It was exactly four weeks ago that CBS officially announced they were developing a new Star Trek series that will have Sir Patrick Stewart reprise his Star Trek: The Next Generation role of Jean-Luc Picard. Not a lot is known about the show, except that it will be set 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis, which sets it just at the end of the 24th century.
At Star Trek Las Vegas, Stewart noted it was still early and there were still no scripts written for the show, at least as of four weeks ago. We do know that the show’s creative team includes Pulitzer-Prize winning author Michael Chabon as one of the executive producers. Chabon also wrote one of the upcoming Star Trek: Short Treks. A few weeks ago Chabon took to Instagram to share a photo of him on the bridge of the USS Discovery and to reveal a little bit about his Short Treks episode “Calypso.”
UPDATE: Chabon clarifies sketch
Some point after initially posting the sketch Chabon edited his Instagram post with context that the sketch is not a hint of what’s to come. It was a rough sketch of the state of the galaxy at the end of Star Trek: Voyager (which effectively also includes Nemesis). His added note says:
Note to deep exegetes and wild speculators: this map represents only (and very roughly!) the status quo at the close of Voyager, the latest-set, as you know, of all the pre-existing tv series, and was executed purely as a visual aid for the edification of Professor Beyer’s colleagues.
Chabon shares Beyer’s galactic sketch
Now Chabon has done it again, this time revealing a sketch from the writers’ room of what he describes as the “Untitled Picard Project.” While it isn’t a lot to go on, it does show that progress is being made and there is a writers’ room that includes Star Trek: Discovery writer Kirsten Beyer, who came up with the idea to do a Picard show.
In a post on Instagram, Chabon reveals a sketch of the Star Trek galaxy saying “Supreme Guardian of All #Trek Canon (and beloved colleague) #kirstenbeyer dropped some cosmographical science on the #untitledpicardproject writers’ room today. (Yes, I am having #somuchfun.)”
Setting the stage for Picard’s entrance
Star Trek fans should recognize that what Beyer drew out for Chabon is a sketch of the galaxy, as seen in Star Trek’s 24th century. The lines demark the four quadrants with A, B, G, and D indicating Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. The major players in galactic politics are identified, notably the Dominion (in the Gamma Quadrant), the Borg (in Delta), the Cardasssians in the Alpha Quadrant, the Klingons in the Beta Quadrant and the Federation in both Alpha and Beta. There is also an area indicated in the Beta Quadrant with a strong line, which may indicate the Romulan Star Empire and neutral zone.
Even though the “cosmographical science” sketch is crude, key features of the galaxy are identified, including Earth, Vulcan, The Bajor wormhole that jumps to the Gamma Quadrant and the Borg transwarp network in the Delta Quadrant, with one node linked to Earth (as seen in the Star Trek: Voyager finale). You can see some of the same features in this official Star Trek galactic map.
Just be a map and let history make its own judgments
As our article noted earlier this week on questions we have about this Picard show, the question about state of the galaxy 20 years after Nemesis is an important one. Of course one shouldn’t read too much into this. As Chabon noted in a reply to a fan on Instagram, “Sometimes a map is only a map.” However, it does show that the team is thinking about the galactic setting for the show, and of course, any little morsel about the Picard show is always something for fans eager to find out more.
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I’m not reading too much into a doodle, but it definitely stoked my excitement for a show revisiting this setting.
I hope they approach this “traditional” map with careful skepticism. It’s based on what was shown in Star Trek so far, but it’s not like we’ve seen all of the galaxy. The Dominion surely doesn’t occupy the entire Gamma Quadrant, and they might not actually be the most powerful empire there. There’s plenty of room to insert more political entities. On top of that, things might have changed in those 20 years. Plus the fact that space is 3-dimensional (which I think is a natural explanation for why the different places seem to all be so close to each other, based on all the stories).
I think there should definitely be more quadrants that are not explored by the Federation, perhaps they can start exploring some of those in the Picard show.
There are only four quadrants :-P
Well, then if they explore other galaxies, perhaps they can have more quadrants there, I don’t think space is just limited to four quadrants, we need to go exploring what is outside these quadrants.
@alphantrion You appear confused. They took the galaxy and divided it into four, hence the quad-rants. Quad = 4 *faceplam
I see what you did there ;)
You win the internet.
