The end of the Q? Borg history rewritten? “Picard” season 2 left plenty unanswered.
One of the most anticipated "Star Trek" returns since the Next Generation crew came back is actor
John de Lancie, who reprised the role of enigmatic and omnipotent trickster Q. And when he arrived,
we knew right away he wasn't the same. More than just older, Q seemed darker,
more sinister, and with a bitter edge. Once again, Q put Picard through a personal test,
getting him to fix a change in time and learn a lesson about himself along the way.
While this mirrored episodes like "Tapestry" and "All Good Things,"
something was different this time around. This time, Q was dying.
According to Q, he was slowly losing his powers and nearing the end of his existence,
something he didn't think possible. In the season finale, "Farewell," Q says he's finally ready to
cease being. He uses the last ounce of his power to send Picard and his crew home and
bring Elnor back to life. But is this really the end of Q, or does death among the Q mark
an end to the entire Q continuum? In "Star Trek: Discovery," Starfleet claims that they
haven't had an encounter with the continuum in 600 years, leaving a gap that could still be filled.
In a shocking last-minute twist, Trekkies got the answers to two long-unresolved questions
when Wesley Crusher made a surprise appearance, showing that he was no longer in Starfleet, and
was now a Traveler, just like the enigmatic alien we met on "The Next Generation." Wesley confirmed
that he and others like him employ the likes of Tallinn and the Original Series' Gary Seven as
"supervisors" who monitor historical events and ensure that the timeline plays out as it should.
"You interfere with me, with what I have to do down there, and you'll change history."
When Wesley arrives, he's in 2024. He visits Adam Soong's daughter Kore, who he recruits
to join him. With her father disgraced and her life a lie, Kore takes Wesley up on the offer,
and the two beam away. Though one might suspect that Wesley is enlisting her to be a Traveler,
it seems more likely that Kore was recruited to be the next Supervisor.
Could Kore be assigned a new subject to monitor in 2024,
or some other time period? Could we see Wesley and Kore return in the kind of spin-off that
Gary Seven was created for — a show about a time traveling agent watching over important
historical events? Producer Alex Kurtzman has teased some upcoming mystery projects
in the "Star Trek" universe, and this is one that definitely seems like a possibility.
Cristóbal "Chris" Rios was introduced as a rogue captain in the first season
of "Picard." He left Starfleet under shadowy circumstances following a scandal and coverup,
and went on to become an independent operator, captaining the starship La Sirena. At the end of
the first season, he returned to Starfleet. Now commander of the USS Stargazer, Captain Rios is
transported back in time to 2024 alongside Picard, Raffi, Jurati, and Seven of Nine.
Rios falls in love with a 21st century woman named Teresa, a doctor and mother running a
clinic in Los Angeles. In the 25th century, Guinan confirms that Rios lived out his life there,
starting a medical supply company, but is this really the end of Rios' story?
If "Star Trek" has taught us anything, surprise returns are the order of the day.
We know that La Sirena is equipped with a series of holograms that use Rios' image, so it's not
impossible that he could return somewhere down the line as one of his holographic assistants. Rios
proved a popular character with fans, so there's a good chance we haven't seen the last of him yet.
Introduced in Season 4 of "Star Trek: Voyager," Seven of Nine has been on a journey from being a
villainous robotic drone reliant on the Borg hive mind, to becoming a strong,
independent person who has reclaimed her humanity, in many small steps.
"Is something wrong?"
"I am unaccustomed to this. Borg do not sit."
She expressed interest in joining Starfleet when the Voyager crew returned to the Alpha Quadrant,
wanting to follow in Captain Janeway's footsteps. In the second season of "Picard",
we learned that her dreams of Federation service had remained just that, as Starfleet rejected her
application thanks to her Borg past. Though fellow former drone Icheb was accepted,
spending her entire adult life as a Borg made Starfleet wary of Seven.
In the finale of "Picard" Season 2, when Seven and the rest of Picard's team return to the 25th
century, Picard gives her a field commission. Reasoning that Seven has the most experience
with the Borg and is best suited to lead the rest of the mission, Picard gives her the captain's
chair. With the Jurati Queen and her unique Borg collective now requesting Federation membership,
combined with her field commission, could Starfleet reconsider Seven's application?
