50 Fun Facts About Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery's Michael Burnham grew up on Vulcan as the adopted sister of which classic character?

Spock never mentions a sister in earlier Star Trek stories, a gap the second season explains: his own crew is ordered never to speak of USS Discovery again.

Saru's actor in Star Trek: Discovery based the alien's walk on which profession, thanks to his hoof-shaped boots?

A supermodel was the inspiration for Saru's walk, because the boots that gave him hooved feet forced the actor onto the balls of his feet. His prosthetics first took more than three hours to apply each day.

Star Trek: Discovery's Ripper, the creature that first steers the ship's jumps, is a giant version of which tiny animal?

Tardigrade travel also landed the show in court: a game developer claimed his unreleased game had used the idea first, but a judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2019.

Which actress went from playing Sasha on The Walking Dead to leading Star Trek: Discovery as Michael Burnham?

Sonequa Martin-Green was cast in December 2016, but the news stayed unofficial until her Walking Dead character had made her final regular appearance the following April.

Captain Gabriel Lorca of Star Trek: Discovery turns out to be an impostor who crossed over from where?

The Mirror Universe is ruled by the ruthless, human-led Terran Empire, and Lorca had been steering events all season to get back there and seize its throne.

Which Oscar-winning star of Everything Everywhere All at Once played Star Trek: Discovery's Captain Georgiou?

Michelle Yeoh kept her own Malaysian accent as Georgiou, then returned as the captain's ruthless double, the emperor of the Terran Empire.

Star Trek: Discovery's starship is named after a NASA shuttle and a spacecraft from which classic film?

2001: A Space Odyssey features the spacecraft Discovery One, and the writers paired that nod with NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery and the plain sense of discovery itself.

Cleveland Booker's huge pet cat in Star Trek: Discovery, played by two Maine Coons, goes by which name?

Grudge is shared by two feline actors named Leeu and Durban, each about 40 inches long and weighing 18 pounds.

Star Trek: Discovery's engineer Paul Stamets is named after a real scientist who is an expert in which field?

Mycology, the study of fungi, is the real Paul Stamets's field. The show's co-creator introduced him to the writers after getting interested in his research.

Which American voting rights activist appeared in Star Trek: Discovery as the President of United Earth?

Stacey Abrams appears in Coming Home, the fourth-season finale, in which Earth decides to rejoin the Federation it had left behind.

For which crime is Michael Burnham sentenced to life in prison at the start of Star Trek: Discovery?

Mutiny was the charge after she tried to fire first on the Klingons against her captain's wishes, believing a show of strength would prevent a war.

Which experimental propulsion system lets the starship in Star Trek: Discovery jump instantly across the galaxy?

Spore drive jumps need a living navigator: the ship's engineer alters his own DNA to take over the job from the creature Ripper, which is then set free.

Which Enterprise captain, played by Anson Mount, takes temporary command in Star Trek: Discovery's second season?

Christopher Pike was written as the opposite of the previous captain: by the book, and confident enough to apologise when he is wrong.

Which spin-off series followed the Enterprise crew introduced in Star Trek: Discovery's second season?

Strange New Worlds was ordered after fans called for the second season's Enterprise captain, first officer and science officer to get a show of their own.

Which cadet, Michael Burnham's roommate in Star Trek: Discovery, later leaves the ship to teach at Starfleet Academy?

Sylvia Tilly was named after a showrunner's two-year-old niece, and the producers called the character the soul of the show.

Saru of Star Trek: Discovery, who senses approaching danger through his threat ganglia, belongs to which alien race?

Kelpien biology was invented for the show: hunted as prey on their home planet, they evolved the ability to sense danger coming. Saru is the first of them to join Starfleet.

Which creature actor, the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water, plays Saru in Star Trek: Discovery?

Doug Jones had already worn heavy makeup as Abe Sapien in Hellboy and as the Faun and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth.

Star Trek: Discovery was filmed in which Canadian city, on soundstages that include the largest in North America?

Toronto was the base, and nearby Ontario locations filled in for alien planets, from a disused prison to a steel plant. The first two seasons alone created more than 4,000 local jobs.

Star Trek: Discovery was the first series developed for which streaming service, later rebranded as Paramount+?

CBS All Access kept the US streaming rights even though Showtime, Netflix and Amazon all offered a lot of money for them, and the premiere brought the service record sign-ups.

Which Vulcan ambassador, played in Star Trek: Discovery by James Frain, is Michael Burnham's adoptive father?

Sarek shares a telepathic link with her, and in one episode she uses it to find him after an assassination attempt by a Vulcan logic extremist.

Which original-series con man, played by Rainn Wilson, traps the crew of Star Trek: Discovery in a time loop?

Harry Mudd smuggles himself aboard inside an endangered space creature, then keeps resetting time until he can seize the ship and sell it to the Klingons.

Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz, Star Trek: Discovery's married officers, had earlier worked together on which musical?

Rent brought the two actors together long before they played Stamets and his husband, the first openly gay couple in a Star Trek series.

Which stand-up comedian plays the deadpan engineer Reno in Star Trek: Discovery, a part written for her by a friend?

Tig Notaro got to rename the character, swapping Denise for Jett in honour of the singer Joan Jett, and filmed scenes from several episodes at once to fit around her stand-up dates.

Which British actor, known as the wizard Lucius Malfoy on film, played Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery?

Jason Isaacs gave Lorca a slight Southern US accent rather than his own English one, so that he would not seem a pale shadow of Patrick Stewart.

The Burn, which shattered the Federation in Star Trek: Discovery's future, destroyed most of which substance?

