Cristóbal Rios
Cristóbal’s story and background are heavily featured in the third Star Trek: Picard novel Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller, published in August 2021. This book is much lighter in tone than Star Trek: Picard itself. Rios comes off as a fun combination of Han Solo and an intergalactic James Bond. If you enjoyed the season 1 episode “Stardust City Rag,” you’ll love this.
While the novel doesn’t go super deep into Cristóbal’s background, the character and his motivations are fleshed out. This heist novel is basically Picard‘s answer to Solo, infused with a healthy dose of Firefly. We learn the answers to a lot of the questions raised during the television show, including just how Rios came to command La Sirena: he acquires the ship from the Iotians, the Prohibition era-obsessed race featured in the Original Series episode “A Piece of the Action.” Whether he was originally going to steal it, we may never know. The Iotians rope Rios into a lengthy payment plan for the ship, which leads to him forming a crew of roguish characters in order to take on jobs. Kivas Fajo and Vash also make appearances.
In many ways, the book is a love letter to fans; it includes a tie-in to The Undiscovered Country and features plentiful references to other parts of the mythology. The book firmly entrenches Rios in the franchise’s continuity outside of Picard.
Rogue Elements also explores the events surrounding Rios’ exit from Starfleet and his time on the USS ibn Majid, introducing us to former shipmate Royce Claggett. After Rios reported him for brutalizing prisoners, Claggett was thrown out of the service. The rest of the crew of the ibn Majid blamed Rios for ending up cashiered, which is what led to Rios going off on his own and acquiring La Sirena.
Like Raffi, Rios is struggling here, though he puts on a braver face than his future shipmate. He drinks himself into unconsciousness, womanizes, and makes endless poor decisions; Raffi appears several times to look after him. We also learn that Rios admired Jean Luc-Picard from afar, but as far as Starfleet itself goes, he has no respect left for the organization after the cover-up of his captain’s suicide, which we saw in the season 1 episode “Broken Pieces.”
However, the best part of Rogue Elements is the hilarious explanation for the creation of the ship’s holograms, one I won’t spoil here.
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