Why would the Daystrom Institute have “that” in storage?

The Daystrom Institute, a scientific research and teaching facility, had something a little different in storage. 

This post contains spoilers from Star Trek: Picard season three, episode seven “The Bounty.” 

Since this season of Star Trek: Picard began, Raffi has been looking for the secret weapon that was stolen from the Daystrom Institute. Once Admiral Picard and Captain Riker discovered, thanks to Worf and Raffi, that more than just the portal device was stolen, a search party was dispatched to determine what the weapon was. And though Captain Riker was captured by Captain Vadic and her team, Worf and Raffi were able to beam back to the Titan with Data (and all his other personalities), who had the knoweldge in his head. And I have to say, this was one weapon I didn’t see coming.

As it turns out, what was stolen from the Daystrom Institute was Admiral Picard’s real body…or his corpse in actuality. And that begs the question: just what was it doing there?

How did the Daystrom Institute end up with Admiral Picard’s body?

Admiral Picard died at the end of season one of Star Trek: Picard, and his consciouness was placed in a golem, which was invented by Inigo Soong. The transference of Picard into the golem was successful, and no one thought anything about what would happen to Picard’s body because we all assumed, as we would, that it would be buried or taken to wherever bodies were taken in space, perhaps even sent out in a capsule like Spock’s was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Imagine our surprise (at least I know I was surprised!) to discover the body had someone been transported to the institute for storage. But maybe Picard donated his body because of the illness he suffered from. That would be a plausible explanation, I guess, but still…On top of finding out that Picard’s body had been in the deep freeze for a couple of years, apparently, the Changelings found a use for it in their evil plan to destroy the Federation. If Picard didn’t donate it, what was a dead body doing at the Daystrom Institute? How did the Changelings know it was there, and what on Earth do they have planned for it?

I know these are questions we don’t have answers to right now, but I can’t be the only one wondering. I mean, seriously, this was a shocker that I would never have imagined. How about you? Did you see this coming? Because I didn’t see it in any of the Star Trek: Picard theories that have been floating around the internet since the season began. And I’m sure I would have dismissed any of them had I seen them.

Star Trek: Picard is doing one heck of a job inserting twists and turns into this season, this one being one of the biggest.