Picard’s Time Travel Creates A Borg Queen & Android Plot Hole

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 2 – “Penance”

Jean-Luc Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) Star Trek: Picardseason 2 plan to time travel back to 2024 Los Angeles has a couple of plot holes regarding the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) and Soji (Isa Briones). In Star Trek: Picard‘s season 2 premiere, the Borg Queen tricked Picard and nearly assimilated an entire Starfleet armada thanks to the Borg technology from the Artifact built into the new USS Stargazer. When Picard initiated the self-destruct that annihilated himself and the Starfleet and Borg vessels, he awoke to a new reality created by Q (John de Lancie) traveling back in time and rewriting Star Trek’s Prime Universe history.

The new Star Trek reality is the aftermath of Q traveling back to 2024 Los Angeles and creating a divergence in time. Instead of resulting in an alternate timeline, like what happened in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek 2009 when the destruction of the USS Kelvin created the alternate Kelvin Timeline, Q’s meddling birthed a new Prime Universe going forward. In this reality, the human race became a xenophobic and authoritarian regime, founding the Confederation of Earth to wipe out other alien species. At the dawn of the 25th century in Star Trek: Picard season 2, which is set in 2401, the Confederation is at war with Vulcan after decimating the Romulans, Cardassians, and even the Borg. The Confederation’s conquests are due to its ‘greatest hero,’ the bloodthirsty General Picard, who captained the CSS World Razer. The Confederation is ruled from San Francisco by President Annika Hansen (Jeri Ryan), who was never assimilated by the Borg to become Seven of Nine. The Confederation also captured the Borg Queen, the last of her cyborg race, and she was scheduled for public execution to mark Eradication Day.

According to the Borg Queen, who has trans-temporal awareness and remembers Star Trek’s proper Prime Universe just as Picard does, time travel is the only way to reset reality back to what it should be. Picard suggests the “slingshot effect” around the sun used by Captain James T. Kirk’s (William Shatner) Starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home to time travel to the 20th century after President Hansen and Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) note that the Confederation lacks time travel technology. But Kirk had Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) higher intelligence to calculate the time travel safely. Picard realizes his crew needs the Borg Queen’s help to perform the same function as Spock. Bizarrely, Picard and his friends seem to have forgotten they have their own android – Soji – who is missing entirely from Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 2, “Penance.”

Irrationally, neither Picard nor his crew ever mention Soji, who was last seen left behind with the Deltans on Raritan IV. Soji has the same positronic brain and abilities that her ‘father,’ Commander Data (Brent Spiner), had. Nor did anyone on Picard’s team even think to try to locate Soji. While it’s possible Soji was never built in the Confederation’s reality, Picard never attempted to verify her existence. If Picard and his friends had thought to locate Soji and elicit her help, they wouldn’t need to risk the dangers of bringing the Borg Queen aboard La Sirena. In fact, if Soji does exist in the Confederation’s reality, she likely retains her original personality and memories of the Prime Universe like Picard and the others do, so she would be keen to help. But instead of the best solution in Soji, Picard is gambling on the Borg Queen’s cooperation.

It’s also strange that the Confederation lacks time travel technology. After all, the Confederation defeated the Borg, who had the ability to time travel as seen in Star Trek: First Contact. Did the xenophobic Confederation simply choose to destroy all of the Borg technology instead of attempting to incorporate it into their own tech? If hatred of all things alien made this the case, then, in this instance, the Confederation actually proved itself smarter than the Federation, which paid the price when it used the Borg tech from the Artifact to build the USS Stargazer. Regardless, Jean-Luc and his motley crew are taking an insane chance by relying on the Borg Queen in Star Trek: Picard season 2 instead of seeking out Soji for help.

Star Trek: PicardSeason 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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