Star Trek Discovery Finally Ties Up Its Biggest Mystery

Short Treks was a briefly-lived (2018-2020) series of short episodes that gave us fun side stories from the final frontier. While we got a whopping one Short Trek for the Picard show (“Children of Mars”), all of the rest of these abbreviated episodes were created for Star Trek: Discovery (despite some episodes featuring Strange New Worlds characters, Short Treks ended two years before that spinoff even premiered).

Some of the episodes gave us insight into fan-favorite main characters like Saru and Michael Burnham, while others gave us a better look into the weirder corners of this franchise.

By far the most fascinating Star Trek: Short Treks episode was “Calypso,” which featured a man named Craft who was rescued by a Discovery that had been abandoned for a thousand years.

While there is no living crew aboard the ship, Craft forms a close bond with the ship’s AI named Zora, and they develop something that borders on a romantic relationship.

Eventually, Zora reluctantly allows Craft to access the ship’s only remaining shuttle so that he can attempt to warp back home to his wife and child while Zora maintains her position per orders from her last captain.

Part of what made “Calypso” so captivating and confusing is that it aired a little over a year after Star Trek: Discovery first premiered. Understandably, fans had plenty of questions, including what happened to the crew, who Zora was, and why the ship had been abandoned for a millennium.

Later, after the show time-jumped to the 32nd century, we discover that Zora is the name that Discovery’s computer takes after merging with the Sphere data and becoming self-aware.

So, that answered the question of who and what Zora was, but Star Trek: Discovery fans still had plenty of questions. For example, the show’s time jump still didn’t explain why the ship had been abandoned for a thousand years or what had happened to the crew.

And we never got an explanation about whether Craft was a person of special significance or just a random stray whose life Zora decided to save.

Now, the final scene of the Star Trek: Discovery series finale did its best to contextualize and set up the events of “Calypso.”

We see an older Admiral Burnham take command of the Discovery one last time, ordering Zora to take the ship into deep space and hold position. She notes how this is a super secret Red Directive mission and that she doesn’t know much about the mention, but she did hear the name “Craft.”

This unexpected scene obviously helps to answer some Star Trek fan questions–for example, we know that the crew didn’t simply abandon the ship, and we know that Discovery was out in deep space on an ancient mission.

However, we are still left with a few questions, including why Starfleet returned the ship to its 23rd-century configuration before sending it on its way. Of course, the real reason is so the finale would have some continuity with a Short Treks episode from over half a decade ago, but no in-universe explanation is provided.

The other big question is how Starfleet would know that Discovery would need to be in a certain place one thousand years in the future and why the ship had to leave now instead of… well… a millennium from now.

It’s possible that Starfleet has special knowledge of the future because of Dr. Kovich. In a wonderfully bonkers reveal, we learn that “Kovich” is a code name and that this character is really Daniels, a temporal agent introduced back in Enterprise.

It’s entirely possible that this mysterious Star Trek: Discovery character, one who once jumped back and forth through time, might have future knowledge about when and where Discovery will be needed.

We still don’t know why Starfleet would want to effectively ditch an AI as advanced as Zora for so long, though. 

It’s also worth noting that the finale is a soft retcon of the Short Treks episode. Burnham implies that Craft is somehow significant to Zora’s mission, but that earlier episode ends with the AI letting him go and holding position.

If you’re feeling generous, though, it’s possible that Starfleet knew that Craft would become a person of special significance and needed him to safely return to his world because it could somehow affect the future of the galaxy, something that couldn’t happen if Zora wasn’t in the right time and place to save him.

Long story not very short, we’re frankly amazed that the Star Trek: Discovery finale not only addressed “Calypso” but dedicated the very last scene to setting it up.

While we still have a few more questions, it’s also rewarding to finally have some answers to this mystery. In a way, having questions is only appropriate–after all, this is a show whose episodes and characters constantly remind audiences that there is always more to learn, and such journeys of discovery can be just as fulfilling as journeys through the cosmos.