During the 3-day UK Destination Star Trek Birmingham, last weekend, cast members from Picard, Lower Decks, and Discovery graced the stages of DST and shared a few new nuggets of information about what’s to come.

Star Trek: Picard

Picard’s admiral uniform

While the show finds Jean-Luc Picard retired from Starfleet, we know he was an admiral before leaving the service. Patrick Stewart will be wearing the admiral’s uniform in a few scenes, presumed to be flashbacks.

With filming wrapped on the first season of Picard, DST was the first event to show off the admiral’s uniform. It was rapidly shared on social media, with fans responding positively to the design. The design is a nice blend of the variety of admirals’ uniforms seen throughout TNG’s 7 seasons, plus a few updates reminiscent of Star Trek Online.

Sir Patrick Stewart

The Jean-Luc Picard actor (and executive producer of Picard) took to the stage in a packed room, starting things off by revealing, “You will learn a lot more about the Borg.”

He then recounted being persuaded to come back to the role of Picard, saying that he’d asked the producers to make Star Trek: Picard a new take on the Trek universe in the same way Logan was different from earlier X-Men films.

Stewart confirmed to the crowd that Picard is indeed in his nineties. Fans had been speculating on that, wondering whether Picard would be 94 as expected (based on his date of birth seen in TNG), or whether his age would be retconned to match Stewart’s (79).

Since fans have been eager for more information about Riker and Troi ever since the trailer was shown at New York Comic Con last month, Stewart shared a little bit more about their storyline, saying that they appear in an episode that is focused on Riker.

He also teased the audience with the idea of seeing more of the old TNG crew: “Will we see the rest of the group? I think so.” A fan then asked about the Crusher/Picard relationship; while remaining non-committal, Stewart said, “It would be great to find a way to bring her in.”

A fan asked if Picard would be suitable for children. Unsurprisingly, Stewart said, “No, there’s some adult language and subject matter that’s intense.”

Brent Spiner

Brent Spiner took the stage for a solo session, and praised the cast of Picard.

Perhaps most importantly, Spiner confirmed what many had assumed: The Data we’ve seen in the Picard trailer is not representative of what he’s going to look like in the show. They didn’t have time to make post-production tweaks in time for NYCC.

Lower Decks

Mike McMahan, creator of the animated Trek show Lower Decks, couldn’t make it in person, but he did video conference in and give the crowd a presentation, much like was done for SDCC and STLV earlier this year. A few new tidbits came up during his Q&A session with fans.

A fan asked if any Star Trek alumni are going to appear. Predictably, McMahan was careful with his words, saying it certainly sounded possible and adding somewhat cryptically that he is a fan of everyone in Next Generation but that you might not get people you’d expect.

Something new is that McMahan was able to describe the writing structure of the show: there will be half-hour episodes with A, B, and C plots; the episodes will be mostly standalone but with some arching elements.

And of course, a big fan question about animated Trek is about canon. McMahan answered succinctly: “The short answer is, yes.”

Discovery Season 3

Season 3 of Discovery is currently in production, but two of the show’s stars, Wilson Cruz and Anthony Rapp, were able to travel to the UK. While they were mostly focused on discussing season 2 with co-star Shazad Latif, they did share two small morsels of information about the third. Cruz told the crowd that Culber will be taking on more responsibility for the crew’s mental health in the new season, and Anthony Rapp revealed that someone will be getting a pet this season, but of course had to remain tight-lipped about the details.

DST will be back in 2020

Destination Star Trek UK will return to London for the 2020 event, at ExCeL London from 13-15 November. Click for more information.

Destination Star Trek Germany will also return in 2020, taking place in Dortmund from 8-10 May. Click here for details.

Special thanks to Rachel Kirk for her admiral’s uniform pictures.