Summary

  • Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will explain detached nacelles in Star Trek: Discovery's 32nd century.
  • The new look of the USS Discovery-A was controversial and the purpose of detached nacelles baffled viewers.
  • Starfleet Academy will clarify how separated starship parts work.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will explain the 32nd-century science behind Star Trek: Discovery's detached nacelles. The new look of the USS Discovery-A and 32nd-century Starfleet ships was controversial when introduced in Star Trek: Discovery season 3. The purpose of detached nacelles baffled viewers, and the advantages of having nacelles disconnected from the main body of a starship was never clarified before Star Trek: Discovery ended.

Appearing at IndieWire's Consider This Event with VFX supervisor Jason Zimmerman, Alex Kurtzman spoke at length about the future of Star Trek on Paramount+. Kurtzman indicated that the next Star Trek series, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which takes place in the 32nd century after Star Trek: Discovery, will explain detached starship nacelles. Read his quote below:

We took a risk in the 32nd century because we started separating the ship parts in a way that hadn’t been done before... And in Starfleet Academy, we will end up explaining how that works, which is actually interesting because one of the questions that we always ask ourselves is, ‘What is the reality of this? It can’t be magic, so what’s actually going on there?’

Bonnie Gordon and Felicia Day want to Star Trek Starfleet Academy
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Starfleet Academy Is The Perfect Show To Explain Star Trek: Discovery's Detached Nacelles

That's what Starfleet Academy is for

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the ideal venue for finally explaining Star Trek: Discovery's advanced 32nd-century technology. Discovery's latter 3 seasons introduced wondrous new Star Trek gadgets like programmable matter, portable pattern buffers, personal transporters, portable holodeck, and the infamous detached nacelles on starships. However, Discovery's serialized format didn't easily lend itself to slowing down to explain new technology, as Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery's focus was usually to face and defeat whatever crisis was at hand.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy already has an A-list cast, with Academy Award-winner Holly Hunter playing the series lead and Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti recurring as the show's main villain.

Meanwhile, Starfleet Academy is a school, and detailing the science of starships, Starfleet's new pathway drive, and other technology is part and parcel of the curriculum. The next generation of Starfleet engineers will train at Starfleet Academy, allowing the next Star Trek series to finally get into the nuts and bolts of how 32nd-century technology works. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy explaining the science behind detached nacelles ought to be fascinating, and push the boundaries of the technology Star Trek fans know so well.

Source: IndieWire