and if the tech available to future Federation citizens in the 33rd Century looks oddly identical to that of the Picard era – and thanks to visual effects it will at least look similar – then that will have to be explained somehow. And from the trailer, it looks like Discovery is launching into an almost post-apocalyptic setting… that’s one way to explain it. But is it a good way to explain it? I don’t know. I’m not convinced post-apocalyptic Star Trek is what I want to see, and at the end of the day all of this speculation and hope is down to that fact. If Discovery couldn’t continue in its 23rd Century setting, then at the very least I’d much rather see it connect with Picard than try to explain why the future is so grim and technology has stagnated.

Whether it happens or not, I don’t know. I doubt it, but I still think that putting Discovery in that era gives the show and the franchise more options and better options than going such a long way into the future, beyond everything we’ve seen.

I had more to say on the potential for a post-apocalyptic setting, but I’ll save that for next time.

Live Long and Prosper!

As a final note, I just want to say that more Star Trek is always better than less or none, and whatever Discovery does and wherever it goes, I will always tune in to see what’s happening. As a fan, I’ll always want to see more and spend more time in that world.

The Star Trek franchise, including Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Short Treks, are the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Why I’m so excited for Star Trek: Picard

Why I’m so excited for Star Trek: Picard

Dennis

Spoiler Warning:
I will be looking at material from the two trailers for Star Trek: Picard, as well as discussing the most recent season of Star Trek: Discovery. There will also be spoilers for other Star Trek films and series.

In either 1999 or 2000 – I can’t remember which – I was listening to the radio when the news of a new Star Trek show was breaking. In the UK, the complicated rights agreements in place for broadcasting Star Trek meant that – at least for households which didn’t have satellite television – we were quite behind where the various series were in their US airings. The Next Generation had concluded its run, though Deep Space Nine and Voyager hadn’t yet, and I was very interested to see what would be coming next for the franchise.

When it was announced that the new series – later titled Enterprise – would in fact be a prequel, I wasn’t impressed. Star Trek was about looking forward to the future, I felt, so why did they need to go back in time to before Captain Kirk? In addition, Star Wars Epsiode I: The Phantom Menace had been in cinemas, and there was a lot of talk at the time about how prequels as a concept were bad – some of which admittedly went over my head in my youth.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t convinced about a Star Trek prequel and during Enterprise‘s original run on television over here, I only tuned in sporadically. It wasn’t until I got the series on DVD a few years later that I got to watch it in its entirety. Enterprise actually told some great stories – and is a good example of how a show that “no one asked for” can actually be worth watching after all. But this isn’t a review of Enterprise.

We’d have to go back to the 1990s to find a Star Trek series with a new cast that wasn’t a prequel.

Since just after the turn of the millennium, when Voyager went off the air and Nemesis hit cinemas, the Star Trek franchise hasn’t moved its timeline forward. Instead, we’ve had Enterprise and Discovery – both of which are set before Kirk’s original five-year mission – and the Kelvin-timeline reboot films – which are also set in the 23rd Century, but in an alternate timeline. In all that time we’ve had some admittedly interesting stories, and in 2009’s Star Trek a very brief glimpse at the post-Nemesis future, but no real advancement of the overall narrative of the franchise. And while Enterprise, Discovery, and even the Kelvin-timeline films have told some fun, interesting, and “Star Trek-y” stories, they’ve all been firmly embedded in a time period we’ve seen before.

Any prequel has an uphill struggle when it comes to telling a dramatic and interesting story, as well as building tension. The reason is simple – we know what comes next. You can have a galaxy-ending threat as part of your narrative, but if we’ve seen the galaxy fifty or a hundred years hence, we know that the threat isn’t serious – and even if in the moment it’s possible to get caught up in the story, at the back of our minds we still know that there will be a way out of it. At least, that’s how it works for me. As an example, in season 3 of Enterprise we follow the crew as they race to stop the Xindi planet-killing weapon from destroying the Earth. And that’s a very exciting story – arguably Enterprise‘s best season – but while watching it, at the back of my mind I was always aware that in the 23rd and 24th Centuries, we’ve been to Earth and we’ve seen that it clearly wasn’t destroyed. The journey can still be entertaining if the destination is known, but for me at least, knowing the outcome robs the story of some of its drama and tension.

