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Was DS9 "Past Tense"'s 2024 an alternate universe?

Ok, DS9 was trying to predict a 2024 that was decades away vs Picard showing a 2024 that was only a couple years away, but the differences between the two depictions are striking so...

- DS9 2024: Internet computer terminals are bulky and cludgy, with a small CRT screen, and based on an "interactive TV" model with channels, rather than the internet as we know of it today, and a license is required to use it. Bulky early 90s style flip phones are still in use.

At the same time, clothing styles are more futuristic, resembling the kind of fashions that are standard in the 24th century. Europe is falling apart with the Neo-Trotskyists and Goalists trying to suppress student uprisings. Walled in "sanctuary districts" in every major US city, and most of this two parter takes place inside one of those districts.

Picard 2024: Very much like now. Smartphones, sleek laptops and big LCD computer monitors, etc. Clothing is the same as you would expect in the late 20th, early 21st century. No mention of the crisis unfolding in Europe. No sanctuary district in sight, and only a passing mention of one near thr US/Mexico border. Also, no mention at all of Sisco, Bashir, or Dax being in the same year as they are.

I don't understand this post.

So because Star Trek: Picard has decided to set itself in 2024 - the same year as DS9 - that means Picard is obligated to mention all of the events that took place in that episode?

Picard is set in an entirely different city and it's 4-5 months before the events in Past Tense even take place. Sure, if Picard knows every single thing that took place in Past Tense, that's great, but, why would that be relevant? Picard mentions past Star Trek events as they're relevant to a task they need to perform, for example when he mentions sling-shotting around the sun. He clearly states that Kirk did the same thing in The Voyage Home. It made sense in the moment to mention that.

Other than happening to be in the same year, what would mentioning Sisko and Bashir have to do with anything?
 
I read a fan theory once that when Khan Singh took over, he instated a new calendar. So the Eugenics Wars didn't really happen in the 1990s by our calendar, but in fact happened a century or so later.

I wish "Star Trek" canon would just go with something like that, instead of all these convoluted little retcons to justify how things like the Eugenics Wars, WWIII, and the Sanctuaries happened without us noticing. Instead of trying to retcon the events, wouldn't it be so much easier to just retcon the century they supposedly occurred in?
 
Instead of trying to retcon the events, wouldn't it be so much easier to just retcon the century they supposedly occurred in?
Except, that's not what Trek has tried to do. It's tried very hard to have it's cake and eat it too but having both our events and their events somehow hang together. So, unfortunately, we get a weird mismash of retcons and trying to adhere to past continuity. The 90s as a "strange and violent period of human history" and the "last of your so called world wars," only to have WW3 put in to the 21st century and the post Atomic horror by "Encounter at Farpoint." As well as the interesting idea of Voyager showing up in the 90s and it being our literal 90s' LA without a reference to Khan or WW3.

Star Trek tries to do both, and it ends up lacking that commitment one way or another because it wants to tell stories about our humanity and our humanity's future, but then catches up with itself in history.
 
What I have trouble wrapping my head around was the decision to go back to the year 2024 in the first place, mainly because:

1. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the link to DS9's "Past Prologue" other than some fan service about the sanctuary districts (which were presented completely different from PP and had nothing to do with the plot), and

2. If the showrunners are trying to retcon our present into Star Trek's past, then choosing a date only two years into our future really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, based on what they showed. It's unlikely that humans will set foot on Earth's Moon in the next ten years, much less a manned solar system mission to Europa in two (and when that human does land on the moon, he's most likely going to be Chinese.) Of course, they would have had to choose a date at least before 2063, because that's when WWIII happens. Which makes even less sense, because WWIII would have wiped out any progress made from the discovery on Europa.

I wonder if Rios told his girlfriend that her kid would most likely be dead in 40 years. Oh, wait, he couldn't, because he conveniently died in a bar fight in Morocco.

I suppose they could also retcon WWIII out of existence, or change the date that was firmly established in FC, or say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as FC made it out to be. It's not like they're that worried about maintaining continuity or consistency.
 
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What I have trouble wrapping my head around was the decision to go back to the year 2024 in the first place, mainly because:

1. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the link to DS9's "Past Prologue" other than some fan service about the sanctuary districts (which were presented completely different from PP and had nothing to do with the plot), and

2. If the showrunners are trying to retcon our present into Star Trek's past, then choosing a date only two years into our future really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, based on what they showed. It's unlikely that humans will set foot on Earth's Moon in the next ten years, much less a manned solar system mission to Europa in two (and when that human does land on the moon, he's most likely going to be Chinese.) Of course, they would have had to choose a date at least before 2063, because that's when WWIII happens. Which makes even less sense, because WWIII would have wiped out any progress made from the discovery on Europa.

I wonder if Rios told his girlfriend that her kid would most likely be dead in 40 years. Oh, wait, he couldn't, because he conveniently died in a bar fight in Morocco.

I suppose they could also retcon WWIII out of existence, or change the date that was firmly established in FC, or say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as FC made it out to be. It's not like they're that worried about maintaining continuity or consistency.
This is a super, super, super boring answer, but they probably figured 2024 because they knew for sure people wouldn't still be wearing masks because of Covid.

Last year, I remember talking to someone who told me, "We'll be stuck with this until 2023!" Hell, my father just got a second booster shot today. So it's still out there, even though we forget. Who wants to see the actors' performances hidden underneath masks? If the 21st Century portion of Season 2 took place when it was actually shot, there'd be masks everywhere.

The DS9 two-parter probably had something to do with it too, I won't deny that, but there were other factors at play.
 
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They at least referenced parts of Past Tense in the set design and dialogue.

It was a throwaway reference, and the set design looked nothing like it did in "Past Prologue.' If you went to the bathroom and took a piss in the ten seconds they referenced it, you would have missed it.
 
Well yeah, they weren't even in the same city.

But you said they referenced the set design. But if the set design was completely different because they weren't in the same city, then they didn't reference the set design.
 
But you said they referenced the set design. But if the set design was completely different because they weren't in the same city, then they didn't reference the set design.
By set design I meant the signs they put up.
So I guess that might actually be prop design.

It was a throwaway reference
Several throwaway references. They did their homework instead of just ignoring those DS9 episodes.

Outside of the sanctuary district signs, and mentioning them in dialogue, when the cops were searching Rios they mentioned he was missing a type of ID card that was also mentioned in Past Tense.

The company owned by the guy who finds Jadzia was mentioned on a newspaper.
 
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Pretty sure the 2024/current day setting was a money saving measure brought on by covid-related cost increases.

If SNW is the same world as TOS, then PIC's 2024 can easily be the same world as DS9's. YMMV.
 
Pretty sure the 2024/current day setting was a money saving measure brought on by covid-related cost increases.

If SNW is the same world as TOS, then PIC's 2024 can easily be the same world as DS9's. YMMV.

Oh, I’m not saying they aren’t the same. I’m saying that it had nothing to do with the story and were basically just Easter Egg references.
 
Pretty sure the 2024/current day setting was a money saving measure brought on by covid-related cost increases.
Matalas admitted as much, more or less. Or rather, unlike the other live action Treks currently in production, Picard only had two standing sets, La Sirena and Picard's home. It took six months to build the Stargazer sets, which for some reason had to be done while the season was filming. The only option was to be primarily location shooting, and they decided, if they have to do location filming in and around Los Angeles for the whole season, best to save money by keeping it as modern day Los Angeles rather than try to "disguise" it as some alien world or whatever.
 
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