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

In space, we see the La Sirena travel from the right hand side of the screen to the left, which is usually used in cinema to indicate lack of forward momentum, hmmm.

On the bridge, Doctor Jurati smalltalks with Rios to prove she's totally not a spy. Rios tells her it's a long story why the only entertainment aboard (aside from Picard hogging the holosuite to create a living room) is Klingon opera. Worf was a big Klingon opera fan and he can be seen singing (err groaning) it in TNG's "Unification II" and DS9's "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places".

Agnes also points out that Rios is a fan of paper books, which aren't as rare in the Star Trek Universe as she seems to indicate here – Picard read them consistently in TNG and Kirk can be seen reading A Tale of Two Cities in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The hospitality hologram recreates Picard's study at Château Picard on the La Sirena's holodeck, using specifications from Zhaban, though the hologram badly mispronounces his name. The EHH (because there are apparently hospitality emergencies aboard starships sometimes) tells Picard that Rios "keeps his own company", which is an explanation for why he surrounds himself with holograms that look exactly like him. It also tells us that Rios is a very literal man.

The gang gets together in Picard holo-study for an epic info dump: Vashti is located in the Qiris sector, which is now pretty sketchy. There's a power vacuum there and smugglers and warlords have risen to power.

One warlord, Kar Kantar, has an old Romulan Bird-of-Prey and he's running wild from Vashti to Daimanta. Still, the area is protected by the Fenris Rangers and Vashti itself protected by the Qowat Milat, Romulan warrior nuns. These nuns only speak truth, the antithesis of the Tal Shiar's secretive ways, but a natural extension of the Romulan rejection of Vulcan logic and stoicism.

All of that is new lore in the Star Trek Universe, but a welcome expansion of the usually pretty monolithic Romulan culture – shoulder pads and secrets.

Picard tells Rafi he wants to take his guilt trip to see Elnor on Vashti because he "may never pass this way again". Does he think his diagnosis in "Maps and Legends" is further along than previously indicated?

Rafi's line "one impossible thing at a time" is again a callback to her backstory in the Star Trek: Picard Countdown comic.