This is why series like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead have been so successful with what I call the “disposable cast”. By routinely killing off key characters and getting rid of starring actors and actresses, simply being a main cast member isn’t enough to guarantee safety any more – and the sense that anything could happen is present all the time as a viewer, arguably raising the stakes.

Star Trek has occasionally lost main cast members, though these have more often been motivated by production reasons – such as a cast member leaving the series, or the showrunners deciding to “refresh” the cast by replacing someone – rather than for purely narrative ones. In most cases, as viewers we tend to feel that the main characters are safe, and it’s the redshirts like Ensign Bob, introduced for the first time five minutes ago, who are most in danger in any given scenario.

But as we’re now in a new phase of television, one dominated in the aftermath of shows like Game of Thrones with ideas like the “disposable cast” and serialised storytelling, there are new and exciting possibilities for Star Trek. We’ve already seen some of this in Discovery – the first two seasons each told season-long stories instead of being episodic, and we’ve seen characters like Lorca killed off, as well as Pike, Spock, and Una appearing for a single season, and of course Ash Tyler being left behind as Burnham leads the U.S.S. Discovery into the future. Sir Patrick Stewart, when interviewed regarding the new series, has gone on record saying that Picard will be “like a ten-hour movie” instead of a series of episodes – firmly stating that this will be another serialised show.

The vineyards of Château Picard form the Starfleet logo in the first teaser poster for the new series.

Personally I’m a fan of episodic television – I think it’s great to be able to drop into an episode of a show without needing to have followed the entire season to understand what’s going on. Previous iterations of Star Trek largely operate like this, though the aforementioned third season of Enterprise, as well as the Dominion War arc in Deep Space Nine, were serialised stories. But for shows like TNG and Voyager, it’s possible to jump into most episodes and follow a single story over forty-five minutes. I like that, and I think it makes for a good format. There’s no getting away from the move to serialised shows, though, and Picard is set to go down this route.

When the TNG-era series all concluded around the turn of the millennium, there were a lot of leftover story points. Although each crew had arguably reached their destination – Deep Space Nine ended its war, Voyager saw the crew make it home, and Nemesis saw the Enterprise’s crew go their separate ways – 500-odd episodes across 21 seasons of TV, along with four films, told over a 15-year period from 1987 to 2002 had a lot of stories to tell and taking that era of Star Trek off the air left a lot of open-ended, unfinished plot threads. There are too many to name here, but a few that spring to mind are: what would happen next for Cardassia after the war? How would the Klingon-Romulan-Federation alliance work with no common enemy? And what happened to the Borg after Voyager attacked their transwarp network and the Queen’s complex? In addition, finding out what happened next to a lot of the characters is something fans would like to know.

By this point in time, several members of Kirk’s crew have had their futures shown on screen. Kirk himself died saving Veridian III in Generations, McCoy lived to a ripe old age and helped christen the Enterprise-D when it launched, Spock ended up in the Kelvin timeline after trying to save Romulus, and Scotty emerged from transporter-suspension in the TNG episode Relics. But what happened next for the crews we’d seen in the TNG era is still unknown to fans – and there’s definitely scope to explore some of that within Picard.

I don’t feel that Picard should overload itself with characters, though. It’s a short series – clocking in at only ten episodes – and the more time it spends looking back, the less time there is to look forward. And the more time it spends with fan favourites of the past, the less time there is to show off the new crew. I’d like to give the new cast a chance to become fan favourites for the next generation (pun intended) of Star Trek fans. I really hope that in another thirty years’ time they’ll be clamouring to find out what happened next to some of these characters the way we are for those of the TNG era. So in that sense, Picard has to walk a line between what happened since Nemesis and what’s to come.

