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• Burnham records the stardate as 866274.3 in her personal log.

• Burnham has the recording of the projection of the Progenitor from “The Chase” displayed in her quarters.

• As with season four, it appears that aliens serving Starfleet, specifically the ones whom you would except to have hands notably different from a human’s based on their facial features, wear gloves. Apparently this mandate extends to the admiralty, as we see the Deakohn admiral here covering the shameful monstrosities we can only assume his digits to be.

• In addition to the USS Discovery A and the USS Antares, congregating around Federation Headquarters at various points we see:

    • Three Eisenberg-class starships

    • Two Courage-class starships

    • Two Constitution-class starships

    • Two Merian-class starship

    • Three Friendship-class starship

    • A Saturn-class starship

    • A Mars-class starship

• It’s grudge! From Star Trek!

• We learn that Lyrek is a burial world that was used by the Promellians prior to their extinction. Promellians first appeared in “Booby Trap”.

• ”The last recorded exploration was over a century before Doctor Vellek was even born.” That does potentially raise the question of how Burnham would have been so familiar with Lyrek in the previous episode, though of course she and most of the rest of the Discovery crew might have been alive before Doctor Vellek’s birth.

• Saru reveals that it was Jett Reno who gave him the nickname ”Action Saru,” which only makes the fact that we’ve yet to see Reno this season all the more galling.

• ”I remember the day you came aboard Discovery. A mutineer. A prisoner. You seemed exactly the wrong choice.” Saru seems to be overlooking the fact that he knew Burnham prior to her mutiny and imprisonment, as seen in the series premiere, “The Vulcan Hello”.

• Saru implies to Burnham that she should consider making Book the new first officer on Discovery. Book is not a part of Starfleet or any other similar hierarchical organization. Presumably Saru makes the suggestion so that his own choice of ensign Tilly as his first officer in “Unification III” is no longer the wildest choice of in the history of Starfleet.

    • Presumably Book could be given field commission, as Chakotay was in “The Caretaker”.

• Adira laments being separated from their boyfriend, Gray who almost immediately booked it off Discovery in “But to Connect…” after his consciousness was transferred out of the Tal symbiont and into a synth gollum in “Choose to Live”.

• On Lyrek, Burnham and Saru encounter parts of statues, including heads that have features similar to the Promellian captain whose log was seen in “Booby Trap”, but the statues have four eyes whereas Promellians only have two.

• The Promellian statues launch flying drones that set to attacking Burnham and Saru. The crew of the USS Enterprise D were also attacked in a jungle by the flying drones of a dead civilization in “The Arsenal of Freedom”.

• ”Tilly, we’re losing our foot!” Burnham is referring to a bit of shelter she and Saru have taken cover under. Nog lost an actual food in “The Siege of AR-558”.

• Lang-cycle fusion engines were established as being a feature of Promellian battle cruisers in “Booby Trap”.

• It was established in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” that Kelpiens are stronger, and faster than humans.

• We’ve previously seen Saru’s quills stab into a wall, or incapacitate a human, but this is the first time we’ve seem them projected with enough force to obliterate a machine.

• The fact that Kelpien visual acuity allows them to see things outside the range available to humans was seen in “Brother”.

• Burnham and Saru both recognise a type of Romulan poem called a revlav. Burnham and Saru also both come from a time in Starfleet’s history when the Romulans were known to the Federation only as a mysterious enemy.

• ”Diary’s Romulan; Federation’s got no claim to it.” it was established in “Unification III” that the Romulans had reunified with the Vulcans at some point during the in the past, and in “All Is Possible” Ni’Var rejoined the Federation.

• Romulan homes having a false front door was established in “The End is the Beginning”.

• Zora uses programmable matter to create a physical copy the symbol from Doctor Vellek’s diary. This physical version is the one seen in the opening sequence this season.

• Book explained that he got his name from his mentor, the previous Cleveland Booker, in “Species Ten-C”, who was also apparently Moll’s father.

