Easter Eggs You Missed In Star Trek: Picard

Nearly two decades after bidding farewell to the crew of the USS Enterprise-E in Star Trek: Nemesis, Captain (now Admiral) Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is back for a new adventure in Star Trek: Picard, once again boldly going where no one has gone before. A direct continuation of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its four spinoff films, Picard is chock full of nods to previous iterations of Trek, both bold and subtle. Whether you're a dedicated Trekkie or just a casual Star Trek fan, there's something for everyone to appreciate in Picard, which finds the retired former Starfleet officer swept up in an intriguing new mystery when an enigmatic — and startlingly familiar — young woman seeks out his help after being targeted by masked assassins.

Since Picard builds on the events of The Next Generation and its subsequent feature films, you can hardly sweep all of the show's references to those earlier stories under the umbrella of "Easter eggs." After all, things like the Daystrom Institute, Jean-Luc's trademark order of "tea, Earl Gray, hot" (which has become "tea, Earl Gray, decaf" in his twilight years), and the fact that he named his adorable pit bull terrier "Number One," turning his old nickname for Commander Riker into a literal pet name, are all impossible to miss. But there are also a number of sneakier references that even eagle-eyed Trek fans may have missed in Star Trek: Picard.

Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Since The Next Generation ended with a poker game, it's only fitting that Picard should begin with one. The first episode sees Jean-Luc and Data playing cards aboard the Enterprise, engaged in the same sort of conversation we've seen them participate in countless times before: analyzing yet another of Data's attempts to appear more human. This time, it's in the form of a "tell" — Data is dilating one pupil in order to fool the Captain into believing he has a good hand, while Picard deduces that his real tell is when he does nothing at all.

The scene helps viewers feel immediately at home in the new show, bringing back settings, themes, and characters that have already been familiar for decades, but it also calls back to the final episode of The Next Generation, "All Good Things..." After skipping through time and saving all life in the universe, the final scene finds the crew of the Enterprise engaged in their regular poker game. They're surprised when Picard arrives and asks to join, but welcome him to the table, and the series ends with the Captain dealing the cards while saying, "The sky's the limit." In Picard, the poker game makes it clear that we're picking up where the previous show left off, and setting it to "Blue Skies" could even be calling back to Picard's final line.

A poker game also opens the Next Generation episode, "The Measure of a Man," in which Data's humanity is put on trial. In that episode — which was nodded to several times in Picard's first episode, "Remembrance" — Data also uses poker as an analogy to try to illustrate the difference between knowledge and memories. The themes of that episode feel relevant to Picard, in which synthetics have been deemed too dangerous to exist, and have been outlawed entirely.

Set in the year 2399, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard takes place on the 14th anniversary of the Romulan supernova, an event which destroyed the planet Romulus and would've killed over 900 million Romulan people, if Picard hadn't intervened and beseeched Starfleet to mount a rescue mission. However, in the midst of the evacuation efforts, a group of synthetics rose up and attacked the rescue armada, wiping it out, and Starfleet subsequently abandoned their rescue efforts and banned synthetics entirely, prompting Picard to resign his commission in protest.

While we've never before witnessed the aftermath of the Romulan supernova, we have actually heard about it before — in J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek film. In that film, Spock mentions that he tried to prevent the supernova in the year 2387, but failed to do so and accidentally created a rift in time, sending a Romulan ship back to the year 2233 and spawning an alternate timeline, where the subsequent Star Trek films have taken place. In Picard, we finally see the events of that original timeline play out, even though Spock and his role in what happened are never mentioned.

Jean-Luc has several dreams of Data during the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, but one of the most pivotal moments occurs when he dreams of Data painting a woman in white robes gazing out over a turbulent sea. This dream cues Picard to go find a painting the real Data gifted to him 30 years earlier, which — to Picard's extreme surprise — depicts the same young woman who showed up in Picard's vineyard earlier in the episode.

While Data explored a lot of artistic pursuits over the course of The Next Generation, his painting in Picard seems to call back specifically to the sixth-season episode "Birthright, Part 1," in which Data experiences a confusing vision and asks Captain Picard how he should go about interpreting it. Picard urges him to explore what he saw in a way that feels meaningful to him, and Data decides to use painting to explore the images in his head. Ultimately, after painting dozens of pictures, Data determines that he has accessed a new level of his programming and can now dream, which he resolves to continue doing henceforth. It seems only fitting that in Picard, Data's painting comes full circle, with Picard using the image of Data painting in his dreams to find meaning in what's happening in his real life.

There is also a Klingon weapon in Picard's vault in the Starfleet Archives, a curved blade called a bat'leth. In The Next Generation, episodes often featured Lieutenant Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) training and fighting with a bat'leth that had been in his family for generations. While Klingons possessed other weapons, the bat'leth was often preferred in combat and considered a more honorable weapon than a disruptor.

It's unclear exactly where Picard's bat'leth came from; while it's possible it's Worf's, it could also be one that Picard came by through his other dealings with the Klingons. Picard notably served as Arbiter of Succession at the request of the Klingon leader K'mpec during the Next Generation episodes "Reunion" and "Redemption," and it's possible his high standing with the Klingon Empire led at some point to him receiving his own bat'leth.

Regardless of where Picard's bat'leth came from, the weapon's presence in his vault serves as a reminder that Picard is highly respected among the Klingons, who used to be the Federation's fiercest enemies. That theme feels significant to Star Trek: Picard, which reveals that the former officer resigned from Starfleet over their treatment of the Romulans, who stepped into the role of primary Trek villains after the Federation finally made peace with the Klingons.

