Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4.
With Picard Season 2 ongoing, Strange New Worlds Season 1 hot on its heels, and Prodigy and Lower Decks still to come this year, it might seem premature to be thinking about Discovery Season 5 already! But as I was writing up the final part of my Season 4 theory list, it got me thinking. Season 4 wasn’t bad, all things considered. It had some storylines that disappointed or underwhelmed, but there are some genuinely outstanding episodes in the mix as well – and it ended on a very emotional and exciting high note.
It’s never too early to look ahead, and before production gets fully underway on Discovery’s next outing, I wanted to share my thoughts and opinions about where the show could go from here, and what I’d like to see next. That’s what this article will be about – but stay tuned for a more in-depth look at Season 4 and some of its story elements in the weeks and months ahead.
The USS Mitchell in the Season 4 finale.
For me, the single biggest wish I have for Discovery Season 5 is that it steps away from the “apocalyptic, galaxy-ending threat” story archetype that has been used in different ways across all four seasons of the show so far. We’ve gone through the Klingon war in Season 1, Control and the Red Angel in Season 2, the Burn and the Emerald Chain in Season 3, and finally the DMA and Unknown Species 10-C in Season 4. It’s time to give Captain Burnham and the crew a break, and for the series to try using a genuinely different formula instead of slapping a new coat of paint on the old one.
Just because a story is smaller in scale doesn’t make it any less emotional, exciting, tense, or dramatic, and I think that’s a lesson some of Discovery’s writers and producers could do with taking to heart. How we as the audience respond to a work of fiction is guided not by how massive the monster is or how big the explosions are going to be, but by how the characters we’re rooting for react. Their emotions become our emotions, their investment in the world around them becomes our investment, and so on. A story about a group of people working in an office, friends going on a road trip, or star-crossed lovers from rival families aren’t smaller, less exciting, and worse because they don’t have the backdrop of a world-ending disaster spurring them on. And conversely, some of the worst and least-exciting films and TV shows I’ve ever seen went over-the-top with the size and scale of the disaster the characters were facing.
The Burn was the driving force for much of Season 3.
Past iterations of Star Trek used these kinds of apocalyptic stories pretty sparingly, when you look back on it. It’s only Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc, which lasted for three seasons, that comes close to being as long and drawn-out an affair, and even within the framework of the Dominion War, DS9 found ways to tell very different and fun one-off stories. Things like the Borg incursions that Captain Picard and his crew had to deal with were either two-parters or one-off films, and they work well in that format.
Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D still found other ways to be entertaining, and many of The Next Generation’s standalone episodes have gone on to be considered iconic, even those that had a far smaller focus than blockbuster outings like The Best of Both Worlds. This doesn’t mean ditching the season-long story arcs or returning to an episodic format, because I think Discovery has done some interesting and neat things with its serialised stories. But it does mean choosing season-long storylines and narrative arcs that are different in a fundamental way to what the show has tried already.
The DMA was the big threat in Season 4.
Practically any format can become bland and unexciting when overused, no matter how much fun it might’ve been in its original incarnation or at its best moments. It’s a challenge to keep any television series feeling fresh as it enters its fifth season and races toward its sixty-fifth episode, and there are many examples of shows that ran out of steam somewhere along the way. Heck, I have an entire list of television shows that either ran too long or wore out their concepts, and I can think of many more that I could’ve included.
Even Star Trek has hit the wall in the past, running out of energy and failing to keep audiences engaged. By the time Enterprise was willing to try new things in its third and fourth seasons, for example, the franchise was already in such a steep decline that cancellation was inevitable. To Paramount’s credit, lessons have been learned from what happened in 2005 in terms of the way the franchise as a whole operates. Different series are telling stories in their own ways, appealing to broader audiences, and Star Trek as a whole feels varied and diverse. But Discovery on its own doesn’t… and it’s right on the verge of becoming repetitive.
The USS Discovery in Season 4.
I was far from the only commentator to make the point prior to Season 4 that another “galactic threat” storyline felt samey, coming off the back of three similar narrative frameworks, and I’m sure I won’t be the only one to say that re-using that format a fifth time will be a bridge too far. Making use of the newly-established 32nd Century in different ways, and telling a story that may be smaller in scale but that’s just as impactful, emotional, and entertaining, will be the key challenges that I’d like the writers to tackle in Season 5.
The theme of rebuilding in the aftermath of a disaster was something we only saw Season 4 tackle in the briefest and barest of ways right at the beginning of the season, but this could be a concept that the show puts to much better use next time around. Discovery could follow Captain Burnham as she and the crew jump to different worlds, delivering dilithium, solving problems, flying the flag for the Federation… and most importantly, bringing hope to a galaxy that’s been through a lot.
The flag of the Federation…
This is what I’d hoped Season 4 would do, to be honest. The idea of restoring the Federation from the incredibly weakened state it was in when we encountered it is far too important and interesting to be relegated to something that happens off-screen, and I felt even before Season 4 had aired a single episode that this concept offered so much scope for emotional, exciting, and varied storytelling. Discovery could hop to different planets, combining the inclusion of new and visually different alien races (like Season 4’s “butterfly” aliens) with the reintroduction of classic races.
Catching up with some of the factions we remember from past iterations of Star Trek is also something I’ve been wanting Discovery to do for two seasons now. We’ve caught glimpses of races like the Ferengi and Andorians, and heard others mentioned in dialogue and log recordings, but we haven’t actually spent a lot of time with practically any of them. Finding out what became of fan-favourites not only in the years after the Burn, but in the centuries before that event took place, is something that I think a lot of Trekkies would be interested in.
We caught glimpses of familiar races… but Discovery didn’t find time to explore most of them in any detail.
If the 32nd Century is going to be a major setting for the franchise going forward, this kind of world-building is important. Just like how The Next Generation laid the groundwork for Deep Space Nine through its introduction of the Cardassians and Bajorans, so too could Discovery introduce us to planets, races, and technologies that future spin-offs and Star Trek projects could expand upon.
Part of that world-building can be done in a serialised story that looks at how the Federation can be rebuilt in the aftermath of the disasters it has already faced; introducing another new disaster to avert or recover from is simply not needed at this point. From the point of view of the characters, throwing them into another extreme situation would also be problematic, and would take the storytelling close to soap-opera levels.
Owosekun, Saru, and Detmer.
Discovery has, to its credit, attempted to show how some of the events that its characters have gone through have impacted their mental health. Some of these stories have been underdeveloped – Detmer’s in Season 3 and Dr Culber’s in Season 4 being the most egregious examples. But even with this kind of attempted mental health focus, there’s a limit on what we could expect characters to go through and still be alright when they come out the other end.
To be fair, that’s a line that the Star Trek franchise has crossed in the past with characters like Miles O’Brien, for example, who seemed to survive a lot of traumatic events only to be back to normal the next week! But as shows like Picard have demonstrated with characters like Seven of Nine and Jean-Luc Picard himself, it can be incredibly cathartic to revisit some of these characters and give them meaningful, lasting development. But we’re drifting off-topic!
Captain Burnham in Season 4.
Star Trek’s galaxy is vast, and as we saw in Season 4 with the inclusion of races like the Abronians and Unknown Species 10-C, even in the 32nd Century there’s still a heck of a lot that Starfleet doesn’t know about it. There’s scope for Captain Burnham and the crew to get back to exploring for its own sake, as well as using their Spore Drive to reach parts of the galaxy that it would be difficult for the Federation to do otherwise. There’s the potential for the crew to bring hope to far-flung Federation outposts after the Burn, the Emerald Chain, and the DMA have had such a devastating impact… and it’s worthwhile telling stories like that.
Even if Season 5 doesn’t do much of that rebuilding or exploring, I’m still hopeful that whatever stories it chooses to tell won’t feel repetitive and won’t recycle the same basic story framework that we’ve seen throughout the show’s entire run to date. Discovery could do so much to expand our understanding of the Star Trek galaxy; even more so in a 32nd Century setting that is wholly unconstrained by prior canon. Shooting this far forwards in time was a great way for the show’s writers and producers to give themselves new opportunities to play in the vast sandbox that we call the Star Trek galaxy – so now would be a great time to take advantage of that.
As I look ahead to Season 5, I feel hopeful and optimistic. Season 4 had some problems, but generally it was an improvement over Season 3 and it ended in truly spectacular fashion. There’s potential for what comes next to build on that, and if the series can avoid retreading too much old ground, Season 5 could be Discovery’s best outing yet.
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are available to stream now on Paramount+ where the platform is available and via a patchwork of video-on-demand and pay-to-view streaming platforms in the rest of the world. The series is also available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 and the trailers and teasers for Season 4.
As we welcome the month of November, Star Trek: Discovery’s fourth season is now only a couple of weeks away! With the season fast approaching I thought it would be a good idea to recap, as succinctly as possible, the story so far. Michael Burnham and the rest of the crew have been on a wild ride that’s seen them face off against militant Klingons, a Mirror Universe impostor, a rogue AI, Section 31, and a journey into a future that none of them expected to find.
If you haven’t re-watched Discovery since Season 3 ended just after New Year, I hope this recap of the story so far will be helpful going into Season 4. If for some reason you haven’t seen Discovery yet, well this recap might help you get acclimated with the show and some of the characters – but there’s still a couple of weeks to watch the show’s forty-two episodes… so you’d better get on with it!
Season 4 is imminent!
As I’ve said previously, the show’s first season didn’t get off to a great start story-wise. As things settled down, though, Discovery told a creditable story over the course of the season, one which hit a lot of the right notes in terms of “feeling like Star Trek.” But Season 2 was leaps and bounds ahead of where Season 1 had been, with noteworthy improvements in writing and characterisation to tell a truly exciting and engaging story.
Season 3 was a risk in some respects, but in others it was clearly designed to answer criticisms from some quarters about the show’s place in Star Trek’s broader canon. Shooting the ship and crew almost a thousand years into the future meant abandoning the 23rd Century – and everything else familiar about Star Trek’s galaxy. However, this decision opened up Discovery to brand-new storytelling ideas, and gave the writers and producers far more creative freedom. The show was pioneering new ground instead of trying to walk an occasionally awkward line between the franchise’s established history and bringing new ideas to the table.
Captain Burnham in a promo image for Season 4.
There were some great successes in Season 3. For the first time we got standalone episodes – or at least semi-standalone episodes in which the main story of the season took a back seat. We also got spotlight moments for more of the ship’s secondary characters, some of whom had barely had more than a line or two of dialogue despite being fixtures on the bridge. Though I have criticised the Burn storyline – which was the most significant aspect of the season’s story – for having a number of issues, overall Season 3 was a success.
Discovery has been “the Michael Burnham show” since its premiere episode – for better and for worse. The first three seasons can thus be viewed as Burnham’s ascent to the captain’s chair, and the rocky road she took to get there. Though there has been development of other characters – Saru, Tilly, and Mirror Georgiou stand out in particular – the show’s focus has often been on Burnham.
So let’s head back to the beginning and run through all three seasons as briefly as possible! I’ll try to hit all of the most important and relevant points as we go to get you ready for Season 4.
Season 1
Michael Burnham at the beginning of Season 1.
Season 1 began with Michael Burnham serving as first officer to Captain Georgiou of the USS Shenzhou. Saru was also a member of the crew, as was helm officer Detmer. After being called to a region of space near the Klingon border, the Shenzhou encountered a new Klingon leader who had a plan to unify all of the Klingon Great Houses by going to war with the Federation. In a moment we’ll charitably call “confusion” (as opposed to other, harsher terms we could use) Michael Burnham attempted to stage a mutiny against Captain Georgiou and fire the first shot at a large Klingon fleet.
After the arrival of Admiral Anderson and Starfleet reinforcements, a battle broke out between the Federation and Klingons – the opening engagement of a year-long war. Georgiou and Burnham led an away mission to attempt to capture the Klingon leader, T’Kuvma, but the mission ended with both Georgiou and T’Kuvma dead and war assured between the two sides.
Season 1 began with Georgiou killed and a Federation-Klingon war breaking out.
The Klingon war led to Starfleet accelerating work on the Spore Drive – a new method of traversing the galaxy that relies on a kind of fungus. The Spore Drive was installed aboard two ships – Discovery and the USS Glenn. Engineer Paul Stamets was in charge of the Spore Drive aboard Discovery under the command of Captain Gabriel Lorca, but the technology wasn’t effective at first.
The crew of the USS Glenn discovered that a tardigrade – a space-dwelling lifeform – could be used to navigate the mycelial network and might be the key to making the Spore Drive operational. However, the crew were killed when the tardigrade got loose, and the ship was destroyed to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Initial experiments using the tardigrade were promising, despite the dangers it posed, but when it became clear how painful the process was for the creature, Stamets merged his DNA with the tardigrade’s so the creature could go free. Stamets thus became Discovery’s navigator and the Spore Drive became fully functional.
A space-dwelling lifeform proved key to making the Spore Drive work.
At the same time, Michael Burnham – now a prisoner following her mutiny – had been brought aboard the USS Discovery by Captain Lorca. She was assigned a cabin with Cadet Sylvia Tilly, and employed as a “mission specialist.” Lorca suggested to Burnham that this could be a way to atone for her role in the outbreak of the war, and she played a role in helping get the Spore Drive operational.
Captain Lorca was captured by the Klingons, but was able to escape thanks to the assistance of Ash Tyler – a fellow Starfleet prisoner. Tyler joined the crew of Discovery as Lorca’s new security officer – despite clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of his abuse and torture by the Klingons.
A war with the Klingons was the focus of large parts of Season 1.
The USS Discovery was sent to the planet Pahvo, where a crystalline transmitter was located. The transmitter could be used, Starfleet believed, to detect cloaked Klingon ships. When the mission went wrong and the native energy-based Pahvans summoned the Klingons to their planet, Captain Lorca disobeyed orders to implement a new plan. Outwardly his plan was to use multiple Spore Drive jumps to unlock the secrets behind the Klingons’ cloaking device – but in reality his plan was to use the Spore Drive to return to the Mirror Universe.
Captain Lorca was later revealed to be a native of the Mirror Universe, having crossed over inadvertently to the Prime Universe. While in the Mirror Universe the crew of the USS Discovery had to try to fit in as soldiers of the Terran Empire. Burnham and Lorca travelled to the capital ship of Empress Georgiou, where Lorca attempted to rally his forces and stage a coup.
Mirror Lorca returned home and attempted to stage a coup.
Lorca was killed during his coup attempt, but Empress Georgiou’s reign was over anyway; other plotters were already eyeing her throne. In a moment of unthinking impulse, Michael Burnham chose to save Georgiou’s life and transported her to Discovery. After investigating how Lorca was able to use the Spore Drive to jump between universes, the crew were able to reverse the process and return home – only to discover that the Klingons had reached the edge of victory in their absence.
A mad plan cooked up by Empress Georgiou and Admiral Cornwell saw a bomb transported to the Klingon homeworld, one which would have devastated the planet if it had been set off. Leading a second, pro-Starfleet values mutiny, Burnham rallied the crew of Discovery against the bomb plot and instead saw the super-weapon turned over to L’Rell – who went on to become the new Klingon Chancellor and ended the war.
Season 2
The crew of the USS Discovery at the end of Season 1.
After the war ended, Burnham and the crew received medals for their roles. Burnham was also reinstated at the rank of commander. Following a computer failure aboard the USS Enterprise, Captain Pike was assigned to the USS Discovery and given temporary command of the ship for his mission to chase down an ambiguous entity known as the Red Angel. The Red Angel had been generating anomalies known as Red Bursts at locations across the galaxy.
The Enterprise’s science officer – and Michael Burnham’s adoptive brother – Spock, had gone missing at the same time. The Red Angel was revealed to be a time traveller – someone with the ability to travel into the past and far into the future. A mysterious figure from Spock’s youth – and who had once intervened to save his life – was revealed as the Red Angel and thus connected to Spock’s disappearance.
Where is Spock?
Meanwhile on the Klingon homeworld, Ash Tyler – whose true identity as a Klingon had been discovered – was able to leave the planet with his “son” thanks to the help of Section 31. The son of Voq and Klingon Chancellor L’Rell was taken away to the Klingon monastery on Boreth to be raised with the monks, and Tyler rejoined Section 31 – which counted ex-Empress Georgiou among its new recruits. Captain Leland tried to maintain the peace aboard a state-of-the-art Section 31 vessel.
Section 31 had come to rely heavily on an artificial intelligence named Control during the Klingon war, and it had become routine for Starfleet admirals to run all of their mission data through Control. Unbeknownst to any of them, Control had aspirations of its own, seeking to become fully sentient and to wipe out its creators. Somehow it discovered the existence of an entity known as the Sphere – a planetoid-sized lifeform that had spent more than 100,000 years studying the galaxy and accumulating vast swathes of data on all of its inhabitants.
The USS Discovery (left) and the Sphere.
By merging its programming with the Sphere data, Control would be able to become fully sentient, and it set out to acquire the Sphere data. Thanks to the time-traveling involvement of the Red Angel, the USS Discovery came to possess the Sphere data, and thus became a target for Control.
