While waiting for "Forgotten History" to arrive, I thought I'd start the Stargazer series with "Gauntlet" (having already read "Reunion" and "The Valiant") Then something occurred to me - how much hair does Picard have? Flashbacks in TNG gave him very thin hair, Nemesis gave us a bald Shinzon and photo of Cadet Picard. I'm just curious what people picture in their head when they read the Stargazer books. Bald Picard? Thin hair? Patrick Stewart? Tom Hardy? (whose likeness was used in a Mirror Universe Stargazer comic, IIRC)
I imagine the dodgy haircut from the cover of the book "the valiant" thinning & slowly escaping up his scalp book by book. Seriously picard it's the 24½th century, get a decent haircut. No place for a barber on the stargazer, but as soon as his hair has completed its own picard manoeuvre and disappeared out of sight, bam, we get Mot, just to mock picard with what he CAN NO LONGER HAVE. some seriously bad karma there
That's as of 2354, the year Jack Crusher died and a year before the Stargazer was lost. Most of the Stargazer adventures chronicled in print have been set considerably earlier, so presumably Picard would've had a fuller head of hair at the time. Although the flashback in "Children of Chaos," the DC Comics issue which is our primary visual referent for the Stargazer crew, also takes place in 2354 (16 years before a main story with a stardate corresponding to late season 7), and shows Picard with only a slightly receding hairline. (Well, it's probably meant to be the same hairline from the "Violations" flashback, which was most likely used as the artist's photo reference, but the artist for that issue did pretty bad work and Picard's hairline seems to fluctuate from panel to panel.) As far as the novels published under the Stargazer title go, they're all set in 2233, when Picard is 28 years old, so presumably he'd still have a full head of hair. Patrick Stewart, by contrast, was pretty much bald by that same age, but in his acting work he usually wore hairpieces (for instance, the curly wig he wore in his breakout TV role of Sejanus in I, Claudius).
I imagine he looked much like he did on the cover of The Valiant. It's set in 2333, the same year as Gauntlet, so I figure he wouldn't have changed much between the two books.
The (what looked like completely) bald cadet Picard doesn't seem to jibe with the flashback from the stabbing in "Tapestry" - unless he somehow got a hair treatment upon graduation.
Or, Picard shaved his head for some reason at least once during the Academy years. Who knows - maybe he was going as Boothby for the Academy Halloween Party?
^Boothby had a reasonably full head of hair for a man his age. I always figured he lost a bet or something. Or that it was simply poetic license, a cinematic shorthand to make it clear to the audience that Shinzon was a double for the young Picard, something that wouldn't have been as clearly and efficiently conveyed had the cadet in the photo had hair.
Oops, yup, Boothby had some hair. My mistake. Still, Picard could've shaved his head at any time during his Academy years, for any reason.
Alternately -- by the 24th Century, perhaps there's a cure for baldness, so whether or not you go bald or grow a full head of hair is effectively a fashion choice rather than necessity. Maybe Picard went back and forth on being bald or having hair throughout much of his earlier life.
^More like they've recognized that the very concept of a "cure for baldness" is silly because baldness is not a disease, merely a transition experienced by those who are genetically disposed to it.
Okay, a "cure" for baldness rather than an actual cure. Either way, the point is that perhaps it is possible to medically alter one's self so as to grow hair when one is genetically disposed to baldness, and thus baldness or full-headedness is a fashion choice.
At the start of the Stargazer books, he has what I assume to be a more of less normal head of hair. I can't remember if it's ever mentioned in detail, but we at least know he had hair as he shaves it off in one of the novels and later comments in the same book that it's slow growing back...
Though baldness is not a disease, perhaps a bald man would want hair. It protects your head from the sun and looks "normal." Though they may disagree, humans of the future appear to be as vain as we are now when it comes to appearances. If Christine Vale would want to dye her hair, I imagine man men would be interested in artificially growing hair. I didn't like the picture of Tom Hardy as Picard at the academy in Nemesis. I understand Shinzon wanting to shave his head to look like Picard, but I don't believe Picard spent his academy years without hair.
I'm not saying that universally, all bald men would want hair. I'm saying some would want it. In STO, I don't give any of my characters scars because I think, if cosmetic surgery is so advanced they can get rid of scars and deformities, who would want to keep scars? The majority would probably opt for the free surgery to eliminate scars an unattractive attributes, but there is always the exception.
I completely forgot about the picture of him on the cover of "The Valiant" It's been about a year since I read it.
IIRC, when Rodenberry wanted to cast Stewart as captain in TNG, someone said to him 'But won't they have cured baldness by the 24th century?' To which he replied 'By the 24th century, no-one will care.'