Star Trek seems to be in its renaissance in the early 2020s, with multiple shows airing simultaneously. From Discovery and Strange New Worlds to Lower Decks and Picard, fans have no shortage of Star Trek media to choose from. However, Picard is the only live-action series taking place in Star Trek's present time, as Discovery is now set in the far future and Strange New Worlds in its past. There's also no shortage of multi-layered and intriguing characters from Star Trek.
Easily one of the most intriguing, and unfortunately short-lived, was ex-Starfleet officer Cristobal Rios. This dashing rogue caught audiences by surprise in the first season of Picard and instantly became a fan-favorite. Cristobal Rios might have only appeared in two seasons of Picard, but he'll live on in the fandom, and hopefully, he will return to the series in some capacity. Santiago Cabrera is also an incredibly talented actor who deserves more time aboard a starship.
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Who is Cristobal Rios
Cristobal Rios is one of the more fascinating characters in all of Star Trek. For starters, he captains a ship that's crewed by holograms, which is a wonderful nod to Star Trek: Voyager and its Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH). That EMH not only became the main doctor for the ship, but he eventually took on other roles, including being the emergency Captain. Cristobal's holograms each have their own distinct personality and accents to boot. While the real Cristobal Rios is Chilean, he has an EMH with an English accent and an ENH (Emergency Navigation Hologram) with an Irish accent.
Not only does this put Santiago Cabrera's acting talents on display, but it also gives his character some depth. When the audience meets Rios in the first season of Picard, he's the captain of a small cargo vessel called La Sirena. However, before he ever stepped foot on La Sirena, Rios was a Starfleet officer who served on the U.S.S. Ibn Majid under Captain Alonzo Vandermeer. It was on the Ibn Majid where he would lose his rank and standing with Starfleet after covering up a traumatic event.
The event in question involved Captain Vandermeer killing two ambassadors on his ship before turning the phaser on himself. Before the Captain took his own life, he told Rios that the ambassadors were synths and that Starfleet ordered their assassination. Otherwise, they would destroy the Ibn Majid with everyone on it. After Captain Vandermeer took his own life from the stress of such a traumatic event, Rios ejected the two ambassadors from the ship and played dumb as to why his Captain killed himself.
Six months passed before Starfleet discharged Rios from the organization for post-traumatic stress. He went on to captain La Sirena along with his holograms as a withdrawn and cynical person until the events of Picard.
What Happened to Rios in Picard?
The second season of Star Trek: Picard followed Picard, Rios, Seven of Nine, and their little band of misfits first hop into an alternate dimension where the Federation of Planets never came to fruition and instead went under the name The Confederation of Earth. After a short stint there, seeing the extent of the planet's authoritarian rule, the group (plus one Borg Queen) makes a jump to the year 2024. It became the group's goal to stop the Confederation of Earth from ever becoming a thing, which required them to ensure Picard's ancestor completed her Europa mission.
After arriving in 2024, Cristobal's transporter malfunctions, and he's knocked out from behind. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a small clinic, where he meets Dr. Teresa Ramirez who treats undocumented workers. Unfortunately, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) barges in, cutting their meeting short, and arrests the good doctor along with Rios. After Seven of Nine and Raffi break Rios out of a prison transport bus, he returns to the clinic and eventually meets Teresa's son Ricardo.
It becomes clear to both Rios and the audience that he has feelings for not just Teresa, but the 21st century as well. He recognizes that it's flawed, but there are intricacies that he quickly appreciates, such as lighting a match. It's something commonplace for the audience, something they take for granted, but to Rios, it felt more human and genuine than anything in the 24th century. Between that and his love for Teresa and her son, Rios decides to stay behind while Picard and crew return to their own time period at the end of the season. It's a difficult moment for everyone from Raffi to the audience, but it's the most in-character thing that Rios could do.
Where was Rios During Star Trek: First Contact?
According to Captain Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, World War III began in the year 2026, only two years after the main events of Picard season two. With Rios being from the future, he definitely knew what was coming, yet he still chose to stay behind. Strange New World fans know from Captain Pike's recollection that the war resulted in 600 million deaths and every major country on Earth decimated. This would lead many to believe that Rios was a casualty of war. However, Whoopi Goldberg's Guinan informed Picard that Rios lived a long and fruitful life with Teresa.
Guinan spared all the gory details of the war and how the little family unit survived, but they did come out the other end of the war alive and well. Rios and his family founded a small medical initiative known as Maroposas that went on to help clean Earth's atmosphere from pollution and allegedly nuclear fallout. While Teresa went on to die of old age, Rios died before her in a bar fight over some medical supplies. He died exactly as he lived, brash and full of honor. While Cristobal Rios wasn't around to witness First Contact, Ricardo (and possibly his mother) definitely did, as he was just a child during the events of Picard season two.