[This is set in a slightly different universe from that of the Picard TV series and the TNG novels, but the split in universes seems to have occurred around the time of Data’s death, so most of it applies in all situations.]
Jean-Luc’s childhood on the family vineyard was not the happiest it could have been, due to a father whose whole life centered on winemaking the traditional way, and an older brother, Robert, who consistently put Jean-Luc down. At age eight, he tells his father, Maurice, that he thinks wine is boring, and that seals his resolve to leave the vineyard. Among the earlier pictures in the family portrait museum, he notices a number of adventurers and explorers, and see that although some have gone into space, none have gone to the stars. So, that becomes his aim, and it fuels his efforts at school because he knows only the best grades with get him into Starfleet Academy. His mother, Yvette, is the only one to really help his efforts. He flunks out on his first attempt to gain entrance to the Academy in 2322 but gets in a year later. He finds his traditional/Luddite upbringing leaves him feeling disadvantage, but it also gets him into a class on xenoarchaeology, which fascinates him. His dedication to making a name for himself results in him isolating himself from others during his first year. The year ends with the Academy Olympics on the planet Danula II, and Picard wins the marathon (the first freshman to do so). He finds himself being congratulated by Captain Hanson of the Enterprise-C, and by his roommate, Corey Zweller, and Corey’s girlfriend, Marta Batanides. Jean-Luc, Corey, and Marta become firm friends after that and, from the second year on, they were normally seen together. The three of them go on an Elite Flight course at Morikin VII, led by Peter Kirk (the late James Kirk’s nephew), during which time Picard’s cocky and overconfident attitude gets him into a fight with some Nausicanns, but he escapes unharmed. That fueled his foolhardiness when, while waiting to take up his first assignment after graduating, he, Corey, and Marta get into a dispute with some other Nausicaans, resulting in Jean-Luc having a knife pushed through his heart. That ends up with him getting an artificial heart, missing out on being flight controller on the U.S.S. New Orleans, and instead taking a position as junior science officer on the Reliant. When the ship visits the planet Milika III to drop off Federation ambassador William Smithie, Ensign Picard proposes a short investigation of an archaeological discovery on the planet that might indicate previous Vulcan influence on the planet. Picard get appointed to lead that away mission, which includes Ensign Walker Keel and security officer Ensign Cheva. After meeting up with Mantz (who had made the original discovery) the team find themselves cut off from the Reliant after religious extremists kidnap Ambassador Smithie and erect a particle-scattering field to prevent him being beamed out. Picard leads his team to locate where the ambassador is being held. With Captain Gregory Quinn’s permission (he told him to “Make it so”), Picard’s rescue plan is implemented, enticing the extremists to move the ambassador out of the building and then stunning them all. After that successful resolution with no loss of life, Quinn awards Picard a field promotion to lieutenant and recommends him to follow a command track. That leads to Picard applying for, and getting, a position as relief flight controller on the Stargazer. While waiting at Starbase 74 for the Stargazer to arrive, Picard gets called into serving as part of an honor guard on the planet at the wedding of Spock to a non-Vulcan, who Picard does not recognize or manage to catch the name of. He does get to exchange some words with Admiral McCoy and Sarek. Picard’s initiation to the Stargazer is not that smooth, thanks to Commander Frank Mazzara’s two out-of-control sons, Alexander and David. Picard manages to trick David out of the flight controller’s seat so he could pilot the ship out of spacedock when Captain Humphrey Laughton ordered them to head on their mission. Picard soon learns that many of their side-trips are to pick up artifacts for Laughton’s private hoard. On one of those trips, the captain dies when an ion buildup causes equipment to short out and explode. That also leaves the ship without control of warp or impulse power and heading for the system’s star. Mazzara was now in command and he orders the crew to abandon ship and then immediately leaves the bridge to find his boys. That leaves Picard effectively in command and he countermands the order and has port thrusters fired to move the ship into a safe orbit of the star until repairs to the engines can be expedited. Laughton is promoted to captain but, on arrival at Starbase 32, he resigns his commission and Picard (who was now