After Michael Burnham was able to rescue Spock from Section 31, she took him to Talos IV where the Talosians were able to help “unscramble” his brain, leading to Spock explaining as much as he could about the Red Angel, its origins, and its connection to him. The Red Angel was revealed to be a human.
The Talosians were able to help Spock.
The USS Discovery became a fugitive after rescuing Burnham and Spock from Talos IV; hunted by Control, and thus by Section 31 and all of Starfleet. Control was able to kill off many Section 31 leaders and operatives, and used nanites to “assimilate” or possess the body of Captain Leland – but thankfully left Ash Tyler and Georgiou alone!
The crew of Discovery studied scans of the Red Angel following a mission to Saru’s home planet (in which they rescued his people from subservience to the Ba’ul, a second sentient race present on the planet). Saru underwent a transformation to his “evolved” form, losing much of his fearfulness in the process. Scans of the Red Angel revealed that the time traveller was, to everyone’s surprise, Michael Burnham.
Michael Burnham was believed to be the Red Angel.
After a side-story involving native beings in the mycelial network and Tilly, Dr Culber – who had been killed by Tyler/Voq – was able to be rescued from the mycelial network and brought back to life. Meanwhile a plan to lure the Red Angel and trap her ended up proving that Burnham wasn’t the Red Angel – her long-lost mother was.
Dr Gabrielle Burnham had been using the Red Angel suit to interfere in the timeline after getting trapped in the 32nd Century. She arrived there by accident only to find all sentient life in the galaxy gone thanks to Control, which had acquired the Sphere Data and evolved itself. She began taking action to thwart Control, including giving the Sphere data to Discovery to keep safe. She was later pulled back to the 32nd Century; her presence there ultimately determined the ship’s destination at the end of the season.
Dr Gabrielle Burnham explained why she – as the Red Angel – was interfering with the timeline.
Control was hot on Discovery’s heels, and using Captain Leland attempted to gain access to the Sphere data. Pike and the crew realised the data couldn’t be destroyed – it was protecting itself – so they made a plan to send the data into the far future, securing a time crystal from the Klingon monastery on Boreth in order to build a new Red Angel suit. During the mission to Boreth, Captain Pike made a great sacrifice to acquire the crystal – cementing a future for himself of devastating disability.
While preparing for a last stand against Control and a fleet of Section 31 ships under its command, the crew of Discovery raced to build a second Red Angel suit. After Control arrived and a battle raged, Michael Burnham used the completed suit to travel back in time and set the Red Bursts – making the whole story somewhat circular – before leading the USS Discovery (now under Saru’s command) into the future. Captain Pike and Spock remained behind in the 23rd Century.
Season 3
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Captain Pike, Spock, and the crew watched the USS Discovery disappear.
Arriving 930 years later, Michael Burnham was initially alone and crash-landed on the planet Hima. There she met Cleveland Booker who told her about the Burn: a galaxy-wide catastrophe in which many starships were destroyed. The Federation had also disappeared – at least from the local region of space – and though Book initially appeared antagonistic and out for himself, he eventually agreed to help Burnham and took her to a Federation outpost.
There was no sign of Discovery, however, and it was a full year later before the ship emerged from the time-wormhole. After a rough landing on a planet named the Colony, Acting Captain Saru and the crew came into conflict with Zareh, a courier working for a faction called the Emerald Chain. Thanks to the timely arrival of Book and Burnham, Discovery was rescued and proceeded to Earth using the Spore Drive.
After a year in the future with Book, Michael Burnham was able to find Discovery again.
In the 125 years since the Burn, however, many changes had taken place. Earth was just one of many planets to have quit the Federation, retreating to an armed isolationist stance that even saw the planet unwilling to communicate with human colonies inside the Sol system. Searching for a Starfleet Admiral named Senna Tal seemed fruitless at first, but Tal’s Trill symbiont had been transferred to a human named Adira.
After helping the people of Earth reconnect with their fellow humans on Titan, Discovery visited the Trill homeworld to help Adira – and to learn the location of Federation HQ, which was no longer on Earth. Burnham and the crew were able to help the Trill, who had been suffering from a shortage of suitable candidates for their symbionts, and also helped Adira in the process. Discovery was then able to travel to Federation HQ – a cloaked space station that housed the remnants of both the Federation government and Starfleet.
The USS Discovery docked at Federation HQ.
Having peaked at around 350 members, by the time of Discovery’s arrival the Federation was down to a mere 38 remaining worlds, some of which were out of contact due to the Burn’s lingering effects and damage to subspace communications. The ship undertook a short mission to recover some seeds from the USS Tikhov – a Starfleet seed vault – in order to provide medical care. Nhan, a Barzan officer, remained behind on the Tikhov.
The USS Discovery then underwent a retrofit, one which kept the familiar interior look of the ship but which upgraded many of its systems to 32nd Century standards, including detached nacelles and programmable matter. The crew were permitted to remain together under Captain Saru’s command, but Discovery was seconded to Federation HQ as a “rapid response vessel” thanks to its Spore Drive.
Admiral Vance was the head of Starfleet in the 32nd Century.
Michael Burnham and Georgiou undertook an off-the-books mission to rescue Book, who had been captured by the Emerald Chain. The upshot of Book’s rescue was the discovery of a Starfleet black box, and the data inside proved that the Burn did not happen everywhere simultaneously, as had been theorised. Instead it had a point of origin – but without more information it wasn’t possible to pinpoint it.
SB-19 was a project run by Ni’Var – the renamed planet Vulcan following reunification between Vulcans and Romulans – in the years before the Burn. Ni’Var had come to believe that SB-19 was responsible for the Burn and were unwilling to share any details about the project, even though Burnham asked them to share it to help pinpoint the Burn’s source. Eventually, however, the reappearance of Dr Gabrielle Burnham, who was now a member of the Qowat Milat, an order of armed Romulan nuns, showed Burnham the way to get the information and recommit herself to Starfleet following a year away from the ship.
A holographic depiction of SB-19.
After acquiring the SB-19 data, Discovery undertook a mission to Book’s home planet of Kwejian. Threatened by the Emerald Chain and its leader, Osyraa, Book’s brother attempted to turn him over to the faction in exchange for protecting the harvest and thus Kwejian’s food supply. Piloting Book’s ship, Lieutenant Detmer was able to damage the Emerald Chain flagship while the crew of Discovery found a way to protect Kwejian’s food supply without the need to rely on the Emerald Chain.
Mirror Georgiou had fallen ill, and a mysterious Federation figure named Kovich knew why – travelling through time and travelling across from a parallel universe leads to a painful and fatal condition which he believed to be incurable. The USS Discovery undertook a mission to a planet near the Gamma Quadrant to help Georgiou, and she was able to travel to a parallel universe very similar to the Mirror Universe.
Burnham and Georgiou travelled to this planet to seek help for her illness.
While in the Mirror Universe, Georgiou attempted to make changes. Having spent time with Burnham and the Federation she had become more compassionate and less quick to violence than before, and though she ultimately failed to bring about major reforms to the Terran Empire, she was deemed “worthy” of a second chance by the entity which sent her there – an entity which subsequently revealed itself to be the Guardian of Forever.
Georgiou was able to use the Guardian’s portal to leave the 32nd Century and thus save her life – but she had to say goodbye to Saru, Burnham, and the rest of the crew. Her destination isn’t clear – but if the Section 31 series gets off the ground in future we may just find out! Don’t hold your breath for that, though… it’s feeling less and less likely as time goes by!
The Guardian of Forever sent Georgiou to an unknown destination in order to save her life.
With the data from the black boxes and SB-19, Burnham and the crew were able to triangulate the source of the Burn: the Verubin Nebula. Inside the nebula was a crashed Kelpien starship, the KSF Khi’eth, and a life-form was detected on board despite the dangerous radiation from the nebula. Discovery made another jump to the nebula, and Captain Saru left Ensign Tilly in charge while he went to save the lost Kelpien.
The Emerald Chain took advantage of this situation to capture the USS Discovery, wanting to keep the Spore Drive technology for themselves. Leader Osyraa then set course for Federation HQ, keeping Discovery’s crew hostage while she tried to force the Federation into an alliance. Admiral Vance called her bluff, and Osyraa attempted to escape. In the meantime, though, Michael Burnham had jettisoned poor Stamets off the ship, and without him to control the Spore Drive Discovery was forced to rely on warp.
Stamets was ejected into space – but don’t worry, he’s okay!
Following a battle with the Emerald Chain both in space and aboard Discovery, Book was able to kill Osyraa’s lieutenant Zareh and Burnham was able to kill Osyraa herself, while Tilly and other members of the bridge crew regained control of the ship. Book’s empathic abilities allowed him to use the Spore Drive, transporting Discovery back to the Verubin Nebula just in time to save Saru, Culber, Adira, Gray, and Su’Kal – the Kelpien who was accidentally responsible for the Burn all those years ago.
Su’Kal had developed a telepathic link with dilithium thanks to the Verubin Nebula’s radiation and because the Khi’eth had crashed on a planet composed largely of the valuable fuel. When Su’Kal’s mother died while he was still a child, a telepathic shockwave that Su’Kal accidentally unleashed led to the Burn. By taking him away from the Verubin Nebula, any prospect of a repeat of the Burn was nullified.
Saru was able to rescue Su’Kal and prevent a reoccurrence of the Burn.
A short epilogue to the season showed us that Trill had rejoined the Federation and that the Federation was hoping to use the dilithium in the Verubin Nebula to bring hope back to the galaxy. Ni’Var was considering rejoining too, and Saru took a leave of absence to go to Kaminar with Su’Kal. In his absence, Burnham had been promoted and assumed command of Discovery.
And that’s the story so far!
We now know that Captain Burnham and the crew will have to contend with a gravitational anomaly in Season 4; an uncharted, never-before-seen phenomenon that appears to be threatening the Federation and all of known space. How that will play out isn’t clear at all right now, but we don’t have to wait too much longer to find out!
The USS Discovery in the Season 4 trailer.
I hope that this recap of the story so far has been useful. I didn’t include everything – this article would have been far too long if I’d tried to include every character moment and side-story. But I think I hit the most important story beats from all three seasons. I’d encourage you to check out other story recaps from other places to make sure you’re getting a full picture, though! Or you could just go back and re-watch Discovery… two episodes per day will get you pretty close, and then binge-watch the final few!
Going back to the stories of earlier seasons was a bit of fun, and it’s helped get me back into a Star Trek mood in time for Season 4, which will be upon us before you know it! I’m currently not writing up reviews of Prodigy episodes, as you may have noticed – the series is unavailable here in the UK and I see no point in covering a show that ViacomCBS doesn’t see fit to make available to Trekkies internationally. However, I will cover Discovery’s fourth season in-depth, including weekly episode reviews and theory posts, as well as other occasional articles on topics of interest while the season is ongoing. So I hope you’ll stay tuned for all of that here on the website in the weeks ahead.
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix internationally. Season 4 will begin on the 18th of November in the United States and the 19th of November internationally. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Picard Season 1, Lower Decks Season 2, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
While Star Trek: Discovery’s second season was running I wasn’t writing about the show; it wasn’t until November 2019 that I founded this website. Because of that I have a number of theories and ideas kicking around from the first two seasons of Discovery that I haven’t found time to talk about yet! On this occasion we’re going to look into one idea I had during Season 2 that has both in-universe and production-side elements to it – the “Borg origin story.”
I know for a fact that I’m not alone in having speculated that Discovery Season 2 was setting up an origin story for the Borg. Shortly after the season ended a friend of mine from way back was in the area for a visit, and we got talking about precisely this subject – yes, we’re both huge geeks! I’m also well aware that other fans have posited some variant or other of this theory online both during and after the season’s run, so please don’t interpret this article as me claiming to have independently and uniquely come up with this idea!
We’re revisiting Season 2 on this occasion!
Here’s the theory in brief: the Control AI, which was the main adversary during the story of Season 2, was originally intended to be the progenitor of the Borg. Its use of nano-technology, its ability to “assimilate” organic beings, and its murderous quest for true sentience that, if left unchecked, would have wiped out all sentient life in the galaxy are all indicators of this. In addition, the inclusion of time travel and the Red Angel suits in the story could have teed up a situation where Control was able to travel backwards through time and far across the galaxy in order to become the originator of the Borg Collective.
Because of Control’s similarities to the Borg in terms of its use of nanites, its single-mindedness, and its lack of care for the survival of organic individuals, this felt like a very real prospect right up until the final moments of the season finale. I really do wonder whether a Borg origin story was included in the original draft of Season 2, perhaps being modified later on once production had already commenced. What we saw on screen would thus contain the residual elements of that story, but with a different ending written – one which sent Burnham and the USS Discovery into the far future.
Captain Leland being “assimilated” by Control.
It’s this decision which I believe would be responsible for changing the story – if indeed such a change were mandated. Discovery had received criticism in Season 1 for its real or perceived “violations” of Star Trek’s internal canon, and it’s this reaction which surely contributed to sending the ship and crew far into the future. It could be that Season 2 was hastily re-written to include the time travel ending, dropping the Borg origin story in the process.
As a narrative concept, the idea that it was the Federation, through out-of-control technological and AI research, who inadvertently created the biggest threat to themselves and to the wider galaxy would be an incredibly impactful one, and something ripe for exploration in detail. The cyclical nature of such a story, with the Federation creating the Borg, then the Borg one day coming for the Federation, could be absolutely phenomenal if done well, and would highlight the morally questionable actions of senior Federation leaders and Starfleet admirals.
Admiral Patar – one of the senior figures involved in the Control AI project.
It would also be profoundly ironic that the Borg – almost universally acknowledged as the Federation’s biggest adversary – were ultimately a Federation creation. This revelation would have a huge impact on the Federation as a whole – and on our crew of Starfleet heroes when they discovered it – and could form the basis for a new Borg story that would surpass even the likes of The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact in its scope.
Had Discovery gone down this road in Season 2, it may not have fallen to Michael Burnham and the crew to be the ones to learn of the consequences of their battle to defeat Control. Picard Season 1 could have picked up this storyline, with information stored aboard the Artifact (the abandoned Borg Cube) finally revealing the Borg’s origins to the Federation more than a century later. This would have tied the two shows together in a very real and significant way – something I’ve argued on a number of occasions that Star Trek needs to be more adept at doing.
The Artifact in Picard Season 1.
In canon, we don’t know much about the Borg’s early history. The Control AI could have been slotted into the bits and pieces that we do know in a way that didn’t overwrite anything we’ve seen or been told on screen, with every past Borg story being allowed to unfold exactly as we know they did.
In-universe, the Borg originated in the Delta Quadrant “thousands of centuries” before the 24th Century. There was an original Borg race – a race of purely organic beings – but they began using nanotechnology and augmenting themselves, and eventually hooked up every facet of themselves to the Hive Mind. As of the late 15th Century, the Borg had assimilated a number of neighbouring star systems, but weren’t anywhere near as large as they would come to be in the 24th Century. Nothing in the early history of the Borg precludes the involvement of an outside force – the Control AI. It could have been the Control AI’s arrival on the world populated by the Borg’s organic ancestors that led them down a path of assimilation and augmentation.
Borg assimilation in the 24th Century.
The Red Angel suits and time crystals present in Season 2 would have provided Control with a method of travelling backwards through time. And as Dr Gabrielle Burnham found to her cost, the Red Angel suits are imperfect and prone to malfunctioning. Based on these pieces of evidence, it would’ve been possible for Control to have seized a Red Angel suit with the intention of travelling either backwards or forwards in time to defeat Captain Pike and Discovery, only for something to go wrong – emerging on the far side of the galaxy millennia in the past.
We are now firmly in the realm of speculation! But had such a scenario come to pass, Control may have found itself alone in the vicinity of a planet populated by humanoids: the Borg’s organic ancestors. Control may have begun the process of assimilating them, injecting its nanotechnology into more and more individuals and bending them to its will.
Control used nanites to “assimilate” Captain Leland.
Control had a forceful personality, but we don’t know what effect mass assimilations of individuals would have had on it. Would it have retained its own personality in the face of potentially thousands or millions of new “drones” – or would its own personality have begun to change, impacted by the personalities and desires of those it assimilated? Perhaps this is where the Borg’s quest for perfection comes from.
This could also explain why the Borg seemed not to recognise humanity or the Federation upon re-encountering them millennia later: Control had simply forgotten its origins, or whatever remained of Control within the Borg Collective was so small and insignificant that the knowledge of its creators had been lost. As the Borg continued to evolve and assimilated more and more beings, perhaps Control’s personality didn’t survive intact.
Perhaps the Borg had forgotten their origins by the time they encountered the Enterprise-D.
Alternatively, we could have learned that the Borg did retain all of Control’s memories and knowledge – but simply chose not to make the Federation aware of the connection during their encounters. This could be the Borg’s equivalent of “forbidden knowledge,” something kept secret and known only to the Borg Queen – who may be an embodiment of the evolved Control AI.
It would make sense from the Borg’s point of view not to allow Starfleet to find out about the connection to Control – perhaps out of fear that the Federation could use that information to find a weakness in the Borg’s core synthetic programming. It would only be when Starfleet had access to a derelict but intact Borg vessel – like the Artifact from Picard Season 1 – that they’d be able to hack into the Borg’s systems deeply enough to learn the truth.
