how does star trek time work

How Do Star Trek Stardates Work?

By chris higgins | sep 20, 2015.

On Star Trek , we hear a lot of "stardates," meant to mark some futuristic date. An example is stardate 47457.1, which is Captain Picard's birthday . The weird thing is that stardate 47457.1 is either the equivalent June 16th, November 4th, January 8th, or January 10th, depending on how you count. Let's go deep-nerd on this.

The Original Series

In the original Trek TV series, stardates were, in a word, bogus. In the series bible, the Star Trek Guide , writers were basically told to wing it. Here's a snippet (emphasis added):

Pick any combination of four numbers plus a percentage point [ed. note: tenths digit], use it as your story's stardate. For example, 1313.5 is twelve o'clock noon of one day and 1314.5 would be noon of the next day. Each percentage point is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of one day. The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode.

This obviously wasn't thought through very well, as it boils down to "Pick a number and stay near it." Show creator Gene Roddenberry later said:

When we began making episodes, we would use a stardate such as 2317 one week, and then a week later when we made the next episode we would move the star date up to 2942, and so on. Unfortunately, however, the episodes are not aired in the same order in which we filmed them. So we began to get complaints from the viewers, asking, "How come one week the star date is 2891, the next week it's 2337, and then the week after it's 3414?"

He then went on to explain that the whole "location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors" thing was a hedge to cover up the fact that the dates simply weren't consistent to begin with, even if the episodes had aired in order.

The Next Generation

In Star Trek: The Next Generation , things got a bit more consistent. In the original TNG Writer's/Director's Guide , the show-runners devised a sensible formula with a reasonable level of continuity. Here it is:

A stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. Example: "41254.7." The first two digits of the stardate are always "41." The 4 stands for 24th century, the 1 indicates first season. The additional three leading digits will progress unevenly during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point is generally regarded as a day counter.

It's interesting to note, then, that the duration of a TNG season is 1,000 days. Good thing they were on a continuing mission rather than a five-year one.

Both Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Star Trek: Voyager continued using the TNG style of Stardates, and the movie Star Trek Nemesis followed suit.

As you might expect, early on in TNG , the writers sometimes goofed. A prime example is Tasha Yar's death, which occurred circa Stardate 41601.3, but she was alive in a previous episode with the (later) Stardate 41997.7. Oops. By 1992, the writers had revised their guidelines to be iron-clad:

A Stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. Example: "46254.7". The first two digits of the Stardate are "46." The 4 stands for the 24th Century, the 6 indicates sixth season. The following three digits will progress consecutively during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point counts tenths of a day. Stardate 45254.4, therefore, represents the noon hour on the 254th "day" of the fifth season. Because Stardates in the 24th Century are based on a complex mathematical formula, a precise correlation to Earth-based dating systems is not possible.

Despite explicitly stating that correlation to Earth-based dates is not possible, that hasn't stopped people from trying .

Just when things were basically making sense, they changed again. From an exhaustive and brilliant article on Memory Alpha , here's an explanation of the reboot (J.J. Abrams-directed) movies' treatment of stardates (emphasis added):

The stardate format from the latest film series is credited to screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. According to Orci, they "used the system where, for example, 2233.45 or whatever means 23rd century, 33rd year of that century, and the .45 indicates the day of the year out of 365 days." During a Q&A session, Orci restated that a stardate is "the year, as in 2233, with the month and day expressed as a decimal point from .1 to .365 (as in the 365 days of the year)." He posted a similar reply on Twitter: "star date=standard year, with decimal representing day of year from 1-365." The new stardates are similar to the ordinal dates of ISO 8601, which express the first day of 2260 as 2260-001, and the last as 2260-366. Orci hasn't clarified whether leap days increase the count to .366, which would be expected if the years are Gregorian. When asked about 2230.06 and 2233.04 from the Star Trek screenplay, with only one leading zero instead of two or none, he replied that it could have been an error. IDW's Star Trek: Timelines show the latter number as 2233.4.

Long Story Short

There is no one answer to how stardates work, aside from saying that they don't. They're inconsistent series-to-series, and even within a given series, the writers often mixed things up. With Roddenberry trying to retcon the system's continuity even in TOS , perhaps it's appropriate that the system continues to be more than a little mixed up. Time-tracking throughout the galaxy is a hard problem; give 'em some slack.

If you're curious about examples of various Stardates (and even more discussion of this issue), check out Memory Alpha 's stardate page . Trust me, once you've read that, you'll never want to speak of this subject again. If you do, read this page for a deeply unofficial (but supremely logical) system of decimal time. Oh, and don't forget the time the French made a 10-hour day —another attempt to create decimal time that led to total confusion.

Warp Drive & Transporters: How 'Star Trek' Technology Works (Infographic)

The original "Star Trek" television series featured technology that had first appeared decades earlier in science fiction stories. Pulp heroes had been wielding ray guns, flying faster than light and teleporting from place to place since the 1930s. But perhaps the true inspiration of Star Trek’s superscience is the revolutionary physics discoveries of the early 20th century. Relativity, discovered by Albert Einstein and quantum physics, pioneered by Max Planck  revealed a universe far different than ordinary human experience might suggest.

Although Einstein’s theory  forbids matter to accelerate past the speed of light, the demands of sci-fi storytelling require that people be able to travel between the stars in a reasonable amount of time, usually hours, or at most, days. Enter the space warp drive, or as it was called in "Star Trek’s" pilot episode, "hyperdrive."

Warp drive in Star Trek  works by annihilating matter (in the form of deuterium, a kind of hydrogen gas) and antimatter in a fusion reaction mediated by dilithium crystals. This produces the enormous power required to warp space-time and drive the ship faster than light.

The Evolution of 'Star Trek' (Infographic)

The crew of the Enterprise measures velocity in warp factors. Warp factor 8 equals the cube of 8 (8 times 8 times 8), or 512 times light speed .

Even this velocity is too slow to allow starships to travel as quickly as they appear to on TV. In reality, the script writers arbitrarily allowed the Enterprise  to get to wherever it was going, as fast as was convenient for storytelling. By the era of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the warp speed scale was recalibrated. Under the new scale, a starship could get from Earth to Alpha Centauri  in about 37 hours at warp factor 8.