When Picard travels to the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa in order to dig into the possibility that Dahj (Isa Briones) may be a flesh and blood synthetic, he meets with Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), who assures him that sentient flesh and blood synthetics are nothing more than a forgotten pipe dream. Jurati then mentions that she was recruited by Dr. Bruce Maddox, and that the two of them had worked together to create a sentient android similar to Data. She says they'd been close until the synthetic ban, after which Maddox disappeared.

If the name of the missing scientist sounds familiar, there's a good reason for that. Bruce Maddox first appeared in the Next Generation season 2 episode "The Measure of a Man," in which he argued against Data's sentience in the hopes of being able to override his free will and study him. Opposing Maddox was none other than Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who presented a moving (and ultimately, victorious) case for Data's personhood. Mentioning Maddox — who does indeed resurface later in Picard — in an episode already rife with themes of sentience, identity, free will, and individuality feels like a very deliberate nod to one of The Next Generation's most fascinating core debates, and hints that we haven't heard the last of either side of this argument.

The second episode of Picard opens by jumping back to the fateful day in 2385 (kicked off, appropriately, by the actions of a synthetic worker named "F8") when the synthetic workers stationed at the Utopia Planitia shipyards rose up against their flesh and blood coworkers, killing them and destroying the site so entirely that it is still burning 14 years later. Before the day starts going very, very badly, we get several shots of business as usual in the shipyards, complete with a close-up of an Argo-type shuttlecraft.

The Argo was first seen in Star Trek: Nemesis, in which Picard, Worf, and Data flew the shuttlecraft from the Enterprise-E to the surface of the planet Kolarus III. There, they recovered the android B-4, who we already saw make an appearance in Picard's first episode, "Remembrance." While the Argo-type craft that we see in "Maps and Legends" is likely not the exact same ship (although it could be, since the Enterprise-E returned to Earth for repairs at the end of Nemesis in 2379, which is not far from Utopia Planitia), it still calls back to an extremely significant event in Picard's lore, tying into the show's central mystery of Data's involvement in Dahj and Soji's creation.

When Picard's doctor comes to visit him in "Maps and Legends," the walls of his study can be seen to have been decorated in pink and yellow flowers. While the color choice is no doubt aesthetically pleasing to Jean-Luc and the other inhabitants of his home at Château Picard, the flower colors also nod back to a line Dahj had in "Remembrance." In Picard's first episode, Dahj tells a story of how her father spliced together two genuses of orchids — pink and yellow — in order to create the hybrid strain that he named after her. 

The combination of the colors pink and yellow also has another, subtler significance to the story unfolding in Picard. Lieutenant Commander Data, whose life, death, and legacy loom large in the first two episodes of Picard, was always easy to spot in a crowd with his pale yellow skin and bright yellow eyes (not to mention his yellow uniform). However, when he designed his own child in the Next Generation episode "The Offspring," the being he initially created was pink, before she selected a human appearance and gender for herself. The yellow and pink flowers in "Maps and Legends" are clearly meant to represent Dahj, but the colors and her story of her father's creation of a pink and yellow hybrid are likely yet another clue of her ties to Data.

When Picard steps into the lobby of Starfleet Headquarters in "Maps and Legends," taking in the sights and sounds of the building, a voice can be heard over the intercom paging "Admiral Gurney" to conference room B. Although it's easy to dismiss the line as simple background chatter, the name "Gurney" has some surprising significance to the lead actor of Picard.

In the 1984 science fiction film Dune, Patrick Stewart played a character named Gurney Halleck, who was both a skilled musician and a formidable warrior. Although Gurney Halleck's specific character traits are likely not particularly relevant to Picard, the name over the pager is almost assuredly a sly tip of the hat to Stewart's character in Dune. Making the reference even more amusing is Picard's line later in the episode in which he claims that he's "never really cared for science fiction" — an obviously tongue-in-cheek jab at the fact that Stewart himself has starred in several sci-fi classics over the years.

When Picard meets with Dr. Jurati in "Maps and Legends," he comes upon her paging through Isaac Asimov's The Complete Robot, a collection of science fiction short stories about robots. Asimov's fiction often explored ideas of sentience and morality in robots, which was also one of the main philosophical quandaries of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and is shaping up to be a central question of Picard.

It feels additionally significant that The Complete Robot makes an appearance in an episode that opens with a scene of robots — called "synthetics" in Star Trek's world — violently acting out against their creators. All three of the actions shown by F8 in the opening sequence are expressly prohibited by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which state that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. The opening scene shows F8 attacking his coworkers, ignoring their orders to stand down, and ultimately destroying itself, violating all three of Asimov's laws in sequential order.

When Picard meets his new pilot-for-hire, Cristóbal "Chris" Rios, in "The End is the Beginning," it's under less than ideal circumstances, as Rios is in the process of having a piece of titanium shrapnel removed from his shoulder. In order for the Emergency Medical Hologram to access the injury, Rios is shirtless, giving us a clear view at the prominent mermaid tattoo on his upper left arm.

Rios' ship is named the La Sirena, which translates from Spanish as "The Mermaid." It makes sense that Rios would have such a strong personal connection to his ship that he'd want to permanently mark it on his body, but his choice to name his ship "The Mermaid" could also be a hint that Rios and Picard may have more in common than it might appear at first glance. Mermaids and mermaid tattoos have long been associated with a romanticized image of sailors heading out on perilous voyages, which is how Picard often seemed to view his role as the commander of a Federation starship (made plain by the opening of Star Trek: Generations, in which Picard and the crew of the Enterprise stepped into their equivalent roles as officers on a 19th century naval ship). Rios' embracing of such a classic maritime symbol may indicate that despite their apparent differences, Rios and Picard may in fact be kindred spirits.

