Obviously a setup episode and far too short... I won't critique (other than that de Lancie & Spiner were stellar and I like where Jurati and the Queen's relationship is going... also, I *need* that dress Alison Pill was wearing, she looked stunning... and Jurati's fake ID is just 3 months older than me!) because I have a feeling it's supposed to be a package deal with the one coming the day after tomorrow, but it did set up quite a lot of plot threads that provide ample ground for speculation:
Renée is supposed to find a lifeform on Io and Picard talks about its mission as something that had happened, so it's possibly something that needs to happen. Convoluted theorizing of course (which means it'll probably be something way simpler), but the events due to happen in three days might change how humanity rebuilds and reinvents itself after World War 3? Maybe the (presumably, given the location) extremophile alien lifeform Renée is supposed to find would make humanity realize how life is everywhere in infinitely diverse forms, and it would lead to us eventually learning to coexist with life and nature in harmony and not kill our planet; without this, Soong perfecting the cure for his daughter would instead give humanity the ability to survive in more alien environments including the irradiated post-nuclear-exchange hellscape, which would keep us on the path of conquering nature and subjugating life to sustain our needs, no matter the moral or environmental cost.
Well, like I said, convoluted and probably only makes sense in my head. But I still think the mission needs to happen as Picard remembers it, unless Q has already messed with his mind and planted a false memory about the mission there. But maybe Q is placing some red herrings and misleading Picard into thinking Renée is the key while the real change is that Soong was supposed to fail in curing his daughter in the original timeline? Of course, we're missing a crucial piece of the puzzle, as Q also asks him to "remove an obstacle for [him]." As soon as we learn what he asked Soong to do, his plans would become much clearer. Like I said in the beginning, package deal.
"Dr. Soong you were running genetic experiments with a privatized military organization, Spearhead Operations, on soldiers. Unmonitored, unregulated illegal experimentation" - did Soong use fragmented, damaged augment DNA to create his daughter and perhaps his inability to access the original documentation or flaws in the remaining genetic material caused her anatomy to be so unstable? I don't think she was born naturally, specifically for one reason: Kore is a type of ancient Greek statue from the Archaic period, depicting a young female. Knowing the family tradition, if a Soong name has a symbolic meaning, it is guaranteed it was intentional.
Was the Borg Queen transferring herself into Jurati a last-minute act of desperation survive, or is it an actually existing Borg protocol to ensure the Queen's continuity in the rare event that she's disconnected from the Collective when her current body expires? Is she just body-surfing as the proverbial devil on her shoulders, or does she actually have the capability to take over eventually?