Star Trek: Picard season 2 just revealed Brent Spiner’s new Soong character… is Adam the all-important alteration Q made to Star Trek‘s history? Wherever Q materializes, timeline shenanigans usually follow, but John de Lancie’s immortal troublemaker has outdone himself in Star Trek: Picard season 2. Intervening right at the moment Jean-Luc Picard detonates the remade Stargazer during a Borg confrontation, Q has created an alternate, dystopian timeline by changing a specific moment in history. Picard and his supporting cast (that’s convenient!) find themselves trapped on an alternate Earth where the Federation has become a racist dictatorship called the Confederation, and Picard is a bloodthirsty, all-conquering military general.
The Next Generation‘s Brent Spiner pulled double-duty back in Star Trek: Picard season 1, portraying both a metaphysical echo of Data, and the latest member of the Soong family, Altan Inigo Soong. Spiner has played various Soongs – all renowned for their pioneering work in synthetic biology – and confirmed a completely different one would debut in Star Trek: Picard season 2. Although Spiner doesn’t technically appear, episode 2 subtly reveals his new Soong character – and hints he may be involved in Q’s butchering of Star Trek history.
In a long-blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment just before Picard and Seven take to the stage for Eradication Day, a holographic statue of “Adam Soong” is shown outside Confederation HQ. As if the name wasn’t proof enough, an uncanny likeness to Brent Spiner confirms Adam is the latest addition to Star Trek‘s Soong family tree, but that’s not where his cameo ends – the ethereal, detached voice spewing racially-charged propaganda into the air also belongs to Adam. Although Star Trek: Picard season 2’s “Penance” reveals little else about Adam Soong and his importance to this timeline, there are enough clues to suggest whatever piece of history Q fiddled with, Adam was right at the heart of it.
It would be an understatement of galactic proportions to say the Confederation aren’t nice people, so we can assume they don’t create celebratory holograms for any old cybernetic scientist. That means Adam Soong must’ve earned his place on the San Francisco skyline by playing a starring role in the Confederation’s formation. Although “Penance” doesn’t reveal exactly when Adam Soong was alive, the Borg Queen tracks down Q’s temporal deviation to 2024 Los Angeles, so if Brent Spiner has any hope of appearing in Star Trek: Picard season 2, Adam Soong must be active in the early 21st century. The name Adam is curious too, since it conjures images of the biblical character – the first man. This might suggest Adam Soong was the genesis of his bloodline’s interest in synthetics – the man who pushed over the domino to create Data, Lore, B4, etc.
Assuming his audio recordings haven’t been falsified, Adam Soong was apparently a massive racist, delivering horrific gems like, “A safe galaxy is a human galaxy.” This feels drastically out of step with Soongs we’ve seen previously, and their positive, progressive belief that synths and humans could coexist. Is this the detail Q switched to create his darker Star Trek timeline? Maybe in regular Trek history, Adam Soong created synths in the same spirit as his successors – with hope and optimism they would become a valued species in the galaxy. Q might’ve manipulated events so Adam Soong’s synth technology paved the way for conquest, war and tyranny instead – thus building the cornerstone of the Confederation. This theory is supported by Star Trek: Picard‘s season 2 trailer, which shows a Brent Spiner character meeting with a man who – the back of his head, at least – looks very much like Q.
If refocusing Adam Soong’s synth research is how Q created this nightmarish new timeline, that’d compliment the themes and morals explored by Star Trek: Picard season 1, in which Jean-Luc and his pals fought valiantly for synths to be recognized under Federation law. Q choosing Adam Soong as his butterfly to affect also connects to how Picard got here in the first place – the decision whether or not to show faith in the Borg.
Star Trek: Picard continues Thursdays on Paramount+.
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Author: Craig Elvy
