Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals Vulcans Are Connected To Another Powerful Alien Race
A new Star Trek comic book reveals that Vulcans might be connected to the Illyrians.
That’s a wrap on the first season of Paramount+’s latest travels where no man has gone before in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and one major cliffhanger will have audiences chattering until the show returns for a second season. The final episode saw the big reveal that Rebecca Romijn’s Commander Una Chin-Riley, aka “Number One,” was actually an Illyrian – a mysterious species which are known for their ability to change their genetic makeup, which has banned them from Starfleet and led to Number One’s arrest. While we may need to wait to find out how things play out on screen, The Illyrian Enigma #3, suggests that not only are the Vulcans tied to the Illyrians, but they may also have helped their fellow aliens gain the power of augmentation, meaning that perhaps there’s room in Starfleet for everyone after all.
Penned by Kirsten Beyer, Megan Levens, Mike Johnson, Neil Uyetake, and Charlie Kirchoff, the comic takes place between Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ first and second seasons. Picking up following the arrest of Number One, Captain Pike breaks all the rules and, along with Spock, goes on a quest to find some answers about the Illyrians. While on their secret mission, Spock gets abducted by the Illyrians, who temporarily change his genetic makeup to ensure his survival on their all-but-demolished home planet.
Upon his arrival, Spock begins to see that there’s more tying his people – the Vulcans – to the Illyrians than he realized, with their homeworld even having a building similar to Vulcan. Unable to contain his intrigue, Spock wanders into the Vulcan-like structure and discovers many more of his people there to respond to the Illyrians’ pleas for help. While it’s unclear what aid the Vulcans were able to provide their fellow beings, it could be possible that they were responsible for bestowing the genetic shifting abilities onto the Illyrians in the first place – something that could have quite an impact on how Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will shake out.
While this major reveal would definitely get Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds off to a rocket-fueled start, it’s still unclear how showrunners Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet will handle the in-between comic and tie it into their storyline. Obviously, this could open up a world of possibilities for Number One’s post in Starfleet and also give new chances to the previously untrusted group should it be revealed that the Vulcans were the group behind giving the Illyrians this powerful ability in the first place.
Picking up a full 10 years before the story of Star Trek: The Original Series and acting as a spin-off from Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was one of the most talked about and highly-anticipated projects to come over the last few years from the Gene Roddenberry-created franchise. After first introducing a handful of the crew members on Discovery, production listened to what the fans wanted and launched Strange New Worlds to much acclaim. Joining Romijn in the series are Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Celia Rose Gooding, Christina Chong, Babs Olusanmokun, Melissa Navia, and Bruce Horak.
