Star Trek: 10 Ways The Romulan Supernova Impacted The Multiverse

Mars was still burning in 2399, some 14 years after a flame had been lit in the stratosphere. On First Contact Day in 2385, the celebrations stopped suddenly when a group of synthetics went rogue and attacked. Defence satellites turned inwards while synth ships bombarded the surface and opened fire in orbit. The Martian colonies were destroyed; the Utopia Planitia Shipyards were reduced to cinders; the entire evacuation fleet and 10,000 other vessels of all kinds (in various stages of construction) were, in a word, "gone". Blood ran in all colours on the Red Planet on 5th April. 92,143 lives had been lost.

"Fatal code error in the operating system" was the official line, although there were those who begged to differ, proven right with a decade-and-a-half's interval. The synth attack was, in fact, the un-handiwork of the Zhat Vash, an even more secretive part of the Tal Shiar, under the aegis of (Commodore) Oh, the Romulan/Vulcan spy who crawled her way in and up to director of Starfleet Security.

By their Martian apocalypse, the Zhat Vash had wrought Ganmadan on their own planet, condemning millions upon millions (perhaps more) of their fellow Romulans to death. That mattered little, however, so long as they could pursue their quest to eliminate all synthetic life in the galaxy. In that, "assum[ing] the port of Mars" was merely the prologue to Star Trek: Picard's first season play.