USS Enterprise Evolution in Photos (Gallery)

Science fiction author E.E. "Doc" Smith describes a spaceship traveling at a speed "thousands of times greater than that of light" in his novel "Skylark of Space," written between 1915 and 1921 and serialized in "Amazing Stories" magazine in 1928.

The technology and style of " Star Trek " was influenced by the 1955 film "Forbidden Planet." United Planets Cruiser C-57D (above) used its quanto-gravitic hyperdrive to greatly surpass the speed of light. The cruiser travels to the star Altair, 16.7 light-years from Earth, in 378 days.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre proposed moving not a spaceship, but space itself, faster than light. All that would be required is to distort the fabric of space-time into a bubble surrounding a spaceship. Enormous energy would be required, but once created, the bubble would move independently of the rest of the universe, even faster than light.

The bubble moves by compressing the space-time in front of it and expanding the space-time behind it.

The Top 10 Star Trek Technologies

NASA scientist Harold "Sunny" White believes as-yet-undiscovered "negative energy" could be used to create the space-warp bubble , using a smaller amount of total energy than Alcubierre thought possible.

A plausible alternative to traveling across space is the wormhole, a shortcut between two widely separated points in space-time. Scientists Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen first proposed the wormhole, or "Einstein-Rosen Bridge," in 1935. Wormholes have not yet been observed in nature, but they are not forbidden by our current understanding of physics.

If they exist, wormholes would permit travel faster than light and backward through time (at least to the time when the wormhole was created).

In "Star Trek's" Transporter device, normal matter is converted temporarily into energy, then beamed to a target point for restoration to its original pattern and structure. The Transporter has a range of about 16,000 miles (25,750 kilometers).

The "Vibra-Transmitter" described in Frank K. Kelley’s 1933 story "Into the Meteorite Orbit" functions similarly to Star Trek’s Transporter. The human body is "reduced to vibration traveling on a wave-channel" and then reintegrated into matter in a receiving chamber.

In real-world science, subatomic particles can be quantum teleported, but this only transmits a quantum state between a pair of entangled particles, not the particles themselves. The human body contains an immense number of atoms, about 10^27 (one followed by 27 zeroes). Recording the quantum states of all these atoms would require an unrealistic amount of data storage. Even worse, quantum physics prevents the precise measurement of the individual atoms.

Deflector shields (or "screens") are an invisible force-field barrier activated automatically by the ship's computer when needed. Screens can be maintained continually for 20 hours before the ship’s power is exhausted. Transporters cannot be used when the screens are enveloping the ship.

Navigational deflector beams sweep the space ahead of the ship to shove aside obstacles such as small asteroids. Anything too large to be deflected triggers the ship’s computer to change course to avoid collision.

In earlier sci-fi, deflectors for diverting meteoroids out of a spaceship’s path show up in "The Ethical Equations” by Murray Leinster, published in "Astounding Science Fiction" in 1945. 

Lawrence Krauss, in his book "The Physics of Star Trek," supposes that to bend light (or phaser beams), deflector shields would have to warp space-time around the starship. But if warp drive is possible, deflector shields that work this way are perhaps also possible.

Tractor beams are a form of reverse deflector beam, pulling instead of pushing. The tractor beam has a range of about 100,000 miles (160,930 km).

E.E. "Doc" Smith uses the exact term " tractor beam " to describe force beams for grabbing objects in space in his 1931 story "Spacehounds of IPC," published in "Amazing Stories."

In real-world science, microscopic particles of matter have been manipulated in the laboratory with laser beams. Starships are much more massive. Tractor beams that work on an electromagnetic principle might be plausible in theory. However, Newton’s laws require that if the Enterprise pulls on another object with its tractor beam, the Enterprise itself will be moved toward the object. The Enterprise must fire thrusters to remain in place during the operation.

A phaser is an energy beam that can be "phased" to interfere with the wave pattern of any material object. Settings include dematerialize (converts matter to energy), disrupt (breaks down molecular cohesion), heat (increases molecular velocity) and stun (impacts the nervous system of a living target). Phasers can also be adjusted for use as cutting torch or welder.  A phaser set to overload creates a powerful explosion. The ship's main phaser batteries can destroy matter over vast distances and are powered directly by the warp engines. 

The Martian heat ray in H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel " The War of the Worlds " is very much like a ray gun or death beam. In the 1920s and 1930s, some scientists, including Nikola Tesla, believed that a death ray capable of killing at a distance was feasible. Toy Buck Rogers guns began appearing in the 1930s, one of which was called a “disintegrator pistol.”

Weapons exist today that are capable of stunning the human nervous system (the taser, for example). However, tasers require physical contact to deliver their charge. Due to the inverse square law by which energy decreases as distance increases, to disintegrate matter at a distance a phaser weapon would have to generate an incredible amount of energy. Military research continues into developing directed energy weapons capable of shooting down missiles.

A photon torpedo is an energy pod of matter and antimatter separated by a magno-photon force field. They can be fired directly as torpedoes, laid in a mine field or scattered in an enemy’s path like modern-day depth charges. Electrochemical, proximity and other fuses are available. 

Photon torpedoes require a quantity of antimatter. Generating even a few atoms of antimatter uses up an enormous amount of energy. The starship’s warp drive, powered by antimatter, also has this problem.

In theory, the explosive yield of one gram (0.04 ounces) of antimatter and an equal quantity of matter is about 43 kilotons (possibly lower in actual practice). Background material for the Next Generation series says that photon torpedoes carry 1.5 kilograms 3.3 pounds) of antimatter. 

