Captain Burnham, Ferengis, a cataclysmic anomaly and Ni’Var finally rejoining the Federation? What else might season 4 of Star Trek Discovery bring!
Welcome to Trek Central! I’m your host, _Captain Jack_, and let’s get into it!
A new trailer for Star Trek Discovery season 4 has dropped at New York Comic Con 2021 at their Discovery panel,
which featured most of the cast of the show,
let’s break it down and chat more about the upcoming season 4,
plus all the details on how and WHERE you can watch it!
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As mentioned we’re breaking down the trailer, now due to copyright and ViacomCBS being too hasty with YouTube Content ID, we’re unable to show you the trailer in full in this video,
so head down below to view it, then come back here for all the details!
The opening shot is newly promoted Captain Michael Burnham in some 32nd century tactical gear, a clear advancement from the old 23rd Century Gear,
but not massively from first glance.
Discovery looks to be burning up in an atmosphere, but it might actually be entering this gravimetric anomaly which we see from some other shots.
And the Gravimetric anomaly does look extremely imposing and you really do get a sense of scale.
In previous teasers and trailers we have been told this threat is light years in size, but I think only when this trailer zooms away from the discovery to this anomaly does everything start to make sense.
Burnham is being rocked around in some kind of area, with a single chair and a circle around her.
This could be a new shuttlecraft, as we do see a couple of shuttles in some kind of hangar bay, considering the hangar bay was considerably damaged from Book’s ship ramming into it at the end of Season 3.
These shuttles definitely look like 32nd century variants of the Discovery era worker bees, which is cool.
We have a return of the Dadmiral, Admiral Vance played by Oded Fehr. Vance was a great character in Season 3, so I am glad we are getting more of him and look forward to whatever he does in season 4.
Given Vance’s popularity in Season 3, I’m hoping we really get to see more of his storyline expanded as the show goes on.
But Vance isn’t the only leading Federation character we get this season. We finally get confirmed the identity of the Federation President,
President Rillak, played by Chelah Horsdal.
Chelah was notable in Amazon Prime’s “The Man in the High Castle” TV show. It appears that her character is part Cardassian, Bajoran and Human, which is absolutely amazing.
Basically a character which comes about due to the events of Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
And not just the Federation president, but other representatives of the Federation.
From an Osnullus representation, Orion, and Ni’Var’s president T’Rina, who is also seen in this trailer accepting the Flag of the Federation from Federation president Rillak,
presumably being accepted back into the United Federation of Planets.
It might be that we also see a Trill character in this scene, in a yellow robe, as you can just about make out the Trill logo on their holographic displays.
Talking of these holographic displays, when the scene is flipped you can see what they say.
With their displays having the menus of “Voting, Settings, Systems and Library” as well as a power off setting. So it seems like this scene will have some Federation politics, with maybe counsellors assembled to vote on something about this gravimetric anomaly?
What we also see in this scene is new Starfleet Dress uniforms, which is a richer red wrap around uniform with a white collar.
Whether the other divisions are a similar color or are richer versions of their own colors, a richer yellow and blue, is unknown.
But the uniform does look really nice, and I do like to see more dress uniforms!
One of the biggest talks about this trailer is that we see a Ferengi starfleet officer, with a new design.
Whether this is a complete redesign of the Ferengi or just simply a part-Ferengi is unknown.
Discovery season 3 had numerous updates of legacy trek species from Lurians, Coridanites and Cardassians, but not complete redesigns. So I am more inclined to say that this is not a redesign.
It is interesting to note however, that this Ferengi does bare an interesting resemblance to
some original Ferengi concept art from Andrew Probert, and I think it is always cool when tv shows use their wealth of concept art in new ways, similar to the USS Discovery being a reuse of old concept art done by Ralph McQuarrie!
A part-ferengi in starfleet would be a great way to work in any continuity about the legacy of Rom as the Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance, with the legacy of Nog being the first Ferengi Starfleet Officer being cemented by ships being named after him.
