ST Picard - Starships and Technology Season One SPOILER Discusssion

My understanding is that Picard was on the romulan mission for 4 years, from 2383 to 2387.

2379 - Nemesis. Riker/Troi go to Titan.
2381 - Troi gives birth to Thad, new starfleet uniforms
2382 - Titan and Enterprise are near to each other, Picard meets Thad, photo taken.
2383 - Picard leaves Enterprise, becomes Admiral
c. 2385 - Kestra is born
2387 - Picard resigns from starfleet, goes to see some old friends including Riker/Troi, and meet Thad (and todler Kestra). Synth research banned.
2390ish - Thad diagnosed Riker and Troi retire and move to Nepenthe, That being about 10 years old having served on several starships.
2395ish - Thad dies, new starfleet uniforms
2399 - events of Picard

 

As far as I am aware, Lower Decks is going to be canon and is set in 2381 with different Uniforms...

 

Insert "Materiel Support Command vs. Deep Space Exploratory Corps" uniform design debate here.

 

I believe Lower Decks is set in 2380. But I’m not too worried about there being any consistency issues between a cartoon that probably isn’t going to take itself too seriously and a live-action show.

 

That doesn't work -- the photo has Picard with Admiral bars, which means if the photo was taken on the Enterprise, it conflicts with "The Last Best Hope" book, where he never returned to the Enterprise after promotion.

However TLBH also puts Picard's promotion as 2381, so that all fits. Perhaps the Titan's conference room looked the same as the Enterprise. Perhaps Riker took command of another Sovereign ship after Titan.

Easilly possible that Picard bumped into the Trois in early 2382 when the photo was taken.

 

While you're all trying to sort the timeline out, come up with a good reason for why Picard's head is mirrored in the photo.

 

The same reason it was mirroed as Locutus the previous week. Clearly Picard is visually dyslexic and needs to see pictures backwards.

Mark

 

Except you see the model of the E-C in the background

 

No reason it can't be another Ambassador-class ship, really. The Nemesis-refit conference room has space for twelve starships and THAT arrangement made little sense, but...

I do find interest in the notion of Riker & Troi being aboard / commanding more than one starship. While Trek is full of Captains being in charge of ships for many years at a go (Picard being the worst offender), in practice they should be shuffled around to assignments and ships depending on the commander required for a mission. Alternatively, upon starting a family Riker could have put in for a different class of ship to command with more space or a different mission... We don't know for sure what class the USS Titan was, at least in any canon that can't be contradicted onscreen.

Mark

 

I sort of doubt ship design is related to the policy of having families aboard - the Saratoga did not appear to meet strict criteria for things like onboard space, amenities, combatworthiness or the like, and nevertheless accommodated the Siskos and apparent others.

Is Riker stigmatized by having been Picard's Right Hand? Our primary hero doesn't appear to be able to get a moment of rest and respect no matter what he does. It could go two ways: being able to stick to a single ship is prestigious, and Riker is an outcast for getting bumped around - or being stuck is shameful, and Riker has finally left that behind.

I do wonder about the decorations. Picard once got a Yacht with his name mentioned on the custom plaque - but did he inherit a set of unappealing decorative models from Starfleet's Department of Generic Decorations, or from the poor Tom Halloway who was slated to get the E-D and then the E-E but kept on being sidetracked at the last moment? No Enterprise so far has been explicated as the only ship in her class, so having a few Enterprise lookalikes mixed with a few ships we don't recognize as Enterprises is no clear evidence of anything much. Perhaps Picard was photographed aboard the Insignificant, which just happens to share a class (and a couple of predecessor classes) with the Enterprise.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Prop closeups for further discussion.

http://blog.trekcore.com/2020/03/explore-star-trek-props-picard-discovery-cruise-museum/

Offhand, I love the confirmation (here anyway) that the phasers Seven grabbed from La Sirena, and used in her flashback were indeed Starfleet spec.

Mark

 

...Although I do hope we get a concealed-carry phaser in this show, too, like we did in all the others.

Except, of course, in DSC. I get that keeping the guns prominently visible is supposed to be cool, but at least the DSC gun fully allows for the "Phaser 1 nested in Phaser 2" interpretation even if the heroes just plain can't bring themselves to wield weapons shorter than eight inches. The PIC gun isn't suggestive in that sense.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I've always loved the TNG era Type-1 Phaser.

That tiny little thing is so adorable.

I would want every StarFleet Officer to have one on their person as part of their EDC.

You never know when you'll randomly get abducted by aliens or other wild scenarios that suddenly happen to you.

Same with a tiny flash light.

 

Stupid COVID preparedness stuff. Can't keep up - but as a real outside reference, we FINALLY have uncut dialogue that Picard served on the USS Reliant! A trophy prop from I think comiccon last year said that he served aboard her for some three years with a young Lieutenant (later Admiral) Nakamura, from 2327 to 2330 - if you can believe it, more than SEVENTY YEARS prior to this storyline. This fairly firmly establishes that the Reliant was his first assignment out of the Academy, as he was from the Class of '27 and it was then that he hung around Starbase Earhart awaiting transfer to the Reliant, with his shiny new artificial heart.

Accepted details have Picard in command of the Stargazer from 2233 to 2255 - which means there's still three years of unknown adventures before he made Captain, some of which was aboard Stargazer; but still not (yet) filling in the nine years of time between the Battle of Maxia and taking command of the Enterprise-D. Still a nice little in-fill to his ridiculously long career.

Mark

 

One of the really early Voyager books had an away team taken prisoner, and comm badges confiscated.

Neelix got a spare one out of his shoe, and was surprised the rest weren't similarly prepared.

 

I know I would have spare combadges hidden throughout my person.

One in each shoe, belt buckle, etc.

 

The Autobiography tells those stories quite well

 

Here's the relevant info about the ship from the Picard Museum:

"...and a trophy received for his service aboard the U.S.S. Reliant early in his career and later helping with its decommissioning while awaiting completion of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D in 2364."

This also makes it clear that there weren't two Reliants (one he served on as an ensign with Nakamura, and one that he was in command of immediately prior to the Enterprise-D, which some people took the award as being representative of (I mean, who gets an award for something you did 34 years before? Picard, apparently...)

 

You'd think "Reliant" would be a taboo name after the events of ST:TWOK. How many ships have been named "Titanic" since the original?

 

Someone - probably several someones - at Starfleet Command was clearly thinking "Screw you, Khan Singh!" when that decision was taken.