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Universal translator

• View history

Universal translators from the 22nd through 24th centuries

A 23rd century shuttlecraft universal translator

The universal translator (also referred to as a " UT " or translator circuit ) was a technology used to decipher and interpret alien languages into the native language of the user. ( ENT : " Fight or Flight ", " Vanishing Point ", " Breaking the Ice "; TNG : " Home Soil ")

• 2.1 Non-humanoids
• 2.2 Detection
• 2.3 Language structures
• 2.4 Environmental factors
• 3.1 See also
• 3.2 Background information
• 3.3 External links

History [ ]

An early Starfleet universal translator in 2151

On Earth , the universal translator was invented shortly before 2151 , and was still experimental at the time of the launch of Enterprise NX-01 . ( ENT : " Broken Bow ") The actual universal translator, which was used for deciphering unknown languages on the fly, was a handheld device with a keypad and display to which a communicator could attach at the top. ( ENT : " Precious Cargo ")

Despite its being able to translate alien languages in relatively short order, due to the UT's experimental nature, the use of a skilled linguist – in Enterprise 's case, Hoshi Sato – was still required, notably in situations where reading alien languages on the control panels, hatches, and displays were involved. ( ENT : " Sleeping Dogs ", " Vox Sola ")

A new language could quickly be translated in person-to-person encounters by having one speak his or her language until the universal translator gathered enough data to build a translation matrix . Sato also created the linguacode translation matrix in order to anticipate and speed up the translation of new and unknown languages. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

A universal translator in 2155

Without the attachment, Starfleet communicators were still capable of translating preprogrammed languages, such as Akaali when Enterprise visited their world. ( ENT : " Civilization ") By 2155 , Ensign Sato's work on universal translator technology had made it possible for small translators to be clipped onto clothing, translating a variety of languages at once, allowing the conference discussing the Coalition of Planets to occur live in real time, without in-person or networked translators among delegates. ( ENT : " Demons ")

A Starfleet communicator's universal translator at work in 2256

By the 2230s , universal translators were fully incorporated directly into Starfleet communicators, directing translated audio at the recipient in the speaker's voice. When Lieutenant Philippa Georgiou made first contact with Saru , a Kelpien , she displayed her communicator – making it possible for the two to understand each other. ( ST : " The Brightest Star ")

In 2256 , Michael Burnham used the universal translator in her communicator aboard the Klingon Sarcophagus ship to eavesdrop on the orders of its commander, Kol . When she revealed herself using the translator to speak in Klingonese , Kol dismissed the technology as another attempt by the Federation to subsume the Klingon identity; Burnham instead explained that its purpose was to enable communication and allow the two species to come to peaceful terms. ( DIS : " Into the Forest I Go ")

Starbase Yorktown had a universal translator in the command center that was used to interpret Kalara 's plea for help in 2263 of the alternate reality . ( Star Trek Beyond )

In 2257 , Burnham explained to Siranna that the universal translator in her communicator was programmed with more than 1,000 languages, including the Kelpien language . ( DIS : " The Sound of Thunder ")

Universal translators were also built into the communications systems of most starships , including shuttlecraft . In 2257 , the universal translator onboard the USS Discovery still had occasional difficulty with translating the Saurian Linus 's language in to Federation Standard. A short time later, communications from a mysterious sphere caused the UT to malfunction, causing the individual crew members and ship's computer to be heard in a large number of languages and for the ship's displays to switch to a wide variety of written languages. These included Klingon , Arabic , German , Welsh , Spanish , French , Italian , Norwegian , Andorian and Tau Cetian . Owing to his language abilities, Commander Saru was able to affect repairs on the UT so the crew could understand each other and the ship's systems again. ( DIS : " An Obol for Charon ")

In 2267 , the UT from a Class F shuttlecraft had a wand-like design. ( TOS : " Metamorphosis ")

Spock modifying a universal translator

In 2267 , Captain Kirk and Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise modified one to communicate with an alien known as the Companion , in the Gamma Canaris region . Kirk explained to Zefram Cochrane that certain universal ideas and concepts were common to all intelligent life, and that the translator compared the frequencies of brain wave patterns , selected those ideas it recognized, and provided the necessary grammar. Kirk further explained that the device spoke with a voice, or the approximation of one, that corresponded to the identity concepts it recognized. The Companion was revealed to be female because the universal translator detected this facet of its identity from its brain wave patterns, and assigned it a female voice. ( TOS : " Metamorphosis ")

By the 24th century , universal translators had advanced to the point where a full-fledged UT could be built into the combadges worn by Starfleet personnel. The translation was so natural and seamless that beings unaware of them believed that others spoke their own language. ( VOY : " The 37's ")

The universal translator was able to translate a language used by sentient nanites into binary language . ( TNG : " Evolution ")

The Emergency Medical Holographic program contained the universal translator technology built-in to his program. The USS Voyager 's EMH was able to communicate with Noss when Tuvok and Tom Paris ' universal translators were offline. ( VOY : " Gravity ")

The Tars Lamora prison colony prohibited universal translators so that the prisoners couldn't communicate with each other. After finding the USS Protostar , Dal R'El and Rok-Tahk accidentally activated a combadge laying on the bridge floor which powered up the ship and activated the translator in the combadge, finally enabling them to understand each other. The two later carried the combadge with them so that they could communicate with Jankom Pog . However, they discovered that the translator couldn't allow them to understand Murf . ( PRO : " Lost and Found ")

After returning to Tars Lamora, Dal and Zero used a combadge to turn the Unwanted 's ankle monitors into universal translators. ( PRO : " A Moral Star, Part 2 ")

In 2384 , the living construct impeded the universal translators on the Protostar and the Starfleet ships that it had infected, keeping the Protostar crew from understanding each other and the USS Dauntless 's crew from understanding Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway 's orders to abandon ship . However, Gwyndala 's knowledge of languages allowed her to communicate with everyone else while Janeway was able to speak with both Dal and Gwyn as the two spoke Federation Standard . Hologram Janeway eventually managed to get the ship's translators back online. ( PRO : " Supernova, Part 1 ")

In 3190 , Dr. Kovich brought a variety of historic universal translators to the DMA task force charged with seeking to establish successful communication with Unknown Species 10-C . The table included 2150s-style communicator with attachment and 2155-style lapel clip-on, a mid-23rd century communicator and two mid-23rd century wand-style translators, and combadges from the 2360s , 2370s , and 2390s . Kovich used them to illustrate that the universal translator had been so successful because it sought out shared familiar concepts between speakers, such as spoken language. ( DIS : " The Galactic Barrier ")

Limitations [ ]

Non-humanoids [ ].