The Borg Queen could be a new avatar for the evolved Control AI.
So that’s the theory, along with a couple of different ways it could have panned out.
I wouldn’t say I was “100% convinced” that this was going to happen as Season 2 rolled on, but it certainly felt like a distinct possibility. When I later saw the Artifact featured in the trailers for Picard Season 1 I wondered if the reason this story didn’t come to pass was because Picard actually had a Borg origin story of its own in the works!
Had this theory made it to screen I think we could’ve seen one of the most interesting connections between Discovery and the wider Star Trek franchise. Borg stories could be seen through a wholly new lens, and the themes of rogue artificial intelligence that both Discovery and Picard examined in their respective storylines could have been elevated by this “creation wants to destroy its creator” angle. That isn’t something original in science fiction, but it would have been a uniquely “Star Trek” take on the concept.
Borg drones from First Contact.
Whether a Borg origin story was actually present in the original Season 2 pitch or not is something we may never know. However, the team behind Season 2 must have been aware of the similarities between the way Control operated and the way the Borg have always been depicted, and I can’t believe that it was a coincidence. Someone involved in the production of Season 2 must have at least raised the point that the story was going down a very Borg-esque road!
To me it feels like any attempt to tell a story of this nature was superseded by the decision to take Discovery out of the 23rd Century altogether. If there was only room for one time travel ending to the season, the one that was chosen was to send the ship and crew into the far future. Control was left behind in the 23rd Century and seemingly defeated by Captain Pike, so any chance of it having a role in the creation of the Borg now seems to be entirely off the table.
Perhaps all of this was simply misdirection; the writers and producers of the season putting out deliberate red herrings so that fans wouldn’t figure out the ultimate direction of the story! If that’s the case, they definitely got me! Even if that’s what happened, though, as a concept the idea that the Federation accidentally created the Borg is one that could have led to some absolutely fascinating stories. Perhaps we’ll see something like it one day!
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and internationally. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3.
Today we’re going to take a look at something that’s been bugging me for a couple of years, ever since the finale of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 in April 2019. I didn’t start working on this website until November ’19, so I haven’t written up full reviews of Season 2, nor have I spent much time breaking down all of the various story points. This will be my first big foray into that! Rather than just a critique of what could be argued to be a plot hole or “goof,” though, I want to turn this into a theory, particularly one that could have an impact on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – the upcoming series set on the USS Enterprise with Captain Pike, Spock, and a new cast of characters.
Ever since I watched Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, something has stuck in my mind. Immediately before Burnham and the USS Discovery left the 23rd Century behind and headed into the far future we’ve seen depicted in Season 3, they were engaged in a climactic battle alongside Pike and the USS Enterprise against the Control AI. In addition to a fleet of Section 31 starships that were unmanned, Control had also possessed (or assimilated) the body of Section 31 commander Captain Leland. Control used Leland’s body to board the USS Discovery at the battle’s climax to attempt to retrieve the Sphere data – the macguffin that was the cause of the fight in the first place.
The data the Sphere transmitted to Discovery was the reason for Control’s attack.
The relationship between Control and Captain Leland was not sufficiently explained on screen, in my opinion, and this has a bearing on what comes next and why I have an issue with Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2. But based on what we saw during the episode, it seems as though Control was somehow tied to Captain Leland’s body in a very significant way, such that when his body was crippled by Georgiou inside the USS Discovery’s Spore Cube, it had an impact on the battle raging outside.
This is the moment where I feel there’s an issue. The entire reason for sending Burnham and the USS Discovery on a one-way mission to the far future was to keep the Sphere data safe from Control, but when Georgiou defeated Captain Leland, Control appeared to also be defeated – or at least sufficiently incapacitated as to be unable to continue the battle. This all happened before the USS Discovery entered the time-wormhole.
Was it necessary for Burnham and Discovery to leave the 23rd Century? I would argue that it was not.
So, with that in mind, why did Pike, Saru, or even Burnham not stop? Surely at the very least they could have paused what they were doing to consider their next moves. Aboard the Enterprise, Pike was able to easily destroy the disabled Section 31 ships, removing any immediate danger, and with Captain Leland incapacitated and clearly not going anywhere, the Sphere data was also safe. Before sending the ship and crew to an unknown destination with no way back, did no one realise that the battle may have already been won? Was there no reason to send Burnham and the ship into the future?
This is what I’m terming “the big mistake” for the purposes of this theory.
Although Burnham had already used the Red Angel suit to open the time-wormhole, I would absolutely argue that, based on what we saw on screen, the battle against Control had taken a decisive turn before either she or the USS Discovery actually crossed the threshold, and that there was time for Saru, Pike, Spock, or someone to point that out. They were preoccupied with the jobs that they had to do, but when it became obvious that Control was at least incapacitated – if not outright defeated – I think that warrants pause from everyone concerned. They were in the process of making a life-changing decision for Burnham and the crew of Discovery, yet for some reason no one seemed to realise that it may have ultimately been unnecessary.
Even though Pike, Saru, and others acknowledged Control’s defeat, they didn’t stop what they were doing. Burnham and Discovery still travelled to the far future. Why?
So let’s break it down even more, for the sake of clarity, and follow events step-by-step. I don’t usually do time-stamps, but I think this is important so we’re all on exactly the same page. If we begin at exactly 51 minutes, 30 seconds into Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 – at least on the Netflix version (I assume it will be roughly the same on Paramount+ and Blu-ray too) – we see Burnham getting ready to open the time-wormhole. In the shot of her flying through space near the raging battle, we see the Section 31 ships beginning to slow their rate of fire with a consequent drop in the number of explosions. This is the first indication that something was changing.
At 51:54, Saru gives Detmer the order to follow Burnham’s lead. The USS Discovery moves through a field of debris (presumably caused by the battle) and then we get our first look at the time-wormhole a few seconds later at around 52:06. At this point, neither Burnham nor the ship are anywhere close to crossing the event horizon and entering the time-wormhole.
As Burnham flies past the battle, Control’s ships appear to be slowing down and losing momentum.
Just before 52:30 the action cuts to Captain Pike on the Enterprise’s bridge, watching Burnham and Discovery preparing to enter the wormhole. Trailing in Discovery’s wake are Section 31/Control drones, chasing after them. After Saru and Pike exchange goodbyes at 52:40, and Dr Culber tells Stamets that “we’re on our way,” at 52:57 we come to the scene at the heart of my argument – and of this theory. In Discovery’s engineering bay, the possessed Captain Leland is trapped in the Spore Cube by Georgiou.
Seemingly admitting defeat, Control-Leland tells Georgiou – in true clichéd villain style – that “this does not end here!” Georgiou then finishes the job of killing him, using the powerful magnets in the Spore Cube to force the nanites out of Leland’s body. This action cripples Control, and severs the link between it and its fleet.
The defeat of Captain Leland crippled Control – at least temporarily – and allowed Pike and the Enterprise to destroy the remaining ships in its fleet.
53:39 sees Control-Leland hit the deck, dead. The nano-bots spill out of his corpse, and though it’s not clear exactly what will happen to the human Leland, or whether he could be saved, this is a major blow for Control. Less than ten seconds later, at 53:48, the USS Discovery and Burnham can both be seen, still outside the time-wormhole, and Control’s fleet suddenly stops pursuing them.
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Una (Number One) notes this at 53:51, informing Captain Pike that “they’re all dead in the water.” Again, this is before either Burnham or Discovery have entered the time-wormhole. Even if no one on Discovery realised what was happening – which is possible given everything else going on – the crew of the Enterprise certainly had, and there was still time to contact Discovery.
With Burnham and Discovery still not having entered the time-wormhole, Control’s fleet is disabled.
At 54:00, Georgiou contacts Captain Saru, and this is the moment where he could have made a decision too. Georgiou informs him of Leland’s death, but uses a very interesting phrase: “Control is neutralised.” Discovery has not yet entered the wormhole, and on the bridge, Saru is already aware that the reason for doing so no longer exists. Pike is aware that their reason for heading into the future no longer exists. They have already won the battle. By Georgiou’s own admission, the threat Control had posed is unequivocally over.
At 54:16, Burnham and the USS Discovery are seen reflected in the glass of Siranna’s starfighter, still not inside the time-wormhole nor having crossed its event horizon. These are the crucial seconds at the core of the theory, because it’s in these few seconds that the decision to leave the 23rd Century behind could have been called off. With the Enterprise destroying what remained of Control’s fleet, and with Leland dead, there was no immediate way for Control to access the Sphere data – and yet no one on either ship seems to have realised that.
Burnham and Discovery are still outside the time-wormhole, as seen in the reflection of Siranna’s starfighter.
Even if we say that Control was not totally killed off, and that its servers remained active at Section 31 HQ (or elsewhere, if you prefer) and thus that Control was still out there and potentially able to regroup, the fact remains that the immediate threat had passed. The battle had been won, even if there was still more to do to win the overall war.
No one mentioned this in Discovery Season 3. After a brief reference to Georgiou destroying the remains of Leland in the episode Far From Home, and a short conversation about Control with Admiral Vance in the episode Die Trying, their reasoning for going to the future was never discussed nor elaborated on. Burnham, when pressed about it by Book in That Hope Is You, maintained that it was the “only way” to save the galaxy, so she clearly hadn’t realised what was going on behind her – but that makes sense as she was busy operating the Red Angel suit and keeping the time-wormhole stable.
Burnham was too busy piloting the Red Angel suit to realise the battle was over.
Saru and Pike have no such excuse, in my opinion. Both commanders clearly and demonstrably knew that Control and/or its fleet were incapacitated, and I believe that should have led to one or both of them bringing an immediate halt to events to take stock. If Control was disabled, there was no immediate need to head to the future. With Leland dead, the Sphere data was safe, at least temporarily. With the battle won, everyone could have taken a moment to breathe and assess the situation, perhaps planning to go to Section 31 HQ and permanently destroy whatever remained of Control. Instead, everyone simply sat back as Burnham and Discovery raced into an unknown future – a future, I would argue, they did not need to travel to.
There’s a way this could come back in either Discovery Season 4, Strange New Worlds Season 1, or both: if Saru and/or Pike realise that they made a big mistake.
Given what he went through to make the Red Angel suit possible, I would suggest the person this would affect the most would be Captain Pike. In the episode Through the Valley of Shadows, Pike obtained a time crystal from the Klingons, but did so at great personal sacrifice – solidifying for himself a future of permanent disability. How would he feel knowing that it was all for naught; that if he replays the events of the battle in his mind, he could see that Control was already beaten and that there was no need for the time crystal?
Having sacrificed his future for this time crystal, will Pike come to believe – as I do – that sending Burnham and Discovery into the future was unnecessary?
One theme Strange New Worlds is certainly going to pick up on is Pike’s knowledge of his impending disability. As a disabled person myself, this is something I’m really interested in seeing come to life on screen. I can relate to what Captain Pike is going through, because I’ve had the experience of sitting in a room with a doctor and being told things about my health and my future that are unavoidable. I get that sense of inevitability, of knowing things won’t get better but they will get worse. This is something genuinely interesting and that has the potential to be inspirational through Anson Mount’s wonderful portrayal of Pike. But I also wonder if we’ll see him wrestle with feelings of regret or remorse, feeling that his fate and future are his own fault. If he knows (or believes) that the battle was won in Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 without the need for time travel – and thus, without the need for the time crystal he sacrificed so much to obtain – will those feelings be worse for Pike?
Though we didn’t see much of this in Discovery Season 3, with Season 4 on the horizon there’s a chance for the circumstances of Discovery’s jump into the future to be revisited. Even if nobody aboard realised it at the time, it’s possible that someone will have subsequently had the revelation that their one-way trip to the future, sacrificing so much and leaving their loved ones behind, may not have been necessary. Perhaps this will become an issue for Captain Burnham or Saru, with a disgruntled crew member taking out their anger on them for forcing them into a post-Burn future that they didn’t have to inhabit.
Pike and Spock watched Burnham and Discovery disappear after Control was already defeated.
So that’s it. My theory, based on what we saw in Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 is this: the defeat or disabling of Control toward the end of the battle means that Burnham and Discovery didn’t actually need to go to the far future – at least, not immediately. At the very least, pausing to take stock would have been worthwhile.
It seems possible to me that this could be brought back as a story point – even if it’s just in a relatively minor way, such as with a line or two of dialogue acknowledging it – in either Discovery or Strange New Worlds, as it’s a story which impacts major characters from both shows.
Will Captain Pike realise his mistake in Strange New Worlds, and could this be a major story point for his character?
Having delved deeply into this battle from an in-universe point of view, now let’s step back and acknowledge that this is, in effect, a “plot hole” or production-side issue. The writers and producers of Discovery Season 2 wanted to send the ship and crew into the far future, partly due to negative fan feedback involving so-called canon problems during Season 1. But at the same time, they also wanted to make sure that the Control storyline was 100% wrapped up and concluded before Season 3 kicked off.
Unfortunately, in my opinion at least, the way they chose to accomplish those two goals has opened a plot hole. In the mad rush to wrap up Discovery Season 2 in what was already a feature-length episode, an inconsistency has been created within the plot of the show. If Burnham and Discovery had gone into the future, and in the final few minutes of the episode we saw Pike, Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise finish defeating Control, there would be no problem. But because it was Georgiou, aboard Discovery, who killed Captain Leland, and because this unexplained link between Leland’s body and Control seems to have crippled the entire fleet, we have a problem.
Discovery brought Captain Leland aboard the ship for a climactic fight with Georgiou – but his death at her hands before travelling into the future has opened a plot hole.
Overall, for most viewers who don’t spend as much time thinking about (and nitpicking) Star Trek as much as I do, it probably passed by unnoticed. But even in 2019 I was having conversations with fellow viewers – including some who I would call “casual” viewers as opposed to hardcore Trekkies – who noticed this very issue. The fact that no one – not Pike, Spock, Number One, Georgiou, or Saru – thought to call off the journey to the future, even temporarily to assess the new facts, is a plot hole.
However, it’s a plot hole that could be plugged by incorporating it into future stories. Captain Pike could be affected by it, as previously mentioned. As could Spock or Number One on the Enterprise, as they saw the battle end before Burnham and Discovery entered the time-wormhole. It could also become an issue for anyone aboard the USS Discovery – perhaps with their mood and mental health suffering, they replay the events of the battle in their mind and come to the conclusion that they were forced to travel to the future unnecessarily. That’s my theory, anyway!
Will this cause problems for Burnham in a future season of Discovery?
Whether any of that will come to pass, or whether both shows will proceed ignoring this issue is anyone’s guess right now. I would think that, if Discovery wanted to acknowledge this criticism, Season 3 would’ve been the time to do so, and the fact that it didn’t happen may mean that the writers and producers are keen to move on and put Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 behind them. But I’m not 100% convinced of that. I think there’s scope to incorporate what feels like a plot hole into the storylines of either upcoming show in a way that would make sense.
As I said at the beginning, this is something that’s been on my mind since I first saw the episode a couple of years ago! Even on first viewing, it seemed patently obvious to me that someone should have realised what was happening before Burnham and Discovery left, speaking up to put the brakes on. It really does feel that, based on the sequence of events and how they unfolded on screen, Burnham and Discovery could have remained in the 23rd Century.
Despite all of this over-analysing of a few minutes of the episode, I really enjoyed Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 – and Discovery Season 2 as a whole. It’s a fantastic season of television well worth a watch, and this theory, despite being something that’s bugged me for a while, is really just a glorified nitpick!
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The series is also available on Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-2, Short Treks Season 2, Star Trek: Picard, and other iterations of the franchise.
It’s been a while since we looked at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Captain Pike series. But with production on Season 1 seemingly imminent – or perhaps having already begun, depending on what sources you use – I thought it would be fun to look ahead to what the first season of the show may hold.
At this stage, Strange New Worlds has only been commissioned for a single season. However, I would be absolutely stunned if we didn’t get an announcement preceding its Season 1 premiere that it had been renewed; this is the pattern ViacomCBS has had with both Discovery and Picard. I’m hoping, then, that Strange New Worlds will become an ongoing series, perhaps following Discovery’s path and running for four seasons, five, or even more. There’s certainly enough potential content for the show to get through, and while being a prequel is a constraint in some respects, that didn’t stop Discovery, Enterprise, and even the Kelvin films finding new and different stories to tell.
The USS Enterprise.
Just as I did for Discovery Season 4 and Picard Season 2 I’m going to make a few guesses – which I’m officially terming “preliminary predictions” – for Strange New Worlds Season 1. My usual caveat applies – I have no “inside sources,” nor am I claiming that anything listed below will definitely happen. These are guesses – educated guesses in some cases, perhaps, but guesses nevertheless.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the list!
Number 1: The uniforms will be redesigned.
Captain Pike’s gold uniform as seen in the Discovery Season 2 episode Brother.
With the exception of Star Trek: Voyager, every Star Trek series to date has introduced new variants of the Starfleet uniform for its crew. While we have seen Anson Mount and Ethan Peck sporting their Discovery uniforms in recent promotional spots for Paramount+, I’m not convinced that Strange New Worlds won’t at least tweak that design.
