Star Trek: Picard has unveiled the release date for its second season this March, with a new trailer to offer more tantalizing clues at what the continuing adventures of Jean-Luc Picard and his friends entail this time. With Picard reunited with his omnipotent nuisance Q, the mischievous being's latest test for the venerable Starfleet officer involves traveling back to the 21st century and changing history, significantly altering the fate of humanity and the United Federation of Planets. And while the latest Picard Season 2 trailer only offers glimpses at the reality-shaking stakes, there are some hints at what Q did to change up history and set the time-traveling story into motion.
The first full trailer for Picard Season 2 included a brief glimpse at what appeared to be a Terran Empire-like vision of Starfleet, the morally inverted empire originating from the Mirror Universe, complete with its own ominous insignia markedly different than that used by Starfleet. Awakening to this new reality, Picard and his friends travel back to the year 2024 to undo whatever Q tampered with to rewrite history. The latest trailer for Picard Season 2 offers more contextual clues to what exactly has gone wrong, with the general time period previously visited by earlier Star Trek series and proving pivotal to the future of Starfleet.
2024 was visited in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 3 episode "Past Tense," which was described as a key moment in humanity. Major protests over the treatment of the marginalized groups of society in 2024 served as the foundation for what became the ideals and policies serving as the cornerstone for the Federation. If Q tampered with this moment, humanity may not have been as welcoming when Vulcans officially made first contact with the species in 2063 after witnessing Zefram Cochrane achieve warp speed for the first time as depicted in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact.
Further proof of Q's tampering is shown in the latest trailer when Earth is approached, as it's revealed to possess a forcefield enveloping the entire planet. It is unclear if this is in the 24th century or the 21st, but if established in the 21st, it could prevent humanity and the Vulcans from joining forces. This could be a result of Q preventing humanity from learning its utopian ideals from the 2024 protests, with Picard and his friends finding Earth to be something of a police state when they arrive in the past. And in the midst of all of this, the threat of the Borg Collective looms, with First Contact revealing the Borg Queen attempting to invade Earth in the year 2063 and the Queen briefly seen in the trailers.
If Picard Season 1 featured the soul of Starfleet under attack from a Romulan conspiracy, Season 2 is one that has its soul threatened through its history. Q has always presided as a judge over humanity, with Picard constantly placed in the role of representing and defending his species' existence from whatever Q has in store for them. As an older Q is reunited with his greatest frenemy, assuring him the trial is never over, Q has given Picard the ultimate challenge to save the Federation he has dedicated his life to defend on a time-bending tour of humanity at a seismic crossroads.
Created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Picard Season 2 premieres on March 3 on Paramount+.