Despite Raffi's insistence that she wants no part of Picard's new mission in "The End is the Beginning," he sends her all of the information he has on Bruce Maddox's research anyway, and she can't help digging into it. As Raffi sifts through the files from the Daystrom Institute, there's a brief shot of her screen, on which the words "Crypto Algorithm Identification: Gorn Egg" can be read in glowing orange and green text.

The Gorn are a reptilian alien species first introduced on the classic Trek episode, "Arena," in which Captain Kirk is transported to the surface of a rocky planet (filmed at the Vasquez Rocks, featured earlier in "The End is the Beginning") by aliens called the Metrons, and told he must battle the captain of an opposing Gorn ship to the death, with the winning captain allowed to leave with his ship and crew, and the losing captain's ship and crew being destroyed. Kirk and the Gorn captain both manage to injure one another, but Kirk ultimately decides to show mercy and spare the Gorn's life, which in turn leads to both crews being spared by the Metrons.

At the end of "Arena," the Metrons tell Kirk that while humans are a savage race, there is hope for them due to their capacity to show mercy to their enemies. Conversely, the beginning of Picard's third episode finds Picard and Raffi lamenting that the Federation is refusing to show mercy to the Romulans, capitulating instead to "intolerance and fear." Had Kirk given into those same tendencies in "Arena," it would've led to a far different and more disastrous outcome.

While the first few episodes of Picard are set mostly on Earth, all of Dahj's twin sister Soji's scenes have been set aboard a Romulan reclamation station on a repurposed Borg cube, on which she encounters an ex-Borg drone named Hugh. Alongside the Romulans, the Borg were one of the primary villainous races in The Next Generation, and even assimilated Picard into their Collective at one point in the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds." However, the Borg gained some added depth in the episode "I Borg" (the title a riff on Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot," which was itself referenced in Picard's second episode), which saw the Enterprise crew encounter a young Borg drone who had been abandoned by the Collective. Although Picard initially sees the Borg as nothing more than a way to help him bring down the Collective, he ultimately is forced to recognize his sentience and personhood when the drone begins exhibiting signs of individuality and gives himself the name "Hugh."

Hugh pops up again in the two-part TNG episode "Descent," where it is revealed that after rejoining the Collective, his sense of individuality spread to his entire cube, and they were cut off from the Collective. In "Descent," Hugh proved himself a loyal ally of Picard and the Enterprise, rescuing several members of the crew and resisting Data's megalomaniacal brother, Lore. It's hard to predict what's in store for Hugh on Picard, but if Hugh's past history with the Admiral are any indication, he may prove to be an important — albeit unexpected — ally for Picard and his rogue crew.

Early on in "Absolute Candor," Dr. Agnes Jurati wanders onto the bridge, desperate for some conversation to take her mind off of the boredom and monotony of space travel. When Rios seems reluctant to talk, Jurati runs through a list of the things she's already done to occupy her time. She reveals that she's read through two years' worth of back issues of The Journal of Theoretical Cybernetics and watered his plants, and then mentions that she "was going to watch a holo, but weirdly, all you have on board is Klingon opera." Rios replies, "Long story."

While we're definitely curious what the story is behind Rios' Klingon opera collection, the discordant and jarring nature of Klingon opera is a long-running joke in Star Trek. Characters from multiple Star Trek iterations have repeatedly likened listening to Klingon opera to a form of torture, as it is commonly viewed as extremely unpleasant to listen to for non-Klingons. However, on both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, Worf had a great love for Klingon opera, prided himself on his extensive Klingon opera collection, and was even known to occasionally break out in song himself if he thought no one was listening. Rios' Klingon opera holos could indicate that he and Worf share a similar taste in music, or possibly that sometime before Rios' crew consisted entirely of holographic versions of himself, the La Sirena may have been home to yet another Klingon music aficionado.

When Picard beams down to the Romulan relocation settlement on the planet Vashti in "Absolute Candor," he's unprepared for the frosty welcome he receives from its inhabitants. One man confronts Picard, saying that he used to be a member of the Romulan senate who had heard Picard speak 14 years prior, when the Federation was still promising the Romulans aid in anticipation of the supernova. He then recalls Picard returning with "great big Wallenberg-class transports" to help relocate the Romulan people to safety. 

Wallenberg-class transports are a new type of ship in the Star Trek universe, and are likely named for Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat credited with saving tens of thousands of Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II. It's an apt name for transports designed to carry people to safety in the face of extinction. Of course, it's also a tragic one, given the Federation's abandoning of their rescue efforts shortly thereafter. Wallenberg's story was turned into the television film Wallenberg: A Hero's Story in 1985, which was overseen by Rick Berman, who served as executive producer for numerous Star Trek series and films, including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.

The fifth episode of Star Trek: Picard opens with easily the grisliest scene in the series so far — and one of the grislier scenes in Star Trek as a whole — as we see an ex-Borg Starfleet officer getting his ocular implants removed without anesthetic, screaming helplessly, 13 years before the start of the series. While the scene would be difficult to watch no matter who it was on that operating table, it becomes even more of a gut punch when Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) arrives to rescue him, and reveals that the poor guy being tortured is in fact Icheb (Casey King in Star Trek: Picard, replacing Manu Intiraymi, who originated the character), who was first introduced to audiences during Star Trek: Voyager's sixth season.

