The Klingon warfare could also be over however its legacy lives on. In “Shuttle to Kenfori” (“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 3, episode 3), a treaty-defying away mission runs right into a Klingon with a severe vendetta in opposition to the Enterprise’s very personal Dr. Joseph M’Benga.
It seems that the moss-fueled zombies at an deserted scientific facility are the least of the crew’s worries, because the vengeful Bytha seems to revive her household’s honor by killing M’Benga. Their shared historical past proves to be far more complicated than initially meets the attention — as we clarify under.
SET PHASERS TO CAUTION! SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU’RE YET TO WATCH “SHUTTLE TO KENFORI”
Why does the Enterprise take a detour to the planet of Kenfori?
It is the one place they’re more likely to discover the uncommon Chimera Blossom. Spock (Ethan Peck) and Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) consider that the flower’s distinctive properties are the one method to save Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) from the life-threatening Gorn DNA that is been attacking her physique since she was contaminated within the season 2 finale “Hegemony.”
Sadly, Kenfori is situated in a no-fly zone, so paying the planet a go to means violating a number of treaties with the Klingon Empire. Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) due to this fact decides to steer the off-the-books mission to the planet’s floor himself, with simply M’Benga for firm.
Why is Kenfori restricted?
It is the location of an previous Federation science facility that specialised in bettering crop longevity on the ultimate frontier. The Klingons invaded throughout their warfare with the Federation, however each side agreed to desert their claims on the territory as soon as the battle was over.
Sadly, there isn’t any hyperbole within the “Return or die” message being broadcast by a Klingon communications beacon in orbit. After touchdown their shuttle, Pike and M’Benga are quickly attacked by the re-animated corpses of deceased people and Klingons, all of whom have an unhealthy urge for food for flesh. They do not register as life indicators, so it feels completely affordable when Pike describes them as “For severe lack of a greater phrase… zombies.”
These zombies had been an unintended side-effect of the Federation scientists’ experiments. They’d used the Chimera Blossom to fuse DNA from an extremely hardy perennial moss with their crops, in principle permitting them to feed huge portions of colonists. However, after the Klingons invaded, everybody on the bottom was uncovered to mutant moss genomes which gave them a rampant urge for food for proliferation.
If Kenfori is out of bounds, why do the Klingons flip up at the very same time because the Enterprise?
It is protected to say it is no coincidence. As an alternative, a Klingon named Bytha (Christine Horn) has used a Viridium tracker to observe M’Benga to the planet’s floor — very similar to the one Spock positioned on Captain James T. Kirk in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.” She’d beforehand employed somebody to put the machine on (or extra precisely in) the Enterprise’s chief medical officer: “When a R’ongovian affords you a drink, by no means eat the olives,” she says.
What’s Bytha’s beef with Dr. M’Benga?
Though M’Benga says he is “killed too many Klingons to acknowledge which home she’s from,” Bytha is aware of all about him. She’s the daughter of Dak’Rah, champion of Home Rah’Ul, and he or she has a bone to choose with M’Benga for assassinating her father.
Nevertheless, this is not your customary “Princess Bride”-style case of “you killed my father, put together to die.” Bytha had severe points along with her dad, a former basic within the Klingon warfare machine. She regards him as a traitor, a warfare prison, and a “lapdog to the Federation,” and welcomed his demise. However the traditions of the Klingon blood feud — as skilled by Worf throughout “The Subsequent Era” — imply that Dak’Rah’s perceived sins have led to the discommendation of her total household. “I needed to grovel simply to constitution a ship right here,” she factors out.
She had meant to kill her father herself, however believes that M’Benga’s actions denied her that chance. Now Bytha intends to defeat M’Benga in a struggle to the demise to revive honor to her home.
Did Dr. M’Benga actually assassinate her father?
Dak’Rah (Robert Knowledge) got here on board the Enterprise in season 2’s episode “Under the Cloak of War,” having defected to the Federation. However, having served within the bloody warfare with the Klingon Empire — and skilled the brutality of Dak’Rah’s forces firsthand — M’Benga refused to simply accept that this explicit leopard had modified his spots.
When Dak’Rah got here to Sickbay to steer M’Benga to hitch him in a show of unity, M’Benga reminded him that he gave the order that “anybody not a Klingon soldier is the enemy.” He additionally reprimanded the Klingon for claiming he’d killed his personal warlords at J’Gal. Dak’Rah had used the story to ingratiate himself with the Federation, regardless that it was really M’Benga who was chargeable for these deaths.
The 2 males ultimately got here to blows, with Dak’Rah in the end killed by a Klingon blade in M’Benga’s possession. How the struggle really unfolded stays unclear, nevertheless, because it came about behind frosted glass. Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), who fought alongside M’Benga through the warfare, witnessed the tip of the scuffle, and advised Pike that she’d heard her buddy telling Dak’Rah he “did not wish to be concerned with a warfare prison.” Pike subsequently requested M’Benga if he’d began the struggle: “I did not begin the struggle,” he replied. “However I am glad he is useless.”
In “Shuttle to Kenfori,” Pike nonetheless believes that M’Benga acted in self-defense. But the story adjustments barely when Bytha has a knife to Pike’s throat and asks M’Benga outright if he assassinated her father. Right here he confirms that “his blood is on my arms.”
What are the repercussions of M’Benga’s confession?
It clearly helps having mates in excessive locations (specifically Captain Pike) as a result of, because it stands, M’Benga will face no punishment for killing Dak’Rah.
Pike causes that as a result of the mission to Kenfori was off the books, there will likely be no report and that, in his eyes, M’Benga merely advised a narrative to save lots of his commanding officer’s life when there was a knife to his throat. “You are not a monster, Joseph. Only a man. And my buddy.”
New episodes of “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.