It’s my hope that Picard can strike that balance, and that while we’ll learn a great deal about the shape of the Star Trek galaxy and what happened next for some fan-favourite characters, we’ll also get an exciting original story in which those pieces of information are conveyed. The Next Generation didn’t spend too much of its time in its first season looking backwards – aside from DeForest Kelley’s cameo in Encounter at Farpoint and a couple of name-drops, TNG told its own story. Some elements of that story filled in the blanks for returning fans – we learn, for example, that the Klingons and Federation are at peace, and that the Romulans have isolated themselves for a number of years – but they weren’t in-your-face about it, and those story points unfolded naturally in the episodes in question. They didn’t feel tacked-on or shoehorned in in order to provide cheap fanservice – something I’d argue has happened in some recent Star Wars projects.

At the end of the day, Picard is taking the franchise forward in time – to the close of the 24th Century. And it’s the first time in a very long time that the timeline is going to advance. That is already a huge point in its favour, and without knowing much at all about the story, it’s enough to get me hyped up.

Jean-Luc Picard and Number One (the dog) on the second poster for Star Trek: Picard.

The two trailers for Picard have been great, and I can’t wait to catch up with Seven of Nine, Riker, Troi, and of course, Picard himself. I’m also really interested to learn more about the new cast – including, for the first time, a Romulan main cast member. It looks from the trailers that we’ll see some Borg story elements, as well as learning more about the Romulans after the destruction of their capital. All of those things seem absolutely fascinating, and while I have to admit I’d be hyped up for almost any Star Trek story that moves the narrative forward, the teases we’ve seen of Picard just look incredible.

I know that recent Star Trek projects haven’t thrilled everyone in the fanbase, but I really do hope that Trekkies who weren’t taken with Discovery will give Picard a try. The chance to see what comes next isn’t something we’re always going to get. A lot of shows – by far the majority – are one-off things, and when they’re done they’re done. Some even get cancelled too soon, before even the first part of their story can be told. So this opportunity that Picard presents is a rarity, one I intend to take full advantage of. If Picard is a success, it has the potential to be a launchpad for other series set in the same time period, taking the Star Trek franchise boldly into the 25th Century.

While I don’t expect Picard to spend its entire runtime catching up with galactic events and reintroducing old crewmates, I do hope we’ll get enough of that to feel like we’re back in that galaxy again – combined with enough new material and new characters to drive the story forward and give new fans a chance to get hooked in. Walking that line between the old and the new might be a challenge, but I’m confident that the producers, having cut their teeth on Discovery, can manage it with ease. And with Picard having just been renewed for a second season while I was writing this column, ViacomCBS are clearly confident of that too.

After almost two decades, Star Trek is finally ready to move forward again. With just over a month left to go, I can feel the excitement building already. Forget Christmas, forget New Year – it’s Star Trek: Picard that I’m most looking forward to right now!

Live Long and Prosper!

The Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Picard, and all other Star Trek properties mentioned above are the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Animated Star Trek is back!

Animated Star Trek is back!

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the plots of both Ephraim and Dot and The Girl Who Made The Stars, as well as for Star Trek: Discovery. If you want to avoid spoilers, turn back now!

Star Trek: The Animated Series ran for two seasons in 1973-74. It featured the voice talent of most of the original cast (sans Walter Koenig), but since then Star Trek has stuck to live-action series and films. Until, that is, the latest two episodes of Short Treks, which were released a couple of days ago.

At least they were for Trekkies in the United States – ViacomCBS apparently places no value on its overseas fans. But let’s not get into that right now, because these two episodes were absolutely fantastic.

After I was finally able to track down copies, I watched The Girl Who Made The Stars first, as I thought I probably wouldn’t find it as interesting as the other episode, Ephraim and Dot. But The Girl Who Made The Stars was a cute, Disney-esque bedtime story, told by Michael Burnham’s father to her when she was a child. I got a distinct Moana vibe from this short episode, which tells of a young girl who teaches her tribe of ancient humans to overcome their fear of the night – aided, in true Star Trek fashion, by an ethereal alien.

The unnamed little girl in The Girl Who Made The Stars.

