When Star Trek: Discovery season 2 ended, there were two big questions left. First, and most obviously, what will Burnham and the crew find in the 33rd century? But also, is this really the last we’ll see of Ethan Peck, Rebecca Romijn, and Anson Mount as Spock, Number One, and Captain Pike? It looks like there’s a partial answer to the second question: according to the Instagram account of Mark Pellington, at least one forthcoming Short Trek will feature Peck as Spock and Romijn as Number One. The episode is titled “Chaos Theory,” and it’s thought to be written by novelist and Picard producer Michael Chabon.
So, while this isn’t confirmation of a full-on Spock/Pike/Number One series, it does mean contemporary Trek canon is giving us a little bit more of these characters. But there’s so much more Trek could do with this time period and these characters! Here are five big TOS canon mysteries that a series—or more Short Treks—could explore, all involving the 23rd century, Spock, Pike, Number One and… the Klingons.
How did Starfleet change so much in a decade?
In seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet seems, in some ways, at its peak of size and efficiency, at least relative to the original series and the classic films. When Leland is possessed by Control in “Perpetual Infinity,” the rogue A.I. says Starfleet has “900 ships,” which seems like a lot. In the original series, Kirk frequently mentions that the USS Enterprise is only one of 12 ships like it in the fleet, which doesn’t necessarily contradict the idea of a large fleet, but it does feel different. If we assume this number includes shuttlecraft and those little Federation starfighters from “Such Sweet Sorrow,” then this makes a little more sense. But still, in the time period of the original series, starting with 2265, Starfleet seems more far-flung and smaller than it does in Discovery in 2257. So what changed? Why is the Enterprise so frequently out of touch with Starfleet for long periods in TOS? How did Starfleet change the way it works between the ending of Discovery season 2 and Kirk’s time?
In “Such Sweet Sorrow,” Burnham mentions that Control had destroyed all the subspace relays that allowed swift communication across the Federation. This feels like one part of the puzzle, but more Short Treks or an entire series featuring Pike, Number One and Spock could tackle this more clearly. Sure, Pike, Spock and Number One are all back on the Enterprise, presumably on a five-year-mission, but more onscreen stories could dive into how Starfleet changes even more.
What happened to the Klingon Empire and L’Rell?
By 2266, as depicted in the Original Series episode “Errand of Mercy,” all-out war with the Klingons seems inevitable, again. But how? After the Klingon War of 2256 depicted in Discovery, how did everything get so bad again? If more stories or an entire series explored this time period, we might not just focus on what this stuff looks like from Spock, Pike and Number One’s point-of-view, but maybe from the point-of-view of the Klingons, too—specifically, L’Rell!
Mary Chieffo’s L’Rell was absolutely one of the best aspects of both seasons of Star Trek: Discovery but now that the rest of the crew has jumped ahead to the 33rd century for season 3, they’ve ditched her and the Klingon Empire far behind. But there’s so much more to explore! In 2266, the Augment virus of 2154 (from the Enterprise episode “Divergence”) seems to have made most Klingon soldiers appear “human” with smooth foreheads. (Reminder: in TOS Klingon makeup was pretty much funny eyebrows and face paint, which was eventually retroactively explained in the prequel show Enterprise.) If we got a new series set in 2258-ish, it could, in theory, only tangentially focus on Starfleet. Instead, what about a Game of Thrones-style show about the Klingon Empire? In this series, we could see a new strain of the Augment virus really overtake the Empire, making everyone look more human-ish; allowing Mary Chieffo and company to show their real faces IRL. This could create a kind of great crisis for the Empire; how can they “remain Klingon,” when they fundamentally don’t look like Klingons? This would dive deep into some murky canon waters, but it would also create great storylines for Trek to explore about identity, cultural divisions, and prejudice. A Klingon-centric show—or series of stand-alone episodes—that happens in Pike and Kirk’s time featuring L’Rell could be the best Trek show ever.