Icheb was one of several young Borg drones recovered by the Voyager crew in the episode "Collective," in which the ship comes across a Borg cube manned only by five Borg children who have been cut off from the Collective. Seven served as a surrogate parent to Icheb and the other ex-Borg children, and nurtured Icheb as he demonstrated an advanced aptitude for astrophysics, and voiced a desire to eventually enter Starfleet Academy. However, although an adult Icheb made an appearance in the Voyager episode "Shattered" (which takes place in an alternate 2394), we now know that in the prime Star Trek timeline, Icheb tragically didn't make it past 2386, although he did at some point achieve his dream of becoming a Starfleet officer.

Several times throughout "Stardust City Rag," characters mention that ex-Borg Seven of Nine originated in the Delta Quadrant, relaying that information with an air of near-awe. This is, of course, a reference to the mysterious area of the galaxy that served as the setting for Star Trek: Voyager, where Seven of Nine was first introduced. While Starfleet has a decent presence in the other three Quadrants of the galaxy, the Delta Quadrant is full of unknowns due to how far removed it is from the rest of the Federation; when the Voyager first became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, they estimated it would take them 70 years to return to familiar space.

While in the Delta Quadrant, the crew of Voyager encountered a number of new alien species, but the most powerful force in the Delta Quadrant was actually one that had been introduced much earlier in Star Trek lore — the Borg. Although the species originated in the Delta Quadrant, the Borg's first appearance was in The Next Generation season 2 episode "Q Who", in which the alien Q (John de Lancie) flings the Enterprise deep into uncharted space — in this case, the Beta Quadrant — to prove to them that they're not yet ready to handle all the challenges of the universe. It was this encounter with the Enterprise that prompted the Borg to travel to Federation space, with the goal of assimilating its many planets.

There's a lot to take in when Rios first beams down to the neon-lit streets of Freecloud in "Stardust City Rag," but it would be hard to miss the prominent signage for "Mr. Mot's Hair Emporium." A recurring character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Mr. Mot (played by Ken Thorley) was a Bolian barber who worked aboard the Enterprise. Despite the fact that Bolians are characteristically bald, Commander Riker once praised Mot as being the best barber in Starfleet. Mot often took it upon himself to give Picard and other members of the Enterprise crew unsolicited advice that went far outside the bounds of his hairdressing expertise. On a couple occasions, he actually played an instrumental role in their missions.

In the fifth season Next Generation episode "Unification," Mot provided the hairpieces that allowed Picard and Data to go undercover as Romulans in their search for Ambassador Spock. Of course, this seems extra significant in Picard, given its focus on both Data and the Romulan people. Later, in the sixth season episode "Starship Mine," Picard actually claimed to be Mot, telling a group of mercenaries who had captured him that he was only the ship's barber. In "Stardust City Rag," Picard dresses up as a different character, albeit without a custom Mot hairpiece this time.

Speaking of Quark (Armin Shimerman), it appears the Ferengi barkeep has successfully franchised his establishment in the years since he was a main cast member on Deep Space Nine, including a location on Freecloud. When Rios beams down to the city in "Stardust City Rag," a large sign advertising Quark's Bar can be seen to the right of the screen, along with the slogan, "What is yours is ours." This is likely a riff on the motto of the pleasure planet Risa, "All that is ours is yours." Quark visited Risa in the Deep Space Nine season 5 episode, "Let He Who Is Without Sin...," and was an enthusiastic recipient of the traditional Risan greeting, which he appears to have since appropriated for himself in a new form.

Quark is name-dropped again when Mr. Vup (Dominic Burgess) tells Rios that his references have checked out, saying, "Mr. Quark of Ferenginar was especially satisfied with your handling of his trouble with the Breen." The Breen are a mysterious, mercenary alien species that have popped up on numerous Trek series, including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Quark had been reluctant to work with them in the past, but it appears that since his Deep Space Nine days, he wound up unfortunately entangled with them anyway — or at least, that's what Rios wants Bjayzl and her people to believe.

Early on in "The Impossible Box," as the La Sirena nears the former Borg cube now known as "The Artifact," Picard decides to prepare for his return to the site of his former trauma with some exposure therapy. He instructs the computer in his study to search for the terms "the Artifact," "treaty," and "the Borg," and then sits down to reluctantly scroll through the results. The images on which Picard chooses to linger are easily identifiable: the ex-Borg, Hugh, both when he first came aboard the Enterprise on The Next Generation, and then again as he appears in Picard as the Executive Director of the Borg Reclamation Project; several shots of ex-Borg in the midst of their reclamation procedures; and of course, Picard as Locutus of Borg, as seen on both The Next Generation and in Star Trek: First Contact. 

But there are also several other quick glimpses of search results that may not have been as easily recognizable. The first, which was barely visible, was a shot of a Federation ship firing on a Borg cube and seemingly doing some damage, which could have been from the battle at the opening of Star Trek: First Contact. The next image is of the Romulan Continuing Committee, which is taken straight from the Deep Space Nine episode "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," ("In times of war, the law falls silent") in which a character becomes entangled in a Tal Shiar plot. There is also a brief image of the Paris skyline in the year 2372, which was taken from the Deep Space Nine episode "To the Death," in which the crew has to destroy an Iconian Gateway, a sort of technological portal which could instantly transport people over enormous distances. At the end of "The Impossible Box," Picard and Soji will use a similar gateway (in this case, a Sikarian spatial trajector) in order to escape the Romulans.

When Hugh mentions in "The Impossible Box" that the former Borg on the Artifact refer to themselves as "xBs," Picard wonders out loud at the reason for renaming themselves. "A new name can be the first step to a new identity," Hugh explains. "I learned that on the Enterprise all those years ago."

