Doesn't have to be long or drawn-out, just post whatever idle speculation you have. My first one: I bet the Enterprise-E was destroyed in the battle that Picard led 15 years earlier.
My speculation: I think Starfleet ordered Picard to do something against his principles during the Romulan rescue mission that led to both its failure and his resignation. The Enterprise-E is still around, and may even make an appearance at some point, but with none of the TNG cast still aboard (her new captain could be a special guest star). A member of the remaining TNG crew may no longer be with us, but who won't be revealed until there's a reunion episode of sorts. Picard is once again "Captain Picard," but he now commands a civilian starship that's making a difference out there without the restrictions a Starfleet ship would have. His new crew is a handful of strong personality types with their own separate agendas, and he occasionally will have to remind himself they are not Starfleet. Things have never been worse between the Federation and the Romulan Empire (or what's left of it).
Picard was leading a rescue mission to evacuate as many Romulans as possible as a precaution while Spock tried to stop the star from going nova. But Spock failed, the star exploded, and Picard’s fleet got caught in the destruction. He somehow managed to escape and has survivor’s guilt, hence why he resigned from Starfleet.
I got the impression in the trailer that he still managed to save a bunch of people, so I'm thinking his fleet evacuated a bunch of Romulan colonies in time, but maybe not Romulus and Remus.
It's all about refugees, immigrants and Starfleet and the Federation building a big Space Wall to keep surviving Romulans out of Federation space.
Would be a bit one-note as a series. Though given magic mushroom spores and sonar in space (this isn't Harry Frodo and the Land of the Magic Rings), the new Picard show would try to get away with an actual 2D wall and there's no doubt some in the audience would blissfully accept it. Even that season 5 opener with the tachyon sensor mesh fence could be fanon-ized by saying the ships' beams covered a very vast swath of space and the Romulan fleet didn't have enough energy to go trotting around it, thus creating an impasse. Quantum Singularity V6 engine aside, of course... not that that opener was memorable in any good way, Sela reveal aside... I recall not-so-awesome moments as Data screaming emotionally at some guy who didn't want to accept chain of command and not because it was outside Data's character to be begging for command in the first place, and Horatio Hobbling Hobson there was nowhere approaching the effectiveness that Shelby was in terms of being a well-scripted character to begin with in order to begin to make the soapy drama work... and I almost laughed but remembered the show wasn't a sitcom... And did they really explain the sensor net they devised apart from a token throwaway line that the net would reveal anyone crossing them? (Nope. Just Sela saying "Durrrhhh, work on a way to get through it as we sit here and they'll know we're sitting here so we're already found out but whatever. Get Ernestine to call up the Enterprise so I can have a fanwanky chat with Picard to trivialize my reason for being here cuz he's the ringy dingy, not me.") Which, if nothing else, proves TNG wasn't always pristine with the sci-fi elements in a large space like the universe either...
Oh. Given the border and fence wall stuff and wall have been going on for a lot longer than 3 years, I hadn't.
Dealing with the Romulan refugee crisis is okay with me, as far as a parallel, but hopefully there's no one like King Orange in the series. He gets too much attention already. And ironically, here I am giving him more. Back to Picard. I bet he drinks. But he drinks anything but what he makes.
I bet Picard screwed up. The destruction of Romulus led to a moment in the Enterprise where he froze, a la Shinzon and Data. Because of this, and the fact it was public, unlike Nemesis, he retires, as Captain, retreats to lick his wounds, thinking about the lives lost and the lives he could've saved, if he hadn't hesitated. Starfleet asks him to return to the Academy to train new officers. It reissues the Wolf 359 damage (people killed by Picard's decisions), losing Data, and his human frailty. Picard, a man of ambition and high standards, has no one to turn to this time. So, he soul searches alone, something that has never done him well. He needs Guinan or Troi, but being deeply private, part of why he sucks at introspection, I think he just quits and hides, this time Lewis, and the Sea, win.
I got the impression, from the trailer, that Picard was successful with the rescue mission, but the “unthinkable” (or however it is referred to) is an event that took place afterwards that we know absolutely nothing about yet. Maybe the surviving Romulans cause some huge loss of life to the Federation, or something? I dunno, my feeling was just that it was Picard being actually successful that causes whatever issue results in him leaving Starfleet.
It was probably referring to the supernova itself. I'm guessing it went off earlier than expected. Spock said something similar in the movie. Wouldn't be the first time Trek did that.
Spock said no such thing. I'm not really sure how something that was completely unexpected can be considered "earlier than expected" anyway.