    • ”Which, I suppose, makes her the closest thing to family I’ve got left.” Book’s Kwejian family was killed in “Kobayashi Maru”.

• Saru’s pruning knife was a gift from his sister in “The Brightest Star”.

• Saru recounts his experience going through Keplein puberty, vahar’ai, in “An Obal for Charon”.

• Saru told Tilly to avoid touching the swampkelp while it was in bloom in “Choose to Live”.

This is the premiere of the fifth and final season of “Star Trek Discovery”, the first iteration of Trek’s modern era. I think it is important in this moment to acknowledge that, regardless of individual opinions of quality the series -- personally I am a fan, but this is not about my personal perspective -- without DIS we would not have the abundance of new Trek available to us.

With that acknowledgement aside, on with the very serious business.

• This episode is the first mention of the titular Red Directive. Starfleet has a number of directives most recognizable of which is the Prime Directive, introduced in “Return of the Archons”, which codifies interactions with non Federation cultures, and their principles of non-interference. There is also:

    • The Temporal Prime Directive forbidding interference with historical events, first mentioned in “Future’s End, Part II”

    • The Omega Directive, dictating the necessity of destroying any and all omega particles that might be encountered during the course of Starfleet activities, introduced in “The Omega Directive”

• This episode was written by DIS co-showrunner, Michelle Paradise, and directed by executive producer, Olatunde Osunsanmi.

• The episode opens with Captain Burnham [Sonequa Martin-Green] on the exterior of a ship at warp. We’ve previously seen characters outside ships traveling faster than light in “Divergence” and “Mindwalk”.

• The crew of the USS Discovery A attends a Millennium Celebration commemorating 1,000 years of the Federation. The Federation was founded in 2161, as per “These Are the Voyages…” and this episode takes place, presumably, in 2191. The cadet serving the signature cocktail, Tonic 2161, does comment ”Give or take a few decades,” when Tilly [Mary Wiseman] explains to Adira [Blu del Barrio] the context for the drink.

    • Tonic 2161 is blue with stars floating in it to match the emblem of the Federation emblem.

    • Ross claims the stars taste like jumja sticks, a Bajoran treat first seen in “A Man Alone”. Bajor has, to the best of our knowledge, not been inducted into the Federation at any point.

• Stamets [Anthony Rapp] is upset because Starfleet is “shuttering the spore drive program.” In season four, the program’s lead scientist used a stolen prototype to attempt to reach Species 10-C and kill them with an illegal weapon.

• A prototype pathway drive was mentioned as having been installed aboard the USS Voyager J in “Kobayashi Maru”.

• President T’Rina mentions the Tholian Republic and Breen Imperium as polities outside the current Federation, and seems to imply they’re antagonistic if not hostile to the Federation. The Tholian Assembly was introduced in the TOS episode “The Tholian Web”, and the Breen Confederacy was mentioned in “Strange Bedfellows”.

• The 800 year old Romulan science vessel is an update of the Romulan ship seen in “The Next Phase”.

• When L’ak removes his helmet, there is a brief moment where his face appears to be non opaque, not entirely dissimilar from how Changelings are see through in the natural state, or Mellanoid slime worms, such as Murf.

    • L’ak is played by Elias Toufexis, who previously had a role DIS season one’s “Context is for Kings” as one of the other prisoners aboard the transport shuttle rescued by Discovery along with Burnham. He never asked for this.

• Antares is a well loved name for Starfleet vessels:

    • Antares, NCC-501 - “Charlie X”

    • USS Antares - A ship both Captain Pike and Number One served aboard, according to “Brother” and “Memento Mori” respectively

    • USS Antares, NCC-9844, Miranda-class - “Favor the Bold”

    • A Kelvin Universe USS Antares - 2009’s “Star Trek”

    • In addition there are also three different Antares-class ships: one used by the Corvallens in “Face of the Enemy”; a carrier used by both Cardassians and Bajorans, introduced in “Ensign Ro”; a civilian freighter like Kasidy Yates’ SS Xhosa first seen in “Family Business”.