The lesson Hugh is referring to took place in his debut episode of The Next Generation, titled "I Borg," and came not from Picard, but from Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden). At first, when Hugh comes aboard the Enterprise, he refers to himself not with a name, but with a number: Third of Five. He also doesn't see himself as an individual, but as a member of the Collective, referring to himself only as "we." However, after Geordi and Beverly explain the purpose of names to him, he decides he wants one for himself, and becomes Hugh. The adoption of his own name marks the beginning of Hugh being able to think of himself in terms of "I," not "we," and ultimately leads to his lifelong mission to free and rehabilitate other Borg.

As a former Borg himself, Picard was initially resistant to his crew's attempts to show compassion to Hugh in "I Borg," unable to shake his lingering PTSD from being assimilated. However, over time, even Picard came to accept and appreciate Hugh as an individual, and when they meet again in "The Impossible Box," they greet one another as old friends.

When Picard finds Soji alive on the Artifact in "The Impossible Box," he checks in with the La Sirena, updating them that his mission, so far, has been a success. Rios brings this news to Raffi, who irritably reveals that this means she lost their bet — she'd wagered that Soji would already be dead, which she'd thought was a given. Instead, Rios informs her that she now owes him "two strips of latinum."

While latinum has popped up here and there across multiple Star Trek shows, it was most frequently mentioned in Deep Space Nine as the preferred currency of the Ferengi Alliance, and specifically of Quark, the Ferengi bartender on the space station. Latinum is often referenced in the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, around which Ferengi society is structured. There were 285 Rules, many of which were latinum-centric, such as the 102nd ("Nature decays, but latinum lasts forever"), the 229th ("Latinum lasts longer than lust"), and the 263rd ("Never allow doubt to tarnish your lust for latinum").

Latinum was also used widely by the Cardassians, along with various other species. Raffi and Rios choosing to place their bets in latinum may be all in good fun, but their choice of currency may indicate that despite their association with arguably the noblest person in the galaxy, they both have a bit of a mercenary streak.

During the final minutes of "The Impossible Box," Picard, Soji, Hugh, and a stowaway Elnor find themselves trapped in the former Queen's chamber aboard the Artifact, as Romulan soldiers bear down on them. Fortunately, despite never having been there before, Hugh is able to use his Collective memories of the area (an ability all ex-Borg seem to possess, Picard included) to grant them access to the Queen's failsafe escape route: a spatial trajector built from technology the Borg acquired after assimilating Sikarians. The doorway has a theoretical range of 40,000 light years, instantly transporting those who pass through it nearly anywhere they could possibly want to go.

Although its presence on a Borg cube is new, Star Trek fans have actually seen a spatial trajector once before: on Star Trek: Voyager's first season episode "Prime Factors." In the episode, Captain Janeway and her crew encounter the Sikarians, whose teleportation technology has the potential to cut their decades-long journey home in half. However, the Sikarians are reluctant to share their technology due to their own version of the Prime Directive, which prohibits them from interfering in the development of less advanced cultures. Ultimately, Janeway and her crew realize that Voyager can't use the trajector anyway, since it's incompatible with Federation technology, and are forced to destroy it. Sadly, it seems that the technology the Sikarians were so protective of has since been taken out of their hands by force. Although Picard was certainly grateful for the escape, he'd probably be the first to agree that the cost was too high.

When Picard and Soji are confronted in the woods of Nepenthe by Riker and Troi's daughter, Kestra, she is in the middle of play-acting as a "Viveen Wild Girl of the Woods," a character she's imagined out of one of her older brother's invented languages. In her Wild Girl persona, Kestra points her bow and arrow at Picard's heart, but he tells her she may want to aim at his head instead, since, "My heart is solid duritanium."

Picard's artificial heart wasn't referenced often over the course of The Next Generation, but it has been established canon ever since the second season episode, "Samaritan Snare," in which Picard has to undergo an operation to replace it. In the episode, Picard tells Wesley that his original heart replacement was due to a fight with a group of Naussicans, back when he was an ensign. Later, in the sixth season episode "Tapestry," we actually see this confrontation play out thanks to some time meddling from Q, who gives Picard an opportunity to change the mistakes of his youth.

We've known since the first trailers for Star Trek: Picard that Will Riker would eventually show up, and when he finally does in "Nepenthe," there are a number of nods to his tenure on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In Riker's first scene in Picard, he's working in the kitchen, preparing ingredients for homemade pizza while listening to jazz. Of course, both of these pastimes are things Picard's erstwhile Number One enjoyed in between shifts on the Enterprise.

In the second season episode "Time Squared," Riker makes scrambled eggs from scratch for his fellow crewmates, using Owan eggs he picked up on their last stop at Starbase 73. Unfortunately, it turns out that Owan eggs aren't appetizing to humans (although Worf thinks they're pretty tasty), and most of Riker's guests can't manage more than a mouthful. "A cook is only as good as his ingredients," Riker says in his defense — which may be why, in "Nepenthe," he's growing his own, using tomatoes and basil from his own garden in his pizza.

Will Riker's love for jazz has also been well established in Star Trek canon, as first shown in the Next Generation season 1 episode, "11001001." In the episode, an alien species called the Bynars distracts Riker from their mission to hijack the Enterprise by keeping him on the holodeck, where he plays trombone with a 1958 New Orleans jazz combo.

