r/startrek • u/Scottison • 1d ago
Picard: Am I supposed to know what is going on?
I know about the Romulan super nova, but I knew heard anything about Androids attacking Mars, Romulan secret police, Androids being banned, or a Borg cube being used by Romulans.
Is this all to set the environment and start a mystery that Picard has to unravel, or did I miss something by not watching Voyager and Discovery first?
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u/Glittering-Most-9535 1d ago
The main thing you need to know from Voyager is generally who 7 of 9 is, which is to say a de-assimilated human who came back with the ship from the Delta Quadrant. Discovery has no connection. Everything you mentioned not knowing is information new to the Picard series that will be played out over hte course of the first season.
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u/LegendOfHurleysGold 23h ago
Voyager also explains why the Borg are in the state they are in Picard.
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u/blindio10 23h ago
picard season 3 references why too, TBH season 1 borg could have been an isolated cube and i assumed until season 3 the collective was out their in the delta quadrant licking their wounds(as with many writers picards dont appreciate the scale of things sometimes, i wont be suprised if picard's state of the borg is retconned the next time someone wants to use the collective as a the villain again either)
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u/dimgray 17h ago
To be honest, the character of 7 of 9 in Picard might well be easier to understand if you've never seen Voyager
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u/Glittering-Most-9535 16h ago
That’s why I only included the ex-Borg thing cause that really feels the only critical info since they’ve got their little Former Borg Support Group thing with Hugh.
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u/Clear_Ad_6316 1d ago
There's a Short Trek, Children of Mars, which adds a bit of detail (as does the end of Prodigy) but it's not really necessary. You've picked up that those things are happening so that should be enough.
Although honestly if you have Voyager to watch, I'd go for that before Picard. It adds quite a bit of fairly important context for all three seasons.
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u/Perim2001 1d ago
Honestly it's mostly just:
"a lot of bad things have happened in recent memory, and the Federation / Starfleet has entered a darker / more insular / less optimistic / more fearful period as a reaction to that instead of embracing it's better nature, and that kinda sucks"
because Star Trek is subtle like that
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u/HentaiAtWork420 23h ago
That's the plot of the season.... you watch each episode and more information is revealed as you watch.
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u/SeaworthinessRude241 1d ago
there are a few things you could consume before watching S1 -- there's a Short Treks episode titled "Children of Mars" that gives a tiny bit of backstory, and there's a comic book series that is meant to be a prequel to the season. The trouble with these comic book tie-in series is that they can quickly become uncoupled with canon as later seasons (and other Trek shows) are released.
But you don't have to watch and read the things I mentioned above -- things are revealed as the season goes on.
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u/JakeConhale 1d ago
Those are new events.
However, a few characters will show up from Voyager and you might not get their full context.
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u/Raguleader 1d ago
The Romulan secret police were a recurring faction in TNG and DS9, the rest of the stuff they'll gradually unpack throughout the first season.
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u/Ok_Signature3413 1d ago
As others have said, in terms of the Android attack on Mars, no, that happened between series. You can see some of it in an episode of Short Treks, but it really isn’t necessary to understand the plot. Voyager however does contain a lot that is pretty important to understanding one of the characters story arcs. I’m not sure if you’ve seen Star Trek Nemesis but that’s important as well at least in terms of giving context to Data’s death.
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u/Scottison 20h ago
I’ve seen Nemesis, just too busy being confused and thinking I missed a whole series.
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u/CommunistRingworld 1d ago
This is part of the stupidity of paramount. There is a star trek short trek about utopia planetia which helps get you invested. Good luck finding it though cause they don't have ANY short trek on paramount plus in canada for example lol
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u/Raguleader 1d ago
If you mean Children of Mars, the Utopia Planitia yards are a major background detail but the short itself is about a pair of schoolkids on Earth.
Agreed that the Short Treks should be much easier to find than they are.
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u/Ok_Signature3413 1d ago
The short trek really isn’t important in terms of learning about the attack. The first episode of Picard pretty much shows everything you need to know.
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u/Dowew 22h ago
So yes you are missing some context. Within the context of the 2009 Star Trek film Spock attempted to do a science thing to stop Romulus' sun from going nova. It failed, setting off the events of that film (and ultimately the death of Spock). This is why there are Romulan refugees in Picard.
At the end of Voyager in Endgame Captain Janeway travelled from the future and provided future technology to help Voyager use a borg slipstream to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. During these events future Captain Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen, but had infected herself with a virus which infected the collective, killed the Queen and dealt what is shown as an almost fatal blow to the Borg. As demonstrated by Picard Borg Cube's lost connection with the hive mind and shut down - thus the Romulans are studying and salvaging a Cube.
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u/Moesko_Island 21h ago
The Romulan supernova is the only thing from past material that was already in place. Everything else was created as backstory for Picard season 1 and all took place between Nemesis and Picard. One of those events was briefly depicted in the Short Trek called "Children of Mars" and came out right before Picard season 1 debuted. It depicts the android attack on Mars from the POV of some kids back home on Earth, which is interesting but optional. Everything is new and will be further explained via context clues and flashbacks.
