With Jean-Luc Picard and his crew in a race against time to save the future in the Star Trek: Picard Season 2 finale, fans can see the former Starfleet Admiral and Enterprise Captain still faced with new epiphanies and realizations that will shake not just his core but also the paths of his companions in the Star Trek show. And for newcomers wondering what it took for a retired Admiral Picard to once again chart the stars in his own Star Trek series, it may help to take a step back into some of his adventures.
Interestingly enough, a lot of Jean-Luc’s more compelling adventures didn’t solely happen in The Next Generation. In fact, a lot of material outside the main show - from films, to novels, to comic books - has shown Picard undertaking quite a lot of adventures that added a lot of excitement to his life.
7 The Unexpected Retirement
Before getting into Picard’s adventures after The Next Generation, it may help for a quick summary of what’s happened at the very end of the series. In the two-part “All Good Things” series finale, Picard discovers he’s been jumping on and off three time periods after the Enterprise discovered a temporal anomaly.
One of those prominent time periods was 2395, close to the 2399 setting of Picard, where Picard retired to France while managing a vineyard. It doesn’t help that he experiences these anomalies while having Irumodic Syndrome, a sickness similar to Alzheimer's, which hinted to viewers that the anomaly may have been in Picard’s head all along.
6 Saving Humanity, Three Times, All At Once
With help from now-captain-and-ex-wife Beverly Crusher, Cambridge professor Data, and Geordi, Picard realizes that he himself caused the temporal anomaly all along. Not only that, but this temporal anomaly in both the past, present, and future would cause humanity’s doom.
Worse, Q himself reappears and tells Picard this is all part of his “test” to prove humanity’s worthiness to exist. Somehow, the Enterprise’s first encounter with Q and his “test” never actually stopped in the series premiere. Once again, Q wants Picard to prove that humanity deserves to continue its existence, something Picard manages to do so by stopping the temporal anomaly.
5 Meeting James T. Kirk
Fans of the series would be delighted by the fact that Picard actually met James T. Kirk, the legendary first Captain of the USS Enterprise, himself. In the events of Star Trek Generations, it was believed that Captain Kirk died after he disappeared into a mysterious energy ribbon during a rescue mission in 2293.
However, a recurrence of the same events in 2371 had Picard unravel the truth: Kirk was stuck in what’s known as the Nexus, an extradimensional realm where spacetime has no meaning. After meeting and sharing a meal with Captain Kirk, the two Captains exit the Nexus to stop Dr. Tolian Soran from using the ribbon to destroy the Veridian system. Unfortunately, these events cost the life of Captain Kirk and the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D.
4 Witness Humanity’s First Contact
Throughout the events of the film Star Trek: First Contact, Picard found himself continuously haunted by his previous assimilation into the Borg Collective as its Locutus. And when his crew answers a distress call to defend Federation space from a Borg Cube, they fail to defend Earth from being “transformed” into a Borg territory.
Realizing this was the Borg tampering with history, Picard and the Federation crew of the newly-revealed USS Enterprise-E managed to travel back in time and intercept the Collective. Throughout these events, they’ve managed to destroy the current Borg Queen, save warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane, and witness humanity’s first contact with aliens in the form of the Vulcans.
3 Protecting The Fountain Of Youth
Picard and the Enterprise remained active during the events of the Dominion War. When Lieutenant Commander Data seems to malfunction and become aggressive on the Ba’ku planet in 2375, Picard orders the Enterprise to descend and reacquire the android. In the process, Picard and his crew discovered the simple life of the Ba’ku and their access to what seems to be a “fountain of youth” that grants them prolonged youthfulness.
Unfortunately for Picard, he uncovers a plot of Admiral Dougherty and some unsavory factions in the Federation Council to forcefully relocate the Ba’ku to exploit this rejuvenation technology. Picard begins an insurrection and manages to inform the public of the Admiral’s plans and save the Ba’ku.
2 Stopping The Romulan Coup
Picard remained in command of the Enterprise throughout the following years, with yet another highlight in 2379 when he and his crew were sent to Romulus in the aftermath of a coup by Praetor Shinzon. Tensions were at an all-time high when Shinzon, a powerful leader who rose to prominence during the Dominion War, had eliminated the Romulan Senate with plans to do the same to Earth.
It’s soon revealed that Shinzon is actually dying due to his nature as an imperfect Picard clone. He was originally created by the Romulans to act as a spy inside the Federation but his project was halted in light of its potential to start a war. He was left to Remus to die, only for Shinzon to become more tenacious. In an epic battle, Picard himself boarded Shinzon’s ship called the Scimitar, killed his clone, and destroyed the ship.
1 The Destruction Of Romulus
One of the most pivotal moments in the Star Trek universe was the destruction of Romulus in the 2009 film. In it, an aging Spock tried to inject experimental red matter into the star to force it to implode but was caught in the supernova blast. With Romulus destroyed but the supernova still a threat to both the star system and the galaxy, Spock released the red matter and transformed it into a black hole.
This course of events sent Spock and other parties years into the past, back before Kirk became the captain of the Enterprise. Fans who might be wondering why Spock was doing this all alone got an answer in Picard: turns out, he wasn’t supposed to be! Thanks to Picard being a vocal pro-Romulan, he managed to convince the Federation to give Romulus support in evacuation. Unfortunately, the synth attack on Mars prompted the Federation to redirect its efforts, leading to the destruction of the planet.