The universal translator's capabilities were focused on interpreting the brain patterns of humanoid lifeforms.

For entirely non-humanoid lifeforms, such as a cytoplasmic lifeform which attached itself to B'Elanna Torres , the universal translator was completely stymied, though with some, such as a symbiotic lifeform encountered by Enterprise NX-01 in 2152 , it could still provide some help. ( VOY : " Nothing Human "; ENT : " Vox Sola ")

At one time while Neelix was negotiating with a xenon-based lifeform , the UT went off-line and Arturis saved him from embarrassment by translating the alien's words. ( VOY : " Hope and Fear ")

Detection [ ]

Uhura forgoes use of automated speech translation, while the computer attempts to translate the receiving message

The universal translator could be detected when it was used to process language in communications.

In 2293 , Commanders Chekov and Uhura were forced to revert to manually translating their speech using a paper dictionary into Klingon in order to surreptitiously get them past the border. Uhura successfully used broken Klingonese to describe the USS Enterprise -A as a freighter , the Ursva , headed to Rura Penthe to deliver "supplies, medicines and things". Chekov stated that paper dictionaries were necessary because the use of universal translator would have been recognized. ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country )

Language structures [ ]

The universal translator was not instantly successful with every language it encountered.

Even by the late 24th century, it was only capable of translating the literal words of the Tamarians into English, but was unable to translate the Tamarians' metaphorical manner of speaking into understandable speech. ( TNG : " Darmok "; LD : " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ")

It took several hours of analysis before the universal translator aboard Deep Space 9 could establish a translation matrix for the Skrreean language . ( DS9 : " Sanctuary ")

When a recording of a Dominion -Federation negotiation was played in native-language mode, Jack had found the translator missed capturing a Passive voice transitive in Dominionese , revealing what had been translated as a statement was actually a request. ( DS9 : " Statistical Probabilities ")

Cardassian universal translators had to be manually adjusted in order to properly translate the Breen language . ( DS9 : " Strange Bedfellows ")

Environmental factors [ ]

Locating a Ferengi UT

Ferengi translators started out as hand-held devices in the 22nd century . ( ENT : " Acquisition ") By the 24th century, they had become small devices inserted into the ear . These later models could be easily disrupted by various types of interferences such as solar flares , ionic interference , or beta radiation . They could potentially be fixed by a Ferengi smacking their head, as Quark , Rom and Nog attempted to do upon their arrival to Earth. They contained reset buttons that could be accessed by something small, such as a hairpin . ( DS9 : " Little Green Men ")

Appendices [ ]

See also [ ].

• Linguistic database
• Recording-translating device
• Translation algorithm
• Translation matrix

Background information [ ]

The universal translator is one of many Star Trek technologies that exist primarily as conventions to aid storytelling. The UT enables the vast majority of dialogue between characters to be written (and delivered) in English, to the convenience of viewers and writers alike. Writers do not have to devise a new language for each new alien of the week that speaks on-screen, and viewers do not have to watch for subtitles .

Another storytelling conceit is that the device makes non-English speakers appear as if they're speaking English (i.e. lip movements match English language pronunciation). This "convention" is particularly obvious in episodes like DS9 : " Little Green Men " as well as ENT : " Unexpected ", " Civilization ", " Acquisition ", and " Precious Cargo ", in each of which the universal translator is off-line for periods of time. Were the device real, it would more likely have an effect similar to watching a movie dubbed into another language.

The draft proposal Star Trek is... mentioned this concept:

During the writing of " The Corbomite Maneuver " (the first regular installment of Star Trek , following the pilot episodes " The Cage " and " Where No Man Has Gone Before "), the universal translator underwent some further development. Jerry Sohl , the writer of "The Corbomite Maneuver", later explained, " We were originally going to have [each crew member] carry a language translator, which would fit on the wrist like a beeper, and no matter what area of the universe they were in, the thoughts that the people were thinking would automatically be translated into English as they spoke. We got rid of that idea, and assumed that everybody did speak English. " ( The Star Trek Interview Book , pp. 127-128)

External links [ ]

• Universal translator at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Universal translator at Wikipedia

How ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Fits Into the Star Trek Universe

With the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery almost upon us, some fans have lingering questions about the show’s place in the Star Trek timeline. The established canon can be complicated, with six existing shows covering 200 years of history and a new alternate reality to keep track of. So, here’s everything you need to know about where Discovery fits into the Star Trek universe.

Where Does Star Trek: Discovery Fit in the Timeline?

According to producers, Discovery takes place in the year 2256 which is 10 years before the original series . This places it roughly 100 years after Star Trek: Enterprise , two years after the original Star Trek pilot  at the height of  Christopher Pike ’s tenure as captain, and almost 110 years before Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Which Reality Is It?

J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek movie rebooted the franchise, revisiting classic characters from the original ’60s show. To preserve the existing canon, the movie used time travel to create an alternate reality. The timeline splits in 2233, the year of James T. Kirk ’s birth, so the 2009 film and its sequels take place in the new “Kelvin” universe. Meanwhile, the original shows and movies exist in the “Prime” timeline. The one exception to this is Enterprise , which exists in both chronologies because it occurs prior to the 2233 split.

At San Diego Comic-Con this year, the show’s producers confirmed that the show would, in fact, take place during the Prime timeline.

Yes it is in the Prime timeline. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. — Anthony Rapp SAG-AFTRA National Board Member (@albinokid) September 15, 2017

Since then, people affiliated with the show have reassured fans several times. Answering a question from a fan, actor Anthony Rapp , who will play science officer Lt. Paul Stamets in Discovery , posted an emphatic confirmation on Twitter. So if you’re not a fan of the Kelvin timeline, take heart — everything you see in Discovery is set in the original reality.

Will Discovery Respect Existing Star Trek Canon?

One complaint from vocal fans is that the show’s aesthetics are quite different from previously established Star Trek canon. Given Discovery  takes place two years after the Original Series’ pilot episode and nine years before the second pilot,  “Where No Man Has Gone Before” , we would expect the show to be visually consistent. For example, here are the Starfleet uniforms used in those two episodes, contrasted with what we’ve seen from Discovery :

Producers promise that the show’s aesthetic will evolve over time to eventually match the tone of the original series. However, will this also mean that the uniforms will quickly evolve as well?