When Riker enables his perimeter defenses in "Nepenthe," he explains to Picard that the reason for the heightened security is because the Troi-Rikers have been experiencing some trouble with the Kzinti. This is actually a reference to a species that originated on Star Trek: The Animated Series. The Kzinti are a hostile, cat-like race that fought numerous wars against humans, which the Kzinti always lost.

It's interesting that Picard would bring the Kzinti into Star Trek's live-action universe, since in the animated series, it's established that the last of the Earth-Kzin wars was fought in the late 21st century — which, of course, is the century we're living in now — sometime around the year 2069. However, in Star Trek: First Contact, it's stated that the first-ever contact between humans and alien life was in 2063, and Voyager seemed to imply that humans still hadn't encountered any significant extraterrestrial threats by 2067. That doesn't give a lot of time to fight four wars against the Kzinti by 2069, so we hope that eventually Star Trek: Picard decides to circle back around to Riker's conflict with the feline race and explain the timeline in a little more detail.

After quizzing Soji on whether she inherited any of her interests and abilities from her "father," Data, Kestra moves on to her biological functions, wondering if her synthetic body produces things like saliva and mucus. When Soji confirms that she does, Kestra muses that it would make sense that Data's synthetic offspring would have so many of these biological traits, since he was "always trying to be more human." She goes on to explain that despite all of Data's impressive android abilities, "all he ever really wanted to do was, like, have dreams and tell jokes and, like, learn how to ballroom dance."

Data was featured doing all three of these activities during various episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data first starts experiencing dreams — which he initially assumes are a malfunction, before ultimately determining that they're an intentional part of his programming — in the sixth season episode, "Birthright, Part I." After that episode, he says that he plans to incorporate dreaming into his regular routine. He also repeatedly tries to tell jokes — with varying degrees of success — throughout The Next Generation's run, and even receives lessons in humor from a holographic standup comedian in the season 2 episode "The Outrageous Okona." And he hilariously asks for dancing lessons from Dr. Crusher in the season 4 episode "Data's Day," which also features the return of Bruce Maddox. Due to a miscommunication, Crusher teaches Data to tap dance, when what he really needed to learn was ballroom dancing for an upcoming wedding.

A couple times during "Nepenthe," we get to hear Riker and Troi refer to one another as "Imzadi," a term of endearment that dates all the way back to the pilot episode of The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint." In that episode, when the two come face to face aboard the Enterprise, Troi speaks to Riker in his mind, calling him "Imzadi" and referring back to a time when the two of them were romantically involved prior to their assignment together.

Although it was later explained that "Imzadi" could have both romantic and platonic implications, it was always used to help denote Troi and Riker's strong bond, and tended to be used during times when they were either feeling particularly close or when one of them was in peril and called out to the other. In "Nepenthe," the two of them seem to have evolved to using "Imzadi" not only in moments of extreme emotion and closeness, but also as a simple pet name, which speaks to how their bond appears to have only deepened during their decades of marriage.

The eighth episode of Star Trek: Picard, titled "Broken Pieces," opens with a pretty harrowing scene, as the members of the Zhat Vash experience the "Admonition," a ritual that allows them to see visions of a horrific event in the distant past that wiped out an ancient civilization. The Admonition took place 14 years before the start of Star Trek: Picard, and as we learn in "Broken Pieces," is the source of many of the show's mysteries, including the origins of Commodore Oh, Narissa, and the xB Ramdha, and of course, the true motivation behind the synthetic attack on Mars.

We also finally get confirmation in "Broken Pieces" that Commodore Oh is what many have long suspected — a half-Romulan, half-Vulcan spy for the Zhat Vash, who orchestrated the attack on Mars, as well as ordered the murder of a pair of synthetics on Rios' former ship, the Ibn Majid. This isn't the first time Romulan spies who are half-Vulcan have played a significant role on Star Trek. In The Next Generation season 4 episode "Data's Day," Data is assigned to serve as an escort for a "Vulcan" ambassador named T'Pel who later is revealed to be a Romulan spy. Given that "Broken Pieces" reveals that the Admonition is a ritual going back hundreds of years, and that one of the flashes the Zhat Vash receive include an image of a synthetic shifting into Data, it's safe to assume that the Zhat Vash was wary of Data from the moment he was created. Perhaps T'Pel wasn't just a Romulan spy, but was actually an earlier generation of Zhat Vash, gathering information on Starfleet's sentient synthetic in order to determine how far away the apocalyptic threshold she saw in the Admonition really was.

Star Trek: Picard has been doling out a new Rios-based hologram on the La Sirena every couple episodes like carefully rationed treats, but by "Broken Pieces," it seems as though we've finally met all of them. In total, there are five, each with a different accent: a British Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), an Irish Emergency Navigational Hologram (ENH), a Spanish Emergency Tactical Hologram (ETH), an American Emergency Hospitality Hologram (EHH), and finally, a Scottish Emergency Engineering Hologram (EEH), whom we meet in episode 8.

While the different accents and mannerisms of the various holograms are an effective way of differentiating six different characters that all look exactly the same, Picard's inclusion of a Scotish engineer who liberally tosses around the word "lassie" feels far from coincidental. On the original Star Trek series, the chief engineer was the jovial Montgomery Scott, known among the rest of the Enterprise crew as "Scotty." While Ian the EEH appears to be his own character, and not a carbon copy of Scotty, his heavy accent and Scottish slang all seem to be deliberate tips of the hat to the much-beloved original character.