And perhaps that’s all it will be – a minor tweak or alteration of the uniforms worn by the Enterprise crew in Discovery. But we could see a more radical change, perhaps one designed to bridge the gap between Discovery-era uniforms and those seen in The Original Series. We could see, for example, the high collars scrapped in favour of the crew neck style seen in The Original Series.
Red uniform variant seen in the Short Treks episode Ask Not.
The uniforms worn by the Enterprise crew in Discovery were little more than recoloured versions of the Discovery uniforms, and if you look closely, you can see the detailing around the shoulder and down the sides. In my opinion, though these uniforms were preferable to Discovery’s all-blue look, they ended up looking like dyed Discovery uniforms rather than their own thing. This is something that could be addressed, even if only by making small changes to some of the detailing and stitching.
Regardless, I think that when we start to see promos for the new series, one thing we’ll notice is some kind of new uniform variant.
Number 2: Cadet Sidhu will be part of the Enterprise crew.
Cadet Sidhu.
The 2019 Short Treks episode Ask Not – whose writer, Kalinda Vazquez, is now writing a Star Trek film – brought back Captain Pike. But it also introduced us to a Starfleet cadet, and at the end of the action-packed, uplifting story, she was assigned to a role under Pike’s command aboard the Enterprise.
Almost any story could have been chosen to bring back Captain Pike for a mini-episode, but Ask Not spent most of its time setting up Cadet Sidhu’s character. She has a potentially interesting backstory, being the sole survivor of a Tholian attack, and as a young, talented cadet she could fill a fairly typical Star Trek role in the new series.
Captain Pike with Sidhu in the Enterprise’s engineering section.
We’ve seen the “young and eager” role filled by characters like Harry Kim, Sylvia Tilly, and even Wesley Crusher in past iterations of the franchise, and having someone like that presents a contrast with older, more experienced characters like Captain Pike and Number One. Cadet Sidhu also has a husband, who could potentially be a recurring character, and her background with the Tholians suggests she may not be quite as naïve and inexperienced as other cadets, potentially giving her more to say and do.
Of the main cast that we know of at this stage, all three roles are played by white American actors – Anson Mount as Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, Rebecca Romijn as Number One. Every Star Trek show going back to The Original Series has proudly shown off a diverse cast, and bringing in someone of Indian heritage would be great. Amrit Kaur, who plays Sidhu, would be the first person of Indian heritage to be a main cast member in the history of the franchise, which would be groundbreaking in itself.
Number 3: There will be a non-Starfleet crewmate.
Cleveland Booker in Season 3 of Discovery.
One of the best things Discovery Season 3 did was introduce the character of Cleveland Booker. Book served as our guide to the 32nd Century in some ways, but also shook up the rigid hierarchy of the Starfleet crew by offering an outside perspective.
Several Star Trek shows have experimented with non-Starfleet characters in various roles, and aside from Book I’d point to Quark in Deep Space Nine and even, to some extent, Neelix in earlier seasons of Voyager as successful examples. I don’t expect Strange New Worlds to put together a Picard-style team where no one is a serving Starfleet officer, of course, but bringing in one major character who exists outside of the ship’s command structure would be potentially interesting.
Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager.
There are many ways this could be done, and many different roles such an individual could occupy. I’m thinking perhaps of a chef-type role, maybe someone who oversees the mess hall and is friendly with the crew. But there’s also potential to bring in an alien character who is perhaps aboard the ship as an observer or diplomat.
The possibilities are open-ended – as is almost everything with Strange New Worlds – but I certainly think that bringing at least one “outsider” into the crew can be a great storytelling device, one which could take the show to different thematic places.
Number 4: There will be a significant callback to Star Trek: Enterprise.
The NX-01 Enterprise.
Aside from a couple of Okudagrams and throwaway lines, modern Star Trek has essentially ignored Enterprise. The franchise’s first prequel currently feels disconnected from the rest of the franchise; cut off in the 22nd Century all by itself. There’s potential for Strange New Worlds to rectify this, and having a significant crossover with Enterprise would be something fun to see.
A few months ago I suggested that the Andorian Shran or main character T’Pol from Enterprise could still be alive and active in the era in which Strange New Worlds is set. Either character – or both – could thus cross over and appear in the new series. That would be a hugely significant moment, as it would firmly tie in Enterprise with the ongoing Star Trek franchise.
Sub-commander T’Pol.
Discovery could have done something similar to pay homage to Enterprise in either of its first two seasons, but with the show now set far in the future, any crossover potential has gone away. Strange New Worlds is currently the only 23rd Century series, and while the untitled Section 31 show or a future series may share the setting, that’s hardly a sure thing. So if the creative team at ViacomCBS want to bring up anything from Enterprise any time soon, this is by far the best place to do it.
If a main character crossover isn’t on the cards, there are still myriad other ways to acknowledge Enterprise in a major way. We could see Pike and the crew revisit a location first seen in Enterprise, or see the return of races like the Denobulans, Suliban, or Xindi, none of which have ever been mentioned outside of Enterprise.
Number 5: Ash Tyler will return.
Ash Tyler.
Of Discovery’s main cast from Seasons 1 and 2, only Ash Tyler didn’t travel into the future with Burnham and the rest of the crew. He remained in the 23rd Century, and at the end of the Season 2 finale we learned he would be appointed head of Section 31. It’s been assumed ever since (not only by me but by other fans and theory-crafters) that Tyler was intended to appear in the upcoming Section 31 series. However, as we recently learned, that show may be on hold for at least the next couple of years.
Ash Tyler’s story arc across Discovery’s first two seasons is arguably complete. He came to terms with what happened to him, his transition from Klingon to human and the two sides of his personality that created. He also went on a rollercoaster ride in terms of his relationship with Burnham. But there’s still a lot of potential in Tyler, and one thing in particular that leads me to believe that he could – in theory – have a role to play in Strange New Worlds.
Is this Ash’s brother? His cousin?
The character above is José Tyler, one of the original officers under Pike’s command in The Cage. Now I’m not expecting everyone we met in The Cage to be recast and appear in Strange New Worlds, but the possibility of a family connection between José and Ash seems like it could be fun to explore. Perhaps they’re brothers or cousins. If so, how would José react to the fact that Ash isn’t really Ash any more? That could be a huge source of conflict, and putting the two characters together to work through that might be a story worth telling.
Ash Tyler could also be part of a Section 31-related story, or even a story that sees the Enterprise picking up the last remaining pieces of the battle against Control. Ash shares a secret that only Pike and the Enterprise crew know – what really happened to the USS Discovery. As the head of Section 31, might he leverage that against Pike somehow to force him to take on a dangerous mission? There are, once again, almost an unlimited number of ways Ash Tyler could be used in the context of the new show. I doubt he’ll be a major starring character, but having him back for an episode or two seems a real possibility.
Number 6: The Enterprise will make first contact with a familiar race.
A Cardassian spy seen in The Next Generation.
One of the promises Strange New Worlds has made is that it will be a return to the kind of Star Trek that The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager did so well, with stories focusing on exploration. Over the course of those series, the captains and their crews made numerous first contacts with alien races, and if Strange New Worlds is to make good on its premise, making at least one first contact seems inevitable.
If we look at Enterprise as the other major Star Trek prequel series, we saw first contact with established races like the Klingons, Romulans, and even the Ferengi – though Archer didn’t know who he was meeting in that last case. The point is, Enterprise went back and showed us how humanity first encountered many familiar Star Trek races – and this is something Strange New Worlds could do too.
Enterprise depicted Earth’s first contact with the Romulans, and several other familiar races.
I’ve written about this a number of times here on the website, but I adore Deep Space Nine, and particularly the Bajorans and Cardassians. We’ve never seen the Federation make first contact with either of them, and it could be very interesting to see how it went. The Cardassians would likely still be a militaristic state, but we know that the Bajorans prior to the Cardassian occupation were very different – operating a caste-based society that the Federation would surely disapprove of.
If not the Cardassians or Bajorans, there are many other Star Trek races which had already been contacted either by the time of The Original Series or The Next Generation that we could see Captain Pike and his crew meet for the very first time. Among them could be the Gorn, Tholians, or even a relatively obscure race like the Sheliak, who only appeared in a single episode. In my opinion, making first contact with an established race would tie Strange New Worlds in to the wider franchise, and that’s something that I firmly believe every Star Trek series needs to be doing.
Number 7: Spock will mention Michael Burnham at least once.
Burnham and Spock in the Discovery Season 2 episode Project Daedalus.
Season 2 of Discovery explored in some detail the relationship between Burnham and Spock. They were raised as siblings on Vulcan by Sarek and Amanda, and Burnham appears to have been quite influential in Spock’s life and in his development. At the end of Season 2, Spock stated his intent to travel to the future with Burnham, and while we know that was never going to happen because of his other appearances in the franchise, it indicates how close they were.
Burnham’s loss is akin to a bereavement. Although the final red burst confirmed that she safely made it to the 32nd Century, Spock will never see Burnham again (barring some other time travel story!) so she’s gone from his life. How will that affect him? While Spock may, on the surface, appear to simply brush off the events of Season 2, he went through a heck of a lot. The loss of Burnham may be the worst part, but being accused of murder, having his mind scrambled, travelling to Talos IV, and being hunted by Control will have all taken a toll.
Captain Pike and Spock watch Burnham and the USS Discovery disappear into the future.
Burnham had her “Spock episode” with Unification III midway through Discovery Season 3, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Strange New Worlds reciprocates somewhat and gives Spock his own “Burnham episode” – or at least a Burnham moment. Moving on completely as if everything he went through in Discovery Season 2 never happened wouldn’t sit right, so I’m sure there will be at least some reference or acknowledgement of Burnham from Spock.
It may not be a complete story, rather just a line or two of dialogue in which Spock mentions how much he misses Burnham. But I do expect to see some kind of reference or connection. Despite Spock being a long-established character within Star Trek, Strange New Worlds is a spin-off from Discovery, and this version of the character in particular is tied to Burnham very strongly. Making note of that would also be a reminder to the audience that Discovery is Strange New Worlds’ sister show – another of those little ties between ongoing parts of the franchise that I mentioned.
Number 8: Pike will have to deal with the knowledge of his impending accident and disability.
Captain Pike after his accident, as seen in The Original Series Season 1 episode The Menagerie.
Captain Pike not only saw his future at the Klingon monastery on Boreth, but he actively chose to accept his horrible fate in exchange for a time crystal. This happened toward the end of Season 2, and with the battle against Control to prepare for, he didn’t have much time to really stop and think about what that means. But Strange New Worlds will surely slow things down – at least some of the time – giving him pause for thought.
In the moment, Pike did what he needed to do and embraced his dark future. Will he regret that? Will he be worried at every turn, looking over his shoulder for the moment where his accident will occur? If so, who will help him snap out of it? It would be very easy for someone in his position to fall into depression – after all, what he’s going through is akin to being diagnosed with a terminal disease.
Pike sealed his fate in the Discovery Season 2 episode Through the Valley of Shadows.
We have seen Star Trek tackle this subject before, but only in the format of one-off episodes. Having a main character who is aware of his impending health collapse and disability could be something that’s absolutely worth exploring. In a way, I can relate to Captain Pike. Over the last decade or more I’ve seen my own health gradually decline, and while it isn’t quite the same thing (Pike’s accident takes him from full health to total disability in a heartbeat) I’ve been in the position of hearing a doctor tell me really awful news, knowing that there isn’t anything I can do to fix it.
Star Trek usually does things by analogy, so rather than Captain Pike being diagnosed with a real-world life-limiting condition, he’s seen a vision of his future disability in a time crystal. But the impact it could have on him from a psychological point of view is comparable, and this could, in my opinion, be a great way for Star Trek to explore the complexities surrounding incurable illness, long-term health conditions, disability, and even terminal illness. There are many, many ways such a story could go, and I’ll be fascinated to see what direction the show takes with this.
Number 9: There will be either a time-travel or parallel universe story.
Kirk’s captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey travelling through time in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Time travel has been a part of Star Trek going back to Season 1 of The Original Series, and we’ve seen a number of episodes take place in both the past and future. With Strange New Worlds sending Pike and the Enterprise off on a mission of exploration, they could easily encounter any of the temporal phenomena that we know exist out there in space.
I’ve never been wild about time travel in Star Trek, and often the episodes in which it features aren’t my favourites. Using time travel to visit contemporary Earth inevitably dates a story, too – just look at Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home or the Voyager two-part episode Future’s End as examples of that! But just because time travel isn’t my personal favourite story element doesn’t mean it can’t work well, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Strange New Worlds pursue a story of this nature.
Voyager visited ’90s California in Future’s End.
The main candidate when considering time travel has to be the aforementioned contemporary Earth, in this case, Earth circa 2021! But we’ve seen time travel stories set in the 1890s, the 1930s, and even a dark vision of the 2020s! It could also be fun to see the crew shot forward in time, and perhaps having to rely on the help of a time-travelling future Starfleet to get home.
Alternatively we could see a parallel universe story – though hopefully not the Mirror Universe! The Mirror Universe is potentially home to the prime version of Captain Lorca, and rescuing him could be an interesting story. But there are many other parallel universes – including the alternate reality where the Kelvin films are set. Could that set up a crossover with the alternate reality versions of Pike and Spock?
Number 10: The show will acknowledge current events.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest and most disruptive event in many years.
The big story of 2020 was, of course, the pandemic. But there are other significant ongoing events, such as the issue of race in the United States, that Strange New Worlds could try to tackle. Star Trek, despite what some people want to tell you, has always been a franchise with a keen interest in contemporary events. Going all the way back to The Original Series, Star Trek has used its sci-fi setting to look at real-world events, and I wonder to what extent Strange New Worlds will try to do that.
In a series that aims to be more episodic than other recent Star Trek projects, Strange New Worlds could certainly dedicate at least one episode to looking at a major current event. The pandemic is something we have yet to see appear in fiction in a big way. The issue of race, on the other hand, is something we’ve seen tackled many times in many different ways.
Star Trek has looked at the issue of race relations in the United States before, notably in the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
A story touching on issues raised by the pandemic could look at, for example, a planetary society suffering from disease, but where a significant number of people refuse to take precautions – something we’ve seen all across the world to varying degrees. Or it could look at the long-term impact of isolation through a character or set of characters who haven’t had any outside contact for a long time.
Any series that plans to look at aspects of the ongoing pandemic has to tread carefully, in my opinion, to avoid appearing to sensationalise current events or to be seen to be exploiting the situation. But as one of the biggest events of the 21st Century so far, the coronavirus pandemic will be explored in art and entertainment many times in the years ahead, and there’s no reason why Star Trek shouldn’t tackle it – provided it does so tactfully.
Number 11: The Klingons will make an appearance.
A Klingon general from Lower Decks.
Federation-Klingon relations went on a rollercoaster in the 23rd Century, to say the least! From ignoring one another to all-out war to a peace conference, the two factions did it all. One thing we have yet to see is the way in which the Klingons changed following the war depicted in Discovery – and no, I don’t mean the prosthetic makeup!
When L’Rell took power at the end of Discovery Season 1, she sued for peace with the Federation, after which Federation-Klingon relations appear to have thawed, at least a little. Yet within a decade or so, the Klingons were once again incredibly antagonistic toward the Federation, with conflicts and battles fought during this era.
Chancellor L’Rell in the Discovery Season 2 episode Point of Light.
Perhaps we could see something happen between the Klingons and Federation to set them on this antagonistic path. Captain Pike has built up some degree of goodwill with the Klingons, but seeing this evaporate would be a potentially interesting story. We could also welcome back Mary Chieffo as L’Rell in a story focusing on the Klingon Empire.
Just like we need to see Section 31 disappear and move underground, we also need to see the Klingons and Federation move apart. Another all-out war is not required, but seeing the situation deteriorate and even the cutting off of diplomatic relations would “reset” the Klingons closer to the way they were in The Original Series.
So that’s it.Ten Eleven preliminary predictions for Season 1 of Strange New Worlds. As I said when the series was first announced, 2022 seems like a reasonable guesstimate for when it’ll premiere, and that was backed up by the news we got a few weeks ago about which shows are in production and how far along they are. So while it’s definitely early to be considering what we might see from the new show, it’s not too early! Who knows, it could be this time next year that Strange New Worlds makes its debut!
Anson Mount has recently featured in the ad campaign for Paramount+.
I hope this was a bit of fun. And just to re-emphasise what I said at the beginning: I don’t have any “insider information,” this is just guesswork from a fan. Nothing more! So don’t get upset if none of what I suggested above ultimately comes to pass!
I’m really looking forward to Strange New Worlds. It seems to be offering more of a “classic” take on Star Trek when compared to recent projects, and I’m 100% there for that! The franchise has expanded, and there’s plenty of room for serialised drama and even animated comedy, but taking Star Trek back to its roots is definitely something I’m keen to see. That doesn’t mean every project should try to do the same thing, but it does mean that Strange New Worlds is close to the top of the list of shows that I’m most excited about!
