Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 7 - "Dominion"The mystery surrounding Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers) intensifies in Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 7, "Dominion", as he develops new powers. In "Dominion", Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) finally boards the USS Titan-A, as part of a ruse by Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) to trap the villain and discover her true intentions. Unfortunately, the presence of the newly evolved Data/Lore hybrid (Brent Spiner) tips the balance, unleashing chaos aboard the Titan, putting the lives of Jack and Ensign Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) at risk.
These new powers suggest that what's happening to Jack Crusher is more complex than him being replaced or augmented by a Changeling, as first suspected. When Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) confront Vadic, she cruelly tells Beverly that Jack "wasn't meant for you". There's an implication in Vadic's words that Jack, like his half-brother Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), has been intended for some larger galactic purpose. How Jack Crusher's new powers and his shared DNA with the stolen corpse of Jean-Luc Picard connect to this larger purpose remain to be seen.
Jack Crusher's Powers In Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Explained
During a turbolift ride with Sidney, Jack realizes that he can hear her thoughts, as she ponders their mutual attraction to each other. This inspires Jack to touch her hand, in response to her thoughts that he should be more subtle in his flirting. Sidney recognizes this and is visibly freaked out by the fact that Jack has possibly read her mind. This telepathy lends weight to the possibility that Jack's visions of the red door are the result of a psychic link to an unknown alien intelligence, possibly the Changelings' Great Link.
Later in the episode, it becomes clear that Jack can do more than just read minds when he inhabits Sidney's body to fight off her Changeling assailant. Jack's impressive combat abilities, signaled by his red eyes, had already been revealed earlier in Star Trek: Picard season 3. However, it goes one step further in "Dominion" when he's able to transfer these skills and his consciousness into Sidney's body when they're separated by the force field designed to hold Vadic and her crew captive. It could be that Jack's abilities to remote control others, rather than his shared DNA with Picard, are what makes him so important to the Changeling plot against Frontier Day.
How Do Jack Crusher's Powers Tie Into Picard's Corpse?
Upon learning that Starfleet was storing Picard's body in Daystrom Station, the Changelings stole the corpse to use as a weapon. In "Dominion", Picard and Crusher speculate that Jack's DNA could be used to complete the genetic materials missing from Picard's corpse to create a perfect biological duplicate. However, Jack's incredible telepathic powers and combat abilities suggest the truth is far more complicated than that. It's possible that the Changelings want Jack to transfer his consciousness into Picard's body to complete their plan, but Jean-Luc's corpse could also hold the answers to where Jack got his powers to begin with.
When Picard and Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) speak to Data/Lore about why the Changelings stole the body, the new Soong android reveals that there was something intriguing hidden within scans of Picard's brain. Data states that the diagnosis of Picard's Irumodic Syndrome was in doubt, but is cut off by Lore before he can continue. It's, therefore, possible that some nascent abilities have been lying dormant in Picard for decades, passed along the family line to Jack Crusher. As Vadic has promised that it's time for Jack Crusher to discover who he truly is, answers will hopefully be forthcoming in the next episode of Star Trek: Picard.
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.