After coming face to face with Soji for the first time in "Broken Pieces" and realizing she looks just like the girl whose murder he helped cover up several years before, Rios sequesters himself in his quarters, sinking into a deep melancholy. While he's there, we get a good look at Rios' bookshelves, which is how we learn that Rios is an avid reader of existentialist novels and philosophical texts. On Rios' shelf are The Stranger and The Rebel, both by Albert Camus; Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway; A Casebook on Existentialism by William V. Spanos; The Concept of Dread and Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death, both by Søren Kierkegaard; The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno, which is the book Rios was reading when we first met him, and the Vulcan philosophy book, Surak and Existentialism.

While there's no single philosophy or idea that all of these books have in common, some of the recurring themes present within most of these works include musings on the concept of existence and what it means to be truly aware; the essential role that fear, anxiety, and suffering play within the human experience; and the consequences of acting outside of societal norms. The Vulcan philosopher Surak was first introduced in the original series' third season episode, "The Savage Curtain," and is credited as being the father of Vulcan civilization. Of all the books on Rios' shelf, it is Surak's teachings that are the most unique, since he was a proponent of peace and his teachings led to the Vulcans purging themselves of emotion, while many of Rios' other books advocated for the value of intense feeling. Interestingly, it is Surak's teachings which are off the shelf, suggesting that it is the more controlled Vulcan philosophy, and not the emotional Earth-originated teaching, which Rios gravitates toward when he's feeling lost.

When Agnes finally comes clean to the crew of the La Sirena about why she killed Bruce Maddox earlier in the season, she explains that Commodore Oh had shown her a vision of the distant past, in which ancient civilizations had created intelligent synthetic life, and were subsequently wiped out in the most horrific fashion. Apparently the Admonition, and the entire star system around it, had been constructed to warn future civilizations away from synthetic life, so that they could avoid the catastrophe that befell its creators once they passed a "threshold" of advancement.

Rios immediately realizes what Agnes is talking about, and likens what happened to the creators of the Admonition with the history we saw play out in Star Trek: First Contact, explaining that, "like with Zefram Cochrane, warp drive. When you cross that line, somebody shows up." Zefram Cochrane was actually first introduced in the original series episode "Metamorphosis," in which the crew of the Enterprise encounters a de-aged Cochrane 150 years after his disappearance as an old man. However, the most memorable appearance of Cochrane was of course in First Contact, in which he was portrayed by James Cromwell.

In First Contact, it's explained that the Vulcans had thought of humans as too primitive to make contact, until they saw Cochrane's warp drive test flight. Then they changed their plans in order to make contact. It sounds as though there's another advanced race out there that may be ignoring the Federation for similar reasons — at least until their synthetics eventually evolve past the threshold.

On the bridge of the La Sirena during a quiet moment in "Broken Pieces," Picard reminisces that it reminds him of when he used to stand the night watch as a young ensign on the bridge of the Reliant. While we've heard many tales of Picard's service aboard the Stargazer many times throughout The Next Generation, there aren't all that many mentions of his time on the Reliant, possibly because as an ensign, he likely didn't have much responsibility. The only time on that show where Picard's service on the Reliant came up was during a deleted scene from "The Measure of a Man," which was subsequently restored for the extended Blu-ray version of the episode.

However, there was another, earlier version of the U.S.S. Reliant that played a much more significant role in Star Trek history. In the film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, the 23rd century Reliant is commandeered by the villainous Khan, which he uses to steal a terraforming instrument known as the Genesis Device, which he plans to use as a weapon. The Reliant ultimately wound up being destroyed in the final showdown between Khan and the Enterprise, but it appears that Starfleet later commissioned another starship with the same name, which is where Jean-Luc Picard began climbing the professional ladder that would eventually lead him to the bridge of the Enterprise.

In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," La Sirena finally arrives at Soji's homeworld, which the Federation refers to by the scientific name of Ghulion IV. Soji reveals that the planet's synthetic inhabitants have another name for it: the much more melodic "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 a 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 (played by Brent Spiner, the same actor who played Data) is willing to sacrifice the lives of all "organics" in order to ensure the continued existence of his sentient synthetic creations.

After La Sirena crash lands (or perhaps we should say, orchid-lands?) on the surface of Coppelius in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," the ship seems largely undamaged, except for the minor detail that none of the ship's electrical 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, complete with an "old school medical tricorder."

Of course, medical tricorders are very familiar to anyone who has watched previous iterations of Star Trek, and were so prevalent throughout the various series that it's impossible to narrow the reference down to a specific character or episode. However, for Picard himself, the most significant person from his past that was known for her frequent use of medical tricorders 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 eventual wife, and later, ex-wife). Seeing Agnes using the tricorder no doubt brought back all sorts of fond memories for Picard, and makes us wonder what Dr. Crusher is up to in 2399.

After arriving on Coppelius in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," 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 you really only have to worry about the first 109."

While it's always hard to say for sure if short numbers like these are supposed to be a reference to anything, or are merely a number pulled from a hat at random, it's fun to at least speculate that they could be sneaky references to past episodes of Star Trek. In this case, 218 might be referring 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 after 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 evolved people. In "Justice," Picard opposes the death sentence given to an innocent member of his crew, arguing that there is nothing just about the sort of unilateral punishment the being was prepared to dole out, and saying that it's important to 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."

Prior to "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I," three synthetics who all looked the same had already been introduced through Soji, Dahj, and their lost sister Jana, who was killed by Rios' former captain. In the ninth episode of Star Trek: Picard's first season, we meet a fourth in the form of the golden-skinned Sutra, who seems to bridge the visual gap between her human-appearing sisters and their android "father," Data.

