WEBVTT

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This nebula is a womb

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and we are swimming in its amniotic fluid.

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Space babies?

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One thing that's so cool

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about Star Trek is it's
had this, like, long legacy

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of science advisors.

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You have writers coming up

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with the craziest ideas that
you don't think are possible

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and then these amazing
experts in their fields

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are able to kinda ground the
ideas more in actual science.

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How many doctors and scientists

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got into their fields

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because they were inspired by Star Trek?

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So, there is a
responsibility to get as much

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of that right as possible.

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Not just am I in charge of
making sure any science-

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real science-dialogue is accurate,

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but also maintaining the legacy
of the Star Trek science.

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This cannot work.

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I have to understand
what's come before and how

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we can utilize that when we're trying

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to talk technology and
engineering for the story.

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Obtain and deliver the asset.

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All else is expendable.

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Unfortunately, the
starship ferrying Jack Crusher

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couldn't escape the center
of the gravity well.

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In Episode 4 for Picard,

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we wanted to have the ship stuck

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in the gravity well and try to figure out,

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like, how they're gonna escape.

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Being presented kind of with that story,

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then it's just a matter of making sure

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we explain everything correctly.

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We're falling deeper and deeper

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into the nebula's gravity well.

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We're sinking.

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The main thing that we
wanna make sure we don't say

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is that you're getting
sucked into a gravity well.

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I think a lot of people
have this impression,

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especially with black holes,

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that they go around like Hoovering up,

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like, in different parts of the galaxy.

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But really it's just a
steep point of gravity.

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Like, we have gravity here on Earth.

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It's a gravity well that we are stuck in.

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It keeps us here on the surface.

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So, we just have to be
sure that we're saying,

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like, you're stuck in it
versus being pulled into it.

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Gravity wells have an escape velocity

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that you have to be going a
certain speed to get out of.

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How would you do that?

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How could you manipulate
the ship's inner systems

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to be able to create enough power

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to be able to get out of it?

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So, all of those little nuances

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to the story is kind of where I come in.

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A big part of this, too, is the nebula.

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Any type of cloud of stuff

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in space can be considered a nebula.

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So the idea that this
nebula has a gravity well

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really just comes from the idea that mass

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creates a gravity well.

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So, even though it's a cloud,

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you don't think of it being
heavy, but it's still stuff.

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Kind of the big mystery
in this case, right,

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is that this nebula has a
much higher gravity well

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than expected.

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We knew right away that this nebula

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was not your traditional Mutara Nebula;

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that there's something else going on,

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there's something biological.

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And it's, sort of, we knew
we had this payoff planned.

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It was sort of a womb,

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it was an amniotic fluid
that they were going through.

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It was the birth of a space creature

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not unlike "Encounter At Farpoint."

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Now, we've encountered species before.

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Lifeforms that thrive
in the vacuum of space.

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We can only define life
as what we know it to be,

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which is what we see here on Earth.

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But that's not to say

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that there couldn't be some
other form of, even sentient,

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like, self-aware life out
there that's just made up

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of something totally different.

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And there are whole fields

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of science where they study
things called extremophiles

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or what we would consider life,

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but that lives in very
weird, strange environments.

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Deep in the ocean where
there's a ton of pressure

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and it's super dark,

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and from what we know about
life, nothing can exist

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and then we find stuff down there.

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So, we're constantly
pushing those boundaries

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of how we define life.

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And it's really, you know,

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who are we to say that that can't exist?

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I like to, "Yes, and..."
the storytelling process

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and especially when this
is the type of stories

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that we've seen before, right?

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This isn't unheard of.

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I think for me, working on Season 3

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of Star Trek: Picard has
just been an absolute honor

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because you think about that legacy

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of science advisors that really started

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with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

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And, so, being able to
kind of revisit that world

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and be able to contribute

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to those specific characters
is really special.