If we get any major news, casting information, or a trailer be sure to check back as I’m sure I’ll have something to say. Other than that, all we can do is wait!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is coming to Paramount+ at some point in the future. International distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds, Discovery, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Picard, and other iterations of the franchise.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 came to an end this week. That Hope Is You, Part 2 was a solid episode with plenty of action, and despite the underwhelming nature of one of its plotlines, I think it did a good job wrapping things up.
Speaking of wrapping things up, that’s what we’re going to do today! We had twenty-two theories going into the finale, and while a handful live on and may return in Season 4 depending on the way things go, most were either outright debunked or the story went in such a direction as to leave them looking very unlikely. We did, however, get three confirmations (or at least partial confirmations) so we’ll look at those first!
Confirmed theory: Aurellio stood up to Osyraa.
Aurellio and Osyraa.
Although Aurellio didn’t get as much screen time as I’d have liked to see, he did break away from Osyraa and the Emerald Chain. Aurellio had a mini character arc that ran over the final two episodes of the season in which his eyes were opened to Osyraa’s villainous nature, and allowed him his moment of opposition to her when he refused to allow his technology to be used to torture Book.
I stand by my previous comparison in which I said that Aurellio fills a role claimed by the likes of Albert Speer and others who worked for the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s. Aurellio seems to have spent a lot of time focusing on his work in his lab, reaping the rewards of helping the Emerald Chain but without really allowing himself to see what the organisation and its leader were doing. His conversation with Stamets opened his eyes to this, and we saw that theme come to a head in the scene in sickbay.
Though Aurellio did briefly help out later on, giving Book the idea that he could use his empathic abilities to use the Spore Drive, Aurellio feels like an underused character, and I hope to see him return in Season 4. He could have joined up with the Federation, or even serve aboard Discovery.
Part-confirmed theory #1: Burnham became captain.
I successfully predicted that Burnham would become captain… but not how it would happen! So I’m calling this one part-confirmed instead of fully confirmed!
I had speculated that Burnham could assume the captaincy either because Saru would be killed, or because Saru would be promoted and become an Admiral if Admiral Vance were killed. Neither of these scenarios came to pass, and Saru was rather unceremoniously shuffled off the ship during the epilogue without getting so much as an opportunity to say goodbye to the crew. That was poor, and Saru deserved to be treated with more respect.
However, it allowed Burnham to get her promotion, something that Star Trek: Discovery has been aiming for since Season 1. Some of the issues with Burnham, both this season and in the past, stem from her insubordination. Now that she’s in command, that should no longer be anywhere near as big an issue, and as captain she should have a lot more freedom to approach problems and adventures her way – within the spirit of the rules, if not following them to the exact letter!
Part-confirmed theory#2: The Federation’s allies arrived to help fight the Emerald Chain.
The arrival of Ni’Var’s fleet.
I’m calling this one part-confirmed because only Ni’Var arrived to help the Federation when the Emerald Chain attacked. I had half-expected a bigger fleet, perhaps comprised of the Earth Defence Force, the raiders from Titan, the Trill, people from the Colony, people from Kwejian, and Nhan aboard the USS Tikhov. However, only Ni’Var made it to the party!
We don’t know what became of most of the others; Trill rejoined the Federation, but the rest weren’t even mentioned in the finale. The arrival of the Ni’Var fleet felt great – up there with other big last-minute arrivals in other battles in the franchise for sure. But by the end of the episode I did feel that the absence of some of the other friends and allies that Burnham and the crew had made was noticeable… and perhaps even a little sad.
So those theories were confirmed or partially-confirmed. Up next we have a handful of theories whose status was left unclear as of the end of That Hope Is You, Part 2. It’s possible some of these will return in Season 4, but it depends how the story of that season shapes up. If Season 4 goes in a completely different direction, perhaps some or all of these theories will simply fall by the wayside. We most likely won’t know for a while!
Status: Unknown #1: The Spore Drive will become Starfleet’s new method of faster-than-light propulsion.
Discovery makes a Spore Drive jump.
The revelation that Book could use his empathic abilities to use the Spore Drive has, in theory, opened up the technology to being deployed across other Starfleet vessels. Early in Season 1 Stamets seemed to suggest that mycelial spores were not easy to acquire, so that may yet prove to be a limiting factor, but if that could be overcome there’s no real reason why the Spore Drive couldn’t be rolled out.
If empathic species like the natives of Kwejian can use the Spore Drive, it opens up even more possibilities. Betazoids spring to mind as an empathic species; perhaps they could become navigators too.
As this moment came in the final act of the season finale it didn’t get a chance to be paid off, so we won’t know the status of the Spore Drive until next season at the earliest. When Burnham was in command of the ship right at the end of the episode, her orders were to deliver dilithium to other planets, so perhaps we can infer from that that not every vessel will have its own Spore Drive. Regardless, the expansion of this technology would not only allow Discovery to have new and different adventures, but would also make it so other Star Trek series set in or after this time period could do so too.
Status: Unknown #2: The Dax symbiont is still alive.
Jadzia Dax.
On reflection, this theory should have been put on hiatus as soon as Discovery departed the Trill homeworld in Forget Me Not. But I stand by the reasoning behind it – Trill symbionts can be very long-lived, and we got at least a hint at Tal having been alive in the 25th Century via the appearance of a Picard-era uniform. Though Dax had already had several hosts by the time of Deep Space Nine, nothing in-universe would prevent their reappearance.
However, with the Trill having rejoined the Federation, perhaps there will be an opportunity to see or hear about Dax in Season 4.
Status: Unknown #3: Kovich is an agent of Section 31.
Who is Kovich?
Kovich made only a very brief appearance in That Hope Is You, Part 2, so we didn’t get an opportunity to learn anything more about him. It was implied that he has a role in Starfleet security and/or intelligence based on his debrief of Georgiou and ability to access classified files. Combined with his morally ambiguous personality – which we see on full display when he doesn’t tell anyone about Georgiou’s impending health emergency – it doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume he could be an agent of Section 31… or even its leader.
Given Georgiou’s connection to the upcoming Section 31 series, and the time travel plot to get her there, perhaps the reason Kovich didn’t say anything is because he knew exactly what role he needed to play. Georgiou, as a leader in Section 31 centuries earlier, may have sent him a message through the organisation, telling him exactly what to do when she arrived. That would be a time-loop story that we could see in Season 4!
We know Kovich will be back, so perhaps we’ll learn more about him when he returns. I’ve heard other Trekkies speculating that he could be the Federation President – that would be an interesting revelation too.
Status: Unknown #4: The ban on time travel is being flouted – possibly by secretive elements within the Federation.
The USS Enterprise travelled through time in Assignment: Earth.
It was stated multiple times in Season 3 that there is a galaxy-wide ban on time travel, a ban which was brought in in the aftermath of the Temporal Wars. However, this never sat right with me for one simple reason. As I’ve said several times over the last few weeks: it’s not possible to un-invent an incredibly powerful, weaponisable technology.
Even if the ban on time travel had been adhered to prior to the Burn, it seems completely implausible that absolutely nobody would seek to revive time travel technology in the century that followed. The Emerald Chain are the main villainous faction we met in Season 3, and Osyraa seems like she would have put people like Aurellio to work on re-inventing the necessary technology. But even if the Emerald Chain were unable to use time travel, what about other factions like the Borg or the Dominion? And what about Starfleet itself, and Section 31?
Finally, assuming all of the factions mentioned have agreed to adhere to the ban, who’s enforcing it to make sure they all stick to their commitments? Communication across the galaxy is incredibly difficult, so how can any of the main factions be sure that their adversaries – or even rogue elements from within – aren’t trying to use time travel?
I find the whole idea of the ban impractical unless it can be properly explained how time travel was banned and how the ban is enforced. So I maintain that, despite what we saw all season long, there may be elements within the Federation working on covert time travel projects.
Status: Unknown #5: The ships at Federation HQ represent the majority of Starfleet’s remaining vessels. And they’re all 120+ years old.
Federation and Ni’Var ships at warp.
When Discovery first arrived at Federation HQ in Die Trying, I theorised that the ships we saw might be all that remain of the once-mighty Starfleet. In addition, the devastating nature of the Burn may well have meant that building new ships would be difficult – and with very little dilithium to power them anyway, Starfleet may be forced to rely on a fleet of ageing vessels.
We saw no confirmation of this – and to Discovery’s crew, all the ships look futuristic and new! But we saw nothing to debunk it either, and while I don’t think we’ll see this point explicitly addressed any time soon, we may learn in Season 4 that the fleet is being rebuilt and expanded.
Status: Unknown #6: Tilly’s role as first officer.
Tilly eyes the captain’s chair.
I had theorised that Tilly would resign as first officer in the aftermath of the ship being captured. However, as of the end of the season it was left ambiguous as to what happened. Did Captain Burnham keep her on, or will she choose a new XO?
Tilly becoming first officer was a contentious point for some fans, and while I do understand why, I wasn’t upset by it personally. I’d be happy to see her remain in her post if that’s what the writers and producers have in mind, but equally I’d be happy to see a different character take on the role. Perhaps someone like Bryce, Rhys, or Nilsson could be promoted – and join the regular cast?
So those theories’ fates remain unknown. Will they be confirmed or debunked next season, or in some other future Star Trek story? It’s possible, but it’s equally possible that some of them will simply be ignored and their status never addressed.
Next we’ll look at a couple of theories which, while not explicitly debunked, are now certainly dead as the storylines they were part of have concluded.
Dead theory #1: Dr Issa is a descendant of Saru’s sister Siranna.
Just like this theory, Dr Issa is dead.
Dr Issa’s potential family connection to Saru was not addressed, and I think it’s highly unlikely it will be mentioned in Season 4. The reason for this theory was primarily production side, as the same actress (Hannah Spear) played the role of both Siranna in Season 2 and Dr Issa in Season 3. As interesting as it would have been for there to be a deeper connection between Saru, Dr Issa, and Su’Kal, the explanation for this may also be on the production side of things – it may have been easier to bring back an actress who was already fitted for the complicated Kelpien prosthetic makeup rather than casting someone wholly new.
Dead theory #2: Aurellio is married to Osyraa.
Was Aurellio meant to be married to Osyraa?
There seemed to be a hint that Aurellio was married to or in a relationship with Osyraa. Stamets noted that his partner, with whom he is said to have children, is Orion – and Osyraa seems to be Orion too. They also had a familiarity that seemed to go beyond employer and employee, as well as a history that Aurellio hinted at in his conversation with Stamets.
Osyraa attacked him in That Hope Is You, Part 2, but despite threatening to kill him, took no further aggressive action. However, now that she’s dead and the Emerald Chain has “fractured,” I doubt we’ll hear much at all about Osyraa in Season 4 even if Aurellio does return (as I hope he will).
So those two theories seem certain to be dead and not coming back, even though they were not out-and-out debunked.
Finally we come to the debunkings!
Debunked theory #1: One of the officers with Tilly will be killed.
Things looked grim for a moment, but everyone ultimately survived.
At the end of There Is A Tide, Tilly gave the ominous order to her team that if anyone should be killed, the rest would keep going until they reached the bridge. Then in That Hope Is You, Part 2, the whole group were suffering from oxygen depletion as Osyraa tried to slowly suffocate them.
Owosekun was perhaps in greatest danger as she took their makeshift bomb to the nacelle, but she was saved at the last minute by a DOT 23 – who was in turn saved by Owosekun and Reno in the epilogue.
Ryn was the only major character on the heroes’ side who died across the whole season, and we can argue whether or not that’s a good thing at a later date. But in the context of this theory, everyone survived so the theory is debunked!
Debunked theory #2: The Burn will receive a different explanation.
The moment the Burn occurred was captured in this holo-recording.
At some point in the next few weeks or months I will take an in-depth look at the Burn – Season 3’s most controversial storyline. For now, however, suffice to say that this point was more a last-ditch hope than a theory, as I felt certain that if the Burn remained solely the fault of Su’Kal it would be underwhelming.
That explanation, which was first communicated in Su’Kal a couple of weeks ago, ended up being accurate. There was no deus ex machina in the season finale to re-explain what the Burn was and how it happened – and that’s probably a good thing overall. Though the Burn was – in my subjective opinion – a narrative that didn’t come to a satisfactory end, and one that has issues, a last-second deus ex machina would have been even worse!
Debunked theory #3: The Burn was the result of a superweapon.
The Burn.
After the rest of my pre-season theories about the Burn fell by the wayside, this was the final one that I considered to be even slightly possible. Going into the finale, the way it could’ve worked would either be that the Kih’eth (Su’Kal’s ship) was carrying a superweapon, or that Su’Kal himself had been modified somehow to become a superweapon. How or why this would’ve happened is not even relevant; it was just a way to explain the Burn beyond Su’Kal.
As mentioned above, though, the Burn turned out to be caused by Su’Kal and his connection to dilithium. In the context of the last few episodes this was a good thing, as a last-second turnaround would have been very difficult to pull off.
Debunked theory #4: There will be a resolution to the story of Calypso (the Short Treks episode).
The USS Discovery as seen in Calypso.
Season 3 spent some of its runtime firmly establishing that the Short Treks episode Calypso hasn’t been forgotten and remains very much in play in the overall storyline of Discovery. However, despite several teases and moments that seemed to inch us closer to resolving the mysterious outlying episode, there was no resolution.
We have seen the creation of Zora – a merger of the Sphere data with Discovery’s own computer. We heard that some denizens of the galaxy call the Federation the “V’draysh,” which was the name Craft used in Calypso. The main unresolved point is how the USS Discovery came to be abandoned, and why, if it was abandoned, it was reset to its pre-refit configuration beforehand.
With Zora being intact thanks to Reno and Owosekun, we have all of the threads present in Calypso – but I can’t see how they’ll tie together just yet. Maybe Calypso is set in the far future – the 42nd Century not the 32nd. Maybe Discovery will travel back in time in Season 4 or Season 5 for some reason. Maybe Calypso will never be fully explained and will remain an outlier in the Star Trek canon; an episode connected to a storyline for Season 2 or Season 3 that simply never came to pass.
Debunked theory #5: A character from a past iteration of Star Trek – such as the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager – will make an appearance.
The Doctor didn’t make an appearance.
This was my other big pre-season theory that remained in place for the duration. Though it did come true somewhat thanks to the return of the Guardian of Forever, we didn’t see any of the characters I theorised about – including Voyager’s Doctor – make a return.
However, although it was debunked in Season 3, this one will almost certainly be back for Season 4! When Star Trek: Picard brought back legacy characters, we knew in advance which main actors would be returning, and their presence became a big part of that show’s marketing push. Other legacy characters were recast and their presence was kept more of a secret. In short, what I’m saying is that if we are to see the return of the Doctor or some other past Star Trek character, perhaps their return will be signalled ahead of time in Season 4’s pre-release marketing. We’ll have to wait and see!
Debunked theory #6:Discovery Season 3 is taking place in an alternate timeline or parallel universe.
The USS Voyager in Year of Hell.
The Guardian of Forever confirmed back in Terra Firma, Part II that Burnham and the crew were in the Prime timeline – i.e. the main Star Trek timeline which runs from Enterprise to Picard. However, this theory also proposed that the season may be taking place in a timeline that was manipulated by time travel; that the Burn was not “meant” to happen.
Had time travel been involved, the resolution to the Burn and the season’s story may have been to go back in time – perhaps even using the Guardian of Forever – and stop Su’Kal from ever entering the Verubin Nebula, thus preventing the Burn entirely.
I don’t think this would have been a good storyline, as it would have essentially wiped out everything that happened in the season. A one-off episode like Yesterday’s Enterprise from The Next Generation or Voyager’s Year of Hell can get away with doing something like this, but a whole season being erased due to time travel would have felt hollow – even if Discovery’s crew remembered what happened.
Debunked theory #7: Saru is going to die.
Saru survived the season.
Despite being in danger for much of the episode, Saru survived… only to be unceremoniously dumped in voiceover during the epilogue. It has been confirmed that Saru will be back for Season 4; what role he will play, and whether he will even be a major character are unknown.
Saru is a very interesting character. He was, for a time, Star Trek’s first alien captain, and I wish we’d seen more of what that meant. Saru is similar to Picard in many ways – he’s diplomatic, calm, and generally not one to break the rules and rush into a situation guns blazing. Burnham, in contrast, is much closer to Kirk or Janeway – more emotional, impulsive, and quicker to bend the rules.
Both types of captain can work very well, so that isn’t a criticism! If I had one wish from the season finale, it would have been to see Saru receive a proper goodbye from his shipmates.
Debunked theory #8: Admiral Vance is going to die.
Admiral Vance lives to lead Starfleet in Season 4.
When considering characters who could’ve been killed off, aside from the main crew of Discovery few deaths would have been as impactful as Vance’s. I didn’t want to see him killed, of course, because he’s been one of Star Trek’s most interesting flag officers. The role of Admiral has often been used within the franchise to set up an antagonist for our hero captains to rebel against. Vance is one of the good ones, and I’m glad he survived.
Hopefully he will continue in this role in Season 4, because there’s a lot of potential for some fun character moments.
Debunked theory #9: Saru, Burnham, or somebody else will use the Guardian of Forever to send the USS Discovery back in time.
The Guardian of Forever.