As in Moana, the key to defeating what the tribe’s elders called the Night Beast wasn’t violence, and hiding away from it didn’t help either. It took someone to be bold and head out beyond the safety of the tribe’s valley to overcome the imagined monster. How much of the episode was actually based on African legends is something I don’t know, but this was a uniquely Star Trek look at history and at Africa. Framed as a bedtime story, I’m certain we aren’t supposed to take the episode’s main plot as canonical, but it was an interesting look at Michael Burnham’s childhood. Burnham has been in some respects a hard protagonist to get behind in Star Trek: Discovery. Partly that’s a consequence of her internal struggle between a logical Vulcan upbringing and human emotion, which she has at times seemed to be confused with. And partly, it has to be said, it’s a consequence of a character whose motivations – especially in Discovery‘s premiere – were impossible to follow and understand. This short episode doesn’t change anything fundamental about her character, but it does show the audience that she’s human at her core. Something which may be important as Discovery travels to unknown destinations next season. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this bedtime story referred to, perhaps inspiring her to lead Discovery’s crew and/or the Federation in season 3.

The other episode was absolutely adorable. Ephraim and Dot told the story of a tardigrade, the species seen in season 1 of Discovery, laying its eggs. After trying to find a warm place, the tardigrade chooses the warp core of the Enterprise – by this time under Kirk’s command. We see an animated recreation of the TOS engine room, and this is where Ephraim (as I assume she’s called, she’s never named on-screen) lays her eggs, only to be kicked off the ship by Dot – an R2D2 or BB8-type droid, seemingly employed on the Enterprise to perform menial tasks and jobs humans wouldn’t be able to do.

Ephraim and DOT.

The episode then launches into a brief “greatest hits” of the Enterprise under Kirk’s command. We see Khan waking up in sickbay from Space Seed, the hand of Apollo, Sulu brandishing his sword, the Planet Killer from The Doomsday Machine, and a recreation of Lincoln featured in the episode The Savage Curtain. As the sequence continues, we see the refit Enterprise fighting Khan’s Reliant in The Wrath of Khan before Ephraim finally manages to scramble back aboard, just as the Enterprise is set to be destroyed over the Genesis Planet in The Search for Spock.

I’m going to let you guys in on a secret – I got legitimately emotional at this point. As Ephraim races to save her eggs from the crippled, soon-to-be-destroyed ship I was literally on the edge of my seat. And when Dot got to her first and threw her overboard yet again, I felt a real emotional stab. I’ve always been a sucker for animals in films and television, and the cute way Ephraim is styled here no doubt contributed to that.

Luckily, at the last minute Dot realises that the eggs are on board and manages to save them, delivering the newly-hatched babies to Ephraim after the ship has exploded. The two then disappear into the Mycelial Network – perhaps laying the groundwork for a future episode or an appearance in one of the two new animated shows? Gosh I hope so.

Ephraim embraces DOT.

These two episodes were absolutely unlike anything Star Trek has done before – at least not since some of the weirder episodes of The Animated Series in the 1970s saw a 50-foot-tall clone of Spock, or the Enterprise visiting a parallel universe where magic is real. Yes, those really happened. And yes, they’re canon. Deal with it.

These episodes were undoubtedly inspired by Disney – the storytelling, the use of animals, cute robots, and a child as the main characters all come together to make these the most child-friendly Star Trek episodes so far, as well as a fantastic way to introduce little ones to Star Trek. Ephraim and Dot in particular contained some very funny moments, complete with traditional cartoon sound effects. At one point, Ephraim is sucked into a tube and bounces through it, with the tube bulging out in a throwback to old-school cartoons.

The little girl and the alien in The Girl Who Made The Stars.

But at their core, these were just cute, heartfelt episodes. I’m sure that people who haven’t enjoyed modern Star Trek will hate them, and that’s fine because at this point those folks hate just about everything. Both of these episodes have something to say about Star Trek. Yes, characters are important. Yes, alien races and cool ship battles and the politics of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants are important. But at its core, Star Trek is about inspiring stories, and seeking out new life. The Girl Who Made The Stars tells such a story, and Ephraim and Dot takes a look at one example of the kind of new life that Starfleet has been seeking. And these episodes are presented in a cute, fun, approachable way. Show them to anyone sceptical of Star Trek and I bet they’d come away thinking about the franchise in a whole new light.