Another sticking point with fans is the radical redesign of the Klingons . Star Trek has seen many iterations of the iconic warrior race, but none resemble the various character designs in the new show. These Klingons are all totally hairless, a departure from the beards and thick manes of established canon. They are also more colorful than ever before. Previous Klingons have had skin tones matching those of their human actors. Here, leader T’Kuvma fits that description, but his subordinates Kol and L’Rell appear purple or gray, and the mysterious Voq seems to be an albino.

These Klingons also sport a unique aesthetic, favouring spiky and ornamental uniforms over the sparse utilitarian tunics and sashes of their original series cousins.

When the show publicised a “Klingon sarcophagus ship” set, it flew in the face of the known lore of the people. Suddenly, the show suggests that Klingons care about the treatment of their dead despite previously establishing that they view a dead body as “an empty shell” and have no use for burial rites.

Producers explain these discrepancies away by saying these Klingons are an isolationist cult dedicated to racial purity and a traditionalist lifestyle. This, they claim, explains their strange appearance, as well as their different beliefs and design choices.

Perhaps the biggest controversy concerns Sonequa Martin-Green ‘s character, Michael Burnham. A key part of Burnham’s backstory is that she was orphaned as a child and raised on Vulcan . Specifically, Spock’s parents,  Sarek and Amanda , raised her. This effectively makes her Spock’s foster sister, despite no other canon material ever mentioning her before. The news that the show would retcon a major detail of Spock’s family confused and upset many fans.

When examining Spock’s family, some commentators  have pointed out that if Spock waited 20 years to tell his friends that he had a brother , it’s possible he might never mention a sister. Discovery may even explore a family rift that might also relate to Spock’s reluctance to talk about his sister.

Explaining the Differences Away

The producers have explanations ready for every apparent canon inconsistency. In each case, they have indicated that all will become clear in the end. They have, for example, insisted that there is a good reason why Sarek had to be Michael’s adopted father.

Star Trek author, David Mack , even took to Twitter to rebuke nitpickers, promising that everything in the show “fits” with canon, with apparent discrepancies “addressed/resolved”.

What Anthony said. Yes, Discovery is in the Prime timeline. It fits w/canon. Apparent "discrepancies" will be addressed/resolved. It works. — David Mack (@DavidAlanMack) September 15, 2017

Mack’s credentials as a Trek scribe are impressive — he helped write a few episodes of Deep Space Nine and has authored over 30 Star Trek novels. Fans would be wise to take him at his word.

Star Trek: Discovery debuts on September 24, 2017, on CBS in the United States, with subsequent episodes streaming weekly on CBS All Access. In Canada, the pilot will premiere on CTV and Space in English and Z in French and will stream weekly on Crave. It will debut on Netflix in other countries on September 25.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 4 Recap

Episode 4 of Star Trek: Discovery sees Burnham and Rayner team up to save the Discovery and its crew from a time travel wormhole.

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What happened in star trek: discovery episode 4, how does star trek: discovery episode 4 end.

Episode 4 of Star Trek: Discovery aired on Paramount Plus this week,as it approaches the halfway mark in the fifth and final season. The sci-fi spin-off series consists of ten episodes, with one airing each week until the finale on May 30. The show began in 2017, and Season 5 has been praised for its serialized storytelling and exciting visual effects. Star Trek: Discovery stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Callum Keith Rennie, Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp.

The fourth episode of Star Trek: Discovery 's final season sees Burnham and Rayner put their differences aside when they realize they are in a wormhole and have traveled back in time. They must fight to save the Discovery and the crew on board, by facing off with bounty hunters, Moll and Lák.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 3 Recap

Star Trek: Discovery Episode 4 sees Moll and L’ak meeting with a dodgy dealer. They hand him a bag of the latinum and the dealer tries to raise the price of it, and it turns out Moll has poisoned the latinum, and takes the item from the dying dealer. L’ak is uncertain. But Moll assures him they’ll get ahead of the USS Discovery . She continues that once they have the Progenitor’s tech, they’ll be free. She tells him they have to hurry to catch Discovery on Trill. It is revealed that the device obtained from the dealer is the same one planted on Adira Tal in the final moments of the previous episode.

Elsewhere, the device activates in Adira’s quarters on the Discovery, and the device hops off the uniform and runs across the room and disappears into a girder.

In his lab, Stamets spots the bug and watches as it disappears into the wall. Captain Michael Burnham gets a report from Owo, revealing that she’s picking up some odd readings, and something has broadcast a signal from the ship. Burnham and Captain Rayner try to beam to the bridge, but they go nowhere.

The ship is moving but the lights flicker and a klaxon sounds. Rayner asks if they are under attack, as Burnham tries to contact the bridge but nothing seems to be working. Burnham and Rayner head to the bridge on foot and find the rest of the crew unconscious and wearing 23rd-century Starfleet uniforms. Rayner and Burnham realize they’re in a wormhole and have traveled back in time. Discovery follows Burnham as she goes through the wormhole into the future. Turns out, they haven’t just traveled back in time, but they’re actually jumping through time.

Burnham arrives in the future and explains the situation, and that she's undertaking an important mission for the future Discovery . Burnham demonstrates her personal knowledge of several crew members to prove her story , as Airiam, Tilly and the rest of the crew are confused at her appearance.

They remain skeptical of Burnham’s claims, but she says she will convince Airiam, and everyone will trust her judgment in the end. Burnham reveals she saw Airiam die, and she recounts the climax of “Project Daedalus.” Airiam convinces the rest of the crew of Burnham's legitimacy, and asks what help Burnham needs from them. Elsewhere, in the lab, Rayner and Stamets prepare to tackle the temporal shield, but a phaser wielding TB and Rhys interrupt their plans.

YB orders Stamets to shut down the warp core, but Rayner suggests Burnham come down, but there’s no time for that, and she urges Rayner to handle the situation. Rayner convinces Rhys they’re from the future with the knowledge he learned during interviews, but YB is still not convinced.

