Welcome to the 25th Century, for Real This Time
The first season of Picard was set at the tail end of the 23rd century, in the wake of the events of the primary Star Trek series The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Although its second was the first Trek TV show to explore the near future of the earliest years of the 25th century, season two is actually barely set there, instead opting for a whole lot of time-travel nonsense.
Picard season three is the first time we’re actually going to be spending an extended period of time in the early 2400s, a period explored by the non-canonical (well, mostly) Star Trek Online, but one fans have been dying to actually see more of for decades at this point.
