Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Absolute Candor'

6. Bad Dates

The episode begins with a de-aged Picard beaming down to the planet Vashti in the Beta Quadrant during the evacuation of Romulus, 14 years ago. Admiral Picard's rocking some distinct threads here. Yeah he looks a bit like a character out of an Indiana Jones film, but this is evocative of type of clothes in British colonial history... all he's missing is a pith helmet.

Vashti (named for the Queen of Persia in the Book of Esther, thanks Wikipedia) is an Earth colony on the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone (see TOS: "Balance of Terror") that's being used as a waypoint for the Romulan evacuation.

In these days, the colony is bustling with shuttle traffic – these are the same Starfleet shuttles we've seen throughout Picard so far, again a reuse of the 23rd century-era shuttlecraft model from Star Trek: Discovery. While the colony has a pretty Middle-earth-sih vibe, it's actually "Mexican Street" on the Universal Studios Backlot in Los Angeles.

Picard's greeting to the new Romulan colonists, "jolan tru", is used by Romulan civilians in TNG's "Unification I & II" and means "find peace" according to the non-canon Star Trek novels.

Despite Picard's clear fondness for "sisterboy" Elnor, Sister Zani tells the kid Picard "dislikes displays of emotion" and "is not overly fond of children". This is a reference to Picard's discomfort with youngsters like Wesley Crusher, something Picard explicitly tells Riker about in "Encounter at Farpoint".

Picard gives young Elnor a copy of The Three Musketeers (see TNG: "Hollow Pursuits") and teaches him how to fence, which we've seen Picard practice in the episodes "We'll Always Have Paris" and "I, Borg". But he's called away with news of the Synth attack on Mars; his communicator is apparently bluetooth capable and its alert sounds a lot like the old door chimes aboard the Enterprise-D.