I’m liking where the current Picard series is going. He’s still essentially trying to continue the spirit of the TNG years in a post-Dominion War, post-Romulan supernova, isolationist Starfleet galaxy. All while remaining separate from his former crew on the Enterprise.
I’ve never read the litverse, but from the brief description, that’s clearly the happiest future for Picard.
Yesterday’s Enterprise – while a liked episode and it is good to see Tasha Yar again and have her around, is rather militaristic and borders on being the mirror universe. It may as well been the mirror universe.
AGT – at least the Enterprise-D is still around as the Galaxy-X class. And although Troi is dead, it’s entirely possible that Rene Picard still lives, although its never mentioned as its not relevant and just assumed that he is.
And I do agree that there was a hopefulness in the final scene of Nemesis, that there would be a return to exploring. It was basically a reset back to “Encounter at Farpoint,” but now in a post-war setting, and possibly a post-Borg setting, and with the technological advancements made by the Voyager crew. ST’09 destroyed that hopeful future though.
One future I did like was when he became an Ambassador to Vulcan in the Countdown comics. It meant that he listened to Kirk’s advice to not let them promote him to admiral since he wouldn’t be able to make a difference as one. And that Data came back to life and became captain of the Enterprise-E.