Although it started out as a prequel series, Star Trek: Discovery is now set in the Star Trek universe’s far future, allowing it to address some unanswered franchise questions. Since they arrived in the 32nd century, the crew of the USS Discovery have assisted in rebuilding the Federation in the aftermath of the Burn, and averted a galactic catastrophe by establishing common ground with Species 10-C from a neighboring galaxy. As Discovery continues to expand on what life is like Star Trek‘s 32nd century, it can also update viewers on historic events and characters from elsewhere in the franchise.
For example, Star Trek: Discovery has already shown that Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) Romulan unification mission ultimately paid off in Discovery season 3, episode 7, “Unification III” with the introduction of the joint Vulcan-Romulan home world Ni’Var, once known as Vulcan. However, there are several other loose threads and tantalizing Star Trek events that Discovery could explore in future episodes. Here are some significant unanswered Star Trek questions that Discovery can answer.
7 Does Michael Burnham Know About Sybok?
As the adopted sister of Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), it’s unclear how much Discovery Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) knows about Spock’s half-brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), who first appeared in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It’s revealed in the movie that Sybok was the firstborn son of Sarek (Mark Lennard) and an unnamed Vulcan princess. When Sybok’s mother died, he was raised alongside Spock (Leonard Nimoy) by Sarek and his human wife Amanda Grayson (Jane Wyatt). What’s unclear is whether the time Sybok lived with Spock’s parents overlapped with when they took in an orphaned Michael Burnham.
Given that Sybok is being teased for a future appearance in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it’s more likely that this question is answered when Spock eventually comes face to face with his half-brother. However, as Sybok was a Vulcan revolutionary who chose to embrace emotion over logic, there’s still room for him to be referenced in Discovery. After lengthy negotiations and internal political tensions, the world of Ni’Var has recently joined the Federation, so perhaps a young revolutionary is currently disillusioned with this, seeking inspiration from the story of Spock’s half-brother Sybok, leading to a confrontation with the pair’s adopted sister Michael.
6 Will Starfleet Abandon Warp Travel?
The USS Discovery is a unique Star Trek starship because it doesn’t solely rely on warp drive as a means of travel. Its revolutionary displacement-activated spore hub drive allows the Discovery to “jump” to its next location by traversing the mycelial network. The brainchild of Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and his friend and colleague Straal (Saad Sidiqui), it worked on the theoretical principle that on a quantum level, there was no difference between biology and astrophysics, allowing for travel along what were essentially the veins and muscles of the universe.
The spore drive was lost to history when Discovery departed the 22nd century for the 32nd century, where starships were still relying on dilithium crystals and warp drive, even in the wake of the devastating Burn that detonated a considerable amount of the galaxy’s dilithium. In Discovery season 4, the stage was set for Starfleet to abandon warp travel in favor of the next-generation spore drive perfected by rogue scientist Dr. Ruon Tarka (Shaun Doyle). Although his working prototype was destroyed, the documentation of its research and development could allow for spore drives to be rolled out across the Federation.
5 Will Discovery Reveal More About The Temporal Wars?
When it first started, Discovery essentially bridged the gap between Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: The Original Series and it has occasionally built upon storylines from the Star Trek prequel show. For example, in season 1, Burnham got much of her information about the Mirror Universe from highly classified information about the USS Defiant, a ship lost to the Mirror Universe that had been encountered by both Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). However, the most tantalizing Enterprise plotline is the Temporal Wars, referenced in Discovery season 3.
Taking place across all history, the war involved various factions which attempted to reshape the future in their own image by meddling with the past. Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise assisted a 31st-century operative called Daniels (Matt Winston) in stopping Vosk (Jack Gwaitney) from changing the outcome of World War II, putting an end to the Temporal Wars. After this, all time travel technology was banned by the Federation.