If there is a part-ferengi, then it would mean that Rom’s Ferengi alliance continued to move to a more progressive and inclusive society.
This Ferengi might even be Captain of the USS Nog, which would be cool!
There is a scene of Starfleet officers around a holoprojector looking at the anomaly smashing a moon into a planet.
This could be Earth, and would be a good way to get Earth back into the Federation if they save them from this calamity.
President Rillak talks to Burnham about what leadership truly means, which makes sense considering that she is the Leader of the United Federation of Planets and would know a thing or two about Leadership!
Already i am getting a strong appreciation for this character, though part of me thinks that there might be alternate motives to the President, or that is me just being paranoid… who knows.
But we hear this as we see Burnham and Book are on an away mission in a forest getting shot at. A similar scene was seen in Season 3, with Burnham and Book on Kweijan getting shot at.
But this forest is more bioluminescent than Kweijans, and Burnham is rocking a leather away mission jacket, which reminds us of the Excursion jacket used by Vulcan’s in the Enterprise episode “Carbon Creek”.
Federation HQ looks slightly different this season, in some scenes still being in the cloaking field seen in Season 3, but in others out in open space, so presumably it opens itself up symbolising its return to form.
The space station is also slightly different in structure, with more root-like structures around it, and floating platforms around the space station, some being connected by cables. What purpose these serve is unknown.
Burnham, Tilly and some Qowat Milat nuns, including Burnham’s Mom, go to visit some ruins, with Tilly and Burnham wearing their tactical vests.
Presumably this is on the hunt for clues about this mysterious anomaly, which perhaps could have an ancient origin?
While in the ruins, the group discover some sort of alien corpse, and are attacked by an unknown assailant.
Tilly is seen over the corpse of a Starfleet officer wearing the older grey 32nd century uniform, which could imply that this damage occurred at the Federation HQ, as officers there are seen wearing the older uniform.
In the hanger bay-like area previously described, we see the Dress Uniform again on Burnham as she is giving a speech to some officers in different uniforms.
These could be cadets that Burnham is overseeing, which would be interesting if Starfleet is opening up again, they will need more cadets and therefore officers to rebuild.
“We are going where no-one has gone before” Burnham says, which I really like.
This is true to the ethos of Trek so much, so I am very much looking forward to this new frontier, what could be in this anomaly.
It would be really interesting if the ruins seen previously are within the anomaly?
Or it could be a nexus situation where there is another imagined world within. Who knows!
Saru went off to look after Su’kal at the end of season 3, but from this trailer we see him back in uniform and in Starfleet.
Though we do see glimpses of him on what is probably Kaminar, in a very ornate room, showing a holoprojector of the galaxy to some other Kelpians.
While in his starfleet uniform, Saru does have a broach on his uniform, which look like threat ganglia surrounding a black obelisk,
which could be the symbol of the Kelpian-Baul alliance, which would be a nice symbol of their union.
He is also present at the Federation Starfleet Command meeting, alongside Captain Burmham, Admiral Vance and President Rilak.
Book and Burnham are in what looks to be one of the mercantile exchanges seen in season 3 of Discovery,
with a lot of explosions happening around them. And There are other scenes of Book on Kwejon, with what could be his Nephew running around.
A later scene has Burnham consoling a shocked Book, so let's hope nothing bad happens to his nephew or Kwejon. Trek has a precedent of killing nephews… still not over the death of Rene Picard from Generations...
Anyway… Tilly and Blu are planetside in some fancy excursion tactical gear, different from the ones we have seen Burnham and Tilly wear in other scenes of this trailer,
and are accompanied by 3 red shirts… It seems like we are bringing random unnamed redshirts back into Trek, which is great,
but I do feel bad for these guys.
There is a later shot of this group firing their phasers at something left offscreen.
And in the next scene we see another as of yet unnamed redshirt attacked by a sword wielding person inside the Discovery but then we cut to Burnham fighting some other
masked attackers on Book’s ship. We also see a Qowat Milat nun fighting an attacker on Book’s ship, so it seems likely that this is happening at the same time.
