Star Trek: Discovery’s Explanation For The Burn Is Very Disappointing

Star Trek: Discovery finally revealed how The Burn happened – and who caused it – but the long-awaited answer turned out to be an epic letdown.

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Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 11, “Su’Kal”.

Star Trek: Discovery finally revealed the cause of The Burn, and the culprit is both unexpected and extremely disappointing. In Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 11, “Su’kal”, Captain Saru (Doug Jones), Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), and Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) beamed into the KSF Khi’eth, a Kelpien research ship that crashed into a dilithium nursery inside the volatile Verubin Nebula. There, the Starfleet Officers realized the cause of the Burn was Su’Kal (Bill Irwin), an emotionally damaged Kelpien who was born in the Nebula and has lived alone aboard the Khi’eth for the last 125 years.

The U.S.S. Discovery’s investigation of the Khi’eth was largely in the background of the previous two-part episode, “Terra Firma”, which dealt with Emperor Philippa Georgiou’s (Michelle Yeoh) return to the Mirror Universe and her departure from the 32nd century thanks to the Guardian of Forever (Paul Guilfoyle). But while Georgiou’s destiny was being determined, Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Adira (Blu Del Barrio), Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) were hard at work trying to gain access to the Khi’eth’s computer inside the Verubin Nebula – a feat Book accomplished by resorting to contraband technology used by the villainous Emerald Chain.

Once Discovery’s computer opened up a backdoor to the Khi’eth’s systems, they detected one Kelpien life sign, which seemed impossible since the Kelpien ship crashed over 125 years ago and the radiation within the Nebula is almost instantaneously lethal. But Saru determined from the hologram of the Khi’eth’s Dr. Issa (Hannah Spear) that Discovery obtained that the Kelpien woman was pregnant, which means the sole survivor aboard the Khi’eth was Dr. Issa’s offspring. Saru, Burnham, and Culber beamed into the Khi’eth (and were transformed by the ship’s holodeck program into a human, a Trill, and a Bajoran, respectively) to find the Kelpien, whose name is Su’Kal. But as they found out, the truth about Su’Kal is that he’s biologically linked to the dilithium within the Verubin Nebula, and he is the cause of The Burn.

In fact, another Burn nearly took place during the Starfleet away team’s interaction with Su’Kal, who caused a mini dilithium flare-up that affected the warp cores and cloaking devices of the U.S.S. Discovery and the Emerald Chain’s starship, the Viridian. Discovery, which was under the temporary command of First Officer Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), was rendered vulnerable and was hijacked by the Emerald Chain and its leader Osyraa (Janet Kidder). With the Discovery’s crew split apart and in mortal jeopardy, plus the U.S.S. Discovery and its spore drive held hostage by Osyraa, the truth about The Burn almost took a backseat to the multiple crises Discovery faces.

Everything Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Revealed About The Burn

Based upon everything Star Trek: Discovery season 3 has revealed so far, The Burn is now estimated to have happened in 3064 – 125 years before season 3’s current year of 3189. The Burn was the tipping point of a galaxy-wide shortage of dilithium in the 31st century. The United Federation of Planets ordered all 350 of its member worlds to dedicate their top scientific minds to solve the dilithium crisis; the most promising solution was SB-19 from the planet Ni’Var, home to the Vulcan and Romulan races. SB-19 was a system of instantaneous starship travel without the need for warp drive, but Ni’Var believed the project was too dangerous to continue. However, the Federation denied Ni’Var’s request to shutter the program, which led to Ni’Var leaving the Federation, although the Romulans wanted to stay.

The results of The Burn devastated and changed the course of the galaxy for the next 125 years. Thousands of starships suffered near-simultaneous Burn-induced warp core beaches, and the explosions killed millions. With most of Starfleet wiped out, the Federation collapsed, and even a fearful United Earth broke away and became an isolationist planet. By 3189, only 38 member worlds remained in the Federation and Starfleet has a difficult time protecting the remaining planets. Meanwhile, the Orions and Andorians entered into a new mercantile alliance; a branch of it came under the control of Osyraa and became known as the Emerald Chain, which pillaged worlds for supplies, resources, and whatever remnants of dilithium remained. The Emerald Chain rose to become the biggest threat to what remained of the Federation.