Number One) becomes captain at age 28 (6 years after graduating) on Laughton’s recommendation. Before that, Picard is sent to inform Laughton’s ex-wife of his death, and that turns out to be Guinan, who seems to recognize Picard although he had never seen her before. Picard’s arrival at her place had revealed her location to bounty hunters, so she insists on being taken aboard Stargazer, and she stays aboard until they get to Starbase 32. Picard appoints Walker Keel as his first officer and brings Ensign Jack Crusher aboard as the new conn officer. When the Stargazer has to stop the Planet Killer (that Kirk had originally encountered, and which now had apparently been hijacked by Klingons and sent on a collision course with Romulus), Crusher plays a major part in stopping it. After almost ten years, including the Federation’s first encounter with Cardassians, the Stargazer is called back to Earth, where Picard is hoping to get captaincy of the new starship, Horatio. Instead, Walker becomes the captain of Horatio, and Admiral Hanson asks Picard to become his chief of staff as the Federation prepares for an expected war with the Klingons. Picard also learns that his mother is dying of Irumodic Syndrome, and he has a strained encounter with his father and brother. His mother dies two weeks after his return, and he then strikes up a relationship with Jenice, who had been employed to look after his mother while she was ill. While at Earth, Walker introduces Jack Crusher to a medical student at the Academy, Beverly Howard. Picard accepts the post as Hanson’s chief of staff, but after another encounter with Guinan (who was tending bar at a tavern Picard was visiting, the 602 Club) he asks to be reassigned to Stargazer, and Hanson reluctantly agrees. With Crusher pining for his new love, Picard arranges for Beverly to complete her Academy training aboard Stargazer, and while the ship is part of a fleet of ten ships patrolling the border of the Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone, Beverly suggests that, for historical reasons, the Klingon’s first target might be Archanis. There, the Stargazer ends up facing down twenty-five Klingon warships before they suddenly cloak and disappear. Two Klingon colonies had come under attack from the Romulans, and the Klingons had more urgent matters to deal with. The U.S.S. Enterprise-C was lost when it went to the defense of one of those colonies, Narenda III, and their sacrifice leads to a stronger peace with the Klingons. Picard was best man at Jack and Beverly’s wedding, and then he transported back to the vineyard to see his brother after his father had died. He finds that the only thing his father had left him was a PADD with what appeared to be the rejection notice Jean-Luc had received from Starfleet after his first attempt to enter the Academy. Later, when he looks at it closer, he sees that it is actually a copy of the rejection notice his father had received when he had tried gaining admittance, and Picard realizes that his father’s scorn for his ambitions was actually jealousy. Beverly had been pregnant when she got married and, knowing Picard’s feeling about having children onboard, she opts to complete her training on Earth, and later at Starbase 32 after Wesley is born. War breaks out with the Cardassians, and Picard realizes they are still after replicator technology that they had first seen on Stargazer. After two years of the war, Picard comes up with an idea to obtain a ceasefire by offering the technology to them, and the idea gets the approval from the aging but active Admiral Chekov. However, the Cardassians think it is a trick when Picard tries to implement it, and the Stargazer only just escapes. When Jellico implements the idea more forcefully, by having three ships surround a Galor-class vessel, the Cardassians are more receptive. An effort to gain a treaty to mine dilithium at the Chalna system results in a shuttlecraft being shot down and the three crew members left unconscious in the crashed vessel. Jack Crusher insists on beaming down, instead of Picard, to rescue them. He succeeds in that, but the Chalnoth gain entry to the shuttle and Jack is mortally wounded just before the ship is able to beam him up. Wesley was five years old when Jack’s body is delivered to Starbase 32 and Picard informs Beverly of what occurred. After that, the Stargazer was charting the Maxia Zeta star system when it comes under unprovoked attack. Although the attacking ship is destroyed, Stargazer is left incapacitated, and the surviving crew have to abandon her and uses a flotilla of shuttles and escape pods to start heading away. Weeks later, they are rescued by the U.S.S. Caine and, back on Earth, Picard faces an almost mandatory court martial. However, prosecuting counsel is Commander Phillipa Louvois (who Picard had dated for a short