Part of Picard's quest to save himself will be shown in the second season, when he isn't being harassed by Q or sent to a parallel reality. In Star Trek's universe the year 2024 might have die-hard DS9 fans burning ears.
In the third season of Deep Space Nine, Sisko, Bashir, and Dax are thrust back to the year after a transporter malfunction. Sisko explains that the early 21st century was an incredibly dark time for America and that they were 347 years earlier than they should be. The captain and his fellow officers are on the eve of a great social upheaval in the United States, in the wake of a mass protest known as the Bell Riots, named for their instigator, Gabriel Bell, who accidentally gets killed due to Sisko. Oops. Don't worry about that!
In the Star Trek timeline, the Earth of 2024 was in dire straits. America was wracked with severe economic crises, homelessness, and rapidly rising unemployment during the period, which led to a turn towards a totalitarian decline. These issues saw widespread adoption across the country of Sanctuary Districts, walled off city sections originally established as dedicated areas to provide free housing, food, and opportunities for employment. The Districts quickly became a way for police forces to brutalize and control the poor. The majority of the American public was unaware of the treatment of District citizens when they were cut off from the planetary network.
The Bell Riots began after a group of San Francisco's District A residents staged a violent takeover of the district's processing center, taking several police officers and government employees hostage. The Governor of California deployed the National Guard to District A because a peaceful solution to the crisis nearly came to fruition, thanks to the work of Gabriel Bell/Sisko and local news channels.
The Bell Riots were so important to Star Trek that they created a parallel timeline where the Federation and Starfleet never existed. The reforms that came about in the wake of the riots didn't immediately set either the U.S. or the Earth on a brighter path.
World War 3 broke out two years later. Oops.
37 million people died in the Eugenics Wars in the 90s due to conflicts related to altering the human genome and genetic engineering. The conflict between the U.S. and the Eastern Coalition, or ECON, took place in the early 20th century, but little is known about it. After decades of tearing itself apart, first contact with the Vulcans in 2063 spurred humanity to unite, and paved the way for the formation of the Federation.
The second season of Picard will feature a major location in Los Angeles, which will make it the most volatile period of human history within the Star Trek timeline. We know that at least some of this history not touched since Deep Space Nine is going to be nodded towards, but just how Picard and his friends react to being thrust into one of the darkest.
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