The spirit of Carl Sagan lives on in Star Trek.
Find Season 3 features a call-back to the Trek classic “The City on the Edge of Forever,” which takes the story of Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) into a strange new land. There are many versions and attempts in “Terra Firma, Part 2,” and at the end of the program the history of Trek and the future of the franchise also have a big impact.
Ahead of the first discussion of “Terra Firma Part 2,” Inverse I spoke to the programme’s writers – Bo Yeon Kim, Erika Lippoldt, and Kalinda Vazquez – to discuss nitty-gritty Trek time travel, what’s next for Georgiou, and why they brought back a celebrity Star Trek plot device all the way from 1967.
Big spoilers ahead Star Trek: Discovery through Quarter 3, Episode 10.
After spending about two episodes back in the Mirror Universe, Philippa Georgiou returns to the surface of the planet Dannus V, just to be faced with an alternative. She can’t go back to the World of the Mirror, and she can’t stay in the Main World either. But, with the help of the mysterious Carl (Paul Guilfoyle), there is another way.
But who is Carl? Turns out, it’s actually the personification of The Guardian of Forever, a portal of time first seen in Harlan Ellison-pen’s most famous – and most beloved – classic. Star Trek program, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Hiding on a distant planet – different from the one Spock and Kirk visited – the Guardian offers his services to help take Georgiou to a new time and place.
The Find writers tell Inverse they wanted Georgiou’s time-sickness to have a time-wimey solution. This means that they have considered some other options, including The next generationis enigmatic Q, or “a time machine introduced during the temporal Cold War.”
In the end, they decided that the Guardian of Forever was the best choice.
“It has been very difficult to find a way to use the Guardian Discovery,“Kim and Lippoldt are telling Inverse. “The Guardian also offers flexibility in that he only appeared in that program, and The Animated Series “Yesteryear” program – a humorous breach of the rules established in the TOS episode – so we felt there was room for something new and different to do with it. “
The writers also state that they went almost completely differently with the program. The original plan did not include the Mirror Universe at all.
“Burnham and Georgiou were about to descend to the planet hoping to find the Guardian, and instead come across a single house with a garden – unlike the house inside. TNG ‘s “The people who survived. Her only resident, a secret Gardener, would turn out to be a Protector, “the writers explain.” Georgiou was going to stay out of her final hours there opting to have a perfect day with (Prime) Burnham – it involved baking an apple. pie! “
The team say we didn’t see this baking situation because they realized “a much bigger civic story was needed” to make the last trip of Georgiou’s package bigger.
Speaking of apple pie, the late Carl Sagan once said: “If you want to make an apple sister from scratch, you have to design the universe first.” Find, the writers may not have found their apple sister inside a pocket universe, but they named the new character for the Guardian of Forever just after the famous astronaut.
“When we considered the personalization of the Guardian of Forever, we wanted to create someone who was both omniscient, but also knowledgeable about everything in the universe,” Vazquez explains. “Carl Sagan was raised by our presenters Michelle Paradise and Alex Kurtzman as a potential analog because he tended to philosophize about the unknowns that the galaxy holds. Sagan was definitely an inspiration to Carl! ”
Fans of Sagan’s fiction may suggest that Trek’s portal activity is similar to time travel seen in the film version of Contact, based on a novel by Sagan. In each case, humans travel over time and space, but from a real-world perspective, only minutes have passed. Like Dr. Arroway’s hours of static videotape, Georgiou is likened to “three months’ worth of biodata ”in her neat little reviewer.
Leaving popular character Michelle Yeoh at the end of this episode seems to establish the long-debated spin-off series, vaguely called Section 31. Producer Alex Kurtzman has said the setting of this show will be “surprising,” and now we have an idea why. We don’t know for sure where in the timeline the Guardian is placing Georgiou, but he says it will be at a time “when the Prime World and the Mirror Universe were still on the same page.” that, does that mean Georgiou will end up in ancient Rome? Early 20th century? How about a Star Trek spy show set in 2021?
“Georgiou is sent back to an unexpected time … But it ends up being exactly where she needs to be,” the Find writers tell Inverse. “A lot of care has been taken in developing Georgiou’s arc this season. In terms of what it sets for Georgiou beyond that – only space time tells.”
Star Trek: Discovery now streaming on CBS All Access.