period while at the Academy) and she charges him with Culpable Negligence and Dereliction of Duty for not insisting to the admiralty that Stargazer had been in no condition to continue operating. Picard’s assigned defense lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Anthony Mazzara (who, as a kid, had thrown an egg at Picard when he had first stepped aboard Stargazer), gets the case dismissed and Louvois resigns her position after receiving a reprimand for being unnecessarily aggressive. There is no ship available for Picard, so he accepts the position of assisting Admiral Quinn, who promises to get him back on a ship in future. Something is happening in Sector 003 that Picard is not given full details of yet, but he is tasked with moving ships out there. As part of that, Picard checks out progress on the new starship Enterprise being built at the Utopia Planetia shipyard under the direction of Captain Tom Halloway and Chief Engineer Sarah MacDougal, and there Picard experiences a holodeck for the first time. Then he boards the U.S.S. Saratoga bound for Starbase 3, and en route he gets help from Cadet Deanna Troy in dealing with his feelings after the loss of Stargazer and some of her crew. At Starbase 3, he learns from Admiral Leyton and Lieutenant Data that the problem is that Denobulans (who had largely cut themselves off from the galaxy as a whole after the Romulan War) had built something like a massive space station that is believed to be a weapon of some kind. They have also not responded to enquiries about it and have called any Denobulans living abroad to come home by a set date. Under the circumstances, the Federation is planning a preemptive attack on Denobula. Picard wants to check things out first, so he and Data go undercover as Mettus and Phlogen on Denobula, discovering that the artificial ‘moon’ is actually a subspace engine that will transport and maintain the complete Denobulan system in subspace, safe from the rest of the universe. Picard and Data get back to inform Leyton in time, although Leyton’s fleet is shaken up a bit by the shockwave when the Denobulan system disappears. Over the next few years, in the course of his work, Picard gets to meet Lieutenant Geordi La Forge, Ensign Worf and Ensign Natasha Yar. Back at Utopia Planitia, the new starship Enterprise is ready for its three-week shakedown cruise with Captain Halloway, but Halloway and Admiral Quinn call Picard in and offer Picard the position of being her permanent captain. His first mission was to uncover the mystery of Farpoint Station at Deneb IV, which led to Picard’s first of many encounters with Q. He also gets to encounter one of the children aboard quite often, namely Wesley Crusher who became a regular on the bridge. When Beverly leaves to take up a position at Starfleet Medical, Picard is pleased when Wesley requests to stay on the ship, because it means a link with Beverly is maintained, and she returns after a year. She, Troi, and the previous mindmelds with Sarek and Spock, all help Picard recover from the trauma of the Borg using him as Locutus to destroy much of the Federation fleet, including many of his friends but, surprisingly, it is his brother Robert who really gets him on his feet again. The effort to stop Soran results in Picard encountering Kirk, and to the destruction of the Enterprise-D. Picard is given command of the Enterprise-E, but it never feels quite the same to him. After the events with Shinzon and the death of Data, Picard reports back to Admiral Janeway and introduces her to B-4, and then Q turns up and restores Data (whose memories had been stored in the more primitive B-4). When Beverly tells Picard that she has been offered the captaincy of the medical ship Pasteur, Picard finally kisses her and plucks up the courage to ask her to marry him. Picard is 79 when they marry. With Beverly away on missions, and Picard getting appointed as Federation Ambassador to Vulcan, they are apart more than they had been on the Enterprise, but it works for them. Then Picard learns about something like the Denobulan subspace engine being built at the Hobus system, a system within the territory of the Romulans who think it is a weapon that is being built. Picard gets Spock involved, but he is unable to stop the Romulans and the attack causes the subspace engine to explode and the Hobus star to go supernova, endangering Romulus. Captain Data and First Officer La Forge on the Enterprise assist Spock in using red matter to collapse the supernova, which doesn’t work in time to save Romulus. Picard gets recalled from Vulcan, and we find him at age 90 contentedly making his father’s wine and writing his autobiography. [Timeline: Picard was born July 13, 2305, graduated from the Academy in 2327, it is stardate 13209.2 when Picard becomes captain of Stargazer, year 2346 when the Stargazer faces down the Klingons at Archanis, July 13, 2355 (stardate 33994.5, Picard’s 50th birthday) when Stargazer is abandoned, stardate 41153.7 when the Enterprise-D heads for Farpoint Station, and stardate 60768.1 when Beverly takes command of the Pasteur]
