As Jack Crusher said at the end of Star Trek: Picard, “names mean almost everything.” This is particularly true in Star Trek. From various starships re-using the same name, to heroes coming from important Trek families, to minor characters being sneakily related to other characters, the Star Trek universe is often held together by its names and the complex spider-webs of continuity they string together.
One of the best examples of characters becoming a canonical Easter egg basket happened 20 years ago, on October 29, 2004, with an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise called “Borderland.” Here, with the introduction of Arik Soong, the Trek canon fixed a few lingering mysteries and set up a whole new parade of retcons.
