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Q's Star Trek: Picard Plan, Real Mission & Future Explained
Star Trek: Picard's season 2 finale reveals Q's true intentions. What was his actual plan? Why did he create the Confederation? And what's his future?

Q is not a straightforward man, and he doesn’t have a straightforward plan – what was the enigmatic entity’s Star Trek: Picard season 2 scheme, why was each step taken, and what does the future hold? Though Q’s presence has rippled throughout the Star Trek franchise, everyone knows Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard is his favorite plaything, having first met the Enterprise-D captain during their 1987 debut. Renowned for his propensity to poke and prod Picard with time-twisting tests of human mortality, an appearance from the godlike Q is rarely welcomed by inhabitants of Star Trek‘s universe. When John de Lancie’s character returned in Star Trek: Picard season 2, therefore, Jean-Luc would’ve been internally recreating his famous “face-palm” meme.

The devilish Q plucked Picard from his natural timeline – alongside fellow main characters Rios, Seven of Nine, Raffi, Agnes Jurati, and Elnor – at the very moment the Stargazer self-destructed. The group emerged to find their timeline altered – the peaceful Federation a dictatorship called the Confederation, and Jean-Luc Picard one of its most fervent servants. Needing to set history on its rightful course, Picard’s gang traveled back to 2024, when Q created a divergence by stopping Renée Picard’s Europa flight.

Star Trek: Picard‘s season 2 finale reveals Q’s true intentions were far less villainous than his old nemesis presumed. How does each action taken by Q correspond to his ultimate aim of helping Jean-Luc?

What Was Q’s REAL Goal In Star Trek: Picard Season 2?

Jean-Luc Picard assumed Q’s latest trial was another depraved test for his own amusement. Though Picard did notice something unusual about Q’s new demeanor upon returning, the Starfleet Admiral drastically underestimated his demigod friend’s capacity for kindness. Sometime before Star Trek: Picard season 2 began, Q sensed he was dying (or as close to dying as the Q Continuum gets), and felt the painful sting of mortality for the first time. Q was especially upset by the prospect of dying alone and, predictably, turned his attentions to “Mon Capitaine” once again.

In Star Trek: Picard‘s season 2 finale, Q reveals he didn’t want Jean-Luc to die alone, but knew his synthetic friend could never experience true love while the specter of a painful childhood still lingered. Thus, Q designed Star Trek: Picard season 2’s entire scenario as an elaborate therapy session that would force Jean-Luc to confront his demons, then return to his own timeline finally ready for romance. As Picard rightfully points out, Q’s scheme also had an ulterior movie – Star Trek‘s omnipotent meddler got to spend his last moments with a person he was fond of, rather than dying alone.

Why Did Q Create Star Trek: Picard’s Confederation Timeline?

For Jean-Luc Picard to mentally process the long-gestating trauma of his mother’s death, Q needed to give Picard a shot at altering that harrowing moment. This is why Q’s lesson comes to an end as soon as Picard places the skeleton key of his family château back in its rightful place. Had Jean-Luc destroyed this relic in 2024, his future self would never release his mother from that locked room, and Yvette wouldn’t take her own life. By refusing to alter this traumatic moment, the 90-something-year-old Picard finally makes peace with his mother’s passing.

Did Q really need to create that entire Confederation dystopia just to bring Picard some emotional closure? Was there not a simpler method of laying those ghosts to rest? Probably, but this is Q we’re talking about – a time-traveling showman with a flair for the dramatic. By turning Star Trek‘s reality into the awful Confederation dystopia, Q left Picard little option but to plot a course back through time – a time before he was born, and when the skeleton key would still be hidden at the château. Picard’s glimpse of a dark alternate future was just a shove in the right direction, not Q’s endgame.

However, Q’s Confederation timeline also showed Picard how one pull on history’s thread can ruin the future. Learning this lesson ensured Picard would accept Yvette’s death as a sad but necessary step in his journey through life. That doesn’t mean Picard would’ve caused the Confederation timeline by destroying the skeleton key (the Europa mission was the crucial factor there), but removing the key could have triggered perilous ramifications of its own. Seeing Q’s Confederation helps Jean-Luc avert that conclusion.