Rayner tells the story about Burnham arriving at the bridge and not feeling like she belongs. He tells YB she deserves to be there, and pleads with her to trust her instincts, which he knows are currently telling her to stand down, with YB seemingly convinced. Discovery ’s warp bubble is broken, and Rayner puts the device on the chronophage. Another time jump occurs, and they arrive back to the present day, which is fully intact.

Burnham orders Rayner to go to see Culber to tend to his hand injury, while Rayner states that it isn’t lost on him that what made them successful was their closeness with the crew. He admits he can be stubborn like Burnham used to be, but Burnham concludes they make a good team.

Star Trek: Discovery episode 4's ending sees the rest of the crew caught up on the chronophage. In the six hours since the time jumps began, the DOTs have found a warp signature that matches M’ak’s ship. Rayner compliments Rhys on his theory, which proved to be accurate. However, M’ak’s trail disappears, as Burnham orders the bridge crew to get to work on solving the mystery.

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek 4: Paramount Needs To Let This Sequel Die

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This Week's Star Trek: Discovery Is a Time-Hopping Marvel

In "face the strange," discovery returns to a trek trope it mastered in its first season to deliver a clever, thoughtful reflection on how far it's come..

Star Trek: Discovery is really good with time. We knew this almost immediately when one of its earliest episodes to really wow us was “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” a delightful time loop caper. We knew it again, when it flung caution to the wind and catapulted itself into a future no Star Trek show had visited yet at the climax of season two . And now, as it stares down its final end , Discovery once again turns to time—and twists it, to look back on its long, strange trip.

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“Face the Strange” is a deceptively simple episode on the surface, and a bold move for a show on its last lap: instead of accelerating the chase between Discovery and Moll and L’ak as they hunt for more clues to the Progenitor tech, it almost literally slams the brakes on everything to deliver a wonderful little character piece, not just for Michael Burnham, but to give time to explore Discovery ’s crew, and even its newcomer in Commander Rayner, who is still struggling to adapt to Discovery ’s more personable approach to hierarchy. After leaving Trill with Adira unknowingly tagged by Moll, the Discovery heads to coordinates where it expects to find the next piece of the puzzle, only to find... nothing. But what Adira was tagged with, it turns out, wasn’t a tracking device, but a “Time Bug,” a piece of Krenim technology held over from the Temporal Cold War (another great bit of using Discovery ’s handling of time, in this case the passage of it, for a fun Voyager / Enterprise nod!). The Time Bug infiltrates Discovery ’s systems, and locks them down—not by disabling the ship’s systems, but by trapping them in a spiraling series of time loops.

Burnham and Rayner—who were busy arguing in the ready room over Rayner’s abrasive mood—are partially unaffected by the bug’s looping, having attempted to beam back to the bridge at the precise moment it activated. While they’re caught in the same looping, being shunted backward and forward in Discovery ’s timeline, they remain aware between each loop that something is wrong—and that if they don’t put aside their differences and disable the bug, Discovery will be shut down while Moll and L’ak solve the clues to the Progenitor tech and doom the galaxy (to the Breen, of all people, we learn in one of the loops!).

This is already a really fun idea, because as we previously said— Discovery knows how to do a killer time loop story already, and has known how to do that for a very long time. But what crucially sets “Face the Strange” apart from “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (god bless the show also toned down its love of long episode titles) is a context that the episode itself ultimately plays with: one of these episodes came just seven stories into the show’s existence. The other is the 59th , and in the time between them Discovery has done so much, changed so much, and developed in its own confidence, that it can use a similar structure and format like this again not to say “hey, look Star Trek fans, we can use the same tropes as the shows you loved,” but to instead say “hey, how do we use this trope to make a Discovery story?”

The answer is in both its characters—of course, particularly Michael—but also in the masterful way “Face the Strange” uses the concept of time looping to revisit a bunch of key moments from Discovery ’s metatextual past, giving Burnham, who went through it all, and Rayner, as the newcomer, (and eventually Stamets, who thanks to the spore drive tardigrade DNA, can’t be affected by time loops—a delightfully clever nod back to “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”!) a chance to see just how far this crew has come through and how much it’s changed them all along the way. Through Michael and Rayner’s eyes as they puzzle out the pattern of each loop, and what they need to do to stop the bug, we get to go through so much of Discovery ’s past—from it being built in drydock in San Francisco, to the moment it jumped to the 32nd century, to fighting off the Emerald Chain in season three, and, most crucially, climaxing back in the early days of season one when Michael was still just a downtrodden turncoat barely given a second chance by Starfleet after the start of the Federation-Klingon war. And with that perspective, and the carried awareness from loop to loop, both Michael and Rayner alike come to understand what Discovery has been through all the better.

It’s an episode that’s perfect for a final season—standalone enough that it is also simply just a great time loop scenario, but also vitally informed by Discovery ’s history over the last four seasons to deliver a really touching moment of acknowledgement for the series as it looks back on how far it’s come. It’s fun seeing the old blue metallic uniforms again, or seeing Stamets realizing that a) he’s a little worried he can quickly empty engineering of officers with a totally fake spore breach warning, or b) he used to be able to do that even quicker by being a massive asshole. It’s just as fun to see Rayner, who’s still resistant to connect to Discovery ’s crew, soften as he sees everything they went through to get to where they are now, and slowly but surely use the things he’s picked up about them to his advantage. It’s both extremely fun and extremely good that, in the last time loop set during Discovery season one, we not just get to see how cold and distant the bridge crew were back then, but that Discovery finally does justice to its former cyborg crewmate, Airiam (the returning Hannah Cheesman), making her belief in Michael key to saving the day—three seasons in the making, but a far more fitting farewell to the character after her clunkily unceremonious death in season two.

