In the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard's first season, La Sirena finally reaches its
destination, Soji learns the truth of her origins, and Picard sees an unexpected familiar
face.
Here are all the Easter eggs and references you might have missed in "Et in Arcadia Ego
Part I."
When La Sirena finally arrives at Soji's homeworld, Soji reveals that the planet's synthetic inhabitants
call it "Coppelius."
This is almost assuredly a reference to the 19th century ballet Coppélia, in which a
young man falls in love with a life-size doll.
In the ballet, the doll's inventor, Dr. Coppelius, plans to sacrifice the young man in order
to bring his creation to life.
However, the young man's fiance manages to save him by dressing up as the doll, and using
Coppelius' other creations as a distraction so that the young couple can escape.
The first part of the plot sounds eerily similar to what Picard and his crew encounter on the
planet Coppelius, where Dr. Alton Inigo Soong is willing to sacrifice the lives of all "organics"
in order to ensure the continued existence of his sentient synthetic creations.
Shortly after La Sirena first arrives at Coppelius, Narek's ship also emerges from the transwarp
conduit and immediately begins to attack.
After trading shots back and forth, Narek's ship suddenly seems to be experiencing some
sort of technical malfunction, with its cloaking device glitching out and Narek's life signs
quickly fading.
Picard orders Narek beamed aboard La Sirena, but it turns out that it was all just a distraction.
The ship they were seeing was actually a projection of Narek's cloaking device.
Really, his ship was behind La Sirena, and he exploited their attempt at mercy to attack
them again.
While the mechanics are different, Narek's strategy is extremely reminiscent of the "Picard
Maneuver," a battle tactic Picard invented while commanding the Stargazer that created
the illusion of a second ship.
"And blowing into maximum warp speed, you appeared, for an instant, to be in two places
at once."
"And our attacker fired on the wrong one."
Although Narek used his cloaking device to create that illusion, both tactics involved
confusing the opposing ship's sensors and tricking them into firing on the illusion
instead of the real ship.
After La Sirena crash lands on the surface of Coppelius, the ship seems largely undamaged,
except that none of the ship's automated systems are up and running.
This presents a problem for Agnes Jurati, who is tasked with figuring out what's wrong
with Picard after the Admiral starts speaking nonsensically on the bridge.
Although the medical scanners aren't working, Agnes lucks out when she finds an old med
kit.
"I didn't know how I was going to run a scan on you, and then I found this.
An old-school medical tricorder."
Of course, medical tricorders are familiar to anyone who has watched previous iterations
of Star Trek, but the most significant person from Picard's past to use a medical tricorder
was Dr. Beverly Crusher, the Chief Medical Officer on board the Enterprise.
Dr. Crusher was also Picard's closest friend and, in one version of the future, his wife,
although they later got divorced.
When the La Sirena crew ventures out onto the surface of Coppelius, Raffi attributes
her nerves to the possibility of encountering "angry reptiloids" or "homicidal fungi."
Neither of these is outside the realm of possibilities on Star Trek.
In the original series, the most notable encounter with an angry reptiloid occurred in the episode
"Arena," in which Captain Kirk is told he must fight to the death with the captain of
a Gorn ship.
As for homicidal fungi, while no Star Trek crew has yet had a run-in with murderous mushrooms,
in the original series episode "The Conscience of the King," the crew of the Enterprise encounters
the former governor of a colony responsible for massacring 4,000 of his colonists after
an aggressive strain of exotic fungi wiped out most of their food stores.
The governor's justification for his homicidal actions was that he was trying to ensure that
at least some of his people would live, even if it meant sacrificing many of them.
This is not too far off from the logic presented by Sutra in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," in
which she argues that wiping out all organic life in the universe is a worthwhile tradeoff
if it ensures that the synthetic race will live on.
After arriving on Coppelius, the long-range sensors on the crashed Borg cube confirm that
a fleet of Romulan warbirds is indeed on its way to the planet, and will arrive uncomfortably
soon.
Raffi tells Rios that in total, there are 218 warbirds approaching, although Raffi jokes
that they really only have to worry about the first 109.
While it's always hard to say for sure whether numbers like these are supposed to be a reference
to anything at all, 218 could be a nod to the fifth season Next Generation episode "Cause
and Effect," which was given production code 218.
In the episode, the Enterprise gets caught in a time loop, and only manages to escape
once Data figures out a way to send a message to himself through time, giving him the information
he needs to break the loop.
In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," Sutra realizes that the Admonition is a message being sent
from an ancient race of synthetics to the synthetic lifeforms of the future.
Keeping with the idea of production codes, the Next Generation episode "Justice" was
given the code 109, and sees Picard facing off against a powerful and highly advanced
being who watches over a race of less advanced people.
In "Justice," Picard opposes the death sentence given to an innocent member of his crew, arguing
that there is nothing just about such an extreme unilateral punishment that doesn't take individual
circumstances into account - a similar argument to the one we see him attempt to make at the
end of "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I."
When Picard and the crew of La Sirena arrive in Coppelius Station, we get a brief glimpse
of two synthetics playing a game that looks very similar to the 3D chess that has been
seen on several other versions of Star Trek.
One episode of The Next Generation in which 3D chess played a prominent role was in a
third season episode in which Will Riker uses his captors' game to maneuver his way out
of his cell after he and Deanna Troi are taken hostage.
Picard will likely have to employ similar levels of cunning and strategic thinking in
order to escape the circumstances he finds himself in at the end of "Et in Arcadia Ego,
Part I."
When the golden-skinned synthetic Sutra is introduced, Dr. Soong mentions that she is
extremely interested in Vulcan culture, saying that she has read Surak and "plays the ka'athyra
beautifully," and has even taught herself how to perform a Vulcan mind meld.
Surak was the revered Vulcan philosopher who helped shape Vulcan culture with his teachings
on peace and logic.
Meanwhile, the ka'athyra was a form of Vulcan lute.
"It is a five stringed instrument, tuned to a diatonic scale.
It can be very soothing."
Several characters have played the ka'athyra on past iterations of Star Trek, including
Spock and Uhura on the original series, and Tuvok on Voyager.
One of the cuddliest recurring characters on The Next Generation was Data's ginger housecat,
Spot, who appeared in numerous episodes.
Caring for Spot and bonding with the cat was a pivotal part of Data's ongoing quest to
become more human.
"And you must talk to him.
Tell him he is a pretty cat.
And a good cat."
In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," Agnes is seen cuddling a remarkably familiar ginger housecat,
whom she confirms is even named, "Spot II."
But don't get too excited about Spot's family tree continuing on through 2399; this version
of Spot is actually a synthetic, created by Soong and seemingly modeled after the original
Spot.
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