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Time is of the essence on this week’s Star Trek: Discovery as the DMA is heading closer to Titan, Ni’Var and Earth with billions of lives as collateral damage of the 10-C’s mining operation. With less than two days before debris begins to impact those planets, it is imperative that the first contact mission happen sooner rather than later (and let’s be reminded that this accelerated schedule is thanks to Tarka blowing up the original, slower DMA). Burnham has put together a team consisting of Dr. Culber, Detmer and Saru to investigate the planet they believe is or was the home of Species 10-C to try to find something that can help them communicate when they do make contact. President Rillak reluctantly agrees that Michael is the right person to lead this expedition with her xeno-biological background, but does not think it’s wise for her second in command to also leave the ship. Michael assures her that the ship is in capable hands, and Saru’s ability to speak over 100 languages and his fine-tuned senses are necessary for this to be a successful mission. Ambassador Ndoye believes the mission is a waste of time when they should be back trying to stop the DMA first, make contact later but Burnham assures her that first contact will be a disaster if they go into it blindly. Meanwhile, Rillak has had to pull Dr. Hirai aside to take him to task for his blunt comments that jeopardize the mission and morale.
Over on Book’s ship, they are trying to figure out a way to get to the 10-C and the controller to stop the DMA once and for all. They know that Discovery has sent a shuttle to the planet’s surface and Book is reminded of a species on his planet that would hitch a ride on the back of another species but not in a parasitic way. A light bulb goes off over Tarka’s head and he creates a patch that will allow them to attach to Discovery’s hull without Zora detecting them, at least not at first. The only problem is that is has to be manually installed from inside Discovery. Tarka wants to do it, but Book knows the ship better so it becomes a two-man job. On Discovery, they overhear Ndoye discussing her concerns, and Book believes she is the key to them completing their mission to destroy the DMA controller. Book does manage to lure her into a meeting — she believes she’s meeting with President Rillak — and she almost kills him, blaming him for the situation they are currently facing. But she listens and agrees to help them. Unfortunately, Tarka is discovered by Jett Reno, and when Book gets back to the ship, he finds Tarka with an unexpected hostage.
On the planet, once a gas giant, the away party finds no signs of life — not even their own — but they do find some odd bones of the former inhabiatants that suggest they had evolved to live in the gay layers of the planet. But there is also a large, reinforced structure on the surface that may hold the key, what Burnham suggests may be a sort of Rosetta Stone, to help them communicate with 10-C. There’s also some weird, blue dust patches that they can’t make heads or tails of. But Saru suddenly starts displaying some odd behavior, a sense of fear and panic, with some bizarre visions that he can’t explain. He assues everyone he’s okay, but as they enter the structure his odd behavior continues. Burnham and Detmer aren’t finding anything to help them communicate with the 10-C, but Saru has another attack. Culber sits him down and tries to calm him, but Hugh also has the same reaction of fear after kneeling down and touching Saru’s environment suit. Burnham discovers some blocks of rock and sees more of the blue dust, which she touches, resulting in the same reaction as Saru and Hugh. The only one not affected is Detmer, and she believes that she is the only one who hasn’t come into contact with the dust. But their suits should have filtered that out, hoever as they are in a completely new galaxy their suits would have no reference for any of the microbes they may encounter. Detmer is able to reconfigure the suits and the three immediately return to normal. For Saru, this was a fear like he hasn’t felt since he lost his fear ganglia, and he hopes to never experience it again.
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But they are still no closer to finding a key to communication until Burnham notices another pile of dust, but a different color. She turns off her suit’s filters and touches it, immediately experiencing a feeling of love and protection. The other three join her and get the same feeling, which dredges up memories of Detmer and her father, how even when they were in different rooms of the house she could feel when he needed her help. This, Michael declares, is the key. The dust is various biological material, the 10-C’s DNA as it were, that they can use to communicate. The blue powder was a residual of the terror the inhabitants of the planet experienced as their world died. The other dust inside the structure, which Burnham determined was a nursery, was that love and protection the species had for their children. If nothing else, this feeling of love and compassion is universal and should be something they can use to convince the 10-C to stop the DMA before they kill billions of people.
This, of course, is all very much in keeping with the ethics of Star Trek, the hope that another species can be convinced with compassion that they need to cease what they are doing to save lives. But the other, more realistic, notion is proposed that what if the 10-C know exactly what they’re doing and they just don’t give a shit? That, of course, is something Michael does not want to contemplate, and hopefully with a time limit on this mission we will finally meet the 10-C in the next episode.
And before that happens, Saru is going on a holodeck date with President T’Rina!
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere Thursdays on Paramount Plus. Subscribe using our affiliate link.
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