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Picard, Jean Luc (Patrick Stewart)
Captain of the fifth Starship Enterprise and a noted figure in space exploration,
science and interstellar diplomacy ("Encounter at Farpoint" TNG).
Family
Picard was born on Earth in 2305 to Maurice Picard and Yvette Gessard Picard.
Maurice was a traditional bound French vintner who opposed Jean luc's ambitions
of voyaging among the stars ("Tapestry" TNG, "Chain of Command" TNG). Jean
Luc was raised on a family farm in LaBarre, France, along with his older
brother, Robert Picard ("Family" TNG). As a boy, young Jean Luc enjoyed building
ships in a bottle, his collection included a legendary Promellian battle
cruiser, a ship that he would one day discover in his voyages aboard the
Enterprise-D. Those toy ships served as a springboard for the future captain's
imagination ("Booby Trap" TNG).
Academy and early Starfleet
Picard failed in 2322 to gain entrance to the Academy at the age of 17, but
was admitted a year later ("Coming of Age" TNG). As a first year cadet in
2323, Picard became the only freshman ever to win the Starfleet Academy marathon
on Danula II ("The Best of Both Worlds" TNG). Picard won top academic honors
as well ("Family" TNG). Cadet Picard committed a serious offense while at
the Academy. Years later, he credited Academy groundskeeper Boothby with
making it possible for him to graduate by helping him do the right thing
("The First Duty" TNG). Shortly after graduating from the class of 2337,
Picard was on leave with a several classmates at Starbase Earhart, where
he picked a fight with three Nausicaans at the Bonestell Recreational Facility.
One of the Nausicaans stabbed Picard through the heart, necessitating a cardiac
replacement procedure, leaving Picard with an artificial heart ("Samaritan
Snare" TNG, "Tapestry" TNG) (Q recommended that the
injury to Picard's heart had occurred "30 years ago", which would set the
Nasicaan incident in 2338. Unfortunately, this was a mistake, since "The
First Duty (TNG) established Picard graduated from the Academy in 2327, but
the oversight was not caught until after the episode was filmed. The young
Ensign Picard was played by Marcus Nash.) As a young lieutenant,
Picard met Ambassador Sarek at the wedding of the ambassador's son. Picard
recalled how in awe he was after meeting someone who had helped to shape
the Federation ("Sarek" TNG). (The episode does not
make it clear to which "son" Picard was refering to, although Gene Roddenberry
said he thought it was Spock.) As a young officer, Picard was
romantically involved with the future Jenice Manheim. Although the two had
been strongly attracted to one another, Picard feared commitment, and eventually
broke off the relationship in 2342. Picard regretted losing Jenice for many
years, and the two saw each other again in 2364 when the Enterprise-D saved
her husband, Dr. Paul Manheim, after a serious accident on Vandor IX ("We'll
Always Have Paris" TNG). In his early career, Picard distinguished himself
when he led an away team to planet Milika III, to save an endangered
ambassador.
On the Stargazer
Lieutenant Picard was a bridge officer on the U.S.S. Stargazer when the ship's
captain was killed. Picard took charge of the bridge and for his service
in the emergency was offered command of the Stargazer ("Tapestry" TNG). Picard
commanded the Stargazer for some 20 years, until 2355, when the ship was
nearly destroyed by an unprovoked sneak attack near Maxia Zeta star system.
The surviving Stargazer crew, including Picard, drifted for weeks in a
shuttlecraft before being rescued. The assailant in the incident was unknown,
but was later found to be a Ferengi spacecraft ("The Battle" TNG). Following
the loss of the Stargazer, Picard was court martialed as required by standard
Starfleet procedure, but he was exonerated. The prosecutor in the case was
Phillipa Louvois, with whom Picard had been romantically involved ("The Measure
of a Man" TNG).
Aboard the Enterprise-D
Jean Luc Picard was appointed captain of the fifth Starship Enterprise in
2263, shortly after the ship was commissioned ("Encounter at Farpoint" TNG).
Picard was offered a promotion to the Admiralty in 2364 when Admiral Gregory
Quinn was attempting to consolidate his power base to combat an unknown alien
intelligence that was trying to take over Starfleet Command. Picard declined
the offer, citing his belief that he could better serve the Federation as
a starship commander. ("Coming of Age" TNG). An energy vortex near the Endicor
system created a duplicate Picard for six hours in the future in 2365. Although
identical to the present person, Picard had difficulty accepting the existence
of his twin because he believed the twin might have been responsible for
the destruction of the ship, a deeply repugnant thought ("Time Squared" TNG).