This was primarily connected to my theory about a resolution to Calypso – which seems to require the USS Discovery being sent back in time. If the ban on time travel discussed above is truly in effect, the Guardian of Forever is the only way we know of to travel back in time, and having gone to the trouble of bringing the Guardian back, I wondered if it might serve more of a purpose than just sending Georgiou back in time.
It turned out that this was not the case, though I hope the Guardian of Forever will be visited again in some future episode or story.
Debunked theory #10: The dilithium planet will be destroyed.
The dilithium planet.
This theory came about as a way that the “formulaic” end to the story could be subverted. Rather than the dilithium planet being a resource for the Federation to use to re-establish itself, its destruction would mean that the Burn’s impact would continue to be felt, and that the task of coming back together would be more difficult.
It would have also connected to my theory that the Spore Drive would be rolled out to more starships, becoming Starfleet’s new method of propulsion. The lack of dilithium would make that almost a necessity! I theorised that Su’Kal might’ve destroyed the dilithium planet via his telepathic abilities, but it could also have been destroyed by Osyraa or even by the Federation to prevent Osyraa from using it.
None of that came to pass, however, and the dilithium on the planet is being mined by the Federation and distributed to their worlds, colonies, and allies across the galaxy – a task that Burnham and the ship are assigned to in the final moments of That Hope Is You, Part 2.
Debunked theory #11: The “monster” is the real Su’kal.
Su’Kal and Saru confront the “monster.”
The “monster’s” presence within Su’Kal’s holo-programme was not really given an explanation beyond it being part of an old Kelpien legend. Why his mother would have chosen to include a lifelike recreation of the “monster” within the programme is anyone’s guess!
I theorised that the character we met may not have been the real Su’Kal, and that the “monster” may have instead been Su’Kal, who had been badly mutated and burned by radiation. When Burnham briefly interacted with it, the “monster” seemed to behave in an almost-human way, and that was another reason I considered this a possibility.
Debunked theory #12: The “monster” is Dr Issa.
The “monster” was not Dr Issa.
As above, I speculated that the “monster” may in fact be a real person – this time Su’Kal’s mother, Dr Issa.
In the end, it seems that the “monster” was simply a part of the programme. It provided a great reason within the story for Su’Kal and Saru to bond, as well as a way to give Su’Kal an arc of his own, overcoming his fears – represented by the “monster” – to break free of the programme. I’m not sure how much sense it makes for the “monster” to have been programmed when considering it from an in-universe point of view… but that’s more of a nitpick than anything.
So that’s it. A few theories remain unanswered, and may roll over to Season 4 – but it depends on what route the next season’s story will take. We won’t have any indication of that until we see a trailer or receive a significant announcement, but I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground to see what happens over the coming weeks and months.
When might we see Season 4? That’s perhaps the biggest question on the minds of Trekkies and Discovery fans! We know that pre-production began weeks ago, and that filming of some scenes has already commenced in Canada. Because the pandemic remains a significant disruptive force, it’s possible that filming will proceed at a slower pace than usual. June 2021 seems to be the target date for filming to finish, and if that happens then post-production work will begin in earnest this summer. Based on how long post-production took for Season 3, it seems incredibly unlikely that we’ll see the show before next year, and I would say that spring 2022 seems a reasonable guesstimate at this juncture.
Whenever Season 4 arrives, Zareh won’t be coming back.
With other live-action Star Trek projects similarly impacted, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see Picard, Strange New Worlds, or the Section 31 series this year either – but there’s hope for Lower Decks Season 2 and Prodigy to be broadcast before Christmas; both of those animated shows are already in production.
Stay tuned, because if and when we hear news of Season 4 or get a trailer I’ll be sure to break it down and perhaps see if any theories can be conjured up! I’ll also be doing a look back at some of my hits and misses from a theory point of view later this year, and a retrospective of the season overall sometime soon too. There will be plenty more Star Trek content to come on the website this year, so I hope you’ll come back to see some of that. Finally, I hope that you enjoyed following my theories and predictions this season. I had a lot of fun spending time in the Star Trek universe, diving deeply into some weird and wonderful ideas!
As I always say, these are just theories. I don’t have any “insider information” and I don’t pretend that any theory I postulate is going to come true. For me this has just been a bit of fun; a chance to take a deeper dive into some elements of Discovery and the Star Trek universe. I hope you haven’t taken any of my theories across Season 3 too seriously – no fan theory, no matter how plausible it seems, is worth getting upset, angry, or disappointed over. If we could all remember to take theories with a pinch of salt, perhaps there’d be a little less toxicity within certain fan communities.
Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery, including Seasons 1-2 and the trailers for Season 3. Further spoilers may be present for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
As the premiere episode of Star Trek: Discovery’s third season gets nearer I seem to be coming up with more and more theories! This time we’re going to consider one possible effect of the Burn in detail. I hinted at this when I considered what the Burn could be, but this time I’m going to expand on that, and in addition perhaps add a couple more potential causes for the galactic cataclysm.
Here’s how the theory goes: the Burn has made warp drive useless across the galaxy, meaning no one – including Starfleet – is currently able to travel faster-than-light.
In order to understand this theory, we need a basic refresher course in how warp drive works in Star Trek! In short, warp drive uses dilithium crystals to create and modulate a matter-antimatter reaction. The combination of matter and antimatter yields massive amounts of energy, allowing starships to generate a subspace field and travel faster-than-light. Subspace is part of the makeup of the universe, but its exact nature has never been fully explained. However, subspace is essential not only for warp drive but for communications – subspace radio being one way the Federation is able to communicate over large distances without delays.
Engineers working on a dilithium crystal aboard the Enterprise-D.
Subspace, warp drive, and associated concepts have no real-world analogue and thus are subject to change depending on what an individual writer needs for an episode. The fundamentals are suitably vague, but for our purposes all we need to know is that without access to subspace there’s no warp drive and no FTL communications.
Any disruption to subspace would have massive ramifications for the Federation and the wider galaxy. While we have seen other races using different methods of propulsion and communication, the specifics have never been explained and thus may well involve subspace. The Borg’s transwarp, the Romulans’ singularity engines, and even Voyager’s slipstream technology could all be susceptible to the same limitations, even if they appear to be different on the surface.
If the Burn is relatively recent, perhaps occurring a few years before Burnham and Discovery arrive, it makes sense to say that the Federation could still be fractured. But if, as has been hinted, the Burn is an event decades or more in the past, the expectation has to be that they’d have been back on their feet. Even if it took years or decades, the Federation – and the galaxy’s other races – should have been able to rebuild, or at least begin that process. Perhaps they have, and we’ve seen what look to be Starfleet officers and maybe a Starfleet ship or facility in the trailers which could hint at that. But if Booker is right, and the Federation has mostly collapsed, aside from wondering how it happened, the big question is why nobody has been able to put it back together.
Burnham and Booker in the second Season 3 trailer.
The answer could be twofold: a lack of transportation and a lack of communication. Disconnected from Earth, Starfleet, and the rest of the Federation in a galaxy where subspace has been destroyed, disappeared, or where it cannot be accessed, the individual worlds and colonies may have no choice but to stand alone. Some of these worlds may not even be aware of what transpired – they may have simply woken up one morning without faster-than-light spacecraft and communications. However, we have seen hints that the Burn may have been a violent event, and the name itself conjures up evocative images of catastrophic fires and explosions.
Without warp drive and subspace communications, it would be impossible to rebuild the Federation. Planets that weren’t damaged or affected by whatever caused the Burn may have found other technologies they had still worked, but without supplies from other areas – such as replacement parts – there’s a question-mark over how long any one world could last on its own. The Federation may have been spread widely even in the 24th Century, but it was also an interconnected bloc where resources were shared between member worlds. At least some of those worlds would struggle on their own, and this could lead to the kind of hand-to-mouth, impoverished existence we saw hints at in the trailers.
The lack of warp drive, communications, and any way to travel faster-than-light would, from an in-universe standpoint, explain why the USS Discovery is relevant in the 32nd Century. Even a crippled Federation should have technology that far outpaces the centuries-old USS Discovery, and the show has to find a way to make the ship and crew useful. It could simply be the case that a lack of starships means the Federation needs every vessel it can find, but I don’t consider that a great explanation, not if 32nd Century craft could outrun, outmanoeuvre, and outgun the USS Discovery.
Finding a good explanation for how a 930-year-old vessel could still be useful is a storytelling challenge!
In a galaxy without warp drive and subspace, the mycelial network and the USS Discovery may be the only way to travel and communicate with the Federation’s spread out worlds and colonies. It was interesting that in the two trailers we saw the spore drive engaged several times – but we never saw any starship go to warp – neither the USS Discovery nor vessels native to this time period.
The loss of warp drive, if that is something that has happened, is surely related to the Burn. That may simply be the name that the Federation and its now-separated parts use to describe some event that rendered subspace and warp drive unusable. However, there are possible explanations for what could have caused this based on past Star Trek stories. Some of these are rather obscure, and thus perhaps less likely, but as we’ve seen in Lower Decks over the last few weeks, the creative team behind Star Trek hasn’t been shy about bringing back aliens we only saw once!
Possibility #1: The subspace-dwelling aliens from The Next Generation Season 6 episode Schisms.
An alien experiments on Riker.
In Schisms, the crew of the Enterprise-D are abducted by aliens. These aliens were supposedly native to subspace, and performed experiments on the Starfleet crew. La Forge would confirm, towards the end of the episode, that these unnamed aliens were unable to survive in normal space – but were attempting to create a “pocket” of their native environment in one of the Enterprise-D’s cargo bays.
Though Riker (and a redshirt) were able to escape the aliens’ domain at the climax of the story, they sent a probe of some kind through the rift between realms before it closed, and even if Starfleet managed to avoid attracting their attention again, perhaps they now know of the “normal” universe and planned to attack or invade.
Possibility #2: A weapon of last resort.
Could a weapon of last resort against a faction like the Borg have cause the Burn?
This is something I considered in my closer look at the Burn, but if the Federation were under attack by a faction like the Borg or Species 8472, they may have been backed into a corner where the only option was to use some kind of weapon of mass destruction. If the Federation were to use such a weapon, one side-effect could be the destruction of subspace and/or the loss of warp drive.
We’ll look in just a moment at the omega particle (from the Voyager episode The Omega Directive) but a weapon based on this technology could be one culprit. There aren’t many factions we know of within Star Trek capable of launching an all-out assault on the Federation that might’ve made this kind of weapon necessary. The Borg are one, and perhaps the super-synths from Star Trek: Picard are one too.
This could be an interesting storyline, as though the Burn wouldn’t directly be the Federation’s fault, and may have even saved millions of lives, they would still bear a degree of responsibility.
Possibility #3: The omega particle from the Voyager Season 4 episode The Omega Directive.
Captain Janeway and Tuvok discover the omega particles.
As mentioned above, the omega molecule or omega particle could be a culprit. Omega was a molecule that could, in theory, generate vast amounts of power, but a single omega explosion could render subspace – and warp drive – totally unusable across a vast area. In Voyager, Janeway and Seven of Nine were able to destroy the omega particles they found. But those events took place centuries before Discovery’s third season.
In the intervening centuries, there’s nothing to suggest that the Federation wouldn’t have wanted to try again. Perhaps a scientist felt that they could control omega better, but an accident led to disaster. Or perhaps the Federation was successful in using omega particle-based technology on a widespread scale… only for some unpredictable event to occur.
Possibility #4: Warp drive itself ruined subspace, as seen in The Next Generation Season 7 episode Force of Nature.
The damage to subspace on the viewscreen of the Enterprise-D.
Toward the end of The Next Generation’s run, Star Trek was still an episodic franchise. We hadn’t yet gotten to the longer story arcs of Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War, which makes Force of Nature somewhat of an outlier. It attempted to use warp drive as an analogy for issues in the real world – specifically the use of fossil fuels causing global warming. Two scientists make a claim that warp drive is damaging subspace, and one ends up dying to prove their case. The episode ends with Starfleet agreeing to a speed limit to reduce the damage while they looked for a longer-term solution.
Aside from a couple of later referenced to a speed limit, however, this story was never resolved on-screen. Fans have speculated that later warp engines, such as the design used aboard the USS Voyager, had found a way around this problem. But that is unconfirmed at best, and even if it were true, there could still be problems.
Of all the four possibilities, this feels the least-likely, but there’s potential for Discovery to pick up Force of Nature’s climate change analogy.
So that’s it. A theory and a few possible causes that would reference past iterations of Star Trek.
Does this scene from the second Season 3 trailer depict the Burn?
Until now, Discovery has only had the lore established in Enterprise and The Cage to draw upon due to its place in the timeline. The show largely ignored Enterprise, but Season 2 obviously referenced The Cage in many ways. However, now the show has jumped forward in time there’s the possibility for all sorts of references and callbacks to events of past Star Trek shows.
I’m sure that we’ll get some references spread throughout Season 3. Whether I’m right or not about warp drive, though… that remains to be seen! If you’re in the United States you’ll get to find out literally tomorrow!
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 premieres on the 15th of October 2020 on CBS All Access in the United States, and on the 16th of October on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other titles referenced above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the most recent seasons of Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery. There may be further spoilers for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
While Star Trek: Picard Season 1 was ongoing earlier in the year, I postulated a number of theories about what was going on in the show. One theory that I had related to Control – the rogue artificial intelligence from Star Trek: Discovery Season 2. Specifically, I speculated that the Zhat Vash’s hatred and fear of synthetic life may have stemmed from a run-in with Control, or that the Romulans may have been trying to compete with Starfleet in a mid-23rd Century AI arms race. It seemed possible that Control could have attacked Romulan ships or settlements in the time between its takeover of Section 31 and its defeat by the USS Discovery, or that if the Romulans developed their own AI that it would have similarly gotten out of control and attacked them.
This theory came back with a vengeance after Picard reused a couple of CGI sequences from Discovery in the latter part of the season, particularly as those sequences depicted Control attacking – and ultimately destroying – all organic life in the galaxy. While Picard and Discovery had thematic similarities in their most recent seasons, insofar as both stories looked at the creation of synthetic life and how that synthetic life could go rogue, there was no broader crossover. The Zhat Vash were not motivated by either their own rogue AI from the mid-23rd Century or by an attack from Control.
This CGI sequence of a planet being destroyed was created for Discovery… and recycled in Picard.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to drop the idea of there being any connection between the Zhat Vash in Picard and Control in Discovery. My theory started with the idea that Control could have been the reason for the Zhat Vash… but what if it’s the other way around? What if the Zhat Vash are responsible for Control going rogue?
There was no explanation given for why Control decided to lash out and attack its creators. It wanted to acquire the data from the planetoid-sized lifeform known as the Sphere, believing that data would help it achieve true sentience. But that isn’t a reason to go on to commit genocide; something inside Control made it want to kill. Remember that Dr Gabrielle Burnham – Michael’s mother – arrived in a future timeline where no sentient organic life existed in the known galaxy; Control had wiped it all out. Why did it want to do that?
Dr Gabrielle Burnham.
We could try to argue that Control’s murderous rage is somehow a result of Starfleet denying it access to the Sphere data. But Starfleet and the USS Discovery only came to possess the data because of the time-travelling interventions of Dr Burnham; we don’t know how Control came to acquire it in the “original,” pre-intervention timeline. There are a couple of possibilities. The first is that when the Sphere died, it broadcast its data as far and wide as possible and that’s how Control acquired it. It’s also possible that Starfleet received the transmission and Control gained access to it from there. However, neither of these scenarios involve Starfleet actively trying to prevent Control accessing the data, meaning that it wasn’t Starfleet who started the fight with Control.
So if Control had no reason on the surface to attack its organic creators, why did it do so? It could simply be a programming error; Control was programmed to prevent war, and perhaps that got twisted around so that it decided the only way to prevent the Milky Way’s organic civilisations from fighting was to exterminate all of them. This kind of basic AI programming mistake is one that’s not uncommon in science fiction, and arguably something we need to consider out here in the real world as we develop our own AIs!
Control assimilated Captain Leland and went on a murderous rampage.
So that’s one possibility. But here’s where the Zhat Vash could come in: what if they are responsible for corrupting Control’s programming? We saw in Picard that the Zhat Vash know enough about synthetic life to hack into Federation synths and change their programming. That’s what they did on Mars, causing F8 and the other synths to go rogue and destroy Admiral Picard’s rescue armada. If they had that capability in the 24th Century, it isn’t much of a stretch to think they could have been capable of something similar in the 23rd Century too.
We also know that the Zhat Vash are “far older” than the Tal Shiar. Let’s look at what we know for sure to try to pin down a rough estimate of how old they could be. The Romulans split from the Vulcans somewhere around the 4th Century AD, and by that time were capable of interstellar flight. By the 2150s the Romulans were involved in covert operations on Vulcan, trying to start a war between Vulcans and Andorians. While it was never stated outright in Enterprise that the Romulan operatives we saw were working for the Tal Shiar, it’s not an unreasonable assumption. The Zhat Vash sent Commodore Oh to infiltrate the Federation sometime around the discovery of Data, which took place in the year 2338. When Raffi asked La Sirena’s Emergency Navigational Hologram about the octonary star system, he described the Romulan star charts that depicted it as “ancient,” which seems to suggest they’re more than a century old at least. It was the discovery of Aia, the planet in the octonary star system, and the beacon that resided there that led to the creation of the Zhat Vash.
