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

This being Star Trek, Picard's not dead yet and appears in a hazy version of his Château Picard study. Agnes, Soji, and Dr. Soong have transferred Picard's consciousness into a massively complex quantum simulation which also houses the single neuron Maddox was able to harvest from B4 and reconstitute Data's memories.

A manifestation of Data asks Picard is he's wearing the clothes he died in, addressing the fact that Data is still in the same First Contact-style Starfleet uniform he was wearing when he exploded in Star Trek Nemesis 20 years ago. Apparently Data has no memory of his actual death because (as in the movie) he transferred his memory engrams to B4 prior to leaving the Enterprise-E to rescue Picard. Still, Data assures Picard that he has no remorse over sacrificing himself to save his captain. Data also tells Jean-Luc that he always knew Picard loved him, something Soji told Picard back in "Broken Pieces".

A door opens and we hear the familiar TNG door "swoosh" sound and Data tells Picard it's time to go, but he has a favor to ask. Data wants Picard to end his life in this simulation so that he can live knowing his life is finite. The android tells Picard that mortality gives meaning to life... "peace, love, friendship, these are precious because we know they cannot endure."

This is reminiscent of Data's thoughts on death in the TNG episode "Time's Arrow". In that episode Data told Geordi that knowing he would someday die was comforting because death is part of the human experience Data strove to achieve all his life: "It provides a sense of completion to my future. In a way, I am not that different from anyone else. I can now look forward to death."