‘The Final Starship’ Picks Up on Two of the Greatest Missed Alternatives in Fashionable ‘Star Trek’

When IDW introduced its newest Star Trek comedian, The Final Starship, much of the focus was on the truth that the collection would, one way or the other, resurrect Captain James T. Kirk for a narrative set within the Thirty first-century timeline launched in Star Trek: Discovery. Now the collection is right here; the premise is rather more than nostalgia for the original Trek captain however as an alternative an interesting approach to discover not one however two totally different main plotlines developed in modern Star Trek‘s streaming age—concepts that Star Trek largely deserted on TV.

The primary situation of The Final Starship—written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, with artwork by Adrian Bonilla and Heather Moore, and lettering by Clayton Cowles—is ready within the first of these two missed alternatives: the fast outbreak of “The Burn” within the early Thirty first century. The cataclysmic, galaxy-wide destabilization of dilithium (and with it, the near-instantaneous breaching of each lively warp core) fashioned a significant backstory ingredient throughout Discovery‘s third season after the titular ship was shot into its far future and into the mid-Thirty second century, right into a galaxy that had already largely grappled with the brand new established order of a closely diminished Federation and restricted interstellar FTL journey.

However whereas Discovery‘s third season largely formed itself round fixing the issue of the Burn and its mysterious origin (and allowed the ship to negate the problems round FTL journey by and huge with its personal alternate spore-drive-based methods), setting The Final Starship within the direct aftermath of the Burn itself offers the collection an interesting sense of drama. The primary is the truth that, it doesn’t matter what occurs, we by and huge know that the Starfleet disaster isn’t going to be resolved, as a result of that’s Discovery‘s job a century in spite of everything this takes place, with out a dramatic time leap or two.

The opposite is that we’re given an unimaginable likelihood to see Starfleet officers grapple in actual time with the lack of a Star Trek established order that had existed for millennia and what that loss can do to even its finest and brightest. Final Starship doesn’t give us a stagnant Federation within the moments earlier than it’s laid low, however one which was completely ascendant: the problem opens with the united statesS. Sagan in pursuit of a Gorn ship, however not for any common situation, however as a result of the ship’s crew has an opportunity to persuade the Gorn to affix the Federation because the final excellent recognized species within the galaxy. Even when we all know all the things is about to go to hell for Captain Delacourt Sato and his crew, for the briefest of moments, Star Trek‘s Federation is on the cusp of an entire utopian society, the last word achievement of objectives the franchise at giant has wished to champion for nearly 60 years, an concept of Star Trek with out exterior battle the collection has not often thought of earlier than.

In fact, issues don’t final: within the actual second the Sagan achieves this watershed second of diplomacy, the Burn occurs. The Sagan, alongside Starfleet’s major fleet and lots of of hundreds, if not tens of millions, of ships, Starfleet or in any other case, throughout the galaxy, explodes. Sato and three of his bridge crew are among the scant variety of Starfleet personnel nonetheless alive and grow to be key figures within the Federation’s response to an nearly full shattering of galactic civilization immediately. Not like Discovery, there isn’t any flash ahead to a modified however nonetheless largely comparable established order. There are not any folks right here who’re used to this; there should not but the thriving pockets of society or isolationist worlds we see throughout the collection, ready for the hope of unity within the Federation that may ultimately be offered by the Discovery crew’s mission.

Every part in The Final Starship is uncooked and within the second, and sufficient to put even essentially the most idealistic of Starfleet’s surviving members low. And never solely will we get to take a seat with that horror, however The Final Starship‘s first situation nearly luxuriates in it, Bonilla and Moore’s artwork wreathed in thick, sketchy linework and closely inked shadows. Final Starship nearly seems like a horror comedian as a lot because it does a Star Trek one, however the dread is existential: the horror is within the collapse of a society that has been a given in nearly each work of Star Trek ever made.

It’s what individuals are all of a sudden keen to do in that form of horrifying state of affairs that results in Final Starship‘s different twist and its different riff on a missed Star Trek alternative. Whereas the remnants of Starfleet’s command convene on Earth to navigate what comes subsequent for the galaxy, they’re interrupted by the arrival of a well-recognized emissary: a masked, cybernetic determine, tendrils swirling round them, who ultimately reveals their identify, face, and identification… Star Trek: Picard‘s Agnes Jurati, the ambassador of her personal Borg cooperative, not seen for nearly a thousand years, prepared as soon as extra to work with the Federation because it had been at its inception.

One of many greatest, weirdest disappointments concerning the transition from Picard‘s second season to its third was simply how a lot potential was squandered in its sudden step right into a nostalgic Next Generation reunion (regardless that it was, finally, a pretty good reunion). The ballsy imagining of a completely new faction of Borg not simply keen to be at peace with the Federation however even doubtlessly becoming a member of it was the form of daring pondering that Star Trek hadn’t contemplated in years—not since TNG itself had remodeled the Klingons from antagonists to allies. However the present by no means did something with it: Jurati was only one authentic Picard character amongst a number of that by no means appeared in season three, which reunited the TNG crew to confront the Borg risk we already knew and had seen confronted loads of occasions earlier than.

Borg-Jurati’s function in The Final Starship is simply as scrumptious as her temporary look within the Picard season two finale was. Whereas Starfleet had largely worn out the Borg Collective, Agnes’ cooperative is a really totally different beast, providing to help Starfleet’s remnants in constructing a brand new flagship to attempt to carry hope to the galaxy, working on Borg transwarp expertise somewhat than dilithium-based FTL journey. On the floor, she’s amicable, pushing a determined Federation into alliance to reside as much as the beliefs it’s represented for hundreds of years—she’s not there to kick Starfleet whereas it’s down or end the job. Nevertheless it’s instantly clear by the top of Final Starship #1 that the cooperative has its personal objectives somewhat than merely goading Starfleet into placing its latinum the place its mouth is: not wholly villainous or heroic, however taking part in an extended sport throughout the course of the brand new collection.

It’s solely there that the Captain Kirk of all of it comes into play. After serving to Starfleet nearly actually cobble collectively a brand new flagship—the united statesS. Omega, a scrappy hybrid of dozens of Starfleet ship hulls and Jurati’s transwarp engineering—does Jurati reveal her reward out of the discount is none apart from a blood pattern of Kirk saved on Daystrom station for hundreds of years. Utilizing superior Borg nanites, the pattern creates an entirely actual Jim Kirk. Not reminiscences in a brand new physique, or a clone, as she dismissed, however Kirk in his prime, a Kirk respiration, pondering, and remembering as if his closing moments in Star Trek: Generations weren’t closing in any respect. The best way Jurati narrates the resurrection, because it have been, is hopeful: she believes this second in Star Trek requires somebody like Kirk, a frontier diplomat who boldly explored and fought for the Federation’s future, somewhat than being trapped in resting on the laurels of its previous as her grief-stricken Starfleet contemporaries are. However there’s something, once more, offered as nearly horrifying by what she’s achieved: a Borg taking part in god with some of the revered figures of Star Trek, even whether it is in an hour of nice want.

How The Final Starship builds on this from right here stays to be seen. The debut situation closes on a tease of a really acquainted battle for this reborn Kirk and the Omega‘s crew to confront, in a faction of Klingons utilizing the chaos of the Burn to attempt to return their folks to their ancestral warrior roots and end Starfleet off as soon as and for all. What’s going to stay attention-grabbing isn’t the way it manages to reshape the acquainted of Star Trek‘s historical past, however the way it builds on the huge potential it’s begun to mine from Star Trek‘s more moderen period to create one thing new and thrilling as an alternative.

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