It’s not every day you get to make a phone call to the Star Trek universe — after all, in an era of combadges and intergalactic communication, phone lines are, well, rather quaint. But with Star Trek: Picard currently playing around in the near future of 2024, a chance to sneak in a cute phone number made for a very fun easter egg in this week’s episode.
John de Lancie’s Q has been a bit of a background threat in season 2 of Picard, but the character came to prominence again in the chaotic stage setting of this week’s fifth episode, “Fly Me to the Moon.” While Picard and his friends planned their next steps to help fix time, Q, also running around in 2024 — and seemingly without his reality altering powers — hatched his own rival distractions, including tempting the Soong of this time period, geneticist Adam Soong (still, of course, played by Brent Spiner). To get Soong’s attention, Q hacks his computer, telling Soong to check his 3D printer…which promptly spits out a calling card with a very elaborately designed Q logo, and a phone number:
Which, of course actually works. Turns out, calling the number and not being fictional rogue geneticist Adam Soong however, just gets Q mocking you for trying to call the mighty, incomprehensible society that is the Q Continuum. Check out our recording of the phone message below:
If you can’t hear the message, here’s a transcript:
Hello! You have reached the Q Continuum. We are unable to get to the phone right now, because we are busy living in a plane of existence your feeble, mortal mind cannot possibly comprehend.
Furthermore, it’s pointless to leave a message, because we of course already knew that you would call, and we simply do not care. Have a nice day.
How lovely!