Our galaxy is fairly flat, so it’s understandable it’s represented in 2D
Where most of Star Trek’s action has been going on, the “disc” portion here in the Orion Arm, is about 2000 lightyears “top” to “bottom”.
(Subject to correction by better-informed people.)
I love Star Trek. I hate hashtags.
How soon into the new series will Picard stand at the edge of a window, gaze wistfully at a starfield and quote Shakespeare?
Ditto on the hashtags. Especially when they’re meaningless, as at least some are here.
“What a piece of work is a man.”
Was that the subtitle for PLAYGIRL magazine?
LOL, or Herman Melville…
#agreeonthehastags
FYI, Michael was poking fun at the excessive use of hashtags.
Is the blob on the right the Romulans and the dark line the Neutral Zone?
Most likely. That does look like Romulus / Remus paired up.
Just me or does the ‘limit of explored space’ look a lot like the outline of Moonbase Alpha?
@Fred Javelina — I love SPACE: 1999 and I think it’s just you. ;-)
Wouldn’t Romulus have been destroyed by now?
According to the near-canonical Countdown, significant elements of the Empire remained. The fleet was still out there.
@Fred Javelina – Although it’s not “a lot” like Moonbase Alpha, the shape of explored space does remind me of the sprawl of Alpha’s layout. Ah, now THAT is a show that could do with a reboot!
Geoffrey Mandel was one of the people who worked on the Moonbase Alpha Technical Notebook for Starlog Press back in the 1970’s. His history in fandom graphic design for science fiction is extensive.
Writers’ room? Wonder when they start filming?
If this is also shot in Canada, they may shoot in between Discovery seasons to reuse the studio space and crew.
I doubt that Torontonians will complain overmuch about this.
If we add in the missing piece of this map from R2D2, Picard will be able to find Luke Skywalker.
Not everything has to be a joke nor do people need to be witty all the time. Stop it.
Yes, dammit.
Television shows where people zip around the galaxy in spandex unitards meeting other people covered in latex who are pretending to be aliens is VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS.
Anyone who cracks a joke at this fragile moment in series development is probably unpatriotic and/or working for Putin to undermine freedom, or french fries, or both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02LgdXVkXgM
Well said!
Why are you yearning for Picard Trek to become yet another creatively bankrupt Marvel action comedy? The only Trek ever worth watching was when it took itself seriously.
If one is witty only half the time, does that make one a half-wit?
I’ll take that as a half-baked complement. ;-)
I bet you’re fun at parties.
@A Adam
Maybe instead I will show zero wit and make unwarranted personal attacks like you just did?
Wait, no, I won’t be doing that. LOL
@A Adam:
Herbert.
I bet you’re fun at parties…
I doubt Picard will hide on an island for thirty years as a coward who wants to die. Then Patrick Stewart would he say he was playing Jake Picard.
He wasn’t on the island for 30 years. Nor was he a coward. His idealism was broken – Gosh, he accidentally helped the First Order rise. You might want to avoid causing more trouble if you’d done that too.
No
That was in a galaxy far far away, not our galaxy.
You missed an important detail, that looks like it was erased. The transwarp network has a node erased in the center with the branch leading to Earth. This would account for the Voyager finale, and actually gives us insight in to the conversation the writers were having with this map.
That’s an excellent observation.
Considering that the Cardassians ended up being pummeled into near extinction by the Federation, the Klingons, and the Dominion, I doubt that they would occupy an equal amount of space as the Federation. They more than likely would have shrunk to a much smaller presence, especially as the many worlds they had conquered and occupied (before they allied themselves with the Dominion) returned to an independent state.
I’m not sure how the (non-canon) novelverse handled post-war Cardassia, but I always envisioned Cardassian territory being partitioned for a time like Allied-occupied Germany after WW2. Lots of story potential there as the Federation Alliance would likely fray absent the Dominion threat.