As we saw last season, Stamets isn’t the only one who can pilot the spore drive, as Book can as well due to his natural empathic abilities as a kwejian (kway-john).
It was said during the NYCC panel that we will be getting more scenes with Book and the other discovery crew, so interactions between him and stamets on piloting the spore drive are going to be fascinating!
But in this trailer we see Book in pain while in the spore drive's reaction cube, so what could be causing this is anyone's guess.
There is this scene of a random unknown man shouting at saru while in the spore drive area of the ship,
which is very weird to say the least.
In this montage of scenes, we can also see Jet Reno, who is in her typical place of Engineering / the Spore Drive room, so I’d say it’s fantastic to say that she is back in the series once more.
A redshirt is attacked by what looks to be a Qowat Milat nun in a weird area, which looks like a discovery interior, but is green and has the words USSC-CH… visible.
This could be a ship, with a new registry of USSC, perhaps a United Space Ship Carrier? Or it could just be an abbreviation for a different area of ship or starbase.
The hangar of the USS Discovery is completely wrecked, with numerous doctors looking for survivors as well as Tilly and Adira.
This could be the result of the gravimetric anomaly. With a lot of the damage being in the hangar bay, perhaps a ship was trying to dock when the Discovery was struck by the anomaly,
so more damage happened here than in other parts of the ship?
Someone is seen flying towards a new ship or space station, in an asteroid field. This might be Burnham,
to add some parallels to the very first episode of Season 1 where Burnham flies through an asteroid field.
And the very first episode of season 2 where Burnham flies through an asteroid field.
And the very first episode of season 3 where burnham flies through a debris field.
So maybe this is the very first episode of season 4, to keep up with tradition!
Joan Owosekun is seen fighting in some sort of ring, and punches a guy in the crotch…
And moving sharply away from that, Burnham is seen in some sort of EVA suit captaining the USS Discovery while everything explodes around her, possibly into the anomaly.
Tilly, Burnham and the Qowat Milat on Book’s ship seem to head to a moon, and it could be Luna, but I don’t think it is due to Luna being known as very populated,
so this could be another planet with a moon, perhaps where the ruins are we previously saw this group at. Some planetary shots from Season 3 were actually made of real life planetary shots, so this moon could actually be constructed from shots of our moon.
There is a beautiful shot of Saru and Burnham planetside with the sun bearing down on them and structures in the background.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this shot was constructed using the new AR Wall technology,
The lighting of the scene makes me think this is the case, with the landscape being rendered in real time allowing for very good realistic lighting on the actors.
With what looks to be an arid climate of this planet, we could be seeing Ni’Var, which previous trailers have suggested.
Burnham may have moved on from sharing a room with Tilly, but we do get a scene of the two in Tilly’s quarters. Tilly’s desk has her starfleet medal of honor given to her at the end of Season 1 of Discovery as well as a photograph of herself and Burnham.
And that was our breakdown of the Season 4 trailer of Star Trek Discovery, we are definitely in for a wild ride with Burnham as captain of the USS Discovery
as this rebuilding federation is facing this gravimetric anomaly which appears to be tearing up space all around it.
Perhaps it’s some sort of off-shoot from “The Burn”, which was a disaster explored in Season 3, who knows, it could be an interesting theory.
Season 4 of Discovery will be releasing on Paramount+ on November 18th in the US and on CTV Sci-Fi channel in Canada, and presumably will be on Netflix internationally the next day on November 19th.
Fun little fact, Discovery will air alongside Star Trek: Prodigy, which will also be airing from October 28th onwards!
Let us know what you think of the Discovery Season 4 trailer down below in the comment section, and are you even excited for the upcoming release of the fourth season?
Either way, comment below, because if you’re talking about Star Trek, then we want to hear about it!
If you want to keep up to date on all the latest Star Trek news, lore and more, then make sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss a video from the team here at Trek Central!
You can also follow us on social media, or join our Community Discord Server!
For now, I’ve been _Captain Jack_, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!