Some fans of “Star Trek: Picard” latched onto a key detail that they spotted in Section 31’s lab: The codename “Project Phoenix.” U/VruKatai wrote, “So a ‘Project Phoenix,’ a couple dead captains […] one with apparent life sign readings (Kirk) and … the Genesis device.”
The pieces seem easy to put together based on those context clues. Section 31 has always been a group of awful customers with a pothole where their morality should be. “Project Phoenix” implies rebirth, and a storage area full of dead captains would certainly point to an attempt at bringing them back, either individually or, if there’s any justice in the world, as a heaving multi-headed homunculus sewn into a Starfleet uniform and constantly screaming “Let me die.”
Others, like u/Valuable-Ad-5586, were skeptical — “Must be a billion places to look if one wanted Picard or Kirk DNA,” they rightly pointed out. They conjectured instead that keeping Kirk and Picard had more to do with their shared experience in the extratemporal heaven dimension of the Nexus in “Star Trek: Generations.” Maybe, they hypothesized, the timey-wimey nature of their time in the ribbon would make it possible for Section 31 to exploit new time-harnessing technologies, allowing them “to cause shenanigans of their own.”
Whatever the case, we’ll find out soon enough. The final season of “Star Trek: Picard” is currently streaming new episodes on Paramount+ every Thursday.