Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Countdown #1
The first issue of IDW’s Star Trek: Picard Countdown prequel comic has been released – and it features the Enterprise’s former chief engineer Geordi La Forge in a decidedly important role. Fans eagerly await the premiere of CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Picard series in January 2020, which promises to continue the stories of many Star Trek characters, including Commander Data, Seven of Nine, and Commander Will Riker. While Levar Burton has not been confirmed to reprise his role as La Forge in the TV series, Geordi’s appearance in the comic reveals he’s become a key figure in Starfleet.
Taking place in the year 2385, fourteen years before the events of Star Trek: Picard begin, the story finds La Forge promoted to Commander and serving aboard the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. La Forge’s role is vital as he is overseeing the construction and distribution of a fleet of starships to help save the Romulan Empire. As seen in Star Trek (2009), the Romulans’ home planet Romulus was destroyed by a supernova in 2387. Star Trek: Picard Countdown reveals the Federation learned of the coming disaster and launched a relocation mission supported by La Forge… and headed by Admiral Jean Luc Picard.
Picard leads this mission from the U.S.S. Verity, an Odyssey-class star cruiser. Along with his first officer Lieutenant Commander Raffi Musiker (who will be a regular character played by Michelle Hurd in the Star Trek: Picard TV show) Picard works with the Romulans to plan the evacuation. However, these plans are threatened when Picard discovers one of the Romulans’ secret colonies holds a slave population numbering in the millions – far too big for La Forge’s starships to save.
Star Trek: Picard Countdown represents a departure from a previous IDW prequel comic miniseries, Star Trek: Countdown, which provides a backstory for the 2009 Star Trek movie. In that storyline, Picard was Ambassador to Vulcan and teamed up with Captain Data (resurrected and serving as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise) to help Ambassador Spock save the Romulans by pre-emptively destroying the supernova with an artificial black hole. La Forge appears as the engineer who designs the ship Spock pilots into the black hole that sends him back in time. Star Trek: Picard Countdown retcons this story by having Admiral Picard and Commander LaForge play a larger role in saving the people of Romulus. As it forms the backstory for Star Trek: Picard, it can be considered “official” canon. Which applies to Picard's praise for his former engineer:
Admiral's Log, supplemental. As it has been for decades, the voice of Geordi La Forge is a balm for the soul. There is no better officer--no better engineer--that Starfleet could entrust with the task of constructing an entirely new fleet in record time.
This role is a welcome change for La Forge, who – despite being a brilliant engineer on Star Trek: The Next Generation – often had bad luck worthy of Star Trek’s doomed “red shirts.” Fans have playfully compiled YouTube videos of all the times Geordi was shot, electrocuted, mutated, tortured (by Romulans), nearly sucked into the vacuum of outer space, and ordered to go on suicide missions (by Counselor Deanna Troi). Beyond threats to his physical safety, La Forge also had terrible luck with women, painfully illustrated in an episode where he fell in love with a fictional scientist he accidentally created on the Holodeck.
Hopefully, the more dignified role Geordi enjoys in Star Trek: Picard Countdown heralds a shift in the character’s fortunes, one Trekkies may continue seeing if Geordi La Forge later shows up in the Star Trek: Picard TV series.
You've seen the trailer... now, witness the events leading to CBS All Access's Picard. Before he retired to his vineyard, Jean-Luc Picard was the most decorated admiral in Starfleet. Then one mission changed his life forever. The Countdown starts here!