Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Nepenthe'
19. Stock Footage Vision
During the mind meld, Commodore Oh shows Agnes a terrifying vision of the future.
There are glimpses of Oh dressed in a spooky cloak, a circle of Romulans, Romulans clawing at their faces, and Romulans straight up shooting themselves in the head. Are these Romulans discovering the secret "so profound and terrible, just learning it can break a person’s mind" that Laris mentioned in "Maps and Legends"? Is this the formation of the Conclave of Eight (mentioned in "Stardust City Rag"), with a few members being calved off due to the aforementioned face clawing and suicide-ing?
These violent images are intercut with shots of cities being destroyed and Earth exploding in space. This must be Gandmadan, the Day of Annhilation which Ramdha mentioned in "Absolute Candor".
By the way, those shots of Earth exploding seem to be pulled directly from the second season Star Trek: Discovery episode "If Memory Serves". In that episode, a mind meld between the Red Angel and Spock forertells a galaxy-wide apocalypse brought on by the artificial intelligence called Control.
This may just be a case of reusing a quick shot from a previous episode (Star Trek is notorious for its use of stock footage), but given the thematic ties between Star Trek: Discovery's second season arc and Star Trek: Picard's prophecy of doom at the hands of artificial life, there may be more to it.