What did Pike do as Fleet Captain?
It would of course be cool to see Anson Mount’s Pike as Captain of the Enterprise again. But it would be even cooler to see Pike as Fleet Captain! You wouldn’t need a whole show to do this necessarily, but if there were a new series or more Short Treks set in the 2258-ish era, it would be interesting to witness Pike’s transition from captain of the Enterprise to Fleet Captain with all of Starfleet at his command. What if these things weren’t mutually exclusive? What if Pike was Fleet Captain while he was still in charge of the Enterprise?
Why did Spock stay on the Enterprise when Pike left?
In the TOS episode “The Menagerie” Spock says he served with Pike for a total “11 years, four months and five days.” Counting the time we saw them hanging out together on in season 2 of Discovery, this time span seemingly also includes two five-year-missions on the Enterprise. To put it in perspective, this is double the amount of time Spock served with Kirk in the original series. So, why, after all that time did Spock decide to just stay on the Enterprise without Pike?
The new Short Treks with Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn could explore this idea. Because if there’s one thing Trekkies literally can’t get enough of, it’s Spock thinking about stuff and making complicated decisions.
What happened to Number One?
Speaking of Rebecca Romijn, the character of Number One was fantastic in season 2 of Discovery, but she also felt tragically underused. A single episode of Short Treks is simply not enough of Romijn’s Number One, if only because, just like Pike, the character is oddly revered despite no one knowing much about her. Number One is also not mentioned in any on-screen canon outside of “The Cage,” “The Menagerie,” and Discovery, meaning there’s plenty of room to really find out who she really is and what happened to her after Discovery.
While Discovery retained several of its excellent female leads for season 3, it also left some, like L’Rell and Number One, behind in the 23rd century. And because Number One is the original badass Trek protagonist, getting more of her story feels like an oversight contemporary Trek is poised to correct.
Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Tor.com. His other science fiction essays and journalism has been published by SyFy Wire, Den of Geek!, Inverse, and StarTrek.com He is the author of the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (Penguin Random House) and an editor at Fatherly.
so much potential with this series, great questions![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
Speaking of, The Orville has a new comic book coming out which will be a bridge between its Season 1 and 2, and answer some of its hanging plotlines too.
“Why is the Enterprise so frequently out of touch with Starfleet for long periods in TOS?”
Because they’re on a deep space exploration mission, and Vonda McIntyre already suggested in 1986 that it may have been a mission of a new kind: “The Federation was poised on the edge of an unprecedented expansion of the boundaries of explored space. Jim wanted to be in the vanguard of the discovery of new worlds, the contact with new peoples, the search for knowledge. He knew that the Federation planned an expedition toward the heart of the galaxy, to a region high in type G stars. Around such suns, carbon-based life […] had the best chance to appear and to evolve. Jim wanted that mission.” (Enterprise: The First Adventure)
N0 1 was a section 31 agent. My guess when you try to make sense of her.
“How did Starfleet change so much in a decade?”
That’s answered in TOS itself. First of all, it’s not that Starfleet changed, is that the way it can be portrayed on screen, and the storytelling sensitivities have changed in 50 years. Then, the Enterprise is one 12 ships like itself, built for long, long range exploration. That long range exploration is why it’s out of contact with command most of the time: to explore strange, new worlds.
Fairly obviously its a different timeline. STD showrunners may claim its not, but the onscreen results say differently.
On the ship numbers, if you were to ask anyone in the US Navy how many ships they have, they would say about 285. Little boats, fighters, etc don’t count. So when the AI says 900, it likely means 900 ships, not 300 ships 200 shuttlecraft and 400 fighters.
ragnarredbeard of course has it right. There’s simply no way this is the same timeline and universe as the one seen in the original series. They’re so completely different aesthetically, technologically, in terms of social attitudes and norms, not to mention also with respect to the depiction of military service. The original series took its cue with regard to the latter from the Navy and service during World War II. Many of the people that worked on the show had actually served, and that service left an indelible imprint on them that carried over into what they wrote and how it was all depicted in the show. That is NOT the world and universe of Discovery. It just simply isn’t, and that is also at the root of why classic fans of earlier Trek, and of the original series especially and in particular, have such a problem with Discovery. Despite what Kurtzman and his team may say, it’s not the same place, and it’s blatantly darn obvious.
