Something will happen in the opening episode of Star Trek: Discovery that will send officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) on a “very different” path than the one she was presumably on before. But what will the main character of Discovery do to the galaxy of Star Trek? The best guess is that she accidentally starts a war with the Klingons.
On Monday, EW online published comments from Star Trek: Discovery producer Aaron Harberts about the nature of Burnham’s role in Discovery. Apparently, Burnham’s choice “affects her, affects Starfleet, affects the Federation, it affects the entire universe,” Harberts says. But what choice does she make? It’s been well know for quite some time that there are two starships on Discovery, and that the USS Discovery didn’t even appear in the first trailer. This seems to mean that its mission will be one that is in response to whatever happens in the pilot episode.
Trekkies have little to go on at this point, but because the show is going to deal with the Klingons, and because there have been long-standing rumors that the entire show could be centered on a secret peace-mission, it stands to reason that maybe Burnham does something that pisses off the Klingons. And then later, maybe she feels like she has to fix it. Literally everything in the trailer seems to indicate she wants to attack the Klingons before they attack the Federation.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard made reference to the fact that “centuries ago, disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war.” While the plural of centuries seems wrong here, maybe the incident Picard references is what Burnham does: start a war with the Klingons. It’s also possible that this conflict could take place near the planet Donatu V, a spot in Star Trek history where one of the biggest battles was waged between Starfleet and the Klingons.
To be fair, all of this is total speculation at this point, and Burnham’s decision could be something else entirely. Still, with Klingons such a big part of the trailer, it seems like she’ll have some kind of problems with them.
Star Trek: Discovery debuts on CBS on September 24.
