Star Trek: Why Q Is Targeting Jean-Luc's Aunt, Renée Picard
Star Trek: Picard season 2 revealed that Q's time divergence is Renée Picard, the ancestor of Jean-Luc who is crucial to the Confederation's future.
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 5 - "Fly Me To The Moon"
Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) ancestor, Renée Picard (Penelope Mitchell) is Star Trek: Picard's time divergence. Q (John de Lancie) is targeting Renée, who is pivotal to the creation of the dark future that leads to the rise of the Confederation of Earth. All roads in Star Trek: Picard season 2 have led Jean-Luc and his motley crew back to Los Angeles in April 2024, where Q plots to halt Renée Picard's future as the pilot of the Europa Mission.
Renée Picard was first sighted at the end of Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 4, "Watcher." Q stalked her at the Europa Mission as she read a Dixon Hill novel, unaware of the omnipotent being incognito who planned to eliminate her from the timeline. Yet Q's powers mysteriously failed to work on Renée, who remained oblivious to the danger she is in and of her importance to Star Trek's timeline. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Picard encountered Guinan (Ito Aghayere) in 21st Century Los Angeles and the El-Aurian directed him to the Watcher, who turned out to be a Supervisor named Tallinn (Orla Brady) linked to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Assignment Earth." In yet another mystery, Tallinn is a nearly-exact doppelganger for Laris, Picard's Romulan love interest who is absent from the Confederation's future. Tallinn's assignment on Earth is to watch over Renée Picard and ensure her destiny.
However, Renée Picard, who is Jean-Luc's "great aunt," is crucial to Star Trek: Picard's future, which is why Q wants to purge her from the timeline. Renée is a genius, even by Picard's standards: she speaks multiple languages and is skilled in multiple scientific disciplines and athletic endeavors. NASA recruited her and Renée is meant to be the pilot of the Europa Mission to explore our solar system, which Jean-Luc's history records as the most important space flight of the 21st century. And yet, Renée also suffers from mental health issues and battles clinical depression, a fact Q is exploiting by posing as her therapist. Removing Renée from the timeline, or at the very least, preventing her destiny with the Europa Mission, means its failure and directly leads to the future ruled by the Confederation.
It's not yet fully known why Renée Picard's Europa Mission is the deciding factor in whether Star Trek's timeline will become either a bright and optimistic future or a xenophobic tyranny. According to Jean-Luc, history records that Renée discovers a micro-organism on Jupiter's moon Io that she believed was sentient and Picard brought it back to Earth. However, the history of Star Trek's 21st-century history is wildly incomplete and somewhat contradictory. Renée is alive in an era that saw the Eugenics Wars when she was a child in the 1990s, with World War III just four years away before Zephram Cochrane's (James Cromwell) First Contact with the Vulcans on April 5, 2063. Still, Renée tracks with Q telling Jean-Luc that the dark future's rise is tied to him because she is also a Picard.
Renée Picard is now caught in a tug-of-war between Q and Jean-Luc in Star Trek: Picard season 2. Without the full use of his superpowers, Q has been forced to recruit an accomplice, Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner). While it's unclear why Q needs a brilliant geneticist on his side, the desperate Dr. Soong is working with the cosmic trickster because Q can produce a cure for his daughter Kore (Isa Briones), who suffers from a rare and lethal genetic disease. Meanwhile, a reluctant Tallinn has joined forces with Jean-Luc and his motley crew, who are unaware that the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) has infected the mind of Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill). Renée Picard's destiny will literally decide the future in Star Trek: Picard season 2.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.