If you havenāt watched all of Picard, āAll Good Thingsā¦ā (TNG season 7 episode 25) and āEndgameā (VOY season 7 episode 25), please be advised there are major spoilers.
This may come down to a personal interpretation: did the events of āAll Good Thingsā¦ā ever exist? There is one reason I ask this: the false positive diagnosis of irumodic syndrome. The way I see it, the events of that episode are rendered non-existent.
Jean-Luc assumes prior to his death in season 1 of Picard that his illness was irumodic syndrome. However, it is never specified in that season that he has the illness. In season 3 Jack Crusher is diagnosed with it and assumed inherited. However by the end we learn it was a condition related to his time as Locutus of Borg.
In VOY, the future timeline with Admiral Janeway appears to be connected to the anti-timeline future from āAll Good Thingsā¦ā. The Admiral wearing the same uniform and badge. However the big difference is that the present day Prime Voyager is aided by future technology. We do not see the influence of Admiral Janeway get reversed, only the events of her future.
So did the events of āAll Good Thingsā¦ā actually occur or did the temporal incursion being fixed rendered it non-existent? After all, Q was testing Jean-Luc. Only Jean-Luc had memory of what happened. Sub-question: did Jean-Luc actually have a correctly diagnosed irumodic syndrome in the anti-timeline future?
EDIT: Clarified that in Endgame, I was talking about alpha quadrant Starfleet officers.
For your first question, Iād agree with others that it was a possible future that just didnāt happen in the Prime Timeline - there is a timeline out there where āAll Good Thingsā didnāt happen and so thatās the future there. It was the future until Picard saw it.
As for your second, I would say it was still a false positive. Itās just we didnāt have enough Borg shenanigans in the TNG era alt future timelines for anyone to care about the difference, combined with Jack Crusher probably never being born.
For the uniforms, my overall theory is that what we saw as the the early 2380s uniform and mid-2380s badge design process started in the mid-to-late 2370ās. The overall more peaceful nature of each of the three timelines with the alternate future uniform meant that either the TNG uniform (for āAll Good Thingsā and āThe Visitorā) or First Contact uniform (āEndgameā, for Alpha quadrant personnel) lasted into roughly the late 2380s or early 2390s. This gave more time for the concept for what would have been the prime 2380s uniform to develop before rolling out much later in about the mid 2390s, slightly changing the uniform shape and getting rid of the black area on top. This uniform design was very persistent against temporal interference, but it was no match for the timeline alterations by Voyagerās early return, which caused a faster design cycle and early rollout for what became the early 2380s uniform and Starfleet uniforms in general.
I especially see it in this comparison:
Hereās some deeper analysis if you want it, contained in spoilers to keep post length down (lots of nitpicking and rants about Klingon-Federation relations):
āAll Good Thingsā
spoiler
Without a lot of temporal interference, this uniform arises. I think we can infer by Beverly still being in Starfleet that this is a relatively peaceful timeline to, meaning that influential uniform designers have lower change of death or being gripped by despair and making DS9-style uniforms.
There is the breakdown in Klingon relations, but that seems to be a common motif (like in āThe Visitorā), and itās more of a cold war status than a Borg, Dominion, etc. kind of threat.
Otherwise, we donāt have enough information on this timeline to firmly establish events. However, I infer this might be a timeline where the Dominion War was averted (or delayed) and Martok never became chancellor, as that event was sort of like another Narendra and if it didnāt happen, a relationship deterioration with the Empire.
Evidence of this is in LD with Maāahās opinion that the Federation āearned its todujā in the Dominion War, suggesting that event swayed his opinion on the Federation and likely others. This coculd be countered by the actions of Dorg and Bargh, showing that the views arenāt universal. However, I think the relative level-headedness Barghās fellow council members suggest that the brotherās views are not a mainstream political view in the empire, at least in the 2380s.
(You could probably use STO stuff as counter to my argument, but I think the timeline of that game is motivated by a desire for a plot amenable to gameplay. Iām primarily going with alpha canon.)
As I said before, we can be certain that the āAll Good Thingsā timeline was averted by Picard being aware of it, and that all timelines after are not that timeline.
āThe Visitorā
spoiler
The fact that the uniform still pops up in this different timeline suggests that itās rather pervasive and takes a lot of temporal interference to get rid of it. Of note is the fact that it appears in 2422, 20-30 years later than either āAll Good Thingsā or āEndgameā, which might suggest this uniform becomes the 24th/25th century equivalent of the monster maroons.
Notably, Commander Nog appears with a TNG uniform and DS9 combadgeā¦ in 2389. This suggests that this timeline at least skipped First Contact, early 2380s, and mid-to-late 2380s uniforms, opting to keep the TNG uniform in for decades. This is kind of weird considering āEndgameā, which Iāll reconcile later. Anyhow, perhaps uniform designers had been toying with something like the prime early 2380s design; due to its longer time for development, when it was finally rolled out much later than prime, it manifested differently from its closest prime counterpart.
