The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," now streaming on Paramount+.
For the second time, Strange New Worlds focused a story on Star Trek's first favorite captain: James T. Kirk. However, thanks to the reality-bending time travel story, it was not the Captain Kirk fans know. The ending of the episode also could tie into Star Trek: Picard and the mysterious vault discovered containing Kirk's body.
Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, two longtime writers on the Rick Berman-era Star Trek series, were responsible for "killing" Captain Kirk. Strange New Worlds just joined the exclusive Star Trek club by killing him again. Kirk almost died during the Season 1 finale of Strange New Worlds, thankfully in an alternate timeline. Similarly, the Kirk who pals around with La'an Noonien Singh in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is also one from an alternate timeline. Meanwhile, far in the future, Star Trek: Picard introduced the creepy Daystrom Station, which was where Starfleet hides all its dark and dirty secrets. A crucial plot point for the series was the vault containing the physical remains of Jean-Luc Picard. In Season 1, his physical body died, but he was rescued via an experimental "synthetic body." Still, Picard wasn't the only Enterprise captain resting in peace on the station. James T. Kirk's body was also present. The question is: Which Kirk was it?
Could the Alternate Timeline Kirk Be the Body Stored in Daystrom Station?
Considering the character is beloved and typified by William Shatner's unique performance, Paul Wesley's Kirk was a big risk for Strange New Worlds. However, the adventure in Strange New Worlds allows the audience to fall for him just as La'an does. They break into the Noonien Singh Institute, a group that loves cloning and gene modification. After La'an completes her mission, she leaves them a free dead time traveler to examine. The incident is almost certainly not reported to the police, and young Khan probably tells people about the woman who visited him and then disappeared. This would make them extremely curious about Alternate Kirk.
There are many sci-fi ways the eggheads at the Noonien Singh Institute could determine that Kirk's body is not of its own time. There is no question these scientists would study this unknown person who somehow made it very far into their secure facility. Upon learning his provenance, or just that he's not from the modern day, it also makes sense they would go to great lengths to preserve him, if only for further study. It's possible that the James T. Kirk stored in Daystrom Station may not be the Kirk who died facing Soren in Star Trek: Generations. Rather, he could be a time-travel remnant. It also might be a way to get Paul Wesley's Kirk into a future series like Star Trek: Legacy.
Why James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Picard May Be the Original Series Version
Of course, with almost four centuries between Alternate Kirk's shocking death, and Picard's vault heist, there are some problems. If the Noonien Singh Institute is in Toronto, it's likely a target of the nuclear attacks during the Eugenics Wars. While none of them may have survived into the future, it's possible their underground facility and whatever was stored there did. The group that eventually becomes Starfleet, or at least Section 31, could have discovered it. Though, they wouldn't know Kirk's eventual importance unless they also have a time traveler in their midst.
The other problem is where Kirk's final resting place was. If Starfleet retrieved the crashed USS Enterprise-D from Viridian III, they likely would've reclaimed the remains of their most famous captain. The unofficial epilogue to Kirk's death by the Roddenberry Archive even shows this process a bit. It's a much more logical set of fictional circumstances that, before interring Kirk in his final resting place, Section 31 switched out his remains.
Still, disparate storytellers weave Star Trek stories together, sometimes across decades. Both the presence of Kirk's remains in the Daystron Vault and the past are two of those dangling story threads begging to be tied by another writer. Even if Kirk's remains in the past aren't the ones in Daystrom Station, it's something a future story or season of Strange New Worlds can draw upon for something new.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.