Picard gets called to meet with Starfleet C-in-C, Admiral Victor Bordson, and his second, Captain Kirsten Clancy, where he learns that the Romulan star is approaching going supernova, affecting nine hundred million people. Picard immediately offers to head up the Federation’s effort to assist in the evacuation of the endangered regions of Romulan Empire. He is promoted to Admiral but told that the Enterprise would not be welcomed in Romulan territory, so he is given the starship Verity to head up the initial fleet. Worf is appointed captain of the Enterprise, and Picard selects Raffi Musiker as his Executive Officer aboard the Verity because he likes the honest way she speaks to him. Geordi La Forge takes on the task of gearing up the Utopia Planitia shipyard at Mars to produce the transport ships needed for the evacuation. One of his assistants, Commander Estella Mackenzie, brings up the problem of obtaining enough of the components that are handmade, but suggests the use of android/synthetic non-sentient lifeforms incorporating bio-neural circuitry, which Bruce Maddox (against his objections) is tasked with producing. The first evacuation that the Romulans let Picard’s initial fleet of fifteen ships handle is moving evacuees from Ectis II to a facility that the Romulans claim to have prepared for them at Arnath IV. That goes fairly smoothly, thanks in no small part to Koli Jocan, who Clancy had forced on Picard. However, on arrival at Arnath IV and with the evacuees being transported down, Picard discovers that the new ‘town’ the Romulans have prepared is a tent city/prison in the middle of nowhere with armed guards patrolling the place. Picard is reluctant to allow more of the Romulans to beam down, and they don’t want to go when they learn of the conditions, but finally he has to accept that this is a Romulan issue and out of his hands. Around that time, astronomer Doctor Amal Safadi ascertains that the expected supernova is going to happen sooner than expected, and the affected zone will be much larger. Just after that, the Dignity was due to take the inhabitants of Sithu to Lukol II, but that was now inside the expected blast zone. So, Picard tells the Dignity to take then to a human colony on Tossassa in Federation space that had volunteered to take them. About two years after evacuations had begun, Picard’s growing fleet is tasked with removing the inhabitants of Inxtis, and he opts to breach the Romulan Neutral Zone once more and take them to the Federation colony world of Vashti, which had offered to take them. Among the Inxtis evacuees are the Qowat Milat, who have Zani as their leader and a young boy, Elnor, who had been left with these lady warriors. A Romulan cultural liaison officer, Lieutenant Tajuth, (actually Tal Shiar) is not happy coming across the Qowat Milat. The arrival at Vashti is a great PR event, which was needed because junior council member Olivia Quest and her oversight committee had been stirring up problems for the mission. A number of the smaller Federation worlds were unhappy about the diversion of resources to help the Romulans. An effort to evacuate the planet Nimbus III turns bad when ships of the Tal Shiar (possibly called in by Tajuth) arrive and order Picard’s fleet away, and it is believed that a lot of the inhabitants of Nimbus III are killed. That leads to Koli resigning her position, to Picard’s, Raffi’s, and even Tajuth’s regret. Tajuth proves to be of help when the evacuation of Vejuro, next system out from Romulus itself, is hampered by the intransigence of Senator Kurrem. When this evacuation takes Picard back to Vashti and an opportunity to meet up again with Zani, Picard is delighted. However, while they are there, the inexplicable attack of the synths, leading to the destruction of the shipyard and the necessity to evacuate Mars occurs. Picard is ordered back to Earth, where he learns that events on Mars had led to evaporation of political will to continue the evacuation mission. Indeed, there was serious talk of a number of worlds seceding from the Federation. Picard resigns in protest, and Raffi is left wondering what she can do (her husband, Jae, had left her during the time she had been away, taking their son, Gabe, with him). Picard had feared Geordi had died in the destruction of the Utopia Planitia shipyard, but he had been in transit to Earth and is left with survivor guilt. Production of further synthetic lifeforms is banned throughout the Federation, and Maddox leaves the institute and abandons his assistant/cheerleader/lover Doctor Agnes Jurati. [Timeline: years 2381 through 2385].