Dilithium is what lets starships travel at warp speed, so when most of it exploded at once the fleet was wrecked and the galaxy's planets were cut off from one another.

Which secretive organisation recruits Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery and later gave its name to her spin-off film?

Section 31 also built the time-travel suit at the heart of the second season, during a temporal arms race with the Klingons twenty years earlier.

Which doctor in Star Trek: Discovery is killed by Ash Tyler, then brought back to life in the second season?

Hugh Culber returns because his husband was linked to the mycelial network at the moment he died, which let the network recreate him.

Seven mysterious signals in Star Trek: Discovery's second season are tied to which time-travelling figure?

The Red Angel turns out to be a suit rather than a being: inside is Michael Burnham's mother, who made hundreds of attempts to change a deadly future.

Michael Burnham is first officer of which starship, commanded by Philippa Georgiou, when Star Trek: Discovery begins?

USS Shenzhou is left a wreck by the opening battle with the Klingons, and its captain is killed trying to take their leader prisoner.

Which island country provided the alien landscapes for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery's third season?

Iceland supplied a volcano, a waterfall, a lake and the Blue Lagoon in just six days of location filming.

Which rogue artificial intelligence sets out to destroy all sentient life in Star Trek: Discovery's second season?

Control kills the staff of its own headquarters by switching off their life support, then takes over a man's body to chase the data it wants.

Starfleet secretly plans to destroy all life on which planet with a hydro-bomb in Star Trek: Discovery's first season?

Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld, is spared when Michael Burnham insists that Starfleet must not commit genocide and the detonator is handed to a Klingon instead.

Which Klingon ends the war in Star Trek: Discovery's first season by using a bomb's detonator to unite the great houses?

L'Rell uses the threat of mass destruction to make the feuding houses accept her as leader, and the next season reveals her secret child with Ash Tyler.

A fake actor credit, Javid Iqbal, hid that Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery was secretly which Klingon?

Voq, an albino outcast, is surgically remade as a human officer, and the invented performer was named after the real actor's father.

In Star Trek: Discovery, Michael Burnham takes her fugitive brother to which forbidden planet to heal his mind?

Talos IV is home to beings who create incredible illusions, and Starfleet had banned visits there after an earlier encounter shown in the franchise's first pilot.

Which X-Men film star joined Star Trek: Discovery's second season as the Enterprise first officer known as Number One?

Rebecca Romijn, the films' first Mystique, took over a part created in the 1960s by Majel Barrett and went on to play it in a spin-off series.

Which co-creator of Star Trek: Discovery stepped down as showrunner before filming to focus on his series American Gods?

Bryan Fuller began his career writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and first pitched the show as an anthology with each season set in another era.

Which director of The Fly appears in Star Trek: Discovery as the mysterious Dr. Kovich?

David Cronenberg, the Canadian director best known for sci-fi horror, played Kovich across the last three seasons, and the finale reveals the doctor to be a time-travelling agent.

In Star Trek: Discovery, Blu del Barrio plays which symbiont host, the franchise's first openly non-binary character?

Adira Tal is a human joined to a Trill symbiont, and the writers worked with the actor and the media group GLAAD to shape the character.

Which Andorian and Orion crime group, led by Osyraa, is the main enemy in Star Trek: Discovery's third season?

The Emerald Chain captures the starship itself late in the season, then collapses after Osyraa's death, and planets begin to rejoin the Federation.

Star Trek: Discovery's final season is a hunt for technology left by which beings, who seeded the galaxy with life?

The Progenitors first appeared in a 1993 episode of The Next Generation, and the final season's treasure hunt follows clues hidden by five scientists from that era.

In Star Trek: Discovery's far future, the planet Vulcan has which new name after its people united with the Romulans?

Ni'Var has left the Federation by then, a twist on the reunification that Michael Burnham's brother had begun hundreds of years earlier.

Which actor from an earlier Star Trek series directed episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, including half of its finale?

Jonathan Frakes, who played Riker in The Next Generation, had already directed two Star Trek feature films, First Contact and Insurrection.

On which planet in Star Trek: Discovery do Klingon monks guard the time crystals that show a captain his tragic future?

Boreth is sacred to Klingons, and its monks warn that anyone who takes a time crystal can no longer change the future it shows them.

L'ak, a courier chased through Star Trek: Discovery's final season, betrayed which people to be with his partner Moll?

The Breen put a bounty on the couple, and L'ak turns out to be descended from a former emperor, which is why his uncle wants him back to claim the throne.

In Star Trek: Discovery, T'Kuvma dreams of uniting the 24 great Klingon houses as which legendary figure once did?

Kahless is the hero of an ancient prophecy that T'Kuvma hopes to fulfil, so he has a beacon lit to summon every Klingon leader.

Which home planet of Cleveland Booker is destroyed by a gravitational anomaly in Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season?

Kwejian is wiped out just after he flies off to investigate odd bird activity, and his grief for his family shapes the rest of the season.

Which mysterious creators of the Dark Matter Anomaly does the crew finally meet in Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season?

Species 10-C live beyond the galactic barrier and speak through chemicals and light, so the crew has to work out a shared language built on mathematics.

Captain Lorca's collection in Star Trek: Discovery includes the skeleton of which alien from the original series?

A Gorn skeleton was a deliberate puzzle: the species is not officially met until years later, so how did this captain get hold of one?

The starship in Star Trek: Discovery is based on an unused Enterprise design by which Star Wars concept artist?

Ralph McQuarrie drew the design for Planet of the Titans, a Star Trek film that was never made, and the show's co-creator likened it to a 1970s Lamborghini.