Q Never Intended Renée Picard’s Europa Mission To Fail

There are any number of ways Star Trek‘s nearly-immortal imp could’ve ruined history – why choose one involving Picard’s own ancestor? Though Q doesn’t say so explicitly, bringing Jean-Luc and Renée Picard together represented a huge moment of healing for the loveless Admiral. Just like Yvette, Renée struggled with her mental health, and Jean-Luc notes this himself while convincing his ancestor to push forward with the Europa mission. The young Jean-Luc couldn’t help his unwell mother, but he could help Renée, and this slither of redemption may explain why Q specifically picked the Europa thread to pull.

Though the pair are divided by generations, Jean-Luc and Renée are very similar Picards. When the time-traveler implored Renée to not let inner “darkness” steal away dreams of astronaut renown, he might as well have been speaking to himself. Jean-Luc has spent decades turning away from love due to a painful childhood memory, just like Renée wants to turn away from her space adventure due to depression. Q concocted a scenario whereby Picard helped a relative overcome inner demons similar to his own.

Q’s interest in Renée Picard was purely as a therapy tool. He had no intention of actually stopping the Europa mission and, in reality, knew the fateful flight would go ahead as planned. As proof the future was never in any real danger, the Borg Queen from Star Trek: Picard season 2’s premiere was Agnes Jurati all along. The only way Agnes could be Borg-ed up before Q’s interjection is if the timeline played out exactly as it was meant to, and Picard’s trip to 2024 was already woven into history’s grand tapestry.

Why Q Asked Adam Soong For Help (& Then Helped Kore)

If Q was secretly helping Jean-Luc Picard, why blackmail Dr. Adam Soong into fighting against the Admiral? Q works in mysterious ways, and apparently doesn’t feel inclined to detail his thinking, but one possible explanation is Q’s waning power. Star Trek: Picard season 2’s “Watcher” shows Q attempting to “snap” Renée, but his magic abruptly fails. Unable to rely on his usual tricks to make Renée doubt herself, exploiting Adam Soong’s scientific ego was perhaps plan B. Another possibility is that Q needed Soong to run Picard over. Colliding with the Soongmobile sent Picard into a coma-like state where he replayed haunted maternal memories alongside Tallinn. Sharing his grief with a close friend (or someone that looked like a close friend) marked the beginning of Picard coming to terms with the past.

Less clear is why Q helped Kore, since liberating Soong’s daughter doesn’t affect Picard’s progress in any meaningful way. Perhaps Q simply had a moment of moral madness and decided to perform one more good deed before dying, or maybe freeing Kore was how Q prevented further changes to Star Trek‘s timeline. Adam Soong’s computer was filled with traces of Q, records of futuristic medicine, and flecks of Borg technology. After Q sets Kore free, she wipes Soong’s hard drive, eliminating that potentially history-changing evidence. A big fan of poetic symbolism, Q probably also got a kick out of including the ancestor of Data’s creator in his final Jean-Luc Picard trial.

Can Q Return In Star Trek: Picard Season 3?

Star Trek: Picard season 2 ends with Q expending his last dregs of power to send Jean-Luc and friends back to their own timeline, throwing in the added bonus of a revived Elnor. Is this really the end for John de Lancie in Star Trek?

No eventuality can be completely ruled out where Q is involved. Not even the godlike maestro himself knows what death will bring, meaning the Q Continuum’s version of afterlife might be considerably less “final” than everybody else’s. The ambiguity of Q’s next destination certainly leaves the door slightly ajar for a future comeback. Also worth remembering is how John de Lancie himself broke the news that Star Trek: Picard season 2 and 3 were filming back-to-back – a strong indication of Q’s presence in the third and final outing.

After such an emotive and meaningful farewell, however, Q’s future return would risk undermining the impact of Star Trek: Picard‘s season 2 finale. That final embrace with Jean-Luc Picard was lump-in-throat stuff, but loses all relevance if Q strolls into season 3 like nothing happened. Q certainly can make a comeback in Star Trek: Picard, but whether he should is an entirely different matter.