Do Star Trek: Picard and Battlestar Galacatica share a common trend?

Did Star Trek: Picard borrow from Battlestar Galacita’s 2004 reboot?

Star Trek: Picard put a bow on the show by bringing in not just the original cast from The Next Generation, but also the ship from the acclaimed show; The U.S.S. Enterprise-D. The Enterprise-D was decommissioned after the events of the first Next Generation film; Star Trek Generations, due to it crashing into a planet and being basically destroyed.

Geordi La Forge would not only obtain the base of the ship, which was seemingly destroyed in the film, but the saucer as well, and spent years upon years working on the ship alongside, assumedly, drones. La Forge’s re-built Enterprise-D was only meant as a present for his former crew members, something to be nostalgic about.

Yet, due to an advanced AI program that unified all modern ships, it became the crew’s only chance to stop the Borg. If nothing else, it certainly seems like an interesting idea, at least to some. One writer at CBR, Robert Vaux, believes that Picard may have borrowed an element from Battlestar Galactica.

Star Trek: Picard bucked the Battlestar Galactica comparison

In Battlestar Galactica, the ship, the Galactica, is on its way to being put into a museum of sorts when the Cylons attack the Colony. In doing so, this ship that was deemed a relic was forced to serve as the protector of the remaining humans in this makeshift space fleet.

In the CBR article, the author states that the two ships share the idea of older versus newer tech, saying;

"(They rely) on the same premise of an older spaceship surviving a tech-based attack that renders more advanced vessels useless."

Except, that’s not the case for the two shows at all. Galactica didn’t “survive” as it ran. Had it stayed and fought, it would’ve been destroyed just as all of the other Colony ships. Moreover, the Enterprise didn’t fight anyone. They didn’t engage with any newer, and fully staffed ships.

Its only engagement with any other vessel was with a nearly crippled Borg cube, which had next to no one onboard to operate it. It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to shooting fish in a barrel, as the barrel is empty and the fish are already dead.

To go even further, the author states that Battlestar was about “…the Perils of Technology” which are fair. Yet, in Picard, they actually rely on the most advanced android in all of creation, Data 2.0, to fly an impossible route to destroy the Borg and save their friends. Thereby showing that technology is good.

So, it’s fair to say the only thing that Picard and Battlestar Galactica have in common is that they are both science fiction shows.