Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1'
6. Look What The Cat Dragged In
It's not just synthetic people and butterflies hanging out at Coppelius Station, there's also Spot 2. Elnor would be so stoked (see "Absolute Candor").
We've covered the history of Spot before but a quick rundown is as follows: Spot was introduced in the season four TNG episode "Data's Day" where he was played a long-haired cat. For all of Spot's other appearances (including "In Theory", "A Fistful of Datas" "Birthright, Part I", "Descent, Part II", "Phantasms", "Force of Nature", "Genesis", Star Trek Generations, and Star Trek Nemesis), the cat was a short-haired orange tabby. However, in the episode "Genesis" Spot is referred to as female and shown giving birth to kittens (for reasons), despite the fact that she had previously been established as a he.
All of this is to say, Spot 2 may actually be Spot 3 or Spot 4. That then raises the question of what exactly happened to all the other Spots, but, honestly, let's just try to ignore that.