Raffi and the ENH discuss the octonary star system.
Put all of that together and we can assume with reasonable confidence that the Zhat Vash existed by the mid-23rd Century. We also know, thanks to what we saw in Enterprise and Deep Space Nine, that Romulan intelligence was far better than Starfleet’s – they knew a lot more about the Federation than the Federation did about them.
There’s a question of just how secret Control was. Section 31 was much more out in the open in Discovery than it was by the time of Deep Space Nine, but even so it seems logical to assume that Control would be a top-secret project within an already-secretive organisation. Still, when most Starfleet flag officers used Control regularly, word of its existence would get out and it was generally known within Starfleet that an AI existed. Thus any Zhat Vash or Tal Shiar operative would have come to know about Control.
Section 31 HQ was heavily-guarded, but perhaps not impenetrable for a Zhat Vash spy.
Okay, so let’s slow down. Even if we’re confident that the Zhat Vash existed by Discovery’s era, and had commenced their anti-synthetic crusade, and even if they had operatives within Starfleet who would have made them aware of the existence of Control, that doesn’t mean they could just walk up to Control’s data servers and start messing around. Right? I mean, Control was based at Section 31 headquarters, which as we saw in the show was incredibly well-protected. And we saw no evidence of such an operative. Did we?
How about Admiral Patar, the Vulcan Starfleet admiral who was killed by Control at Section 31 headquarters? We know that Commodore Oh spent decades embedded within Starfleet, waiting to make her move at just the right moment. We also know she was able to attain a very high rank, and it’s only one short step from being a commodore to being an admiral. It’s at least possible. Admiral Patar had the means to access Control. She spent time at Section 31 headquarters right around the time Control went rogue. She was a Vulcan, and thus was biologically indistinguishable from a Romulan – meaning she could have been an undercover Romulan operative. Enterprise depicted Romulans undercover on Vulcan a century earlier, meaning that they had infiltrated Vulcan by that time and were able to do so with relative ease. The pieces fall into place for Admiral Patar to be a Romulan operative – or to have been replaced by one – even if the evidence is only circumstantial. Even if it wasn’t Patar, there may well have been other Vulcans working at Section 31 headquarters, any one of whom could have been a Romulan spy.
Admiral Patar on the USS Discovery’s viewscreen.
Once they had access to Control’s systems and specifications, the Zhat Vash could have figured out how to mess with Control’s programming and turn it hostile. Perhaps they only intended for it to attack the Federation, forcing them to shut it down permanently. Or perhaps they hoped it would cause wider chaos so they could force the kind of galactic ban on synthetic life that we saw in Picard. So the question of what they had to gain by such a move is obvious; it’s the same basic goal as they had for staging the attack on Mars.
If the Zhat Vash introduced a glitch in Control’s programming that would turn it murderous, they obviously didn’t intend for Control to go on and wipe out everything. That wasn’t the goal; that’s what they were trying to prevent. However, as I wrote earlier, it’s possible for even well-intentioned AI to get out of control or to act in a way its creators and programmers couldn’t anticipate. Perhaps that’s what happened with Control, and by the time it had assimilated Captain Leland, killed off most of Section 31’s leadership, and got a fleet at its command, there was no way for the Zhat Vash to stop it. If their sole operative had been killed when Control wiped out Section 31’s headquarters, the Zhat Vash may not have even been aware that the mission was not going to plan until it was too late.
Control commandeered a small armada of Section 31 vessels.
So that’s my crossover theory for Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard – the Zhat Vash hacked or reprogrammed Control, and that’s what made it go rogue. There’s enough circumstantial evidence for this theory to be possible, and it would explain why Control went from being a useful tool for Starfleet to a menace capable of wiping out all sentient life in the galaxy. However, there’s no concrete proof. All we really have are two shows with similar themes, and a bunch of unrelated pieces that could be made to fit together – but also may not fit at all!
As I always say: it’s just a fan theory. Unless we get some confirmation on screen in future – which seems unlikely given both Picard and Discovery are almost certainly moving on to new stories in their upcoming seasons – we have to consider it as unconfirmed at best. I consider it plausible (obviously, or I wouldn’t have written an article about it!) but it may prove to be a complete miss… just like many of my other Star Trek: Picard theories!
This post was edited 31.03.21 to replace header image. Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States. Discovery is available internationally on Netflix; Picard is available internationally on Amazon Prime Video. The Star Trek franchise – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-2 and the trailers for Season 3. There are also spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
Unlike on other occasions where I’ve written about Discovery’s upcoming third season, none of the points I’ll be discussing today should be considered “theories.” I do have some theories for how the backstory and narrative of Season 3 will play out, but these are more general points that I hope are included. It’s a wishlist from a fan, nothing more.
I’m excited, truly interested, and a little nervous about what Discovery has in store. The post-apocalyptic setting, “the Burn,” and many other things all have the potential to tell an incredible story – or an incredibly divisive one. I’m putting together this list as a way to get my own thoughts in order ahead of the Season 3 premiere, which is coming in a little over two weeks’ time.
The usual disclaimer applies: I have no “insider information,” nor am I claiming that anything listed below will be part of Season 3.
Number 1: Some kind of tie-in with Star Trek: Picard.
The super-synths from the Picard Season 1 finale.
If you read my Star Trek: Picard reviews and theories, you may recall that this was something I half-expected, half-hoped to see happen in that series too. Aside from a couple of throwaway lines, we didn’t get any kind of significant crossover or tie-in, and while Picard was a fantastic show on the whole, that was certainly a missed opportunity.
Discovery and Picard don’t exist as wholly separate entities. The Star Trek franchise ties them together, and realistically, if we’re going to see the brand survive into the second half of the 2020s and beyond, the various projects need to be doing something to drive engagement with the rest of the franchise. In the 1990s, when Star Trek was at its peak, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all occupied the same timeframe, and this allowed for crossovers of themes, starships, factions, and even characters. At the very least, what this did was remind fans of one series that others existed, and served as gentle encouragement for fans of one show to jump over and try out one of the others.
Picard in the episode Nepenthe.
The fact that modern Star Trek’s projects occupy vastly different time periods makes this more tricky, but it’s not something that’s impossible to overcome. I have a theory, as you may know, that the race of super-synths from Picard’s finale may be connected to an event called “the Burn,” and that’s certainly one route the show could go. But there are others, even including the appearance of characters like Soji. As a synth, Soji could conceivably still be alive after hundreds of years. This would have ramifications for future seasons of Picard, so I’d understand if the show chose not to go down that route. But the point is there are options for significant crossovers of themes, factions, locations, and characters in a way that would be important to the story, done in a way that would encourage casual viewers to dive deeper into the Star Trek galaxy. That can only be a good thing – retaining fans is going to be massively important.
It seems all but certain that a fourth season of Discovery is in production; we’re just waiting on an official announcement. But when Discovery inevitably comes to an end, Star Trek needs its viewers to stay subscribed and to remain invested in the broader franchise. Some are already, but some aren’t, and may not even be aware of Picard and other projects. Having a major crossover or tie-in will encourage that, and if done right it will help Star Trek’s longer-term prospects immeasurably.
Number 2: A reference, callback, or hint to something from Star Trek: Lower Decks.
The opening titles of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
As above, tying the Star Trek franchise together is important – and will be even more so as the franchise moves forward. Unlike with Picard, where I feel there’s scope for some kind of significant crossover or tie-in, all Discovery really needs to do is acknowledge, in some way, the existence of Lower Decks.
We could, for example, have the ship pass by the planet Khwopa, which was briefly visited in Much Ado About Boimler, see a California-class starship, or even see the names of one or more of the main characters on some kind of Starfleet memorial, assuming the crew visit Earth or another Federation outpost.
There are lots of ways to name-check or reference some character or event in Lower Decks in a way that wouldn’t be intrusive, and I hope an attempt will be made to do so.
Number 3: A storyline that doesn’t make Michael Burnham the “chosen one.”
Burnham in Discovery’s premiere.
Burnham is Discovery’s protagonist and principal character, and that isn’t going to change in Season 3. But the show has struggled in the past when it confused putting Burnham at the centre of its narrative with making her an invincible superstar or the “chosen one.” Doing so robs the other characters of any real agency over the plot, and leaves the ship and crew blindly following in Burnham’s wake – a metaphor that, somewhat ironically, was made literal in the Season 2 finale.
Making Burnham the only character capable of performing an important task or filling an essential role amplifies some of her less-attractive character traits: her confidence veers into arrogance and self-importance, her dedication to her own interpretation of logic leads her to ignore or shoot down dissenting opinions, etc. Having her as the protagonist is fine; having her be the only character who actually does anything of consequence is not.
As I’ve written previously, this is not Star Trek: Burnham. The whole crew of the USS Discovery – some of whom we barely know even after two full seasons – have the potential to contribute a lot to whatever story Season 3 tells. But the show hasn’t been great at giving most of them a chance to shine, and while Burnham will of course have an important role to play, let’s not have it be the only consequential and important one.
Number 4: A proper explanation for “the Burn.”
Is this moment, glimpsed in the second trailer, a flashback to the Burn?
I really think we’ll get this, especially after the two trailers carefully built up an air of mystery surrounding this as-yet-unknown event. However, some post-apocalyptic stories choose to cloud their apocalyptic event and leave its details unknown. In some cases that can work well, but in a franchise like Star Trek it won’t.
Star Trek has been running for over fifty years, and in that time its fanbase has come to care deeply and passionately about the Federation and the galaxy humanity inhabits. The optimistic future we’ve seen depicted in every Star Trek project to date has been torn down, and as much as I have reservations about that it’s something I’ve come to accept. However, fans deserve to know precisely how and why that came to be.
Did the Borg cause the Burn?
There’s a curiosity at the core of Star Trek. Seeking out strange, new worlds has been the franchise’s heart since The Original Series, and that spirit of exploration and thirst for knowledge extends to fans as well. We want to know what’s going on in the galaxy, and it wouldn’t be good enough to say “well something bad happened, but don’t worry about what it was or what caused it.” In some stories, an unknown, mysterious event could work. But not here.
The reason why I think it’s at least plausible to think Discovery might try to pull a trick like this is because it seems as though the Burn may be an event that took place decades or more before Burnham and the ship arrive in the future. It may be, as Michelle Paradise seemed to hint, something that happened before Booker (the new character native to this era) was even born. That timeframe would make it easier for the show to try to get away with saying “don’t worry about what happened, let’s just try to rebuild.” And I really feel that will create a deeply unsatisfying narrative.
Number 5: No main villain.
Control – in possession of Captain Leland – was Season 2’s antagonist.
Control was the villain of Season 2, and came to possess the body of Captain Leland, giving us as the audience a human character to dislike. Season 1 offered up Lorca, Mirror Georgiou, and the Klingons as villains at different points, but one of the great things about Star Trek is that its stories don’t always need a nefarious evildoer for the crew to defeat.
The Burn’s origins are currently unknown, and we could learn that it was caused by an antagonistic faction with an evil leader. Alternatively, we could see the post-Burn galaxy and remnants of the Federation having been conquered by such a faction. In either case, Burnham and the crew have a villain to fight and the story of the season could simply be how they came to fight and defeat this faction and its leader.
However, many times in Star Trek, there have been stories about figuring out a puzzle and solving a problem that was natural in origin. The Burn could be the deliberate use of a weapon or the aftermath of a war, but equally it could be a natural event. If it were natural, the story of the season could be figuring that out, finding a way to fix it or prevent it happening again, and rebuilding the Federation. There would undoubtedly be small-scale baddies to fight along the way – we’ve seen two possible examples of that in the trailers – but the season doesn’t need an overarching enemy to fight in order to tell an exciting story.
Number 6: Proper development of some secondary characters.
Operations officer Owosekun.
Detmer at the helm and Owosekun at operations are permanent fixtures on the bridge of the USS Discovery. But we don’t know much about either of them, and the way they’ve been used in the show so far has been poor. They’re sometimes seen adding minor backstory to another character (like Ariam) or event, but that’s about it. Who are they? Why did they decide to follow Burnham instead of abandoning ship?
Likewise there are underdeveloped “main” characters. Tilly has often been used for little more than comic relief, and while she got a sub-plot in Season 2 regarding the mycelial network, she feels like a character with untapped potential. With Reno potentially stepping up to fill the comic character slot, perhaps Tilly could be given a greater role.
Then there are minor characters that may or may not have travelled with the ship into the future. I don’t expect Discovery to follow the trail blazed by Deep Space Nine and have a huge roster of secondary characters, but it would be great to see more done with the existing ones. With Pike and Spock out of the picture entirely, there’s room for Nhan, Detmer, and others to take on larger roles.
Number 7: Fix the Stamets-Culber relationship.
Dr Culber and Stamets in Season 1.
Representation of LGBT+ people on television is streets ahead of where it was even just a few years ago, and in a way, Stamets and Culber’s relationship is testament to that. Since their first appearance in Season 1, the fact that they were “the gay couple” was never treated as a huge deal. Their storyline has reflected that as it took twists and turns over the first two seasons.
When Dr Culber was rescued/brought back to life in Season 2, their relationship didn’t pick up where it left off. He’s clearly suffering greatly as a result of the trauma he endured while trapped in the mycelial network, and after such an experience that’s to be expected. People aren’t magically back to the way they were after a hugely traumatic event.
The tension between Stamets and Culber after the latter’s return did serve as a source of drama in Season 2, but in my opinion their cute relationship works better when it’s used as one of the emotional cores of Discovery, rather than as a way to inject further drama into an already-dramatic series. Finding a way for the two to properly reconcile and get back together would be great for Season 3, as it would restore that emotional counterbalance which has been notably absent since Dr Culber’s “death” in Season 1.
Number 8: A satisfying explanation for how the Burn surprised Starfleet.
The Federation timeship Relativity in the 29th Century (as seen in Star Trek: Voyager)
This connects to point number 4 about explaining what the Burn is and how it happened. In past iterations of Star Trek, we caught glimpses of the Federation and Starfleet in the far future, and one thing we learned is that time travel was a regular occurrence. Starfleet explored the timeline in the way they had explored space in the 23rd/24th Centuries. If they patrol the timeline in order to keep the peace, this raises a question – how did the Burn manage to come from nowhere and surprise them?
Surely once the technology to communicate and travel through time has been created, the Federation would explore not only the past timeline, but the future as well. Failing to do so would leave a massive blind spot for enemies to exploit, and once time travel has been invented and is commonplace, as we’ve seen in other Star Trek stories it won’t remain the exclusive tech of the Federation. If other factions can use time travel, they can travel into the future, which means the Federation at the very least need to be aware of the future timeline so they can preserve it.
In Enterprise, temporal agent Daniels was adamant about preserving the timeline.
But if Starfleet vessels had visited the future, how did they not know about the Burn in time to warn everyone? Did they choose to let it happen to preserve the “true” timeline? If the Burn represents an attack by a time-travelling faction that shouldn’t have happened, arguably restoring the timeline to its “original” form should be Starfleet’s objective… but wouldn’t that mean large chunks of Season 3 would be wiped from existence?
Time travel stories are often complicated and hard to follow, which is why they’ve never been my favourites in Star Trek. However, given that we know time travel exists in Starfleet’s future, there needs to be a satisfying explanation for how the Burn was able to happen at all, and why no Starfleet vessel was able to warn the Federation ahead of time – or even prevent the Burn altogether.
So that’s it. A few things on my wishlist for the impending third season of Star Trek: Discovery. I’m not trying to say that Season 3 will be “bad” or unenjoyable if it ignores these points and goes in a different direction, because I like Star Trek’s ability to surprise me even after decades in the fandom. These are simply points that I feel would work to make the story of Season 3 better if they could be included.
I deliberately left off one pretty big point – optimism. We’ve heard numerous times from Alex Kurtzman, Michelle Paradise, and others involved in creating the story of the new season that there will be an optimistic tone, and I see no reason to doubt that. In fact, a post-apocalyptic setting can be a great way to tell stories of hope and optimism, contrasting a bleak setting with the efforts of protagonists to build something better. I have my reservations about that, as I’ve mentioned on several occasions, because it represents a fundamental change to Star Trek and the underlying premise that has propped up the franchise for more than half a century. I’m willing to give it a chance, though.
Whatever Season 3 delivers, I’ll be here to cover each episode as they’re broadcast, and perhaps engage in some theory-crafting to go along with it, so I hope you’ll check back when the season kicks off in less than three weeks!
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 will debut on CBS All Access on the 15th of October in the United States, and on the 16th of October on Netflix in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Discovery – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Seasons 1-2 of Star Trek: Discovery as well as the trailers for Season 3.
It isn’t long now until eighteen months of waiting for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 will be finally over! With the new season imminent I thought it would be a good idea to briefly recap what came before, and explain how Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery came to leave the 23rd Century behind.
We can start by looking briefly at the production side of things, because Discovery’s story is an interesting one. As Trekkies we’re more interested in what goes on in-universe, but sometimes it’s worth knowing about how events in the real world have shaped the Star Trek shows we care about. In Discovery’s case, there are several factors to consider.
When Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled in 2005 it really did seem as though Star Trek was dead and wasn’t coming back. Enterprise had been losing viewers for a long time, and talk of cancellation was brewing from at least its second season. It was over a year later, in 2006, that rumours began to swirl of a reboot to the Star Trek franchise; this would ultimately take the form of 2009’s Star Trek and the two subsequent Kelvin timeline films.
The road to the creation of Star Trek: Discovery begins – arguably – with the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005.
During development of the third Kelvin timeline film, Star Trek Beyond, it was announced that the franchise was returning to television. This was tied up with the announcement of CBS All Access, and the as-yet-untitled show was to be one of the new platform’s headline attractions. Bryan Fuller, who had previously written a number of Star Trek episodes, had been selected as the show’s executive producer. Interestingly, Fuller’s pitch for a new Star Trek series was one of several floating around in the 2010s; others included a “Captain Worf” series that had been proposed by Michael Dorn.
Fuller would ultimately leave Discovery in order to helm American Gods, and day-to-day running of the series would fall to Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, with Akiva Goldsman joining the team too. Goldsman would go on to produce Star Trek: Picard. The series was delayed from its “early 2017” planned premiere first to May 2017 and then ultimately to September, and while there are rumours as to why nothing is really confirmed. The key thing, I think, to take away from this is that the show’s creator, Bryan Fuller, left the project while it was relatively early in production. It would almost certainly have been a different show had he stayed on board. That doesn’t necessarily mean better or worse, merely different.
Nevertheless, Season 1 of Discovery mostly followed Fuller’s original ideas – the Klingon War and the Mirror Universe storylines were part of the original pitch. Season 2 – despite Fuller’s credit as a “consultant” – was drawn up without much input from him, and as Berg and Harberts departed, Alex Kurtzman took over as the lead on the new season. Kurtzman is also in overall control of the Star Trek franchise.
The biggest decision made in Season 2 was of course the decision for Burnham and the USS Discovery to leave the 23rd Century. This is speculation on my part, so take it with a grain of salt, but I wonder whether this decision was made in part as a result of fan criticism of Discovery’s place in the timeline and treatment of canon. Ever since it was announced as a prequel, a vocal group of fans expressed their dislike of the setting. This was compounded by Discovery being, in some respects, different to past iterations of the Star Trek franchise. The show took flak for things like the redesign of the Klingons, visiting the Mirror Universe before Kirk, the militarised and not-hidden Section 31, and many other points besides. When considering Discovery’s massive leap forward in time, we need to be aware of that context – even if ViacomCBS and everyone involved denies that fan backlash had any bearing on the decision.
So that’s a very brief recap of the production side of things. Now let’s get into the story of Discovery’s first two seasons.
One of the odd things about the two-part premiere – The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars – is that it doesn’t take place aboard the USS Discovery, nor feature most of the series’ regular cast. Absent from the premiere are: Culber, Lorca, Stamets, Tilly, and Tyler. These characters wouldn’t be introduced until episode 3 or later, along with the ship itself. Instead we got the USS Shenzhou and Captain Georgiou – neither of which would survive! It was a potentially explosive start for the new series, pinning down the idea that anything could happen and that being a heroic Starfleet officer was no guarantee of safety. As I’ve written before, there’s a distinct influence of successful shows like Game of Thrones in the way Discovery was written and produced.
The USS Shenzhou in the series premiere.
Unfortunately the premiere was awful almost across the board; the visual effects and a Federation-Klingon battle being the only saving graces. Michael Burnham was introduced as a deeply flawed and unlikeable character, and it took a lot of work for the show to recover going into the rest of the first season.
The basic story of the premiere was that a resurgent Klingon Empire was on the verge of unifying behind a new leader. Burnham, for reasons that are still difficult to understand three years later, decides that the best way to avoid a war with the Klingons is to shoot first and attack their ship. When Captain Georgiou orders her to stop being such an idiot she tries to stage a one-person mutiny, attacking the captain and attempting to shoot the Klingon flagship.
Burnham spends much of the rest of the premiere in the brig, and in the subsequent battle a number of Starfleet vessels are lost. A last-ditch plan by Burnham and Georgiou cripples the Klingon flagship, and while attempting to capture the new Klingon leader, Georgiou is killed. This battle kicks off the Federation-Klingon war which would rage for the rest of the season.
In episode 3, Context is for Kings, we finally meet Captain Lorca and most of the rest of the USS Discovery’s crew. Several officers from the USS Shenzhou transferred to Discovery, including first officer Saru and helm officer Detmer. The USS Discovery has an experimental spore drive – a mushroom-based method of propulsion that, in theory, allows the ship to travel through the mycelial network. This technology allows Discovery, and its sister ship the USS Glenn, to theoretically travel any distance in a very short span of time, potentially meaning it can hop halfway across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. However, early in the season the spore drive isn’t functional, and the ship has only been able to move very short distances. The term “black alert” is used aboard the ship whenever the spore drive is engaged.
Captain Lorca intercepts Burnham’s prison transport, and when she arrives aboard the USS Discovery he offers her a chance at redemption by becoming a specialist under his command. Burnham has to overcome the (100% justified) judgement of her shipmates, including those who had been wounded or lost friends during the first few weeks of the war.
Burnham is assigned quarters with a cadet – Sylvia Tilly – and now holds no formal rank. However, the clandestine nature of Discovery’s mission gave Lorca broad powers over who to bring aboard, and despite Burnham’s conviction she’s allowed to serve.
Cadet Sylvia Tilly – Burnham’s roommate.
The first half of Season 1 documented Lorca and Stamets’ work to get the spore drive operational. Discovery’s sister ship, the USS Glenn, made a breakthrough by discovering a space-dwelling lifeform that could navigate the mycelial network. However, the creature was dangerous and got loose, killing the Glenn’s crew. The creature – known as a tardigrade – is able to be used to fix issues with the spore drive, and despite the loss of the USS Glenn, Stamets and the engineering team are able to use it to “drive” the ship.
Lorca is taken prisoner by the Klingons, and meets Ash Tyler. Tyler had been taken prisoner some time previously, and the two were able to escape and return to Discovery. Tyler is given a role as security officer aboard the ship – despite clearly suffering PTSD. Tyler and Burnham would develop a relationship across the rest of the season.
When it becomes clear to Burnham and Stamets that they’re abusing the tardigrade by forcing it to work as part of the ship’s spore drive, Stamets augments his DNA with the tardigrade’s. This allowed him to take the tardigrade’s place as Discovery’s “navigator” in the mycelial network.
The tardigrade proved invaluable to the success of the spore drive.
After a mission to the planet Pahvo, Discovery made numerous spore drive jumps. Outwardly, the plan was to use sensor data gained by making numerous jumps around a Klingon ship to crack the Klingons’ cloaking device, which had given them a massive advantage in the war. However, at the last moment Lorca overrode the jump sequence and forced Discovery into the Mirror Universe. The Mirror Universe was first seen in The Original Series’ second season episode Mirror, Mirror, and in the 23rd Century was dominated by the Terran Empire – a human-supremacist, authoritarian state.
Lorca managed to maintain his cover for a time, but it would later become apparent that he’s not from the prime universe. Lorca was in fact a native of the Mirror Universe, and had arrived in the prime universe via a transporter accident. He plotted to return in order to overthrow the Empress – who is the Mirror Universe version of Burnham’s former captain Philippa Georgiou.
Lorca was killed while attempting his coup, but other plotters had been made aware of the Empress’ weaknesses and were planning attacks of their own. In order to save her, at the last second Burnham beamed her aboard Discovery. From this point on, Mirror Georgiou would be a recurring character. But it’s important to remember she’s native to the Mirror Universe!
Lorca was killed in the Mirror Universe.
Thanks to Stamets, Discovery was able to return to the prime universe the same way it left: via the mycelial network. However, Dr Culber was killed by Tyler – who turned out to be a Klingon in disguise, not the real Tyler – and in Discovery’s absence the war had gone very badly for the Federation, leaving the Klingons on the brink of victory.
Admiral Cornwell hatched a plan to render the Klingon homeworld uninhabitable using a device to make all of its volcanoes erupt simultaneously. When Burnham and the others learn of this plan (which had been devised by Mirror Georgiou) they rebel. Burnham leads a second mutiny, and convinces everyone to go along with a different plan. “Tyler” had introduced the crew to L’Rell, and she took possession of the volcanic device, using it to become Klingon Chancellor, unite the Great Houses, and end the war.
The first season ended with Burnham and the crew given medals for their roles in bringing the war to an end.
Season 1 ended with a medal ceremony for the crew of the USS Discovery.
Season 2 shook things up a lot. With Lorca gone, the big question was that of who would sit in the captain’s chair. It couldn’t be Mirror Georgiou, and with her mutiny conviction it could hardly be Burnham. Saru was next in line, but Star Trek had never had an alien captain before – not to mention Saru is kind of a coward! The surprise announcement came that the role of Christopher Pike – the captain of the USS Enterprise in The Original Series’ first pilot, The Cage – was to assume the role. I wasn’t impressed by this initially, as I felt we’d only recently spent time with the Kelvin timeline version of Pike, and recasting the character for a second time so soon might not work. I’m happy to hold my hands up and admit to being thoroughly wrong!
When the USS Enterprise suffered a catastrophic computer failure – perhaps attributed to its holo-communicators – Captain Pike transferred to the USS Discovery to continue his mission. Starfleet had detected temporal anomalies described as “red bursts,” and Pike was investigating at the time of the Enterprise’s problems.
At the same time, Pike’s science officer – and Burnham’s adoptive brother – Spock, has gone missing.
Season 2 introduced a familiar character – Captain Christopher Pike.
The crew discover that a figure from Spock’s youth, once dismissed as a dream or hallucination, that he termed the Red Angel is responsible for setting the red bursts. Who this person is, and what they hope to gain is not clear, and the investigation continues. The second episode of the season, New Eden, takes the ship 40,000 light-years away to a small colony of humans. The Red Angel saved these people during a conflict in Earth’s past and transported them halfway across the galaxy. The plot thickens!
On the Klingon homeworld, Section 31 arrange for “Tyler” and his son to be evacuated in order to maintain the current power structure. Their artificial intelligence, Control, came to be heavily relied on during the Klingon war, and Starfleet now uses Control regularly. Mirror Georgiou has joined Section 31, as has Ash Tyler, and both serve under the command of Captain Leland, a Section 31 officer.
In An Obol for Charon, a planetoid-sized lifeform referred to as the “Sphere” is encountered by Discovery. The lifeform is dying, and in its death throes gives Discovery a gift: all of the data it has accrued over the hundreds of thousands of years it had lived. Amongst the data was information on Saru’s species, the Kelpiens, and Pike and the crew are able to use that to aid the Kelpiens in their conflict against the Ba’ul, a race who dominate their homeworld.
The Sphere.
The Sphere’s data would be coveted by Control, as gaining access to the data would allow it to evolve and become fully sentient. This would set up the main story of the remainder of Season 2, as well as laying the groundwork for Burnham and the USS Discovery to leave the 23rd Century behind – they did so in order to keep the Sphere data away from Control.
Control “assimilated” Captain Leland using nanites/nanobots in a scene reminiscent of how the Borg operate. This led many – including me – to speculate that Control would somehow be tied to the origins of the Borg. I maintain that storyline was at least a possibility; perhaps something included in the story pitch that never made it to screen.
Control also killed off many Section 31 leaders and operatives, and was able to gain control of Commander Ariam’s cybernetic implants, forcing her to try to transfer the Sphere data. Ariam was killed before she could complete the transfer, greatly upsetting Discovery’s crew.
Meanwhile, Burnham took off on a mission to rescue Spock. Section 31 was hunting for him too, but she was able to get to him first as he was being sheltered on Vulcan. Spock, now a fugitive, insists on being taken to Talos IV – a planet he had visited years prior that was home to the Talosians, a race whose telepathic powers could help him.
The Talosians.
The mission to Talos leads to Spock being able to explain more about the Red Angel – the mysterious figure is human, and someone who is trying to change the current timeline; a time-traveler.
After analysing the Red Angel based on scans taken at one of its earlier appearances, the crew come to the shocking conclusion that Burnham is the Red Angel. They devise a plan to capture her – or rather, her in her future form – using the current-timeline version of Burnham as bait. For many, many reasons, The Red Angel was the worst episode of Season 2 and encapsulated why time travel stories are so difficult to get right! However, one upshot of the otherwise-abysmal episode is that the Red Angel is revealed not to be Burnham herself, but her mother.
Burnham’s parents had been killed years earlier, when Michael was a child. Unbeknownst to her, they were scientists working on a new method of time travel alongside Section 31. However, they were attacked by Klingons and the time travel suit – Project Daedalus – was shelved and considered not to be working. Unknown to Michael Burnham and Section 31, Dr Gabrielle Burnham survived the Klingon attack and used the time travel suit – aka the Red Angel suit. However, she became trapped in the 32nd Century. The Red Angel suit allowed her to make temporary visits to other time periods, but at the end she would always be pulled back to the same spot in the 32nd Century.
Michael and Gabrielle Burnham.
That sounds like torture enough for poor Dr Burnham, but it gets worse: the galaxy in the 32nd Century was entirely devoid of sentient life. After investigating, Dr Burnham came to the conclusion that Control – Section 31’s AI – was to blame. In a timeline in which Control successfully acquired the Sphere data it became sentient and murderous, wiping out all sentient life in the galaxy. Dr Burnham resolved to prevent it doing so, and made numerous interventions in the timeline, including moving the Sphere so that the USS Discovery could intercept it and saving the humans by moving them to Terralysium.
The crew decide that it may simply be best to destroy the Sphere data, but are unable to do so; the data is “protecting itself.” Dr Burnham’s connection to Spock is revealed; in childhood, Spock suffered the Vulcan equivalent of dyslexia. The difference in the way his brain worked allowed him – and only him – to interact with the Red Angel.
Using Captain Leland as its vessel, Control attempts to steal the data from Discovery’s computer, but is unsuccessful. Learning the truth of Leland’s assimilation, the crew try to get as far away from him and Section 31 as possible.
The Control AI possessed Captain Leland of Section 31.
When a new red burst is detected on the Klingon world Boreth, the ship and crew travel there. Boreth is the only known world where time crystals are found – and time crystals are needed to make a working Red Angel suit. The crystal in the original Red Angel suit was destroyed – stranding Dr Burnham in the 32nd Century – but the crew have decided that the best way to keep the Sphere data away from Control may be to take it out of the 23rd Century, so they want to get another one. Captain Pike goes to the Klingon monastery on Boreth and acquires a time crystal – but doing so cements a future timeline in which he will become crippled by delta radiation (as seen in The Original Series).
As the crew race to build a second Red Angel suit using Dr Burnham’s original design, the stage is set for a showdown with Control. Captain Leland’s body remains alive, but it seems as though Control has killed off most of Section 31. However, it is able to use their extensive fleet of ships to pursue Discovery. Despite the spore drive being able to traverse huge distances, the crew join up with the USS Enterprise to make a stand. Initially the plan is to destroy Discovery, but the Sphere data won’t allow itself to be destroyed.
The USS Enterprise and USS Discovery prepare to battle Control’s Section 31 armada.
While Discovery and the Enterprise fight off the Section 31 ships, Burnham uses the new Red Angel suit to travel through time and set off the red bursts – meaning the whole season is a complicated time-loop-paradox thing. With the red bursts set, and with no other options to prevent Control gaining access to the data (despite Captain Leland being incapacitated seeming to pause the fighting) Burnham activates the Red Angel suit, sets the destination for the same point in the future where her mother was trapped, and opens a time-wormhole.
Saru and several other main and secondary characters volunteered to accompany Burnham and the Sphere data into the future, leaving the 23rd Century behind. Pike, Spock, and Tyler are not among them, however, and remain behind aboard the USS Enterprise. Later, Burnham sets off a final red burst, confirming to Spock and Pike that she successfully arrived in the future. Presumably, in the aftermath of the battle, Starfleet was able to shut down Control. Ash Tyler was appointed head of Section 31, and from what we know of the organisation based on its later appearances, began the process of taking the clandestine organisation underground.
Burnham and the USS Discovery enter the time-wormhole and leave the 23rd Century forever.
So that’s a very broad outline of Discovery’s first two seasons! The plot of Season 2 got a little tied up at points, simply because of the nature of time travel stories, but overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride. I hope this recap helps remind you of some of the key plot points that led up to the third season’s premiere – now only three weeks away.
Obviously I didn’t include every sub-plot and storyline; this article was already far too long. I tried to stick to the key ongoing story threads from both seasons, and if I missed something you enjoyed or considered important then I apologise for the oversight! This was really just an exercise in recapping, in a broad way, the overall story so far so that as we get started with Season 3 we haven’t completely forgotten what came before!
When Season 3 kicks off next month I’ll be reviewing each episode in turn and perhaps crafting some theories. I hope you’ll stop by for those posts.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 premieres on the 15th of October on CBS All Access in the United States, and on the 16th of October on Netflix in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Discovery – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 