When Sutra is introduced, Dr. Soong mentions that she is extremely interested in all aspects of 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 already referenced once in the previous Picard episode "Broken Pieces," as 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, a 12-stringed instrument which several characters have played on past iterations of Star Trek, including Spock and Uhura on the original series, and Tuvok on Voyager. However, although Sutra was knowledgeable about many aspects of Vulcan culture, she didn't appear to have taken many of them to heart, since her later actions don't appear to prioritize Surak's peaceful teachings much at all.

After hinting at it all season, in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2," Narek finally reveals the full myth that has motivated the Zhat Vash for generations — the story of Ganmadan. It tells the story of demon twin sisters, one "the Foreteller," who beat a drum of death and destruction, and the other "the Destroyer," who used a horn made from a beast called Ganmadan to open a crack in the sky and call down hordes of demons like them, who in turn rained down destruction upon the living. Narek says he believes this myth isn't a prophecy, but rather the ancient past, one which the Zhat Vash believes they are doomed to repeat unless they can stop it.

Narek tells the tale of Ganmadan to the enthralled crew of La Sirena around a campfire at night, which is reminiscent of another time campfire stories and ancient myths were used to reach a place of mutual understanding. In the Next Generation episode "Darmok," Picard finds himself stranded on a planet with the captain of an alien race who communicates solely through references to his culture's stories. Together, the two of them must find a way to communicate and survive before a common threat annihilates them both. During one powerful scene around a campfire, Picard draws parallels between the alien captain's stories of "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" to the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Both stories are about adversaries coming together to fight a common foe, which is exactly what happens in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2," with Narek joining forces with La Sirena's crew in order to save organics from the synthetics who created the Admonition.

At the end of "Darmok," the alien captain dies, but considers his sacrifice worthwhile since he was able to establish meaningful communication with Picard and the Federation. It's similar to how Picard accelerates his own death at the end of Picard's season finale, in the hopes that he might be able to convince the Federation, the Romulans, and the synthetics to finally listen to one another.

As Seven of Nine and Narissa fight on the crashed Borg cube in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2," Narissa taunts Seven with the memory of her assimilation. "Sad Queen Annika," she says as they circle one another. "Six years old, and all she got for her birthday was assimilated."

The "Queen" part refers to Picard's earlier episode, "Broken Pieces," in which Seven rejoins the Borg Collective as the Queen in the hopes of seizing control of the Artifact away from the Romulans. She isn't totally successful — the Romulans jettison most of the dormant Borg into space before Seven can use them to win back the ship — but she still manages to pilot the cube through the transwarp conduit in order to come to Picard's aid before disconnecting from the Collective and relinquishing her throne.

However, the rest of Narissa's taunt calls back to the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Raven," in which Seven processes the trauma of her assimilation. During that episode, she recounts the day the Borg attacked her ship, telling Tuvok, "I had my birthday here. My cake had six candles on it, and one more to grow on. And then the men came. Papa tried to fight them but they were too strong. I tried to hide. Maybe they wouldn't find me because I was little, but they did. And Papa said we were going to crash and the big man picked me up, and then suddenly we weren't on the ship anymore. We were somewhere else. And then I became Borg."

It's a difficult memory for Seven to face, and Narissa hopes that recalling it might weaken her opponent. But Seven refuses to let the Romulan get the best of her; she wins their fight, and Narissa falls to her (supposed) death.

When Riker shows up at Coppelius in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2" leading the Federation fleet, the flagship he commands is named the Zheng He. This ship is almost certainly named for Zheng He, a Chinese explorer and diplomat during the early Ming dynasty. Naming Starfleet ships after famous explorers is a long and well-established tradition in Star Trek; even within Picard, Rios' former ship, the ibn Majid, was named for Ahmad ibn Mājid, a 15th century Arabian navigator and cartographer.

But there has actually been a U.S.S. Zheng He once before in Star Trek history, although not in any of the shows or movies. The Zheng He appears in the Star Trek Online video game as a Daedalus-class science vessel, which is attacked by Gorn forces while on a research mission. This is obviously a different Zheng He, since the ship Riker was commanding was a Federation flagship, not a science vessel, but reusing the name marks yet another occasion Picard has tangentially referenced the Gorn, begging the question of whether the lizard-like people may eventually make an appearance on the show.

Although Picard finds a way to live on (sort of) at the end of "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2," the episode does bid farewell to a different Next Generation crew member in its final minutes, although it's someone we'd already thought was long gone. It turns out that when Bruce Maddox salvaged the single positronic neuron from Data that he used to create Soji and Dahj, he also used it to bring back a version of Data's consciousness in a simulated afterlife, where Data has been sitting alone beside a perpetually burning hearth. When Picard briefly joins Data in this simulation before being transferred to his new synthetic body, Data asks a favor from his former captain: when Picard wakes up, Data would like for him to terminate his consciousness, not because he wants to die, but because he thinks that by knowing his existence is finite, he may finally be able to truly live.

In Data's final moments as Picard shuts down the simulation, he listens to "Blue Skies," which also opened Picard's first episode. This time, it's sung not by Bing Crosby, but by Isa Briones, the actress who plays Soji, Dahj, and Sutra. In Star Trek: Nemesis, Data performs the song for his colleagues, so it's only fitting that his "daughter" would sing it over him as he dies.

Picard also bids farewell to Data with a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." In the play, this is a line said by Prospero, a character that Data himself played in the Next Generation episode "Emergence." In that episode, Data asks for Picard's help understanding his character, and Picard explains how hopefulness helps balance out the tragedy in the character. In many ways, Data's death shows that he finally understands that lesson, and Picard's recitation acknowledges that in dying, Data has finally achieved his goal of becoming human.