Overall, Ephraim and Dot and The Girl Who Made The Stars leave me hopeful that the new animated series – Lower Decks – is in good hands and will turn out to be a lot of fun. And moreover, that the currently-untitled animated series that’s supposed to be more kid-friendly will also have something to offer to adult fans like myself. The best kids’ shows manage to find a way to appeal to us too, and from these shorts, I feel like there’s a real chance that the new series will absolutely have something to offer older Trekkies.

Star Trek animation is back – with a bang!

There’s only one episode left in this season of Short Treks – and it’s set to be a prequel of sorts, leading into Star Trek: Picard. So I can’t wait to see that. And Picard is coming next month! It really is a great time to be a Star Trek fan right now.

The Star Trek franchise – including Short Treks and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Short Treks is available to stream on CBS All Access in the United States, and is now available on Blu-ray elsewhere. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Looking back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture on its 40th anniversary

Looking back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture on its 40th anniversary

Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

On the 7th of December 1979, ten years after going off the air (and five years since The Animated Series went off the air), Star Trek was back. Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered, and while it has been overshadowed in many ways by its sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the film was a success – albeit not an overwhelming one according to distributors and producers – and reinvigorated the franchise. Make no mistake, if it weren’t for The Motion Picture, Star Trek as we know it wouldn’t exist today – there would’ve been no Wrath of Khan, and from that there’d have been no Next Generation or any future series or film. In a very real sense, The Motion Picture paved the way for the franchise’s future, and the success Star Trek enjoys today owes a lot to this film.

The Motion Picture was a risk for Paramount Pictures. Star Trek had shown that it had a number of very vocal fans – the letter-writing campaign in 1968 to get the series renewed demonstrated this – but its wider popularity was an unknown quantity, especially on the big screen. Reruns of The Original Series had garnered a larger audience than its 1966-69 original run, but there were still question marks over whether to make a new television series or to go down the box office route.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture turns 40 in December 2019.

Indeed, the project that would eventually become The Motion Picture started out life as Star Trek: Phase II, a television series that was to reunite the original cast – without Spock – for another five-year mission onboard the Enterprise. After a project called Planet of the Titans failed to get off the ground in the mid-1970s, by 1977 Phase II was officially in production. It has been said many times that the success of another 1977 project – Star Wars – is what led Gene Roddenberry and Paramount to reconsider the television series and make a film instead. While there is undoubtedly a kernel of truth to that, there were other factors at play too. The script which would eventually become The Motion Picture was originally set to be the pilot episode for Phase II but after a series of revisions and discussions between the creative team and the studio, the decision was made to enter production as a film instead, and two versions of the script were submitted – one by Gene Rodenberry and one by Harold Livingston, who’d been a producer on Phase II. Livingston’s script was chosen (by Michael Eisner – future CEO of Disney) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was officially greenlit.

As an interesting aside, Phase II remained officially “in production” even after the decision was taken to switch focus to a film, and for much of 1977 the official line from the studio was that a series, originally set at 13 episodes, was being produced. It wasn’t until 1978 that the film would be officially announced.

Concept art of the bridge of the Enterprise that was created for Phase II.

So that’s a brief potted history of how it came to be. But despite making around $139 million on a budget of $46 million, Paramount considered the film a disappointment. The big risk had paid off, but not as much as they’d hoped. The expensive special effects and continued revisions to the script even during production were cited as reasons why, as was the less action-heavy, more ethereal storyline.

For me personally, it’s the lack of action and the deliberate slow pacing that gives this film something that others lack – a sense of “Star Trek-ness”. Star Trek was always into the weirder, more esoteric side of science fiction, especially prior to The Motion Picture, and this film stands alongside episodes of The Original Series as a pure science fiction work, not an action-sci fi film like The Wrath of Khan or First Contact. While some people might find its slower pace to be a grind, to me it makes it akin to watching a feature-length episode of the series, rather than just another action flick.

Leonard Nimoy, director Robert Wise, Gene Roddenberry, DeForest Kelley, and William Shatner during production on The Motion Picture.

Because of the overwhelming popularity of The Wrath of Khan within the fanbase, The Motion Picture often gets a bad rap. People have said that “all of the odd-numbered Star Trek films are bad”, including The Motion Picture in with Search for Spock and The Final Frontier. Both of those titles have good and bad moments – the latter suffering perhaps from too much involvement from William Shatner – but to me, The Motion Picture is in a different league.

