Star Trek: Discovery is finally set to debut on September 24, featuring the long-awaited return of the famed franchise to the small screen. Starring Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham, the series depicts the adventures of a new Starfleet crew living and working onboard the USS Discovery as they must contend with war with the Klingons. Set about 10 years before The Original Series featuring Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, Discovery looks to tell a brand new story during a time period in Trek history that hasn’t been very well fleshed out in the official canon.
Last month, I visited the set of Discovery in Toronto, where I spoke to the cast and crew about the show. We’ll be rolling out those interviews in the next two weeks leading up to the show’s debut, but first up is my chat with executive producer and co-showrunner Aaron Harberts, where we talk about religion and God in the world of Trek, what war means for our Starfleet officers, and the trouble with continuity in a 51-year-old franchise. Read on for all of that and more…
Well, religion, faith and spirituality do at the very least. Aaron Harberts is quite clear on that. Of course, any Trekkie/Trekker could’ve already told you the same, but a report a few months back indicated that one of the series’ stars, Jason Isaacs, was told he couldn’t say “God” during a scene. A predictable Internet news cycle of anguish followed, but Harberts told me the whole thing got blown out of proportion, and what was a discussion about Isaacs’ specific character, Captain Gabriel Lorca, was made to seem like a blanket approach for the show.
“You will come to understand why that character has faith or doesn’t have faith is of vital importance,” Harberts says.
Indeed, if Star Trek: Discovery is going to track with the previous iterations of the franchise and attempt to mirror the here and now of our world through the portal of science fiction, then Harberts sees religion as important as ever to the show.
“We had no interest in killing God, you know,” he says. “And by God I mean anyone’s God. So the fact of the matter is I don’t think religion is going anywhere. Polls may say differently, but I think faith and hope and spirituality, whatever you may think that is, we’re carrying that into the future. We have to.”
Certainly, there are many examples in previous Star Treks to support this statement. The Bajoran race of Deep Space Nine were depicted to be deeply religious, the Klingons believe in an afterlife, and even God was infamously looking for a starship in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, to name just a few. (O.K., maybe that last one doesn’t really count.)
“I think that the world is, and our Star Trek universe, is open to any and all belief systems,” continues Harberts. “The Klingons absolutely have some sort of faith. You see a Klingon funeral in our pilot. Is it [TOS episode] ‘Balance of Terror’ that starts with a wedding? … I want to actually do some storylines about it. I think the best way, instead of making, you know, pronouncements about that, is let’s tackle some storylines. Let’s talk about faith. Let’s talk about what place it has in the future. Let’s talk about what it makes people do. Let’s talk about encountering new ones.”
I asked the EP if that means including a Muslim character on the Discovery, which had been rumored during the show’s development. It doesn’t sound like that’s the case yet, but it may yet happen.
“I think that would be fantastic,” he said. “As far as a Muslim character, I think it needs to happen. The bridge and the hallways of the starship should represent who we are as a world.”
One of the more interesting aspects of Star Trek: Discovery is the fact that it will be set during a war with the Klingons, despite the tendency of Trek to presume that mankind will have grown past such things in the future. Of course, there have been exceptions to that, perhaps most notably in the Dominion War arc of Deep Space Nine. But generally, Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic view of mankind’s future meant that Starfleet is a group of explorers and scientists rather than warriors. In Discovery, the crew will have to be both.
“These Starfleet officers who find themselves in war are very quick to remind the audience that they didn’t sign up to do that,” says Harberts. “That they are explorers first, that they are diplomats first. So our officers are quick to comment on the fact that this is not Starfleet’s mission. War is not why we’re here. And in fact, Discovery is a science vessel that has been conscripted for the war effort.”
One character in particular who will reflect this is Anthony Rapp’s Lt. Paul Stamets. He’s a scientist specializing in astromycology, which is the study of fungus. Sounds about as far from a soldier as you could get, but his research is being employed below decks on the Discovery (apparently in an attempt to develop a new method of space travel for the Federation, although the creators of the show are being cagey about those details for now).
“[His] methods and life’s work is now being converted to be used for the war effort, and that bothers him greatly, and he talks about it a great deal,” says Harberts. “So we go into this with all of the people involved saying, this isn’t why we’re here. We have to do this, but this isn’t our main focus.”
As to how the Federation fights this war, Harberts and his writing team are looking for a Star Trek-esque answer to that question. Could Starfleet or even the Klingons just nuke their opponents? Probably. But as always, Star Trek should reflect the world we live in now, and we all can only hope that there are better answers to that question now and in the future.
“So then the question becomes, okay, we’re in a war. What does it mean to win a war? At what cost? And for the writing staff, it really became, how do you solve a war? How do you end a war, how do you find peace, without crushing and annihilating your opponent? And to me, that’s the Star Trek way of doing a war story. It’s not the Federation annihilates the Klingons. It’s Starfleet and the Federation figure out a way to truly make peace. Now we know that when TOS picks up, that peace doesn’t last. But we have to find peace in our time, in our slice of the Star Trek pie. That’s a really important thing to us, and we’re going to offer up a way that these two warring factions come to an understanding.”
With Star Trek celebrating its 51st anniversary this month, it goes without saying that there has been a lot of Trek over the years. So the question then is, how do the creators of Discovery bring something fresh and new to the show while also still maintaining the universe created by Gene Roddenberry half a century ago? Harberts says that despite the expansive Trek world that already exists, he hasn’t found many limitations when creating new stories, though interestingly the show that chronologically takes place prior to Discovery -- Star Trek: Enterprise -- has presented some challenges.
“The only thing that’s felt limiting is the era and time that we are telling our story,” he says. “Because you’ve got Enterprise… I find that Enterprise actually has made things the most limiting, because of some of the retconning that they did in certain ways. And we consider Enterprise canon as well in certain ways, and just as valid, and we’re always trying to kind of make sure that that’s taken into consideration. So I think the most limiting thing is just trying to tell stories that don’t screw up, or screw with anything, that fans are going to be looking out for.”
So it’s mainly continuity and nerdy details that keeps Harberts and his team up at night, but when it comes to the actual stories, characters, and themes, the EP seems less constrained.
“In terms of the thematics, I don’t feel that they’re limiting, because we as a staff want to tell stories that have people up and cheering,” he says. “And we want to have a show that you watch with your family or your spouse and turn off the TV and have a debate about. Or turn off the TV and feel really good before you go to bed. Or have an episode of television that leaves you thinking that the world could be a better place and that getting up for work the next day is actually something that’s possible. So, in terms of limitations that way, I don’t feel any of that. That’s the kind of TV that we need, you know? It’s like, I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan, but when they burned the little girl at the stake, I was like, well, yeah. This is gonna be a tough one. That’s a tough one on a Sunday night.”
Star Trek: Discovery debuts on September 24 on CBS before moving to CBS All Access for the remainder of the season in the U.S. and on Netflix in many international territories. IGN will have plenty more on the show leading up to the premiere, so stay tuned!
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura.
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