But above all, “Face the Strange” is Michael’s episode, and her journey is the one examined most of all. Because if you’re going to narratively go back in time to Discovery ’s first season, well, as much as she doesn’t want to, you’re going to have Present Michael face Past Michael. Sonequa Martin-Green plays the encounter to perfection: two determinedly stubborn women with things they still want to prove to both themselves and the world, pushed in each other’s faces. That it becomes a knock-down mirror match punch-up is deeply funny—fitting the aggression if Discovery ’s original wartime setting while also just making it the inevitable outcome of putting two unstoppable forces in each other’s way. But Martin-Green sells just how much of a difference there is between Michael’s past and her presence in these moments with incredible charm and subtlety. The show really hammers home that while there are still things about Michael that are still Michael, the young woman petrified that she had no place aboard a starship in season one and the undeniably heroic captain of season five represent a remarkable journey the character has been on.

Crucially, however, while Burnham vs Burnham ends with her current self Vulcan neck-pinching her past self, the actual moment the day is saved is done not by Michael, but Rayner, finally learning the keys to understanding what makes the Discovery crew tick. After Past-Michael wakes up and, being so eager to prove her worth, takes the Rayner and future-Stamets on at phaser-point in Engineering as they prepare to finally destroy the Time Bug, it’s Rayner who steps in to get her to back down, making a connection—by leaning on the things Michael had told him about herself in their argument at the start of the episode—and getting Michael to see that one day she’s going to prove herself on a long, painful, but rewarding path ahead of her... if only she stops being so stubborn for a damn second and let them save the future. Even if she doesn’t remember it, it’s the exact perfect advice season one Michael needs—advice she’ll learn the hard way through Lorca’s betrayal . And in having it passed onto her from Rayner, a man who Michael herself has begun to help grow and connect to others again after all his own frustrations and hurts, really hits home just how far she’s come.

“Face the Strange” is an episode Discovery could only pull off once, as its journey comes to an end—and it does so almost perfectly, an incredibly compelling use of a time-and-tested Trek format to examine the metatextual and textual journey it’s been on these last seven years. While there’s still more adventures to go on just yet—with the Time Bug stopped, the race between Discovery and Moll and L’ak is now tighter than ever—this was a great chance to take a moment and have its heroes and the show alike take stock of how much it’s grown: and how ready it is to bid farewell.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

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Star Trek: Discovery Goes Old School Trek With Time Jumps and Doppelganger Fights in ‘Face the Strange’

​​Warning: Spoilers follow for the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode, now streaming on Paramount+.

As ambitious as Star Trek: Discovery has been in distinguishing itself from all the other Trek series, there’s something both comforting and exciting when it goes retro with its storytelling. In the fourth episode this season, "Face the Strange,” Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her freshly appointed Number One, Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), oil and water themselves through a complex time-jumping plot featuring prior episode callbacks, returning character cameos, and that tried and true Trek trope: the doppelgänger battle!

This episode’s particular time pickle lays the groundwork for two important outcomes. One is forcing Burnham and Rayner to rethink their established views of what good leadership looks like as they time-bug their way through recent USS Discovery history. And second, it gives Burnham a chance to see exactly how far she’s evolved as a person, from a mutineer in Season 1 to the respected captain of the Discovery.

Watch a clip from "Face the Strange" below:

"Face the Strange” is a classic, Trek-style finale season script that pulls from its five seasons' worth of deep mythology and starts the process of saying goodbye in earnest. To get their thoughts on revisiting history through those shiny little time bugs, IGN spoke with Martin-Green, Anthony Rapp (Commander Paul Stamets) and David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker) about some of their favorite moments in this reflection on time. 

A Reno Reunion and Breaking in a New Number One

With the mission clear — destroy the time bugs that have infested USS Discovery — Burnham and Rayner take one path and conscript Rapp’s Stamets to help through engineering. A time jump reunites him with his old engineer sparring partner, Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), who helps him theorize some potential fixes to his problem. 

It was just so fun to get to break down the walls and see Rayner's warm heart in that crusty exterior. -Anthony Rapp

Rapp tells IGN that the episode felt like a full circle moment for the character, harkening all the way back to the series’ first time loop episode. “‘Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad’ from Season 1 was one of my favorite episodes of the show. So it was nice to get to do a little wink and nod to that,” he says of this episode. “I haven't gotten to do as much stuff with Sonequa directly over the course of the seasons, so to get to do more with her was really fun.”

Having more Burnham time this season means Rayner time too, and Rapp says getting to fold a veteran actor like Callum Keith Rennie into their cast was a pleasure as well.

“Whenever anybody new comes into our cast, we always welcome them with open arms, especially Sonequa,” Rapp says. “She makes sure that if you're coming into our house, you are welcome: ‘Sit down. You're a part of our family.’ But [Callum’s] been around a long time, so there was a part of him that was like, ‘O.K., yeah, we'll see. I've heard that this is a nice place, but we'll see .’ And then we kept demonstrating that. 

“It was just so fun to get to break down the walls and see his warm heart in that crusty exterior,” Rapp chuckles about his character’s interactions with Rayner. “And that episode in particular was one of those times where I got to do a lot of that with him. It was a total blast.”

Booker Beefcake and a Tease of What’s to Come

Since the fourth season finale, the relationship between Burnham and Ajala’s Book has been strained. He’s mostly been away on his Federation-mandated make-good with those impacted by the DMA from that season. But this episode provides Burnham with a bittersweet – and, in Ajala’s words, “sexy stuff” – taste of better days.

At one point, Burnham time-jumps into her quarters before the strife of the DMA period, only to find a shirtless and unburdened Book who reminds her of what they once had. 

“It was so much fun because of course it's a moment for her,” Ajala says of the scene that ends with a passionate kiss. “She has that moment with Booker and then it's like, ‘Oh, wow, we're not here yet. But I remember how good this felt.’ It was lovely. That whole episode was really, really powerful. 

“But there's another episode in Season 5 which kind of piggybacks directly off of that episode, which goes a lot deeper,” he teases.

Burnham Wrestles With Herself Across Time and Memory

Outside of the time bug problems and unexpected reunions sprinkled throughout "Face the Strange,” emotionally, the episode is about revisiting the work that Burnham has done over five seasons and countless dire scenarios to climb back from being an almost despised mutineer in the first season to the beloved captain she is now. 