I would imagine that the Dominion has been influenced by Odo and there hasn’t been any activity from them in 20 years. Maybe Odo’s influence has produced a Dominion-Federation Alliance? The Cardasians lost 80 million people in the war.They may be docile now. I wonder what the Bajorans are like now. Maybe they have grown into an empire. Did Janeway finally get rid of the Borg? As for the Romulans, I would imagine that whatever is left of the Empire is scattered throughout the Beta Quadrant. I wonder if the demise of the Romulans has led to a more aggressive Klingon Empire? I would imagine that they have recovered from the Dominion War. I hope the show explores what the Next Gen universe looks like 20 years later. I really want to know what that world looks like. Maybe they will bring Ben Sisko back for a cameo? I hope Worf is Chancellor of the High Council. It will be interesting to see how they do this. What I would not give to write for that show. I bet its going to be dope.
As much as I’m enjoying Discovery (which is a lot), I’m also enjoying the kind of speculation we can have with a show set after the known history (mostly) of the Star Trek universe.
Did the novels ever get to this time period (20 years after Nemesis)?
None of the relaunch novels (TNG, DS9, VOY) have gotten any further than seven years (2286) past Nemesis (2279). The background to the 2009 movie takes place eight years after Nemesis (2287). The “current year” counting from then is 2294 or 2295. (The TNG finale was 2295.) This series is supposed to be set around 2299.
Whoops, change every “22” to “23” there.
This what excites me, seeing where the galaxy is at this moment since so much of it was left in disarray by the end of the Dominion war. If they do add Romulus being destroyed (which I think they will even if not necessarily build a story around it) that will already add to a very changed alpha quadrant. The Federation could be on top with so many of its enemies down for the count or it could be a time of crisis as the effects of some of these issues has added more worry if other groups has aligned with other.
It’s interesting you mentioned the Borg because I think most people assumed Janeway wiped them all out but I have a feeling it wasn’t that easy. I’m not going to over analyze a doodle on a piece of paper but the fact they were added there probably suggest they are indeed still around in the Delta quadrant.
But this is why fans are excited, they can go any direction they want now. Canon is wide open to them and it will be interesting to see how they go with all of this.
I do hope they just flat out ignore Worf’s throwaway line in Nemesis about dropping out of politics and he is indeed still some sort of diplomat or politician in the Empire as predicted in the Q-future.
He can always just go back into politics as well Eric. In 20 years people can change their mind over and over again. That’s why going forward is just easier. You can change whatever you want as Nemesis itself did changing Worf status after he decided it in DS9.
I think the casualty count on Cardassia was 800 million?
LOL this got me so excited! Just seeing that doodle and all the possibilities they can explore! Would love it if we got Cardassians again in the show.
The 24th century is coming back!!!!!!
I count seven big dots in the Delta Quadrant. Didn’t the season two Discovery trailer mention something about seven objects they were going to investigate, or am I misremembering that? (And yes, I realize this doodle is for the Picard show, but it’s still interesting.)
I just rewatched the trailer. Yeah, Pike says they’ve detected seven of these things spread across 30,000 light years.
So… are the seven dots in the doodle a coincidence or have they let something slip here? Is Discovery jumping to the Delta Quadrant?
Wild speculation, I know, but again… it’s an interesting detail.
Has anyone here ever read Kirsten Beyer’s Voyager novels? I know they actually take place post-Nemesis as well and they are supposedly really good. But since she was the one who came up with the Picard show idea and will be producing the show I do wonder if she is going to draw on some of those elements from her books to add to it?
And she is an admitted Janeway fangirl (obviously lol) so while it’s a long shot, I wouldn’t be surprised if Janeway showed up for an appearance somewhere. If they can get Mulgrew to do it of course.
I bought Beyer’s Voyager novel “Architects of Infinity” after she was announced as part of the DSC writing team. I couldn’t get past the prologue and first chapter, but to be fair, I’m like that with most Trek novels published in the last 25 years or so.
Once I saw the wretched tripe that passes as “writing” on DSC, I lost any interest in what Beyer or others involved had written.
LOL, harsh! ;D
Discovery isn’t your bag of tea, got it!
But everyone seems to praise Beyer’s work a lot, especially those novels. I did like the episode she wrote for Discovery. They probably praised it a bit TOO much lol but it was decent. And I liked it because it was the only story the characters actually beamed somewhere and met new aliens. It’s crazy that was something unique for a Trek show, but it was for Discovery at least.
But outside of that episode and my guess whatever she contributes to the show as a whole, I don’t know anything about her writing.