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u/GreenNetSentinel 21h ago
Ive seen people mention the shorts filling stuff in. I just don't feel like that's a great place for key plot points. That should be where characters who don't get as much screen time as we'd like time to shine. Wrath of Khan works if you haven't seen Space Seed. That should sorta be the the baseline for introducing stuff (other than the literal Genesis infomercial and Checkov being a memorable face even though he wasn't a crew man yet)
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u/geekhalla 1d ago
Mostly echoing others here - but while thi uses the supernova from 2009 as a jumping off point, this is mostly all new stuff.
It's dropped in early to show how different the world is now and to help show how disillusioned Picard is early on as he's left the fleet and (not quite) moved on.
All the points are expanded in through the series including the Mars incident and how that led to Picards status. Most of it is self contained to the first season.
I won't spoil the ending - but the picture looks more complete as you go. Season two is similar jn giving context of the past as it goes on.
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u/janeway170 23h ago
Read the Picard series books. Or atleast the first one. It does a good job of explaining more of the missing time period
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u/Drapausa 8h ago
You have flashbacks in the series. That's a perfectly valid way to establish a setting. Think of First Contact, did we ever see the borg queen before? But in the movie we get flashbacks from Picard about his time as Locutus and how she had been there from rhe start.
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u/MaestroZackyZ 5h ago
All of that is new information. Sad you don’t have Seven’s backstory though. She has one of the best character arcs in Trek, and it’s really nice to see a character grow over decades like she has.
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u/Eastern-Priority2126 2h ago
You didn't miss anything. The writers did. The only thing you missed was the chance to skip ahead to season 3 without any of the lunacy.
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u/MadeIndescribable 1d ago
Is this all to set the environment and start a mystery that Picard has to unravel
Pretty much, yes.
did I miss something
Not at all.
When Patrick Stewart first announced Picard, he said he only agreed to come back on the basis that it would be completely different. So they intentially started off the series with a big gap and where Picard has gone through a lot and he (and the UFP) is in a different place to when we last saw them.
As others have said there's the Short Trek episode, and also the novel Last Best Hope which tells the story of what happenen to Picard between Nemesis and S1, but these aren't necessary, they're just there to add to the series, and everything that you need to know will be explained. (That said, I would still recommend Last Best Hope just on the basis that it's a really amazing book.)
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u/English1981 1d ago
Second this… I actually read Last Best Hope before the show started and it adds a different dimension/perspective. You don’t have to read it to watch Picard but it really does a lot to flesh out the years and events leading up to it, and also fleshes out a lot of Raffi’s character.
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u/MadeIndescribable 1d ago
Yeah, it was released part way through the broadcast of S1 and the two went really well together. Also as a big Una McCormack fan I thought the Qowat Milat were so on brand for her I was dissapointed to find they were in the show and made up by someone else instead.
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u/English1981 23h ago
That’s right, I didn’t start the show right when it began, and had time to read the book first.
And I love Una’s writing. It never disappoints.
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u/GingerIsTheBestSpice 1d ago edited 19h ago
My son went into it with only TOS watched, and a few explanations from me. Most everything gets explained as it goes along, I mostly just told him who people were prior to this show (eg, Worf, (half idk what i was thinking) klingon, they no longer look quite the same but they still like to fight and are religious about honor) and he was good to go
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u/kenlubin 21h ago
I believe that the storyline with the android ban and prejudice was invented for Picard as an analogy so that Sir Patrick Stewart could make a contemporary political statement as Picard. (I think maybe it would be a 9/11 -> Trump Muslim ban analogy?)
The Tal Shiar are long-established, although the Picard series added more flavor to the Romulans than they had previously had.
The Borg cube being mined by Romulans was a cool piece of story that was unfortunately under utilized.
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u/NCC1701-Enterprise 18h ago
The Android attack was never mentioned anywhere that I can think of. The Romulan supernova was the catalyst event that created the time travel in the reboot that ultimately created the Kelvin timeline, but in the move the super nova happened in the prime timeline.
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u/_wintermoot_ 6h ago
skip season 1 and 2. go right to 3. they’re not necessary aside from a few bits of pointless trivia.
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u/huhwhatwhyokmaybe 2h ago
You are learning what happened while watching a common plot device in television when historical events have some weight to the present.
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u/ZheGerman 18h ago
Yes: they wanted to milk the legacy of TNG, but Patrick Steward didn't like TNG or Picard. So they offered him mountains of money. He didn't bite, but demanded total creative control amd two mountains of money. They then had to hire monkeys to turn PS' ramblinga into a TV show.
You are watching a 80 year old man larping and turn the franchise he disliked into something "more sophisticated, dark and more fit for our time". Do yourself a favor and watch something else...
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u/Ihavefourknees 1d ago
You didn't miss anything. It's meant to have happened in the interim.