If you’re one of countless Trekkies worrying that Star Trek: Discovery will somehow contradict everything you know about the history of the Federation and the Klingon Empire, the writers’ room of the new show has a message for you: They’ve got this under control. The space-time continuum of all of Star Trek will not collapse, because these writers know exactly what they are doing.
On Sunday, TrekMovie posted a revealing exchange in which two members of the Discovery writing team — Ted Sullivan and Kirsten Beyer — answered fan questions via Sullivan’s Twitter account. Though the two writers mostly stayed clear of direct spoilers, Sullivan did point out that he felt Beyer was the “defender of the canon” in the writers’ room. This is relevant because Beyer’s background prior to contributing to the writing team on Discovery was that of a Star Trek novelist. And, as hardcore Trekkies know, Trek novelists have a crazy amount of expertise in the various chronologies of all of Star Trek. “She is the keeper of the flame,” Sullivan said of Beyer.
Beyer, and just a few of the 'Star Trek' books she's written.
Essentially, what this means is that there are clearly tons of discussions happening in the Star Trek: Discovery writers’ room as to what will and won’t work within the established canon. The biggest concerns among hardcore fans, probably, are mostly centered stuff, like the way the new Klingons look, the uniforms of the Starfleet crew not being the same as other uniforms from the same time period, and whether or not it makes sense for Sarek to be messing around where he’s messing around. Bottom line? Beyer (and others) is seemingly aware of all these possible contradictions, which means there’s a reasonable answer as to why things are the way they are on Discovery.
Could these Klingons be genetic mutants left over from the events in Star Trek: Enterprise? Is there a connection between Discovery and the divergent timeline of the newer movies? As Spock was found saying back in The Wrath of Khan: “there are always possibilities.” And the writers in charge of those possibilities seem to know their stuff.
Star Trek: Discovery will debut on CBS on September 24.
