WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 4, "No Win Scenario."Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers) experienced another vision in the closing moments of Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 4, "No Win Scenario", raising serious questions about what's happening to him. Jack's visions first began when he almost died after being exposed to poisonous gas in Picard season 3, episode 3, "Seventeen Seconds". Among the images he saw were vein-like red branches, an opening door, and a desolate landscape. These images returned as Jack freshened up in his quarters at the end of "No Win Scenario", suggesting that the visions are something more than the result of his near-death experience.
It's possible that the answer to what's causing Jack's visions in Star Trek: Picard season 3 is also the answer to why Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) has been chasing him and his mother, Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) across the universe. Therefore, understanding what's happening to Jack could reveal the larger plot against Starfleet by Vadic and the Changeling schism. Here's every possible explanation for what's happening to Jack in Picard season 3, and what it could mean for the main storyline.
5 Jack Crusher Has Been Poisoned
Jack's first vision came after he'd been attacked by the Changeling who was impersonating Ensign Foster (Chad Lindberg). Foster ripped Jack's respirator off in the scuffle, exposing him to dangerous levels of poison gas that could easily have triggered hallucinations. When he was rescued by Commander Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Jack was slipping in and out of consciousness as he saw the troubling visions. While he's seemingly recovered by the time of his next vision in Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 4, it's still possible he's dealing with the lingering effects of his ordeal, lapsing in and out of consciousness, into a dream state.
Dreams are often the human mind's way of ordering events, so it's possible that Jack's lapse into unconsciousness after his poisoning allowed him to "connect the branches" of the Changeling conspiracy. The red branches looking like veins, and the similarities between the landscape in the vision and the homeworld of the Changelings could be his medical mind processing the new Changeling biology. When the Changeling impersonating Ensign Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) was shot by Seven, she retained her physical form. Similarly, Vadic was able to remove her hand to speak with another Changeling, suggesting that Jack has uncovered information about these evolved Founders, and that's why he's on the run.
4 Jack Crusher Has Been Contacted By DS9's Prophets
As Star Trek: Picard has firmly established itself as a sequel to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, it's also possible that the Prophets have reached out to Jack. As the Bajoran Prophets exist inside the wormhole connecting the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, it would make sense for them to warn someone about the impending Changeling attack. They regularly warned Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) about everything from Bajor joining the Federation, to his marriage to Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald).
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 10, "Rapture", visions from the Prophets almost killed Sisko. The visions Jack is experiencing in Star Trek: Picard appear to be taking a similarly physical toll on Jack, so it is possible that the enigmatic visions are the work of the Prophets, or even Sisko himself. In "Rapture", the visions were similarly enigmatic, with Sisko struggling to understand the true identity of the locusts he sees destroying Bajor. The red branches, desolation, and open door, are similarly enigmatic, and future episodes of Picard could see Jack risk his life to better understand his visions and avert a second Dominion War.
3 Jack Crusher Is Being Contacted By Wesley Crusher
Alternatively, Jack Crusher's visions could be the work of another of Star Trek's god-like species, The Travelers, to whom Jack's half-brother Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) belongs. Wesley Crusher is an unanswered Picard question, and perhaps he is feeding Jack cryptic information. The Travelers oversee the universe, so perhaps Wes has been forbidden from interfering in the events of Star Trek: Picard season 3. Not happy to sit idly by while his mother, half-brother, and former crew mates face a Changeling uprising, perhaps he's seeding cryptic clues to Jack about where to find a solution to their predicament.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7, episode 20, "Journey's End", Wesley was guided by visions of his father Jack R. Crusher (Doug Wert). Following the guidance of his father, Wesley resigned from Starfleet and became a Traveler. While the vision of Wesley's father was more overt in his guidance than the fragmented images sent to Jack Crusher in Star Trek: Picard, it's possible that Wesley is returning the favor to his father's namesake.
2 Jack Crusher Has Inherited Jean-Luc Picard's Irumodic Syndrome
Star Trek: The Next Generation's original finale revealed that an elderly Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was suffering from a neurological condition called Irumodic Syndrome. Symptoms of the condition included delusions and hallucinations, similar to what Jack Crusher is currently experiencing in Star Trek: Picard. As Jean-Luc and Jack sat down to have a drink together in Picard season 3, episode 4, "No Win Scenario", Picard's son asked about when he could expect to lose his hair. It was a light-hearted moment that reminded audiences that Jack could also have inherited the neurological defect that made the elderly Picard susceptible to Irumodic Syndrome in the TNG finale, "All Good Things".
In "All Good Things", the elderly Picard attempted to rally his former crew mates for one last mission to avert a catastrophe. However, Picard's Irumodic Syndrome made it hard for people to believe that Jean-Luc was truly slipping through past, present, and future. In Star Trek: Picard season 3, Admiral Picard has once again reunited his crew to avert a catastrophe, but it's Jack, rather than Jean-Luc who is experiencing strange visions. In the Picard timeline, Jean-Luc never developed Irumodic Syndrome before being given his new positronic brain and synthetic body, but he was still at considerable risk. That risk could have transferred to Jack via the Picard genes, resulting in the young man's troubling visions.
1 Jack Crusher Has Been Replaced By A Changeling
There's also the worrying possibility that Jack Crusher has been replaced by a Changeling, and his visions are subconscious attempts to contact the Great Link. The landscape and water seen in Jack's visions look like the Changeling home world from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and connecting the branches could refer to the shared mind of DS9's Changeling Founders. The biggest clue to Jack being replaced is in a casting decision by the Star Trek: Picard production team. Thomas Dekker, who played the Changeling interrogated by Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) and Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), also played Jean-Luc Picard's imaginary son Thomas Picard in Star Trek: Generations.
It could be a coincidence, or it could be the biggest clue yet to Jack Crusher's true identity. One factor that makes it unlikely that Jack is a Changeling is that he was attacked and left for dead by Ensign Foster. Changelings are forbidden to kill other Changelings, so Foster's actions wouldn't make sense if he knew what Jack really was. Unless the rogue Changeling schism has abandoned this rule, and the Changeling impersonating Jack is working deep-cover for DS9's Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois). The repeated request to "find me", therefore, could refer to either the Great Link or to the whereabouts of the real Jack Crusher in Star Trek: Picard season 3.
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.