Actor Jeri Ryan has already made it clear that she will appear in the series' third season,
and it's entirely possible she could be a Starfleet officer,
or a Borg ambassador, when we see her next.
During "The Next Generation," the relationship between Guinan and Picard was something of a
mystery. Some of it was resolved in the two-part episode "Time's Arrow," in which Picard traveled
back to 19th century Earth and met Guinan. From her perspective, it was their first meeting,
but all that changed in "Picard." Leaving from an altered timeline, Picard meets Guinan in 2024,
and for her, their encounter in the 1890s never happened, because the future Picard left from
in "Time's Arrow" no longer existed. It seemed that now their first meeting occurred in 2024.
"I'll see you in 500 years, Picard."
"And I'll see you in a few minutes."
But with their mission complete, and the timeline from "Time's Arrow" now restored,
it would seem they've met twice in the past — in 1893, and again in 2024. However, in that version
of 2024 she said she'd never met him, so how exactly does Guinan's memory of Picard work? Are
we now in a timeline where they never met in the 19th century? Or is this another case of infinite
fragmented timelines we're living through? Maybe this is one question we shouldn't be asking.
"Picard" Season 2 took the show's crew on a mission to restore a timeline fractured by Q.
An important event in the past had been changed and all of time altered as a result. We learned
that it centered on Picard's ancestor Renée, an astronaut who led a mission to Europa in 2024,
where she discovered a unique organism. Without her mission's success, all of time was rewritten,
and the future twisted into a dark reality where non-humans were subjugated by the Confederation,
and Picard himself waged a violent war of oppression.
But with this organism, new technologies would apparently be developed that would reverse
all of the environmental damage on Earth. The failure of the Europa
Mission meant the continued decimation of the environment,
but it's not made clear how that would have led to a totalitarian world government in
the 25th century. Nor does it explain why Adam Soong would be known as an anti-alien tyrant.
"A safe galaxy is a human galaxy."
However, in Adam Soong's time of 2024,
first official contact with intelligent alien life is still at least 40 years away. How did
his conversations about the future with Jurati and Q lead him to take such an aggressive,
anti-alien stance, and why was it embraced before humanity had met any aliens at all?
"Picard" Season 2 saw the Borg Queen manipulating Dr. Agnes Jurati,
and the Queen's motives were anything but noble. Trapped in the 21st century
and imprisoned in one mind, Agnes and the Queen slowly merged into a single,
sinister new hybrid. Would Agnes become the first Borg Queen, and birth the cyborg race
in 2024? Would she end up creating the Borg in the 21st century, as Seven of Nine feared? Not quite.
At the urging of Jurati, the Borg Queen
slowly comes around and the two create a merged personality with a new goal:
to save wayward, dying souls and resurrect them as a new kind of Borg collective.
"With our minds joined as one, we could be more."
The new Borg would be built on cooperation and salvation, not assimilation. In 2024,
the Jurati Queen takes La Sirena and leaves for parts unknown.
The next time we see her in the 25th century, she has a new,
massive starship and is asking Admiral Picard about joining the United Federation of Planets.
That's all great, but the question remains:
What was the Jurati Queen doing for the past 400 years? Are all of the Borg terrors of the
past retconned into a separate timeline now? Was she hiding in a distant part of the galaxy to
avoid disrupting the timeline? Did she build a collective elsewhere? Did she take part in
galactic affairs we've never seen? There's now a 400 year gap that needs a little explaining.
Perhaps the biggest unanswered question of the bunch closes out the finale. After the combined
efforts of the New Borg and the Federation fleet prevent a disaster, a unique anomaly is created in
the form of a transwarp conduit. Seven of Nine recognizes it right away and notes that it's
unlike any she has seen before, and that's notable given her lengthy experience with Borg transwarp
conduits. Picard wonders who created the conduit, implying that this was not a natural phenomenon.
Its creation confounds even the new Borg Queen, but she knows that it's a threat.
It's an ominous closing message, but if there's one question likely to be resolved in Season 3,
it's this one. And it looks like Picard will need the help of his
former Enterprise crew if he's going to discover the answer:
The entire cast of "The Next Generation" is joining the final season of "Picard."