I think we can infer once again that the Dominion War was averted. For one, thereās the reasons I provided above. I also think DS9 would sort of be sacred ground for the Klingons and it would feel almost wrong to them to take it outright if the Dominion War had happened like prime. The suggestion is further made by the fact that the Federation withdrew from DS9 in 2374, which would have been during the Dominion War in the prime timeline; this never would have happened with the wartime Alpha Quadrant alliance.
Additionally, we can tell the war never happened like prime because the Defiant was never destroyed - we can tell because they needed the ship to be basically the same to replicate the accident, and it was, judging by Jadziaās nostalgic reaction in the episode. If it were the second Defiant, there would have been differences as noted in DS9ās āThe Dogs of Warā.
Thus, basing on the first two timelines, it would seem like this uniform tends to arise when there are few mysterious threats, only regular ones.
āEndgameā
spoiler
āEndgameā is unique in that it is the only timeline where the uniform appears and the Dominion War did happen, based on the chronology. What makes it weird is that this timeline did have the First Contact uniforms (for the Alpha quadrant personnel, not the Voyager crew, of course), meaning a possibly different design lineage for the future uniforms here.
To reconcile, it might be possible that in this timeline, the First Contact uniform roughly replaced what would have been the expanded life span of the TNG uniform (with error bars of a few years or so due to butterfly effect) instead of being slowly phased out in the early 2380s. Once again, the uniform concepts for what would have been the prime early 2380s uniforms were festering in the designersā heads as early as the mid-to-late 2370s and went through a similar development cycle to āThe Visitorā's timeline.
The state of Klingon relations in this episode is further evidence pointing to the role of the Dominion War in Federation-Klingon relations - BāElannaās role and influence as a Klingon liason (based on Janewayās request) as well as Janewayās initially relatively easy dealings with Korath suggest relations are in a good state in this timeline with the Dominion War.
Despite the Dominion War happening, this timeline seems like itās also somewhat peaceful (only based on vibes, not canon analysis), considering that everyone on Voyager is either still in touch or dead - if this was one of those Picard-y timelines, at least would be a moody vigilante ex-Starfleet officer in some far off corner of the quadrant where no one can contact them.
Iād also say the anti-Borg/acquired Borg technology in this timeline might give an explanation for why the other timelines are so peaceful: the more organic technological development improved Fed security in all of them.
The fact that this uniform never appears again after this timeline suggests the early return of Voyager was the final straw for this uniform. We canāt pinpoint exactly what happened, but I can think of a few different scenarios. The most likely one is something about Voyagerās early return triggered a shorter design cycle of the future uniforms, leading instead to the early 2380s uniforms. Perhaps the early introduction of Borg defense tech to the prime timeline through Voyagerās return caused a sudden leap followed by stagnation that either weakened Starfleet defenses in the long term, or Starfleet just wasnāt ready to handle this stuff in 2378. Alternatively, maybe some key designers of that uniform got butterflied into a shuttle accident, or the timeline got so depressing that they decided to pump out DS9-looking uniforms instead.
Why did you keep referring to the uniform in āEndgameā as First Contact? I ask because I feel like you are confusing the uniform from the early 2370s which appeared in First Contact. Voyager crew never wore that.
While the VOY crew themselves still wear what you mentioned, we do see their Alpha quadrant counterparts are wearing First Contact Uniforms.
Iāll revise to make it clearer who Iām talking about.
I look at it as a future that couldāve existed, but because of the way the episode played out it never came to pass.
As far as the future uniforms matching, to me it just means that uniform design wasnāt intricately tied to Picard or the Enterprise - it was just the flow that uniform was going to take on its own. However, had anyone involved in uniform design been impacted in their uniform design capacity it couldāve been different - it just wasnāt.
Regarding the future uniforms, the same uniforms appear in most portrayals of āfuture starfleetā during the TNG era, such as DS9 The Visitor. I donāt believe they are meant to indicate a connection between alternate futures beyond being the next step for Starfleet uniform designs (although the uniforms shown for a similar time period in Picard turn out to be different anyway).
Regarding your question more broadly, yes. And also no. Both, really.
Iām not sure Q recognizes or cares about the distinction between spinning up an entirely bespoke simulated reality for Picard to do his thing in, versus altering the past such that branching timelines are created and shuttling Picardās consciousness between them before ultimately closing them off. Or whatever other myriad mechanisms an omnipotent being would have for triggering the events portrayed. Nor is there any real way for us the viewer or Picard the participant to distinguish between those things. What is real, what clearly matters both to Picard and to Q, is that Picard did pass a test, and that Picard remembers those events in a way which will influence his future actions and relationships.
I didnāt bring this up before because it wasnāt relevant, but we see the āAll Good Thingsā¦ā badge in PRO, which a conversation between Admiral Janeway and Hologram Janeway confirms was a design copied from āEndgameā.
EDIT: Which is great because if Cosermart never make a AGT uniform, I can get a PRO uniform and wear it together.
Star Trek routinely alters the timeline of theorized major future events, so I would chalk it up to temporal flux.
Also, youāre forgetting the use of the uniform in The Visitor, an amazing DS9 episode.
I didnāt forget (now that you mention it). Iām blocking it. That episode is a bit difficult to watch or think of for me in recent months (loss of an immediately family member).
