WARNING: This article contains spoilers for last week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Context Is For Kings.”


The first signs that Star Trek: Discovery's titular ship isn't just another Starfleet vessel come early in the third episode, when Michael Burnham and her fellow inmates are brought aboard following the rescue of their doomed shuttle. One of the convicts immediately observes the U.S.S. Discovery "just rolled off the assembly line," before spying an armed crew member wearing a black badge -- something neither the characters nor the audience has seen before. It signals this isn't Enterprise or Voyager; it's a craft with secrets, which points us in the direction of Section 31.

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Introduced on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Section 31 is, in effect, the black-ops division of Starfleet. Deriving its name from Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet Charter, which permits extreme measures to be taken in times of extraordinary threats, Section 31 has operated, mostly in secret, since the very beginnings of the organization.

Virtually autonomous, with no oversight or accountability, the clandestine group is tasked with confronting dangers to the United Federation of Planets, going so far as to employ assassination, torture and brainwashing in pursuit of its goals. It's the shadowy underbelly of Starfleet, which for much of the franchise's five-decade history has been depicted as a moral, single-minded service devoted to exploration, diplomacy and defense. Section 31 appears several times throughout the final two seasons of DS9, on The Original Series prequel Enterprise, and in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness.

But what, aside from a mysterious black badge, suggests that Discovery is part of Section 31? In short, everything.

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The first Starfleet officer to commit mutiny, Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green of The Walking Dead) is immediately suspicious of Discovery and its captain, Jason Isaacs' Gabriel Lorca. There's the "black alert" that jolts her from her bunk, the classified engineering lab, deflections by crew members, and the unusual series of events that led to her prison shuttle crossing paths with the vessel in the first place.

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A brand-new science ship conscripted into the sixth-month war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, Discovery's primary role isn't exploration or even diplomacy but rather the perfection of a revolutionary (and, at this point, volatile) new spore-based propulsion system that could drastically alter the course of the conflict. Its mission -- "to win the war, of course," Lorca says -- is top secret, shared by its sister ship the U.S.S. Glenn, whose crew suffers a gruesome fate as a result of the experiments. (Discovery ultimately destroys the Glenn, presumably to keep its secrets out of Klingon hands.)

However, the most convincing clues that Discovery is part of Section 31 may be found in the actions of its captain. As Burnham, and the audience, quickly suspect, Lorca not only orchestrated the prison transfer of the most famous person in Starfleet -- this is a decade before James T. Kirk takes command of Enterprise -- he then re-routes the shuttle into a storm, putting all of those aboard at risk, simply to bring her aboard his ship. Then, after Burnham proves herself a valuable asset, not only with research but also as part of a dangerous away mission, Lorca offers her a place in his crew. When Burnham points out that she's been court martialed and convicted (to a life sentence, no less!), the captain casually dismisses her concerns: "Don't worry about Starfleet. They gave me discretion to fight this war however I saw fit."

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As smart as Burnham is -- and as the first human to attending the Vulcan Science Academy, she is smart, no doubt -- Lorca may be smarter, or at least more calculating. Just when she thinks she has figured out his mission, and his motives, he surprises her: No, he's not testing an illegal weapon, and, no, he's not looking to make the infamous mutineer his patsy. But Lorca knows precisely who Burnham is, what she's made of, and what she wants; he also knows how to win her over, with a demonstration of the propulsion technology, an expression of admiration for the actions that landed her in prison, and the promise of a chance for redemption.

The USS Discovery: NCC-1031

Clearly, Lorca is a shrewd captain who recognizes all of the resources at his disposal, even if it means moving the moon and stars to get them within his grasp, and knows how to best exploit them to achieve his goal. (His "menagerie" only underscores that.) It's precisely what you'd expect of a member of Section 31.

If all of that's not enough to make the case, there's also a matter of Discovery's registry number, NCC-1031, which may be a little on the nose. Still, it's right there on the ship's hull, so we can't exactly ignore it. Of, course we're then left to wonder a clandestine organization would want to advertise its existence in enormous letters. But perhaps that's merely one of many mysteries we're meant to untangle over the course of Star Trek: Discovery's mission, however many years it might last.


Starring Sonequa Martin-Green as Lt. Commander Michael Burnham, Star Trek: Discovery airs Sundays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT in the United States on CBS All Access, in Canada on Space and in most other countries on Netflix.