Warning: contains spoilers for Star Trek: The Last Starship #1!
Star Trek has finally fixed one of Picard Season Two’s biggest plot holes. IDW’s new Star Trek: The Last Starship revives Captain Kirk, bringing him to the time of the catastrophic “Burn.” The party behind Kirk’s return was a tightly guarded secret, but The Last Starship’s first issue reveals all, and closes a lingering Picard plot hole.
Star Trek: The Last Starship #1 was written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and drawn by Adrian Bonilla.
Shortly after the Burn upends galactic society, Agnes Jurati, the Borg Queen, from Picard Season Two, appears at Starfleet Command with a plan: revive Captain Kirk, and use him as a symbol to rally a broken galaxy.
Picard’s New Borg Queen Teased a Bold New Direction for the Classic Star Trek Foe
Unfortunately, the New Borg Queen Was Swept Aside in Favor of a Next Generation Reunion
Star Trek: Picard’s second season, while a ratings’ success, was met with mixed reactions. The show introduced a number of plot lines, including time travel to 2024 Los Angeles, an ancestor of Captain Picard, as well as a Borg Queen from an alternate timeline. The show struggled to balance all its moving parts, and some plot lines fell by the wayside.
One of these was the Borg Queen. During Picard and company’s time in 2024, Agnes Jurati, a prominent Federation cyberneticist, engaged in a war of wits with the Queen. The Queen tried to assimilate Jurati, but the cyberneticist beat her in the end. At the end of the season, Jurati, now a Borg Queen, promised a new type of Collective.
Jurati’s new Borg were one of the most exciting developments in the Star Trek franchise. Rather than assimilate, Jurati’s Borg sought cooperation and dialogue with other species. It would be a Borg Cooperative. Picard’s Season Two finale ended with the Jurati-Borg monitoring some impending threat. However, this plot line was never followed up in Season Three.
Star Trek Confirms: the New Borg Cooperative Are Out to Save the Federation
Jurati Is Repaying a Five Hundred Year Old Debt
Now, five hundred years after the Jurati Borg debuted, they have returned to a galaxy that has undergone vast changes. The Federation, once contained to the Alpha Quadrant, now stretches across the entire galaxy. Races that once opposed the Federation, such as the Tholians, are now valued members. In short, everything was going great for the Federation.
And then “the Burn” happened. In the span of a few short days, literally a thousand years of progress and hard work by generations of Federation citizens went up in flames. The galaxy had never seen an event as catastrophic as the Burn. As seen in Season Three of Star Trek: Discovery, galactic civilization fell apart.
Agnes Jurati and her Borg “Cooperative” are seeking to mitigate some of the damage done by the Burn. The Last Starship #1 specifies that Jurati sees herself as “repaying an old debt” in reviving Kirk and giving the Federation transwarp technology. It is possible that the threat Jurati alluded to in Picard Season Two was the Burn.
The New Borg Cooperative Could Have Been an Asset to the Star Trek Universe
The Borg Cooperative Have Powers and Abilities Beyond the Traditional Borg
The return of Jurati in Star Trek: The Last Starship #1 closes out one of Picard Season Two’s biggest plot holes. Of all of Picard’s dangling storylines, the Jurati-Borg was one of the most promising, but thanks to the show’s overall lack of direction, it fell by the wayside, especially since Season Three became a Next Generation reunion.
Star Trek: The Last Starship #1 shows fans what could have been with Picard’s Agnes Jurati and her Borg Cooperative. They have great power, as seen when they resurrect Captain Kirk. The traditional Borg never demonstrated this ability, showing that Jurati has taken the Borg in an exciting new direction that shamefully never made it to television.
Star Trek: The Last Starship #1 is on sale now from IDW Publishing!