This nebula is a womb
and we are swimming in its amniotic fluid.
Space babies?
One thing that's so cool
about Star Trek is it's had this, like, long legacy
of science advisors.
You have writers coming up
with the craziest ideas that you don't think are possible
and then these amazing experts in their fields
are able to kinda ground the ideas more in actual science.
How many doctors and scientists
got into their fields
because they were inspired by Star Trek?
So, there is a responsibility to get as much
of that right as possible.
Not just am I in charge of making sure any science-
real science-dialogue is accurate,
but also maintaining the legacy of the Star Trek science.
This cannot work.
I have to understand what's come before and how
we can utilize that when we're trying
to talk technology and engineering for the story.
Obtain and deliver the asset.
All else is expendable.
Unfortunately, the starship ferrying Jack Crusher
couldn't escape the center of the gravity well.
In Episode 4 for Picard,
we wanted to have the ship stuck
in the gravity well and try to figure out,
like, how they're gonna escape.
Being presented kind of with that story,
then it's just a matter of making sure
we explain everything correctly.
We're falling deeper and deeper
into the nebula's gravity well.
We're sinking.
The main thing that we wanna make sure we don't say
is that you're getting sucked into a gravity well.
I think a lot of people have this impression,
especially with black holes,
that they go around like Hoovering up,
like, in different parts of the galaxy.
But really it's just a steep point of gravity.
Like, we have gravity here on Earth.
It's a gravity well that we are stuck in.
It keeps us here on the surface.
So, we just have to be sure that we're saying,
like, you're stuck in it versus being pulled into it.
Gravity wells have an escape velocity
that you have to be going a certain speed to get out of.
How would you do that?
How could you manipulate the ship's inner systems
to be able to create enough power
to be able to get out of it?
So, all of those little nuances
to the story is kind of where I come in.
A big part of this, too, is the nebula.
Any type of cloud of stuff
in space can be considered a nebula.
So the idea that this nebula has a gravity well
really just comes from the idea that mass
creates a gravity well.
So, even though it's a cloud,
you don't think of it being heavy, but it's still stuff.
Kind of the big mystery in this case, right,
is that this nebula has a much higher gravity well
than expected.
We knew right away that this nebula
was not your traditional Mutara Nebula;
that there's something else going on,
there's something biological.
And it's, sort of, we knew we had this payoff planned.
It was sort of a womb,
it was an amniotic fluid that they were going through.
It was the birth of a space creature
not unlike "Encounter At Farpoint."
Now, we've encountered species before.
Lifeforms that thrive in the vacuum of space.
We can only define life as what we know it to be,
which is what we see here on Earth.
But that's not to say
that there couldn't be some other form of, even sentient,
like, self-aware life out there that's just made up
of something totally different.
And there are whole fields
of science where they study things called extremophiles
or what we would consider life,
but that lives in very weird, strange environments.
Deep in the ocean where there's a ton of pressure
and it's super dark,
and from what we know about life, nothing can exist
and then we find stuff down there.
So, we're constantly pushing those boundaries
of how we define life.
And it's really, you know,
who are we to say that that can't exist?
I like to, "Yes, and..." the storytelling process
and especially when this is the type of stories
that we've seen before, right?
This isn't unheard of.
I think for me, working on Season 3
of Star Trek: Picard has just been an absolute honor
because you think about that legacy
of science advisors that really started
with Star Trek: The Next Generation.
And, so, being able to kind of revisit that world
and be able to contribute
to those specific characters is really special.