Star Trek: The Next Generation's Guinan, the Enterprise-D's mysterious bartender, is one of the most enduring characters from the series with a story that spans multiple centuries. Played by Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg, Guinan was introduced in TNG season 2. Guinan is an El-Aurian, a race of empathic and telepathic beings who are extremely long-lived; Guinan's exact age is never mentioned, but she is well over 500 years old by the time of her appearance in Star Trek: Picard season 2.
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Guinan was an instant hit with TNG viewers, dispensing drinks and sage wisdom from Ten Forward, the Enterprise's bar. She was an important guide for Lieutenant Commander Data in his quest to become more human, a trusted mentor to Ensign Wesley Crusher, and famously introduced Lieutenant Worf to prune juice - a warrior's drink. She shared a particularly strong bond with Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the depth of which was not fully explained until the events of Star Trek: Picard season 2's time travel-heavy story.
Related: The Biggest Star Trek Questions Picard Season 2 Answered
Guinan’s Life Before She Met Picard
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Guinan was born on the unnamed El-Aurian home planet sometime prior to the late 19th century. She covertly visited Earth in 1893, posing as a wealthy socialite, where she met and befriended famous author Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain. She would visit Earth on multiple occasions, including an extended stay in San Francisco in the early 21st century where she owned a bar, also called Ten Forward. Guinan's opinion of Earth had somewhat soured by that point, as she was repelled by the inequality and greed that dominated that era of humanity.
Guinan had returned to her home planet by the 23rd century. She was forced to evacuate on the SS Lakul when the Borg arrived and decimated the planet in 2293, leaving the few remaining El-Aurians scattered across the galaxy. Guinan and the other passengers on the Lakul were briefly pulled into the extradimensional ribbon known as the Nexus, which granted each of them their ideal version of reality. They were pulled out of the Nexus just before the Lakul was destroyed, rescued by the USS Enterprise-B on the mission where Captain Kirk was seemingly killed.
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Guinan On The Enterprise In TNG & Star Trek Generations
Guinan joined the crew of the Enterprise-D in 2365. Aside from tending bar in Ten Forward, Guinan became something of an unofficial counselor to the ship's senior staff, Captain Picard in particular. Part of her close bond with Picard was revealed in the two-part TNG episode "Time's Arrow," where Guinan encountered the time traveling crew of the Enterprise-D in 1893 San Francisco. A wounded Guinan was tended to by a concerned Picard, creating a causal loop that would help establish their deep bond.
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Guinan played a crucial role in Star Trek Generations, the first TNG film. Tolian Soran, another El-Aurian who was aboard the Lakul, was obsessed with returning to the Nexus. Guinan explained the nature of the Nexus to Picard and illuminated how dangerous a man Soran was. When Picard himself was pulled into the Nexus, an echo of Guinan appeared to him and led him to join forces with the similarly time-displaced James T. Kirk to stop Soran from destroying the Veridian sun in a genocidal effort to redirect the Nexus ribbon.
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What Happened To Guinan On Star Trek: Picard
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Facing a personal crossroads, Admiral Picard visited Guinan at her San Francisco bar in 2401 in the Star Trek: Picard season 2 premiere. The two old friends shared a bottle of Saurian brandy as they discussed Picard's lifelong romantic shortcomings. Picard's personal crisis soon gave way to a galactic one, as he faced off with a mysterious new faction of the Borg on the USS Stargazer. Seconds before the Stargazer's destruction, Picard was pulled into a dark alternate timeline by his old nemesis Q. In an attempt to reset the timeline, Picard and his La Sirena crew traveled back in time to 2024.
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Picard would again enlist the help of Guinan in 2024. However, due to the changes in the timeline, this version of Guinan never met Picard in the 19th century, and she was reluctant to help this man she didn't know. The enduring bond between the two eventually surfaced, and Guinan played an important role in helping Picard and his allies thwart Adam Soong and save Renee Picard's Europa Mission. It's unclear if Guinan will appear in Star Trek: Picard season 3, which will largely take place away from Earth. If we have seen the last of Guinan, her legacy as a deeply important character in Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond is more than secure.
Next: Star Trek Shows The Start Of Picard's Romulan Supernova Tragedy
