The whole lot to Keep in mind Earlier than Star Trek: Part 31

This week Star Trek boldly goes with the primary main film of its streaming period: Section 31, a long-in-the-works former series became a streaming film automobile for Michelle Yeoh, returning to the franchise for the primary time since she exited Discovery in 2020. However except for the controversial spy group that provides the movie its title, right here’s what else it’s worthwhile to know coming into the movie.

What Is Part 31?

First launched within the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep House 9, Part 31 is a clandestine intelligence branch of the Federation—separate from the general public going through intelligence wing of Starfleet—supposed to behave as a black ops group with the remit to behave towards existential threats to the Federation. Named for a clause in Starfleet’s constitution that allowed for “extraordinary measures” within the face of maximum threats, Part 31 operated with out official information or steering from the Federation or Starfleet at massive, performing wetworks, subterfuge, and counterintelligence operations all through the historical past of Starfleet.

Though launched in Deep House 9 on the top of the Dominion Battle arc, Part 31 would make appearances in Enterprise and Discovery to ascertain their roots earlier inside Star Trek‘s main timeline, however ever since its debut, the group has been seen as deeply controversial by Star Trek followers for what the existence of secret police throughout the franchise’s utopian setting means for the idealistic nature of that utopia.

The Temporary, Universe-Hopping Historical past of Philippa Georgiou

Discovery first launched Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa Georgiou because the captain of the USS Shenzhou, just for her to be killed in motion on the outbreak of the Klingon-Federation struggle portrayed all through the present’s first season. Nevertheless, Yeoh would return to painting the character later that very same season throughout a plotline set in Star Trek‘s notorious parallel actuality, the Mirror Universe. There, Georgiou was not an officer within the Terran Empire, however its Emperor—and after surviving a coup try, she was introduced again with the crew of the Discovery to Star Trek‘s prime universe on the behest of Michael Burnham, who had been a protégé of the prime Georgiou and first officer aboard the Shenzhou.

Mirror Georgiou was recruited into Part 31 after the conclusion of the struggle, performing as an agent initially tasked with sustaining the soundness of the Klingon Empire’s post-war chancellor, L’Rell. However she finally made her approach again aboard the Discovery when the ship was compelled to ship itself 1000’s of years in to the long run to the thirty second Century to destroy a rogue synthetic intelligence developed by Part 31, Management. Nevertheless, temporal distance from each her house actuality and her house timeline precipitated Georgiou to start destabilizing on a molecular stage. After encountering the Guardian of Forever, who examined Georgiou to see if her time within the prime universe had modified her as an individual, she was despatched again to an undisclosed time interval (extra on that later) the place the Mirror and Prime universes had been nonetheless aligned, permitting her to remain within the latter universe with out the specter of destabilization.

Who Else Is in Part 31?

Yeoh’s Georgiou is the first returning character in Part 31, however she’s not the one acquainted character amongst its solid of largely new characters. Right here’s a short rundown of the principle Part 31 brokers we’re set to fulfill within the film:

• Omari Hardwick performs Alok, the chief of a Part 31 cell on a secret mission that recruits Georgiou in an try and make her pay for her previous crimes because the Terran Emperor.
• Robert Kazinsky performs Zeph, Alok’s proper hand man who lives inside a mechanical exoskeleton.
• Sam Richardson performs Quasi, one other agent on Alok’s workforce, and a Chameloid, a shapeshifting race first seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Nation.
• Humberly Gonzalez performs Melle, a Deltan agent on Alok’s workforce who, in contrast to prior Deltans to affix Starfleet, didn’t take an oath of celibacy, permitting her to make use of her species’ pure charms to profit Part 31.
• Sven Ruygrok performs essentially the most mysterious member of Alok’s workforce, identified solely as Fuzz. Described as a “fun-loving” character with anger points, his pointed ears counsel he could both be a surprisingly emotional Vulcan or maybe one in every of their sister species, the Romulans.
• Rounding out the principle solid is Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett, a younger Starfleet officer assigned to Alok’s workforce for oversight functions, regardless of official information of the division’s existence being labeled. Garrett has beforehand appeared in Star Trek earlier than within the Subsequent Era episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” the place she was performed by Tricia O’Neil, and was captain of the USS Enterprise-C till its destruction defending a Klingon outpost from Romulan forces in 2344.

When Is Part 31 Set?

Whereas we don’t have an actual setting for the film simply but past the truth that it’s set in Star Trek‘s prime actuality, the existence of Rachel Garrett within the solid means that the collection must be set a while within the early twenty fourth century, provided that she has not but ascended to the rank of captain nor taken command of the Enterprise-C. This might set Part 31 in a interval largely uncovered by Star Trek on the small display, generally generally known as the “Misplaced Period.” The unique collection was set through the late 2260s, with its successor movies happening from the 2270s by to the 2290s, whereas The Subsequent Era started in 2364, shortly after the commissioning of the Enterprise-D virtually 20 years after its predecessor’s destruction.

The Enterprise-C itself operated in a time period the place the Federation and the Klingon Empire’s relationship after the signing of the Khitomer Accords peace treaty on the finish of the twenty third century was nonetheless comparatively strained. It took the Federation flagship’s sacrifice safeguarding Klingon forces to strengthen relations between the 2 factions, finally resulting in the formal Treaty of Alliance established a while between 2344 and the occasions of The Subsequent Era—which might give us some hints as to what the state of the universe is like by the point of Part 31.

Part 31 hits Paramount+ beginning January 24.

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