Robert Picard
Robert Picard (pronounced as the French ro-BARE) was the son of Maurice and Yvette Picard, and the elder brother of Starfleet Captain Jean-Luc Picard. (TNG: "Family") His mother committed suicide in the 2310s, when Robert was away at a boarding school. (PIC: "The Star Gazer", "Hide and Seek")
Feeling that technology made life too "convenient", a viewpoint inherited from his father, Robert steadfastly refused to have a replicator in his home. (TNG: "Family")
Robert's relationship with Jean-Luc was tumultuous. As children, Robert often bullied and picked on Jean-Luc. Robert, who his parents considered the responsible one, always resented that Jean-Luc broke all the rules and got away with it. Robert was jealous of Jean-Luc's success and resented him for it. He had to remain on Earth to tend to Château Picard in La Barre, France, while Jean-Luc went off to Starfleet, gaining fame.
The brothers were reconciled in 2367, when Jean-Luc returned to La Barre to recuperate shortly after being assimilated by the Borg. At first, the Picard reunion was filled with animosity, since Robert still felt that Jean-Luc was arrogant. Relations between them worsened, particularly as the subject of Jean-Luc's recent problems came up. After Jean-Luc was offered a new job and had to decide whether to leave Starfleet, Robert tormented him, telling Jean-Luc that he had become unsure of himself and asking him what had happened to him. The argument led to a brawl in the vineyards that eventually left the sibling rivals laughing and covered in mud. Once Jean-Luc admitted to Robert that he felt guilty over his inability to fight the Borg after they had kidnapped him and for subsequently having caused numerous deaths, Robert notified Jean-Luc that he himself had to come to terms with his own guilt and realized that it was not Jean-Luc's fault.
As a result, although Robert claimed that his negative opinion of his brother had not changed, they merrily shared a drink in the house and playfully imagined with Maria, when she finds them, that their mother would have sternly punished them for such disorder at home. When Jean-Luc left to return to Starfleet, Robert gifted him a bottle of the home vintage, with the advice to not drink it alone.
Afterward, Robert found his son, Rene, sitting outside at night, gazing at the stars and dreaming of joining his Uncle's profession in space, and was content to let the boy continue to dream. (TNG: "Family")
Rene and Robert Picard
Like his younger brother, Robert suffered from Shalaft's Syndrome. (Star Trek Nemesis)
Robert died in a fire in 2371, along with his only son, René. He was survived by his wife, Marie. (Star Trek Generations)
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Appendices
Background information
Robert was played by Jeremy Kemp in "Family". A different actor played him in Generations, where he appeared only in the form of photographs in Jean-Luc Picard's photo album. British actor Ian Abercrombie provided ADR voiceover work for Jeremy Kemp in "Family", especially in several scenes shortly before the fight.
According to the script for "Family", Robert was six to eight years older than his brother Jean-Luc, placing his birth sometime between 2297 and 2299.
In "Family", Robert Picard's outfit was inspired by the many references to his insistence on retaining the old-fashioned ways and rejecting futuristic methods of caring for the Picard vineyards. "Now, in the 24th century, the 'old ways' may just be the 20th century way of doing things," reckoned Costume Designer Robert Blackman, "but to make that image come across in an individual form, we had to keep him fairly rustic-looking." As a personal touch of his own, Blackman designed the costume to feature a loose blouse which had an asymmetrical opening, and odd pants with leather patches on top of them. Though the fabrics looked homespun, they actually weren't. The fabricated costume arrived as a neatly finished garment at the costume shop. "Then we roughed it up so it didn't look like it came from a sewing machine, was neatly pressed, and taken to Jeremy Kemp's trailer," said Blackman. To distress and age the clothing, the costume department essentially attacked the costume, using such tools as sandpaper, shredders, and spray cans. (The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 16, p. 34)
Apocrypha
The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard gives Robert's birth year as 2299.
In the TNG Relaunch novel Paths of Disharmony, Jean-Luc Picard and Doctor Beverly Crusher have a son who they name Rene Jacques Robert Francois Picard (β), in honor of Robert and Rene.
In an alternate timeline featured in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes novella Brave New World, Robert was still alive in 2378.
External link
- Robert Picard at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works