Some criticism of the film is that it feels like a two-and-a-half hour episode of The Original Series. But why should that be a criticism? The Motion Picture masterfully builds up its drama – the V’ger cloud’s attack on the Klingons, its destruction of the Epsilon IX station, and finally the death of new character Ilia all add to the stakes. While none of these are particularly dramatic, nor gory, that doesn’t detract from the threat, it heightens it. V’ger is shown to be a being of such incredible power that it can make whole fleets of starships vanish in a heartbeat. We don’t need huge explosions or a punch-out to learn this. V’ger’s power is also confirmed by the reaction of characters. So as the film progresses, we know what’s at stake.

Kirk and the away team encounter V’Ger.

To change lanes completely, I happen to really like the aesthetic of The Motion Picture. It’s very 1970s in some ways – the orange and brown tones, and some of the uniform choices in particular, but that’s not necessarily a negative thing. Kirk’s uniform as an admiral happens to be one of my all-time favourite Star Trek uniforms. The high collar, the belted tunic, and the simple curved lines in grey and white combine with a metallic gold Starfleet insignia to make an understated yet interesting uniform. I’m not a cosplayer by any means, but if I ever were to make myself a uniform, that would be the one I’d go for. And while we’re talking about things that look great, the sweeping shot over the Enterprise when Kirk is being taken aboard by shuttlepod is absolutely perfect. Combined with an amazing score – for which composer Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for an Academy Award – the full sequence is one of the most inspiring and moving in all of Star Trek, speaking for myself as a fan. When the music ramps up right as we see the Enterprise from the front for the first time, it can be quite emotional. I could happily watch that sequence over and over again.

Many of the sets built in 1978-79 were in continuous use (albeit in modified form) right through to Enterprise‘s cancellation in 2005. Some of the reuses are quite apparent in The Next Generation, so in that sense, the design choices made in The Motion Picture carried through the next two decades of Star Trek as a franchise. The panelling and angles on corridors in particular can be seen on the Enterprise-D and the USS Voyager, and the idea of a warp core as a large upright glowing tube is also something that has carried on right through Star Trek – even cropping up in CGI form in the most recent of the Short Treks episodes. Much of what we consider to be “Star Trek” in terms of aesthetic has its roots not in 1966 but in 1979 – future productions built on what designers and artists had created here. The Next Generation and Voyager in particular owe significant parts of their design to The Motion Picture.

Some of these sets would be in continuous use – albeit with tweaks here and there – until Enterprise’s cancellation in 2005. They defined the “look” of Star Trek.

The storyline of The Motion Picture is certainly different from many science fiction outings. It isn’t a film about defeating and destroying an enemy, it’s a film about bridging the gulf and communicating with a new form of life. V’ger, set up to be the film’s antagonist, wanted to evolve – to merge physically with its creator. The crew of the Enterprise could’ve used that moment of weakness to attack it, and maybe even destroy it – and in a different film perhaps that would’ve been the finale. But The Motion Picture builds up to this moment, and it isn’t the death and vanquishing of a foe that we see, but communication, and ultimately the creation of new life. Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, and the like may be fun to see on screen, but Star Trek is all about “seeking new life” – and what could be newer and more different than a hyperevolved, massively intelligent machine?

This side of Star Trek, though, has always been more of a niche product. When fans are asked about their favourite films, The Wrath of Khan and First Contact are usually somewhere up near the top, as well as episodes like The Best of Both Worlds, or DS9’s The Way of the Warrior. These are all action-heavy stories, and while Star Trek has enough room for both these and the slower-paced, thought-provoking ones, The Motion Picture falls firmly into the second category. With that comes being underrated and overlooked by fans who prefer more action-oriented stories.

Robert Wise, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry, and DeForest Kelley at the film’s premiere.

