Star Trek: Picard's TNG Reference Explains Its Time Travel Arc
This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 2.
Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 2 had an amusing Easter egg to the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode «Yesterday's Enterprise,» and it serves as a clue to the model of time travel the show is adopting. Time travel is a common science-fiction trope, but it's actually very difficult for any franchise to handle it consistently. Because time travel is largely theoretical, writers understandably tend to change their model of temporal mechanics based on the dictates of the plot. It's pretty much impossible to established a fixed model of time travel for Star Trek, where there have been countless different writers and showrunners, and there's been real consistency in terms of time travel at all.
Star Trek: Picard season 2 is the latest time travel story. According to the Borg Queen, Q has changed the timeline back in the year 2024. Rather than create a branched timeline (as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), this has instead rewritten history, creating a branched timeline in which a brutal and warlike human Confederation has swept across the galaxy, conquering other races and wiping out all opponents. Q has protected Jean-Luc Picard and his closest friends from the changes, and they naturally intend to travel back to 2024 to correct history. Naturally, Q couldn't resist an opening conversation with Jean-Luc Picard — and he made an amusing quip, describing Picard's attitude as being very "Yesterday's Enterprise." On the face of it, this seems to be simply an amusing Easter egg to Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it's actually quite important.
Related: Picard Reveals Star Trek: DS9’s Darker Timeline
«Yesterday's Enterprise» was a
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