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In-depth

Star Trek Picard Season 3 closing credits: Easter eggs, theories and more

It's elementary, dear LaForge.

Star Trek Picard Season 3 Episode 1 is out now, and while others are recapping episodes week to week, we thought we’d take a long hard look at the show’s closing credits. At least, as they are so far.

We’ve broken down all that we thought was relevant after episode 1, “The Next Generation”, so rest assured that we’re not privy to any more information than you as a viewer have after watching S3’s debut. Feel free to hit up our comments section for corrections and additions!

Update: We’ve also updated the bottom of this post having seen Episode 9, “Vox”. Spoilers follow!

  • Shrike schematic: Apart from generic LCARS, the first real thing we see during the closing credits is of Vadic’s warship of unknown origin. It sorta looks like the Borg-Romulan hybrid captained by Nero, the Narada, but surely we’re not doing timey-wimey stuff this season?
  • References to DNA: There are many, many references to DNA during the closing credits, and each is surely in response — or simply a red herring — to the lineage of Jack Crusher. Near the end, one references “Picard DNA base pairs” — maybe a paternity test is coming? It sure is interesting that Ed Speleer’s credit comes up during that very sequence…
  • Orange schematic: I’ll admit I don’t know exactly what this is, but the schematic has references to waveform accelerators. Those references? They’re in Klingon before transforming into Federation Standard. About halfway through, there’s a telltale sound of a ship cloaking or decloaking, so I’m leaning toward the schematic being one of a Klingon cloaking device.
  • Holodeck programming screen: This screen shows that Ten Forward — that is, Guinan’s LA-based bar and not the forward-facing lounge on the Enterprise-D — has been loaded onto a holodeck somewhere. Safety protocols are offline, which could mean that the whiskey really hits… or something far more sinister. Remember Picard in the holodeck during First Contact? Poor Ensign Lynch.

  • Sheet music: I was lead of my concert and jazz bands in high school… and while that was a long time ago, I think I’m still decent enough at reading music and either 1) this sheet music is written rather poorly, or 2) it’s written in a manner that means copyright doesn’t need to be a worry. From the notes shown in the 6/8 treble cref, I’m willing to bet the sheet music is an attempt to articulate “Pop Goes the Weasel”, which holds great significance. After all, it’s the song Riker and Data whistled back and forth to one another when they first met during TNG‘s Farpoint mission. Correct me if I’m wrong, musicians?

  • A head with dots orange and blue dots: To a Trek fan, this is unmistakeable as a representation of a positronic matrix. This could be in reference to Data, Lore, B4 or any Soong-produced android or synthetic… including, technically, Picard himself. We don’t talk about that much.
  • Constellation-class ship USS Constance: After a look at the Titan-A, we see a reference to the same class of ship as Picard’s first command, the USS Stargazer. While the USS Constance appeared inside the PC game Birth of the Federation, that’s likely just a coincidence. What is important — beyond the redacted information, obviously — is that the ship was lost on Stardate 44002.3, meaning it’s likely the ship was part of the Battle of Wolf 359. Locutus of Borg once again rears his ugly head.
  • Starbase: While most of the registries are blurred, a legible one reads NCC-80107. That means that particular ship could be a Luna-class vessel, made shortly after Captain William T. Riker’s first command the USS Titan, NCC-80102. For more on that ship, watch Star Trek Lower Decks… and bring a love of jazz music.
  • Fleet Museum, Athan Prime: Could this be the same museum Picard references when speaking about his former head of engineering, Geordi LaForge? Regardless, it seems to house a number of high-profile Starfleet ships including Seven of Nine’s USS Voyager (NCC-74656), the USS Pioneer (NCC-1500, previously seen in Star Trek Online, just like the confirmed Enterprise-F NCC-1701-F), Captain Hikaru Sulu’s USS Excelsior (NCC-2000) and perhaps the most famous ship of them all: Captain James T. Kirk’s USS Enterprise-A (NCC-1701-A). While we’ve heard that Picard’s own USS Enterprise-D (NCC-1701-D) makes an appearance, I couldn’t see that particular ship on this screen. Could you?
  • Myriad codec: This is the same one that Crusher used to secure her plea to then send to Picard; his well-cited confirmation code of Picard-4-7-Alpha-Tango is also displayed.

  • Captain Liam Shaw report: The redaction here starts with a particular Commander… Seven of Nine, or Annika Hansen, perhaps?
  • “Do not seek blame do not seek anger”: I’ll admit, I’m stumped. Does this ring a bell to you?
    • Update: This is seemingly just a reference to Raffi and Worf’s new (and frankly amazing) relationship.
  • Something with a wavelength: Again, no idea. Is it meant to represent the weird energy thing that attacked the Federation (stopped by Jurati-Borg and crew) at the end of season two?
    • Update: Well, we were sorta close. This imagery relates to Jack’s relationship as a receiver/transmitter for none other than the Borg.
  • Micro-neurographic scan of a brain: Same here. Any ideas, readers? It came up when Gates McFadden’s credit appeared, so maybe this is just a reference to doctor stuff (just like a red alert symbol came up with Jonathan Frakes’ credit).
    • Update: See above!

Star Trek Picard stars Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager), Michelle Hurd (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), Todd Stashwick (12 Monkeys) and Ed Speleers (Eragon) alongside Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton (all from Star Trek The Next Generation); Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction) and Daniel Davis (The Nanny) also feature. On top of all these great talents, you can also meet the bridge crew of the USS Titan-A here.

Star Trek Picard heads to Paramount Plus in the USA on 16 February; it airs on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime here in Australia the next day.


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Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.