Picard's artificial heart required routine replacement, most recently in
2365, when complications in the cardiac replacement procedure performed at
Starbase 515 necessitated emergency assistance by Dr. Katherine Pulaski
("Samaritan Snare" TNG). Picard met Ambassador Sarek again in 2366, when
Sarek's last mission was jeopardized by Bendii Syndrome, which caused the
ambassador to lose emotional control. Picard mind melded with Sarek to lend
the ambassador the emotional stability needed to conclude the historic treaty
with the Legarans ("Sarek" TNG),. Picard was abducted by the Borg in late
2366 as part of the Borg assault on the Federation. Picard was surgically
mutilated and transformed into an entity called Locutus of Borg ("The Best
of Both Worlds" TNG). As Locutus, Picard was forced to cooperate in the
devastating battle of Wolf 359, in which he was forced to help destroy 39
Federation Starships and their crews. Picard was rescued by an Enterprise-D
away team, then surgically restored by Dr. Crusher ("The Best of Both Worlds"
TNG). Following his return from the Borg, Picard spent several weeks in
rehabilitation from the terrible physical and psychological trauma. While
the Enterprise-D was undergoing repairs at Earth Station McKinley, Picard
took the opportunity to visit his home town of LaBarre for the first time
in almost 20 years. While there, he stayed with his brother Robert Picard,
met Robert's wife, Marie Picard, and their son, Rene Picard, for the first
time. Picard briefly toyed with the idea of leaving Starfleet to accept
directorship of the Atlantis project, but his return home helped him realize
that he belonged on the Enterprise-D ("Family" TNG).
Picard assumed an unprecedented role in Klingon politics when he served as
Arbiter of Succession following the Klingon leader K'mpec's death in 2367.
K'mpec took the highly unusual step of appointing an outsider as Arbiter
so as to ensure that the choice of K'mpecs successor would not plunge the
Empire into civil war. Under Picard's arbitration, council member Gowron
emerged as the sole challenger for leadership of the High Council ("Reunion"
TNG). Picard was reduced to a child after passing through an energy field
in 2369 ("Rascals" TNG). Jean Luc Picard suffered profound emotional scars
in 2369 when he was captured by Gul Madred, a Cardassian officer who tortured
Picard for Starfleet tactical information. Picard resisted, but later confessed
that the experience so brutalized him that he would have told Madred anything
had he not been rescued ("Chain of Command" TNG).
Personal Interests
Picard was something of a Renaissance man, who's areas of interest ranged
from drama to astrophysics. Picard was an avid amateur archaeologist,
occasionally publishing scientific papers on the subject, and even addressing
the Federation Archaeology Council in 2367 ("QPid" TNG). Early in his career,
at the urging of his teacher. noted archaeologist Richard Galen, Picard seriously
considered pursuing archaeology on a professional level. Picard's path later
crossed Galen's again just before Galen's death in 2369. Picard helped complete
Galen's greatest discovery, the reconstruction of an ancient message from
a humanoid species that lived some 4 billion years ago ("The Chase" TNG).
Picard studied the legendary ancient Iconians while at the Academy ("Contagion"
TNG). Picard was also an accomplished horsemen, and one of his favorite holodeck
programs was a woodland setting in which he enjoyed riding a computer generated
arabian mare ("Pen Pals" TNG). Picard played the piano when he was young
("Lessons" TNG), but his deep love of music may have stemmed from an incident
in 2368, when his mind received a a lifetime of memories from a now dead
planet Kataan, and he experienced the life of a man named Kamin, who died
a thousand years ago. Kamin had played a
Ressikan
flute, and Picard treasured that instrument because of having shared
Karmin's memories ("The Inner Light" TNG). Picard shared his music Neela
Daren, an Enterprise-D crew member with whom he became romantically involved
in 2369 ("Lessons" TNG).
According to Star Trek: The Next Generation supervising producer Robert
Justman, Captain Picard was named for French oceanographer Jaques Picard
(1992-), who explored the depths of Earth's Marianas Trench aboard the bathyscaph
Trieste. Young Picard in "Rascals" (TNG) was played by David Tristen Burkin,
who also played Rene Picard in "Family" (TNG). Picard's mother was seen briefly
in "Where No MAn Has Gone Before" (TNG), and his father made an appearance
in "Tapestry" (TNG), both flashbacks of sorts since both people are dead
during the time of the episodes. Jean Luc Picard was first seen in "Encounter
at Farpoint" (TNG).
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