However,if the technology existed then it could be recreated, allowing for the ensuing moral dilemma to let Discovery explore the war and its aftermath in more detail. More interesting still is the revelation by Dr. Kovich (David Cronenberg) that the Temporal Wars caused the J.J. Abrams movies’ Kelvin Timeline to bleed into Discovery‘s 32nd century. There’s clearly a lot of fascinating story potential for the show to explore this fascinating plotline from Star Trek: Enterprise‘s final season.
4 Will Discovery Ever Show The Klingons Again?
Star Trek: Discovery drastically redesigned the Klingons, creating a canon issue that Star Trek is still trying to deal with. The Klingon timeline has always been slightly confused given the radical differences in the look of the Klingons that Kirk faced in TOS compared to the ones he faced in the movies. Star Trek has literally tried to smooth out the Klingon forehead issue in Enterprise, with the introduction of the Klingon Augment Virus, an unintended by-product of Klingon scientists’ experiments with genetic modification that resulted in the Klingon Empire having a more human look during the TOS era.
After Enterprise seemingly smoothed over this plot hole, Discovery confused matters by reintroducing even more alien-looking Klingons in season 1. Given that Discovery’s revamped Klingons encountered by Burnham were a traditionalist faction led by T’Kuvma (Chris Obi) there is a potential solution to explain why they had ridges. Now that Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) has returned to Star Trek: Picard, and now that the Discovery crew is in the 32nd Century, there remains the potential to re-establish the iconic Klingon design that fans know and love. It remains to be seen whether this will be the case, however.
3 Will Starfleet Return To Earth?
Before The Burn in Star Trek: Discovery season 3, San Francisco was home to Starfleet Academy and Starfleet Headquarters, but much had changed in the 32nd century. It’s revealed in Discovery season 3, episode 3, “People of Earth” that the Federation and Starfleet left Earth, which became an isolationist planet, after The Burn. United Earth decided to rejoin the Federation at the end of Discovery season 4, it’s unclear if the new Starfleet Academy will return to its spiritual home of San Francisco.
Earth is currently protected by the United Earth Defense Force, so it’s unlikely that Starfleet or the Federation would force the hand of such a new member for the sake of nostalgia. It might be that Starfleet Academy stays where it is, reflecting the new Federation’s less Earth-centric focus. However, it will be interesting to see how the planet readjusts to life as a Federation member in Discovery season 5.
2 Did Michael Ever Research What Happened To Spock And Sarek?
Arriving in Star Trek‘s 32nd century, the crew of the USS Discovery had a lot of catching up to do, but some also found it too painful to find out what happened to their loved ones. In “Unification III”, Michael admits that she couldn’t bring herself to find out what became of her brother, Spock. She and Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Adjala) watched a recording of Spock speaking of his desire to unify the Vulcan and Romulan peoples, but it’s unclear if Michael delved any deeper after viewing this. Given her closeness to Sarek (James Frain), she might have found it too painful to read up on her adopted family, scared to discover the harsh truth about Spock and Sarek’s lack of reconciliation at the end of their lives.
1 Will Discovery Show The 32nd Century Enterprise?
Given her family connection to Spock, Michael has links to Star Trek‘s most famous starship, so Discovery could finally show us the 32nd century version of the Enterprise. The existence of the latest ship to bear the name Enterprise was confirmed in Discovery season 4, when it was revealed to be working alongside the USS Voyager-J. However, given that season 5 appears to have fewer galaxy-ending stakes, the need for such an iconic starship may be lessened.
However, the idea of a more advanced Enterprise and Voyager is too exciting not to show on-screen in a future episode of Discovery. Similarly, it would be interesting to see which of the 32nd Century’s Starfleet officers are best equipped to captain the legendary vessel. Perhaps Discovery’s Captain Saru (Doug Jones) could be offered command of the new Starship Enterprise, requiring both Enterprise and Discovery to work together for an episode or two. Given that Star Trek: Discovery originally attempted to bridge the gap between two Enterprise crews, it would be fitting for it to provide a further bridge to the Enterprise crew of the future.
