Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2'

Picard puts in a call to Soji as she's (still) preparing the synth beacon. He tells Soji that he wants to sacrifice his life for the synths. This is the fulfillment of Picard's debate with Soji in "Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1" in which they weighed taking life and giving life for the greater good.

Just as Soji goes ahead and activates the beacon (which it turns out is another Avengers-style sky portal) anyway, the Federation backup Admiral Clancy dispatched in "Broken Pieces" finally arrives. Not only do a ton of starships arrive, the flagship USS Zheng He is commanded by none other than acting Captain William T. Riker. Riker previously told Picard in "Nepenthe" that he was a reserve officer, so yeah checks out that he'd be able to be here to save the day.

Riker's fleet is comprised of lots of Starfleet starships, all more or less the same design. While this is a new design, it bears a passing resemblance to the Odyssey-class starship from the Star Trek Online MMO. The Odyssey-class USS Verity also appeared in the Star Trek: Picard Countdown comics under the command of Admiral Picard during the Romulan relocation effort.

Michael Chabon has stated that the Zheng He and its nearly identical sister ships are Curiosity-class, like the USS ibn Majid from "Broken Pieces". This little detail unfortunately creates a discontinuity as Riker describes them as Starfleet's newest and most powerful ships. Since the ibn Majid was established as being in service in 2390, this would mean Starfleet's newest ships are actually (at least) 9 years old.