Every part 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: Part 31, a long-in-the-works former sequence became a streaming film car for Michelle Yeoh, returning to the franchise for the primary time since she exited Discovery in 2020. However other than the controversial spy group that provides the movie its identify, right here’s what else that you must know coming into the movie.

What Is Part 31?

First launched within the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Area 9, Part 31 is a clandestine intelligence department 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 in opposition to existential threats to the Federation. Named for a clause in Starfleet’s constitution that allowed for “extraordinary measures” within the face of utmost threats, Part 31 operated with out official data or steerage from the Federation or Starfleet at giant, performing wetworks, subterfuge, and counterintelligence operations all through the historical past of Starfleet.

Though launched in Deep Area 9 on the top of the Dominion Struggle arc, Part 31 would make appearances in Enterprise and Discovery to ascertain their roots earlier inside Star Trek‘s major 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 conflict portrayed all through the present’s first season. Nonetheless, 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 conflict, performing as an agent initially tasked with sustaining the steadiness of the Klingon Empire’s post-war chancellor, L’Rell. However she ultimately made her approach again aboard the Discovery when the ship was compelled to ship itself hundreds of years in to the longer term to the thirty second Century to destroy a rogue synthetic intelligence developed by Part 31, Management. Nonetheless, 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 Perpetually, 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 have 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 forged 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 group, 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 group who, not like prior Deltans to hitch 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 group, recognized solely as Fuzz. Described as a “fun-loving” character with anger points, his pointed ears recommend he could both be a surprisingly emotional Vulcan or maybe one among their sister species, the Romulans.
• Rounding out the principle forged is Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett, a younger Starfleet officer assigned to Alok’s group for oversight functions, regardless of official data of the division’s existence being categorized. Garrett has beforehand appeared in Star Trek earlier than within the Subsequent Technology 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 a precise 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 forged means that the sequence 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 is able to set Part 31 in a interval largely uncovered by Star Trek on the small display screen, generally often called the “Misplaced Period.” The unique sequence was set in the course of the late 2260s, with its successor movies going down from the 2270s via to the 2290s, whereas The Subsequent Technology started in 2364, shortly after the commissioning of the Enterprise-D nearly 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, ultimately resulting in the formal Treaty of Alliance established a while between 2344 and the occasions of The Subsequent Technology—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.

Need extra io9 information? Try when to anticipate the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and every part that you must learn about the way forward for Physician Who.