‘Star Trek: Picard’ Timeline: From ‘Next Gen’ to J.J. Abrams’s Film, Here’s How The Series Fits In

Star Trek: Picard pushes the Star Trek franchise into the future when it comes to prestige storytelling. Instead of following a crew of do-gooders exploring the fringes of space, Star Trek: Picard follows a disillusioned Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) as he is roused out of retirement to help a young woman…who might be Data’s daughter?

Star Trek: Picard is a lot to unpack, not merely because it futzes with the storytelling conventions of Star Trek. The series also uses the supernova that destroyed Romulus (and helped create an alternate timeline) as a major cultural flashpoint for the Federation. We learn that Picard led efforts to ferry refugees away from Romulus and to safety and that an android insurrection led to draconian new rules about synthetic life forms in the Federation. Because Starfleet would not consider bending the rules and letting androids aid in the Romulan rescue mission, Picard quit.

All this leads us to ask…what happened when? What is the deal with Star Trek’s timeline — or is it timelines? When does Star Trek: Picard take place? How long ago did Data “die”? When did the Romulan supernova happen? And what does Star Trek: Picard have to do with J.J. Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek film with Chris Pine?

WHEN DOES STAR TREK: PICARD TAKE PLACE? WHAT YEAR IS STAR TREK: PICARD SET?

Star Trek: Picard takes place in the year 2399. That’s 14 years after Picard retires, 20 years after Data’s death, and almost 30 years after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION AND STAR TREK: PICARD? WHEN DID DATA DIE AND ROMULUS GET DESTROYED BY A SUPERNOVA?

Okay, okay, okay…so a lot of random dates and years get thrown around in Star Trek: Picard and it might be a little bit difficult to figure out what happened in what order in the Star Trek Prime timeline. Between an official video timeline on StarTrek.com and what we learn about the android ban in Star Trek: Picard Episode 2, we believe this is the order of major events brought up in Star Trek: Picard:

2364-2370 – The Events of Star Trek: The Next Generation
2365 – Starfleet Makes First Contact with Borg
Late 2366 – Early 2367 (circa) – Data Creates His First “Daughter,” Lal 
2369 – Data Paints the Twin Oil Paintings entitled “Daughter”
2379 – Data Sacrifices Himself and Dies in Star Trek: Nemesis
2385 – Androids Rebel on Mars, Sparking a Ban on “Synthetic” Life
2387 – Romulus Destroyed by a Supernova (Alternate Kelvin Timeline created in J.J. Abram’s Star Trek Film)
2399 – The Events of Star Trek: Picard

HOW DOES STAR TREK: PICARD TIE IN WITH THE ALTERNATE KELVIN TIMELINE IN STAR TREK (2009)

Before Star Trek: Discovery (which is a prequel set in the years before the original Star Trek, sheesh), there hadn’t been any new additions to Star Trek canon…except the film trilogy. J.J. Abrams’s 2009 film was not merely your standard reboot; it was set in a canonical alternate timeline created by the same supernova that destroyed Romulus in Picard’s 2387.

When Jean-Luc Picard heard that Romulus would soon be destroyed in a supernova, he pushed for a massive rescue effort. However, another Starfleet great, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) tried to stop the supernova altogether. He developed something called “Red Matter,” aka that red spinning ball thing, to shoot into the supernova to stop it. However, he was late, and the planet was still destroyed. His attempt to stop it, though, created a space time rift sending him and some Romulans from 2387 back in time to 2233. The Romulans, led by Eric Bana’s Nero stranded Spock on an ice planet and crossed paths with a Federation ship called the USS Kelvin. This sparked a new timeline, called the Kelvin timeline, and it’s the one with Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and the Enterprise that looks like it was made by the Apple store.

So the Romulan supernova created the Kelvin timeline, but Star Trek: Picard‘s timeline isn’t aware of this. Does that make sense? No, take it up with the Star Trek people, then.

Where to stream Star Trek: Picard