Picard Season 3 Episode 7 Easter Eggs: Star Trek Reveals Truth About the Changelings

This Star Trek: Picard article contains spoilers.

After the easter egg bonanza of “The Bounty,” it’s time for Picard to dial it back in the callback department. But while the latest episode, “Dominion,” doesn’t have nearly as many references to the past as last week’s episode, almost all of these nods push the plot forward. Picard season 3 is entering the final phase of its massive story and “Dominion” raises the stakes in huge ways. 

Here are all the best easter eggs, shout-outs, and references we found in the episode…

Chin’toka Scrapyard

The episode opens with the Titan hiding in the Chin’toka Scrapyard. This means we’re back in the Chin’toka system, which first appeared in Deep Space Nine. This system was featured in several DS9 episodes, such as “Tears of the Prophets” and “The Siege of AR-558.” The Breen and the Dominion blew away Starfleet in this system in “The Changing Face of Evil,” which is why there’s such a massive scrapyard here in Picard.

Tim Russ as Captain Tuvok

Seven grills a person who she hopes is Tuvok at the top of the episode. This is Tim Russ’ first live action appearance in Star Trek canon since the conclusion of Voyager in 1999. (Although Russ has done many Trek fan films since then and Tuvok appeared briefly in an episode of Lower Decks). In the alternate future that Captain Janeway experienced, in the Voyager finale “Endgame,” Tuvok suffered from a degenerative neurological disease, which doesn’t appear to be a problem in this timeline, even though this isn’t really Tuvok, but instead, a Changeling pretending to be him.

Read more about Tuvok here.

Kal-Toh and Kolinahr

Seven mentions her games of Kal-Toh with Tuvok on the USS Voyager, which references the Vulcan game from that show, as well as the life-saving mind-meld that Tuvok performed in the episode “Infinite Regress.” Seven also mentions “anti-Kolinahr demonstrations,” which reference the Vulcan practice of shedding all emotions, called Kolinahr, first shown in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Data Remembers the Scimitar 

When Data is reawakened on the Titan, he wonders why he’s not on the Scimitar. This was the name of Shinzon’s warship in Nemesis. This version of Data’s memories stops at that point, in 2379, about 22 years before this point in 2401.

Lore Was Deactivated 

Picard assumes that Lore must have been deactivated at some point in the past. This references the TNG episode “Descent Part 2,” where Data himself did deactivate his brother following a violent incident in which Lore tried to brainwash Data and lead a bunch of rogue Borg on missions of mayhem. Geordi tells Picard that it turns out that Lore’s memory was “archived” at some point after TNG.

Data’s Death Wish

Picard says, “Years ago, Data asked me to let him go, to die in peace.” This references the finale of Picard season 1, in which a different version of Data’s memories — one that had lived without a body in a quantum simulation for almost two decades — asked Picard to deactivate his program. Essentially, the point of divergence between that Data and this one is 2379: The season 1 Data was put into a quantum simulation. This copy of Data’s memory comes straight from B-4, and thus, has not experienced the passage of time at all.

Classic Tricorder Ping 

When Vadic boards the Titan, her tricorder makes a ping sound exactly like the tricorders from The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. Seems like these rogue Changelings are using retro tech?

How the Changelings Got the Cure for the Morphogenic virus 

In Deep Space Nine, Section 31 created a virus to kill Changelings specifically, but in the episode “Extreme Measures,” Bashir found the cure. Vadic points out that Starfleet did not deliver the cure to the Great Link themselves, but rather “one of our own” had to bring it to them. This references the fact that Odo brought the cure to the Great Link in “What You Leave Behind.”

Project Proteus: Vadic Was Created by Section 31

We learn that Vadic and the other rogue Changelings were prisoners of war during the Dominion War and were tortured by scientists on Daystrom Station as part of the grisly “Project Proteus.” In fact, it was Section 31’s cruel experiments that forced their mutation into the kinds of shapeshifters they are now.

This means that Vadic and her kind were on Daystrom Station during the events of Deep Space Nine, in the years of the Dominion War, sometime between 2373 and 2375. The origin story Vadic shared with Jean-Luc and Beverly, in a sense, is the first time in a very long time that a new live-action Star Trek series has technically had a flashback that takes place in the DS9–era.

“Are you prepared to lose another son?”

Vadic taunts Beverly Crusher with the idea that Jack Crusher might die: “Are you prepared to lose another son?” This references the fact that Welsey Crusher ditched everyone in the present to go traveling through all of space and time with the Traveler in TNG’s “Journey’s End.” We saw Wesley again in the finale of Picard season 2, as one of the Travelers, which Wil Wheaton has gone on record saying are like the Trek version of Time Lords from Doctor Who.

Geordi Is Data’s Best Friend

Geordi says that Data made him “a better man, a better father” and “a better friend.” Although Data often identified Geordi as his “best friend,” in episodes like “Data’s Day,” Geordi never exactly said Data was his best friend. But, it seems that after Data died, Geordi realized that Data was his BFF. This heartfelt speech from LeVar Burton reveals new layers to one of the greatest bromances in all of Star Trek. Although Data wasn’t human and didn’t have emotions yet, he was able to say Geordi was his best friend. And now, over 20 years later, Geordi is just able to bring himself to admit that he felt the same way.