Jumping through moments in time reinforces that journey to Rayner and herself while also making a strong case for her style of personally involved leadership. Before they get thrown through time, Rayner viewed her familiarity with the crew as a weakness. By journey’s end, he has a much different perspective. 

Martin-Green says getting to revisit some of Burnham’s greatest hits with an outsider riding shotgun was an unexpected gift of an episode. 

They are the same person, but we have to show how much Burnham has grown in the way she defeats her younger self. -Sonequa Martin-Green

“Oh my goodness, I think they hit me with it just before we started shooting it,” the actress says of being told the premise of “Face the Strange” during production on Season 5. “I like to know things ahead of time; not too far ahead, but some time. So I knew that it was coming. But man, I didn't know how fulfilling it was going to be until we were there.

“Sean Cochran wrote the script and Lee Rose, one of our most beloved directors, directed the episode, and, man, there were some visual effects components that we put in that we hadn't seen before, with some elements in the cinematography that we hadn't [done] before,” Martin-Green says of the complexities of having Season 1 Burnham go mano a mano with Season 5 Burnham. “Even when we were doing the stunt choreography with Chris McGuire and his team, we were talking a lot about how to mirror the movements of these two Burnhams because they are the same person, but we have to show how much Burnham has grown in the way she defeats her younger self, right?”

She continues, “I just loved that we were able to see the contrast, that we were able to see the growth and the journey because you sort of forget about it when you're just with present-day Burnham. But man , how far did she come?” the actress emphasizes. “And that goes for everybody. Everybody could have had that same moment with their past selves, and seeing how much they grew.”

But Martin-Green does acknowledge it's particularly sweet to have Burnham’s past make such a compelling case in changing Rayner’s mind about the benefits of bonding with your crew.

“That is very true,” the actress smiles. “It's like we can now see that there is some merit to it.”

For even more on the new season, check out our interview with the cast and showrunners about how Star Trek: Discovery ends an era with Season 5 . Or read our Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 review for Episodes 1-4.

Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery’s biggest future mystery is finally answered.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4's time travel finally answers one of the show's oldest questions about "Calypso" from Star Trek: Short Treks.

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS For Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange." ​​​​

• Star Trek: Discovery finally connects the dots between the show and the Short Treks episode "Calypso."
• "Face the Strange" explores time loops and a Breen attack that destroys the Federation.
• Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 sets Star Trek: Short Treks' "Calypso" in an alternate future timeline.

Star Trek: Discovery finally answered one of the show's biggest mysteries about the Star Trek: Short Treks episode "Calypso." In its fifth and final season, Discovery has incorporated more references and connections to past Star Trek than any previous season. Following a classic Star Trek plot, Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 , "Face the Strange" finds Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), and Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) stuck in a time loop caused by Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis) that shockingly connects to the Short Trek "Calypso."

Written by Sean Cochran and directed by Lee Rose, "Face the Strange" reflects on Star Trek: Discovery's history and how much the characters have changed since Discovery's earliest seasons . Since Burnham and Rayner were transporting just as the time jumping began, they remain aware that they are in a time loop, as does Stamets, due to his Tardigrade DNA. As Burnham, Stamets, and Rayner try to determine the cause of their time jumping, they visit Discovery's past, present, and future. In one of the jumps, Burnham and Rayner end up on the empty USS Discovery first seen in Star Trek: Short Treks season 1, episode 2, "Calypso."

9 Star Trek Characters Who Can Hide Discovery Season 5 Treasure Hunt Clues

Star trek: discovery finally answers short trek’s “calypso” mystery, captain burnham and commander rayner jump to 3218, 27 years after discovery season 5..

In Star Trek: Short Treks' "Calypso," a human soldier named Craft (Aldis Hodge) is rescued from his escape pod by the USS Discovery's sentient computer, Zora (Annabelle Wallis). Zora reveals that she has been alone for nearly a thousand years and has spent the time evolving herself. Zora falls in love with Craft, and the two connect over old movies, particularly 1957's Funny Face. Craft eventually makes the difficult decision to use Discovery's lone warp-capable shuttlecraft to attempt the long journey back to his home, unsure if the shuttle will even make it that far.

Zora shows Burnham and Rayner the wreckage of the destroyed Federation headquarters, telling them they must find a way out of the time loop to prevent this future from happening.

Star Trek: Discovery 's season 5, episode 4 finally reveals that the USS Discovery ended up abandoned in "Calypso" because of Star Trek: Trek: Deep Space Nine 's villains, the Breen . When Burnham and Rayner jump to a point about thirty years into their future, they follow the sound of old show tunes to Discovery's empty bridge. A surprised Zora reveals that, in this timeline, the Breen acquired the Progenitors' technology and used it to attack the Federation. Zora shows Burnham and Rayner the wreckage of the destroyed Federation headquarters, telling them they must find a way out of the time loop to prevent this future from happening.

Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner visit Zora in 3218, 27 years after the events of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 in 3191.

Short Trek’s “Calypso” Will Never Happen After Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

Captain burnham and her crew will ensure the breen never get the progenitor technology..

It's unlikely Star Trek: Discovery will end with the destruction of the Federation, and it's safe to assume that Captain Burnham and the USS Discovery's crew will find the Progenitors' treasure and prevent the Breen attack. This means that the Federation will not be destroyed, the Discovery crew won't be killed by the Breen, and Zora will not be abandoned for a thousand years. Star Trek: Short Treks' "Calypso," then, takes place in an alternate timeline where the Federation lost, and the events of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 will render that potential future - and "Calypso" - null and void within Star Trek 's Prime Timeline.

"Calypso" taking place in an alternate future also helps explain any discrepancies between the Short Treks episode and Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek has played with alternate timelines before (most notably with J.J. Abrams' Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies ). Zora and Craft will still have their moment in another reality, but one that is not part of the Prime Universe Star Trek timeline. "Face the Strange" feels like classic Star Trek in the best way, and though Discovery season 5's writers did not know about the show's cancelation, it already feels like they are tying up loose ends. Thankfully, Star Trek: Discovery finally addressed Zora and the USS Discovery's future in "Calypso." It's great to have the answer, at last, that the events of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 set Star Trek: Short Treks' "Calypso" in an alternate future.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery stream Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery