Mysterious Andorians?
A reference to unrequited love?
A return to a familiar star system?
Here are all of the Easter eggs you missed in "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode two.
The series' second episode "Children of the Comet" begins with a log entry from Cadet Uhura.
She is still getting used to life aboard the Enterprise and is about to attend a dinner
in the Captain's quarters.
There she meets the ship's new chief engineer, an Andorian named Hemmer.
But Hemmer is no ordinary Andorian, the normally blue-skinned, antennaed aliens who debuted
in the original series episode "Journey to Babel."
Hemmer is a subspecies of Andorian known as Aenar, who live in the frozen wastelands on
Andoria, as seen in the "Enterprise" fourth season episode appropriately titled, "The Aenar."
When Uhura spots Hemmer chopping vegetables she offers to assist, knowing he is visually
impaired, as Aenar are all blind.
Spock points out that Hemmer's other senses compensate for his blindness, to which the
Aenar responds:
"Compensate?
They are superior."
It's also mentioned that the Aenar have a form of precognition, and Spock helps demonstrate
Hemmer's telepathic abilities.
Both of these unique abilities were showcased in the "Enterprise" three-part story that
introduced a young Aenar woman named Jhamel and her brother Gareb, who until now were
the only Aenar ever seen on "Star Trek."
In that story, the Romulans kidnapped Gareb and used his abilities to pilot a deadly new
drone ship in an attempt to provoke a war between galactic powers.
During his dinner with the crew, Captain Pike entertains with a story from his earlier years.
He was chasing down a pantsless Nausicaan while working a security job and fell flat
on his face after tripping over the alien's pants, phaser still in hand.
It's an incident that would apparently play at least some role in his switch to command,
but it wasn't the last time a future Enterprise captain would tangle with some nasty Nausicaans.
While we haven't seen Nausicaans that often, this brutish alien race made a memorable first
impression in the "Next Generation" episode "Tapestry."
In that story, Picard dies and meets Q in the afterlife.
He offers him a chance to go back in time and change his past.
In doing so, Picard revisits a violent incident from his early days in Starfleet.
While awaiting his first orders after graduating from Starfleet Academy, Picard and two friends
have a run-in with some Nausicaans who attempt to cheat them in a game of dom-jot.
Defending his friend from a vicious melee, Picard is impaled through the back by one
of the aliens, requiring him to have an artificial heart implanted that he'd carry for the rest
of his natural life.
Thankfully, it doesn't sound like Pike's brush with Nausicaans was quite so harrowing.
The second episode of "Strange New Worlds" takes the Enterprise to the Persephone star system.
A planet there is endangered by a massive comet that is due to strike its surface in
a world-ending event.
In his briefing, Spock says that the people on the planet are a primitive race with no
way to know the threat they face and no way to stop it.
With the people below unable to save themselves, Pike and the crew get to work on finding a
way to divert the comet from Persephone III.
But this won't be the last time an Enterprise crew makes a visit to Persephone.
It originally popped up the first season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," set nearly
a century later.
Though it wasn't Persephone III, the Enterprise D visited the Persephone system briefly in
the episode "Too Short a Season."
In that story, Picard and his Enterprise crew travel to Persephone V to pick up a renowned
Federation negotiator, the elderly Admiral Mark Jameson.
From there, they warp to Mordan IV to oversee the release of prisoners taken in a terrorist
hostage situation.
Things don't go as planned, of course.
It's revealed that Jameson himself may be responsible for the crisis, the fallout from
another incident he was involved in decades before.
Nurse Christine Chapel and Mr. Spock had a brief interaction in the premiere episode,
and their encounter in "Children of the Comet" made it clear there's some serious tension
there — at least from Chapel's side of things.
As Spock, La'an, Uhura, and Lt. Sam Kirk prepare to beam to the surface of the comet, Chapel
inoculates them with an anti-radiation drug.
When she administers a dose to Spock, she openly flirts with the Vulcan science officer,
though Spock doesn't seem to notice.
Uhura does, however, and mocks him later in the episode, sarcastically referring to Chapel
as his girlfriend.
"I am a Vulcan.
We are too honest by nature."
"Your girlfriend must love that."
The sparks are, of course, a direct reference to the original series, in which Nurse Chapel,
played then by series creator Gene Roddenberry's wife Majel Barrett, showed an open attraction
to Spock and even got jealous of his relationship with T'Pring.
It was in the episode "The Naked Time" that Chapel professed her love for him, and in
"Plato's Stepchildren" they even shared a kiss.
Though in the episode it was while they were coerced by alien telepaths, and neither was
entirely comfortable with the encounter.
Under the influence of a love potion, Spock himself became infatuated with Chapel in the
quasi-canonical "Star Trek: The Animated Series" episode "Mudd's Passion."
Where "Strange New Worlds" will take their relationship remains to be seen.
Inside the alien structure on the comet's surface, the landing party discovers a mysterious
alien egg.
Unable to get many readings, it's up to Uhura to decipher the inscriptions on the egg's
surface and find a way to lower the comet's artificial shielding.
If she can't, the comet will destroy Persephone III.
Uhura unwittingly discovers how to communicate with the egg when she begins humming an old
Kenyan folk melody to alleviate her anxiety.
As it turns out, the comet's intelligence communicates through musical tones.
Diehard Trekkies will recall that in the original series, Uhura had shown an aptitude for singing,
and was seen doing so on more than one occasion.
She was most fond of a song called "Beyond Antares," which she sang in two different
episodes, "The Conscience of the King" and "The Changeling."
Later in "Children of the Comet," Uhura and Spock sing together to communicate with the
intelligence, and, as "Star Trek" fans know, this wouldn't be the last time they perform
side by side.
In the 1966 episode "Charlie X," Spock plays a Vulcan lute while Uhura accompanies him
with her sweet voice, performing a song titled "Oh, On the Starship Enterprise."
As the landing party works inside the comet to alter its course, Pike and the Enterprise
find themselves confronted by an alien ship.
The beings aboard it refer to themselves as "The Shepherds."
They warn Pike not to interfere with the comet, which they believe is a kind of divine life-bringer.
This is a powerful starship that the Enterprise can't compete with, so they're careful not
to anger them, but they cannot abandon the mission to save the planet either.
When they're finally forced into a firefight, Pike issues a command to get them out of there, barking
"Escape pattern April Omega Three!"
This is a clear reference to Robert April, the former Enterprise captain who we met in
the "Strange New Worlds" premiere.
April became official canon in an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery," where his name
appeared on a computer screen as part of a list of Starfleet's most decorated captains,
alongside Pike, Jonathan Archer, Matthew Decker from the original series episode "The Doomsday
Machine," and Philippa Georgiou.
Given that April has an escape maneuver named after him, it's no wonder he's considered
one of the best.
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