When Spock describes V’ger as being little more than “a child”, he sets the stage for understanding, and from that, communication. The ultimate revelation that V’ger was, in fact, a probe of human origin was truly unexpected. The Motion Picture had an incredibly ambitious story which sought to blend these elements together. The cyclical nature of a returning spacecraft, the massive differences that almost certainly will exist between humankind and anything we might encounter in outer space, and at the heart of it all, the returning characters – not all of whom had enough to do, arguably. But the core dynamic between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was still there. Perhaps The Motion Picture needed more fine-tuning, and perhaps its scope was too vast for a single film to properly encompass, but as a story it makes you stop and think. The galaxy isn’t just going to be humanoids, there are going to be things out there completely beyond our understanding. And the choices we make today – like probing outer space – may have consequences well into the future that we could never foresee.

As an inspirational message, I think that can’t be understated. Seeking out new life and new civilisations – the raison d’être of Starfleet – isn’t always going to be smooth sailing. But if we’re willing to look at things from a different point of view, to listen, to understand, and to communicate, we can find a way to coexist even with someone who seems to be big and threatening. I know the real world doesn’t always work that way, but Gene Roddenberry was always about showing us how humanity can be better than we are in the present day. Speaking personally, I find that aspect of The Motion Picture to be inspiring. As a work of science fiction, that’s the kind of message I admire and what I’d like to see more of on our screens.

Above all, The Motion Picture relaunched the Star Trek brand for a new decade, one which would culminate in The Next Generation and a return to television. If it weren’t for this film, Star Trek would look very different today – if it even existed at all. We can argue about which Star Trek film we like best, and at the end of the day it’s always going to be a subjective choice, but I’d definitely rank The Motion Picture highly on any list. Not just for what it did for the franchise, though that is incredibly important, but as a work of science fiction that wasn’t afraid to tell a thought-provoking story.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is available to stream now on Paramount Plus in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries and territories where the platform is available. The film is also available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray. Star Trek, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and all other Star Trek properties mentioned above are the copyright of Paramount Global and/or Paramount Pictures. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Section 31 Enters Production… Meh.

Section 31 Enters Production… Meh.

Dennis

Spoiler warning: spoilers ahead for Star Trek, including both seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. If you haven’t seen Discovery yet and don’t want to see any spoilers, you’re better off reading another article and coming back when you’re caught up.


Just to get this out of the way, more Star Trek on our screens is always going to be a good thing. Even when it’s at its worst – like some of the episodes in TOS season 3, or that weird TNG clip show in season 2 – it’s still better than having no Star Trek at all. When Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled in 2005 I really felt disappointed. I wasn’t around through the dark days of the 1970s when it seemed like Star Trek was gone forever, so to me this was the first time I’d really seen it off the air. I’m not sure if you remember, but before JJ Abrams picked up the franchise for his reboot film, Star Trek really did look dead.


I also don’t like the expression “nobody asked for this”. A lot of films and series that nobody seemed to be asking for have turned out to be absolutely fantastic. And honestly, in today’s insular fan communities, a lot of what people seem to be asking for or think would be good would either turn out to be just god-awful, or at the very best a niche product that would be a commercial failure.


So with those two big caveats out of the way, I’m not really sold at the moment on the idea of a Star Trek series based around Section 31.


There are some interesting ideas within that concept, which, if properly executed, could work well. But there are some issues with the Section 31 show as currently envisioned that make me feel it might not be the best direction to take the franchise.


First is the timeframe. With Star Trek: Picard and Lower Decks returning to the late 24th Century and beyond, as well as Discovery‘s third season heading into an unknown future, I’m just not sure that the franchise needs to have three different eras on the go simultaneously. Aside from the fact that it’s convoluted to the point of being offputting for new viewers – people who CBS needs to hook in and retain if Star Trek is to survive long-term – it’s just not a good way to split up the narrative of the franchise. Personally I’ve been going back and forth on my pet theory that Discovery either doesn’t go as far into the future as was suggested last season, or that somehow its time travel narrative crosses over with Picard. It just makes more sense to me to do it that way; tying shows together when they’re set in the same universe and being produced at the same time makes a lot of sense. Look at how the Marvel films cross over with one another successfully. But that’s just one point.