But I do have a feeling she probably feels way more at home writing 24th century stories because that was her entire career before. Reading just the summery of her novels she clearly has created a complete new mythology around Voyager and characters in both the Alpha and Delta quadrant. And she uses a lot of famous characters like Q, the Borg (obviously), Krenim (the race responsible for Year of Hell), etc. And every major past Voyager character from 7 of 9 to Naomi Wildman seems to be represented. She wrote 12 of those novels. I thought it was only 3-4, so she has basically created an entire new canon for both Voyager and the 24th century in general which is kind of wasting away on Discovery.
It’s not a shock now why she pitched the Picard show and producing it.
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to bash DSC so much as explain how my bias affected my reaction to Beyer’s novel, but it came out as just more DSC griping. Ugh.
I agree that her episode was better than total garbage. (See, I can be nice about the show! haha) It felt like they suddenly remembered they were doing a Star Trek show and let her do her thing.
As for the novels, she’s clearly popular with enough fans to warrant a read. As I said, my reaction to Trek novels is generally negative–I haven’t enjoyed one since the 90s–so Beyer’s writing might be great but just, as you said, not my cup of tea.
I think you’re right about the Picard show and Beyer. Seems like it will play to her strengths, which I don’t think DSC has done.
No I understood your point PaulB. I wasn’t the slightest offended!
And that’s actually why I brought it up because for me I ONLY have Discovery to judge her work on and beside one episode she’s credited for it’s hard to say how I feel about her since I too have a lot of problems with Discovery although I do like it. But if I judge it by that alone, then yeah I am a bit cautious too.
But yes I think (or hope) all the great things I hear about those novels will translate in the Picard show. That seems to be where her wheelhouse is. She has spent her entire career thinking about the 24th century and the direction it’s going. I’m sure she loves working on Discovery but my guess is her passion will be the Picard show and HOPEFULLY that will turn out better from the onset with having a veteran Trek writer producing it and one who understands this era of the franchise well. And she has TONS of material to mine so they can go BIG. And judging by the plot summary’s in her books, she seem to do that often.
Agree 100%. Then again, I usually do. You’re one of the most pleasant posters here. Carry on, I say!
THANK YOU Denny C, I appreciate that! :)
We come here because we love Star Trek. I love discussing what I love about it and I love discussing what I hate about it! But it’s still all out of love for the franchise! We can acknowledge that and have a good time discussing it even if we don’t agree on all of it. Thankfully there are more people here that feels that way too.
And she REALLY knows the entire TNG era. She’s perfect for this job. I’m glad they brought her on to work on this thing.
Yeah WHY I am so excited! The problem with Discovery is the show runners didn’t really seem all that interested in the era they were actually telling. End of the day it was Fuller’s idea and passion, not theirs. They would’ve wrote whatever period he set it in. They didn’t do an awful, but it was lacking for a better term. Same issue Enterprise had although I think it did a better job with presenting the 22nd century at least than DIS and the 23rd.
But in THIS case we have someone who is both very knowledgeable and passionate about the TNG era and why I’m just more hopeful we will get a better show out of it. :)
If you’re bringing back the TNG era then you have to make the Klingons look like Klingons, like Worf, not the Kelvin timeline Klingons.
They already said the Klingons will be changed in Discovery second season. We don’t know what they will look like yet but a lot of people suspect they will look a bit closer to the classic Klingons to stay within TNG canon for the Picard show.
But that’s just speculation for now.
Yep.
Save Worf!
The Star Trek Online game is actually considered canon by CBS, and they have a very very fleshed out map in game, that should be used in this show.
Heck, just use the game to make the series! J/K
STO is not canon. It is a licensed product which CBS supports, so it is an official Star Trek product, but it is not considered canon by CBS or anyone official.
STO is not considered canon at all.
It’s not considered canon.
He has j/k. I think he was kidding about it being canon.
It’s clear that the “J/K” applies to the idea of using the game to make the show. “The game is considered canon, J/K” doesn’t make any kinds of sense. “Use the game to make the show…J/K” makes sense.
So lovely to hear from Michael.
If you think about it, in 20 years the federation should habe mastered transwarp, Voyager was on the verge a couple of times so it makes sense. I just don’t want them to go to big to fast, like in Stargate, at one poit there were almost no limits to where they could go with the help of a zero point module.
