Picard questions Q on what he's seeing, and discovers that he's in a Mirror Universe... except better and/or worse than the one we're familar with, because unlike what befell the Terran Empire by the end of the 24th century, this Terran Confederation is thriving, and Gen. Jean-Luc Picard is a big reason why. It's Eradication Day in the year 2401, and Picard will have a part to play.
We catch up with our crew: Elnor in a band of Romulans executing terrorist attacks in Japan, and Raffi as a police chief sent to capture him; Col. Rios of La Sirena helping Gen. Sisko besiege Vulcan; Dr. Agnes Jurati working for the federal government, and Annika Hansen, the never-assimilated still-human Seven of Nine once was, as Madam President. The only refugees from the Prime Timeline, they gather at the Presidential Palace, where Pres. Hansen and Gen. Picard are set to cap off Eradication Day by murdering one of Jurati's most prized specimens: the Borg Queen, imprisoned against her will. They decipher Q's cryptic hints and determine that the timelines diverged during 2024, and that they must conduct a slingshot time-travel maneuver...which they will need the Borg Queen to do, as her greater computing power will make her an excellent Wetware CPU. The Borg Queen, who is aware she's in an alternate timeline and doesn't like it, agrees to help; she also informs them that they will want to make contact with someone in 2024 Los Angeles called "The Watcher." Now all the crew needs to do is 1. Navigate the social and political conventions of a timeline they've never been to before; 2. steal the Borg Queen out of the most secure place in that timeline; 3. travel back in time; 4. find the Watcher, who is somehow connected to the Point of Divergence; 5. Set Right What Once Went Wrong; and 6. make it back to the 2401 of the Prime Timeline before the season ends.
The Plan mostly works: Raffi takes Elnor to Security and the two of them disable the No Warping Zone around the Presidential Palace, allowing Rios to beam them and the Borg Queen up... But they are almost immediately pursued by The Magistrate, Hansen's right-hand man (and husband), who beams aboard La Sirena, shoots Elnor, and holds the rest of them at gunpoint.
Tropes:
- Alternate Self: Picard and co get dropped into an alternate timeline, living their counterparts' lives:
- Picard is a General Ripper who has spearheaded many of the Confederation's conquests.
- Seven (specifically Annika Hansen, who was never assimilated here) is the President of the Confederation.
- Rios is a Colonel in the Confederation's military.
- Raffi is the head of Confederation security.
- Elnor is part of La Résistance.
- Agnes is still a scientist, working on the surviving specimens of various species before their execution.
- Alternate Timeline
- We learn that Picard's Enterprise was instead called the CSS World Razer.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: The Confederation of Earth is more successful than even the Terran Empire, conquering and/or exterminating the Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans, and Borg. (By the 24th century in the Mirror Universe, the Terrans have been conquered by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and their Empire is defunct.)
- And This Is for...: The insurgents on Okinawa set off explosions for Andoria, Cardassia, Qo'nos, Vulcan and Romulus.
- Bad Liar: Agnes is unquestionably the worst at playing "normal" in the alternate timeline.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Picard and Seven use the authority of their alternate selves to browbeat others into doing what they want. It helps that, between them, they're largely in charge of the entire Confederation: Picard's alternate self is an illustrious (and bloodthirsty) Four-Star Badass, while Seven is the President.
- Beleaguered Assistant: In the alternate timeline, Seven's husband is one of these, with a dash of Henpecked Husband to boot.
- The Cameo: Agnes's digital cat assistant is voiced by Patton Oswalt.
- Cats Are Snarkers: Spot 73 is a rather snarky and opinionated virtual cat.Spot 73: It's barbaric, you know. Public executions are needless displays of authority to a people already sufficiently subjugated. It's cruel and unusual and beyond disturbing that this day is so celebrated amongst the masses. Of course, I say all this subject to the faith customary between a domesticant and their master. Meow.
- Continuity Nod:
- Picard's alternate universe study contains a collection of skulls belonging to such notables as Gul Dukat, General Martok, and Sarek. Sisko also gets mentioned as a high ranking officer in the Confederation.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that the Ferengi skull is Grand Nagus Zek.
- When discussing ways to go back in time, Picard mentions how Kirk's Enterprise did it more than once by slingshotting around a star. In fact, the team settles on this being their tactic.
- Picard's alternate universe study contains a collection of skulls belonging to such notables as Gul Dukat, General Martok, and Sarek. Sisko also gets mentioned as a high ranking officer in the Confederation.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The Confederation of Earth is one to the Terran Empire in the original Mirror Universe. Like the Empire, the Confederation is xenophobic and fascist, subjugating or destroying alien races to promote a human-dominated galaxy. However, whereas the Terran Empire was only loosely held together by this ideal and plagued by constant in-fighting between their vicious (bordering on psychotic) members, the Confederation is less prone to treachery and backstabbing, with its citizens fiercely patriotic and loyal to the point of ultranationalism. The Confederation is also more successful than the Empire, having successfully conquered the Klingons and the Cardassians, whose mirror counterparts, the former presumably looking to avenge their decimated homeworld, teamed up, conquered the Empire, and subjugated the Terrans. The Borg Queen also puts the point of divergence that caused this alternate timeline as in the early 21st century, while the Empire dates back much older.