@7,
Thank you for that. Said it much better than I would.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked a lot of STD, but lets not pretend its in the same timeline/universe.
I miss the lady that brings everyone on deck drinks. Why does only TOS has this? The other series need to get online.
The space stewardess. I agree. Space was never better!
@9 and 10,
Apparently neither of you were alive then, so of course you wouldn’t understand it.
Yes, TOS is *dated*, but that also serves to illustrate why it can’t be the same universe as *Discovery*. As I said, the social attitudes and norms between the two are very different.
@9/Burninggecko: Let’s keep the crewmen who bring coffee but make half of them male.
@10/Mr Phister: I’m pretty sure they were space secretaries, not space stewardesses. Apart from bringing coffee, they also organised the captain’s paperwork (we saw them give him reports to sign), went on landing parties (the best part of starship duty, IMO) and handled scientific equipment (tricorders). Their job was much more interesting than you make it sound.
If you want space stewardesses, try 2001: A Space Odyssey.
@7 & 10
Let’s be honest though—the problem isn’t so much that Discovery doesn’t line up with TOS, but that TOS/TAS is inconsistent with the rest of the Star Trek franchise and has been since the first movies.
Discovery fits very comfortably in the midpoint between Enterprise and the TNG-era shows. Yes, TNG, DS9 and ENT all had episodes showing TOS-style Connie sets, but they also clearly don’t take place in a galaxy filled with Greco-Roman space gods, sentient androids, phasers that work like depth charges and races distinguished mostly by the shape of their eyebrows.
I love TOS, but in-universe you’re better to treat it like a stylish, very retro, holo-series about the adventures of the Enterprise and her crew based on her captain’s logs. Like a western for the future.
The only time I can remember a yeoman distributing drinks is an episode where the power is off and Kirk asks Rand where she got hot coffee and she answers she used a phaser on low.
Of course the US Navy runs on coffee. A famous admiral stated that the service could win a war without coffee, but they’d much rather not try.
Ryan Britt wrote:
Not destroyed, subverted — i.e., CONTROL took control of the devices to prevent their use by Discovery and Enterprise, but presumably it wanted to use them for itself. The script doesn’t say if CONTROL hacked the relays, because of course every AI is a master hacker, or if it abused the permissions it had been granted in its role as Section 31’s threat-assessment AI.
@13/John Duncan: If I had to choose between TOS and the other Trek shows, I’d choose TOS. Fortunately, I don’t have to.
TOS had alien races that looked exactly like humans; so did early TNG. TOS also had races distinguished by skin colour; they reappeared in ENT. There was only one Greco-Roman god, and he told the characters that he was the last one, so it would have been strange to meet others later.
The TOS galaxy wasn’t filled with sentient androids. There were only the Exo 3 androids, Mudd’s androids, Rayna Kapec, and perhaps the plants produced on the Shore Leave planet. The Exo 3 androids were relics of a dead civilisation who had killed their builders, like the robots B’Elanna Torres tried to help in “Prototype”. Rayna died of emotions, like Lal a hundred years later. The Shore Leave plants were similar to holodeck characters. The same things and problems keep reappearing.
Personally, I treat TOS as real in-universe and DSC as some character’s gloomy alternate history fiction. I prefer the hundred years of peace to a devastating war, and I prefer the more likeable Vulcans of TOS and especially TNG and VOY to the terrorists and near-villains of DSC. Also, the stakes in DSC are too high; that distinguishes it from all the other Trek shows.