We’re watching a show right now where a ship can teleport itself anywhere in the galaxy in seconds and that was created a hundred years before Voyager. ;)
Starfleet already had a very advance system beyond even the transwap conduits. They could just classify the tech like I’m guessing the spore drive will end up as well. Or maybe the new show can connect the mycelial network with how transwarp works?
I hope the new show uses nothing from Discovery that has broken existing canon preceded it.
Oh you can bet it will. It’s won’t orphan Discovery. That would be like admitting defeat.
I feel that way too El Chup. And exactly why I think its possible they may do a crossover with Picard show. Now it probably WON’t ever happen but I suspect everything is on the table for now at least. More than likely the show will just stay in it’s own lane.
But I’m more than sure they will reference stuff from Discovery to make the franchise feel more complete and to make Discovery feel more in canon. And I DON’T mean DIS isn’t canon obviously but what I mean is since prequels rarely get referenced in the rest of the franchise because they came after wards they feel more isolated. This is how Enterprise felt a long time for me but oddly enough the existence of the Kelvin movies and Discovery has made it feel more part of the franchise just by simply referencing it and even using some of it’s back story for their stories. I geek out every time I hear Archer’s name. Weird but true lol.
I’m pretty sure the Picard show will definitely throw out Discovery names and references just like Discovery has done for Enterprise.
Yeah, classified. It could become an Unacknowledged Special Access Project (USAP, like what Dr. Greer talks about in his documentary “Unacknowledged”) of a rogue, criminal faction of the broad, overly compartmentalized, Intelligence Community, perhaps in league with some Orion CrimeLords? Hmmm…I still prefer the idea in Mr. Krapf’s book “Contact Has Already Begun”, where the first humanoids getting into space, billions of years ago, were always peaceful,and so they advanced rapidly, teaming up with other like-minded, peace-loving humanoids (which is the norm; we being somewhat perverse in our war-making), to prevail throughout the entire Universe, ensuring that only peace-loving humanoids would make it into interstellar space, and infiltrating these warlike humanoid societies to help them clean up their act, hopefully preventing their own, total self-destruction, laying helpful inventions along the way and preventing their “weaponization”. It is actually supposed to be a true story, and Steven Greer has bumped into it, from another direction.
You can bet they’ll recycle The Borg due to their significance for Picard.
If that’s a factor, then Q. should be a semi-regular. I’m no TNG-lover, but TAPESTRY and especially Q WHO are terrific.
And yeah, I’m gonna pretend HIDE & Q and the the Olivia D’abo Q eps don’t exist, they’re that bad (outside of the Kansas hurricane ref in the latter.)
The red Borg fighting among themselves
If they’re building on Geoffrey Mandel’s work, then might they also add in Kevin Jardine’s?
http://galaxymap.org/dr2/
Go have a look. It’s built upon the GAIA galaxy-mapping satellite’s second data release from earlier this year. 1.7 billion stars’ positions catalogued as result of GAIA DR 2…
I hope this show isn’t too heavy on the fanservice. I’m a little wary of Beyer after Disco season one.
Not to go all Rorschach on y’awl, but to me the sketch looked like a frame from the trip sequence in 2001, when the nebula Bowman streaks past — before they get into the color-altered landscapes — looks like it is forming into the outline of a fetus.
kmart – I don’t know what you’re smoking, but you’d better share it, man! Sounds like some gooooood stuff! :)
So excited, I love this era in Trek. It’s fun to see TOS and pre-TOS, but we’ve had 20 years of it now. Time to go back to what fans from the 80’s and 90’s know best :)
Prediction:
The 7 borg nodes can be used to connect different points in time, not just across space.
The nodes are the same as the 7 mysterious objects shown in the galactic map in DSC.
The appearance of the mysterious objects in DSC may be an attempt to change the past by the surviving Borg after VOY.
DSC Spock may have been (or will later be) “lost in time” via the nodes, possibly thrown into the future, ending up 20 years after NEM.
The next season of DSC will involve some time-travel to rescue Spock.
Picard will eventually be a major figure in the storyline, albeit as a guest star.
Picard’s involvement will serve as the link to the new spin-off about him.
That sounds absolutely atrocious.
Yeah, I can imagine them doing it…
I feel like the map was just a reminder of the state of the Trek universe in Picard’s time. That is all.
Certainly about time we had a Trek set beyond Voyager :) Excited about this