Tag: Klingons

Stardate 1029.46: A Vulcan diplomatic ship registered to Sarek catches up with Discovery, but rather than welcoming Sarek aboard, Burnham finds herself welcoming Amanda aboard. Having stolen encrypted files related to Spock’s internment in a mental care facility on Starbase 5, she wants Burnham to break into them, since no one at the facility is willing to divulge anything related to Spock’s condition, even to his next of kin. When Captain Pike contacts the commander of Starbase 5, he learns that Spock has supposedly murdered his caretakers and fled – a claim that neither Burnham nor Amanda believe…and neither does Pike. Ensign Tilly’s behavior is becoming increasingly erratic as she continues communicating with what appears to be her childhood friend May, someone who no one else can see. Tilly’s unusual behavior puts her command-track career in jeopardy.

On the Klingon homeworld, Ash Tyler is an outsider by any measure. As consort to recently-crowned Chancellor L’Rell, his very presence is constantly challenged by her political rivals and allies alike. What no one outside House Mokai knows is that Tyler is Voq, the former Klingon torchbearer remade in the image of a human and given a new set of memories. Tyler is stunned when he discovers that L’Rell and Voq had a child, a baby boy whose skin is the same unusual pale white as Voq’s. This news – gleaned from a microscopic listening device – is also a surprise to Kol-Sha, the father of the Klingon leader who died in the battle at Pahvo during the war. Kol-Sha intends to use this information to force L’Rell to abdicate her throne, allowing him to ascend to the head of the High Council. Another damning piece of evidence Kol-Sha intends to use is that Tyler has recently contacted Burnham, warning her that L’Rell’s position as Chancellor – and therefore the tenuous peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire – are in danger. But while help does arrive for Tyler and L’Rell, it comes from an unexpected source – one with an unthinkable list of its own demands.

written by Andrew Colville
directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi
music by Jeff Russo

Cast: Sonequa Martin-Green (Commander Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Lt. Commander Saru), Anthony Rapp (Lt. Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Cadet Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), Michelle Yeoh (Philippa Georgiou), Mia Kershner (Amanda), Alan Van Sprang (Leland), Mary Chieffo (Chancellor L’Rell), Kenneth Mitchell (Kol-Sha), Bahia Watson (May Ahearn), Hannah Chessman (Lt. Commander Airiam), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. Gen Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Julianne Grossman (Discovery Computer), Xavier Sotelo (Captain Diego Vela), David Benjamin Tomlinson (Linus), Pay Chen (Starfleet Psychiatrist in Recording), Damon Runyan (Ujilli)

Notes: The Klingon monastery on Boreth will later be the site of the apparent return of Kahless himself (TNG: Rightful Heir, 1993), as witnessed by Worf among many others. In the purely speculative department, it may or may not be significant that, after Voq, the only albino Klingon seen in the Star Trek franchise is the one hunted down by Kor (a relative of Kol and Kol-Sha), Koloth, and Kang to assert their right of vengeance for the Albino’s killing of each man’s firstborn son (DS9: Blood Oath, 1994), with help from Jadzia Dax. (At the time Star Trek: Discovery takes place, the Dax symbiont is part of Torias Dax, a thrill-seeking Starfleet test pilot, and not Curzon Dax, the diplomat who would help negotiate peace between the Klingons and Federation in the late 23rd and early 24th centuries, and who joined Kor, Koloth, and Kang in a pact to seek out the unnamed albino Klingon to avenge their sons’ lives). L’Rell and Tyler are revealed to be the architects of the Klingon D-7 battle cruiser, a design first glimpsed in Elaan Of Troyius (TOS, 1968), carried through the animated series and the Kirk-era movies, and even seen briefly in Star Trek: The Next Generation (Heart Of Glory, 1988), though this may be the D-7 Mark II as a completely different design was identified as the D-7 in Discovery’s first season. Kenneth Mitchell played Kol in the first season of Discovery, returning to play the role of Kol’s father here. Alan Van Sprang first appeared as Section 31 operative Leland in a short scene released directly to YouTube following Discovery’s season one finale in 2018.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 1048.66: A new signal appears over the planet Boreth, home to a secretive Klingon monastery. Tyler contacts Chancellor L’Rell, and she warps to meet Discovery at Boreth to discuss Discovery‘s mission. She reveals that the monks of Boreth also act as protectors of a rare commodity – raw time crystals – but if Tyler shows his face, or identifies their son, her relatively peaceful reign over the Klingon Empire could come to a quick and bloody end, along with any hope of peace with the Federation. This convinces Pike that he must to negotiate for a time crystal, but to gain one, he will have to endure a rite of passage – seeing his own future – that has driven others insane in the past. When a Section 31 ship fails to check in on time, Saru assigns Burnham and Spock to investigate, and they find a drifting ship surrounded by the dead, frozen bodies of its crew…with the exception of one survivor, a former Shenzhou crewman recognized by Burnham. But the ship’s computer awakens, under the thrall of Control, and it wants one thing: to take over Michael Burnham so it can gain access to the alien sphere data.

written by Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt
directed by Doug Aarniokoski
music by Jeff Russo

Cast: Sonequa Martin-Green (Commander Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Lt. Commander Saru), Anthony Rapp (Lt. Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Cadet Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), Mia Kershner (Amanda), Mary Chieffo (L’Rell), Ethan Peck (Spock), Tig Notaro (Commander Jett Reno), Kenneth Mitchell (Tenavik), Rachael Ancheril (Lt. Cmdr. Nhan), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. Gen Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Sarah Mitich (Lt. Nilsson), Ali Momen (Specialist Kamran Gant), Julianne Grossman (Discovery computer), Ian James Corlett (Section 31 computer), David Benjamin Tomlinson (Linus), Byron Abalos (Trainee #1), Olivia Croft (Trainee #2)

Notes: Captain Pike’s future had been described in some detail in part one of The Menagerie (1966), and though some fan films have shown their own versions of the events described, this is the first time in studio-produced Star Trek that we have seen those events play out. (His eventual return to Talos IV in The Menagerie Part 2 is not shown, so Pike is deliberately choosing a future which he believes has no hope.) Tenavik says that the time crystals’ name in the Klingon language is the namesake of their home planet, Qo’nos, which provides a handy explanation for humans’ tendency to refer to Qo’nos as “Chronos” (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Boreth was first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation (Rightful Heir, 1993), though in the 24th century, the monks had turned their attention to manipulating both genetics and politics to create a clone of Kahless, with no mention made of time crystals, so it is unknown if the crystals are still under the watchful eye of the monks by the time of Worf’s visit a century later. (Tenavik’s rapid aging, on the other hand, puts Alexander’s to shame.) L’Rell has apparently succeeded in shepherding the familiar D-7 battlecruiser design from the drawing board into production within a year. The stardate for this episode is not given in the episode itself, but in the season finale, Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2.

LogBook entry by Earl Green