STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
SEASON 1, EPISODE 12

Vaulting Ambition

Series: Star Trek: Discovery - (2017 - 2024)
Season: 1
Episode #: 12
Original Airdate: January 21st, 2018

Writer(s): Jordon Nardino
Director(s): Hanelle M. Culpepper

Guest Stars
Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou
Mary Chieffo as L'Rell
Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber
Sam Asante as Senior Guard
Jeremy Crittenden as Lord Eling
Raven Dauda as Dr. Pollard
Billy MacLellan as Barlow
Dwain Murphy as Captain Maddox
Tasia Valenza as Shenzhou Computer
Marie Ward as Junior Guard
Marcello Bezina as Lord (uncredited)
Bobby Brown as Lord (uncredited)
Dana Jones as Lord (uncredited)
Marco Perretta as USS Discovery Medical Crewman (uncredited)
Clayton Scott as Kelpien (uncredited)
Chris Obi as T'Kuvma (uncredited)

Stardate: Unknown

Synopsis

Interphasic space. That's the explanation, right away, given for how the two Universes are still in contact with one another: a "hidden" region of space where a potentially traversable connection still exists. Burnham reveals these facts via the data Saru has decrypted from the U.S.S. Defiant; the only other ship to cross from the Prime to the Mirror Universe. Burnham delivers Lorca to the Emperor, who refuses to bow until Emperor Georgiou forces him to. Burnham is praised and celebrated as the Emperor's long-lost daughter. She is then directed to select a Kelpian. When she picks the mirror version of Saru, she's horrified to learn that he has become the main course for dinner, which forces Burnham to eat his threat ganglia, much to her horror. Her discomfort betrays her, and Georgiou, sensing something is wrong, makes accusations and sentences Burnham to death.

[ Screencap Index ]
Meanwhile, back aboard Discovery, the true nature of Tyler is revealed to all. He's a Klingon (Voq) and a human (Ash Tyler) merged into a single body. The Federation doctors can't figure out how to help him, but L'Rell knows how. In sickbay, Tyler/Voq is restrained, and L'Rell begins the separation process, which ends with a fiery roar by the Klingon prisoner. Whether the separation process was a success or failure remains to be seen.

Elsewhere, Stamets has to put his mind in order in order to escape his coma. Mirror Stamets tries to guide him through the maze of his mind, but we see that there are flaws and degradations to beware of; many passages are inaccessible. While attempting to guide prime Stamets in a particular direction, a glimpse of Culber distracts him, and mirror Stamets is left alone, with a warning not to get lost in his own mind forever. Culber guides Stamets through his own thoughts, and helps him realize what he already knows: that Culber is dead, that there are two Universes, that Stamets must navigate the connection and guide them home, and the way out is to open his eyes. Stamets wakes up, and is ready to get to work.

Back aboard the Emperor’s ship, it becomes very clear that the Burnham/Georgiou reunion is one where both sides are holding back the cards in their hands, with Georgiou knowing far more about mirror-Universe Burnham than she lets on, and Burnham knowing that she's not of this Universe at all.

But things go even deeper from there. Burnham, to save her life, confesses her true origins: that she and Lorca are from another Universe. Captain Georgiou's badge, with its quantum-variant signature, is the proof. When she tells Georgiou about the spore hub drive, Georgiou becomes intrigued. Traversing Universes via interphasic space causes insanity, but clearly the spore drive doesn't, and Georgiou wants the technology. Lorca, meanwhile, is being tortured in an agonizer, and one of Georgiou's top lieutenants wants revenge for what mirror Lorca did to his sister. After torture, murder, and eventually Lorca turning the tables on the torturer, we get the big reveal that Georgiou has already figured out: our Captain Lorca has been the mirror Universe version all along. But what is Lorca’s endgame? Revenge? Redemption? Murder?

Time will tell.

  

Posters courtesy of Laz Marquez and J.J. Lendl

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