Now, in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 1, "Hegemony, Part II", which is directed by Chris Fisher and written by Davy Perez Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the remaining USS Enterprise crew members are able to track the Gorn—and their missing people—to the Gorn homeworld.
They find the Gorn ship obscured by the gravity well between two binary stars, but still need a solution to save everyone and minimize casualties. Before Star Trek: Discovery's two-part series premiere, "The Vulcan Hello" and "Battle of the Binary Stars", the Vulcans had greeted the Klingons with violence, a language that the Vulcans—and Commander Michael Burnham—believed the Klingons understood better than Starfleet diplomacy.
Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) disagreed; Starfleet never fires first. Instead of respecting the chain of command, Burnham defied orders with actions that led directly to Georgiou's death, the Federation-Klingon War, and Burnham's own downfall as Starfleet's first documented mutineer.
How Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Premiere Echoed Star Trek: Discovery’s Series Premiere
Binary Stars, A Powerful Enemy, And A Starfleet Officer With Restrictive Orders
The Klingons and the Gorn both outmatch the USS Shenzhou and the USS Enterprise, respectively, and Burnham and Pike are both expected to just wait it out. As a human xenoanthropologist raised by Vulcans, Burnham's solution to dealing with the Klingons in Star Trek: Discovery's premiere is based on her own expertise as well as the culture she grew up with.
There's an inherent logic in the Vulcans' solution to keeping the heavily-armed Klingon forces at bay that matches Burnham's own understanding of meeting alien cultures on their own terms. But as Captain Georgiou points out, violence cannot be Starfleet's opening salvo. When Burnham acts on her own, it starts the Klingon War.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 3 premiere puts Pike and the Enterprise in a similar bind. Pike's official orders from Admiral Robert April (Adrian Holmes) are to patrol the demarcation line set by the Gorn, because Pike going in hot against the Gorn would surely incite a war—and Starfleet is still recovering from Commander Burnham's mistake.
Strange New Worlds Did Everything Right Compared To Burnham & Star Trek: Discovery
Captain Pike Works With—Not Against—The Enterprise's Orders From Starfleet
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' USS Enterprise crew did everything right, compared to Commander Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery. When Captain Pike's hands are tied by Federation values of non-violence, Pike communicates the real stakes to Admiral April: a loss right now will mean the Gorn coming for the whole Federation after they're done with the Parnassians.
April lets Pike bend the scope of the Enterprise's current orders, but only because rescuing the officers and civilians right now will best serve the Federation in the long run. So instead of going in with phasers blazing to save the colonists, Captain Pike trusts in the competence of the Enterprise crew to come up with a third option that gets the Gorn off the Federation's doorstep, without firing a single shot.
It's a true team effort that puts the Gorn back into hibernation.
In Star Trek: Discovery's premiere, Commander Burnham just wasn't willing to cooperate or compromise with Captain Georgiou—but that was necessary in order to kick off Michael Burnham's Star Trek: Discovery story. Pike, by contrast, is already a highly decorated Starfleet captain, who has learned the fine art of pushing back against orders when Starfleet brass are out of touch with reality.
So, while Burnham's Battle at the Binary Stars failed spectacularly, the solution in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds works out because Pike upholds Star Trek's core tenets of communication and cooperation.