• There are new aspects integrated into the title sequence. For the purposes of this comparison I’ll be mentioning changes from specifically the season four sequence. Such as:

    • A rotating planet with two moons has replaced the visualization of Zora’s program

    • The captain’s chair appears earlier in the sequence

    • A 3d representation of a symbol from a Romulan journal is shown

    • The Infinity Room key appears, replacing an exploded planet, and Discovery approaching the DMA

    • Book’s unnamed ship is replaced with Moll and L’ak’s

    • A number of rotating structures are now at the very end where there used to be a long range view of the DMA

• Burnham, Owosekun, and Rhys find the mummified corpse of a Romulan wearing a TNG era uniform.

    • We will learn that this Romulan was Doctor Vellek, a scientist present for the events of the TNG episode, “The Chase”.

• Burnham is able to grasp her phaser pistol, and stretch it out into a type-3 configuration. It’s unclear what advantage the transformation has. Other than Boimler’s assertion that, ”Uh, they take two hands,” from “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”.

• Moll [Eve Harlow] and L’ak have a Romulan puzzle box, a tan zhekran, when Burnham confronts them. This puzzle box is larger than the one Narek had in “The Impossible Box”, and has more sides.

• When we see the Antares, it has the saucer of a Friendship-class starship, and the nacelles of Merian-class, both first seen in “People of Earth”.

• ”I would rather not die out here, I’ve got a saxophone lesson to get to.” Harry Kim took up playing the sax in “Ashes to Ashes”.

• Captain Rayner [Callum Keith Rennie] is a Kellerun, which have only previously been seen in the DS9 episode, “Armageddon Game”. I mention this only because Rayner lacks the somewhat distinctive topknot that all the men of his species styled their hair in in that episode.

• Book [David Ajala] has been helping refugees displaced by the DMA rebuild, as per the community service he was sentenced to in “Coming Home”.

• ”It’s like what it means to be a crew. I can’t crash all these kids on to an ice moon in order to teach them that.” Tilly is referring to the events of “All Is Possible”

• Fred is a synth with skin, eyes, and hair presumably inspired by Data. Or Lore? Or B4.

• Among the gear Moll and L’ak attempt to sell to Fred are:

    • Isolinear co-processors

    • PADDs

    • Tricorders

    • Self-sealing stembolts

• Fred claims to have not encountered a tan zhekran for 622.7 years, which would indicate he’s been functional since at least the mid 26th century.

• The script in the journal contained in the puzzle box is different from the Romulan language seen in TNG and other Star Trek shows and movies of that era; it was introduced into canon in “Absolute Candor” but was created in 1993 by linguist Trent Peherson who is credited in this episode as a language consultant.

• Fred has a number of weapons on display in his place of business, including:

    • A Klingon kur’leth as seen in “Disengage”

    • A d’k tahg,

    • A Klingon bat’leth of the type introduced in “The Vulcan Hello”

    • A TNG era Romulan disruptor pistol

    • A “First Contact” type-3 phaser rifle

• Book and Burnham are able to rent some sand bikes. The bikes have shields capable of protecting the rider from ship based weaponry, which probably has to reduce the deposit, right?

• Stamets determines that Fred’s serial number begins with AS as an homage to Altan Soong, and claims that Fred was based on Altan Soong’s designs, not Noonien Soong, despite the resemblance to Data.

• In Kovich’s quarters, he brings explains the basic plot of ‘The Chase’, and brings up stills from that episode featuring the Romulans, Captain Picard, and the Progenitor.

Not my oc.

Not my original content, but I’m still tempted to pin it to the top of the page for all time.

Not my original content

Not my original content.

It is important to me to point out when the thing I'm posting here is not my original content, so I sadly have to admit that I am the one who made this edit.