The 23rd Century has been explored a lot recently, and Star Trek has been busy with prequels, reboots, and mid-quels (or whatever Discovery is) since the turn of the millennium. I don’t want to say it’s entirely devoid of storytelling potential, but Star Trek has primarily been about moving forward, looking to the future, and where it’s been arguably at its least successful from the point of view of its story is when it’s been looking back at its own history and tying itself in knots. After four seasons of Enterprise, three reboot films, and two seasons of Discovery, it’s going to be great to see Star Trek finally moving into the future again, and the Section 31 series taking place in the 23rd Century seems more than a little regressive when looking at Picard, Lower Decks, and Discovery‘s future.


The next issue is with the two main characters, or rather, the two characters returning from Discovery around whom the show is currently being built.


Ash Tyler – or Voq – has had his story fairly well explored already in his appearances in Star Trek: Discovery. Without inventing more backstory for him, it’s hard to see where he’d go and how he’ll be able to have a satisfying character arc. Having started out as a victim of Klingon manipulation, Tyler fought hard against his programming and fell in love with Discovery’s protagonist, Michael Burnham, who helped him overcome what had been done to him in what was a very interesting and inspirational rape analogy. Star Trek, for me, is at its best when it uses its sci-fi setting to tackle real-world issues, and the issue of under-reported male sexual abuse is something Ash Tyler’s story touched on perfectly. And in his second season role as an agent of Section 31, he overcame his Klingon heritage, had a child, gave up his child, and finally dealt with his feelings for Burnham – and hers for him. He’s been on a rollercoaster over the last two seasons, but what he’s been through has concluded, and while there may be lingering feelings left over from that, as a story arc it’s essentially done. Because of how much of him we’ve seen and how much he’s been through, he wouldn’t make for the best protagonist.


So that leaves the Mirror Universe version of Burnham’s old captain, Philippa Georgiou. Michelle Yeoh has been announced as the lead actress of this series, so her character would be central to the Section 31 show. But… what character is there, exactly? In terms of modern Star Trek, Mirror Georgiou is about as one-dimensional as it gets. She seems to like being evil for the sake of being evil – a 23rd Century Heinz Doofenshmirtz, perhaps, but with less backstory. No, Mirror Georgiou is the Star Trek equivalent of a villain from a bad direct-to-video kids’ film, the kind of person who wants to steal a puppy from a child or tries to shut down a sweet shop so she can bulldoze it to build an office block. She just isn’t interesting in the slightest.


I like Michelle Yeoh. As a supporting actress in Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine, she did a great job. But she’s unproven as a lead actress in a major series like this, and the character she’s set to play just isn’t one a lot of fans find interesting or relatable.


While there are positives to consider from a Section 31 series, such as exploring how the organisation changed and went entirely underground between its appearances in Discovery and Deep Space Nine, as well as the potential to see Star Trek cross over into the mystery/thriller genre, I’m just not convinced right now that it’s the right way to go.


Section 31 was announced too early. If CBS had waited to see how Discovery’s second season was received, then the obvious choice by far for a spin-off was an Anson Mount-led series, which would probably be set on the Enterprise. That would be the fan favourite choice for a 23rd Century spin-off at the moment. You can see the desire for such a series at conventions and panels, and whenever Alex Kurtzman and others are interviewed, it’s the one question that keeps coming up. Conversely, when was the last time you heard anyone asking about how the Section 31 show is progressing?


It is actually a really great time to be a Star Trek fan at the moment. There are three series scheduled to premiere in 2020 – Picard‘s first season, Discovery‘s third season, and the first season of Lower Decks which already has a second on order. And in addition, a fourth Kelvin-timeline film is in the works, and beyond that, a possible Quentin Tarantino-directed Star Trek film. More Star Trek on our screens is always going to be a good thing, and while I don’t want to say I don’t want Section 31, it’s just not at the top of my list right now. I want it to do well, and to be successful, because I want Star Trek as a franchise to succeed and carry on into the future. So while I remain more than a little cautious about approaching this new show, I wish it well and I will certainly tune in when it premieres. Perhaps in 2021?


Live Long and Prosper!

Star Trek: Discovery and all other Star Trek series and films are available in the United States on CBS All Access, and in other countries on Netflix. Star Trek: Picard premieres on CBS All Access in January 2020 and on Amazon Prime in other countries. All copyrights belong to Paramount and CBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.