During her year-long investigation, Michael Burnham determined that The Burn wasn’t a simultaneous event as was widely believed. Burnham acquired three black boxes from starships that were destroyed by The Burn, including the U.S.S. Yelchin. Along with the SB-19 data she was given by Ni’Var, Burnham and Tilly learned that The Burn’s origin point was the highly radioactive Verubin Nebula. Within the Nebula was the Khi’eth, a crashed Kelpien research vessel investigating a dilithium nursery that has been transmitting a distress signal for the last 125 years. However, that signal also took the form of a lullaby song, which permeated the galaxy so that numerous people knew the tune even though planets had no contact with each other after The Burn wiped out long-range communications – and the lullaby was played for baby Su’Kal.

How Su’Kal Caused The Burn

Su’Kal was born in the Verubin Nebula and he was just a very young child when he caused The Burn, which occurred thanks to a cellular change to the Kelpien in utero because of his proximity to the radiation of the Verubin Nebula and the dilithium on the planetoid the Khi’eth crash on. Further, Su’Kal suffered the death of his mother, Dr. Issa, and the other Kelpiens aboard the Khi’eth from radiation poisoning; meanwhile, Su’Kal was protected from the radiation due to his altered DNA. Before her death, Dr. Issa programmed her ship’s holodeck to create an elaborate simulation, complete with numerous characters, to raise Su’Kal and keep him company, but the program has been malfunctioning for decades due to the Verubin Nebula’s radiation.

In any case, it’s likely that the trauma of the death of his mother caused the young Su’Kal to react with violent emotion 125 years ago, which triggered a dilithium chain reaction that escaped the Nebula and caused The Burn. Su’Kal nearly caused another Burn when he was terribly frightened by a Kelpien monster in the holodeck program, and it was only because Saru sang Su’Kal a lullaby that he calmed down and prevented another full-fledged Burn from happening.

Why The Burn’s Explanation Is Disappointing

Since the show’s permanent change of setting to the 32nd century, Star Trek: Discovery has boldly charted an exciting new future in the post-Burn galaxy. The new direction has paid off in dividends with eyebrow-raising revelations about old friends like the Vulcans, Earth, and the Federation, fascinating new enemies like Osyraa and the Emerald Chain, and honoring the vast history of the entire Star Trek franchise. Considering the literal universe of possibilities at their disposal, it’s a huge letdown that the cause of Star Trek: Discovery season 3’s biggest mystery – which literally redefined the galaxy – turned out to be a callow Kelpien man-child.

Many fans, and even Emperor Georgiou herself, speculated and hoped that when Michael Burnham and her crew solved the mystery of The Burn, the arrows would point to a mastermind who single-handedly engineered the greatest galactic catastrophe in Star Trek history, and, even better, that perhaps Discovery would unveil the next great Star Trek villain to rival Khan (Ricardo Montalban) or the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). Instead, The Burn appears to have been a mistake caused by a small child who still doesn’t know any better as an adult. Worse, Su’Kal isn’t even a particularly interesting character; even though he’s 125 years old, it seems that he’s emotionally still a Kindergartener, which is offputting and turns the calamity of The Burn into a cosmic joke.

While delving into Kelpien lore has been fascinating in the past, and the discovery of Su’Kal will no doubt affect Captain Saru going forward, Su’Kal as the reason The Burn happened is a tragic miscalculation that drastically lets the air out of Star Trek: Discovery’s season 3 balloon. The Burn has been built up to be a grand mystery that Michael Burnham and the Discovery needed to crack in order to restore the Federation. The truth about The Burn should have been the mind-blowing payoff to the U.S.S. Discovery’s monumental first year in the more dangerous and volatile 32nd century. Instead, the reason The Burn happened, and the entire galaxy was brought to its knees, was because a Kelpien baby got sad and scared, which is a disappointment of epic proportions.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-trek-discovery-burn-kelpien-explained-bad-reason/