Star Trek: Picard‘s proposed continuation series, Star Trek: Legacy, will spotlight the offspring of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s icons, but TNG‘s ‘kids’ shouldn’t all get along. Star Trek: Picard season 3 passed the torch from the legends of the USS Enterprise-D to the younger heroes who will explore the galaxy aboard the USS Enterprise-G led by Captain Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Ensign Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), the son of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and Lt. Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), the daughter of Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), are proudly carrying on their parents’ Star Trek legacy.
Star Trek: Picard season 3 was different from Star Trek: The Next Generation as it featured far more conflict among the TNG crew than the TV series allowed. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision of 24th century Starfleet mandated a ‘no conflict’ rule on TNG so that the people aboard the Enterprise-D always got along and conflict would instead arise from the aliens they encountered. TNG did have occasional personality flareups, but things always reverted to harmony on the Enterprise. Picard season 3 tested TNG‘s loyalties such as Admiral Picard butting heads with Captain Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), but in the end, the Enterprise-D’s legends were united in their love for each other and their extended family. However, their amity shouldn’t necessarily apply to their offspring.
Star Trek: Legacy Conflict Between TNG’s Kids Would Reverse Roddenberry’s Rule
Gene Roddenberry’s ‘no conflict’ rule doesn’t apply to Star Trek’s current Paramount+ series and Star Trek: Legacy would do well to continue ignoring it to mine the ample drama from TNG‘s offspring meeting each other. Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas indicated that Star Trek: Legacy aims to include the TNG kids who missed out on season 3 such as Data’s (Brent Spiner) synthetic ‘daughter’ Soji (Isa Briones), Kestra Troi-Riker (Lulu Wilson), and Alexander Rozhenko, the son of Captain Worf (Michael Dorn). Even more than the disagreements between the Enterprise-D’s legends in Star Trek: Picard season 3, their 25th-century offspring would likely leave Roddenberry’s rule in the past.
Star Trek on Paramount+’s shows look at Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision from a different lens so that the paradise of the United Federation of Planets is not an absolute but something that is constantly under threat and must be fought for. Star Trek: Legacy would be set on the USS Enterprise-G, but the starship has a strong streak of the outsider between Captain Seven, Jack Crusher, and Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), a trio of “rulebreakers and ne’er-do-wells”. This outsider perspective is a natural cause of conflict with traditional Starfleet values, and adding the disparate viewpoints of non-Starfleet characters like Soji and the Klingon Alexander Rozhenko would only spark more fascinating drama.
Why TNG’s Kids Shouldn’t Always Get Along In Star Trek: Legacy
Dramatically, it would make sense that Jack Crusher, Sidney and Alandra La Forge (Mica Burton), Soji, Kestra, Alexander, and even Elnor (Evan Evagora), the Romulan warrior-turned-Starfleet Officer who Admiral Picard mentored since he was a boy, wouldn’t necessarily get along just because their parents love each other. Some, like Sidney and Alandra, represent traditional Starfleet values, while Jack is a rogue who operates under his own set of rules. Add in Soji, a synthetic championing her race who survived the abuse of murderous Romulans, Kestra, who has to live up to her parents Captain Riker and Commander Troi, and Elnor, who merges the ideals Starfleet and the Romulan Qowat Milat, and you have a potential powderkeg aboard the Enterprise-G.
As close as the Enterprise-D’s crew are after decades of saving the galaxy together, their offspring have no such bond. Jack and Sidney may be the closest by virtue of their flirtation, but their relationship status is up in the air in Star Trek: Legacy. Someone like Kestra Troi-Riker knows Admiral Picard and heard stories of her parents’ adventures on the Enterprise-D and E, but she wouldn’t feel the same affinity toward Jack Crusher, for instance, even if he is Jean-Luc and Beverly’s son. Kestra and Soji became friends on Nepenthe, but it’s been years since they last saw each other. Perhaps working together on the Enterprise-G will forge a commonality in Star Trek: Legacy, but TNG‘s kids aren’t a family of their own, and it would be a lot more fun and interesting to see them not get along.
