Hi all! This video is a look at the Star Trek Picard series 2 trailer from Star trek day
and some theorising based on what it reveals, if you don’t want to know anything, then
check out now! It was speculated on that we would be dealing with an altered history,
based on the fact that filming in modern day L.A. was observed, the poster being set in
the 21st century, and the first trailer displaying many features that seemed odd for the United
Federation of Planets. This does indeed seem to be the case. Originally,
I speculated that Q had made changes to the timeline in personal ways for each of the
crew, making a situation where they’d have to come to terms with something in their life
in restoring the original timeline. Now this appears to be wrong, as there is a single
alteration made in the early 21st century that has shifted the entire route of the future.
The new timeline we end up in is described as Picard as some sort of a “fascist nightmare”.
So we’re looking at a situation where I think Starfleet and the United Federation
of Planets was never formed, considering we are going back so far, before the founding,
before first contact, before even world war 3. What this big change is is going to be
interesting to see, but it could be something as simple as one person no longer existing.
We do see Q in the current day wearing a jacket that says Europa on it, which is the ice moon
of Jupiter, so maybe it has to do with the early formation of the United Earth Space
Probe Agency, or some precursor exploratory arm like NASA. Without a mission to Europa,
perhaps humanity never discovered life on it and never pursued a future focused on exploration,
which snowballs into people like Cochrane never choosing science as a field and so on.
I could quite easily see something as small as this being the big change that sets everything
off. Jumping to the alternate 2399 (or maybe 2400),
we can see that this new Earth government has adopted a very Terran, Mirror universe
approach to alien species. We have several scenes of Romulans being chased throughout
their streets, which is where I expect Elnor comes in, perhaps even Laris. I reckon that
this dark human government took advantage of the Romulan supernova to supress and take
over the remnants of the Star Empire, which is why we see Elnor in captivity. Romulans
are now second class citizens of a tyrannical Earth.
Clearly Picard maintains a position of respect in this alteration, as we see him making a
speech to the assembled, in a reflection of one of the shots in the first trailer, where
he was addressing the UFP, back in his admiral’s attire. Speaking of, we get to see an awesome
black version of the late 23rd century uniforms, the ones that early versions of Picard would
have worn. So whatever agency emerged in place of Starfleet, even if it was called the same,
is way more edgy. Clearly he is going to have to continue to
play the part that his new position dictates, as will everyone else that has jumped over
and still has their memories, Jurati, Rios, Seven and Musiker, and I’m still not certain
that Elnor has all his memories. Annika seems to also be in a position of some power, and
as the last trailer revealed, was never assimilated by the Borg, which makes sense if there is
less focus on exploration from this version of Earth, no USS Raven, or Borg researchers.
Well… almost none. Because of course we do get to see the Borg Queen! Picard mentions
that there are ways to time travel, meaning that they awaken in this altered history and
then have to find a way back, something that may be a lot harder to do if there has been
no Starfleet, with all their decades of innovation. Nevertheless, in this history, it seems that
the Borg came a ’knocking eventually, but somehow they were defeated. I think this is
an twist on the battle of sector 001 in 2373, because we saw in that film (First Contact)
that the Cube that attacked Earth had a queen on board. So my theory is that in this variation,
the cube was stopped before it was able to time travel, of simply had no need to because
Earth’s history might be so different that the flight of the Phoenix never happened.
Instead, the cube was defeated and the Queen captured, being taken to a secure facility
to reverse engineer as much tech as possible from it. Borg tech is still Borg tech and
highly sophisticated after all. This is where the crew go to find their time travel technology,
Picard probably has clearance to access these sorts of things, and they can then create
a temporal corridor using salvaged Borg gear from First Contact.
So order of events, is Picard making some hopeful speech about the future, then Q makes
his alteration, meet with Picard to tell him that the “trial never ends”, and now the
crew is stuck in this altered history. They find out that the change began in the 21st
century, one of the crew now works on reverse engineering Borg tech from the captured Queen,
probably Annika or Jurati, and then they access it to go back to the 21st century and undo
Q’s alteration. So what is Q getting at here? Everything he
or the continuum has done has been to prove a point or teach a lesson. Well… almost
everything. I think that this time, the lesson to Picard might be a bit of a humbling one?
Picard’s opinion of the Federation and Starfleet was damaged by their halting of the Romulan
evacuation, and when he threatened to resign in protest, they called him on it, so his
pride led him to leave. Ultimately, this was a mistake because Picard never wanted to stay
at the Vineyard to begin with, and spent his life flying among the stars to escape that
fate, and now his arrogance had condemned him to becoming the “hermit of La Barre”.
He had one more adventure in him in season one, but this could be Q effectively showing
him how much worse things could be. How much grimmer things would be without Starfleet.
A reminder of the positive force the Starfleet has been, despite its occasional floundering
and a promise to continue that, not to walk away from trying to make a difference ever
again. At least that is my theory on Q’s motivations
this time, but who knows what the lesson might be. The alternative could be something more
akin to the trial faced in “All Good Things”, just a test to see if humanity, using Picard
as its exemplar, can wrap its mind around puzzles involving alternate realities and
time travel. …Because that’s what Trek needs more of.
Anyway, that about covers my analysis and theory-craft of the Picard series two trailer,
and how I think the story will unfold. What about you? What do you think Q’s motivation
to make such a drastic change is, and do you think that changing things back at the end
will have any leftover alterations, such as a re-humanised Picard, an change to how the
UFP is run? I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you again for a look at the last trailer from
Star Trek day, and until then, thanks again and goodbye!