- Crapsack World: Picard himself referred to this version of reality as a "hellhole" and a "polluted, totalitarian nightmare." The Earth's atmosphere barely looks like it is hanging on with that security field. Alien races who are not destroyed are enslaved. And the Confederation society celebrates "Eradication Day."
- Decapitation Presentation:
- General Picard's office has the bleached skulls of his fallen enemies on display.
- Q implies that General Picard did this to Sarek on Vulcan, in full view of his unnamed wife and child.
- The Empire: Instead of the Federation, the new timeline has the Confederation of Earth, an expansionist military power which is conquering and enslaving the galaxy.
- Enemy Mine: The crew team up with the Borg Queen because she's the only person available to them who can locate the precise point of divergence and calculate a temporal slingshot with the necessary accuracy. For her part, she agrees that the Borg in the proper timeline, even in their diminished state, are a far sight better than the entire race being reduced to a torso awaiting execution.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Whatever kind of bastard the Magistrate is, he does love his wife Annika.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Our Picard is naturally horrified by General Picard's crimes.
- Evil Versus Evil:
- The Confederation of Earth is said to be involved in an ongoing war against the Dominion. Presuming that nothing else about the Dominion has changed, this is just two genocidal interstellar empires led by a tyrannical ruling species waging war against each other for dominance.
- Same goes for the Borg. As pathetic as the Queen looks reduced to half a body awaiting execution, the main timeline Borg have been the terror of the Milky Way for centuries. Picard and his crew are well aware that teaming up with her is a risky Enemy Mine at best.
- Fantastic Racism: Like the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe, the Confederation of Earth views non-humans as inferior and enslaves or destroys them.
- Follow the Chaos: How Q claims that he found Picard.Q: You see, I thought to myself, I thought, "I really must see Jean-Luc", so I simply sought out the nearest explosion.
- For Want Of A Nail: A single change in 2024 Los Angeles sent the entire history of the Federation on a much darker path.
- Gaia's Lament: As Q explains, the people of Earth in the main timeline learned to reverse the environmental damage to their world. The Confederation, on the other hand, simply papered over the problem with solar shields and other methods to sidestep the devastation rather than deal with it.
- Holiday in Cambodia: Inverted, with a sprinkle of Interchangeable Asian Cultures — the establishing shot for "Okinawa" is pretty blatantly Hong Kong, a city some 900 miles away, its more futuristic skyline standing in for the more modest, 21st century one of actual Okinawa.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Despite the vastly different timeline, Picard is still in a synthetic body. According to Q, this time around, Gul Dukat was somehow responsible for it.
- Rios's ship is still pretty much the same despite almost four centuries of alternate history.
- Irony: On Deep Space Nine, Q complained about Sisko hitting him when Picard never would.note This time, Q hits Picard.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Q namedrops "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "In a Mirror, Darkly", both episodes of Star Trek that share a similar plotline involving a look at alternate versions of the Federation.
- Mirror Universe: Not the Mirror Universe, but certainly an alternate history where our world's good guys are monsters.
- No Name Given: The crew never find out the Marshal's name and go out of their way to avoid it, which he visibly notices.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Q is unusually agitated about the situation he's put Picard in, even slapping him for being difficult. Picard acknowledges this, but isn't sure about why.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Picard is visibly revolted by General Picard's propaganda and his morning usual... Colombian roast, black.
- Precision F-Strike: When Q is being as enigmatic as usual about his motives, Picard snaps at him, "I am too old for your bullshit!"
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Q allowed Picard and the others to remember the old timeline, while the Borg Queen knows that things are different due to being able to detect quantum anomalies.
- Sanity Slippage: Picard notes that Q seems quite a bit more unstable than he used to be.
- Slave Race: What the Romulans, among other species, have been reduced to.
- Shout-Out: Q comparing Confederate Picard to Macbeth. Patrick Stewart portrayed the character in 2007, and in a 2010 film adaptation of the same performance.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Picard and the others decide to go back in time and undo whatever caused the timeline to change.
- Slashed Throat: Elnor dispatches a couple Confederation security officers this way.
- Spanner in the Works: The crew's escape plan is thwarted by Seven's husband using a Confederation override, leading into a Cliffhanger ending.
- Title Drop: Q says Picard getting sent to an alternate timeline isn't a test, but penance.
- Uncle Sam Wants You: A dark variation as a holo of General Picard assumes Uncle Sam's pose while encouraging others to be Earth's next hero.
- Wall of Weapons: General Picard has one in the study of his home.
- Wetware CPU: Picard's crew abduct the Borg Queen because her greater computational power is needed for the attempt to replicate the TOS time-travel-slingshot maneuver. Spock was simply that good when doing the math for Kirk.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: The Borg Queen states than Annika Hansen was assimilated in 2350. Annika was six years old when she was assimilated, which occurred eighteen years prior to Captain Janeway’s alliance with the Borg in 2374. That would mean that she was born c. 2350, and assimilated in 2356.
- Your Favorite: Inverted — black coffee may be the favorite of the evil General Picard, but not our tea-drinking Jean-Luc.
