With the advent of newStar Trekstreaming shows cameStar Trek: Picard,a sequel series toStar Trek: The Next Generationthat focused on Patrick Stewart’s Admiral Jean-Luc Picard long afterTNGended. After first announcingPicardas anewStar Trekshowin August 2018, followed by a year of production,Star Trek: Picard’s first season dropped on Paramount+ (then CBS All Access) in January 2020. The second and third seasons ofStar Trek: Picardwere filmed back-to-back to accommodate the schedules of the cast and crew, and released in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Because Patrick Stewart and otherStar Trekactors inStar Trek: Picard’s first season had clearly aged, it could be assumed that the same amount of time had passed for the characters and the real world alike, but that wasn’t quite the case. Although18 years had passed between audiences' last contact with Captain Jean-Luc Picardin 2002’sStar Trek: Nemesisand reuniting with Admiral Picard in the 2020 premiere episode ofStar Trek: Picard,theStar Trekuniverse’s timelinemoved on at a different pace than time in the real world.
Star Trek: Picard Takes Place From 2399 To 2402
Picard Season 1 Uses Flashbacks To Fill In The Gaps Since Nemesis
Star Trek: Picardpushed theStar Trektimeline into the first years of the 25th century, taking place from 2399 to 2402. Instead of each ofStar Trek: Picard’s three seasons roughly corresponding to one year of real time,a full year — 2400 — passes betweenStar Trek: Picard’s first and second seasons. Seasons 2 and 3 ofStar Trek: Picardboth take place in 2401, and theepilogue ofStar Trek: Picardseason 3, when Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) take their son Ensign Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) to the USS Enterprise-G, happens in 2402.
As a time travel story, most ofStar Trek: Picardseason 2 actually takes place from April 12 –14, 2024, but the season’s framing device happens in 2401.
The first season ofStar Trek: Picarduses flashbacks to show the key events in the 20-year gap betweenStar Trek: Nemesis. BeforeStar Trek: Picard, the furthest point inStar Trek’s late 24th century"present"was theRomulan supernova in 2387, which was established in J.J. Abrams' Kelvin TimelineStar Trekmovies as being a major event in the Prime Timeline.Star Trek: Picarduses the Romulan supernova as a turning point in Jean-Luc Picard’s career, which leads to Picard’s resignation from Starfleet, and sets up Jean-Luc’s character arc inStar Trek: Picardseason 1.
How Long After TNG Does Picard Happen?
Star Trek: Picard Happens Almost 30 Years After TNG
Instead of the 26 years that passed in the real world since the end ofStar Trek: The Next Generation,Star Trek: Picardtacked on 3 more years, sothe events ofStar Trek: Picard’s first season happen in 2399, 29 years after the events of theStar Trek: The Next Generationseries finale, “All Good Things…“WhenStar Trek: The Next Generationstarted, Jean-Luc Picard was 59 years old and Patrick Stewart was 47, so the extra three years mean that Patrick Stewart, who was 78 whenStar Trek: Picardbegan filming, began the series playing a93-year-old Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.
12 Ways Picard Season 3 Mirrors TNG’s Finale
Star Trek: Picard season 3 shows that the Enterprise crew has fulfilled some of the prophecies of the anti-time future in Star Trek: TNG’s finale.
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s seven-season run began in 1987, and ended with theTNGfinale in 1994.Each season ofStar Trek: The Next Generationequaled one year of real time, so the events of the show that took place between 2364 and 2370 easily mapped onto the years between 1987 and 1994. That one-to-one correlation betweenStar Trektime and real-world time continued through the nextStar Trekspin-offs,Star Trek: Deep Space NineandStar Trek: Voyager, and ended with the lastTNGmovie, 2002’sStar Trek: Nemesistaking place in 2379.
How Long After TNG Movies Does Picard Happen?
Star Trek: Picard Picks Up 20 Years After Nemesis
Star Trek: Picardpicks up 20 years after theStar Trek: The Next Generationmoviesconclude chronologically, butonly 18 years after the release ofStar Trek: Nemesis. TheStar Trek: The Next Generationfilms use a one-to-one ratio of real time to in-universe time, likeStar Trek: The Next Generation,Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, andStar Trek: Voyagerdid. The fourTNGmovies that were released between 1994 and 2002 collectively take place between 2371 and 2379, and all happen while the events ofStar Trek: DS9andStar Trek: Voyagerare ongoing.
Series or Movie
1987 to 1994
2364 to 2370
Star Trek: Prodigy’s USS Protostar is found on Tars Lamora in 2366
1994
2371
1996
2373
Dominion War begins inDS9season 5;Voyagerseason 3
1998
2375
DS9season 7;Voyagerseason 5
2002
2379
One year after Voyager’s return; one year beforeStar Trek: Lower Decksseason 1
2020 to 2023
2399 to 2402
N/A
NewStar Trekshows don’t keep time in the same year-to-year way that theStar Trek: The Next Generationera series did.EachStar Trekshow takes place in its own time frame, so they can account for time however they like. Exactly how much time passes between seasons ofStar Trek: Strange New WorldsandStar Trek: Lower Decksis kept vague, especially compared to theTNGera.Star Trek: Picardtook advantage of this feature to let more time pass afterTNG, and set the stage for what could happen inStar Trek’s 25th century and beyond.
