This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 2, episodes 1 & 2.
Star Trek: Picard's missing crew member Soji could be the reason time has changed. The quasi-omnipotent being who calls himself Q has long enjoyed putting Jean-Luc Picard to the test, but his actions in Star Trek: Picard season 2 have seen him take action on an even grander scale than ever before. He's literally rewritten history, altering the timeline so the Federation never existed - and instead, Earth lies at the heart of a vast warlike Confederation. Jean-Luc Picard is one of their greatest heroes, a brutal general who has orchestrated countless military victories.
According to the Borg Queen, Q has changed something in the year 2024. Somehow his actions in that year have created this horrific dystopian timeline, and Jean-Luc Picard and his crew are the only ones who know things weren't meant to be like this. They must figure out how to escape the Confederation and travel back to 2024; the trailers for Star Trek: Picard season 2 confirm Picard will find Q himself waiting for him in San Francisco in 2024.
The mystery, of course, is just how Q has changed the timeline. Fortunately, Star Trek: Picard season 2 has already hinted at Q's methods. What's more, Picard's missing crew member - whose absence hasn't even been noted by Picard and his friends - may be a major part of Q's plan.
Star Trek's time travel theories have never been especially consistent, but Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 2 dropped an important clue to the models it will be exploiting. Q referenced a classic episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Yesterday's Enterprise," in which the USS Enterprise-C was displaced in time and warped the timeline as a result. "Yesterday's Enterprise" postulated a single consistent timeline, one that could be altered by the presence or absence of new factors due to time travel. Assuming Star Trek: Picard's temporal mechanics follow the same format, it's reasonable to assume Q has changed the past by introducing something from the future into the Earth of 2024.
Star Trek: Picard season 2 may already have hinted at the explanation for these events - because one crew member is missing. The first episode was careful to remind viewers of the android Soji, who was left behind with the Deltans on Raritan IV and hasn't been mentioned since. Some viewers have complained Picard should have looked for Soji to help explore the timeline rather than go to the Borg Queen; after all, Soji possesses the same kind of positronic brain as Picard's old friend Commander Data. In reality, of course, Picard has no way of knowing whether Soji ever existed in this dystopian timeline - and if she does exist, he doesn't know whether she'd be inclined to help him. Q has deliberately protected Picard and his closest from the temporal disruption, but they have no way of knowing how many others retain memories of the original timeline. Jean-Luc is wise to assume he's found the only relics of the original timeline.
Or, rather, the only relics in this particular time period. Trailers for Star Trek: Picard season 2 have only shown a handful of shots of Soji, and it's interesting to note they were all in the 21st century. It's entirely possible Q transported her back in time to 2024, and Picard will discover Soji living in Los Angeles in the past. If that is indeed the case, her presence could be the source of the temporal disruption.
This naturally raises the question of just how Soji could change the timeline - and, specifically, how she could create such a horrific dystopian alternate timeline. She's unlikely to do so intentionally; she's a friend and ally to Jean-Luc Picard, not a xenophobic maniac who would want to create a dystopian Star Trek timeline where a human Confederation subjugated every other race in the galaxy. Frankly, Soji is more likely to attempt to accelerate the creation of the Federation rather than prevent it. Her positronic brain, and knowledge of advanced technology, means she could easily attempt to figure out patterns of human social and technological development, and try to influence them. Alternatively, she could choose to try to limit her influence on the timeline in the hopes she doesn't change anything at all.
But Soji's mere presence in the past may be enough to change history for the worse. In the original timeline, humanity believed itself alone in the universe until 2063, when Zefram Cochrane first achieved warp drive in the Phoenix. This prompted the Vulcans to initiate first contact; although they'd been monitoring Earth since at least the 1950s, Cochrane's flight proved humanity had become sufficiently advanced for the Vulcans to introduce themselves. Soji's presence in 2024 may well change everything, because if she is discovered human beings would have stumbled upon the existence of advanced synthetic life-forms decades before the Phoenix took flight. Worse still, the fact Soji does not look alien means she could easily be seen as an infiltrator, a potential agent provocateur. It's not hard to imagine a wave of paranoia sweeping through government circles in 2024 if they learned even one android was secretly living among the people of Los Angeles.
That could well have been all it takes to change the timeline. The discovery of Soji could lead to a more paranoid, insular human civilization, one who looked at the stars not with wonder but rather with suspicion. Presumably, Zefram Cochrane's first flight would take place, but under different circumstances, and any Vulcans who arrived after the Phoenix had landed would be treated very differently. Minor changes in this crucial stage of human development could easily cause Earth to become a force for evil in the galaxy, not for good, ultimately leading to the creation of the Confederation already seen in Star Trek: Picard's brutal alternate timeline.
If this is indeed the case, then Jean-Luc Picard will face a difficult challenge when he arrives in 2024. He'll be arriving at the point of disruption, rather than the moment Soji was introduced to the twenty-first century. It will take a lot of wisdom, and even some potential allies, to put matters right and allow Star Trek: Picard's dystopia to be written out of history.
New episodes of Star Trek: Picard air Thursdays on Paramount+
