Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3 - "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' revelation that covert Romulan time travelers have repeatedly visited Earth's past in an effort to alter the timeline reveals the failure of a Star Trek: Picard season 2 retcon. In SNW season 2, episode 3 "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow," Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) finds herself unexpectedly pulled into a mission to stop a time-altering calamity on 21st century Earth alongside an alternate reality version of Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley). Along the way, La'an develops romantic feelings for Kirk and is forced to confront the dark reality of her own family's past.

Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 3 reveals that a Romulan time traveler named Sera (Adelaide Kane) was attempting to destroy a cold fusion reactor in Toronto, though she later changed her plan to assassinating a young Khan Noonien-Singh (Desmond Sivan). La'an was able to defeat Sera and restore the timeline, but not before Sera revealed the scope of the Romulans' attempts to subvert humanity's evolution through time travel. The sheer scale of the Romulans' time travel shenanigans would seem to negate one of the biggest plot points from Star Trek: Picard season 2 that tied back to the franchise's past.

Strange New Worlds' Romulan Time Travelers Show Picard Season 2's Supervisors Failed

Picard and Tallinn

Star Trek: Picard season 2 retconned and expanded on ideas introduced in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Assignment: Earth." That episode introduced Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), who referred to himself as a Supervisor who was part of a mysterious organization that maintained order along the timeline. Picard season 2 introduced another supervisor, Tallinn (Orla Brady), and confirmed the long-absent Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) was a member of the Travelers, evolved beings that oversee the Supervisors. Oddly, the Supervisors are nowhere to be found in "Tomorrow And Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

The Romulan incursions into humanity's history would seem to be the exact sort of thing the Supervisors were created to prevent, and yet they're wholly absent when La'an was forced into action. The argument could be made this is simply a continuity oversight, but that seems highly unlikely as Akiva Goldsman is both the current co-showrunner of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and oversaw Star Trek: Picard season 2. The more likely explanation is the Romulans were simply able to outmaneuver the Supervisors, leading to the involvement of the Federation's Department Of Temporal Investigations.

Which Romulan Attacks On Earth Strange New Worlds Revealed

Strange New Worlds Romulan

The scope the Romulans' time travel attacks on Earth are suggested to be much larger than could have ever been suspected, with the events of "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" simply the tip of the temporal iceberg. La'an was able to prevent Sera from killing Khan as a child, which meant her native timeline was restored, but it very much seems as if this is an ongoing fight. The weary temporal investigator who greets La'an when she returns to her timeline would suggest as much, as did Sera's indication that a temporal war continues to rage.

It's unclear how much damage the Romulans have done to the timeline at this point, but Sera claims to take credit for the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Chernobyl meltdown as efforts to keep humanity "on this rock" and from reaching space. One major change that the Romulans definitely enacted was a shift in the Eugenics Wars, which originally took place in the 1990s; as of 2022, the Eugenics Wars and World War III are yet to happen. It's unclear what effects that shift has had on the overall Star Trek timeline, and it's unlikely that's the only change the Romulans were successful in achieving. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has set quite the precedent for Romulan time travel, and it will be interesting to see if La'an Noonien-Singh is enlisted to stop them again.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.